March???

Wow! Who is bad at blogging? Ooh pick me! 

I mean really, the past week I have been on spring break with Elijah still going to daycare you would think I could blog every now and again...well apparently not.  Spring break this year has been, well, different.  First of all this is my first spring break since 2005 (I don't think I had one my last year of grad school), second my husband only gets 10 vacation days a year so to take five to sit at home would not be a good use of them, third, I still was going to pay for daycare so Elijah might as well go and have something to do.  Now in all fairness to me, I did spend the ENTIRE day cleaning on Monday. This house looked amazing.  On Tuesday I hung with new baby down the street for breakfast then went to meet my husband at IKEA for lunch and to look at closet organizers.  That turned into not liking the closet thing I thought I would want and BJ finding one he did like.  He then left me as I was going to walk around for a bit.  As I was leaving I walked through the "as is" section only to find a pile of boxes marked for $90. The boxes were returns or damage or something but you had to buy the whole pile.  In the pile were 4 of the new closet systems that we wanted and each new cost $100. Now I love deals.  I walked around that pile 20 times, I got down on the floor making sure we could use at least two of the unites, I asked,if I had to buy the rest that I didn't want, I called BJ at least 3 times.  Finally I decided, let's do it.  Then I had to figure out how to get it home.  The longest box was over 93 inches long and weighs well over $100, and remember, BJ went back to work.  A nice worker helped me load the first fe into the car the a very nice passerby helped with the long ones and tying down my trunk.  By the time I knew it, it was 5 and nothing really got done, other than buying $1000 of random Ikea stuff for under $100. Wednesday was appointment day, first my hair, then Elijah and I had our eyes checked, then I had my two clients. That day was shot. Today was drury and gray and took me over 2 hours to get ready. I had one more kid today and then spent the day grocery shopping.  Wahoo, I know. Tomorrow I am taking Elijah to the zoo for mom and child time, he is so excited, and to be honest, so am I.

Made up words

All kids do it, either make  up words or mispronounce words.  Elijah is in that stage of life.  He is learning so much vocabulary right now he was bound to get some errors in.  I would have been upset if he didn't to tell you the truth.  For example, Brebrember=remember.  But my favorite one has to be, globby.  From my understanding globby means blurry or fuzzy.  Ways I have heard it in sentences by the creator, my eyes are globby but if I rub them it goes away.  Or it is really globby outside (foggy).  Everyday any he says something new that I enjoy he keeps me on my toes that's for sure.

P.S. Elijah is eligible for walk in speech but I think I will pass and just deal with it over the summer.  

The day has come

I feel as though I should start with a duh duh dunnnnnnnn or at least a trumpet dododadooooo.  Elijah is going in for a speech screening at the school district.  I know you can say it I won't judge, "it's about time!"  I know, I know.  I have known since he was just shy of 3. I knew he needed speech, I knew his speech development was not normal, I also know that once an atypical speech pattern starts it will not correct itself.  I know that there are phonological processes that should disappear by certain ages.  Yet I waited.  I needed a job and no time over the last 2 years was I able to get my son in for therapy and back home in between what I was doing.   I know I know.  Tomorrow I will know for real if my SLP and mothers intuition were correct or just in crazy over drive.  And since Elijah has to come with me to second job maybe I'll throw him at my coworker there and have her evaluate him too.  Summer 2014 is the summer of speech for little man.  

IEPs take 2

An IEP is the shortened name of Individulizes Education Plan. Each child 3-21 in a school that receives services, speech/ occupational/ physical therapy/ modifications on tests, blah blah blah.  What most people don't understand about IEPs is the amount of time and effort that goes into each one. I will let you peak at the process of IEPs.  

Like I said, all students on my caseload have to have an IEP.  Every year the IEP needs to be reviewed with goals to be addressed over the next school year and results of the last year reviewed.  Every three years a child needs to be reassessed with a more intense review of current level of performance.  For a non-review year I would gather the data from the past year write a report (45 minutes or so), meet with teachers, aids, and other services (30-90 minutes) discussing overall progress for the past year.  We also discuss the most appropriate goals for the up coming year and the best placement for them.   For those three year reviews, you have to add in testing time, scoring of the test, analyzing the test, meeting with others doing testing to discuss their results, a more intense report explaining the testing and scores.  That adds about an hour onto whole process.   

That is just the physical process.  What doesn't get added into the IEP time is the time I spend laying awake thinking of goals, letting test scores sink in and processing. I think about these kids in the shower, making dinner, in bed when I should be sleeping, in my dreams and in the car.  

As professionals we put out heart and soul into these kids lives to give them the most help to let them succed with the least amount of support.  We get together as a team and recommend from our hearts.  We don't sit around and pick our favorite kid and give them everything while the rest we try to screw over. I sometimes felt while in private practice parents viewed the IEP as a time of us against them.  We really are on the kids side, but due to policies we might not be able  do what we fully want, but guess what, you can't do it in all in the private practice either.  There are limitations there too, but those are not viewed as horrible.  We are professionals, we do know what we are talking about and for my caseload of 26-28 by the end of IEP season I will be surprised if I can still function.  

Future

One thing that is said is future behavior can be predicted by past events.  With that knowledge you all will be lucky to hear in April.  I was so wiped out by two IEPs this past month, I don't know what I will do come April with my 12... I for see LOTS of margaritas that month!