I finally got my s*** together enough to get T registered at the base elementary school yesterday. It only took 3 phone calls to talk to about 5 different people (none of which told me the same thing other than what I'd need to bring to get T registered). They have a preschool program which seems pretty similar to what T's former school offered but they have four classrooms as opposed to one. Hallelujah! From what I saw yesterday, they try to separate the kids by age and abilities, which means with any luck T will be placed with the more mainstreamed group. Of course, they also said they wanted to get him started as soon as possible (as in they would let me hear something hopefully by yesterday afternoon, but definitely by this afternoon), and I STILL haven't heard anything back from them.
At one point yesterday, a person told me they would want to completely re-evaluate T to determine what services he needed. My heart sank to my knees, because the one thing I've learned is that the evaluation process takes much longer than they say it will. I don't want to have to go back to work so the kids can go to a decent preschool, but I sure am thinking about it and I'll do it if I need to. This is just a continually frustrating process. Harrumph. I need to figure out what T's rights are and the services that those rights guarantee - I got the feeling yesterday that with an IEP, we were guaranteed services - so I need to do some research tonight so that when I end up having to call the school in the morning I'm prepared to have a calm, informed, coherent conversation with the preschool program staff.
I dislike this part of it. I always feel like my insisting on anything with T will end up hurting him in the long run. Then again, I can't just sit by and do nothing. Ahh, parental dilemmas. Where would we all be without them?
To completely change the subject, the temperature here today was at least 40. 40!!!!!!! It was almost warm enough for shorts. Just kidding. The kids and I went out this morning to do errands and when we came back it was nice enough that when they asked to play outside, I had no problem with that. T really missed his bike. I have to laugh at S, because while she most certainly CAN pedal a tricycle, she most certainly has no DESIRE to do so. At the preschool program she attended in Germany, she was quite successful in getting others to push her or pedal for her (there were a lot of double bikes there). She got a bit frustrated when I made her pedal herself today, but we are on flat land, so there's no reason she can't propel herself.
Lucky for all of us, she handled the frustration well because (dunh dunh dunh) our neighbor opened her garage door and parked her car in the driveway so she could clean off the concrete in her garage. I did not make eye contact and neither of us spoke to each other. I did, however wisely, keep the kids on our side of the driveway and then I took them to the play ground ASAP. At this point, I view her as a kind of Medusa, making direct eye contact may turn me into stone or mush. I'm not sure which and I don't care to find out. But I take it as a positive sign that she didn't ask me to stop the kids from moving, speaking, or breathing in the few minutes we were in the same immediate space. heh! It's progress, right?
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