I was in nursing school and so stressed out about if I'd ever bring home a healthy baby that I was failing miserably, or so I thought. I couldn't take a test to save my life but I did so well I ended up getting a "B". I was however done with school. Couldn't take the stress of it all so I'll concentrate on my pregnancy and this little guy and go back l-a-t-e-r.
I kept working but WOW did I work with a bunch of selfish jerks. I usually couldn't get help with heavy lifting and I'm a go-getter so I'd do it myself. Ended up with an irritable uterus and a little spotting just to drive me nuts and take me to Labor and Delivery a couple times for observation. Then at 30 weeks a growth ultrasound showed Joey was much smaller than they wanted to see so I'm out of work for the duration and on modified bedrest. I have to lay down twice a day on my left side for 2 hours to give him the optimum blood flow and do kick counts. Three times a week I went into the doctor for 2 non-stress tests and a biophysical profile with growth check.
I bought some preemie clothes for my soon to be "lucky to be 5pounds" baby boy... I went in on June 13, 2005 in the evening to be induced and I'll spare you the very long labor process but finally at 5:21pm on June 15, 2005 Joey came screaming into the world and into my arms. He was 6lbs 13oz and perfectly healthy.
He was physically advanced. He rolled late but was sitting unassisted at 3 months, crawled, scooted, walked the furniture and walked unassisted all earlier than "normal" As soon as he found his footing he was climbing to heights I'd have preferred he not reach! He was always into stuff and destructive (should have been my first sign).
He was late to talk. At about 18 months I started to worry that he didn't have the vocabulary he should have. He knew a couple words (never ma-ma, da-da, ball etc...), it would be strange words, but he kept it to a 5 word max. He'd learn a new word and one of his other words would be lost keeping it to 5 words only. So I talked to his pediatrician and he suggested we get an eval from Early Intervention. He started speech therapy just shy of his 2nd Birthday.
ST was only one hour every other week and didn't do a whole lot for him. He picked up a few things but to be honest I don't know if it was really the ST that did it or just was his time to pick it up. Anyway, just before his 3rd birthday he had his first IEP evaluation to determine services he'd get with the public school system. While he was talking his articulation was horrible. So many sounds he didn't bother to say and instead used /d/ and /t/ in their place. His was like 25% to known people in a known context! They gave him ESY (extended school year) and he got like 6 week of transition classes over the summer. He transitioned into the classroom well and I was very thankful for that. He loved getting to ride the bus there and home again. School was going to be easy for this kid, no crying and screaming for mommy!!
September he started out in his Early Childhood classroom at our home school (Forest Park). He again transitioned well and behaved fairly well also. After a few rough patches and some quirks with his teacher he figured it all out and did well. Now I don't recall him doing ESY that following summer, probably a huge mistake. The following school year he was doing wonderfully. His vocabulary was finally age appropriate but his articulation and intelligibility was atrocious. He moved to a Speech impact class at Whittier and oh did he love this class room. It was taught by a ST who was also an elementary teacher. He was in more of a preschool classroom with a curriculum which focused on each child's speech needs. I really LOVED this teacher, she was awesome. He did great with her and by the end of the school year his articulation was a little better, his vocabulary was much better. However, I was able to get him accepted into a charter school in our system (it's a lottery process) and doing their kindergarten screening he was way behind so they recommended summer school, Getting ready for Kindergarten. Again his transition was wonderful. September he started Kindergarten with the WRONG teacher! She didn't know when she made all of her name plaques that we call him Joey when his legal name is James. He knew that James was a part of his name (we often call him Joey James) but he didn't take well to everything saying James and unknown people calling him James too. It was extremely stressful on him. He had an unnoticed and un-diagnosed (mild case) of PICA which this stress exacerbated. He was eating his clothes, plastic, crayons, glue, paper etc... After many requests by me and even a talk with the principal she finally in November changed his name plates to Joey. Too little too late. At October parent teacher conferences she says to me, "is THAT still a problem?" Duh!!! OMG I wanted to slap the crap out of her!!
His speech therapist was wonderful, she immediately decided that 60mins a week was not enough and asked me if she could change his IEP to reflect 75mins a week instead. I could have kissed that woman! Of course it's OK!!
With his first
It was evident he was way too young, the maturity was NOT there. I wrote on the return envelope that I wanted a meeting with everyone who has contact with him, the school specialists, minus his special's teachers (gym, music, art). Apparently they don't actually read those envelopes (in spite of there being a line on there "if you want to set up a meeting to discuss or have comments about this report please write it on the back...") so it took until January until I finally got that meeting set up for February! By that time I was 99% sure I wanted him to repeat Kindergarten. The SIT meetings (student intervention something or the other) were for me to hear the experts (teacher, principal, special ed teacher, school psychologist) tell me why he should NOT repeat. At the same time I set up evaluations for him at Children's Hospital Child Development Center. I wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything, that there wasn't any ADD/ADHD or Autism spectrum, sensory, hearing etc...
The Psychiatrist was at first concerned about his attention but the speech pathologist and pediatrician thought it was much more normal little boy behavior.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment