I belong to an online twins site. One of our forums is entitled :Here in Holland.” It’s a forum for those of us who have children with special needs of any sort. I always perused the forum to see what was going on with my TCO friends who frequent the forum.

As of Tuesday, I am officially a part of that forum. We had Ryan’s official IEP meeting on Tuesday. He’s been getting both speech and what they call special services. The special services he has been receiving is simply a special education teacher coming in 3-4 times a week to help teach him strategies to cope with certain situations that may arise. She also tries to help him stay organized. They have been pulling back the services from the special ed teacher in an effort to see if he can function without her in the classroom. The goal is to arm him with the tools he needs (things like check lists, which he does great with!) and see how he does implementing them on his own. So far so good. If he can function with these tools and no support, he won’t need that support over at the elementary school next year. If we find, in the next couple of months that he needs the services again, they will be put into his IEP in May. Right now, though, he’s been classified as a student with a speech and language impairment. There were several times during the meeting that I wanted to break into tears. Not because anything bad was said, but because they had such praise for Ryan and the progress he’s made since they did his intake eval last Jan. It was so heartwarming to hear all the wonderful things they had to say about him (Zach, too!) and about us. I honestly can not thank any of those people enough for what they have done for him. It has been a difference we’ve seen here at home, too, not just in school.

Our next meeting will be in May, over at the elementary school. That way, his teacher, speech therapist, etc can meet with the incoming people who will take over. I think, at that point, I’m going to ask for those special service to help him in his transition. He is very apprehensive about leaving his teacher and his classmates, all of whom he’s been with since we moved here last January. I’ve been trying to hype up how great 3rd grade will be: they get their own lockers, he’ll make new friends (he’s good at making friends), etc. He’s just such a creature of habit, and thrives on routine, and doesn’t like change that I can see how he’d be a bit scared.

I wanted to share a poem with you all.

Welcome To Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability-
to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience,
to understand it,
to imagine how it would feel.
It’s like this….

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip-
to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans..
The Coliseum.
The Michelangelo David.
The gondolas in Venice.
You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.
It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off
you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says,
“Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.
It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around… and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills…and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy…and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was suppose to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things …
about Holland.

Family, The Family, life, school, the kids | 1 Comment »

Over at Skimbaco lifestyle’s blog, you can register to win an iPod touch! What a sweet Valentine gift for your sweetie (or for you!).

Holidays, Valentine's Day, blogging | No Comments »

I almost missed it! Thanks to Teena in Toronto, though, I was reminded

Today, my blog (in this format, as my own domain) is 3 years old! In total, I’ve been blogging for, I think, about 5 years. Blogging has taken a back seat to school and work lately, but I still really enjoy it! My goal for 2009, in terms of my blog, is to blog more. Probably not every day, but definitely more than I have been lately

So, anyway, happy blogoversary to me!

blogging | No Comments »

1. Please don’t tell me when the weekend is over. I like the weekends! Let me keep living in the weekend, even when it’s not.

2. Can you fast forward through the morning?

3. The color of sand makes me want to go on vacation to Hawaii!

4. I have a craving for sleep.

5. If my life had a pause button, I’d pause it all the time.

6. Eyes are the window to the soul. Cliche, I know. But I think you can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to watching Monk & Psych, tomorrow my plans include work and possible a basketball game with some friends and Sunday, I want to go to church and relax with the family!

memes | 2 Comments »

I am a pack rat. There, I said it. I have things saved that I’ve never used, but refuse to throw out because I’m afraid that as soon as I do, I’ll have a need for it and then won’t have it. I have a huge Rubbermaid bin full of boxes that I have saved from presents over the years (the kind of boxes you wrap clothes in, mostly). I have another slightly smaller one with gift bags. I have yet another smaller one full of tissue paper, ribbons, bows, tags, etc. I save them all. I haven’t had to buy a gift bag or box in years! DH rolls his eyes when I start folding up the tissue paper to save, but I haven’t had to buy any of that in years, either!

Alex brought home an art project to do with the family. It was a heart that needed to be decorated. One of my favorite things to do in elementary school was to do tissue paper art. I instantly thought of that when he handed it to me and knew that’s what we’d have to do. What’s more, I knew I had the exact colors of tissue paper needed for the project! See, sometimes it pays to be a pack rat! Here’s the project, in steps:

Holidays, Valentine's Day, fun, school, the kids | 2 Comments »

I had been trying to decide what to get with the birthday money my dad and step-mom sent to me. While I was originally thinking of getting a new sewing machine (I’ve never had a new one), someone came across twitter and said that bestbuy.com had them in stock and to get them while we could. I have been wanting this since before it came out. Either we haven’t been able to find any or we haven’t had the extra hundred bucks when we did. Enter my dad.

So, after thinking about it for awhile (ok, not that long!) I decided to go with the WiiFit. It arrived yesterday!

I am SO glad I chose this over the sewing machine. I know that I would have gotten use out of the sewing machine, too, but honestly? I’d rather have the WiiFit right now! I miss doing Jazzercise (remember my weight loss blog?) and haven’t been able to find anything I’m happy with on the on-demand fitness channels. This, however, is loads of fun! I’ve even unlocked some of locked games already, and I’ve only had it a day!!!

On a side note, it’s very interesting to see how it changes your Mii according to your height/weight specifications. My Mii shrank several inches and porked out. It’s as accurate a portrayal as one could expect from a Mii, I suppose.

If you have WiiFit, how do you like it?

General | No Comments »

It’s that time of year again…the time of year where I start fundraising for the March of Dimes March for Babies. There are 91 days left until my walk on May 3rd and my goal is $500. I think that’s completely doable in 3 months, don’t you?

I am once again the co-chair for the Rochester family teams. I enjoyed it immensely last year and am looking forward to getting more involved this year. I think they want us to do some committee work, too, and I am very excited about that! I’ll definitely be posting more about that as time goes on. Until then, here’s the link to donate, if you’d like to help me support the March of Dimes. You can also read our personal story , or at least the cliff’s notes version, there. At some point between now and May 3rd, I’ll post the full version of our story, something I haven’t done in a very long time (if ever on this blog).

Charities, March Of Dimes, Prematurity Awareness | No Comments »