So stoked it’s one of my two favorite days of the year! 🎃
Also hopeful I can get some answers from the rheumatologist I’m seeing today after my recent MRI showed some strange joint and nerve stuff. Answers would hopefully mean treatment and feeling better.
So stoked it’s one of my two favorite days of the year! 🎃
Also hopeful I can get some answers from the rheumatologist I’m seeing today after my recent MRI showed some strange joint and nerve stuff. Answers would hopefully mean treatment and feeling better.
Sad. I was SO EXCITED to go to Cost Plus World Market to do some Christmas decoration and housewares shopping, made a tiring trip there after work only to find... they're GONE! No more presence in this state. Wahhhhhhh!!! There are so few stores I like and that was a big one.
Today I feel really grateful for the school our child now attends. They should be able to stay there for all the years until their high school graduation (another six years, unless they finish early).
I think back to what it was like for all of us this time last year. We were getting phone calls several times a week from their public school about something or other that had happened asking us to come in and pick them up. We would have to drop everything and leave work and when we showed up, our kid looked like a shell of themself, not really talking, looking completely spent, looking like someone who had been abused (I am not overstating that to be dramatic). They were being physically restrained regularly and were not getting any help for their difficulties. It was a true low point in our lives and felt like it would never end, only get worse.
While nothing can be "perfect", I cannot believe how great their school is. They can be who they are, learn at their pace, the staff are highly trained professionals, they have freedom, and people understand their challenges. They are respected, not told they are a problem. Even the physical environment was designed for kids with challenges like ASD (classes are very small, 5-6 students, they have pillows so they can sit on the floor if they like, the lights can be dimmed and they can use little, personal, soft lamps at their desks, they can wear headphones, they have breakout nooks in the hall if they need space alone, etc., etc.).
There has been nothing in my life like seeing my kid abused by "professionals" in the name of "fitting into" public school. I worried they would eventually descend into using substances or other forms of self harm, even at age nine. I feel so lucky and also know many other families in public school don't have the same resources and can't save their kids. I think my next step for work after retiring from massage may be working in special education advocacy.
This is long and personal, sorry. I just feel such relief.
Today I feel really grateful for the school our child now attends. They should be able to stay there for all the years until their high school graduation (another six years, unless they finish early).
I think back to what it was like for all of us this time last year. We were getting phone calls several times a week from their public school about something or other that had happened asking us to come in and pick them up. We would have to drop everything and leave work and when we showed up, our kid looked like a shell of themself, not really talking, looking completely spent, looking like someone who had been abused (I am not overstating that to be dramatic). They were being physically restrained regularly and were not getting any help for their difficulties. It was a true low point in our lives and felt like it would never end, only get worse.
While nothing can be "perfect", I cannot believe how great their school is. They can be who they are, learn at their pace, the staff are highly trained professionals, they have freedom, and people understand their challenges. They are respected, not told they are a problem. Even the physical environment was designed for kids with challenges like ASD (classes are very small, 5-6 students, they have pillows so they can sit on the floor if they like, the lights can be dimmed and they can use little, personal, soft lamps at their desks, they can wear headphones, they have breakout nooks in the hall if they need space alone, etc., etc.).
There has been nothing in my life like seeing my kid abused by "professionals" in the name of "fitting into" public school. I worried they would eventually descend into using substances or other forms of self harm, even at age nine. I feel so lucky and also know many other families in public school don't have the same resources and can't save their kids. I think my next step for work after retiring from massage may be working in special education advocacy.
This is long and personal, sorry. I just feel such relief.