IEP/504 Meetings of Days Gone By

What’s the opposite of nostalgia? I’m pretty sure I experienced it yesterday when I came across some 10-year-old old paperwork pertaining to school evaluations for my son. My brilliant, sweet boy, who was ten years old at the time.

I have embarked on a project to purge and organized the piles of paperwork that have been accumulating around my house for, oh, ten years. It’s slow going because I keep stopping to read things. For instance a file full of print-outs I made of email communications with school personnel.

For context, my son, M, has auditory processing difficulties. His brain doesn’t filter sounds very well. We started the evaluation process thinking he would have an IEP (individualized education plan), but he didn’t actually need changes in the curriculum, only changes to ensure him equal access to the curriculum. So we ended up with what’s called a 504 plan under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I had almost managed to forget the constant vigilance and stress involved in having a child in school under these circumstances. Many teachers and school staff were wonderful and amazing. But many others were not. I experienced a fair amount of lip service, some head patting, some gaslighting, and whole lot of hoop jumping on my part. I’m glad that experience is behind me.

The following is one of the emails I re-discovered, and typical of the kinds of things I found myself writing a lot in those days.

Hi Ms. K & Ms. L,

As always, thanks for all of your time and effort on behalf of M. I want to address two things:

1. Regarding the parent input statement I wrote to be included with all evaluation reports: I will make multiple copies for each of you so it can be attached to every printed copy of the report, rather than only in a computer somewhere. ( I understand the school district’s budget is extremely tight, but it is a part of the report that should be available with every copy. I will supply the paper and ink for that to happen. (I had been told that, of course I could supply a parent input statement to be added to teacher observations and everything else in the reports. But when I showed up for the first meeting, the statement I had emailed was not included and everyone seemed to think it was eccentric of me to believe it would be added to the actual report, which was already using so much paper. I was assured the email had been saved and that my painstakingly created contribution was “in the computer.”)

2. I am also attaching here a copy of more observations I have made including my classroom observations from last May. I sent these once, but was told they couldn’t be included in the report at that time because they happened after the date of the evaluation meeting. I’m sorry I did not bring this to yesterday’s meeting, but did not realize they could now be included until I read through the report and saw mention of staff observations that had occurred from the same time period. Now that I know the door is open again, I’m sending them. (If this isn’t obvious, someone lied to me about why they *couldn’t* put my classroom observations into the report. And I caught them in the lie.) This document should also be attached to all copies of M’s evaluation reports. In addition to attaching it here, I will supply multiple paper copies as a donation to keep district expenses low.

Best regards,

If any parents currently going through the process happen to read this, please know you are not alone. You are allowed to have your voice heard. Don’t let them gaslight you or shut you up. Keep speaking the truth for your child. You will find advocates and allies within the system, though it can sometimes take a little while to figure out who they are. Work on building relationships with those folks. My son’s grade school speech therapist and his junior high counselor, in particular, were real angels who had his back.

That said, I look back on this and wonder about families who don’t have the resources I did. We’ve never been wealthy, but I could at least afford paper and toner. And this was before I started my sandwich generation gig, so I could carve out the time. How many kids fall into the cracks because their parents don’t have the resources or time or knowledge to stay on top of things?

I’m happy to say my son made it through and is now a brilliant, sweet 20-year-old who does what he can to make the world a better place. He made it through with his kindness and compassion intact, which is what I most wanted for him.

On My Birthday

I’m 55 years old today, and am starting to understand how my mom felt one time when I told her she was 89. She said, “I never imagined I was that old!”

I have been saving a few dollars back here and there for about three years so I could recapture my youth. Here it is. Here’s my youth recaptured.

Not the old van. The shiny new bike. I used to bicycle a lot, 25 years ago, before I had kids. And a little since then. But I’ve never really had a decent new bicycle that fit me, since I was five years old and my oldest sister gave me one for Christmas. In my adult life, I’ve mostly ridden used bikes that were slightly too large.

Can I say that going from a 23-year-old bike to a new one is amazing. It’s an entirely different experience. No longer do I have to do special exercise for thumb strength in order to shift gears. Just click and they shift. And a bike that fits me! It’s so comfortable. This is a whole new world for me, peeps. My first good new bicycle in fifty years!

Maybe I’ll buy another new one when I turn 105.

Putting Sleep on the To-Do List

A nap is more important than sorting through that paperwork.

Pro tip — if you oversleep on a day you had planned to tackle your extensive to-do list, rather than despairing over crossing off fewer items, simply add one. Put “GET MORE SLEEP” right there at the top. Hey, you’ve already started before you even woke up!

I’m not really kidding. The older I get, the more I see the value of adequate sleep. I come from a family that sleeps little, so this is a newish mindset for me.

I used to be an “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” type of person. But that’s ridiculous. An objective evaluation of my life when I’ve had a good sleep versus when I’m running low shows me that the quality of my existence improves when I’m rested. I’m less cranky and more productive. I get fewer colds and other minor illnesses as well.

I have intermittent insomnia, and sometimes have to “work at” getting sleep. I have a variety of tricks. So I’m trying to stop kicking myself when I get a late start on weekend chores because I stayed in bed longer than intended. Instead, I tell myself I’ve met an important health goal.

The Unwanted Adventures of Motherhood

I had a lot of tasks to catch up on this week before I could find time to write this. It’s a narrative of my unexpected adventure last week. Spoiler: we’re all okay now.

It’s late Monday afternoon and I’m working my noon to 9 p.m. shift at the library. I’m on a project hour, away from view of the public services desks, so I’m able to glance at my cell phone when it buzzes. My 23-year-old, who lives ~240 miles away, has been battling a virus, but felt he was over it enough to go to work. He’s messaging me for advice.

He has chest pains. Bad chest pains. Trouble breathing. Do I think he should leave work and go to the ER?

YES! Child of mine, go to the ER. Now. Continue reading “The Unwanted Adventures of Motherhood” →

Grown Siblings, Mothering Them by Text

For the past hour, I’ve been having two simultaneous, but extremely different text conversations with my two kids. I worried I would accidentally send a comment or emoji to the wrong one, as I alternated answering one and then the other.

Kid number 1, who lives a few hours away, has spent the morning at urgent care and is feeling terrible, plus worried about not being able to go to work tomorrow. Kid number 2, who still lives with me, just finished participating in a game jam* with a local game developers’ club. He’s flying high with exhilaration over what his group accomplished this weekend.

It’s one of those situations where I want to be present for both, and I guess the technology makes that possible. But I’m dizzy from the back and forth.

“My whole body aches.”

😦 I hope the medicine helps soon.

“Here are the coolest features of the game we created this weekend.”

🙂 That’s amazing. So cool!

Back and forth, back and forth — celebrate, commiserate, celebrate, commiserate. Never letting on to either that I’m having a conversation with their sibling, or what it’s about. Why remind the sick one of other people having fun? And why deflate the happy one by bringing up worries about the sibling?

And if this doesn’t epitomize being the mother of more than one child, I don’t know what does.

*Participants break into teams and have a weekend to create a computer game on a given theme.

I’m Not a Package Thief! Let Me Explain

equipment pavement security security camera — Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com

In the past few months, I’ve seen a fair few security footage videos on social media, showing people stealing boxes from front porches. “Help us identify this thief” is a common caption. I keep wondering, don’t these front porch parcel bandits realize how likely they are to end up on camera, and then all over the internet, their crimes broadcast to the world?

This was all going through my mind the other day as I removed two boxes from someone’s porch and carried them across a busy street in broad daylight, taking them to my own house, with the full intention of keeping them. Did someone record me doing this? Is my image even now being impugned on the Facebook pages of strangers? See the dastardly woman making away with her neighbors’ goods!

Rest assured, I am not a package thief. I am merely a player in a small coincidence of the cosmos.

I’ve been keeping an eye on my neighbors’ house while they’ve been out of the country. On the day in question, when I went over to do my rounds and make sure everything was in order, I spotted two packages on their front porch. I thought it was a little odd that they’d order any goods delivered when they were halfway around the world, but figured I’d better take the boxes inside the house so they didn’t get stolen or weather damaged.

One was large and I hoped it wasn’t too heavy. I was relieved to see the words ‘furnace filters” printed on the cardboard. Coincidentally enough, I had just ordered furnace filters from the same company. How about that?

When I took a closer look, I saw the coincidence was of a different nature. Those boxes were mine, both of them. They were addressed to me — my name and my home address. But they’d been delivered to the wrong house. Where I happened to find them anyway, because I was keeping an eye on the place for my neighbors. What are the odds?

And what are the odds someone saw me take them and recorded the whole thing? That’s what I keep wondering. If you see a video posted of a middle-aged, curly-haired woman swiping two unwieldy boxes from someone’s porch and carrying them away, please let me know. I can explain the whole thing.

What if We Used to Be the Same Person?

person sky silhouette night — Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

What if we used to be the same person? Or will be the same person in the future? Or both? Were and will be.

Lost yet? Let me give you a glimpse of the kinds of thoughts that can take over my brain in the middle of the night.

Several years ago, I read A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It’s a popular science book. One thing he said stuck with me and I think about it often, sometimes even in broad daylight. Since matter is never destroyed, only transformed, that means all of the atoms that make up our bodies used to be other things. Or people. It’s possible that some atoms in my body right now used to be part of Shakespeare. And we know we’re all made of stardust, right? Which is amazing. Here’s an article explaining what I’m saying. Continue reading “What if We Used to Be the Same Person?” →

Thankful for Quiet Holidays

This Thanksgiving marks my first major holiday as a mom spent apart from one of my children. My firstborn won’t be home to visit until the end of next week. It’ll be just me, my husband and the six-foot-tall kid who lives with us.

We could have gone somewhere, but chose not to. We could have invited people, but didn’t. I haven’t dusted, or anything similar. Honestly, I’m looking forward to a quiet day.

I had so many years of busyness, of overwhelming to do lists, of making the holidays into something. As much as I enjoyed a lot about those times, I got worn out. I’m depleted. I find myself now just wanting to rest from more than two decades of being on.

I have a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner planned. Homemade minestrone. Rolls. Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. Steamed asparagus. Cranberry Sauce. Pumpkin pie. We’ll probably play a board game. Maybe take a walk, weather permitting. We’ll say what we’re thankful for.

This year, I’m thankful for the prospect of a quiet, low-stress holiday.

Looks peaceful, doesn’t it? Just like my vision for Thanksgiving.

Vote!

I like to offer my opinion, but had to learn as I grew up that there are appropriate and inappropriate occasions for that. The most appropriate time and place ever is the voting booth on election day. I couldn’t wait to turn 18 and go express myself on a ballot.

In all of the intervening years (there have been a lot) I’ve only ever missed voting in one election. There was a single city bond issue at stake and I had a stomach virus. I still regret how the world was deprived of my input.

I have a plan tomorrow. It involves dragging a 20-year-old along. He was diligently researching and filling out his sample ballot yesterday. He’s a responsible, informed, caring person, and would vote even if I didn’t make him. But I want to do it as a mother-son activity, so I’m making him accompany me early, before I go to work.

What’s your plan for voting? Or have you cast your ballot already? If you don’t yet know where to show up or what to bring, check that here. Your voice matters. If you can at all, show up and vote.

When a Small Change Makes a Big Difference

pedestrian crossing

Sometimes a small change makes a big difference. The pedestrian/bicycle crossing light pictured above has improved my quality of life tremendously. And I am far from alone.

Since I no longer have to drive anyone to school before or after work, I commute to my job on foot almost every day. As a result, I cross this intersection several times a week. Though a crosswalk was painted years ago, drivers mostly ignored the “yield to pedestrian” rule. I often found myself standing there in all sorts of weather, waiting as eight or a dozen or thirty cars went by before I got an opportunity to cross. This could leave me cross if the temperature was above 90 or below 20.

But now I merely push a button to set the lights flashing, and the drivers stop right away. Usually. I’m in a better mood when I get where I’m going, and I feel a lot safer. I always assumed I’d die in that intersection some day, but this traffic improvement has given natural causes their chance to take me out.

Not only did the city put in a light, they turned the cross street into a bicycle boulevard. Cars are still allowed on it, but auto traffic is reduced by new islands disallowing anything but a right turn. It no longer fuctions as a thru street. This helps my husband, who commutes by bicycle every single day.

I live in a health conscious, environmentally conscious community. Many of us bike or walk when possible, instead of driving. But on this stretch of busy road, pedestrians (yours truly included) tended to watch for any opening in traffic to run across at whatever random place, because the distance between traffic signals was so great. Since the installation of the crossing light, I never jaywalk, and I see very little of it from others. This is safer for drivers, as well. It’s a win-win-win-win-win situation.

Many city residents lobbied repeatedly and for a long time to get this installed. And now we have it. It might seem like a small thing, but it’s making a big difference.

In the troubled world of today, the huge problems can seem overwhelming. I know I can get paralyzed, feeling no difference can be made. I would encourage everyone to take what steps you can, wherever you are. We’re never going to solve all of the world’s problems, but we can make a dent. Look around and see what at hand needs improvement. Lobby to get a pedestrian crossing, if that’s what you can accomplish. It might make more difference than your realize.