Things & Stuff in the New Place

Various Updates

Simon has started the first grade at our local elementary school. I never would've predicted this, but I kind of miss the "Learning Log" method of communication his Kindergarten teacher used. I don't feel we have a real sense of what he's doing during the day or week, though the teacher sends home a short newsletter each Monday with what they will focus on during the coming week. Simon has not given a ton of specifics; I've tried not to ask a million questions but info is coming out only in tiny bits and pieces. He reports he's made several friends, boys and girls; two boys and one girl supposedly live in our neighborhood. One of these, a boy in Kindergarten, has been confirmed by meeting kiddo and mom. After the first week of settling in, Simon has started riding the school bus, which I was really worried about initially (especially when I was waiting for him at the stop on the afternoon of the first day and he wasn't on the bus, but that mix-up was quickly cleared up) but he appears to be enjoying it.

I cannot imagine David riding the bus one day; I'm glad he would have Simon to look out for him. For me, elementary school bus riding was fine; we had a really strict driver and assigned seats and all was well. Middle school was awful - we had this totally useless older man as our driver and he basically never intervened in anything. This culminated in me coming home from school one day in 7th or 8th grade, in tears because some same-age boys had been yelling to the male driver & passengers of a car following the bus, "something about them having sex with me" is what I remember sobbing to my Mom. I was distraught but didn't really want her to call the school because I was afraid that after whatever suspension might occur the problem would only get worse. She did call, and I don't know what happened exactly, but it did not happen again. Then in high school, the bus seemed to be some sort of DMZ/No-Man's-Land where anything got swapped around (cigarettes, girlie magazines), but everyone pretty much left everybody else alone.

I don't think we had any "students with special needs" on our bus; this was likely an era when anyone with any disability was relegated to the "short bus" and isolated in Special Education classes all day and you never saw them. I am generally really nervous about mainstreaming David, although I know it's the right thing to do - I'm scared to death he's going to be bullied. Matt is much more optimistic about this than I (though I'm sure he's worried to a degree); he points out that rather than predicting all the awful things that might happen, we can instead see this as an opportunity to see exactly how great his peers and the school staff can be - perhaps any teasing will be minimal, and if/when it does happen his brother and friends will take up for him in a way that is of course non-violent and yet takes care of business.

On this note, we did receive some reassurance this week in a little guy named Nate, who is in the first grade at Simon's school but in a different classroom. Nate has Down syndrome, and we'd been referred to speak with him mom almost as soon as we moved here but dragged our feet about it (see "Mac & Cheese & Overwhelm-ment" for our history on this). Matt finally called her on Monday and had a delightful conversation; she had so much information that he ended up taking a lot of notes. Then on Tuesday when we went to the school to sign Simon up for Cub Scouts, there were Nate & mom and they were equally delightful in person. I recognized Nate because his mom'd told Matt there was a photo of him on the local Down syndrome association's website and we checked it out. He's a pretty cute guy, a year older than Sy and maybe a couple inches taller (this indicates how short Simon is, kids with DS are typically pretty small). The first thing Nate did at the Cub Scout thing was to run over to one of the displays and begin flipping through a scrapbook, pointing at photos of a camping trip and saying (excitedly, clearly), "Mom! I want to do this!" He played with Simon while I filled out forms and talked to his mom - they were racing cars around with a couple of other kids. Seeing his "regular kid-dom" was awesome. I don't know if he rides the bus or not, or if he's had many problems in the school, but there should be the opportunity to follow up.

David, of course, is delighting and amazing his entire preschool. We had a scare (on the same day Simon wasn't on the bus) when David slipped out of the school through a door that was propped open, during the Early Pickup time (some kids are done at 12:15, David & others go until 3:15). The staff didn't realize it, and another parent brought him back inside ...  I ... I'm glad Matt was the one to pick up David that day, and that he was the one to be informed about this by the staff. We did not ask where he was (how far he got) because we didn't really want to know. When Matt initially told me, it was easy to accept the news calmly because it was long over and David was fine. But of course the longer I thought about it the more upset I became, imagining various horrible outcomes. And they are horrible - the Quaker meeting house where the preschool is housed is at the intersection of two of the busier streets in the New City, and .... even thinking about him being in the parking lot, out back of the building, was bad enough. I mean, imagine, right? My beautiful 3-1/2 year old child with Down syndrome, wandering around. Jesus.

Matt said the preschool staff were "appropriately mortified" at what happened, and that by the time he picked up David they had already completely revised the way they will do pickup from now on. I mean, I can (sort of) see how it happened - I've never been there at early pickup, but based on later pickup and hey, it's a daycare, there are kids and parents and backpacks and lunchboxes and everything. So now everyone will simply be much more centrally located, and one of the staff people will always hold David in her arms.

Matt and I have (pretty much) gotten to where we can joke about it: (1) Matt has a little joke about entering the Joanna Realm of Reasoning, in which I propose that under certain conditions we should get things for free. When our landlord has not cashed our June rent check by the time the July one is due, June's should get to roll over. When the pediatric anesthesiologist pokes a hole (okay, makes a tiny scratch) inserting a tube in David's throat before his heart surgery, we should not have to pay for that portion of her time or any of the supplies. And, every time you let our child wander out of his preschool we should get $100 off that month's tuition - hey, it's an expensive school, so ... (2) A couple days after it happened there was early dismissal and the afternoon was devoted to parent conferences focusing on "hopes and dreams" for each student. Matt and I were pre-conferencing and he asked if I had anything in particular I wanted to ask them about. My response: "My hope? That they don't lose him again. My dream? That they don't lose him again."

Other than that (!) we are quite pleased with the school and David's new speech therapist and Special Educator, who each visit twice each week. The speech therapist is really emphasizing signs over spoken language at this point, and David is picking up quite a few: apple, cracker, food/eat. His signs for "more" and "please" are now much more distinct ... we think he is beginning to recognize the colors red and blue, and the shape of a circle. The other day at church we were in an office that has a painting of a single foot, with the caption Step out in Faith (or something like that), and David pointed right at it and said "foot," as clearly as you could hope to hear. He does this a lot - he'll either parrot something we say, or label something and we're so excited, and then he never does it again. Oh well. He's coming right along :)

I am officially on the job search trail; I've come across 2 possibilities that are pretty exciting but both long shots a couple that are okay and reasonable to hope to get but I haven't heard anything back yet, and about a thousand that I am totally unexcited about, but which I could probably get hired for pretty easily. Stay tuned ...