Just Another Day

The end of the school year, finally! Did I tell you that my son went to public school this past year? Did I tell you that my daughter was in a regular Kinder classroom this year? Although it was nice to have them both in school, there were definitely things I was not so hip on, such as having to wake up at 5:20 every morning just to get everyone out the door on time.  And then after all the driving and dropping off, going to work. Such fun! I had forgotten the dreariness of having to complete mounds and mounds of homework (even though new research has shown that homework, especially for Kinder, is for shit).  Of constant deadlines and fundraisers and things I am supposed to volunteer for. My daughter had a good year, but was definitely not without its bumps. Her teacher, an older, highly experienced, practical woman with a Master's in Education, kept referring to my daughter as an "inclusion student."  It wasn't her name or just "student" but was...

Dear Driver of the Vintage Truck in front of me, If I cannot tell whether your custom (I'm assuming) sticker on the back of your cab is Jerry Garcia, Jesus, or King Triton, then your intended message to your fellow road companions is COMPLETELY LOST. Thank you, The Puzzled Driver behind you who was driving with her kids and could not snap a photo.  But, trust Her, there was no way to tell.

Not too long ago, Hubba-hubba and I were able to get some babysitting (i.e. pay someone a boatload of money to come to our house, ON TOP of the money we were spending to go out. Yay?) and went to one of our favorite bars.  This is fairly ironic, because we don't drink a lot, yet the first place we thought of going when we knew we were going out alone was there.  Well, I'll be honest, we really only have one favorite bar.  I think at this point we are just looking for a place that we can be sure has NO CHILDREN.  Because honestly, we are SICK OF THEM already.  I don't want to pay good money to hang out somewhere where there are children, because if I wanted to hang out with them, I would just STAY HOME.   Anyhoo, we get there and strike up a conversation with the bartender, which we often like to do.  He is friendly, as befits a bartender, but for whatever reason he really started warming up to us. This particular bar is famous for it's ve...

When you have a child with a disability, one of the first things you try to do is get help. Help can come in many forms, from therapists to doctors to the school system. When my daughter was first deemed "disabled enough" (my term) to qualify for our school district's Special Education Program, I was thrilled.  I was coming off long days and nights caring for her, taking her to therapists, and basically struggling by myself as my husband had to, you know, make a living. Therefore when they told me she could be in the Pre-kindergarten program they have for children ages 3-5, I was over the moon.  My god, two hours to myself!  Every day!  She would be given some speech therapy and she qualified at the time for occupational therapy as well.  Didn't matter that the occupational therapy was twenty minutes from the school and I had to sit in the school parking lot while she was there, it was like 45 minutes of heaven to me at the time. When children are accept...

A few months ago at a community garage sale, my son wasted some money on an Anaheim Angels clock.  I'm sure whomever he bought it off of heaved a huge sigh of relief as he left their yard.  He isn't even a big fan of the team, I think he just liked the way it looked. It's an old-fashioned looking clock, with little feet and fake alarm bells at the top.  I'm sure I did not describe that well at all.  Let's see if I can find a picture that sort of looks the same. There we go, it looks exactly like that, even the same color.  Except picture the maybe not-so-famous mascot of the Anaheim Angels, the Rally Monkey, dancing on the face. For the longest time it just sat around, first in my son's room, until my daughter stole it and then it sat in my daughter's room instead.  Simply a change of locale. It didn't actually function, it just looked sort of cool, apparently. Finally, my daughter found some batteries and put them in the clock....

In California, we have something that is called "Transitional Kindergarten."  This is an all day program created specifically for children who have late-year birthdays, such as my daughter who was born in November.  Since they moved the minimum age of entry into Kindergarten back to being 5 before the beginning of the school year, they created TK for children who missed the cutoff, but could still benefit from an all day program to get them ready for Kinder. So, seeing as how my daughter has attended Special Day Class since the age of 3, I was not aware that she was a candidate for TK.  When we held her IEP last March with all of the various staff that make up the IEP team, no one even mentioned TK.  A couple of months ago, another parent asked me why my daughter was not in TK, at first I didn't really have a reply.  Uh, because she didn't qualify?  No, she said, they will assess each SDC pupil on a case by case basis if requested by the parent. Shit....