so proud!

last week we attended reese's annual IEP meeting.  for those of you not familiar with that term, it stands for individualized education program, which sets forth goals for students with special needs. the school calls the meeting once a year to see if the goals were met and possibly create new goals for the coming year. we are ecstatic! he has met pretty much all of his speech goals.  he is talking in 7+ word sentences with correct pronouns, he communicates with his teachers and peers with clear intentions, he can follow multi-step directions given by the teacher.  and his homeroom teacher struggled to find new goals for him to work on  in the area of academics because he knows all the letters of the alphabet, along with their sounds, he can count past 10, he knows all of his shapes and colors.  as a kindergarten teacher i have students coming in at 5 years old who have not attended pre-school and have not mastered these concepts, so needless to say, i couldn't be more proud of my lil' man.  now onto his area of weakness, fine motor.  at this age he should be starting to write his letters or draw shapes.  he cannot.  it is a struggle between his brain and his hands to draw a straight line, cut with scissors, use utensils.  he also struggles with sensory muscles around his mouth.  he just learned to drink from a cup because he does not have the control of his tongue and lips to drink without letting it drool out.  so he still does not have the ability to drink from a straw either. he is not yet potty trained we think due to him not making the connection of awareness when he needs to go.  so these are all goals we will be working on over the next year. i am so happy we have such a wonderful group of teachers surrounding him.  he has the main classroom teacher, 5 aids, a speech teacher, and an OT(occupational therapist). they all love their jobs and have been wonderful with him. i am so very thankful for the district we moved into and everyone surrounding us who has helped along the way.  

during the meeting i commented that i was so happy there is only 1 main area of delay, fine motor.  because originally he was diagnosed with delays in 3 areas, the other 2 including speech and cognitive abilities.  thankfully he has caught up in speech, but i'm not so sure he ever really had a cognitive delay, but rather his fine motor and speech were hindering him from being able to do the things that most kids would have done to show their cognitive abilities.  the speech teacher then said that we should be thankful because if that had not been diagnosed he might not have gotten all of the services he has had and not be at the point he is now.  i thought that was a great way to look at it.  and that is where i don't understand some people.  i sat in a meeting this week as a teacher to help students who are struggling in the classroom, and there was a parent who has been to this meeting each year with every teacher since kindergarten and every teacher has seen this problem.  the parent though, will not admit there could be something wrong and will not permit us to test the student.  he has struggled for 6 years and next year is heading to the middle school still struggling and not understanding what is happening in the classroom.  i get that to admit your child has a problem is scary and unwanted.  i get denial.  but i don't get letting your child struggle and suffer for the parent to save their dignity or because they feel some sense of embarrassment? how about taking all/any help you can get to help your child be successful.  sorry about the soapbox.  

{he started dressing up this year.
the kids found maddie's 1st halloween costume, a chicken!}

{dad was not happy to see this one.
but i told him i did the same to my lil' brother. 
it is a right of passage.
adam is lucky i couldn't find the pic. ha!}

{he loves his dog.}