Where have you been?

On Blogger that is...A great many people have wondered if I gave up blogging for good.  However, it's really just a case of life gone wild and I simply had to hang it up for the last 5 months or so.  My last post on "Autism Insanity and Donuts" was in February 2012.  My how time flies!  Unfortunately, some circumstances in our home and life required me to retire that blog and restrict it to only my own personal viewing.  However, I am back and have a new gig now...I think the title is fitting, and lover of musicals that I am, "It's a hard knock life for us" was always one of my favorites from "Annie"...not that I have ever seen the theater production....I haven't, but someday when it comes around again and my daughter is old enough, I sure will.  I always loved little red headed and misunderstood Annie, and so, since I have a misunderstood red head of my own, whom much of my blogging is devoted too...and most would agree we've gotten a PhD from the "School of Hard Knocks"...a hard knock life it is!

I will not go into any detail as I have been cautioned by legal counsel not to blog about the subject, or to blog with care if I do, I will simply state if you were unaware that we no longer have our beloved service dog that had been placed in our home with our son.  I have chosen not to use my kids real names on this blog for a few reasons.  My son has chosen to be called "Buddy" for his online name.  Our daughter has come up with a variety of net nicknames...today it's "Sophie"...who knows what it will be tomorrow.  Because public blogs are so searchable, I will not be using my children's real names in this blog.  I won't even type the dogs name because I know that would cause it to show up on search engines and there are people out there that I don't even want reading my new blog.  We are doing our best to let lawyers do what they do best and move on with our lives.  If you have not heard the story and wish to, please contact me privately and I'll tell you what I can when I have a moment.  If you were a donor to our cause, we thank you immensely for your support and when our attorney gives us the green light, you will be contacted about our status and intentions.  We do feel a service dog would benefit our son well, but it's going to be down the road a bit, when he's a bit older and has had time to recover from the behaviors that were impressed upon him by a very stressed out dog that shouldn't have been placed into service to begin with.  "Buddy" talks about it in his own way, and we know he is very traumatized by what happened and still trying to move on.

Now on to happier things!  "Sophie" as she's choosing to be called this week, LOL, is being tested by the school district next week to determine if she should skip Kindergarten and go straight to first grade.  Being a September baby in a state that cuts off birthdays for 5K at 9/1, she just missed the 5K cut off by 2 weeks this past school year.  I could have challenged it then, but had reservations about her maturity for an all day program at the time the decision would need to be made.  By the time September rolled around, I knew that she could have handled 5K just fine, but what was done was done.  I had so much going on in our family and my own school journey that I just enrolled her in 4K at one of the district paid day care sights.  That way I could pay for her to go to daycare for the hours outside of the half day 4 day a week structure of 4K.  In the course of one school year "Sophie" grew leaps and bounds and came out of it reading at a second grade level, surprising all of her teachers because it was not something she even needed to work at.  Reading just comes natural to her.  She is right on target for writing skills, ahead in math, science and social studies work, coming in at 1st to 2nd grade level in all of those from my observations and that of the elementary teachers and principals that have observed her so far.  The formal testing will be with a school psychologist who will test IQ, social skills, maturity and reading and math abilities so we can get the best idea of where she should go.  I just want her placed in the best possible situation right from the start.  She is bright, a leader and strong willed.  I do not want her light to be hidden under a basket of boredom if she is not challenged appropriately.  She also doesn't understand why her same aged (and sometimes older) classmates are not performing at the level she is, and I do not want to keep her the highest performing kid in the class and not challenged.

 I've had all kinds of opinions, both solicited and unsolicited given to me about our choice to test for this.  I've outright been told by others that I should just let it be and not do anything.  My attitude on that is that I've had to do that for practically "Sophie's" whole childhood because of the issues that "Buddy" brings to the family and the emphasis that has always been on his needs.  "Sophie" will be 6 in September and has had many of her needs shoved to the back burner for her whole early childhood experience.  Yet, through that, she is still prevailing at such a high level, this is telling me it is her time to have a little attention on her to determine where the best place for her to be is!  So, as it happens, my son has an IEP meeting on Weds at his school, with a different psychologist, just for an update, and I was able to arrange for the one that is going to be screening "Sophie" to do it at the same time, keeping things simple for me, meet at one building and handle both kids at once!  What a state to be in though, two children on two completely different ends of the spectrum!    I will do whatever it takes to help them both shine as brightly as they can.  I'm at peace that whatever decision we make for our daughter as a result of this testing, it will be the right one.  I'd rather take this extra step and know that we made the best decision for her now, and have her start out with her intended peer group, than to presume that she should just go to Kindergarten and then find she should really skip a grade later on in her elementary years and therefore split up friendships and peer groups and introduce all kinds of trauma!  Stay tuned for the decision in a future post!