Friday's Coming . . . .

. . . . . .and we're going to Summit Speech School's Family Fun Night!  After work, after school, after Brownies, and after hitting the ATM.  Micah is so excited to be going back to his old school and see friends and teachers.  Thea is excited about the basket raffle, since her ticket won us the four-pack of ticket to see Elmo at the State Theater in New Brunswick, so she thinks she has the winning touch.

I worked every day this week, and I am ready for the week to be O-V-E-R, gone, done, history.

Friday is Summit School, Saturday is a CME at the Westin Forrestal in the AM, Sunday Skating, Girl Scouts Thinking Day at High School South and Chinese.  I need a cup of coffee. . . .

Graduation Day Photos

Summit Speech School

Graduation

June 21, 2010

Marching in to graduation with Angelina (note hand on hip).

On stage with Olyvia and Wesley

Singing his heart out.

Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be, and SNAPPED. . . .

Miss Kaitlyn, the student teacher in Micah's class this spring;
Micah loves her.

When she finished her student teaching, Micah said,
"Miss Kaitlyn went back to college.  

Do you know what college is, Mommy?
It's a little like JAIL."

My favorite animal is. . . . A FLAMINGO, because of the way it walks.

Some days, getting a decent group photo is like herding cats.

The little twerp was not willing to put his mortarboard back on for photos.

Graduation Day

Micah has graduated, his 15 months at Summit Speech School have come to an end. 

And the good thing is that he behaved while marching in (with one hand on his hip, the other holding his partners hand) and while on stage.  He sang all three of the songs with the hand motions and when it was his turn at the microphone, he responded to the questions of how old is he and what is his favorite animal and why (four, and flamingo because of the way it walks) without being a goofball or uttering the word 'poop' or 'poopy' as part of the response.

He went to the persons presenting the certificates and shook hands, and then took a carnation from his teacher and brought it to me with his certificate, giving me a big hug.  I was so proud of him and how far he's come.

The school's director gave a speech that sounded a little bit like previous years:  graduation is more for the parents who have moved through learning their children were deaf or hearing impaired, the grief and uncertainty, getting help, having the children enter the programs at Summit and making it to this day.  Since Micah was chosen by us, microtia, atresia and all, it didn't feel like I was the intended audience.  No grief, no shock, it was more of a question of locating and accessing the resources to help him.

Micah wore a little white mortar board with an orange tassel, which he didn't want to put back on for pictures.  His teacher put together a photo album for each graduate along with a CD of the slide show of the school year.  We also got a packet of information for Micah's next speech therapist.  It was all really nice - I almost forgot for a few moment that all of the stuff would need to be packed up - including the giant monkey with "Congratulations Micah" that was hanging on the wall in the auditorium.

Congratulations to my big boy, who want from 'up' to talking in sentences and paragraphs in 35 months and thanks to the many people who played a part.

Tomorrow it's off to camp at Princeton Friends for both kids, summer has begun.

What your children think. . . .Miss Karen's Class - May 2010

What is your Mommy's name?
Garett: I don't know what's her name.  Do you know?
Angelina:  Kathy.
Maria:  Camilia
Tom:  Ima
Micah:  Her last name is G****.  Her first name is L****.
Ashley:  Donna
Nicole:  My mommy's name is Tammy.
Olyvia:  Jodi
Quintin:  My mommy's name is Mommy.  I just call her Mommy.

How old is she?
Garett:   She did ask me how old she was.  100?  20?
Angelina:   25
Maria:     I don't know.  17.
Tom:   18
Micah:   17.
Ashley:    I don't know.  25.
Nicole:    18
Olyvia:   My mom is 8.  Mommy is like the same age as Nicki.
Quintin:   27

What is her favorite color?
Garett:  Umm, purple and pink
Angelina:    My mom's favorite color is pink.
Maria:   All of them
Tom:   Red
Micah:   Purple like me.  I love purple too.
Ashley:    Purple and pink.
Nicole:   Green
Olyvia:   Blue
Quintin:   White

When is her birthday?
Garett:   I don't know but it's May
Angelina:   My mom's birthday is February 20.  I know that because her birthday passed.  We gave her perfume.
Maria:  In March 17.
Tom:   In the cold winter.  26.
Micah:    In April 18.
Ashley:   Chuck E. Cheese.  I don't know.
Nicole:   In April 26.
Olyvia:  April.  My mom's birthday was past.
Quintin:   September.


What is your favorite thing to do with her?
Garett:  Go to the zoo with my mom.
Angelina:   Give hugs and kisses.
Maria:  Play matching game.
Tom:   Drink coffee with her.
Micah:   I like to play with her.
Ashley:  Play with the kitchen.
Nicole:  Play house.
Olyvia:  Go to Chuck E. Cheese and play lots a game.
Quintin:   Nothing.  I like to paint with Mommy.

What is your favorite dinner that Mommy makes?
Garett:  Spaghetti.
Angelina:   Stuffing.  I love stuffing.  It's good.
Maria:  Spaghetti.
Tom:    Spaghetti and meatin.  It's a different kind of food.  It chicken and it look different.
Micah:   Rice and cous-cous.
Ashley:    Macaroni and cheese.  My mommy makes eggs.
Nicole:   Rice and chicken.
Olyvia:   Fried chicken.
Quintin: Chili.

What color is your Mommy's hair?
Garett:   Brown.  Light brown.
Angelina:   Dark brown.  I see it every day because here hair is so long.
Maria:  Brown.
Tom:    Yellow.
Micah:    Black.  It's a little bit brown and a little bit black.
Ashley:   Brown.
Nicole:   Brown.
Olyvia:   Brown and a little white.
Quintin:  Brown.


What color are her eyes?
Garett:  Green, and me and my brother and my daddy are blue.
Angelina:   Brown.
Maria:   Yellow.
Tom:   Blue.  I like yours.
Micah:   Black.
Ashley:    Brown.
Nicole:    Green.
Olyvia:   Blue
Quintin:  Brown

What is her favorite thing to do?
Garett:  She likes to clean dirty things off our clothes.
Angelina:   Watch TV and just cook too and watch the baby.
Maria:   My mom favorite thing to do is play.
Tom:   She play with me.
Micah:   To work,  And sleep.
Ashley:   She like to play in the kitchen.  I say "Mommy, come here." And she say, " No, I'm eat dinner first."
Nicole:  She likes to pick flowers and she likes to pick strawberries.
Olyvia: She likes to go to the paint room and get a tattoo.
Quintin:  Eat lunch and then she work on her computer and then she ate snack and then she ate dinner and then she drink water and then that's it.

What does she do while you are at school/when she's at work?
Garett:   She doesn't go to work.  She stays home and watch the dog and make sure she doesn't pee or poop in the house.
Angelina:    She gets money by work.  She have to wait for a check.  When she has a check we will move.
Maria:   She went at work  She need to buy the money.
Tom:   She waiting at home for a while.
Micah:   Mommy works.  She just is working.  She plays on her computer.  She locks the door 'cause no one can come in.
Ashley:    Mommy work at home.  She call the phone with Daddy and she write.
Nicole:   She does sign language in the night.  She was eating dinner.
Olyvia:   Make dinner and hot chocolate.  She makes good hot chocolate.  It's yummy.
Quintin:   Mommy go to work.  She eating at work.

Does your Mommy have any brothers or sisters? 
Garett:   She has only sisters.
Angelina:   Aunt Shannon is her sister.  Aunt Sherry.  Her brother is Uncle Sean and Uncle Frannie - two brothers and two sister.
Maria:   No.
Tom:   Mommy have a brother.  Daniel.
Micah:    No, she used to have them.
Ashley:   Yes, two.  One brother and one sister.  Lexi and Matty.
Nicole:  Yes, many people.
Olyvia:  My mom has lots of sister.
Quintin:  Mommy don't have brother or sister.  Her daughter name is Nneka and I'm my mom's son.

Does Mommy have friends?  What does she do with them?
Garett:   Yeah, only one, but I don't know her name.  She slept at her friend's house but I don't know where she was.
Angelina:   Yes, she talk to them.
Maria:  Yes.  She talk.
Tom:   Yup.  Friend name is Ben.
Micah:   Nope.  Only me and Thea.
Ashley:   Yes.  She talkin and she drinkin.
Nicole:  Yes.  She talk on the phone.
Olyvia:  Yeah.  My Mom drink and eat at the same time and talk with her friends.
Quintin:  No, no friends.  My dad has friends.

Why do you love your Mommy?
Garett:    Because she take me everywhere.  I love her.  Turtleback Zoo, buy things.
Angelina:  Because my mom take me to Toys-R-Us.
Maria:    Because she pick me up and went to the park with me.
Tom:   Because she make food.
Micah:   Cause I don't know.  She's soft.
Ashley:   Because I like Mommy stay in the school.
Nicole:   Because she wants a kiss.
Olyvia:  'Cause she bring me to the store.
Quintin:  Because I gonna kiss her cheek.

OK - he knows my full name, he's forgotten my birthday (around the time of his birthday he would have me run through the calendar of everyone's birthday (those that I could remember)), and he knows not to follow me into the exam rooms at work, though he thinks I'm playing on my computer in there since I carry a laptop instead of a paper medical chart, and he's clueless that the person he refers to as Uncle Karl is my brother.  Not quite Phi Beta Kappa quite yet, but the boy shows promise.


I can't wait to see how the Fathers' Day version of this turns out. Stay tuned.

Photos by Tesh Kouretas, 2010. 

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!

29 Days Later

We're four weeks and one day out from Micah's surgery, and today was another follow up with Dr. Choe.  Micah has been doing great, which in Mom-speak means that he now has two ear canals and two tympanic membranes to exercise his right to the selective hearing of the average preschooler.

Today was the day the little Silastic disk that has been sitting up against his new ear drum was removed.  First the right ear had some debris/wax cleaned out, then the little disk got pulled out - and I remembered to bring the little container of preservative that has the first disk floating in it so the second could be saved.  Right now Micah has no appreciation of those tiny pieces of silicon, but one day I want to be able to show him that sometimes the smallest of things can have enormous impact. The first disk looked like a perfect circle, the one pulled out today looked more like one that was custom-cut.

Micah spent most of the time he was having little bits of debris pulled out of his ear canals giggling because he felt a tickling sensation - and he knows that good behavior means he gets to pick something out of the toy basket.  Right now he's collected two plastic zebras (which he insists look like goats, go figure), and he said he was going for a third.  But alas, even though the basket of treats was full, no zebra.  So he selected a giraffe - which will join the other two plastic giraffes.

And back for another recheck in two weeks because this is about the time Micah's first ear canal began to show some stenosis that resulted in Dr. Choe putting sponges back in and changing his ear drops to an antibiotic and steroid combination.  He said that he made Micah's left canal a little bit bigger with that experience in mind.

Meanwhile, I called our contact in the school district to break the news that Micah will be graduating from Summit Speech School one year ahead of schedule.  Since this will be happening roughly at the same time we are moving to a new school district, after she got over her surprise (and delight, since the district will be off the financial hook either way - from Micah's graduation or our move), she got in touch with Summit and scheduled a meeting for an IEP review so that Micah will move on to the new school district with an updated IEP recommending that he be placed in an integrated preschool program for the upcoming school year.

For the summer, we are probably placing Micah in YingHua.  He is interested in learning Chinese, most likely because of Thea, and he was told if he had his second surgery he could learn Mandarin.

And I deleted the post about the new house - as usual, talking about it jinxed the process and the process of selling the house hit a snag when the first buyer pulled out during the three-day lawyer review, so I got bogged down by having to spend about 48 hours or so wishing that the male half of the couple buying the house have his prostate enlarge to the size of cantaloupe, his testes shrink to the size of raisins, that he have grief and misery from his spouse and that his daughter grow up to became a liberal arts major when she goes to college.  Somehow it is healthier for me to be very specific rather than just being mired in generic anger.  The bad thing is we knew he was a weasel, because he was pulling out of another home purchase during the three-day review to put the offer on our house.

The other bad thing is that we're back to showing the house again. . . .so we're back to trying to keep things organized and clean.  Which with two young children in the house is a major pain in the butt, especially with Micah and his seemingly limitless number of Matchbox cars, plastic animals and other toys.  Even with a good bit of the stockpile of toys in the storage space, he can still create a rather large debris field.

When everything is on solid ground, I'll put the pictures back in a post.

Micah's cute phrase of the day, "Mommy, sometimes I get grouchy when you pinch my butt."  Somehow we were on the topic of being grouchy and I said to him that he's usually not the grouchy member of the family (that would be either me or his sister vying for that honor.)

Family Fun Night

Friday night we all went to Micah's school for Family Fun Night - it was our third time, though Steve's first, and Micah's first now that he attends school there full-time.  Poor kid had to ride an hour to school, an hour back and then 90 minutes later turn around and do it all over again.

The evening consists of  a gift basket raffle, a clown show, a puppet show, face-painting, crafts and snacks.  The first year we arrived a little late for the basket raffle, the second year we won nothing.  But this year we finally cleaned up, at $10 per sheet of 26 tickets, I purchased 208 reasons to win SOMETHING.  Do the math.  Thea took one sheet and doled out those tickets and then abandoned me in favor of hot dogs and popcorn.

Our lucky numbers were 1399883, which won us four tickets to Sesame Street Live: Elmo Grows Up (frightening concept though that is) on April 3 at the State Theater in New Brunswick.  I was quite pleased with myself.   Thea got to go up and claim the prize, which thrilled her just a bit.

So I nearly missed it when a few minutes later 1399882 was called.  Thea and Micah brought back a big basket of Bath & Bodyworks products.

I can almost count on my hand the number of times I have won anything:  four tickets for the IceCapades from the Ranger Hal Show (circa 1965, and there was a blinding snowstorm the night of the show, and I remember my father stopping at the end of my grandparents' street to pick up my grandmother because his Karmen Ghia couldn't negotiate their street in the snow), two tickets for Bob Seger (in the mid-1980s) in concert at the Cap Center (from 107.3, for knowing that 1 in 9 people surveyed had had sex the night before - finally a piece of trivia from the pages of People magazine proved useful, the seats were in the nosebleed section and the people in front of us were happy stoners who wouldn't sit the hell down for most of the concert) and that's about it. 

So this was big stuff, Micah has been asking about Elmo thanks to the billboard up the road from the gas station I stop at on the way home from work.  Unfortunately he doesn't get the concept of waiting, winning Elmo means, in his mind, he gets to see Elmo now.

The other 'fun' part of Family Fun Night was seeing Micah totally in his element, amongst his friends, just having a ball - and he got to see his friend Cormac (who is now an alum and whose family's appearance on the Rachel Ray Show I taped and then deleted a few weeks later because Micah asked to watch the Cormac show way past my tolerance levels of the ever-perky Rachel Ray), run around with Natalia, Quentin and Samantha and talk to all the adults he knows from school.

I checked the ticket bags for 'my' baskets with the quilts, books and stuffed animals and we had quite a few people vying for them, so my first foray into gift baskets was a success, and I confess to putting a couple of my own tickets in for them.

Movin' On Up

On Monday when he goes to school, Micah will be moving from Miss Margie's room to Miss Karen's room - the room that is usually the last stop before graduation and kindergarten.  We were notified by Summit School that the school does not anticipate Micah being enrolled in Fall 2010 because he has met his speech and language goals for his age and needs to have more exposure to normal-hearing preschool peers.

To say that that I was stunned is beyond an understatement. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear: Micah won't be eligible for kindergarten until 2011.

Though a bit of a bolt from the blue, this news is a testimony to Micah and how well he is doing with language acquisition, to the school and its staff for what they do for the children who are fortunate to be enrolled there, and to all those who have in any small way been a part of Micah's speech and language development.

But then, let's re-focus on the shock and awe of it all; it's like being kicked out of the nest a year earlier than expected.  Summit School is such a wonderful environment for students and their families, it feels a bit like Linus's blanket.  And by leaving, we're left to figure out what to do with Micah for the upcoming school year.

 I had indigestion for the entire afternoon after we got the news, without a Tums in sight.

Amongst all the possibilities, I'm not so sure about the school district's preschool, and it probably operates like its kindergarten: half day sessions.  Four hours of school is little use to working parents.  It will take a lot of convincing for me even to consider that as an option.  Micah seems to want to learn Chinese like Thea, so YingHua International School might be an option.  Beyond that, I need ideas and soon.

Meanwhile I'm working on getting ready for Micah's surgery.  Today I mailed off the forms to the Pre-Admission Testing Unit at Englewood Hospital, Saturday Micah will have his CBC drawn at Quest.  Next week I need to get one of my co-workers to do a quick exam for Micah so another pre-admission form can be sent in, then we have some downtime until the pre-op appointment with the surgeon on the 17th.

That downtime that will be filled with Family Fun Night at Micah's school on the 12th, another chemotherapy session for my mother (her sixth and final!)on the 15th, working and being on call for two weekends, having a senior nursing student shadowing me at work tomorrow - and the usual swimming lessons, homework harangues and other nonsense.

Photos from Micah's Teacher

I don't know why I can't get this one to enlarge.

It's almost as if he knows I detest printed scrubs.

Does she know that the stethoscope is not in her ears?  Even I know where the earpieces go.

Monday, October 19, 2009
Summit Speech School

Meanwhile the little doctor is off to see the big doctor on Wednesday to see what's up with his ear canal.  Will the sponge get removed, and if removed, replaced?  Or will he be free of it, for now?

Go Fly a Kite

This is Micah at school "flying" a paperbag kite he made this week. He was so excited about it - it's nice that his teacher, Miss Margie, sent us a photo. His buddy Ava is in the background with her kite. Today was Sports Day at school, his teacher already emailed that he had a blast and was super active. I'm hoping he'll be tired enough to sleep part of the way up to Haskell; we're going to pick up a race car toddler bed frame. $12.95 on eBay. This weekend the crib comes down, end of an era around here.

Adventures of Bunny Bear

This morning at 4 m, both children came to sleep in our bed, Micah probably crawled in earlier, but woke up and was moving around and chattering, Thea had a little bloody nose. After 30 minutes to get them settled and back to sleep, I found myself wedged between them, awake and needing to go to the bathroom and with almost no room to move. So I slithered, wiggled, readjusted Thea whose legs were hanging of the bed, and left. On the way back, I decided to try Thea's bed where the large white tiger was taking a lot of space, but probably wouldn't kick me in the kidneys or try to take over what little space was mine.

Not the best start to the day.

But the day goes by with the usual chaos until we arrive at that time of day when Tesh returns with Micah and then he and I drive off to pick up Thea.

Except the first words out of Tesh's and Micah's mouths were, "Micah left Bunny Bear at school."

Oh, sh*t. Well then, that puts yet another kink in the day. My usually sunny, happy guy is visibly upset, mouth is quivvering, tears are welling.

And I had to survive a 20 minute trip to Lawrenceville with a sobbing little boy crying, "I want my Bunny Bear" in just the most piteous little voice.

So, since I went to extremes about two years ago when we thought Thea's tiger could have been at the rest stop on the Eastern Shore, it seemed like something similar needed to be done.

After signing out Thea from YingHua, I got out the cell phone and started by calling Ela, Micah's itinerant teacher (until March of this year).

And sympathizing with our plight, Ela called Miriam (she's the coordinator of the parent-infant program).

Miriam called the school, where by some stroke of good fortune the custodian Craig was still around, and despite my misdirection about Bunny Bear either being in the room where Micah naps or in his his locker, he found Bunny Bear on the floor in the bathroom in Micah's classroom.

And by another stroke of good fortune, Steve was driving home from an afternoon bridge match and was in a place where he could make a detour to go to the school to pick up the bear.

Which necessitated all the phone calls made in reverse order to arrange the hand off.

Micah kept going to the powder room window to check for the arrival of the Bunny Bear.

So Bunny Bear is safe at home tonight, taking a bath in the washing machine to celebrate because he was packaged with a note that said "Wash Me" - he's overdue, but Micah likes him that way. All the good smells get washed out, the drool, the dirt, all the stuff the makes it his most loved stuffed animal.

Thank you, Ela.

Thank you, Miriam.

Thank you, Craig.

Thank you, Summit School for being the sort of place you can call a staff member about a dirty, smell cross-dressing bunny-bear and they understand its importance to a little guy's happiness.

It's a good thing. . .

. . .that I really, really like the ENT who will be doing Micah's atresia surgery, because the surgical coordinator has been put on Earth to try my patience to its uppermost limit.

Yesterday the paperwork came from the ENT's office in anticipation of Micah's August 19th pre-op appointment and August 25th surgery. Wow, earlier than I expected. How efficient.

Until I looked more closely at the cards clipped to the various papers. August 19th pre-op appointment. Check. August 18th surgery.

Oh, just bite me now, you stupid wench.

That is just right up there with me calling and leaving a message to call me at my office and then getting a message on our home voice mail, little Ms. Synapse-Failed-to-Fire.

August 18th was the original date given to us by the ENT's office, which was changed within a day or two of being set by that office to accomodate the surgeon's vacation schedule.

So now more phone calls are needed, just to make sure everything's still on the two dates that I've put on my calendar.

It might be the aches and pains in my knee, but I'm feeling really mean. And she is the perfect foil for the rage I'm feeling. Working today and being on-call for the weekend isn't helping the mood much either.

Meanwhile yesterday Tesh took Micah and Thea to play miniature golf while I was working. Micah's first time, Thea's third. This forever endeared Tesh to Thea, she came into the office just beaming and saying, "I l-o-o-o-o-o-ve miniature golf." Micah scored a hole-in-one, which as much of a thrill it was to those watching, it was a disappointment to him because the goal in his mind is to whack the ball as many times as possible.

Thea's vacation is over on Monday, it's back to YingHua for Chinese camp. The last two weeks in July she'll be going to the YWCA's Adventure Camp with her friend, Emily, but otherwise she's back with her friends from school. Micah has two more days of freedom and hanging out with Tesh before he starts Summit's ESY program.

Addedum: Summit School Graduation, Etc.

Visiting one of the blogs I follow, http://thelawrencetriplets.blogspot.com/2009/06/busy-days.html, I remembered that I finally have a use for Miley Cyrus. The song playing in the background was used as the background music for the slide show at graduation. I feel fortunate that Thea has not been bitten by the Hannah Montana bug, she's even more oblivious to the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana phenomena than she is to Disney Princesses. The lyrics were printed on the back of the program. There's a short video on the blog, and Micah is in the back row, and Cormac's mom managed to capture a few seconds where Micah actually seemed to be trying to follow along.

Meanwhile, my right knee is giving me major grief, starting last week and escalating to the point where I actually was willing to go back to see the orthopedist. So off I went yesterday, after a three-year hiatus (love those Hyalgan injections). The xray was ugly, my right knee's arthritis has progressed since the last xray and is now bone-on-bone, and there may be a Baker's cyst. So unlike last time when I went in for my left knee and the doctor drew off about 30cc of fluid and put in marcaine and cortisoid, gave me a neoprene knee sleeve and off I went to pick up Thea at daycare to drive down to Maryland, there was no joy. The PA said that he didn't think there was much in the way of fluid to draw off (it was all shunted behind the knee to the Baker's cyst), so he just put in the marcaine and cortisone. I probably should have let him try, but he described it as being torture if there was no fluid to draw off, so I completely wimped out.

And after the needle, it hurt worse because instead of putting in where the pain was the greatest (I'd probably have killed him) he went laterally and went deep behind the knee cap. I was hobbling and miserable for most of the evening.

Today at work, for at least part of the day, I was trying to walk a little less stiff-legged, but the knee was still really hurting at the end of the day. I've actually worn a skirt or dress for the past two days to be able to put Voltaren gel on it, so hell is going to freeze over.

Plan B is that I'm going to try the Hyalgan again, once Aetna approves the medication and it is sent to the orthopedists office. Which the PA says should be a week. Which I remember as taking almost a month in 2006, and I doubt that the prescription plan would cover SynviscONE, the single injection, so I'll get multiple trips to the ortho, multiple co-pays and multiple chance to screw up the schedule at work.

We'll see who is right, and if it helps, otherwise I am one step closer to getting a new knee. Which would suck. Given my mother's experience with knee replacement and the pulmonary embolism she had a few weeks after coming home, I am much too young to be following in her footsteps.

Graduation Day

For Summit Speech School's Class of 2009. Not Micah. He'll be graduating from Summit, provided our school district continues to renew his IEP, in June 2011. Five kids are moving on and into the mainstream.

Graduation was tied to the theme for the week, bugs. The school's director did an amazing job weaving bugs into her graduation address, using Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar as her focus. We, the parents of children with deafness and hearing impairment, are like the hungry caterpillars, searching for and devouring all the informatin that will help our children. And somehow, we are fortunate to have our children come here, and into Summit's protective coccoon. Today is the day that five beautiful children emerge from the coccoon, ready to take on the challenges of mainstream education. I was totally verklemmt, and my child wasn't even graduating.

Then the children came in, paired up, followed by the individual graduates wearing white caps with orange tassels.

After pulling it together, my focus became, "Please God, don't let Micah misbehave while up on the stage." He made a few monkey faces, did not exactly perform on cue - I think that he'd worn himself out on singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" while riding in my car over the last week, but overall he was a good boy. He was also within arms reach of one of the teachers or aides (wise move on their part.)

Come July 1, the start of the ESY for those fortunate enough to have Extended School Year in their IEPs, Micah will be moving to Miss Margie's room along with his friends Tom and Ava. His current teacher is wonderful, and with the SLPs, has gotten so much from Micah. I will miss her emails and her amazingly upbeat and optimistic outlook; Micah is also a little nervous about the change - he wants Miss Heather to come with him to his new room. The ESY will also bring a new bus or van driver into our lives, the amazing team of Bob and Diane take the summer off.

After graduation and the reception afterwards, I had planned to take the kids to Rainforest Cafe at the Menlo Park Mall. Until we actually got there, and Micah was a little intimidated by the animatronic snake wiggling overhead and sticking its tongue out, but he marched forward and we were being seated when Thea decided the trees scared her and she was having no parts of the place. Back to the car, and off to Bertucci's. The next time I go to Menlo Park, I am taking myself to The Cheesecake Factory. Alone. Or maybe with a book.

Today we finally had some sunshine in the afternoon, so we hauled out the small pool and a few bottles of bubble goop and just had some water fun. And I even pulled out the laptop and got a bunch of correspondence read, labs reviewed/letters sent and prescriptions renewed.

Tomorrow is the orthopedist appointment, and he'd better give me back my knee, and it doesn't have to be like-new, wonderful. I'd settle for my old crappy knee, just without the pain or the need for the icky neoprene knee brace.

Mothers' Day x 2

Yesterday Thea's school had a Mothers' Day tea - before work, the email said it would be between 8:00 and 9:00 am. So I dutifully asked the office manager to rearrange my schedule so I would be able to attend, and then we arrived at 8:10 am to find Thea's classmate Shubhan and his mother waiting.

Building locked. No staff in sight. We're off to a super start. . .

After a few minutes one of the teachers from the Lawrenceville campus drove by and stopped to open the door for us. So we went in and waited some more. Finally around 8:30 a couple of the teachers arrived, then a couple more and the final arrangements were put together. Each of the kids served his/her mother a blueberry muffin and a glass of orange juice, both homemade. Then we were given a printed photo in a decorated frame and a hedgehog made of dough.

After performing her hostess and gift-distributing duties, Thea seemed happy to have me take off for work.

While at work yesterday I got a call from Micah's school about his class's Mothers' Day party to be held at 2:00 pm Friday. So after two months of not driving to Summit School I was back on the road there this afternoon - and with all the rain we've had, the Griggstown causeway was wet, and the crossing for the D&R canal were flooded out, so I had to take the roundabout way to get there.

Micah's class was so cute; there are only five of them. They had iced and decorated cupcakes that their teacher had made. The children had been reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" this week so they each had made a synopsis of the story and they had rehearsed their retelling of the story. Micah volunteered to go first after his classmate Tom got a case of shy guy. Then they gave the moms a sunflower plant that they had grown. It was all just so cute, it made it worth sitting in those little preschool chairs for almost an hour.

Then we had to beat tracks to get down to Thea's school by 4 pm. Today was her English teacher's last day; she'll be on maternity leave for the remainder of the school year. The staff was giving her a shower today, so this would be the day she got the autograph quilt. Thea loves Ms. Jennifer, and she's been a great source of suggestions for children's literature for Thea to read and to have read to her. The quilt was a big hit, and I got a picture of her with the quilt - and Thea helping to hold it up, but also being a pain and hiding behind it so only her feet are showing.

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY WEEKEND TO ALL.

We're sticking with the school bus. . .

. . . Bob the bus driver told us that the school district was signing the contract for the van on Friday, so since Micah was doing so well on the bus (despite our reservations about the harness and the noise level), we've decided to stickwith the bus.

The advantages are:

* there is the driver and an aide on every trip;
* they seem to love their work and the children they care for;
* they keep a small library of children's books on board to entertain their charges;
* Bob figured out a way to make his car seat work, so the harness is no more;
* Micah seems to like the other kids on the bus.

If we opted for the van, there would only be the driver without an aide and it would not be school district employees but a contract employee.

Meanwhile, Thea's class went to the Trenton/Mercer County Airport for a field trip today. She came home with a balsa wood airplane and a badge sticker from the fire station at the airport. And I managed to forget her car seat at school. We did make it to Village Shoes to get her a new pair of sneakers. Her shoes seem to go from mildly shabby to destroyed in the course of a day, and she's been overdue for a new pair. Unfortunately she wasn't willing to give up the destroyed Transformer shoes, so they came home with us (and just as soon as she forgets about them they are going to be hitting the road. No packratting allowed.)

I downloaded some pictures from the camera to a CD and need to load them: Micah's birthday, the first day of school, and other nonsense.

First Day of the School Bus

It's noisy. Now I know how our beagle Elbert used to go nuts and bark at the UPS truck, there is something about that little school bus engine that makes its presence known long before it appears at the end of the driveway. I was cringing, thinking of that noise getting pounded into Micah's head for an hour each way.

Then it got worse.

The driver and aide gave us a harness to put on Micah. It looks like something a parachutist or a bungee jumper might wear, just without the parachute or bungee cord, with a zipper up the back. There is a buckle that gets latched into a corresponding buckle that comes from the back of the bus seat. He looked thoroughly trussed up, disturbingly so. With no protective shell of a car seat around him. I'd like to see whatever the studies are that show this harness is safe in the event of an accident, it just doesn't convey that idea from the few moments we had to check it out.

And if Micah winds up being in to bondage later in life, I am going to sue the school district.

He didn't seem bothered much, and actually liked getting on a 'real' school bus. Steve and I stood there, wishing for a van. So much so that Steve called the district's transportation coordinator to see what other options are out there.

I emailed his teacher to see if he was ok in school today, and the note she sent back said he was as happy as ever, and he got off the bus in a great mood and loved it. According to the driver aide, he was playing peek-a-boo with one child, which made another child giggle, so then all of them were laughing, they keep a stock of picture books on their bus for the kids, so he had those too, and the aide sat next to him on the way home - as he left, she was in her own seat across the aisle and slightly back from Micah.

So now the wheels are in motion to change his transportation, though he seems fine with it. I just want us to get in our new routine.

Last Day of the School Van

Today when the driver and aide dropped Micah off our car seat was returned. Tomorrow Micah will be in a harness and on the school bus. It sounds a little bit medieval, a little bit bondage. I can't picture it, but he will be zipped into the harness and then the harness will be latched into the school bus seat. I just envision him sitting low on the seat, unable to look out the window. Fortunately the aide will be sitting next to him, she'd better like singing.

At school today Micah worked with Miss Cheryl. She was part of the team that initially evaluatead Micah in September 2007 before the start of Early Intervention. She also saw him that first year we went to the parent-infant program. And now that he's in preschool she got to see just how far his speech communication has come.

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Thea and I are going to Texas the last weekend in April; Steve made our reservations last night. She'll get to miss two day of school. Micah and Steve will get to have a bachelors' weekend.

We're flying into Dallas, I have a wedding to go to in Tyler, and we have friends and family in the Fort Worth area. Thea's never been to Texas, so she's excited, not that she told me, but she has supposedly told friends at school that she's going on a trip there.

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Tonight there was a phone message from the bus driver. He wants to pick up Micah at 7:20 am. No way - we've been getting used to 7:45 over the past few days, and it's been a challenge. Micah would be semi-comatose and barely dressed at 7:25. Not that we technically have any leverage, but since he's now going on the bus with the children being taken to the developmental center and we're sort of going along with it since the problem has been removed from the bus, we need to be cut a little slack. A lot of slack.

So now tomorrow there will be a whole new routine to get used to.

End of Week Wrap-Up

Micah made it to school via the Montgomery Township van for the second day. Today his driver was Toni, who came with Bob yesterday morning. She had another aide with her in the morning, but brought him home solo today. This morning as we were strapping him into the car seat she asked if she could give him a little school bus, so he's managed to charm another one of the transportation staff - who was also willing to spend an hour singing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm', 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' and 'The Wheels on the Bus' with him.

He came home from school with a library book, Maisy Goes to Bed, so we need to improve his taste in children's books. Maisy makes those Biscuit books he's so into look good by comparison.

I'm on call and working this weekend. Ick. The first 90 minutes were a non-stop stream of calls, mostly all busy work: an electronic prescription that had been sent from the office at 4:10 pm that had still not arrived at the pharmacy at 6:00 pm, a cough, one of those "I am starting with flu symptoms and need an antibiotic" calls that make me wish that insurance plans' patient newsletters and the media made more of an effort to inform people again and again and again that influenza is VIRAL and antibiotics are for BACTERIAL infections, so are therefore ineffective.

Then the stream of calls dried up and I was able to make dinner, get Thea showered and read a story to Micah before putting him to bed. Unfortunately I was woken up at 10 pm by a call from the answering service, while annoying, it got me up and back on the computer to finish chart notes. And the really wonderful thing about this is that I am sitting in the big chair with the ottoman in the living room, working on my laptop from work. The wireless internet router Steve installed works. This beats the socks off of sitting in the kitchen at the PC with its cold floor, no TV. I could get used to this.

Micah's First Day of School

. . . was yesterday. We made it out the door by 7:43 am yesterday, and were in New Providence by 8:46 am - no stops for coffee though we passed at least six Dunkin Donuts on the way. I was in need of a caffeine fix - up late the night before working on charts, Micah woke up at 3 am and was jabbering away. Changed his diaper and he went back asleep only to wake again about 30 minutes later.

I spent part of the day in the observation room watching his sessions with his primary teacher. He managed to behave fairly well, though there were a few times I wanted to reach through the one-way glass to park his butt in his little chair.

After the first session I went out for the much-needed, long overdue coffee and came back. I thought I'd go to the parent group meeting, but there seemed to be a lot of people, and being tired I just wanted to be by myself so I sat in the lobby for a bit. Micah's teacher came through for a few minutes on a break so she chatted about how she thought he was doing.

Summit has early dismissal on the first Wednesday of every month, so instead of having to wait until 2:45 pm to get my baby back, he was tucked into his coat and had his backpack on and was trotted out at 1:45. He was very proud that he took a nap after lunch (I sort of expected he would since he usually crashed quickly after his session with Ela.)

Meanwhile back home, Steve got a call from the school district was told Micah has a driver for Thursday and Friday.

So this morning we had Bob and his minivan pull into our driveway - he had an aide, not the one he usually rides with, along. No car seat - so we had to use Thea's old seat that was in the garage.

Thea was up, but not dressed for below freezing temperatures, so she stayed inside -but amidst the car seat drama she had an 'I'm alone in the house and I'm freaked out' drama, so I had to run in wrap her in my long winter coat and carry her back outside to be part of the whole getting Micah ready to roll scene.

And Steve and the aide strapped the seat in, strapped Micah in the seat and off they went. My little three-year old baby and two complete strangers hit the road.

I called the school at 9:10 am and he had arrived safely and seemed happy according to the receptionist.

The van is the one that the district originally proposed. The 'incident' that provoked all the excitment last week resulted in the student involved getting removed from the bus. The driver assures us that the other three are no problem at all - so it looks like Micah will be riding to school next week with the other children going to the program for children with autism.

More later. Suffice it to say I am more than a little pissed that the school district transporation office seems like it is trying to put one over on us. The intent that I got from the driver is that once the 'problem child' is off the bus, then the he feels that it would be fine for Micah to ride with the others. I liked the driver, he has nine years experience and seems like he knows his stuff - I want to to trust him, but I don't trust who he works for. Who is to say that some other child moves into the district with issues similar to the child removed from the bus and we're back to square one?

Micah got off the van today, happy as a clam, all smiles. He serenaded the driver and the aide (a different one this afternoon - she usually does the dispatching) and they both seemed to genuinenly enjoy him. We'll see if that holds up or if they will be dreaming of a van with three non-verbal autistic children and a quiet ride to/from Union County.

Cochlear Implant Encounter

Friday when we were at Family Fun Night at Summit School, dropping our tickets into the bags for the gift basket raffles, a lady stopped me and started asking about Micah's BAHAs. She said she was a teacher of the deaf from New York, and from her speech it seemed as if she had hearing loss of some sort herself.

The hallway, crowded with people, and already narrowed by the tables set up to hold the gift baskets, was not the best place to have a conversation. She was curious as to how the BAHAs are held on his head (the big mesh hairband with the two little disks held by the mesh and the BAHAs snapped onto them somehow eluding her.)

I tried explaining that he was too young to have the titanium posts that some BAHA users have to attach their devices directly onto their mastoid bone, and I tried to convey that we don't know what lies beneath in terms of being able to have atresia repair. With all the background noise, it was hard, I was struggling to keep my eyes on the kids, speak clearly and maintain eye contact with my listener - but it just really wasn't working. It was the longest fifteen to twenty minutes of my life in terms of frustration.

And then this woman says, "Wait a minute," reaches into her purse and pulls out an over-the-ear cochlear implant hearing aid, pops it on, attached the magnet and the conversation continued.

There were too many witnesses there, otherwise I would have cheerfully strangled her. Why doesn't she wear it all the time?

My frame of reference is stories about kids who want to sleep with their implants on, stories of parents who used some sort of seal-a-meal device to waterproof the implant so that the kid can wear it in the water held in place by a swim cap so they can hear, the idea being that the wearer is happier hearing versus not.

Thanks to a cold/sore throat, a yelling marathon over a blue lollipop with Thea and this conversation, my voice sounds like I'm going through gender reassigment surgery.