Zero Results

Today was (another) child study regarding Cole. I was prepared, with my divided binder of Cole academic career, letter from psych eval, and points to make. It was a whole hour wasted discussing Cole's page and half of infractions, inability to sit in class, disruptive behavior, etc. When the minutes were passed around and ready for my signature I wanted to read what I was signing, the VP (a different one, not familiar with Cole) became aggravated and kept taking the page from me and pointing where to sign. I said I just wanted to read what I was signing. She said they are only the minutes I've been taking. I said I wanted to add that the behavior contract created by Dockery to be dissolved, contact by Cole's teachers regarding all behavior and immediate consequences, and feed back from teachers that are having success to find what works. We discussed all of these possibilities in the meeting. She said that is not what a child study meeting was for, that all the things we discussed could be put into the 504 plan at the 504 meeting. During today's meeting we had not discussed starting a 504, she wants me to sign minutes of the meeting stating that we are starting a 504 plan. I blew up, and said- so we will not have any plan of action until the end of the year. She said the 504 plan would be in place as soon as the meeting took place. So why the hell did I go to the school today??? A meeting to plan a meeting? In the meantime, Cole is sinking further behind. Oh and they told me that I hadn't informed the school that Cole has ADHD until today. And that the testing shows Jan 28 as the diagnosis date. wtf. I and Dr. Boquist informed Dockery, guidance dept, school psychologist and the school nurse in Oct that Cole had a solid diagnosis of ADHD. The school nurse backed me on this.
Good News. The appraisal for the house came in. Bad News. We have to have the kitchen floor put in by Monday to close on Monday. We haven't even purchased the flooring and Ara can't take time off to do it. So it will be a rush job over the weekend. And hopefully, Home Depot has enough of the flooring in stock.

Snow Day 2

Snow days are meant for sleeping in. Someone please inform Jake and Ara. I usually get up at 5:30 to start my day. At 5:28 Ara runs up the stairs yelling, "Holy Shit, school is closed again today". I respond with a sleepy "Alarms off" command. Then at 5:38 he's yelling up the stairs, "Essential personnel only". "What? Are you staying home?" No he was talking about school personnel and went to work. Then apparently he had signed up our phones (cell and home) for the phone alert message from James City County and at 6:13 the phone rings with a recorded message from the office of the superintendent informing that school is closed due to ice. Then at 6:30 Ara calls to tell me he got his phone alert message about school. At 6:38 Jake comes in to ask what's going on, his alarm is off and the street looks clear. I tell him there is no school. He then tells me his plans for the day which include the Pokemon lyrics and CoD (Call of Duty 4). I have no idea what he is talking about. Later Ara calls to ask me if I got to sleep in. Thankfully we don't have video phone because I silently cussed him out in sign language.

My prediction was right. Cole scored high average and superior with his testing. The only area that brought him down was the vocabulary in the verbal comprehension which he scored average. That surprises me because he is our articulate child who uses $5 word in everyday life. He says things like 'I need a larger assortment of t-shirts'. Not that assortment is a $5 word, but most kids would just say 'I need more t-shirts'. The psych did say that during the testing he was wondering if Cole really had ADD/ADHD because he didn't give up and seem distracted. But after the testing when all three of us were talking the real Cole came out. He laid on the couch, played with his shoes, messed with the blinds, played with his eyelids (was in constant movement). The doc got a kick out of it and just grinned. Taking Cole to any doctor has always been a miserable experience. He can't just sit and wait. He has to explore every cabinet, figure out every instrument, jump off the exam table, crinkle the paper, put on gloves...it's exasperating. He's a little better now, but not much. The psych told me how consequences don't work with ADHD because of how the brain in ADHD physically works. I figured this out long ago, but it makes parenting difficult because the other two think he's never punished. School isn't' working for Cole because they want to dole out consequences for misbehavior and in reality the 'misbehavior' is a symptom of over stimulation or under stimulation. The front end stimulus is greater than the back end stimulus--no impulse control. The neurons that carry messages for impulse control are moving too slow and he doesn't get the message.