On the way home from a birthday party tonight, Colin was anxious to take off his wristband.
Colin: “Mommy, when we get home can I use the scissors and cut this off all by myself?”
Me (laughing): “No, Buddy. I think I better help you.”
Colin: “Mommy, it’s not funny. I’m FOUR – about to turn FIVE – and I can do it on my own. I’m serious.”
Well, it’s been two months since I posted. I keep meaning to post, but I just don’t get around to. It’s not that things haven’t been happening. In fact, a lot has happened, so here’s a catch-up post.
1. Zoe started growing her bangs out and it has been difficult. She cannot keep a headband in, and she can’t put a barrette in her own hair. I would do her hair in the morning with a headband or barrette, it would fall out before she even got to school, and then she would go with her hair in her eyes for the rest of the day. FINALLY, I figured out that if I put her bangs in a little ponytail and then hide the hairband with a bow, it works!
2. Zoe lost her first tooth. (Or, more accurately, her mean Mommy pulled the tooth while three people held her down. The adult tooth was already coming in and the baby tooth was barely hanging on, so it really needed to come out. We tried to do it the nice way, but my stubborn little girl was not having it. She got $5 from the Tooth Fairy though, so I think she has forgiven me now.)
3. I found this in Zoe’s backpack. She took one of the wallet-sized photos we got when we were in Chattanooga in January, put it on a post-it note, and wrote, “I Love You.” She’s a sweetie. 
4. Noah started taekwondo in the fall. He got his yellow belt in December.
5. He competed in his first tournament and got a gold medal and a silver medal.
6. He got his yellow belt white stripe:
7. He competed in some more tournaments, qualified to go to Nationals in Chicago this summer, and got his green belt.
8. He has had straight A’s all year and has had “Exemplary” behavior. We’ve been to a couple of honors breakfasts:
9. We visited Colin’s Mama Amy and then Jason and Hailey came to stay with us for a few days. I’ll have to write a separate PW protected post on that.
10. Colin has been having some rough patches with behavior. I’ll write a PW protected post on that, too.
11. We have (finally) decided on a plan for Colin’s school next year. I spoke to the elementary school principal in our school district about him doing kindergarten twice. I wanted assurance that we would be able to hold him back if we thought we needed to. I wanted to be sure that it would be *our* choice and that they would not end up pushing him on against our wishes. Because he has an IEP, she said sometimes it can be more difficult to hold a child back. She said it was possible we would be able to hold him back, but she could not guarantee it. However, she did tell me that if we sent him to kindergarten somewhere else that she would have no probem enrolling him in kindergarten again in 2014-2015. So, we applied to a charter school close to our house, and Colin got a lottery spot! He will do kindergarten at the charter school for the 2013-2014 school year. Then we can decide whether to send him to kindergarten or first grade in our school district in 2014-2015. I am 99% sure we will send him to kindergarten again, but we will evaluate that when the time comes. This is great because he will have more structure than just preschool, it’s a longer day (which works better for my work schedule), and it’s FREEEEEE! Woohoo! We just paid our last preschool payment!
12. Colin discovered the camera on my phone. He took 167 pictures like this one in about three minutes.
13. Though he’s 19 months younger than Zoe, he’s almost as big as she is now. He’s almost as tall and weighs five pounds more (she’s 37 pounds and he’s 42). He’s a solid little dude. It’s hard to believe that he once had a problem with growing and gaining weight.
14. And, last but not least, Colin continues to be very good at being adorable.
Six years ago today, we adopted Zoe from Phu Tho, Vietnam. We usually do something to celebrate the day, but this year that celebration seemed to be more significant to her. It wasn’t necessarily that she has processed adoption more, or given more significance to what that means. It was just that today was her day, and that it was special. She’s been excited about it all week. She told her teacher, her gymnastics instructor, our hairstylist, and the woman we know at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant (where we ate tonight).
These are crappy iPhone pics, but here’s my sassy girl today:
Here’s my sassy girl a few weeks ago (her attitude and personality match those pink boots):
And here we are in Vietnam, six years ago:
Noah: “Zoe, we say, ‘Toot,’ in this house. You can say, ‘Fart,’ when you’re at Grandma’s.”
Last Sunday Zoe had a fever. It wasn’t awful, but we kept her home from a birthday party that afternoon. She said she had a headache and her tummy hurt a little. After some motrin she was feeling much better, and she was running around, playing with the boys. We had a Tet dinner planned that night with some other local families who have children from Vietnam. We almost went since she seemed to be better, but ultimately decided we didn’t want to risk getting any of the other kids sick.
The rest of Sunday and Monday were pretty much the same. When the motrin wore off, her fever went up and she seemed a little bit sick. When the motrin kicked in, she was fine again. We told her she could sleep in our room Monday night, but she seemed *totally* fine by bedtime. We let her stay so it would be easier for me to give her motrin in the middle of the night, but I told her she needed to settle down and at least *pretend* to be sick. I thought we would send her to school on Tuesday, but again she woke up with a fever. I had to work, but Christian’s mom said Zoe could stay with her, so we kept her home.
I called a few hours later to check on her and, of course, Karen said she seemed fine. I decided to call the doctor, just in case, to see if I should bring her in. The nurse said it would be best to get her tested for the flu, so I called Karen back to tell her. Karen was relieved, because in the 30 minutes or so it had taken me to get in touch with a nurse and schedule the appointment (and the motrin wore off), things had gone downhill quickly.
By the time I met Karen to get Zoe, she was really warm and she was lethargic. I called Christian to say I was taking her to the doctor. Christian, who had seem her the night before when she didn’t seem sick at all and that morning when she seemed pretty OK was like, “Whatever. She doesn’t have the flu.” I still didn’t think it was the flu either, but I knew she was much sicker.
By the time we got to the doctor, she could barely walk and her fever was 104. The nurse did the swab and then poked her head back in the room almost immediately. Zoe had already tested positive for Influenza Strain A, and there were still eight minutes left in the test.
She was miserable. She was crying and sweaty
The next couple of days weren’t terrible. I was pretty tired because I set my alarm for every four hours at night so I could alternate Tylenol and motrin, but she was OK as long as we kept her fever down. She also developed a cough and stuffy nose, but it wasn’t awful.
Here’s my sweaty, sick, little flu-girl:
I was really worried about the boys getting it, but they seemed OK. Noah wasn’t sick at all. Colin had a stuffy nose Thursday and Friday, but no fever, so I sent him to school.
Friday after school, he said, “Mommy, can I snuggle with you?” and climbed in my lap. About a minute later I noticed that he kept messing with his left ear. I asked him if it hurt and he said, “It just itches.”
Afraid that he had an ear infection, I called the doctor. Miraculously, they were able to get us in before they closed for the weekend. His left ear, the one that “itched,” had a small amount of fluid in it. The right one, which he had not complained about all, was about to burst. They also decided to test him for the flu and he was, of course, positive.
The nurse gave me kind of a funny look though, and said, “Didn’t Zoe test positive for B?”
I told her that was correct, and she said, “Weird. He tested positive for A.”
This means that they did not get it from each other. They were each exposed, separately, to two diferent strains of flu. What are the odds of that happening? Surely they can’t be very high. I guess we’re just lucky. Maybe we should play the lottery.
So, now it was Colin’s turn to sleep in our room. Here’s my poor little flu-boy:
Wouldn’t it be awesome now if Zoe gave Colin B, Colin gave Zoe A, and they gave Noah A and B? Yeah, that would be fun.
In other news, Colin does the reverse-Al-Bundy when he sleeps:
Since the kids liked sitting on the tractors at the State Fair so much, my mom took them to a friends’ farm one day last fall so they could actually drive one. They got to pick apples, too.
These are pictures from my mom’s camera. I think Noah took most of the pictures that day. I’ll spare everyone the “artsy” pictures of apples in a tree, apples on the ground, apples in a basket, apples on a sweatshirt, apples on a picnic table, rotten apples, ripe apples, red apples, yellow apples, etc. (He took a LOT of pictures.)
He was newly toothless, so he took this proud self-portrait:
This is my mom driving the tractor. Is it just me, or does Noah look a little scared? (He probably should be.)
Yeah, Me! I’m up to September!
This is Colin’s butt.
Since the picture showed his whole butt, crack and all, I decided to edit it a little. I was just going to put a plain rectangle there to cover the crack, but then I found out my photo-editing software let me choose cute little things like this pony (donkey?) and I said, “Why not?”
While the pony/donkey is cute, I am really posting this picture to show the angry red patch of skin to the left of it. I mentioned in this post that we had tried medication for Colin but it didn’t work out. It was called the Daytrana patch. At first it was great. He seemed more focused, less hyperactive, and less impulsive. However, about six weeks into it, he suddenly developed a reaction. Every day when we took the patch off it left nasty irritated spots like this. One time it was even purple and bruised. They hurt him and they itched. We hoped maybe it was just a bad batch, so we contacted the company and they gave us a coupon for a new box. The same thing happened with the new patches. It was really disappointing.
We could have tried an oral medication, but he had also lost a couple of pounds. The meds are stimulants, so he wasn’t eating as much. For now, we’ve just decided not to do meds. His preschool teachers said they definitely noticed a difference when we took him off the medication, but they said his behavior was not anything they couldn’t manage.
We’ve decided that we won’t do medication until we absolutely have to, but we are pretty sure he is going to need it eventually. It is just very hard for him to hold still and/or concentrate.
Christian’s Grammie died a couple of weeks ago. The funeral was a Catholic mass, so we were sitting for a long time. Several people mentioned how well our kids did – and they did – but Colin just could not sit still. He just couldn’t. He kept quiet for the most part, but he could not be still. Christian and I kept our hands on him the entire time, rubbing his back, holding his hand, running my fingers through his hair, keeping my arm around him, etc. I told him to scratch Christian’s back for part of it, so he rubbed Daddy’s back and then scratched his arm. Colin just needs that constant stimulation.
When we left the church, we went to the cemetery’s chapel for the final blessing. I saw the look of disappointment on his face when he eyed the rows of chairs and realized he had to sit again. The blessing was short though. When he realized it was over, he said, “Yeah! Mommy, that was a short one!” Of course he got a few laughs, which made him even happier.
He is getting better. Usually when he is tired he gets even more wound up. In the last six months or so though, he seems to have more and more times when he is tired when he says, “Mommy, will you hold me?” Twice he has fallen asleep in my arms. (It is so hard to let go of him and put him in bed when that happens.) He likes to rock before bed, too. Christian and I take turns. One of us puts Noah and Zoe to bed while the other rocks with Colin. The next night we switch. He was so easy to hold and snuggle when he was a baby, but then it became impossible when he was a toddler. It’s nice that we’re swinging back the other direction a bit.
The other thing about this photo: See all of that hair? Colin is one hairy little dude. He’s going to be shaving before he’s ten.
Here’s another photo of his back. Look closely and notice that he has a COWLICK. On his BACK.
Here’s a pic of his legs. He is FOUR, people! FOUR!
In August we went to the State Fair with my mom and our cousin Michael. Some of these are pretty cute. (Maybe I should have posted them six months ago, huh?)
Remember that whole Bringing Blogging Back thing? Well, I’m a big loser and I completely failed at it.
It’s been TWO MONTHS since I posted. What makes it even worse is that I actually have about ten posts in my Drafts folder that ARE READY TO POST and I haven’t even posted those. We went to Florida after Christmas and I uploaded all kinds of pictures and had the posts ready to go. I was just waiting 1. Because I didn’t want to announce to the Internet that we were out of town, and 2. I had illusions (delusions) that I was going to get caught up on a bunch of other stuff before I posted the Florida posts.
So, I’m just going to post stuff. I may never get caught up on the stuff I missed last summer/fall, or I may post things and have them totally out of order. Sorry if that ends up being confusing, but I am determined to get this blog going again. For real this time.
We had a death in the family last week. His name was Carl.
Other than my parents’ dog, Chelsie, and Christian’s parents’ dog, Forrest, the kids have been lucky enough not to have had to deal with death. (Zoe did go to a friend’s funeral once with me, but she was a baby and she didn’t understand.)
Christian and I are a little fuzzy on our own religious beliefs, so we are not exactly sure what we are planning to teach our children. When Chelsie died, though, my mom told them something like, “Chelsie is in the stars now,” and it kind of stuck.
Anyway, the funeral was Sunday. Saturday at dinner we tried to prep the kids for it. We explained that they should be on their best behavior. We explained that people would be sad and might be crying. I knew that there would be an open casket, so we tried to describe what that would be like. We told them that Carl would be there, but that it would “just be his body” and that the rest of him would be “in the stars like Chelsie.”
They were very well-behaved at the funeral and seemed to understand what was going on. Noah was a little confused that some people were laughing at the visitation since we said they would be crying, but I explained that we were talking about the good times we had with Carl and that it was OK to laugh about those memories. He seemed satisfied.
Fast forward to that night. About 15 minutes after we put them all in bed, Zoe came back in our room. She gave me a funny little look and said, “Mommy, you said it would just be his body there, but he still had a head.“
I.almost.lost.my.sh*t.
I have no idea how, but I held it together while explaining that his head was part of his body and that I just meant that his “soul” wasn’t there anymore. Then, of course, she needed to know what a “soul” was. I think I explained it well enough, but there’s no way to be sure since I already thought I’d explained things well and she didn’t think he was going to have a head!
I got her back to bed. Then I went downstairs to tell Christian and lose.my.sh*t.
As I talked to Christian, I wasn’t sure which I should be most concerned about. Was she:
Man this parenting gig is rough. There’s pretty much no chance I’m going to get through this thing without totally screwing them up, is there?
Noah: “My mommy says she has green snot and she’s coughing up green stuff, too.”
Colin: “Oooh! Can I see it!?”
(Then the nurse laughed.)
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was a Very Mean Mommy when Noah got in trouble. I wish I could say the same for my little girl. Zoe has been getting into some trouble lately, and I have been doing my BEST to be a Very Mean Mommy, but so far it is not working.
Zoe is doing great academically in kindergarten. She’s at the top of her grade level in math. She’s one of the best readers in her class. They have not done an assessment yet, but her teacher said she would be “very interested” to see what Zoe’s reading level turns out to be when she is tested in December. When Noah was in kindergarten, he got weekly “Baggie Books.” There was an envelope with a leveled book. He had to read it, have me sign his paper, and take it back. Since Zoe is so advanced in her reading, she gets Baggie Books twice a week and she has to make up new sentences about what is happening in the picture on each page. She makes the sentences up and writes them on her own. We are working on capitalization and punctuation, but otherwise she does an awesome job.
She’s also doing great socially. She has about a zillion friends. Her birthday party is coming up, and she has so many friends we had to start eliminating people. We went to her fall carnival a few weeks ago and she knew almost everyone. Fifth graders were waving excitedly and saying, “Hi Zoe!” when they saw her. Fifth graders! She also says she has two boyfriends, Conrad and Pierce.
HOWEVER, she is also getting her little social self into trouble. She has gotten three notes home from her teacher because she was “talking during learning time” and “not keeping her hands and feet to herself” (not for hitting or anything, but because she was hugging and messing around with other kids during learning time). I know the teacher well (I graduated from high school with her son and Noah had her last year) so I do feel like I can talk to her openly. She said that she only sends notes home when it has really become a problem. She has great things to say about Zoe. She says she is smart, confident, and “so cute,” but she just CAN’T STOP TALKING. She hopes that it is just a maturity issue and that Zoe will start to learn some self-control, but warned that we might have to put her on a “behavior improvement plan” (I’m not quite sure what that entails) if it’s still happening after winter break.
Miss Stacey, the bus driver, has also had to stop and talk to us four times. Once was because she had a candy party at school, shared the candy with her friends on the bus, and then left the trash all over the floor. She made Zoe and her friends pick it all up, and that has not happened since. The other times were, of course, because Zoe was TALKING. And not only talking, but GETTING OUT OF HER SEAT to go talk to kids. The bus driver said she even moved Zoe to an inside seat thinking that would keep her from getting out in the aisle, but somehow she gets out anyway. It is obviously not safe for her to be in the aisle, and she could get kicked off the bus if she keeps doing it. The bus driver also says Zoe is sweet and cute, but she is getting very frustrated with her. She says that Zoe knows she is not supposed to be out of her seat, and that she watches Miss Stacey in the big mirror and only gets up when she thinks she’s not looking. Miss Stacey moved her to the front seat, but Zoe talked her ear off and I don’t think Miss Stacey wants her there anymore. (Heh.) She said, “She’s always, ‘Miss Stacey! Miss Stacey! Miss Stacey!’ She just EXHAUSTS me.” I told her I know the feeling.
Then Tuesday she said “ass” on the bus. Christian’s mom got her off the bus that day and Miss Stacey told her about it. His mom forgot to tell us that night, so she called the next morning. Christian was in a hurry when he talked to her, so he thought that “someone” on the bus said ass. We learned that it was actually Zoe who said it when I sat down with her last night. I said, “Mimi said something happened on the bus yesterday. Can you tell me about it?”
Zoe got quiet, but eventually said, “I said butt.”
I said, “Well, butt isn’t a nice word, but it’s not a bad word. I’d like it better if you said ‘bottom,’ but it’s not a word you would get in trouble for. Mimi said someone on the bus said, ‘ass.’ Who said that?”
She sat quietly again, then eventually said, “Me.”
Sigh. And now she had lied to me. I told her that she would not have been in trouble if she has just said a bad word, because I know she hears them (I’m talking to you, Grandpa!), and that sometimes they just slip out, but now that she had lied to me I was very upset. I told her to take her bath and go to bed.
Christian and I are a little puzzled, because she NEVER got in trouble in preschool. I know preschool is much more relaxed, but this kind of feels like it came out of nowhere. We also cannot figure out a punishment that will get through to her. With Noah, telling him I wouldn’t sign his homework sheet and writing a note to his teacher was perfect. I made my point. Problem solved. Zoe is much harder to crack. She is so freaking stubborn. If Noah does something wrong and I send him to his room, telling him he can come out when he is ready to apologize, he’s in there for about three minutes before he comes out and is TRULY sorry. When I do the same thing with Zoe, she could be in there for forty minutes and still not be ready. (Colin just usually goes to his room and falls asleep.)
We thought for a long time about what a good punishment might be. I really don’t think she would be that upset if we took away TV, computer, or her iTouch. There’s no particular toy that she’s attached to other than Strawberry Shortcake, and we thought taking her away would be a little too mean. The only thing we could think of was taking away her skirts and dresses. About a year ago, my little t-shirt and jeans girl, who regularly sucks her thumb and picks her nose at the same time, decided she wanted to wear skirts and dresses. She never looked back, and she has become quite the little fashionista. (I need to take a picture of her in her pink cowboy boots someday.)
The first time we got a note home, we told her that since she was not making good choices at school (talking during learning time), we weren’t going to let her make choices at home (picking out her own clothes). Every time she’s gotten a note home (or a conversation from the bus driver), I pick her clothes out for three days. (I even went shopping to stock up on jeans and plain t-shirts for these occasions.) At first, it seemed to upset her, but now she’s just taking it in stride. She’s so stubborn, though, that I’m not sure she would let it show if she was upset about it.
I was so proud of us when we came up with this punishment. It seemed so creative and so appropriate, but it’s NOT WORKING! Anyone have other ideas? We are completely open to suggestions at this point.
We are so screwed. If she’s like this when she’s (almost) six, I shudder to think about 16.
First, I need to report that Noah has now lost his two upper front teeth. This has been a big concern, since he was the last one in first grade to lose a tooth (not really, but that’s what he claimed).
Noah does not have a high pain tolerance. (I may or may not have called him a wimp when he had his tonsils out.) So, imagine my surprise when he pulled BOTH OF HIS OWN FRONT TEETH OUT. It turns out the only thing that Noah enjoys more than being pain-free is having cold, hard cash in his hot little hands. The kid was SO excited for the tooth fairy to come and leave some $$$$ under his pillow that he was willing to endure the pain of pulling his own teeth. He and his cousin Michael tried tying a string to the tooth and a door and slamming the door, but it wasn’t working. The string kept slipping off the tooth. Finally, he got a paper towel, wiggled and yanked, and ended up pulling it out on his own. It was the same thing for tooth #2. He pulled it out with a paper towel. The lengths this kid will go to to be able to purchase a new Lego set…
The other thing that is significant about the photo above of this toothless kid is that the picture was taken at the first grade honors ceremony. First, he was honored for Perfect Attendance. Anyone who read my blog last year and remembers that Noah missed 22 days of kindergarten due to strep throat and having his tonsils out will know that this is a BIG DEAL.
Noah was also honored for Exemplary Behavior (he got one warning this grading period when he was leaning back in his chair and fell, and he was DEVASTATED).
Although they don’t get “real” grades yet (I think that starts the next grading period), his teacher told me that he is in her highest reading level group, that he is above grade level in math, and he has 100% in spelling.
So, basically, my kid is awesome.
However, even awesome kids can get in trouble occasionally. One night when Christian had hockey and I had to work late, he was supposed to do all of his homework at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He told Grandma that he was done with his homework when, in fact, he was not. When I discovered this upon picking him up at 8:45pm, I was just a little angry with him.
I took the kids home and got them in the bathtub. I was not looking forward to doing homework with him after 9pm, and that’s when it occured to me. The worst punishment for my follow-the-rules, A-student, people-pleaser would be to NOT let him do his homework. He was washing his hair when I walked into the bathroom and said, “You know what, Noah? We’re not going to do your homework tonight. You had your chance to do it earlier and you didn’t. We don’t start homework after 9pm. It’s time for bed. I’m not going to sign your homework sheet, which means you won’t get a sticker tomorrow in your homework folder. I’m also not signing your Reading for Recreation paper (they are supposed to read 20 minutes a day), so you’ll fall behind in that, too. AND, I’m going to write a not to Mrs. XXXX telling her what you did.”
Cue the waterworks: “Mommy, no! I’m so, so sorry. I’ll never do it again. I’m so, so sorry!” And I sent him to bed.
I put a big X where the signatures were supposed to go on his homework and reading sheets, and I put the following note in his folder:
Dear Mrs. XXXX-
I had to work late tonight and my husband had hockey. Noah was at his grandma and grandpa’s house and was supposed to do his homework. When I picked him up at 8:45pm I discovered that although he told his grandma he had finished his homework, he had not done his Reading for Recreation, practiced his drill book, or read Pug the Pup. When we got home at 9pm, I told him that it was too late to do homework and that I would not sign his homework sheet. He is very upset that he will not get a sticker in his folder and that he has disappointed me (and you), so I hope this will teach him a lesson. (He is also very upset that I am writing this note to you, which is mostly why I am doing it.)
Thank you,
Tracy XXXX
Yes, I am a Very Mean Mommy. But guess who makes sure he has done everything on his homework sheet now? I definitely made my point.
Colin: “Mommy, do you know how much I love you?”
Me: “How much?”
Colin: “25.”
Me: “Oh, that’s a lot. Do you know how much I love you?
Colin: “How much?”
Me (spreading my arms wide): “This much.”
Colin (spreading his arms wide): “I love you this much. And I love to toot.”
I mentioned last month that Colin is done with his ABA school and is in regular preschool now five days a week. This has been a big transition, but we’re preparing for an even bigger transition next year: kindergarten.
Only we’re not sure if we should send him to kindergarten… The cut off date for kindergarten is September 1st. Colin turns five on July 9th. The trend these days seems to be to hold kids back who have summer birthdays, especially boys. 60 Minutes even did a special on it earlier this year:
It’s called “redshirting”: holding your 5-year-old back from kindergarten ’til he’s 6 so he’ll be among the oldest and smartest kids in class. Parents of a 5-year-old with a late birthday despair that little Johnny will forever be a failure if he has to compete with kids six or eight months older so they put the fix in; hold him back a year so he has the edge in class and ultimately an edge in life…
It used to be that everyone started kindergarten at age 5. Today nearly a quarter of some kindergarten classrooms are populated by 6-year-olds. Kindergarten redshirting has more than tripled since the 1970s. Boys are twice as likely to be held back as girls, whites more than minorities and rich more than poor.
In Colin’s case though, we are getting some mixed advice. Because Colin has an IEP, our township strongly suggests we send him on time. They say that it would be better for him to model older peers instead of younger ones.They warn that if he ever had to repeat a grade, he would end up being much older than other kids in his class. There is also some research that shows kids who have been redshirted are more likely to drop out (though others point out this may only be true because 18-year-olds can drop out without their parents’ consent).
We asked Noah and Zoe’s kindergarten teacher what she thinks. While she would not come out and tell us to hold him back, she suggested we think about what things would look like for Colin in high school. If we send him on time, he would be the last one to get his license. He might not start dating as early. He might be smaller and therefore not as competitive in sports (and we DO really hope that sports will be an outlet for him).
His preschool teachers say there are no “red flags” to make them think Colin would not be ready for kindergarten next year. He recognizes letter sounds, numbers, shapes, etc, and understands classroom rules. However, saying that he could go is not the same thing as saying he should go. They are only saying he could go.
Most parents who are redshirting are doing so with typical kids. Since Colin may have some challenges, would we be doing him a disservice by sending him on time, making it even MORE difficult on him?
We have come up with three options: 1. Send him to the preschool Explorers class, 2. Send him to kindergarten the “normal” way, or 3. Send him to kindergarten with the intention of sending him twice.
Sending him to the Explorers class:
Colin is in the Fours class this year, and he can go on to Explorers. Although most kids in Explorers are those who did not make the kindergarten cut off, several are kids whose parents are holding them back, so he would have some same-age peers. In fact, this class usually has many more boys than girls since boys are more likely to be held back. When Zoe was in the class last year, there were five girls and ten boys.
With this plan, he gets to be a little kid for another year. He’s been in pretty intense ABA therapy since he was two, so maybe it would be good for him to have a “play” year? On the other hand, what if he regresses during that “play” year and loses some of what he gained from ABA?
I’m pretty certain he will need ADHD medication once he starts kindergarten. We tried medication earlier this year, and it worked well, but there were side effects. It was a patch and it irritated his skin. It also suppressed his appetite and he lost a few pounds. If he stayed in preschool, we could definitely keep him off medication for another year. (Obviously we will only do medication when it is necessary, so it is possible he could go to kindergarten without it. It’s just that I know for sure he could do preschool without it.)
The schedule is not ideal. Preschool is from 9am-2pm. Noah and Zoe are in school from 8:30am-3:30pm. It would be really nice to have them all on the same schedule, especially since they have been in three different schools for the past couple years. Also, right now he has speech and other services separately. I take him to a 90 minute speech and language group every Wednesday. If he were in kindergarten, he would get services during school and we would not have the extra weekly appointment. All of this would really help with my work schedule. Of course, we won’t do something that’s not right for Colin just because it’s convenient, but it all makes the preschool option less appealing.
Sending him to kindergarten the “normal” way:
If he starts kindergarten, the schedule will be better, he will get services at school , and he will be able to model older peers. We will have a bit of a buffer if he has to repeat a grade later. He will be challenged, and we won’t have to worry as much about him regressing (although he will be in a class of 25 kids instead of working one-on-one with a therapist like he did in ABA).
On the other hand, he is not as mature as some kids his age and I don’t want that to make things hard for him – now or in high school.
Sending him to kindergarten with the intention of doing it twice:
This has all of the advantages of sending him to kindergarten, but also means that things might look better for him in high school (driving, dating, sports, etc). And, this leaves our options a bit more open. If he excels and at the end of the year and everyone agrees he should go on, we can send him to first grade. If he still needs to catch up to his peers, he can do kindergarten again.
I have asked the principal if we would have the option of holding him back. (It was important to this plan that we have that choice.) While she didn’t promise anything, she said they have much more flexibility in a case where the parent wants to hold a child back and the school thinks the child is ready than they do when the school wants to hold the child back but the parent thinks the child is ready.
One concern here is that we’ve heard it can be socially difficult for a child to do kindergarten twice in the same school. However, in our part of the township, there are two schools. We’ll call them School A and School B. While our school is School A, all kindergarteners from the School A and School B areas go to School B. At the end of the year, half of the kids go to School A and half to School B. The whole class does not move on to first grade together, which might make this easier. There are eight kindergarten classes, so he would definitely be able to be in a new class. Besides, I really don’t think Colin would care. He just doesn’t have that kind of personality. I think he would be OK with making new friends. He also has a cousin who is doing this, so there is a precedent. We can just say he’s doing kindergarten twice like his cousin because they both have summer birthdays.
There is a charter school near us that we’re investigating. (We were also looking at Catholic school, but we have ruled that out. They don’t recommend sending kids born after May.) There is no guarantee that Colin would get in since they work on a lottery system, but if he did get in, he could do one year of kindergarten there and then go to kindergarten at School B (or he could go to School A for first grade if we decided he was ready). We would have to provide transportation (and Colin would be disappointed that he wouldn’t be riding the bus), but it’s workable.
Noah was born in January and Zoe was born in November. That was so much easier! We didn’t have to worry about this!
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I feel like this is going to be rambly (I don’t think that’s really a word, but it just seems accurate). I haven’t done this in a while! I’m all out of practice and I haven’t gotten into my Bringing Blogging Back groove. I started this post on August 27th, which was Colin’s first day of preschool for the year (note that it is now October 22nd).
Colin was in preschool last year on Monday and Tuesday mornings. His therapist went with him, and then took him back to his ABA school in the afternoons. He was at the ABA school from 8:30am-4:30pm the rest of the week. This year he’s in preschool from 9am-2pm, Monday through Friday – no more ABA school. His therapist attended with him every day at the beginning of the semester, and then slowly phased out. As of last week, he is on his own, completely done with ABA.
This doesn’t mean that he is “cured,” but it means that he has come to the point that he can function on his own in an average classroom. In his VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment he still tests as having minor to moderate problems with:
He will probably have some sort of IEP once he starts kindergarten. We had previously declined services in our township since he was at the ABA school full time, but now I take him to a 90-minute language group there once a week. At least this way there will be some sort of relationship with the township and a smoother transition once he does start kindergarten.
It’s awesome that he has come far enough to not need the ABA school anymore, but it’s a little scary, too. What if things start to go badly again? He’s not getting extra help now – no more one-on-one. What if that one-on-one was the thing that was really making him thrive? What if he doesn’t do well without it? Things seem to be going well for the moment, but I feel like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes I am afraid to be too positive. I know I’m supposed to take it one day at a time and yadda yadda yadda, but this is hard, y’all. It’s just plain HARD.
Still, he’s in a much better place than he was a year or two ago, and so am I. That’s definitely something. Besides, who couldn’t love this adorable kid?
In September, Michelle at And Sam Makes Seven suggested we bring blogging back. I read her post and thought, “That’s awesome! I’m going to do that!”
And then a month went by. Bringing Blogging Back fail.
Still, I like what Michelle had to say:
You know what I’ve decided? I’ve decided that I, Michelle, Blogger Extraordinaire, am going to put those little electric paddle shocker thingies upon the lifeless chest of this blog and crank them up to… whatever level doctors crank them up to (is it, like, 4? A level 4? Or 500? I don’t know)… to zap… to jump start…
Dang. That metaphor sounded so good in my head. I want to bring my blog back from the dead, is what I’m trying to say. And not just my blog, all of our blogs. Remember how fun it used to be, guys? Back in the days before Facebook and Twitter took over our lives? I would read your blog and you’d read mine and we’d all leave comments and the sun was shining and birds were singing and everyone was so, so happy. Remember that?
And then Dark Overlord Zuckerberg came along with his fancy-pants, social networking site and we all fell under his spell. It was as easy as distracting Michelle, Blogger Extraordinaire, with a shiny object.
“Oh, this is better,” we thought, “We can see what everyone is doing all the time. It’ll be quicker and easier to keep up with each other, blah blah blah…” And we were sucked in. And the overlord made 70 trazillion dollars.
She’s right. I haven’t been blogging, reading blogs, commenting on blogs, etc, and I miss it. I miss my blogging buddies. I miss getting comments here. I miss having a blog to look back at every once and a while to see pictures of the kids.
So, I’m doing it. Maybe I will even manage to post pictures from Colin’s fourth birthday in July.
