Blueberry season

Sometimes you have a moment that's so sweet and perfect that you think you dreamed it once first. A moment where you say, "This is what I never knew I always wanted."

Lochie and I were picking blueberries off my little shrub today. He wanted to eat the green ones, and though I told him the blue ones are better, he liked the green ones and I didn't mind. He stepped to the other side of the bush and said I couldn't see him, but I told him I could see his bright orange shirt. Couldn't he see me? He could. I suggested that I could get the ones up high and he could take the down-low ones, and he jumped twice to show me that he could take the high ones, so I sang him a little snippet of "The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond," which is never far from my mind with little Loch at my side.

He's really so different than his sister. I mean, he's got his terrible two moments and his tantrums and his insistence on talking about poop at the dinner table. But he also says sorry and means it, gives hugs and kisses freely, is delighted by all kinds of things, and laughs all day long (except after nap).

Yesterday Az wasn't feeling very well, and I brought her some hot tea. Despite her obvious distress, Lochlan was doing little brother-y things, trying to poke her, etc. He grabbed her teacup, and she pulled back, and a little spilled. She yelled and he ran away. He came back about a minute later and said, "I'm sorry, Azadeh." Still mad, she said, "For what?" He said, "For making your tea spill all over the floor." It just struck me because not only had he not been prompted, he was able to specify exactly what he had done. She has, in nine years, done that maybe once or twice.

We had been having a rough time with mornings, and I vented about it to our ABA supervisor. She had some ideas for how to fix it, like not giving Az breakfast until she'd done everything else on her list. If she wasn't done in time? Throw her a granola bar and wish her luck. Although it began with a lot of screaming and verbal abuse, she has been ready on time five days in a row (and also gotten a full breakfast), so that's going really well. Tomorrow we celebrate by having a pancake breakfast. The supervisor had suggested that if we had five good days, she would come over for breakfast with us, and Az asked if her technician could come too. Then the supervisor said we should invite the other supervisor as well. It would be so fun! Meanwhile, I'm thinking... am I cooking pancakes for all these people?*

The best recent news comes from yesterday. I think I've at least mentioned how difficult it's been to try to fight with the school district about getting (and keeping) a classroom aide for Azadeh. Well, she only has 11 more days of school, so we had her end-of-year "touch bases" meeting. Knowing that the district was pressing to get rid of the aide, knowing that the aide has never been written into her IEP, and knowing that 4th grade was about to start, I had grim visions for the meeting.
Instead, we talked about a bunch of other stuff, and when the aide was mentioned, they basically said, "Yeah, we think she should start 4th grade with the aide. We can work on strategically fading later."
With a series of meaningful glances around the room, the special ed teacher (who is a rockstar hero) clarified to make sure that we all agreed to that, hit "print," and had be sign it, practically yelling "NO TAKEBACKS!" Because it was an addendum to the IEP, which means that now the aide actually is in the IEP. So yay!

How about me? Have I mentioned me lately? I was really stressed out with my teaching this year -- my freshmen were the worst I've had in... almost ever. (My middle schoolers from early in my career felt worse in some ways, but also I wasn't as confident or good at classroom management, so that may have been more me than them.) And I really thought the IB students were being let down in certain ways -- there wasn't a full group of teachers dedicated to doing the extra-curricular and support stuff for them. I have lots of thoughts about this, but they can mostly be boiled down to this: those kids are no smarter, better, or more capable than anyone else on campus. They've just signed up on purpose for a bigger challenge. They need at least as much support if not more. Anyway, between the freshmen and the disappointment I felt at being distanced from that program I'd moved to my school for,  I was kind of checking the job listings. But then there were some shifts and some moves and some personnel swaps and lo and behold, I'm going back into that program full-time. I'm feeling really energized about some ways I can throw my support behind the enrichment we've traditionally done for them. And I get to move back to one of my two favorite rooms on campus, which even makes moving classrooms more bearable.

I also noted over on the Facebook that Sweetie and I met some 14 years ago, or very nearly a third of my life ago. Y'all, I hate to brag, but he's smart, funny, good-looking, and he cleans the house and treats me like a queen.

So... it's good. Pretty good.


*Probably not. When the same woman suggested a going-away party for the last aide, she brought pizza. But just in case, I made a double batch of pancakes this afternoon and froze them so I didn't have to worry about making them from scratch in the morning.

Venting, bragging, thoughts on growth

So it is still very very difficult to live with Azadeh. Today alone she opened a bag of Oreos (that I had purchased at her request to be used as an incentive at school), asked if she could have one, and took ten. Then she hid in her room playing on a Kindle even though she has not earned her screen time (we'll try to address it this evening). Then we went to the Intergalactic Expo, where she kept blocking the paths of people, and swinging a bag around (I do not think I'm exaggerating when I say I asked her 50 times not to swing the bag) almost hitting people, then she jumped into an elevator and went to another floor without us (I had a stroller), tackled her friend, hit a beach ball on stage while some teens were playing live music, and (after SHE had an uninterrupted 20 minutes of lightsaber play) decided to play "lightsaber limbo" between Lochlan and the guy trying to teach him/play with him. She had already been asked to sit out from lightsaber training for being too wild with the littler kids.  I mean, I know she doesn't KNOW it, but she's such a ball of loudness and energy and unpredictability that you can tell where she is in a crowd by watching people dodge out of the way with surprised faces. It was EXHAUSTING following her around this place for 2 1/2 hours. And that's a pretty good day in some ways -- she was sneaky and loud and obnoxious and lied, BUT she didn't yell or say mean things to me. Shrug.

But we have had some real progress, too! I mean... it's going to sound really small, but please understand that a kid who's never said a word who says "hi" is going to make his mama cry if he says it, whereas any other kid, that'd be a big "so what." So please keep in mind that these things are BIG things for her. We got a report that she had started to interrupt in class, but stopped herself! She's had nearly two weeks of pretty good sleep (we've only had to use Benadryl twice). She said something mean, and without being prompted, she said sorry (and it sounded like she meant it)! She hasn't gotten into any major trouble at school (knock wood). She made it through standardized testing without anxiety. She and another kid at school are getting along really well, and the other kid's mom has suggested that they have playdates.

She's lost some time with her one-on-one ABA provider. When the last young lady left, we had a hard time finding a replacement. Azadeh had really hit it off with one woman, C, when she substituted, and we found out we could get her, but only one day a week. We went with it, and added one day a week at the social skills group at the clinic. So it's a loss of hours overall, but she's happy with the schedule (it frees up her weekends somewhat), and she seems to be making some progress anyway -- I think the clinic is more helpful than I expected.

Her growth will always be different than other kids. She will always be different. And the schedule of how fast this progress is happening is not what I'd have chosen if there's been options. But I'm very grateful for it, and I don't take it for granted.

Sometimes we have a bad night and we talk about whether we'll have to build an apartment on top of the garage for her to live in. Other times I look forward to her going to college, getting a job, falling in love. Overall, I lean toward the latter. Stay tuned, right?