Help From My Friends

Hey, you guys! GREAT day for me. hehe. I took a sleeping pill last night, because I was sure that I wouldn't be able to sleep. Jake's ARD was stressing me out, but I was trying not to think about it :)

So, I woke up, got kids to the bus, and got myself and Jim ready. Oh yeah, check out this CUTE picture of Jake and Boxer. hehe.

And remember those flowers I got last weekend? Well, they're still BEAUTIFUL! Crazy, huh? especially since they were already 75% off because they were old... LOVE them, though :)

We headed up to the school at 8:40am, and were shown to the ARD room. And slowly, but surely, all the people who were supposed to be there came. And the 9am meeting didn't start until around 9:30am. Me, and Jake, and the teacher, and the VP, and the head of special ed, and the special ed teacher, and the military liaison, and the school social worker, and the district psycologist. I think that was everyone. Jim was kinda rowdy, but he was relatively good...

And it took them about 30 minutes before they FINALLY let me know that Jake qualified for an ISP because they thought he was Autistic. Thank goodness!

Most of the time, they rely heavily on the teacher evaluation. And Jake's teacher evaluation said he was a "normal" scoring kid. Mine? Yeah, definitely Autistic. BUT, because he's only been in school for 40 days, they took my evaluation with more weight. I've been his "teacher" the past 2 years, and should know more about what's going on.

Anyway, it was GREAT results for us. I was ecstatic. Funny, huh, that I'm SO excited about my kid being Autistic. Yeah, I know, it's not happy about the autism, it's about the help :) And we need help :)

We got the test results, which I don't know how to read... I'm gonna take them to the Autism Support Group on Thursday, and see if they can make heads or tails of it. They did show me this open ended questionnaire that Jake filled out. Some of the responses were cute and some were funny :)


We got done with the meeting at 10 after 11, and I packed up, and headed to take Jim to school. Good thing it's just RIGHT next door. hehe. I walked him into the school and into the lunch room, then headed back home. Amanda texted to see if I wanted to ride to Laurie's b-day lunch with her, and I had JUST enough time to use the restroom, then off we headed to the North East side :)

We had lunch at Great American Land and Cattle Co. Never eaten there before, but I'd heard good things about it from Laurie. It's her favorite.

Kari and I and Amanda and Terra and Laurie were there. It was a nice little lunch party :) Happy b-day, Laurie!!! SO glad that you're my friend!
Check out this lunch! It was SO good! Steak with some kind of cheese, onions and chilis on it, and veggies, and a roll.

Oh yeah, they SO know how to cook a steak :)

Amanda dropped me off at home, and I had about 30 minutes before I had to get Jim off the bus. I checked some emails, then headed out to the bus. I picked up Jim, and he and I headed to Big Lots. Joe's baseball team mom had called and asked me if I'd bring the snacks tonight, so I needed to go and pick something up.

We got granola bars and cheese crackers, and FINALLY found the tablet style DVD players! I was pretty excited. We got a couple, and some headphones, and some cases. and a few other things, then headed home.

But first, I NEEDED a DDP. And the 7-11 on the way home, while more expensive, has DDP. So I totally stopped for a fix, um, er, drink :)

We got back home, and I hurridly got all the kids ready for swimming. And had Tom get his things together for baseball. We brought the neighbor kid, Zach, to the pool too. We got there at 4pm, and swam for about an hour. Tom and Jake had one fight in the pool, but all the rest was good. Margot came, but the water was SO cold and her and her little girl didn't stay long. Captain America called when I first got there, and got to chat for about 20 minutes. I chatted with Kari for the rest of the time, then had Tom change into baseball clothes, and we were off.

We drove off post, and dropped Tom off at George Moore field. And headed back on post, and had Joe get ready for Baseball. Jake wanted to stay home, and I told him that once his room was cleaned, he could go to the neighbors house. And the rest of us headed back to Tom's game. But we dropped Joe off at Kari's house first. Josephine and Joe's teams were playing each other. So Kari volunteered to take him with her. We'd pick him up after Tom's game got over. Sweet :)

Back to Tom's game we went, and I texted and facebooked until my phone died. Then took some pictures of Tom at bat. The coaches said that if I bought Tom a cup, that they'd let him be catcher. sweet :)

Jim and his little friend, Jack Jack

Tom actually hit the ball this time! Did I tell you before that I thought that his strategy was to let the pitchers throw so many balls that he'd be walked? He got on base EVERY time he was up to bad, and never took a swing. hehe.

Well, this game, he got 2 hits! See, Tom, you CAN do it!






At 7pm, when Tom's game was over, we packed up quickly, and headed over to Logan fields where Joe was. Jim played on the playground with Josephine, and Kari and I hung out. Joe was doing SO well! He hit a run that got him to 3rd, and got to play 1st base, too. He did REALLY well. Good job, Joe!

I tried to get a picture of Joe batting, but by the time the camera went off, he was in mid run. But you know what? I think this is the COOLEST photo ever! A happy accident, right?



At 7:30pm, Joe's game was over, and we all loaded up, and started to head home. And I decided to swing by Little Cesears and grab a few pizzas. But then realized that Big 5 sports was RIGHT down the street from there. I could look for the cup for Tom! And a left handed person's catchers mitt!

Yeah, we ended up getting a TON of baseball gear. Tom paid me 1/2 of his babysitting money for the month to help out with it. And I had some kids school/activities funds to pay for it too. We ended up getting Tom a glove, both Tom and Joe batting gloves, baseball bags for all their gear, new pants and a belt for Tom. They were SO happy with it.

After paying for the gear, I decided to forgo the Little Cesears pizzas. WE could just have sandwiches. hehe. We headed home, and I accidentally took the long way. Sigh. It was gonna be a late night...

We got home around 9pm. I put the little ones to bed, and had Jake do his living room chore. Because it was SO messy. Somehow, the other rooms weren't that bad. Maybe because no one was home all day long. hehe.

I sat down to watch a few episodes of In Plain Sight and blog, and kept getting distracted by Facebook. Funny how that happens. Then, after my friends stop Facebooking with me, I got distracted by In Plain Sight. That show is growing on me. It was good filler background activity before, but I'm really liking it now. I spend more time watching the show than I do blogging. hehe. Not a good thing.


So, it's now 11:46pm. And I'm sleepy. I really didn't get much of a rest at all today. It was run run run go go go all day long. Tomorrow, I'm meeting with the retreat girls on the West side for lunch. And had library. And I think those are my only 2 appointments. Wednesday is a luncheon at Terra's house, and a ballgame for Tom, and Kari and I are going to a El Paso Diablos game after Tom's game. Thursday, I have the Austim Support group meeting in the morning, an ACS class about behaviors in the afternoon, 2 ball games in the evening. Dang, the week is ALL ready filled, huh?


Oh yeah, I found out that Jake has been playing violent, rated M games at the Youth Center. Um, what? I didn't know that. I just figured, since it was a youth center, and that rated M games are for grown ups, that such things wouldn't be allowed. I need to go and pay a visit to the youth center tomorrow and get things straightened out. The districts psychologist today said that while most regular kids can differentiate between video games and reality, Autistic kids seem to get lost in it all, and have a hard time separating what's real and what's not. He said to definitely limit the time spent playing games, and no overly violent games.

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

OK, NOW it's working... sorry about all the confusion :) I should blog while under the influence of OTC drugs...

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Sharon, my dear, this is one of my MOST favorite layouts of yours yet!!!