Pushing up Rosies

Do horses take Zoloft? I have heard (get it?...heard...as in herd...) of a supplement called calm discovery. How about just discovering a calm horse instead?!
Rosie the horse went home and the search begins again.

Horse or Hoarse

A horse is a horse of course of course
and no one can talk to a horse of course
that is of course unless the horse is
is owned by miss EH

Go right to the source and tell E her horse
can't talk of course and she'll recourse
that her horse talks til it's hoarse
the un-famous Ms. Rose

Handbasket Mania

Well the proverbial ride in the handbasket was surprisingly short. I arrived at the IEP meeting and was met with a very apologetic look on the face of the school psych.....dead giveaway I'm afraid. She stopped short of the "I'm sorry" and began reading the report at a rate of 963 words per minute. This was to assure that I was totally thrown and somehow fall under the impression in my confused state of deciphering that the school actually looked at E's file and gave a rat's behind. Well hello.....I was born in the dark but it wasn't last night sister! Despite 3 extensive reports from the University Autism Center all unanimously stating the obvious, the school in it's unmatched ability to see through the smokescreen that is designed to fool them into thinking that I am undoubtedly trying to get something for nothing, and my master plan to get them to parent my child so that I could spend the day at the mall....said....."She's fine."
Oh her 43% absence rate and her difficulty with math beyond a 4th grade level were all me. Her lack of eye contact...me
struggle with visual distractions...me
not asking for help when she needs it...all me
You get the picture.
So I guess the moral of the story is this.....don't spend thousands of dollars, thousands of hours reasearching, thousands of miles driving, and thousands of hours on the phone with Dr's and specialists, because after all that you are still going to miss the Nordy's Half-Yearly! Dang!

Tomorrow's IEP Meeting ....or Welcome to Hell, Here is Your Handbasket

I am sitting here at my laptop surrounded by papers and checklists describing the best way to write an IEP. You see, tomorrow is my big meeting with the school district. And after all the "whining" I have done, and the fact that the middle school has gone out of their way
to ask one person in the Special Services department
to peek from a minimum distance of 100 yards at E
while she was eating lunch
to make the unanimous decision that "she is doing very well"
regardless of her GPA of 1.0...
I better WOW them with my parental wisdom!
As I was on page 4 of an 8 page checklist, and checking the box "becomes irritated if bumped or touched by peers", I dropped my pencil, slouched down in my chair and said to the dog...."I am about as qualified to do this as you are!"
As if it were the Magic 8 Ball, I went back to Google to ask about writing a brilliant IEP in one step or less. With hope lost I clicked on "The lighter side of the IEP."( Ahhhhhh...I am not alone.)

The Invitation
Your school district, in an ongoing effort to remind you of the incredibly small role moms and dads play in this process, will start by sending you an "Invitation" to attend your child's IEP meeting. Of course, the parents are the only ones on the team who receive such an invitation, as though the district expects that you may politely decline and simply send a gift instead.
The IEP Meeting
When you appear for the meeting, you will again be reminded of the peripheral nature of your participation when you discover that the school has rented a small baseball stadium to accommodate all the members of your child's team. You are the only ones who are not in the employ of the district.
Moreover, all district personnel are seated on full size chairs while you are left to sit on the little plastic children's chairs.
The members of the TEAM will fix their collective glare on you because you had the gall to give birth to this child at all, and look how many people are now inconvenienced.
The IEP
The first order of business is to READ THE IEP. This is a necessary feature of every IEP meeting because school districts are of the firm belief that no parent of a disabled child has ever learned how to read.
This activity serves the added purposes of assuring that parents don't have a chance to speak, and of consuming the full 45 minutes allotted for the meeting. You will then be asked to reschedule at a time that is designed to be as inconvenient for you as possible, such as next year on Christmas.
Well........wish me luck!

Horse and hound

Remember that scene from Knotting Hill? Hugh Grant gets a call from Julia Roberts and she invites him to her hotel. Once he gets there he realizes it is a media circuit for her new movie. They ask him what publication he is with and he pauses and then replies, "Horse and Hound".
That really doesn't have anything to do with what I am writing except the horse and the hound part.
Last week we leased a pasture for the horse. And the week before we filled out the application for the hound. Both are for E for the most part. Companions. We are looking for ways she can focus her energy, soothe her anxiety and keep her off the streets as they say....our streets....or rather our backs. It's a long day when you have to spend the day pretending to be normal. When she gets home she is wound up like a top. When she has no way to release that tension it comes out in some of the stragest ways......
Making very wierd sandwich concoctions for the dog resulting in punishment for both she and the family as well as the dog. She for the mess and waste of food, the dog for the upset stomach he soon suffers from, and the rest of us for the upset stomach that the dog soon suffers from! ARGH!
Calling her brother unbelieveable names.....
stainer of furniture
blue boy
football head
basketball boy
4th grader
among hundreds of others
Clapping....
clapping like she was just told that Hillary Duff was really her big sister
like she was given the freedom to bring home every stray dog from now to infinity
Hence the "our backs" comment.....both she and the family will be so much happier if this "energy" was put to better use.
Let's hope the horse and the hound are both up to the challenge.

If Dr. Seuss's kid needed an IEP

I do not like these IEPs
I do not like them, Jeeze Louise!
You test, you check, we plan, we meet,
But nothing ever seems complete.

Would you, could you like the form?
I would not could not like the form.

I do not like the form I see,
Not page 1, not 2 not 3
another change, a brand new box,
I think we all have lost our blocks.

Could we all meet here or there?
We could not all fit any where.
Not in a room, not in a hall,
there seems to be no space at all.

Could you, would you meet again?
I could not would not be there then.
I cannot meet again next week.
No Lunch, no brunch,
Please hear me speak.

No, not at dusk. No, not at dawn.
At 4 P.M., I will be gone.
Could you would you all speak out?
Could you write the words they spout?
I could not hear, I would not write,
This would not should not be a fight.

Sign here, date there, mark this, check that,
Beware the students ad-vo-cat(e)
You do not like them, so you say
Try again
And you may

Would you could you let me be,
I will try again, you see
Say! I almost like these IEPs
I think I'll write 6,003
And I will write them day and night
until they say
You got it right