Belated Birthday Tribute to Elcie

I came home at the end of a very long day, the girls' mom was here and I was in bed at 6:00 p.m. for an hour which would have given me time to get to the hospital. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. He's very understanding but I feel awful that I didn't get there. There was nothing I could have cancelled to make more time and by night I was done in. End of whine.

Ray had left me a voice mail on the cell. Sounded groggy but that would be the meds. I'll get over there after I have the girls off to school. Nothing else scheduled for today. He did have a doctor's appointment and tests scheduled for today but of course that's gone by the boards.

It's around 6:30 now, Elcie is ready to go, and I have about 30 minutes before R & R get up.

I took Carol to her chemo session - short - the third day they remove the bag she brings home and she gets to skip the next week except for blood tests. Her white count was down again so they gave her a shot for that. I think she has six weeks to go and then they will evaluate her once again.

Elcie's birthday and her IEP coincided yesterday. I took my son Tim along and the whole world showed up to talk about Elcie. We've decided to try mainstreaming her in Social Studies for the last three months of this year and see how it goes. She's leading her Special Day class, helps in another one for more severely affected kids, and is now reading at 7th grade level. Her math is still at 5th grade but many of her biggest problems have left. She is learning to solve word problems which had been next to impossible.

All this is an experiment to see if we can mainstream her next year in 8th grade with lots and lots of resource help. She's always been borderline and she's learned so much that it's worth a try. They are saying now that they're sure as hard as she works, she will pass the high school exit exam. Our teenager has come a long way in just a couple of years.

Special ed has its faults when it's not used correctly but it saved Elcie and Rochelle. They needed the slower pace and the repetition, as well as the much smaller classes.

For any of you who remember my battle with the school about her attendance, we now have an exemption written into her IEP as well as an exemption for bathroom use. It shouldn't have been necessary but there seems to be at least one bureaucrat in each school and she found us. She lost but I don't want to go through that again. Now I can wave the IEP in their faces.

They adore her at Rivera and she has an entire team of professionals working together. Go, Elcie, go.

She's mainstreamed for p.e. and can outdo her entire group in push-ups. The p.e. teacher is using her as an example. Of course she can do push-ups. Between handling crutches and a wheelchair for years, she has very strong arms. It is nice to see her lead in something though - makes up for what she can't do.

Tim and I took her to dinner at Home Town Buffet which she loves. She filled up on salad, chicken, and fish. They brought her a piece of chocolate cake with a candle and sang Happy Birthday. She's still young enough to enjoy the attention. Probably by this time next year, she'll crawl under the table.

She's agreeable to having her cake and ice cream here delayed until Ray comes home which I hope will be soon. I'll know more later. Once again, everyone is sure something's wrong; they just don't know what.

Anyhow, that was my day. The IEP ran two hours and by the time I got home, I couldn't move.

Ten hours sleep helped.

Rebecca is dressed, Rochelle was taking a bath with Fidget, the kitten, sitting on the side of the tub helping. They'll be out of here in about twenty minutes.

Nancy explained what was happening with Blogger and spell-check. For anyone else who may not know, Firefox blocks it with its pop-up blocker. Once I disabled that, it works fine except it doesn't recognize the word blog. I wish there were a way to tell it once that a word is okay and have it remember the next time but at least I can use it. It isn't much help with my errors which usually involve skipping a word or typing one word while thinking about another. I need a checker that rings a bell and tells me the sentence doesn't make sense.

Welcome to Alissa, a mom from Kentucky with an adorable little boy. Poor guy managed to trip over a rake (bad rake) and bruise up his face. Good thing kids are tough. She and I both read Rude Cactus which is where she found me. (Tried to include a link to Rude Cactus but it took me right back to this post). He's easy enough to find though and I may try it again later.

Big oops. I just went back to Alissa's blog. She has two adorable little boys. I got fixated on the poor kid who fell over the rake and totally missed the photos beneath.

Girls just went out the door, I transferred laundry from washer to dryer, and I should try to accomplish something. We have thunderstorms with possible hail forecast for today with additional rain and cold to follow. I may find myself picking kids up at the school. I think I'll have one more cup of de-caf (at least it's warm) and then try to plan this day.

Take care everyone.