Too Many Titles!

When you haven't blogged in a week (OK, I know I didn't even make it that long!), you start realizing how many blog posts you mentally write in your head. My favorite part is the titles so I'm just going to list a few of the alternatives you might have gotten if I had more time to write. As it is I'm just going to have to leave most of this to your imagination:

What a Sh!tty Week!
Lawsuits, IEPs and Poo Bunnies!
"Out, D@mn'd Spot! Out, I Say!... ?—Yet who would have thought the old man young girl to have had so much blood in him poo in her?" (paraphrased a bit).

Basically it's been a crazy week and I thought once I got through yesterday that was going to be the worst of it.

Exerpts from Yesterday's schedule:

• Get yelled at by Bear for no reason.


• Christmas shopping on ebay


• Kitty's ARD/IEP meeting - everyone wants her in mainstream classes with inclusion - and since she's "bored" in all her Applied Classes, and so “quiet and hard working” at school that I should put her in there... but she comes home and walks in circles talking to herself in the backyard for hours and has screaming meltdowns over every tiny little thing. We’ve removed all the stress we possibly can at home, just so she can save her energy for dealing with all the stress and drama at school.

I spent 2 hours today fighting to keep her in the special ed classrooms because she appears perfectly normal at school. I tell them she often vomits before school from the stress and calls me from the nurses office almost every day with a headache, stomach ache or some other random illness, but “She’s probably just bored.” “We can’t write accommodations for something that “might” happen.” Why can’t they understand that my kids are doing well in the special classes so they should STAY there. Every time they put them in regular ed, my kids fall apart….

I actually had my Kitty's case manager tell me, “Oh, I talked to the other teachers and we never see her exhibiting the behaviors on the BIP (behavior intervention plan) so we ignore it.” ?!! It’s there for a reason, and I have a note from the school nurse saying she made 16 visits to the nurse in the last 16 weeks – which is pretty much the only behavior mentioned on the plan. Just because it wasn’t happening in this teacher’s classroom (because my daughter knows she wouldn’t tolerate it and it was the last class of the day), doesn’t mean the whole thing should be ignored. Luckily the teacher who's class she leaves the most was in the ARD. But the point was that she was using it for stress relief, not misbehaving, and I couldn't get anyone to see that!

So I let them put inclusion on the schedule for next year, but demanded an end of the year ARD to set the schedule. They're supposed to actually start giving her homework to see how she does (were actually supposed to be doing that this semester, but didn't). If she/we survive next semester then "we'll see" (but probably not!).

• Lawsuit - 2.5 hours, most of which was sitting waiting for our turn. We lost (knew we would), but that's why we didn't bother hiring a lawyer (although we paid for some legal advice). Now it's just a matter of them having to figure out how to get blood out of a stone, but that was the problem to begin with, now they just added lawyer's fees on top of it.


• Ponito's playdate - called me up an hour after school was out to tell me he had a friend over and was that OK? I asked him if he'd done his chores and he lied and said yes, but the friend was already there and I wasn't so there wasn't anything I could do about it then.


• Meeting with Bear's Casemanager - The second I got home, all the older kids were walking in too, and the casemanager pulled in the driveway behind me. The front room was covered in Christmas crud and clutter so I had to bring her further into the house. Bear of course was sullen and didn't want to talk - which since this was supposed to be about how he'd been doing the last 90 days, wasn't very helpful. Of course everything over the last 90 days was in the past so Bear doesn't remember a bit of it, and said "Fine" to every question. So I got to be the witch again and say things like, "Umm... lying is NOT 'Not at All,' remember the big incident at school, involving the police, where you lied to everyone at least twice about what happened and still might go to jail?!" [FORESHADOWING: I remember thinking, "Arrgh! I wish the entry and this whole area were clean!!"]


• Made a really nice dinner - using leftovers from probably too long ago (left over cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving, egg whites from making Christmas cookies - only used the yolks).


• Worked on the curtains I started and promised a friend months ago.

Today's Unschedule:

• Clean up the poo water from the overflowing toilet that Kitty didn't bother to tell me about until it was 3 inches deep in the bathroom and out the door into the hardwood floor entry, hall closet where tons of stuff is stored on the floor (and dumped because Bear uses it as a hiding spot when he "cleans off the stairs"), the bottom step of the stairs (carpeted) and the carpeted front room. Deal with her meltdown (OK, I admit I didn't really deal with this, I just yelled back at her, and told her she had to help and I didn't care that her shoes smelled like poo because she's not the one wringing poo water with her bare hands. She hid in her room for a few minutes then snuck out the front door to catch the bus. My hands and feet still smell like poo and like Lady MacBeth, I've washed them a dozen times in the last hour.) I got up all the water (and poo) and picked up all the trash and dust bunnies (one turned out to be a poo bunny - ewww!) and stuff that was swept up by the flowing water and left a tide mark. I'm going to have to leave everything unsanitized because I'm shaking from all the heavy lifting. (why I'm blogging instead of cleaning!) Kitty can clean it up when she gets home from school.


• Pick up Kitty's prescription I've been working for weeks to get ordered


• Drop by Bear's school to sign the paperwork I didn't have time to sign because I was mopping up.


• Meet someone to give them some attachment books


• Have lunch with Hubby since I'll be in the area


• Was going to go to work, but waaay too much to do


• Finish Cmas shopping


• My therapist cancelled because she's ill. *sigh*


• Cmas party with Hubby and we have to wear "Cowboy Dressy." Hubby has nothing to wear, but doesn't want me to spend even $2 on a thrift store shirt. I chose to get dressed this morning because I wouldn't have time to change, and luckily my shirt managed to stay clean, but had to change jeans.


• Finish curtain project for friend (her little boy has been without curtains for 2 months and it's cold - I feel like pond scum!)

Yikes! It's after 10am and I've got too much to do! I miss you guys!!

Hugs!

Mary