Exhausting all options and thinking outside of the box.....and my comfort zone

    This week sucked. I spent the entire night before my IEP board meeting on Wednesday (scheduled at a gods awful 8am time period), playing out every possible scenario in my head.  This meeting was largely dependent on my giving an answer to the question the board and principal has been asking for roughly 5 months: Is Crisis at Home Teaching (CAHT) something my family is willing to consider?

    There's less than 5 weeks of school left. Nixon's final week of school is all early dismissal days, he has Memorial Day off the end of this month, plus 2 days off next week due to Kindergarten spring parent-teacher conferences and he'll miss a day due to a doctor's appointment. The point I'm trying to make is, there's really not a lot of school left. He still has Kindergarten Field Day and the class picnic....so yeah, lots of school but not a lot of educational requirements left.

    I spent time talking to Mac, or as much time as I could given his training situation, and asked for his opinion on the proposal especially since once he's home and back on shift he starts the overnight shift.
   Ultimately we decided to do it.

   But I didn't make that known to any of the school personnel prior to the meeting. I had a phone conversation with the County psychologist last week, but I told her I needed until the morning of the appointment to make a decision because I needed to give my husband time to think on what was going to be the situation at home, in the event we agreed to the CAHT.
    During my conversation with her, I learned the behavior charts I was getting every day were basic "fluff" charts (for lack of a better description) and they didn't have any of the details that she or the Special Education teacher used to comply the data they used and presented at our IEP meetings regarding Nixon's behaviors during the school day. That information came from a total different form that I had never even thought to think to ask about before last week. I asked to get those figures in addition to the daily "fluff" report. What pissed me off is that, because of that "fluff" report, I believed Nixon was adapting to the new classroom setup. I thought he was having fewer meltdowns, was being easily redirected, was cooperating and completing tasks asked of him and most importantly, I thought he was done having the aggressive behaviors (throwing things, kicking chairs and trying to hit/kick)....I was wrong. He's not shown any improvement behaviorally speaking since the classroom shift happened.

    Wednesday morning.
   Nixon and I arrive at the school at 8am, just in time for my IEP meeting. I brought Nixon's breakfast with us so he could sit and eat it while I was in the meeting, since we'd be there before school started I was throwing off his entire morning routine. Imagine how much better the day was going to go when I learned someone considered the conversation I had last week with the County psychologist as a meeting and took mine off the books.
   Yeah, no one called to see if there was an outcome. "Someone" just decided to take me off the books without even notifying me of the schedule change. Even better than that was, while I'm hearing apologies and mouth action, I'm reading pressure from the Vice Principal for an answer regarding the CAHT. I have this amazing ability to smile and play nice, while freezing a person out of their own skin. It's exactly what I did to the VP when she asked me the third time about the CAHT situation. After I placed the sweetest smile I have on my face, I informed the VP that I had already told the county psychologist I would not make my decision known until the IEP meeting with the board members present.
    Suddenly, she left the room to figure out her schedule and when she can get the board together. She returned and asked if I was available later that morning. I really wasn't but even if I were I wasn't in a very accommodating mood. The solution was to do it all over again the following morning: full IEP board meeting at 8am.

    Thursday morning.
   *I was tempted to not have my coffee before this meeting, but I'm not sure where Mac sits on my bail fund account, so I had a cup before we left.*
     After waiting for everyone to arrive, because who has ever heard of one of these meetings starting on time, I sat through the initial "blah, blah, blah" (which really sounds more like "Your kid's not bad, but he has a lot of issues and in case your self-esteem is too high this morning we're going to give you a highlight reel of his most "concerning and problematic" behaviors" followed by the highlight reel). I've never cried during these moments, even though in my head it sounds like a firing squad going off every time another behavior is listed.
    Finally, about 20 minutes into the meeting, someone finally addresses the giant pink tutu wearing ballet dancing elephant in the room: CAHT. It began with the principal listing all the things they've tried to help Nixon. And it went on with her adding how exhausting it is for everyone to not be able to solve the "puzzle" of Nixon. Still continuing with her adding "I probably should have suspended him, but I know that's not going to help him", quickly followed by "But it's hard to explain that to other concerned parents".
    I was thankful she was on the far end of the table from me, because other parents issues/concerns and shit like that, should not be addressed to me during (and only during) IEP meetings. I never hear about these issues or concerns from other parents until these IEP meetings. (Last time it was his teacher informing me another mother was concerned about Nixon's interaction with her child in the classroom.)
    Before I lost my composure, I spoke up.
    I let them know that Mac and I had agreed to do the CAHT, on the proposed half-day schedule, for the remainder of the school year. Nixon will go into school after lunch and stay until the end of the day. I'll be handling the majority of his learning and he'll still get his specials with his classmates. But, I voiced concern that he may not handle this situation well at first as it'll be new and will require time to adjust.
   We'll also be getting a teacher coming to the house during the morning hours Nixon is home to make sure he's staying on curriculum. He's currently not behind, though he's not easy to test. He knows everything he should know, but he's bored and that's leading to him acting out as well. (His aide doesn't think he's bored, she think he doesn't like being told what to do if it doesn't involve computer work).
   
    After 45 minutes of phone calls, to figure out a 2-sentence addendum to Nixon's IEP, which left me alone with the principal and Nixon's teacher (awkward and also enlightening...those are some burned out women and not just in their professional lives). I forgot to bite my tongue from letting my usual (and natural?) sarcasm slip out, and I made a Common Core math joke while listening to the Special Education teacher discuss the home teaching hours versus the in-school hours which apparently endeared me to the teachers in the room. That was NOT my intention!

    It's finally all figured out. Nixon, starting Monday, will be at home with me doing literacy/reading/math/science work and go to school for PE/art/music/media and other specials. I've bought several workbooks to keep him interested until the teacher situation is worked out (most likely after the Memorial Day holiday) and to hopefully keep him off the computer, which is what the school has gone to allowing him to do as a "maintaining" tool. He's been spending 2-3.5 hours a day on the computer, because surrounding classrooms are involved in end-of-year tests and Nixon's screaming and refusal to do tasks requested of him (that don't involve computer work) was becoming very disruptive, so the decision was made to offer 2 prompts to do the work and then if he continued to refuse or he escalated in his refusals, he was allowed to remain at task on the computer. This was happening to the point he was missing lunch! This was also another contributing factor in our decision to do the CAHT as I feel like the school was merely tolerating Nixon and not doing anything to help him as a person.
    Well, screw them! They don't deserve Nixon in their lives anymore.

It's slowly happening...some people at school are getting how he thinks!

   A couple days behind, but that seems to be a regular occurrence lately. This week Nixon's struggling in school adjusting to a full schedule again, Mac being gone and it being just the 2 of us at home. Tuesday and Wednesday Nixon spent over an hour out of class during those 2 days. I'm trying everything to get him back on track, but really it's up to him to find his groove at school again.
    He found it today:

    When I picked him up, I was introduced to Ms. J. Nixon was very excited for me to meet her, because tomorrow after he finished his lunch he gets to help her wheel around the trash cans in the cafeteria.
    The Special Education teacher introduced me to her with her name and then also as "Number 11". Apparently, for the first few weeks Nixon knew Ms J he only referred to her as "Number 11" and got very frustrated when no one knew who he was talking about. As the teacher was telling me the story of how everyone was trying to figure out what "11" meant, I noticed the badge Ms J wore with the bold red 11 on it. I let the teacher finish and then explained why Nixon likely identified Ms J as "11".

     This actually isn't really uncommon. It's known as "face blindness". Some people with ASD don't recognize people by faces but rather other identifying features they notice about the person. Nixon likes to identify people by their skin color, hair color or jacket colors, so if he noticed Ms J's badge had a number on it, he'd identify her by the number. Since learning her name he's begun calling her "11, Ms. J".
     After I explained, both the aide (who was also with them to say goodbye to Nixon for the day) and the Special Ed teacher said that made sense, knowing what they do about Nixon. They also said they're going to try to think like him next time he's trying to explain something but getting frustrated, as was the case when the question of "what/who is 11?".


 

Last week was practically a total wash, as far as school went

    Nixon went to school 2 days last week. He had 3 snow days. Unfortunately, one of his snow days was also the day of his IEP reevaluation meeting. It will have to be rescheduled, of course. Surprisingly enough, that didn't turn out to be a bad thing, it having to be rescheduled, as I received a letter from the school on Saturday regarding an incident with Nixon and another student which resulted in Nixon being sent to the Principal's office. I have more than a few issues about this letter, one of the more irrelevant issue being that this incident took place on February 13th!
    I asked Nixon about it. According to the letter, Nixon one day layed across another student on the carpet in the classroom and the next day stepped on the same student after being instructed to stay away from said student. Nixon admitted to doing both those things. He said he did it because "(name)  was talking to me while I was doing my morning work. I didn't want them to talk to me because I was trying to get all my work done but they wouldn't stop talking." I asked him, what no doubt I will be asked as it will be seen as an "obvious" question "Did you ask him not to talk to you?". Now, this is where it's going to be really hard for me to get the IEP team to see Nixon's way of thinking, Nixon said he didn't because "I was focusing so hard on ignoring all the noises and just doing my work it would have hurt my mouth to make words."
   As his mom, and because I'm working really hard to understand how he sees things and how he thinks, I can understand what he means. But to most people who don't deal with him in such an intimate manner, they're going to have no way of comprehending how hard Nixon is concentrating in that classroom to get that work done in the morning.
    And how proud am I that he is learning to use his words to tell me things like this?!?! Even if he can't tell his teachers or his aide, if he can tell me I can go in and I can be his voice!

   But trust me, they will when Mama Bear Rea roars for her cub! My child should not be in a classroom feeling so overwhelmed that he tells me he physically can not make words to tell a child, or even ask a child to leave him alone to get his work done. This is specifically why I pushed so hard for an hour out of class every day!


    On top of all the other IEP nonsense, Nixon's acting out in class (again). Yesterday I noticed a note that said he was trying to climb into the cubby's the classroom has for each student. To me, that sounds like Nixon is seeking a quiet place to get away in.
    We had an awful morning yesterday. While taking the college student I drive during the week to her internship, my windshield got hit by debris from a passing garbage truck and actually hit with enough force to shatter a small hole through it. Not very big, and thankfully no one was hurt, but it was quite jarring and Nixon wasn't really sure how to deal with it all. Was it broken? Did the car break? Where did the thing go? Will water get into my car? Can he tell Daddy about it? Is Nixon okay? (He kept asking that, about himself in the third person.)
    All this was after I told him I'd booked us a flight to visit his Nana in Miami next month. He had a lot going on in his little brain yesterday morning. I was overwhelmed but I'm used to it.

   Finally, Nixon asked to try my dinner tonight. That's odd enough. But tonight I had a grilled cheese sandwich, which before tonight Nixon has refused to touch in the past. Tonight he tried it, liked it and asked for more. He eventually ate a quarter of my sandwich.
   He's never eaten it in the past because of the feeling of the pan-toasted bread. He's fine with toaster made toast. I've offered to make grilled cheese for dinner tomorrow night, we'll see if he eats it again or if this was a one-time deal.

Tuesday? Monday? Who can tell anymore...

    Yesterday was a snow day. There wasn't any real snow, but it was very icy and very dangerous. Snow day 4 of the 5 built into the school districts schedule.
    Because of Nixon's snow day he was able to go with me and take Mac to the airport for the second time. This time we did a curbside drop-off. Nixon was very fine with the drop-off. Nixon was great at home at dinner. He was fine at bedtime. In fact, he brought me the teddy bear Mac made for him (after he as supposed to be asleep) and said "Mommy, here. You can press the paw right here to listen to Daddy's voice if you miss him." I tell him that Capt Bearmerica is his bear and he says "I know, but Daddy didn't leave anything for you in case you miss him."

   I wake up and Nixon is in bed with me this morning.

   We had an easy morning this morning. Up, fed, dressed and out of the door with no issue this morning. Shocking! After we arrive at school, as I'm dropping him off with the teacher's aide I give her a heads up about Mac leaving yesterday, and I leave him at school. Hoping for the best.

   His first really great day in a couple weeks! It was a full day and he came home with 8 of 9 smiley faces! He spent only 10 minutes out of class.

   What some people may not know about children on the spectrum or with SPD is that, when these children get overwhelmed they may not want any kind of touch. Nixon has not ever told me to not touch him.

   Until tonight. 

   He came out from him bedroom, crying. He'd been in there and asleep for about an hour before this. I called him over and asked him what was wrong. He said "I can't find sleep." Usually, when he's upset about anything, he'll curl up on my lap and listen to my heart while he calms down. Tonight I try to get him comfortable and he pushes me away. I stop. While a part of me aches to comfort him, I need to do it on his terms. I ask him if he doesn't want to be touched. He tells me "no touching, Mom". I ask him if I can wipe his tears, which he agrees to. I get him calmed down and he asks to sleep in my bed, on Mac's side. I don't care, it's a bed big enough for the both of us, as long as he gets sleep. 

A full day of school?!? I'm as shocked as you are....

    After snow days, delayed starts and holidays, Nixon finally had a full day of school. He was excited about it too!

    Not sure what happened last week, but today showed he's put it behind him!

   Even after spending 40 minutes outside of the classroom, Nixon managed 8 smileys! Considering last week he didn't have a collective total of 8 smileys, we're pretty happy with this.

    He also came home with a "love note" for me.

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    In other news, apparently next Wednesday (Feb 25) is our IEP evaluation day. I got 2 phone calls trying to schedule the meeting. I'm not sure why, but it was assumed I'd agree to any time given for this meeting. Unfortunately, I have plans and had to inform them I'd be unavailable for the requested time. I'm expecting a call tomorrow with a scheduled time. 

   It'll be nice to get to discuss this with the IEP team.  

When your Monday is on a Wednesday you pretty much expect the worst

    Monday was a holiday, yesterday was a snow day and today was delayed 2 hours. Nixon and I had a rough morning, all over a library book. I was expecting him to have an awful day at school, because of our time at home and after his behaviors last week at school.

    Turns out, I was worried for no reason.
    Nixon is starting to understand jokes. He and his aide came out of the school with sad, solemn faces. His aide handed me his sheet and said "He had a rough day". I start to comfort Nixon when I look at the sheet....and saw all smiles! Nixon says "HAHA we tricked you Mom! I had a GREAT day!".
    Here's hoping the rest of the week goes as great as today. 

Friday was so bad I took the entire weekend to recover and write this post

   It started with another 2-hour delay start to the school day. This weather is awful, but at least it's not feet and feet of snow!

    I let Nixon wear sweatpants to school (I am NEVER doing that again). While he had a not-completely-awful day, he did decide to use the bathroom and then leave it with his pants down. Thankfully, he did have his undies on (trust me, he has done the "Full Monty" at school before...his preschool, before we were aware of the Asperger's and all that).
    I decided he was going to have to do written work after that stunt. I guess he thought I was joking because he agreed to do whatever I decided as punishment.
   

   

    He was wrong. I gave him this sentence to write, 5 times, in his homework book. He hates writing, will do almost anything to get out of writing. I set him up with homework before dinnertime. I gave him plenty of time but set a limit. He had until 6:30PM to finish his homework in.

    He ultimately finished his writing. It got messier, but the point is he did it. 

   Hopefully he will keep his pants up from now on. 

   

This week is rough to say the least

   Tuesday was a snow day (without the snow). It was icy and the county originally delayed for 2-hours. Conditions didn't improve by much and the county made the cancellation call before 6:30am. Honestly, it was the first snow day this year and was a good call. Lots of accidents on the roads.

   Wednesday was a scheduled early dismissal day.

   Nixon did not have a good day. He hasn't had a day that bad in a couple months. I found out that the kindergarten classes are having to do some mandatory computer testing. Unfortunately this is going to last a couple weeks and that means Nixon doesn't get any of his usual screen time. He wasn't given any notice that this was happening and if I know my kid at all, this is what is causing his behaviors leading to his time out of class.
 
    I'm struggling with how to approach the school about this. Yes, the testing is required for all students and yes, they have a limited number of computers but Nixon's IEP requires technological alternatives to written activities in addition to it being an activity he earns with good choices/behaviors.

    Today was his classroom Valentine's Day party. I knew it was going to be tough on him and, unfortunately, I was not able to attend this one. While he had a good day, compared to earlier this week, I can't explain his "hanging on another student" episode. He did spend 70 minutes out of class but it was before he wasn't able to handle the chaos of the party (a lot of parents signed up to attend and there were 3 different activities going on during the party).

    I've offered him some supplement computer time at home. I have accounts set up for him at home on the sites he uses at school. He seemed happy with that and I really don't have much more to offer him. 

    We have a 2-hour delay tomorrow morning, there's an extremely cold bit of air coming resulting in subzero wind chills.  

I have no explanation only a slight understanding of how his mind works and a plausible conclusion from that

    Nixon had a horrible day today. He spent almost 2 and a half hours out of class today. He was mouthy, defiant and generally uncooperative. On top of all that, he came home with a minor incident report. He didn't hurt anyone, which is the most positive thing I can say about his day.

    I asked him about this, since he hasn't had a day this bad in over 2 months. He said "Well, D (a boy in his class) was talking to me and I didn't want him too. I was on the elevated table doing work". I asked him what D said, expecting it to be some kind of bullying. I was wrong. Nixon said, "D said "Hey Nixon" to me. I told him to leave me alone because I was working, but he kept talking to me".
    To most people, that would seem like a very petty reason to get upset. To Nixon, he was focusing on work and someone was disturbing his concentration. Nixon tried letting D know he was working, but D kept talking to him. At this point, it didn't matter how kind D was being, the sticking point was he was still talking after Nixon expressed a desire to be left alone. Now, Nixon may not have said it in the nicest manner, but he did verbally express himself.
   I don't know if the teacher was made aware of the situation or not. In a class of roughly 20 kids, I'm sure there's almost always someone talking to someone else.

    A day can seriously be ruined for Nixon by something as simple as another child wanting to talk to him while he's working. I can't explain it, because I'm not actually in Nixon's mind, but it makes sense to him.

    The final part of Nixon's day was his tablet time. Because he spent 2 hours and 25 minutes out of class, he had only a minute of his 30 minutes of tablet time today. Rather than use it, he asked to add it to tomorrow's 30 minutes. Tomorrow he has 31 minutes of tablet time to start with.

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    After school, Nixon and I saw a car accident. Well, the aftermath of it. There was a silver car on the shoulder of the road facing on-coming traffic. It looks as it was struck making a turn and stopped there.
   Now that is a logical conclusion based on what I saw.
  Nixon says "You know, Mom. If that person wasn't driving on that side of the road, because that's the way people drive to go home, she could have not had an accident. She needs to be on this side of the road, because we are going away from home."
   That's how Nixon's mind works. This is probably the best example of how Nixon sees things.  

What an emotional weekend!

    Someday I'll get back to posting daily again. This weekend is not that day though.

     (I sent a note to school to alert his teacher and aide about Nixon's fish almost dying. It turns out, knowing what to say because of what was going on at home, helped Nixon turn things around. During an assembly, Nixon nearly fell asleep on his aide's shoulder while they sat in the far back of the room because Nixon had said the noise was hurting him).



   Friday, after an amazing day at school, Nixon came home to find his fish still struggling to live. By bedtime his struggle had ended and Nixon's had just begun.
    After a short funeral, which began with Nixon holding Scootaloo's vase and carrying it to the bathroom, Nixon and I sat in his bed and cried together. My heart broke listening to his gut-wrenching cries.
    He did love that fish an saying goodbye was much more hard than he had expected. He wasn't as prepared as he thought he was. It still hurt.

   Saturday he had a birthday party to attend. With only a short meltdown Nixon made it through the party in amazingly good fashion. There were no tears for Scootaloo.

    Today we spent the morning together, as a family. Last night, Mac found Nixon's old Halloween costume Iron Man. This morning Nixon asked to wear it to breakfast. He rarely has any opinion on the clothes he wears but when he does, I allow it as long as it's seasonally appropriate. (No shorts in the winter is pretty much the limit of my refusals.) We went to breakfast and Nixon got smiles and I saw silent nods from other parents. Everyone who spoke to Nixon tried to call him "Iron Man" but Nixon was quick to tell them "It's only a costume, my name is Nixon".
    I adore my child and I was extremely grateful, many times beyond words, to every person who was kind to the little boy dressed as Iron Man the week before Valentine's Day today.
    We came home with 3 new mollies (named Scootaloo, AppleBloom and SweetieBelle for the Cutie Mark Crusaders from My Little Pony) and one small African Dwarf Frog named SeaFrog (or Lil A-hole as I dubbed him tonight after scaring us that he'd gotten caught behind the filter)

Wednesday and Thursday bleed into one post

     Because I had a late night last night and Nixon had his playgroup after school, I didn't do yesterday's post. Also, Nixon didn't get his tablet time because after playgroup we came home, ate dinner and it was bedtime. He did get double tablet time today though, so he was good with that.

    Yesterday he spent 15 minutes out of class. The school does Welcome Wednesday the first Wednesday of every month. It's when parents can come to the school and have lunch with their kiddo(s). I haven't gone to one, before yesterday, due to things I had going on at the same time. I was free yesterday and I went. Nixon was so excited to see me! We sat in the cafeteria, which I can see why Nixon's having meltdowns...it's so loud! And there are so many conversations happening at once, it's easy to see him getting overwhelmed when he's not focused on one thing (for example, he was focused on my visit).
    The down part to my visit, Nixon squeezed his knee in the gap between the cafeteria table bench. He needed help getting unstuck and ultimately bruised his knee. He was crying a little from the shock of the pain. The teacher's aide let me walk him back to class and give him a couple hugs and kisses. When I left he was shaking it off. He did tell me he was taken to the nurse and got an ice pack for his knee.
    The playgroup was much better than last week. We talked about Nixon needing to listen and participate instead of running around doing whatever he wants. This week he did participate! He only ran around for a couple minutes and even took part in the goodbye song! It was a great playgroup!

    Today Nixon had a good day. He had a couple issues but quickly made better choices and pulled himself together. Of his possible 60 minutes of tablet time, he got 57 minutes. (Since it's February the rule is now: 5 minutes out of class = 1 lost minute of tablet time). 

   Now the sad. Nixon's fish Scootaloo is dying. I did everything I possibly could to save him, but it seems he's lost his fighting spirit. I moved him into a vase with a little water, calm water, no filter flow. He's lying on his side, convulsing every so often, but mostly slowing dying.

   I've prepared Nixon for the worst. I told Nixon that I was angry with Scootaloo for not fighting more to live longer. He asked if that was okay, to be mad at a sick fish. I told him he's allowed to feel whatever he feels. He can be mad, sad, angry, lonely whatever he feels.
    He said "I'm sad and mad a little. I love Scootaloo and I don't want him to die." His bottom lip started quivering. This is where I step in, give him a big hug and tell him I love him.
    I told him, after talking to Mac, that if/when Scootaloo dies we will have a family date Sunday. We'll do breakfast and then go to buy new fish. NOT another Betta fish though. I'm thinking goldfish. Nixon's asked for an African Dwarf Frog and more ghost shrimp. Shrimpy is still alive and Nixon says he's lonely in the tank by himself.

    Farewell, Scootaloo. Please don't die before Nixon goes to school in the morning.....

**I should add, Nixon feels so much larger than most 6-year-olds, because of Asperger's. Losing his fish before school could send him into an emotional tailspin for the entire day. I'm going to send a note into school letting his teacher know of the situation so she's not caught off-guard if Nixon starts crying or gets angry. I feel it's better if his caretakers (teacher and teacher's aide) are aware of a possible meltdown so they can help him work through it before he gets to the epic meltdown point he might reach without support. **
   

Why was today so difficult?!?

   Nixon needed to be woke up this morning. While shaking off the sleep, he starts getting sad that his ghost shrimp Midnight is dead. It took me a few minutes to let him have his sadness before getting out of his bed.
    It's important to me that I give him time to feel what he feels without pressure to "get over it" or "move on". He feels so much and loves so hard that death is a whole new and complicated life event for him.

    Nixon was fully together when he went to school.
   He had a rough day, of sorts. More than one episode resulting in time out of the classroom, for a total of 22 minutes. Seven smiles and even spent all but 5 minutes in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

   

   Tonight was rough.
   Nixon's fish, Scootaloo, isn't looking healthy. I went to the pet store today to get advice on helping him. I changed his water (a 50/50 change). I tested his water (all normal levels). It's heated at a perfect temp for a happy fish.
    And still, at bedtime, Scootaloo looked bad. So bad I had to talk to Nixon about it. It's hard, but I feel like I need to prepare him for the worst. It's that bad. Nixon took it pretty good. I told him, if Scootaloo does die, when he's ready we can get him another fish (or fishes).

   I hate doing this to him, because he's likely to get anxious and check on Scootaloo multiple times a day, and possibly watch him before he falls asleep.

It's Monday

   Nixon had an okay day. It was actually not bad until he got home.

   School was okay. Seven smiles. Twenty minutes out of class, lost 4 minutes of his 30 minutes of tablet time because it's February and we've upped it to one minute lost for every 5 minutes out of class. He's still struggling with his writing assignments, which means I'm making a phone call tomorrow to find out where the IEP implementation stands.
   He received an IEP progress report, they're required quarterly for all students with IEPs and have zero reflection of the IEP being in place.
    I don't know what's going on with him and lunchtime but he only ate a small amount of his lunch and he spent time out of the cafeteria during lunch.

   When we came home, Nixon was calmly and quietly sitting on the sofa when my cat darted into the room, tired jumping onto the back of the sofa and failed. She fell onto Nixon, scratching his side.
    Nixon has a strong reaction to immediate and unexpected pain. As soon as Arwen fell on him and he felt her feet on him he started shrieking. It took me over 5 minutes to get him to stop crying and to breath. Lots of sobbing and teeth chattering from him.
    This isn't uncommon and he spent most of the night getting equally as upset about the scratch. Especially at bath time. It took a while to get him totally calm but he went to bed and forgot about the scratch.

I'm not looking forward to removing that bandaid in the morning.....

Lunch, jokes and missing teeth

    There's a reason why I sing the praises of Nixon's teacher's aide. This morning I asked her, at drop-off, if it'd be possible to get another copy of yesterday's chart. It was in his folder this afternoon!
   

    Pretty much what I had expected after 4 days off, plus a week of short days after a day off last week. He hasn't had a full day of school in over 2 weeks. His transitions were rough, he didn't want to do his work and was just being Nixon when his routine is messed up.
   BUT.....

   ...he pulled it together today! He ate lunch in a separate classroom, instead of the cafeteria, because he was being too goofy. He had apparently started telling jokes and listening to jokes and got overly excited from this.
   It's actually not uncommon for jokes to get Nixon super excited. He doesn't really know emotionally the right response all the time, most of the time he goes very extreme with his emotions. It's hard for him to regulate his emotions after he gets too wound up. Removing him from the cafeteria was actually the best thing for him, as he pulled himself together the rest of the day. 

    Finally, after we got home and Nixon was playing on his tablet while snacking on his Poptart Nixon's loose tooth popped out! He said, very calmly, "My tooth fell out". I got up and went to the kitchen, getting warm salt water ready for him to swish with. He came over and said "Mom, you need to get that water ready. Make sure you make it warm and salty. For my mouth, and my missing tooth."
   I had to go into the bathroom with him, not because I was worried he wouldn't swish, but because there was a little blood and that tends to get Nixon really upset. I spent about 3 minutes with him, calmly telling him that the blood wasn't a bad thing and it'd stop in a few seconds. He was, surprisingly, fine with it all. This is the first tooth that fell out and didn't have the new tooth emerging from the gums already. This was his fourth tooth to fall out and his second top tooth. 

    I love his gap tooth smile! 

Wednesday still remains his worst day

   It's also becoming my worst day! I don't have his behavior chart to post here, because it was handed to me as I was going to his classroom. I folded it up and put it in my jacket pocket but it wasn't there when we got home...or in my purse....or in my car. It's just gone.

    Nixon started his day saying he didn't want to be in school. Then when it came time to leave he said he didn't want to go home. He did get 7 smiley faces.

    After school I took him to the group play that we first went to earlier this month. He was okay at first and then not so okay. He only wanted to participate if it was his turn. He even quit musical chairs because he wanted to play with scooters.
    I actually spoke to another mother there. Her son had Nixon's current teacher last year. She had a lot of issues with the school and the principal. So much so, that this year our school spent money out of their budget to send her son to a charter-like school. She likes the school and her son is doing amazing there, but it worries me that something similar may happen to Nixon because of his own issues.

   Finally, Nixon asked for some "awesome" hair today. I did the best I could, and he was super happy with it.

    I asked him after school, if anyone said anything about his hair. He said "Well, this one boy who was taking a poop in the bathroom, he said he liked it!". He also said some kids at lunch were talking about it, but he didn't elaborate.
   I took the time to let him know that he'll never please all the people all the time, so as long as he's not hurting himself, he should just focus on making himself happy. Things like haircuts and hair styles and other forms of self-expression, is what I meant. And I did clarify that to him.

    And let's hope that dangling tooth falls out soon!

Last week got away from me, here's the 23rd's post

    Friday came and went, as did the rest of the weekend. Nixon's had Monday and today off from school, in-service working days for teachers. It's the end of the semester, which I guess these days are used for grading without distractions of kids in the classrooms.

   

   

   He had another great day. Even with his minor meltdowns, he's really reacting positively when given choices and consequences. 

    Our weekend involved a visit to a couple comic book stores. Saturday was a creator signing. We waited in line, Nixon was great because he had his tablet. When he and I were done, Mac was still talking to the creators and getting a sketch from the artist. There are times I have to remind Mac that Nixon's at his breaking point. Saturday was that day. All Nixon wanted to do was go look at the Big Hero 6 toys at the front of the store. Mac wanted him to wait until he was done. I finally saw how hard Nixon was trying not to have a meltdown (he was sitting on the floor, rocking side-to-side hugging his knees at one point). I snapped at Mac, I told him I'd take Nixon and he can do whatever he wants to do. 

   I'm not perfect, neither is Mac. But I go out of my way, often at the expense of my own interests and time, to keep Nixon from melting down. Mac's usually pretty good at the same thing, unless he's doing something he really wants to do or is super involved in something. Those are the times he'll expect Nixon to "behave" and those are the times we usually have a meltdown, with a side of Mac's frustration showing. 

   For the most part, the weekend was great. We watched a movie together Sunday night, because Nixon was off Monday we extended bedtime for him. 

Today he made choices based on consequences

    Nixon's all impulse and very little forethought. He's not good with consequences either. He knows his actions have them, but unless it's something he's really attached to, he's not overly focused on them.
    More on this later.
    Today, Nixon hardly ate his lunch. I asked him why and he said he was "too busy eating my Ravens colored (purple) Popsicle". I asked him where the Popsicle came from, because I do not pack those! He said "G let me have one. She got a prize and could pick 3 friends to have Popsicle with and I was one of her friends! I even got to pick the color and they have the Ravens color, so I chose that one."

   The most impressive thing about today's behavior chart isn't the 7 smiley faces, it's the note that he changed his actions when told about consequences! Earlier this school year he wouldn't have even listened when in a tantrum/episode. Today he did and he responded! With positive choices!
   I'm such a proud and happy momma tonight!

Wednesday seems to be a hard day for Nixon

   *I'm posting yesterday's chart today because last night I focused on family first*

   Another early dismissal day. Nixon was super excited yesterday when I picked him up because there were giant snowflakes falling from the sky!

   He had a mostly good day. He did have a minor issue, which happened during writing time. Nixon was getting frustrated during the assignment. He got up to go to the bathroom and on his way he swiped a crayon across another students paper.
   He got a break after this and did finish the class assignment, and apologized to the other student. It's frustrating because we know writing assignments are an issue for him, I'd expected his writing work to be done during his one-on-one learning time. If I see this again I will be calling the school and scheduling a meeting.

Another great day....until bedtime.

    After having yesterday off for MLK Jr Day, today could have gone either way. But Nixon made it wonderful! His day started with a visit to a teacher who had brought in some hissing cockroaches, which Nixon loved! He even asked if she could bring in more another time for him to see. 

   He has early dismissal all this week. Some sort of end-of-semester break crap. Whatever, I pick him up 2 hours early every day this week. He was all smiles at pick up today.

    At bedtime I was checking on his fish. He has a Betta fish and 2 ghost shrimp. We thought one of his ghost shrimp died the first night we had him, but it turned out it had just molted its shell an hid for a day. 

    Tonight, I found that same shrimp, tucked in a corner and pinkish in color....on its side. This time, Midnight as he's known in our house, was really dead. I called Mac to show him and then we broke the news to Nixon. 

   Nixon was fine, but he after a few minutes he started bawling! We talked to him about death, told him his tears were okay and that it's okay to be sad. We shared things we liked about Midnight right before we buried him "at sea". Nixon was still crying, I laid in bed with him until he was asleep. 

    My heart hurts for him. I love him and hate seeing him sad. In the end it was a learning opportunity.

RIP Midnight (large one on the left)
1/something/2015-1/20/15

End the week (and begin the long weekend) on a high note!

   'nough said!
(And Mom approved the ice cream sundaes for Tuesday!)