Bahahahaha! I was just scanning all of Jack's new school assessments (psych, academic, speech, and OT) and his IEP draft in order to send them to his IEP advocate and a warning popped up on the computer "this is a large amount of information to process, computer may become sluggish, are you sure you wish to proceed?"
How the hell did computers get to be so intuitive?? NO, I do not wish to proceed computer, thank you very much. Unfortunately, last time I checked, I wasn't getting a choice in this.
Some mom's open their kids' backpacks and discover half eaten sandwiches, other kids' work, a misplaced toy.....I opened Jack's this afternoon and discovered my own personal hell waiting in a pretty little manilla envelope. The results of all of Jack's assessments from the past two months. And a draft of the "new" IEP. I have only read 1.5 of the assessments so far, I can't even look at the rest just yet. It's so overwhelming that I am actually too overwhelmed to begin to describe it. What it's like to look at all of your child's weaknesses layed out before you on about 70 pieces of paper. Matter of factly stated. Just another day at the office for these guys. And I can relate on some level- kind of like when I was working in oncology and would see a patient's blood counts come back from the lab showing that they had blasts (which means their leukemia was back). Yes, my heart would sink; yes, I would feel bad; but then I would go home and try to forget about it until my next shift. Kind of like that, but from the education angle.
They can go home and not think about these assessments too much. Meanwhile, I am sitting here with what feels like drums beating in my ears and the intense need to scream. Just scream.
So far, I read the OT assessment. His school OT can't attend the IEP meeting next Thursday so I am meeting with her on Monday. Jack's OT assessment listed his many deficits and sensory issues. And new goals. And they are so basic- diagnonal lines, coloring in the lines (oh could we have a debate on that one), cutting curved lines, copying prewriting strokes. Yes, at the end of kindergarten we are still working on prewriting strokes. So I email back and say, ok, well what are the changes in services to achieve these goals? Answer- there are no changes.
OK.
Oh Linda!!!!! (that's the advocate btw)
I am terrified to read the rest. Because I think my head might explode, or at the very least, I may have a significant temper tantrum.
My mommy guilt is working overtime, I can't stop questioning my parenting. What the heck am I doing wrong that my almost 6 year old still has such difficulty grasping a pencil? That he can't follow simple directions or attend to the teacher for more than a minute? It would help, I guess, if I had a neurotypical kid at home, it would be a reminder that most kids explore these things on their own to begin with- that it comes pretty naturally most of the time. I colored and drew with kids when I was a nanny all of the time. None of them avoided it the way Jack does, or had difficulty pressing down hard enough to make their drawings show up. On an intellectual level, I get that this is part of his developmental disability. On an emotional level, I feel like it's the universe screaming that I am an inadequate parent.
I am going to back away from the assessments for the night, let the advocate get a look at them, and take some deep cleansing breaths. Just because there are no new OT interventions in the DRAFT does not mean that they will not end up in the final IEP. I learned that lesson last time.
One to remember....one week people
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