Giveth Taketh Giveth

Ahh what a week! What a whirlwind! Successes and Setbacks, but we gladly take them all. And in stride. There is no other way. As Dori so wisely suggested, Just Keep Swimming. And we Do. And so does Ayden. Even when the tide keeps pushing him back to shore....and then suddenly he'll duck under the water and pop up 10 yards out and you are like, woah!!!! Or in our case, we smile. We knew ya could. Never doubted you for a moment. It's the other people who can't seem to be patient. And, so we swim.

Ayden's weeks often flow like this, good things and not so good things. Things he aces, things he needs to try again. For instance, Math blew up on him this semester, and his response was to abort the mission...completely. 9 Assignments incomplete as well as a handful of tests/quizzes in need of corrections and the ever dreaded, Parent Signature - eeeeee gads!  This is often anxiety inducing as well, he knows he has to tell me but he can't bear to tell me. I let him know the jig was up, I had an email from Mr.Math Teacher....the tears and disappointment spilled out of him, and night after night we have sat together in my room, pouring over PEMDAS and solving for Xes, N's and P's. I am hoping that I can connect for him the simple logic of: the more you do it the easier it gets? We shall see.

On the heels of such lousy news, Ayden surprised me completely! He announced he went out for Drama Club, and not just set design crew -  a real part! wow! Auditioned and everything, which included singing dancing and reciting lines. He was very proud of himself, and I was over the moon that he gave it a shot! He would have to wait out the weekend before learning, that alas he will not be the star of the stage for this upcoming production. He was so let down, but I rallied him! Hey, not everyone has it in them to even Go for it! That took way more courage then you know. That made him feel a tad better. Just a tad. 

But what really, really cheered him up? Going and picking out with his very careful eye, the most perfect gift for the most perfect lady. His crush of all crushes, "the little girl who makes hearts appear in the air like when Charlie Brown looks at the redhead girl, mom!" Crush. A beautiful silver pendant with her initial set in crystals, which Ayden also noted is the same letter for his name too :)  He came up with this all on his own! He also advised me that he would need to put some Hershey kisses in the gift bag too! I added a few rolo's for good measure. They are only 11 - I have to think what I would think if a boy wanted to give our daughters kisses. Chocolate or otherwise hahahaha <3 He came home yesterday to tell me, She jumped up and down and all her friends were like "awwwwwwwwwwwwww! that's so sweeeet!".

The grin, covering his whole face, from his crinkly eyes to the huge dimples in his cheeks said it all. And as if that wasn't enough, he shoots a phone number from his pocket for a buddy that wants him to come spend the night and play Lego Marvel for 360. So, mr.anti social is now making plans and taking numbers. Business as usual in 6th grade. All of which is subject to change next week. That's just how it goes.

THAT MOMENT WHEN.....

You get to see the look on the faces of 2 kids when you walk them in to the office so they can share a joke. The one where you are holding the door closed on a kid so he can't get in. Hahahhaaa, look at him try pulling and pulling, and a few fist pounds to the door too, atta boy!  I was driving by, just not in the loop. I was coming from the back lot and so it took a moment to turn around and park - I grabbed for the door and the nice little lads opened it for me!

"Oh! So it works!?!" I proclaimed.
- "huhhhh? yeh" 
"It's not stuck or locked?" I quiz.
-crickets
"So you were holding it closed? Why?"
"uhh..ohhh...it was just a joke....."
"Oh! Good, here lets go let the office know about your door jokes! Come on guys, they'll love it!"

Long story short, they let the office in on their joke. I let the office in on the fact the kids did NOT happen to know I was driving by, and I also added that generally in a joke - everybody laughs. "Did Ayden look like he thought it was funny? Are you guys such good buds that you joke around like that? Was he laughing? No No and No? Welp! That's not a joke then...got me."


As I left the office, one of the kids followed me and apologized - I genuinely thanked him and told him "I am a mom and let me assure you - if that was you on the other side of that door, I would have stopped my car for you too. Not sure if that matters to him but he even held the door for me again :) And away I went. Ehron dangling from me like jewelry. Off to pay my water bill and get home for the other kids. We have a band concert tonight! I have things To Doooo.  Ayden, blissfully unaware was staying after for a Drama club meeting. I have told him always, (all of my children) I have your back buddy even when you can't see me. Especially when you can't see me. Today that promise rings loud and clear.

And you better believe I do NOT think those kids are Jerks, or Baaaad....I get it. Don't assume for one moment that the reason I stopped was because I am a Helicopter Mom, unwilling to let Ayden or any of my children out in the big bad world! Ohhhh, quite the very opposite in fact. Ayden would never do that kinda crap, but when I was his age? I might have. And probably did. Ok, Did. Not too many people stopped me from doing whatever I wanted, or caught me telling "Jokes" and I often did not care if they did. 

30 years later nobody will ever judge me harder than I do myself. However, I have a whole lot of peace with that part of me these days. No matter the things I have done wrong, something I have done Right is right there in the actions of my children. My kids have hearts of gold. They are someone that would come up next to you if another child was being mean. They would eat lunch with you if you were sitting alone. I have never, of ALL the times I have been called to office, had to come address fighting or bad behavior.  Despite me, I have done that right. My kids are already so much better than I was at that age, I can't hardly wait to see how else they will amaze me.

Rotten to the Core.

That CORE learning plan is. Interesting developments Nationwide as the true grip of this ridiculous money train, because that is essentially what it is, becomes apparent. And it's not just in the test scores that administrators poo pooo even the very brightest learners with an official wave off and a " don't worry over your children's seemingly lower scores, that's the adjustment period, it will get better". No, it's even more evident at the homework tables across America. where parents are engaged in evening classes that they neither enrolled for or would have chosen to do at dinner hour every night.....and I know I am not the only one.

I agree with the campaign today to keep your children home if you disagree with the CORE and would like it and all of it's shackles removed from the arms and legs of our teachers and children.  I disagree with naysayers of the movement who tried to point out the hypocrisy of the children missing a day of "instruction" or participating in something adults need to work out. Uhh, I guess the irony fails them that our children and schools are all paying the price of adults who flipped the classroom around to make money or the fact that you can sit in school all day and not learn a damn thing as long as a certain percentage pass that standard test in April....which is our point. And furthermore, if I am going to have to teach my children at home every night just to keep up with those tests, then you better believe I can do it during the day, on our time, and take out of the coffers the federal funding this district receives every time they report my child as attending.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53586365/ns/local_news-rochester_ny/t/common-core-opponents-keep-children-out-school-monday/#.UopnTHn9zng

See I take the message of the movement and reflect on the fact that at the end of the day, I can decide whether or not the CORE affects us.  See, I know that change or no change from the State Ed. Dept., I can take back control on my own. Any Parent can, and many do. Home Schooling and Schools with out walls or nontraditional classrooms for educating our children have proven their own success, and Pre-date the school houses of today by centuries in some cultures. Un Schooling your children, simply put is to not educate them the way the new Federal Institution of Learning would have done. Beating our kids into monosyllabic robot carbon copies of each other. So their teachers keep their jobs, so the school keep & gets more dollar$ and All to make them the best students in the World! Better than China says their test results are....

Well you know what? I could care less what a country that manipulates it's own currency, government, and people says. A country that decides how many children you can have and which color jumpsuit and factory those kids will work in is not who Team Reid is competing with. I find it fascinating that the supporters of "competing with the world" argument for the Common CORE forget that all the WORLD continues to send their youth here on Student Visa's to get their degrees from our shitty schools...go figure.

Secondly and more importantly, Making My Child the BEST? Let me set you straight, and let you know THAT is not your job - I don't recall you creating nor birthing these children, so you need not fret over their position in the World. Unless you plan to fund their journey....Thought so.

Point. Let Parents worry over their kids futures and Worldliness, Let Teachers worry about Teaching, and State and Federal legislators....go back to what ever it is you say you do that you are in effect, not doing or voting on not doing. Because we surely are not coming in your office and redesigning it for you based on our standards...resulting in your own dismissal :)



But this kid makes a great point too! 4:00 in is my favorite part!

http://youngcons.com/legit-tennessee-high-school-senior-decimates-common-core/

Ayden the True Mommy Maker.....

Many Moons Ago I was not a mom. nor was I expecting.  But I had long dreamed what that day would be like, from the test to the delivery and beyond.  I had fancies in my head & ambitions to do everything better for mine than could be done for me.

July 2001 I held that stick shaking in fear and excitement replaced with an odd calm as my destiny was sealed with a tell tale  | |   (double line)


March 2002 I welcomed, fairly effortlessly I may add, my 8lb5oz bundle of baby boy into my arms - I cried all over his perfect little face - I breathed in his smell, kissed all ten toes and all ten fingers. I nursed him as fast as I could, and while doing so continued my once over of every inch of his bitty self - I believe now this is primal in mothers as I repeated this for the 4 that followed after. PERFECT in every way.



 

March 2003 Happy 1st birthday.....A full year under his belt - and a baby sister in my tummy, I was content to let him explore his universe at his own pace disregarding some of what the "books" say he should do & when.  He crawled, army style.  He walked, at 15 mos. He talked, in a language only we understood. But he knew colors, and all his shapes? He seemed to do things at his own pace, in his own order...you know that expression, marching to the beat of his own drum.





March 2004 The magic number 2.  Where you take stock of milestones and tho I am not a mom who compares, when there is another sibling in the mix, sometimes you see what your mind wouldn't. Differences. Subtle but there. And I could no longer be calmed with, "wait and sees"  At the 2 yr Dr appt I was looking for reassurance, instead we got a referral into Early Intervention and a evaluation for speech services.




March 2005 DISCHARGED!!! No longer in delay, at and above age level. Great News. or was it.  Finally in the company of Speech and Physical Therapists I had answers to some perplexing ?'s that I only talked to my husband about...

 

• why does he line up all of his Thomas Trains rather than play on the track with them....
• speaking of Thomas, I think he obsessed? is that possible? This and Baby Einstein rule his world....
• he refuses to eat anything with a pudding, mashed potato type texture.....
• we can not go to stores and fairs and places with echo type noise where Ayden does not become shut down, making noises or ignoring the entire situation all together.....

I heard for the first time at the last meeting, and I quote, "well, he's pretty typical for a spectrum kiddo". Spectrum? What is that? What do I do? Basically, it meant my son has these funny things he does & a very different way of processing what he sees & hears in his environment. And because he does not score in the 3 areas they test for with more than a 33% delay - there was no formal diagnosis and nothing but my sheer will to help him. So began my journey into the multi faceted realm of Spectrum Disorders in the Rainbow that is Autism.  They say if you have met one child with Autism, then you have met 1 child with Autism. The Puzzle piece is symbolic of how uniquely different Each & Every child is that lives with ASD. And Equally different are our experiences as their parents. From the diets, to the playing, the therapies and teachers, doctors, friends, family, and strangers. Not to mention the socializing, ostracizing, reading, researching, advocating & overwhelming world of ASD (nos)

 

But I know what is the same for those of us here in this colorful world.  There comes a moment, a very hard moment.  You Give back to the Universe the dream You invented, the Expectations you attached to this little miracle long before you held them, you make way to learn, for real what it means to be a parent. To see through new eyes who your child can become. Some parents embrace parenthood as their job to teach their children, meanwhile I live in the Blessing of being taught at every bend How to be a Mom.  Some kids make it easy and Ayden makes me work for it, THAT is the only difference and 1 that I can live with.

Preschool, Kindergarten, and all of elementary school came and went. With many tears, hugs, struggles, laughs, meetings and meetings and meetings for the meetings. Because of how "capable" Ayden is, he had no formal diagnosis for many years, The true way a child can slip between the cracks of the education system. And I have no doubt countless children who do not have me for a mom have. When there is not enough of a delay in the several areas that are measured then unfortunately your child is hanging in an abyss with no rope or tether. I was once told in a conference that even diabetes is a disability and would allow for accommodations and services not otherwise provided. Meaning? Get Anything and we can help, get nothing and welllllll.  Meeting after meeting I have had. I have explained in every way I can that the issues at school are Nothing like the ones at home, different environments altogether. I have come up with action plans only to have those that need to follow through abandon them after 5 or 6 times...because it didn't FIX him. I have felt the defeat of sitting in a meeting in April of a school year to hear the administrators be perplexed that despite what they are trying, Ayden still struggles. And All I can do is sit there and shake my head, biting my tongue wondering why it's Ayden's job to Be better? Do better? Do more? He is the child. We are the adults and you are the experts.

 

At the end of 4th grade, another year of juggling teachers, and finally after talking in depth with his pediatrician and sharing the notes from meetings and report cards, Ayden and I were able to get the much needed referral into Kirch Development Center at Strong. No matter what they said, I was ready to stand behind either decision - but in my heart I was hoping an afternoon visit would be enough time for the evaluator to "see" my little buddy for the Amazing kid he is. I was not disappointed. They asked Collin and I to step out and let them have some 1:1, and when we came back to discuss, the Dr let us know she had noticed :) some things. There was the telltale traits. The disjointed speech. Talking about things out of sequence with the conversation, repeating and hyper focus of topics he is a master of (Star Wars and Lego of course), stimming, seen as waving his hands and pacing back and forth. Able to solve in seconds the puzzles and brain teaser like tests, but unable to follow certain language patterns or cues. His IQ scores were above level, no surprise. His social scores in comparison have him tracking a year or more behind his peers...no surprise there either. All of this coming down to 6 letters. PDD NOS. Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.



Meaning? Meaning in a nutshell he has these traits that are persistent in nature (since crawling age at least) and consistent with Autism Spectrum yet do not prevent him from functioning. And more importantly! it meant a chance for this glorious 504 plan we had heard of, this way of taking ALL of Ayden into consideration and making some tweeks to his day to help him better mesh with the chaos of school.






That was in the fall of 2012 - The day before his first day of 5th grade. Did it help? Well, by the end of the school year we had his 2 teachers unable to get their mind around why he still was doing certain things despite the 504. And all I could do was shake my head. BECAUSE IT'S PERVASIVE> but they want the 504 to Fix him, make him pass the State Tests, and get him ready for the vigor of Middle School. They actually spent so much time freaking him out about the State Tests and  how much harder middle school would be compared to what they wanted that his hair fell out. Stress induced alopecia. A patch in the center of his eyebrow and a dime size circle on the back of his head.

Year one with the diagnosis and 504 - are we any better? nope. Are we any worse? nope. I still feel the same sense of:  thousands of dollars in degrees between the lot of  them and somehow it is proven over and over how little they know about how to address this in their classroom, and even worse are no longer permitted or empowered to make those decisions case by case student by student. Nope, you must have an IEP or 504 to alter the "program" as seen fit by Albany & the Dept of Education. And even that only helps so much. Hard to fathom how a pandemic that affects 1 in 85 of your boys somehow is not getting the recognition or research it needs and nor are the very educators that will be with your kids, when all tallied up for way more hours a day in their 12 years of school than YOU will see them.

 

And so we go along, this is my story. It is still being written. Literally.  Even today as a matter of fact, I am fighting all my demons getting ready for Conference Day. The same old dreads are creeping in. I can see the forced smiles, the platitudes, the tell me one nice thing for every bad thing mantra...They were all notified by me at the start of the year to the PDD NOS. They all have their copies of the 504. They will all look at me and say, well we don't understand why this far into the school routine he still........ or he does real well but when it's time for a test he.......... or basically any version of that conversation where my only answer is "still? Still has Autism? yeah. I know.

I am so very passionate about this subject & the children who could be left behind in No Child Left Behind.  On my best days I want to change the world on this topic, On my worst days I am overwhelmed and frazzled. But I am NEVER defeated, as every morning I watch my son gather himself for another day in that landmine of triggers called school with a smile as big as his face, ready to "try again"...so Shall I.

I believe in Power in Numbers, share what you know, ask what you don't, & just be comforted knowing you do not trek this road alone. And above all else, laugh.