September 10, 2015 by Jolene

Bittersweet good-byes

This has been a week of good-byes to beloved therapists. Lina turns three on Sunday, which means she’ll be receiving all therapies through her preschool starting next week.

I admit to some tears, especially when I said good-bye to our beloved speech therapist, who has seen Lina every week since she was around seven months old. I didn’t get pictures with everyone, but these photos with Miss Lola, her TEIS developmental therapist, illustrate the bond between Lina and the remarkable people who have worked so hard to give her the very best start possible.

I can’t express what it has meant to us to have such a fantastic team of professionals supporting, guiding, challenging and encouraging our girl (and often her mama, too). Lina has made remarkable progress over the summer, and she is in a very good place as she enters preschool. Now we look forward to getting to know a new team of professionals who will continue to challenge, guide and encourage her in a more immersive environment.

This is life: bittersweet good-byes, and on to the next thing. We expect great things.

August 19, 2015 by Jolene

Welcome to Early Childhood

In a season of firsts, we can add another: We attended our first IEP meeting for Lina today.

IEP stands for Individualized Education Program and is the required legal document that has to be in place in order for a student to receive special eduction services through the public school system.

This is our first IEP meeting, because Lina is turning three in less than a month. On that day, her therapies and other services will transition from Tennessee Early Intervention (a division of the department of education for qualifying babies and toddlers) to the local school system.

We met with Lina’s IEP team, which consisted of:

the assistant principal, who oversees the early childhood program for our designated school,
two early childhood teachers (one representing special ed, the other representing regular ed),
physical, occupational and speech therapists,
the school psychologist
and one additional new teacher there to observe.

It was a full room.

The meeting was long and detailed, but it was fantastic. We were so impressed with the warmth and professionalism of every person there. I had typed up a document listing Lina’s areas of strength and goals we wanted to work on, and it was remarkable how in line that was with the assessments and goals the IEP team had prepared. We came away with a signed IEP we are very happy with, listing specific goals and services.

So now we know:

As soon as Lina turns three, she will begin the Early Childhood preschool.
She will attend 8:30-11:30 a.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
A speech therapist will be in the classroom all day two days/week and an occupational therapist will be there the other two days.
In addition, Lina will be pulled out for 30 mins. twice/week for individual or small group speech therapy and the same for occupational therapy.
She will also receive 20 mins. each week of individual or small group physical therapy.
Her class will be around 12 kids (between 10-14); six of those kids are typically developing, and the others will have a range of special needs.
There will be four adults in the classroom all day: one teacher, two assistants and a speech or occupational therapist.
Lina’s teacher is wonderful and has a master’s degree in early childhood special education. She also has worked with the KidTalk research program at Vanderbilt (which Lina has been participating in this summer).
The Early Childhood program for our area is at an elementary school about 20 minutes away. The building is six years old, open, brightly-lit and very clean.

I am so grateful. I get a little teary thinking about the difference this program will make for Lina. I think often of kids with challenges like hers who live in places without access to these kinds of resources, and it about breaks my heart. I know how lucky we are.

And then, there’s this: in less than a month, I won’t be driving Lina all over creation for therapy appointments!

August 17, 2015 by Jolene

Here comes the school bus, beep, beep, beep.

August 14, 2015 by Jolene

Day two

A successful day two drop-off is in the books. He wore his class shirt, brought an apple for the teacher and didn’t even look back to say good-bye. Next week begins the honest-to-goodness, real deal, riding the bus and staying all day. I say bring it – we’re ready!

August 12, 2015 by Jolene

And he’s off…

Today was the day. Corin got up to his alarm and followed his schedule, just like we’ve been practicing, only this time, it was for real.

Monday, he went in for his kindergarten evaluation, and last night at 5:30, he got a recorded call from Miss Davis, letting us know she would be his new teacher.

He listened to the message about 10 times and has radiated excitement ever since. For those of you who know what this summer has been like around here, you’ll know this was good news. Corin has been very apprehensive about the approaching school year. I was pretty sure he’d be fine once school actually started, but his anxiety had me a little worried about how he would navigate the change.

It’s so like him that the summer was high drama, but the actual start of kindergarten was smooth as butter. He dressed himself and ate a little less breakfast than usual while repeating, “I’m ready to go to school. I can’t wait!” He let me take pictures without protest. When we arrived at his classroom, he walked in with almost no hesitation, struck up a conversation with his new teacher (whom he had apparently already chatted up during evaluation), went with her to find his seat, and settled right down to the first project of the day: drawing a picture of himself on his first day of kindergarten. I got a couple of big good-bye hugs, and then he went right back to his work.

What were you worried about, mom? Easy-peasy. I was so proud and relieved, I didn’t shed a single tear. (I might have shed a few as I made his lunch last night, but that’s between me and the peanut butter and banana sandwich.)

He came home from his half-day looking a little tired but reporting a good day. He’s home tomorrow, another half day on Friday, and then Monday begins the full schedule – and his first time riding the bus.

And so my firstborn begins his honest-to-goodness school career. So far, so good.

July 28, 2015 by Jolene

Team Lina T-shirts

I could spend this post telling you about my day yesterday, when I lost one of my Mother’s Day rings at the Target checkout and had to hunt it down, then realized I’d locked my keys in the car on a day I’d forgotten my cell phone at home, then had to try to comfort a five-year-old who fell and cracked his head on the floor while we waited for daddy…

But really, I’d rather tell you about the Team Lina shirts we’re offering to support the Buddy Walk. The design was hand-drawn, and I think they are terribly fun. Wear your shirts to the Buddy Walk, or support Team Lina in style from afar! They come in a full range of kid and adult sizes and are $18/each, with all proceeds going to our Buddy Walk fundraising efforts.

Order your Team Lina shirts today!!

July 17, 2015 by Jolene

Buddy Walk!

Yes, we’re all still sweltering in the summer heat, but good news: you can start planning for the Buddy Walk in October, when it will (hopefully) be delightfully cool and clear!

This year’s Nashville Buddy Walk is October 31, and we’re hoping local friends will join us for the event. It is such a fun time, and we’d love for you to experience the acceptance and joy the event offers. And of course, the Buddy Walk raises funds for the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee, which is a cause very dear to our hearts.

Register to walk or donate here!!

July 10, 2015 by Jolene

Accidental gender studies

I’ve mentioned I’m working on a visual schedule for each of the kids.

You know what makes for an interesting exercise? Doing a Google search for line drawings of morning activities – like waking up, eating breakfast, getting dressed – for a boy, and then doing it again for a girl.

A search for “drawing of boy eating breakfast” turns up exactly that: cute or silly drawings of little boys eating breakfast. A search for “drawing of girl eating breakfast” turns up a few cute pictures of kids and a whole lot of subtly and not-so-subtly sexualized drawings of young girls and women. Don’t even get me started on “drawing of girl getting dressed.”

Let me illustrate.

Here is the top Google result for “drawing of boy eating breakfast:”

Here is the top Google result for “drawing of girl eating breakfast:”

Top result for “wake up boy drawing:” (awkward wording, but for some reason the way I typed it in)

Top result for “wake up girl drawing:”

I could keep going, but you get the picture.

This was particularly interesting on the heels of uproar this week in my own Seventh-day Adventist denomination over a global vote denying division offices the option to ordain women to the ministry. (Women currently serve as pastors with a separate “commissioned” credential that, among other inequalities, excludes them from holding the highest level of church executive offices.) I will refrain from delving into my thoughts on that particular issue but will say this: we still have serious societal problems with how we view and treat girls and women. Hyper-sexualization and marginalization are ages-old practices that are discouragingly tenacious for those of us who believe women deserve a better reality and girls deserve more to aspire to.

Don’t believe there’s a problem? Try a few Google searches of your own.

July 8, 2015 by Jolene

K minus one month

In just over a month, my oldest will head off to his first day of kindergarten. This proves denial is not working, so I’ve decided to embrace looming reality. For this reason, we are currently making a picture schedule for Corin’s school morning routine. This will hopefully take the currently unachievable goal of being ready to leave the house by 8 a.m. and make it a calm and effortless daily reality. Stop laughing. This needs to work.

My dad called this morning as we were shopping for paper and magnets to make this magic picture schedule. He was subjected to a constant stream of asides: “No, Corin, we’re not buying a 1,000 piece puzzle. Because it’s too many pieces for you. Why don’t you choose a 300 piece one? No, you don’t like any of those? Okay. We’ll go without. Please stop whining that you want a puzzle. No, we’re not buying minion flip-flops. Do you have the money for them? No? Neither do I.” (Can someone tell me why they need to carry minion footwear at the Jo-Ann register?) My dad seemed wildly entertained. I was not.

On the plus side, we’ve been checking out lots of early reader books at the library, and Corin is doing great with them. Teaching an almost-kindergartner to read is reminding me how terrible English is at following its own rules. “The silent e at the end makes the vowel say its name, except, you know, when it doesn’t.”

Lina has also fallen in love with books. When she was very little, I worried her short attention span would mean we’d have a hard time reading books, but I guess persistence has paid off. She will gladly bring you a book to read, and she spends hours every day flipping through pages on her own. She can be rough – I’ve taped more pages back together in the past few months than I ever have with Corin – but I figure it’s a small price to pay for a bookworm.

(Full disclosure: Corin had already read the book in this video at least once. The first time through was much slower. Also, the dog’s scratching is super annoying. Sorry.)

June 29, 2015 by Jolene

Ships ahoy, and they’re firing at us, matey!

We’re plugging away at summer over here. Things have settled into a bit more of a routine, as they tend to do. Some weeks are harder than others, but we’re adjusting to the new appointment schedule and are finding space for a little fun, too.

Last week, friends invited us to go sailing on Percy Priest Lake. There wasn’t much wind, but it was a lovely picnic outing all the same.

Yesterday, we went to the early Fourth of July celebration at a church a few minutes away. It was such a fun event, with a community band concert, free Marble Slab ice cream and a pretty impressive professional fireworks display. The weather was surprisingly cool, and my parents were able to join us. Everyone had a great time…except Corin, who firmly believed in his intensely imaginative soul that he was under direct attack by the fireworks and raced to the farthest recesses of the church building as if his life depended on it. I guess we wait a couple years before we try that again.