Awkward and a little sad

The boy child has a friend at school. Let's call him Zach, which is not his real name. They were in the same class in third grade, but are in different classes in fourth grade. However, they see each other in the hallway before school every day. The classroom the boy child was in last year (and this year, for that matter) was an inclusion classroom, and while I don't know for sure and never asked, I suspect Zach has a few special needs. He is a very sweet boy and he and the boy child got along like gangbusters last year.

Okay, so ever since school started this year, Zach has been approaching the boy child in the hallway before school and inviting him to a birthday party. Zach has been saying the party will be September 1st, after school, at a laser tag place. The boy child related this to me with great excitement, because he doesn't get invited to very many birthday parties. Like, any, pretty much. However, I have no idea where "the laser tag place" is and "after school" is a little vague for me, so I told the boy child we would need a written invitation if he was going to go. Because it seemed kind of weird that he didn't get one, if he was indeed invited to this party. In truth, I suspected that perhaps there wasn't going to be an actual party, or that it was just for family or something, and that Zach's mom had no idea he was inviting the boy child. But the boy child was very excited, and Zach was very adamant, and it quickly became obvious I would not be able to just blow this off.

Argh. What to do, what to do? I have never met nor spoken with Zach's parents. I have a bit of a phobia about calling people on the phone when I don't know them very well anyway, and the thought of calling people I didn't know and asking whether my kid was, in fact, invited to a party they may or may not be hosting filled me with a cold dread.

Luckily, I married a wonderful man who understands or at least seems willing to cope with my neuroses. So we looked up Zach's phone number in last year's school directory and DH made the call and guess what? There is no party. Zach's family is taking him out to dinner for his birthday. It's a family thing. No mention of laser tag was made, and Zach's mom had no idea he had invited the boy child to anything. Whoopsie!

And so, I told the boy child this afternoon. He seemed only mildly disappointed, but with him it's hard to tell. I desperately hope he gets invited to a real birthday party sometime this year. I literally cannot remember the last one he attended, and the girl child seems to go to two or three per month. At this rate, I'll have to buy the boy a pony or something to compensate.

Sigh.

The science of banana bread

Hey look, two posts in one day! Beware of airborne livestock!

Just a little while ago I was making banana bread, and the girl child was helping (by mashing bananas in a plastic zippered bag) while the boy child was observing and asking questions. He was looking over the recipe and asked me why there was no yeast, and how the bread could rise without it. I told him this particular recipe (which is my mom's -- thanks, Mom!) uses baking soda instead.

So then he continued to look over the recipe and noticed that vinegar was also present. And I explained that yes, this recipe calls for milk that has been soured by vinegar or lemon juice, but that I had used lemon juice this time. And the boy child hypothesized that had I used vinegar, there was a good chance the banana bread would explode. Because he knows what happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar, you see. We have constructed many volcanoes and launched many rockets around here.

This all led to a lively discussion about the fact that lemon juice is acidic, and about all the different chemical processes involved in making bread rise, and it ended with me reminding him that cooking is all about the science of changing matter from one form to another through the application of heat, cold, certain acids and whatnot. And it was great fun. And also tasty, or it will be when the bread gets out of the oven.

There was a time when I considered homeschooling my kids. I was particularly enamored of the concept of "unschooling" and in fact that's pretty much what I did with them when they were toddler/preschool-aged. I eventually decided, for a multitude of reasons that I won't get into here, to send them to public school. (And seriously, the reasons? They are LEGION. I should write about them sometime. But not now.)(And also, if you homeschool your kids, that's fine and dandy with me. My reasons have nothing to do with thinking anything is inherently wrong with homeschooling. Yay, homeschooling!)(Okay, moving along....)

But, the unschooling didn't stop! No, we still do it all the damn time, even though the kids are in public school. They have a multitude of interests, these kids, and so we do what we can to feed them. Particularly in the case of the boy child, with his perseverations and whatnot, we have gotten fairly deep into some of his areas of interest. We have even planned family vacations around them. It's fun, and in addition to the kids learning a lot, DH and I have learned quite a bit, too.

And so in conclusion: banana bread is yummy! Cooking is fun and also scientific! And unschooling as a supplement to a public school education is a very good thing indeed!

Get this party started

Well, the ARD coordinator at the school ended up calling me before I had a chance to call her, and so yesterday I met with her, the diagnostician and the school psychologist to sign the papers that will get the boy child's Full Individual Evaluation, or FIE, started. They have 60 calendar days in which to complete it. The boy child has been given the heads-up that he'll be pulled out of class from time to time for testing, and he's had similar tests done before because of occupational therapy, so I'm hoping the process won't be too arduous for him. (Hee! Get it? ARDuous? Oh nevermind.)

I was a little put off by the diagnostician, who barely hid a scoff at the three-page psychologist's report I had brought with me (from Dr. H) and told me that without even reading it, she could tell we hadn't had the right sort of testing done on him and that they would need to do a full battery. I calmly (for me, which is not easy) explained that we had not done any testing ON PURPOSE, because when I had talked to the old ARD coordinator, who is no longer there, at the end of last school year when the boy was diagnosed, she was not able to give me specific information on which tests we would need to have done. And so Dr. H felt it would be best, both financially and for the boy child's comfort (because a full battery of tests can be ARDuous) that we just allow the school to do whatever they wanted as far as testing went. And that way, we would neither waste nor duplicate our efforts.

But she kept harping on about the full battery and finally it occurred to me that she's probably had a lot of parents protest, "But the doctor says he has it, so why can't we just go with that and get services started?" So I assured her that we WANT the full battery of tests, that we realize the school's findings may be different from the psychologist's (though frankly we are convinced the boy has AS -- he is TEXTBOOK, if you know anything about the disorder, but I didn't say that), and that he may not qualify for services (at which point we'll file appeals out the wazoo, but I didn't say that either). And also, I told her we realized it would take quite some time to get all the testing done and that services likely would not start for a few months, even if he qualifies.

But still, the diagnostician is officially on the List Of People Who Might Potentially Annoy Me, and will have to work to get off it.

And so, the testing! It will begin soon, I hope. The boy has been prepped and we are ready to go. I think.

Back to school

We're about a week into the new school year here and so far, so good. Fourth and fifth grade classes are taught in portable buildings at the kids' school, so that's something new for the boy child, but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems (except that he may possibly be allergic to something in his portable building, but we're monitoring that).

We are quite happy with his teacher so far. She doesn't have any real experience with Asperger's Syndrome (apparently the boy child is her first and only Aspie student), but she is very eager to learn more about it and has actually gone off on her own to research it, in addition to calling us at home just to touch base and pick our brains a bit. She does have quite a bit of experience with Sensory Integration Dysfunction, apparently, which is wonderful because it's the sensory issues that tend to come up most in the classroom setting as far as the boy child is concerned.

She's aware that we're asking for an ARD for the boy child this year (that's the meeting during which we'll draw up his IEP). I haven't gotten in contact yet with the ARD coordinator at the school but I will do that this week. I'm kind of dreading the whole process, frankly. Most of the ARD/IEP tips I've found online and in books set the parent up in an adversarial role, and I'm not altogether comfortable with that. The school has been awesome with the boy child so far, making accommodations for him even without an IEP. It's mostly middle school that I'm worried about -- I definitely want to have a very thorough IEP for the boy by the time he's through with our current school. I'm hoping to be able to advocate for him without taking the attitude of "since you're probably trying to screw us anyway, this is what we demand you do for him and we'll sue your asses if you don't." Ugh!

The girl child is in second grade now and loves it. She has a lot of friends in her class (as does the boy child, thank goodness) and her teacher is really young and enthusiastic but with a couple of years of teaching experience under her belt.

It's early days yet, but I think both kids are going to have a good year. Fingers crossed!

Milestones

The boy child no longer wears underwear with cartoon characters on them. He went up a size over the summer and when I took him shopping for new ones, he opted for plain old tighty whities. No more Blue's Clues or Spiderman undies for us! Sniffle!

And also, he has perfected the armpit fart. We are so proud.