Blog Freebie Alphabet M

Morning, girls! Busy day today. SUPER busy :) I can't remember how much I told you guys about Jake's referral on Friday... Or if I even did... Oh well. I'll tell y'all about it today.

I got up at 6:45am, and got the kids all ready for school and and out the door. Tom left at 7am, and I got the kids to the bus at 7:20am. The bus was waiting. It was early. I came back home, and got Jake in the shower, and I got presentable to go up to the school and talk to the administrator.

See, Jake had come home from school on Friday with an out of school suspension. Apparently, when he gets to school off of the bus, he goes to the computer lab, and plays games on the computers. And when the bell ran on Monday past, he wasn't at a good stopping point. Mom's don't get it. Dad's who play video games do, apparently? But to an Apsergers kid to fixates on things, stopping at a bad point is HORRIBLE. Anyway, he was 3 seconds late to class. And he got written up for a tardy.

So he got a detention. Which, ok, he gets a detention. But I didn't get a phone call. The school expected Jake to bring me home the notice. He, being the Aspergers kid that he is, looked at the reasons behind the tardy and the detention, and decided that it was dumb, and not worthy of a detention. So he decided that he wasn't going to the after school detention. He skipped. So he got in more trouble. And was assigned another one. Which, of course, was for the original 3 second tardy, so he skipped that too.

Finally, on Friday, the security guards tried to detain him for the detention, and he got sent to the assistant principals office. And got written up on an Out of School suspension. Yeah, TOTALLY should not have gotten to that point. He's special needs, WITH an IEP. I should have been notified WAY sooner in the process. A note home with the Out of School Suspension is SO not good enough. I was going in to talk to someone after I got the kids off to school. And I was bringing Kim with me, because she speak Special Education.

I picked her up at 7:45am, and we dropped her kids off at school, then headed to Austin High School. We parked, and found the Vice Principal over Discipline. It got a little tense at first. He and Kim both had guns a blazing, power struggle galore! But, eventually, it settled down, and we got down to business. He saw that we just wanted what was best for Jake, and we wanted to do what was right by the school also. I didn't want Jake to get off Scott free. I was fine with him "serving time" for his Tardy. Take it back to the first detention. He was late, make him go.

But I also wanted a new ARD meeting to address the IEP. Whatever was in there WASN'T working. He needed some new accommodations. If he's getting suspended without my knowledge, and without the schools "knowledge", something isn't working right. The VP shouldn't have written up a Special Needs kid... He totally should have caught that one. And he didn't. He apologized for that one. He knew he was in the wrong.

After getting the Out of School suspension taken care of, we got Jake a pass to go to class, then went downstairs to the Special Ed Office. We got the ARD meeting scheduled, and talked to the counselors for a bit. Then, we talked to the Special Ed Therapist, and saw how Jake was doing. This social worker/therapist sees Jake for 30 minutes a month. I invited him to sit in on the ARD meeting next week. This was his office - I thought it was HILARIOUS!!

Next, we let the school nurse know about the meds that Jake is on, since they can make him sleepy. Then we were done. We headed back to post. All in all, it was a VERY productive meeting. It was 10:30am. It took FOREVER, but a successful meeting!

I dropped Kim off at her house, then headed home. Next stop, the pool! We were going swimming! We decided to stick to 1/2 a mile. It felt SO good to go swimming. After doing the 16 half laps, I totally could have slowly done 16 more. But Kim and I both had other things that we needed to do for the rest of the afternoon. So we climbed out and headed back home.

I showered and got ready for the rest of the day, and I had GOGGLE MARKS on my eyes!!!!! SO SAD!!!
Hopefully it didn't look too bad...

CPT was just getting home from his errands, and by the time he did his home errands, we didn't have time to head to the west side like we'd planned. So I designed for a bit, then hung at the house for the rest of the time before we got the kids from the bus. CPT headed out around 2:30pm for the car places. He had some purchases for the GMC that he needed to get.

At 3:30, I headed to the bus stop. And collected the children. Then headed back home, got the kids changed and ready for the pool. Monday is our swim at the pool day again! Well, the kids swim, and the moms visit on the benches. Works for me :)

My Miche starter kit had come just minutes before the bus had come, so I grabbed some paperwork from the bus, and we headed to the pool. Kim and I spent time looking through it. It had some FUN new stuff inside of it. And it had new release shells from March and April!!! We were SO excited to see them!!! Super cute! I SO can't wait!!!!

We had fun chatting and watching the kids swim. But mostly chatting. hehe :)












We stayed at the pool for 2 hours, then headed home. It's a GREAT way to tire out the kids! I'd started some chicken in the crock pot at lunch time, so we had chicken and biscuits for dinner, with cooked carrots. Yummy!

The kids watched a bit of Dukes of Hazzard, then I pulled out the Valentine's box from years past (HUNDREDS OF VALENTINE's), and let them pick out which ones they wanted. Joe and Jim both had class lists. Eme and Tom just filled theirs out from memory. Jake was just glad that he didn't have to mess with that anymore, he said. LOL. Honest, at least, right?

For Family Home Evening (Or Family Home Meeting, as Tom still calls it - I think it's SO cute that I still haven't correct him....) we talked about gratitude, and about how our family does nice things for us all the time. Then talked about how we have a cousin serving a mission, and an aunt serving a mission too. And how we had family send us Christmas presents. And how it would be nice to send them Thank You notes. And then we pulled down the HUGE box of cards from the Hallmark card give away, picked the PERFECT cards out, signed them, and addressed them.
We were almost all done when I had to run. I needed to get a few finishing touches for Kari's birthday present from the Jewelry Box before it closed. Kim was coming to pick me up. CPT didn't seem too pleased that I was leaving, but I really needed to go :) Kari's birthday was on Sunday, and I somehow managed to miss it! I'm blaming it on the meds! hehe :) We are doing her birthday luncheon tomorrow at an Indian restaurant on the West side. Should be SUPER good.

I did manage to get most of the Valentine mess cleaned up, and the little boys in bed before I left, so it wasn't too bad!

Kim picked me up, and we hurried on over to Basset Place. And to the Jewelry Box. I was giving her a yellow Shell for the Classic Bag, Daisy. She's super pretty. Yellow, with white accents. I wanted to get Kari some white accents to go with the purse. I found a white and silver scarf, some silvery white nail polish, some white and silver earrings, a white and silver necklace , and white and silver bracelet, and a HUGE white ring. I would LOVE to get those - hehe. OK, so maybe I bought her stuff that I would love. ROFL! Sorry, Kari :P

Check out these new sunglasses that I got! I did get a few things for me :)
After the Jewelry box, we didn't have enough time for the Dollar Tree. That's where I was gonna get my gift bag! Drat! So we went to Target, because it was in the same shopping mall. But there's no way that I was gonna pay $3 for a gift bag. Are you on crack! I don't think so! And the $1 one was WAY too small. And the $2 one was WAY too big.... Hmpf.

But they had a $1 reusable shark bag in the $1 section that was JUST the right size. Ugly, sure, but I think that Kari would appreciate how thrifty it was. And her kids would love to use it. ROFL! So I totally got that. hehe. There ya go. Practical AND thrifty. I'm such a great friend :)

We paid, and headed back towards post. But stopped off at 7-11 for a drink, first. I got Kim and I drinks, and even got one for CPT America! Peace offering for leaving him with kids, right? hehe. Kim dropped me off, and CPT was ironing when I got home. I blogged, and it's now 10:46pm. I'm sleepy. Swimming wore me out!

Tomorrow, we are hiking. Then Birthday partying. Sounds like a good day to me!!! Oh yeah, forgot to ask, any of you with IEP experience and Aspergers expericne. What would you recommend putting into the IEP. I'm brainstorming a list of things to ask for in the ARD meeting. Leaving the period right before lunch a few minutes early to avoid the HUGE crowd to get his lunch is a MUST. He's SO anxious about the crowd that he frequently skips lunch. Any other suggestions???

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