Jan update + Dylan's school update.

Yea yea yea, I know I know.

Dylan got sick again and she was the only one of us that is sick this week. She got it bad too! She had a gooey eye on Friday and then slept all day and slept the weekend away. A sure sign she is fighting something. I got her up to bath her a few times. I don't think she enjoys baths, but I thought it would be good to get all the goo off and also to clear her up a little so I went ahead with the torture sessions. On Monday when I went in to do her thing she was breathing funny, shallow, with weak coughing and I don't worry about her too much, but this actually had me worried.

I called in to the doctor's office and talked to my favorite nurse ever. The only opening was in ten minutes. (!!) Dylan was half dressed! But I told her I would hurry and just be a few minutes late and she told me they would be able to work it out. I got everyone ready ad we were off (and I was sweating!).

The nurse came in and weighed her, 34 lbs, nice to have an update there... and took her temp (useless with her, she doesn't fever...) and then checked her oxygen saturation. She sat there for a minute, longer than she needed to, hoping it would go up but it was in the 84-86 range. Low, cue mom panic.

The first thing Dr. W asked was if I had given her Hydrocortisone, knowing it helps her when she is really sick and I told him I had given her her second dose this morning. That tells you right there we knew something was up because we typically err on the side of letting her body fight it on it's own. We got through the last illness without needing it which we consider a win. It's not terribly great for you... He listened to her and said the good news, the goo wasn't in her lungs. Holla.

Then he did the peeking and typically after doctors look in ears they are stone faced as they look in the other side but he did an "Oh wow..." thing. Well yes! Not really great, but great that there is something that we can give her meds for and have her get better right?

The last time she was on antibiotics was a year and two weeks ago! I can handle that, I told him I would see him in a year and two weeks! We got our antibiotics filled and we were off to get the boys at school. And then picked up lunch because I was thrown off my game.

We had another IEP for Dylan and I can see why they get ugly. It wasn't very pretty... most of the conflict was between the woman from the school district who asked to attend but wasn't invited (but I talked to her that day and she came) and the special ed teacher. It is such a mess, honestly. They have programs for kids like Dylan in place at a couple of other schools at the district but they are so crowded that it's not really working out for everyone now so they are trying to spread things out again. So, trying to get whatever those schools have into Dylan's school. But Dylan's the first. And people resist change.

There was a bit of stretching when it came to the time frames and what Dylan is doing in school, who she is with etc. The aides and the teacher seem resistant to Dylan being in the classroom (she is a bit of a distraction) and don't really know what they should be doing with her in that setting. Uhm yea, it only gets worse from here.Yet the district is pushing for FULL inclusion. And if she isn't in there, where is she? The special needs teacher seems like she just wants to tell her no to touching all of the wires and other dangerous things in HER classroom where I am like "how about not having wire and dangerous things where Dylan is?"

All of her teachers and aides have a take away of tracking what she does throughout the day, and we mean everything. The times did not add up and Matthew is a data junkie so we need to know what is going on with her and we don't have time to go in and watch. The woman at the district also had a take-away to look at all the kids coming up into the grade schools in that hopes that Dylan isn't the only one, even if she has to change schools. We will all be meeting again in March.

And in other news along the same line, we heard that one of the best schools for their special needs programs has not so great neighborhoods and kids in it. So, where it might be great for Dylan, it might not work for the boys. Annnnnd in that case we would need to settle for second best. I want to go check out the other schools before we all meet again, I have no idea what I expect... Can't she just go back and be with Shelley at the preschool? Wahhh!

Even more information since I typed this up, I talked to her Occupational Therapist who is amazing. She gave me her plan for Dylan, the instructions she printed out for the aides and her check list. She talked to me about how she needs to work with the aides to have them be able to think of different but stimulating ideas for Dylan and what to do when she is doing well with something, do they stop because the spreadsheet says to move on? In my opinion, she seems to really be taking on the task of a special needs teacher in working with and instructing the aides far beyond what a OT would normally be doing in this setting. You can tell she really wants to make this work and is doing whatever it takes to make sure Dylan is accommodated for at her school.

I have said this before I think but I think, while the Kindergarten teacher has great high expectations for Dylan, she hasn't ever had a broken kid. She knows them, she has worked with them and is wonderful with them and especially advocating for their needs. With that in mind, she doesn't get the reality of the whole situation... meaning, life, and we are a bit more realistic with our expectation of Dylan and her teachers. So perhaps this neighborhood school thing can work out? It almost has to, the other schools don't have room for Dylan. I need to be better about helping the school get to the end goal rather than assuming it just won't work out.

And the boys, Duncan is apparently doing fantastic in school. It's kind of hard to gauge where he is at compared to other kids but when I was looking at the "sight word challenge" stars outside of Mrs K's classroom I saw he was doing well. Last year Kindergartners were supposed to know 25 sight words and this year the requirement is 50. She said she was amazed at how well kids were doing. He is on the tenth list, the last one! We got his report card as well and he has been green ever since the teacher conference we had, so he has been doing great at keeping his hands to himself. On the three measurements, Letter names, phoneme segmentation and nonsense word fluency, he is above the end of the year expectations (the mid year and end of year expectations were provided with his results). Fantastic! Little smarty pants! He is so hard on himself and so humble.

He has a HUGE green card streak going but broke it yesterday when he got a yellow. There were many tears. He asked if he wasn't going to be able to go to the Lego movie because he got a yellow and I had to explain to him that that was his reward for a good report card and getting so many in a row and it's done, we aren't going to take that away from him! Time to start a new streak.

Greyson is cutting his canines which totally stinks. Boo to my baby having a mouth full of teeth making him not such a baby any more. Bad baby. No growing up. Not to mention he is really meeting up to the Grumpy Grey nick name I have given him. He is a little climber! You look away for a second and he is climbing on things he shouldn't and looking very proud of himself. Oye. Megan even said he was climbing on a toy and "I had no idea you COULD even climb that!" Yea, I know.

Asher is talking and it's AWESOME. He tells us anything and everything and it just stepped us right out of the most frustrating part of the two-year-old thing, him not being able to communicate with us. He always says "Guess what mom? Guess what?" and when I say what he says "You're a stinker!" Which starts a game in which you can be just about anything. We are having so much fun with him. Plus he is TINY, so skinny, so I just squish him in my arms and tell him how little he is. He denies it.

Meanwhile, I have been building up my miles in preparation for my big Disney girl trip which three weeks away! Crazy! I think the girls finally convinced me to do a Mary Poppins theme on the 10k and we will all "run" it together, slowly and get our pictures taken with cast members a lot on the way. I am a chimney sweep, there are three of us. Works for me, seeing as how I have never seen the show (gasp!) I know! Never. For the half I have no idea what my game plan will be since I want to be with friends but I don't want to go way slower than usual and I am luke warm on the picture idea. I guess I will see when I get there?

Sara and I have been knocking down miles and I have been adjusting my gait according to the PT's instructions and I think its working because my calves feel like I have never run a day in my life. This is a good sign... but I am slower than usual as they and the rest of me adjusts. Thank goodness for an awesome BRF (best running friend) that slows to my pace, listens to my whining, and trains with me for a race she isn't even running. Holla. This week we have 11 miles in our sights, welllll 10.5, but she will make me do 11 now that I have put it out there into the universe. That's like... two hours of running, on my Saturday. Oye.

The weather has been perfect though, I would have never guessed 30s and 40s would be so fabulous (to run in) but I love it. Aside from the icy patches which slow our pace a bit.

Matthew went out of the country, he went to Mexico City, El Salvador? Panama? Those places. He was supposed to go somewhere else but there was some HUGE plane problem that caused them to prepare for a water landing and in turn caused them all to cheer in glee when they actually landed safely. Nice. So their trip got cut a couple days short (woot!) and he came back to me. Apparently it was bad. So can I bad him from traveling now?

Asher wanted to go in the snow in the middle of the night and we let him. He was by himself. He had a blast. Silly kid.