Vindicated!

(Aide J and Aide S were both out today; fortunately, we had mostly okay subs...the morning went well...the afternoon went to you-know-where in a handbasket, but the subs played Sequence with the kids that were doing well, so that went okay.)

Right on the heels of Elastigirl's triumph yesterday, I got some interesting news today.

(I'm gonna be even more vague than usual in order to preserve anonymity, but I imagine at least Cat will know who I'm talking about.)

There's a student in the class who we'll call...Jane.  Jane has Down syndrome.  Jane has significant cognitive delays and some behavior issues.

My program specialist, as well as the psychologist who did her last tri, insisted that her cognitive level was six to nine months.

Now, this girl has severe cognitive delays -- no one is disupting that.

But six to nine months?

Nu-uh.  No way, no how.

While talking to Speech Person DFT (who, predictably, wants to exit her from speech without a reliable communication system) about her, she mentioned that Jane's cognitive level came out to about 2 years.

THANK you.

Now, I don't put much store by cognitive levels -- especially in kids who may have what people used to call "splinter skills" (but if you don't have disabilities, they're called talents) -- but a ballpark is nice.

Six to nine months is ridiculous.  Two years, I can live with.  That's been my guess all along.

E = MC2

I could easily vent about the happenings at school (again with the, "Why can't you just come to work and do your job like the rest of the grown-ups in the world?" with a dose of "Writing With Symbols, please cooperate just this once), and Aide T has been kindly comisserating with me over email -- a fact that, I fear, would not go over well if other people knew about it...

...whoops...

I got distracted there.

What I wanted to say was that this was all overshadowed by one of those tiny shining moments that make your heart swell with pride and go "Yeeee-haw!"

Elastigirl, as you may have guessed from reading this blog, has some pretty significant delays. She has some challenging behaviors and a lot of obstacles to overcome.

That said, I adore the girl.

Anyway, she spent several years of her education either left to her own devices or forcibly moved to "quiet areas" and left alone. It took my staff -- chiefly Aide T -- and myself about 6 weeks last year just to convince her that we wanted her to sit with us, and that she should sit with the rest of the group.

Today, though....

Today, we were doing a group lesson -- our whole school uses the Second Step program, and I've been doing modified versions of the fourth grade lessons. However, with this group, I've had to mix it up a bit.

First, I have PECs pictures of feelings and we go through them in a sort of game-like format. Every kid gets four "Turn" cards -- four chances to be right, then they can't answer any more -- and I'll hold up a feeling. Anyone who knows can raise their hand, then I pick someone to answer (usually via eenie-meenie-miney-moe).

So, today, I hold up "frustrated."

Seven hands go up.

I start eenie-meenie-miney-moing, intending to...ahem...accidentally land on Superhero, because I know he knows that one, when, lo and behold...

...wait for it...

ELASTIGIRL'S HAND SHOOTS UP WITH THE REST OF THEM.

I stare at her.

She's not really following natural cues and imitating her classmates, is she?

That would be too huge. No way. It was a fluke.

Still, I go over, present "frustrated" and the blank back of a card as a distracter, and say, "Elastigirl, where's 'frustrated'?"

She picks it. The class claps for her. She preens.

We go on, me still thinking it was a happy fluke that I had the chance to reinforce.

A few turns later, I hold up "excited."

Seven hands go up.

THEN, LO AND BEHOLD, UP GOES ONE MORE!

That's twice, in one day.

I go over to Elastigirl, who had since put her hand down, and look at her. I raise my hand. The rest of my monkey-see-monkey-do kiddos follow me.

Elastigirl does not look at me. She looks at Superhero and Angel. She thinks. She looks at Superhero again.

AND HER HAND GOES UP AGAIN!

I realize that for those of you wno do not deal with kids with severe cognitive impairments, the idea of a 10-year-old girl looking at her classmates and copying them is not a big thing.

For Elastigirl, this is like figuring out the Theory of Relativity.

It still may have been a fluke...but it was THREE times...and if she can do it three times today, she'll be able to do it again...on her own timetable, of course.

Oy Vey

I am trying very hard to restrain myself from a prolonged rant about today -- including such titillating topics as Important Things to Tell Your Child's Teacher, Why the Frell Can't You Just Be a Grown-Up and Do Your Job, and even Stupid Reproductive System, Why Now -- but suffice it to say, I'm not a happy camper.

However, my aching left wrist (I don't even remember what I did to it, but it's more than Baby Carpal Tunnel Aggravated By Wacky Weather) is forcing me to just say:

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Yay

Barring book report projects and the Bingo game, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is done. Questions and all. Yippee!

Oh, and Swiss Family Robinson is all typed; I just need to make questions and such.

Meh

I think that sums up the last two days: Meh. Things haven't been great, nor have they been awful. Bulldozer had one medium-sized meltdown in the morning today and one incidence of hitting and such but he was redirectable...but, man, the kid must've had a gallon of Mountain Dew for breakfast, 'cause he was running at thirty-five thousand miles an hour all day.

We had to send Superhero home sick yesterday 'cause he coughed up phlegm. Yuck. He was out today and has a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Angel was also out today, and Sleeping Beauty (formerly known as Princess) was asking to go home (!?!) so she must not have been feeling well.

I realized today when I looked at our Charlie schedule that I actually make a big mistake this week...this was the week we were supposed to go to one chapter per day in order to finish on time (we were scheduled to be done reading next Thursday and to spend the next few days doing catch-up work, book reports, bingo, etc.)...but we were still trundling along at two chapters per day!

However, if I nix our weekly poem both this week and next week, we'll make it. Just.

Thank goodness I was avoiding giving M eye contact at that one point today!

Just...No

"Haltingly familiar."

...

Haltingly familiar?

HALTingly familiar?

Good grief.  You meant, perhaps, hauntingly familiar?

Bulldozer was better today, despite the principal telling him he had to stay behind from the field trip...poor Aide T missed former-student-C (of the 3 hour long screamfests) again.  A minor meltdown in the afternoon (a few swings but mostly wailing like a stuck pig).

Personally, I think it was just a couple of bad days.  But I think at this point, even the principal doesn't believe me that he's doing better -- because all she's seen is him being a brat.  I should pull all my Bulldozer comments out of here and make them like pretty (as in, a data-type spreadsheet or something) to prove it.

Our sub for Aide J, who we've had before -- though granted not during the Drama Fest that is this year -- was muttering all afternoon about how it was "ridiculous" that Bulldozer could "do whatever he wants."  Perhaps she missed the part where he missed the field trip, had to work before he earned a break, and then wailed for half an hour because he had to work again?

(Boy, it's tempting, though.  Imagine how happy Bulldozer would be if he could do whatever he wanted?)

Meanwhile, I'm still sick.  Walking to Target about did me in today, so I'm hopeful that just a...ahem...regular school day tomorrow will be more manageable.  (I must have looked bad today; I was in the office after the kids got on the bus, and the principal sent me home!)

Edited to add:  this is so sad....

The Plot Thickens

Turns out it wasn't a Countrywide Mortgage Building -- it was Country Wide Building Supplies or something like that in Fresno.

And, it turns out, whoever bought $1200 of building supplies in Fresno used an actual card.  If I can't get them to stop the payment themselves, then I have to call B of A back and file another type of claim.

Of course, it should be fairly easy to figure out that it wasn't me, based on the time stamps between my Borders transaction and my Target transaction...Google Maps says it takes 2 hours to get from Santa Clarita to Fresno, and to get FROM Borders to the hardware store and BACK to Target is impossible.

Let's just hope B of A understands that.

Meanwhile, I have to wait for my new ATM card to arrive.

Oh, and I guess today was just INSANE at school...I took my first sick day of the year in an attempt to recover from my cold enough to manage the field trip tomorrow.

What a Difference a Pan Makes

B of A update:  Their offices were not open when I called, so I'm just going to stop by a branch tomorrow.  Hopefully, it will be a relatively simple matter of checking with Countrywide to verify that I don't have a mortgage with them, in Fresno or otherwise.

Anyhow, my immune system has finally given up the ghost.  The culprit was a fairly mild (for me) allergy attack last night that I couldn't stop with drugs in time.  So I'm dragging today, trying to sleep it off before going back into the lion's den.

(I should have known yesterday when I stood fully dressed, literally shuddering from cold while Patrick was sitting on the couch in a flimsy undershirt without a problem.)

However, because it's times like this that you want comfort food, so I took a nap to build back my strength (grocery shopping's killer, ya know ;-)) and made Alton Brown's baked macaroni and cheese.  It's very, very good, though of course I've tweaked the recipe a bit.  Instead of 12 ounces of cheese, I use 16 -- a mixture of sharp cheddar and mozzarella.  I top it with the mozzarella and a handful of parmesan (parmiggiano reggiano if I'm feeling particularly indulgent).

I've yet to see what it would do to the texture of the sauce to add some ricotta, but that's on the to-do list of possible tweaks.

In any event, I've tried to make this several times before and was never totally happy with it.  It took almost twice as long as it was supposed to, for one thing, for the sauce to thicken, and I was constantly switching between a whisk and a spoon to get flour out of the corners of the pot when I was cooking the roux.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought an honest to goodness saucier -- a pan dedicated to sauce making (which is really what mac and cheese is -- it's macaroni folded into a bechamel sauce with cheese and then baked).  It's not quite professional quality -- real, truly professional cookware is expensive (cooking, writing, and photography...why are two of my hobbies so expensive?) -- but it's not bargain basement either.  It's decently heavy, with a distinct thickness of the bottom to even out the heat.

This is the second time I've used the pan for this recipe, and it's amazing the difference it makes. Yay.  :-)

Also?  Slightly warmed up leftovers smushed between two pieces of toast makes a yummy sandwich.

Because Life is Never Easy

I did some Hanukkah shopping today, and bought a few books for myself at Borders.  

Stopped for a cookie at the Tollhouse cookie place and *gasp* forgot my purse.  20 minutes later, I went back, and it was behind the counter.

Then I went to Target to buy a really pretty sweater, and Target said there was a problem with my ATM card.

Got home and had an email from B of A saying there was suspicious activity on my account, so I logged in, and lo and behold, there was a $1200 charge to a Countrywide branch in Fresno.  Bwuah?

So, I called the number in the email and went through the identify verification junk, and was reviewing purchases with the guy on the line.  After a few, he said, "Well, that seems like everything's okay, then."

So I pointed out the Countrywide charge.  He was a touch confused, saying it had been "approved."  Well, yeah, I had enough funds to cover it, but there's the slight problem wherein I wasn't in Fresno today and I don't have a mortgage -- with Countrywide or anyone else.

So he turned off my ATM card and gave me another number I have to call tomorrow.  Then they will mail me an affidavit to sign, so that they can put the funds back in my account.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out if I have any other automatic payments due in the interim -- luckily, the cell phone, TiVo, and Netflix all went through yesterday...but I have to check about my car insurance.

Alas, Poor Sparky Junior

Once upon a time, while I was in college, I had a computer named Sparky.  Sparky was a 166 MHz Pentium with something like 32 megabytes of RAM.  (I imagine my iPhone runs faster than 166 MHz).  It was in a monstrously large tower and came with a 17" CRT monitor that weighed as much as Patrick at the time.

During my senior year of college, Sparky, who had been slowly limping along, suddenly panicked and the next thing I knew, I had a mostly empty hard drive.  Strangely enough, there was no apparent rhyme or reason to what, exactly, was sacrificed in the Great Hard Drive Suicide of 1999, but it was certainly traumatic.

So, after the semester I took off to look after Patrick and help to run and then sell my dad's alarm company and monitoring station after he died, I bought Sparky Junior, a 1.7 GHz (10 times faster than Sparky; I was ecstatic) PC with 256 MB of RAM and a 15" LCD monitor.  It ran Windows Me (yeah, I know), which I eventually upgraded to XP.

The sticking point here is the RAM.  It is a random kind of RAM that only existed for a brief time before SDRAM appeared and took over the world, and not even Crucial carries it.

Being a fairly well-informed computer user (translation = uber nerd), I am careful to protect my computer from spyware and viruses and only visit a few trusted sites when using the PC (as opposed to my laptop).  I have virus programs and spyware checkers, and have both a software and hardware firewall.

So I don't think the way my computer randomly slows to a crawl and complains of being out of memory is a virus or spyware issue.

I think Sparky Junior is dying.

Or, rather, I think Sparky Junior's memory is dying, and seeing as how it's virtually impossible to replace, I will soon be in the market for a desktop.  Having become a Mac fan in the interim -- especially now that you can also run Windows for those few applications that require it (Boardmaker and Writing With Symbols being the main suspects) -- it will likely be an iMac.  I wish I could afford the utter powerhouse that is the Mac Pro, but because that would require me to buy a monitor as well, I just won't be able to swing that.  For the price I'd pay on the Mac Pro and the monitor, I could get a very nice iMac as well as Final Cut Studio.

Alas, Poor Sparky Junior; I knew him, Horatio....

Wake Me Up When December Ends

So, I have this song stuck in my head, as it was playing just as I got home today...and it ocurred to me that if I just tweaked

There's a lot of chaos on the school front. Speech Aide A is refusing to work with Bulldozer because he hit her on Tuesday. I got a lovely email from Speech Person DFT when I asked if Speech Aide A was all right -- she'd come into the speech session with guns blazing ("Okay, Bulldozer, it's time for speech...NOW, NO HITTING, OKAY?") and a bad attitude.

The response I got began with something along the lines of, "I'd have to say that no she is not okay" and went on to passively aggressively chastise me for not being at her beck and call at all times ("she came to see you after school and so did I, but you were not available" -- which she knew, because she knew I was translating conferences all afternoon) and then proceeded to explain to me that, OMG, SPEECH AIDE A FILLED OUT AN ACCIDENT REPORT AND IT IS NOW ON PRINCIPAL S's DESK!

(Yeeeah, that's where they all go. Also? They're so not a big deal. My first year of teaching, I did like three a week because I had a fourth grader with some very difficult behavior.)

What bugged me the most is that she assumed his behavior was like that all the time. Long term readers of this blog know that Bulldozer can have his moments, and had many of them at the beginning of the year. However, they will also recall that as the year has gone by, his meltdowns have gotten less frequent and less intense.

(Of course, articulating that to Principal S was the dumbest thing I have ever done, as you would have thought it was a Monday in early September today...it wasn't until 5 minutes before lunch that I got him through a transition from a break back to work without triggering another meltdown.)

In any event, my reply wasn't -- I admit -- a stalwart example of courtesy, though of course you never know how something will appear in email. I won't get into it here, but I pointed out that Bulldozer's behavior has never been wonderful, and that part of the current behavior regarding speech as opposed to just about anything else is that it worked at the beginning of the year when we were fighting battles about just about everything.

Meanwhile, the teachers are up in arms about a mysterious comment or twelve in this week's bulletin that I hope wasn't prompted at least in part by this drama.

The only reasons we survived today is that Student M was out and that it was a Thursday, so Aide Mrs. B came at 11:30, because Aide S left sick at 9:30.

Oh!

Yeah, duh, the reason for the post.

We determined why the existence of November is such a problem for Bulldozer. He wants Christmas, but bad. He wants it now, now, now, now, now, now, NOW.

Now.

So I'd just as soon have it be the end of December, thanks.

Oh, and I finally decided on Swiss Family Robinson for our next book. It's available pre-adapted to a first grade reading level and the version I bought includes a professionally narrated CD for the kids to listen to for the "listening comprehension" day for each chapter, so all I have to do is retype it verbatim with Writing with Symbols and make comprehension questions. Yippee. I'm hoping to have the whole book done before Christmas so that I have a few weeks to breathe before I have to worry about adapting Matilda.

Of Lee Press-On Nails

I forgot to add below that I -- really, truly -- forgot to write the "please clip Elastigirl's fingernails" note today. Of course, I had a kid melting down today before he even got on the bus, so hopefully I'm forgiven.

However, that brought up an excellent point.

Elastigirl has been fairly regularly melting down at about 11:30 each day. I suspect it has to do with Aide J getting tired and stressed, and Elastigirl reacting to that, but I'm too smart to say that.

So, today, I pulled her, along with her News-2-You work, some different work, and just me, with the express intention of doing a few scientific experiments to determine if it's (1) the time, (2) the work, (3) Aide J (didn't say that one aloud), or (4) some combination of the three.

I was all set up, when the psychologist called and reminded us that she wanted to do a few more tests on Elastigirl.

Dang.

A Voice is Crying, "Your Doom is Near at Hand"

(Can ya tell I'm a quote person?)

Anyhow, remember a while back when I said I felt disaster lurking around the bend?

Disaster, thy name is December 18.

Why December 18th, do you ask?

On December 18th, of the total four staff that I have (one morning, one PM, two all day), three -- three -- will be out.

All three morning folks -- Aides S, T, and J -- will be out.

I have already asked the office if I can borrow aide #4 -- Aide Mrs. B -- in the morning and give my sub to her morning position just to have somebody who knows the kids.

And yet, I keep thinking: ALL THREE OF THEM WILL BE GONE.

Whattaya wanna bet that's the morning I wake up to a stolen transmission, four flat tires, and a dead battery?

(Meanwhile, having for the first time spent extensive time with Teacher R, a second grade teacher at our school, and her son L, I have discovered yet someone else with Down syndrome who chews their thumb. I am intrigued. Also? While I'm sure that L can be a royal hell raiser (you should hear his giggle!) he is absolutely utterly adorable, and I have decided that should anything happen to R, I will happily adopt him.)

Sometimes I Amuse Myself Too Much

Must be part of the writing thing.  Sometimes, the phrases that come out of my head just amuse me...especially when they appear on my computer screen without any advance warning.

Right now, I am tickled pink that my brain came up with this:

Tara shook her head in exasperation. “They’re the FBI’s real life Mulder and Scully.” She shrugged defensively at the looks she was getting. “X-Files? If they kissed, the world would stop turning?” She shook her head. “Forget it.”

The joke here, of course, is that the "real life" Mulder and Scully are just as fictional as...

...hey, it was funny to me!  :-)

Of Fingernail Clippers

The good news is that it was a Monday and Bulldozer only had two minor meltdowns -- one of which was semi-provoked. Yay. :-)

The better news is that against all expectations, Aide S's working for a certain psych care services place has only made her better at her job instead of turning her into a discrete trial drone. Yay. :-)

However.

(You knew there was a however, didn't you?)

However, our current drama is that Aide J is just incensed because Elastigirl's parents must clip her fingernails right this second!!!!!

She has asked me to write a note requesting that they do this, but I replied that I was not comfortable doing that because they know that Elastigirl's fingernails should be cut.

(And, also, 'cause you wouldn't get the bejeezus scratched out of you if you only actually did what I told you to for more than 10 minutes at a time, and 'cause the girl could find a way to scratch if all of her fingernails were ripped off in a tragic Velcro accident. Seriously.)

In any event, she has now decided that Elastigirl's scratching is OMG A HEALTH HAZARD because she touches places that shouldn't be touched without washing your hand.

And she is, apparently, telling everybody this...according to our principal.

So I chatted with our principal after school, who grinned knowingly when I said that Aide J had been asked repeatedly to just step away when Elastigirl is scratching ('cause, you know, if you move away, she won't get attention, and -- get this! -- she'll stop scratching) and said that she would tell her the same.

But she did ask me to write the note asking that Elastigirl's fingernails be clipped.

I'm chafing at that (I've worked hard to maintain a good relationship with them, because they had some run-ins with school staff before), but our principal has been very nice and very supportive, so, hey, don't rock the boat, you know?

But this is my blog, and I'll have my say here. (So there.)

1. Elastigirl's parents know her fingernails need to be cut. Her behavior is the same at home as it is at school.

2. Elastigirl's parents have been working very hard to provide for her and do right by her, in the face of enormous challenges and obstacles. She has even done homework sometimes.

3. Elastigirl cringes and flails away from washing her hands. Can you imagine the production that is required to actually clip her fingernails?

4. Seriously. They know her fingernails should be cut. They also know she should have a bath every day, but with a kid with intense needs who has a dad on daily dialysis...sometimes things have to give -- and feeding her dinner is more important than washing her hair.

4a. Don't get all snippy with me. I know kids should have baths. But I have also been the harried sixteen-year-old sister whose dad is in the hospital and who is trying to study for midterms, pick her kid brother up from school, cook dinner, take midterms, hold together a tutoring program while the official tutor's brother is in a hospice dying of cancer, and waiting to see if her dad will wake up from his coma. Guess what? Patrick didn't get a bath that week. So sue me.

4b. Seriously? They know. Get over it and implement her behavior support plan and stop worrying about trivial things like fingernails. If you're worried they're so dirty, wash her hands. Or, you know, your cuts. That you wouldn't have (or, at least, 90% of which you wouldn't have) if you actually absorbed what I tol dyou.

4c. Seriously? They know. They're trying.

4d. While Elastigirl's "mental functioning" is in question, she unquestionably has severe delays. My brother -- my 20-year-old, mostly high-functioning brother -- would, to this day, rather chew off his fingernails than allow fingernail clippers within 50 feet of him. He would rather his toenails rip off in his socks than allow toenail clippers within 100 feet of him. Don't assume it's a matter of, "Oh, c'mere, Elastigirl, let me cut your fingernails, honey."

4e. Seriously? They know.

4f. THEY KNOW AND PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME TICK THEM OFF OVER THIS; LET ME SAVE IT FOR WHEN SHE IS BRUISING HER OWN JAW BY HITTING IT BECAUSE ANOTHER TOOTH IS ROTTING OUT OF HER HEAD, OKAY?

Allow me to rephrase that: If I have only so much good will with this family, I'd rather use it on the thing that is causing such severe pain that hitting herself is the only thing that will make it feel better than on something they know should be done anyway.

Hmph.

Amusing bookmark to this story. I, I admit, whined at one point, "Oooh, she's such a thorn in my side sometimes."

The principal looked askance at me. "Aide J, not Elastigirl," I said.

She looked dubious.

"Seriously. I adore Elastigirl (I do). I'd take Elastigirl home with me in a second...though I might have to fight Aide T for the privelege."

She grinned and at that point wondered if perhaps Aide J is angling for a disability leave from us (with pay, of course) so she only has to work the one job but is paid for both.

Welcome to another week!

(However, my writer's block un-blocked. Or, rather, the dam burst. I have about 4 stories almost done and two videos totally vidded in my head. Squee!)

My New Favorite Quote

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Turkey Coma

And to think he only ate the requisite one bite of turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great one!

...And Smites Him to the Earth

From "Demonbane," a filk song written by Mercedes Lackey.

The wizard shouts in triumph
Too soon he vents his mirth
For Vanyel calls the lightning down
And smites him to the earth

If I could call lightning down, I might have...smote...someone today.

If you'll recall, a few weeks ago I shared the uncharitable thought I'd had about Speech Person DFT, who ignored my repeated requests not to speak with Elastigirl's aide in front of Elastigirl -- both for ethical reasons and because of the simple fact that when she feels ignored, Elastigirl tends to do unfortunate things.

Anyhow, if you'll recall, I had the uncharitable thought that Elastigirl would, you know, get DFT instead of Aide J.  Or me.  Or anyone else DFT managed to get her mad at.

Elastigirl's tri is coming up.  Aside from trying to get the poor girl off services -- again -- the only services she'd done with Elastigirl this whole year is come in and watch.  She should thank her lucky stars Elastigirl's family is not the questioning kind.

Anyhow, she came in today and started peppering Aide J with questions.

Which, okay, don't do that in front of the kid, don't distract Aide J...all the normal stuff.

We were in the middle of a whole-group News-2-You lesson.

Which, as you may have guessed from my school stories here this year, is not an easy task on the best of days.

So, poor The Boss (Girl J) is trying to read.  Several people are talking.  I prompt her to say, "It's my turn!"

She does.  The kids stop talking.

Except for one.  DFT is deep in conversation with New Girl T.

I repeat, loudly, trying to get DFT's attention, "The Boss, say, 'It's my turn' so people will be quiet so you can read.'"

Chatter, chatter, chatter.

At this point, I'm seeing red.

One more time, "The Boss, I'm so sorry that people are being so rude to you.  Say it again, 'It's my turn.'"

New Girl T stopped talking, but DFT kept right on going.

At that point, Aide B comes to collect Third Grade A, who has been reading with us while her teacher is on maternity leave.

I throw up my hands in defeat, read a page or two to them, split the kids up into groups to work, and go about my life.

But not before I overhear DFT making snarky comments about Elastigirl's work during News-2-You.

The thing is, a year ago, Elastigirl couldn't sit through more than 15 minutes or so of a whole group lesson.  So, I made her file folder games based on the content we were working on.  I also started giving her things to do while the class read, including being master of ceremonies (rolling dice to see who reads next), and a few other things.  What really worked was giving her pictures to match while we read.

A year later, she's progressed from matching color coded pictures, to highlighted pictures, to just pictures, to color-coded words, to large not-color-coded words, and now to just words in the text highlighted.

And DFT has the gall to not only question the work itself, but to be snarky about the size of the text?

So, I girded my metaphorical loins, channeled my inner Vanyel, and wrote an email after school asking her to not do that anymore.  I am going to share it with my staff so that they know to redirect her to me.

The clouds of black have lifted
And there on barren ground
Stands Vanyel, hurt but victor,
The demons tied and bound
He looks down on Lord Nedran
His eyes grow cold and bleak
"Now I shall give you Nedran
all the power that you seek!"

Hmph.

PC Run Amok

You know, I'm all for sensitivity of language and respect for other cultures.  Really.  I've ranted before about the casual use of the "r" word and its derivatives such as "fantard."

But when you have to "warn" that the earlier seasons of Sesame Street, now available on DVD, are for adults only because Alastair Cookie (of Monsterpiece Theater) smokes and then gobbles -- yes, GOBBLES -- a pipe, and because Oscar the Grouch is...well, grouchy, that's just insane.

I mean, for one thing, people should realize that the world was different in the late 60s.  Sesame Street has always very forthright with its audience -- and, I think, its motives.  It's had characters with a variety of disabilities, including physical disabilities, Down syndrome, and, if any Deaf readers will pardon my lumping it in here, Deaf characters.

After the September 11th terrorist attacks, Sesame Street took it upon itself to reassure children by having the characters deal with a fire and then visit a fire station.

That kind of political correctness is fine.  In both cases, they're presenting the world as it is -- there are people in the world with disabilities and the only way to build comfort (let alone mutual respect) is to show people with disabilities participating in society.  In the case of September 11, it happened, and to pretend it didn't is ridiculous.  In fact, to discuss it (or, rather, allude to it) while reassuring children is way better than having them see snatches of news coverage or -- for kids in New York -- to look outside and see smoldering ruins and wonder if they will be next.

Complaining that Oscar the Grouch is too grouchy is just beyond comprehension.  He, like all the other characters, is an exaggeration.

As for Alastair Cookie....  Okay, so he smoked a pipe.

Here's an idea.  Talk about it.  Say, "Boy, that wasn't a good idea.  He ATE the pipe.  You know what's a worse idea?  Smoking it.  Smoking is very bad for you.  I wonder what Alastair Cookie would do if someone asked him to stop?"

Or, you know, talk about the story...all of which I remember fondly.

It may be obvious from this that I was a Sesame Street fan in my formative years.

And I was.  I'm fairly certain I learned phonics from Big Bird's alphabet song.  I loved Kermit's news reports, and I ADORED the sketches where Grover was a waiter.

I watched Sesame Street in the early 80s, when Grover sang with Bernadette Peters, when everybody thought Snuffy was Big Bird's imaginary friend, and -- get this -- before Elmo.

So while some of this rant may be coming from my undeniable nostalgia, I just have to ask: what on Earth are these people thinking?

Kids can tell -- or should be taught, either way -- reality from fantasy.  Alastair Cookie is fantasy.

I never looked at Alastair Cookie and thought, "Oh, good, let's go try EATING a PIPE."

(I mean...really?)

I never thought mummies in Egypt actually walked around, nor did I ever think you could get fish to jump willingly to their doom just by crooning, "Here, fishy fishy fishy."

I grew up with songs like "These are the People in Your Neighborhood," "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon," and "I Love Trash."

And, get this, I never got the idea to collect trash.

Gosh, I must have had parents who told me it was a bad idea.

I betcha they told me not to eat pipes too.  (Well, okay, I like to think I didn't need to be told that.)

Imagine that.

And, in case you're wondering, Patrick grew up on Sesame Street too.  And to prove it, I quote here the first ten pages or so of the masterpiece of early childhood fiction, Ernie's Big Mess.

"Ernie and Bert are best friends.  They live together.  Bert is neat.  Ernie is messy.  Sometimes Ernie is very messy.  Then Bert gets mad.  'Ernie, come here!' Bert shouts.  'Look at the mess you have made!'

'Okay, Bert,' says Ernie.  'I am coming.'  Ernie jumps out of the tub.  Splash!  He splashes water on the floor.  Drip, drip.  He drips water on the rug.

'Ernie!' Bert shouts.  'You are making a bigger mess!'

'But Bert,' Ernie says, 'you told me to look at the mess I made.'"

For the record, he never tired to eat a pipe.  Or smoke one.

Also for the record, my favorite Sesame Street books were There's a Monster at the End of This Book and Gover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum.

Oh, and I like Oscar the Grouch just the way he is, thank you very much.

Unexpected Expenses

Sorry for the rambling rant last night...though I'm glad the articles on introverts were useful.  I found them particularly funny because I always make comments like, "Cat had to drag me by the ear to the Christmas party."  All three used a variation on that theme.

It's not that I don't like being around coworkers, many of whom I consider friends, a couple of whom I consider good friends, and I feel generally positive towards the rest with one exception.  It's just that it's overwhelming and exhausting.  At a party, you'll usually find me hanging in a corner chatting with a couple of people or watching from the sidelines.  I generally don't initiate conversations but if someone comes up and starts one, I'm generally open for it.

Truthfully, I'm not sure why yesterday slid me so far into overload mode that I essentially hid away from people all night, but after a long night's sleep, I feel much better today.

Now, about that unexpected expense.

I'm not, to put it mildly, the most organized person on the planet, but I generally don't lose my electronics.  In fact, I've had 3 iPods, 2 Shuffles, an iPhone, 2 point and shoot digital cameras, a Sony Reader, and a fairly expensive pair of earbuds, and not lost any of them.  And I'd like to point out that a 2nd generation shuffle is about a quarter of the size of a credit card.

And yet, my trusty 5th generation iPod has gone missing.

I've looked all over the house, through backpacks, purses, camera bags, cars...everywhere.  And I'm reluctantly forced to decide that it must have fallen out of my purse at one point.

So, I'm now the reluctant owner of an already-full (or, it will be when it finally finishes syncing) 160 gb iPod classic.  In honor of its lost sibling, I gave it the same name -- Lo'La (all my iPods are named after ships on Farscape -- nerdy, yes, but more 'cause I like the way the names Talyn and Moya sound, and Lo'La was all that was left).

I Have No Idea Where This Is Going

Warning:  This is probably going to be more a brain dump than an actual blog post.

1.  Most of today at school was really good, with a few exceptions.  First, Aide J apparently had a "nervous breakdown" at her other job last night and said she wanted criticism and to be told when she needs help.  Second, Aide J started the day well but by afternoon had (again) forgotten everything I told her yesterday.  This is frustrating to me.  And, third, Superhero -- after one of the most spectacular days I've seen him have yet -- randomly hit Aide Mrs. B.  

2.  There were two big exceptions.

2a.  First, PH shouldn't have been at school -- at least not this morning.  He coughed a lot, dozed off, perked up, and then the cycle would just start all over again.  This is not the big problem.  The problem is that when we asked the office to call and his mom protested that she didn't want to pick him up, the office's response was to tell us to let him sleep on our beanbag.  I mean, what the frell?  If this were a kid in general education, that wouldn't have been an acceptable alternative, but because PH has special needs, he's allowed to just sleep it off at school -- thus infecting all of us?

2b.  There is a 6th grade girl who's fully included that we'll call Student E.  She takes the bus with my kiddos, but today she said she was being picked up.  We said, "okay," and went about our life.  Then our office clerk B comes out and says E was supposed to ride the bus.  She was very snippy and even said that next time we should check with her.  Again, what the frell?  Not my student.  Not my business.  Not my job.  Plus, she's never been wrong before.

2c.  I generally like Clerk B a lot.  Today, however, she was On My List.

3.  Someone parked in my spot this morning at school and I had to park half a block away.

4.  However, Superhero read nearly a whole paragraph (with picture support) on his own, and M is reading non-picture-supported phrases on her own AND showing comprehension.  Woo-hoo.

5.  I am very grumpy today, for reasons that make no sense to me, given the relatively calm day.  Thus, given my turtle tendency, all I really want to do is hide in my bedroom tonight.

5a.  And yet, it is suddenly Absolutely Vital that my grandpa order prints of the 100 pictures he's taken in the 2 years he's had his digital camera.  I have shown him three times how to do this with iPhoto, and have no patience for the process -- or, to be totally honest, my grandpa...my electrical engineer grandpa...standing behind me staring over my shoulder and either pretending he knows what I'm doing or, worse, marveling at the fact that I can FIND and CLICK the "Order Prints" button.

5b.  I am now in deep familial trouble by saying that I just couldn't tonight, because apparently I am never allowed to need to be by myself.  It's enough to make me want to print copies of this or this or this for my entire family.

5c.  When I was a child, because of the screwed up psychology of my family where I got in trouble for speaking up to my grandma and saying "no" to crossing a street against a red light, I would have never dared to say, "I need to be alone now."  The few times I tried, I got in trouble for being anti-social.  Old habits die hard...I am sitting here already riddled with guilt because I chose not to go.

5d.  The fact that I was able to stand up for myself and say, "I just can't tonight" really should be a sign to people of how much I need my time alone.  But despite some of the craziest crazies in the family having since passed on...like I said...old habits die hard.

6.  Someday, I probably should go into therapy.

The funny thing is, my brain can go on even wilder tangents than that, but it's abruptly said, "that's enough" right now, so I'm going to watch The Simpsons and wait for 11:00.  Thank goodness for brainless fun TV.

New Girl

So, the new girl came today. She's very nice. Very, very verbal...in fact, I suspect her nickname will be something along the lines of Motormouth. She just has to be a part of every conversation. She's sweet, and Angel was very relieved to have another girl to play with and interact with.

Her mom...hm...I can see where her mom has an inflated idea of what she can do -- because it's very deceptive, having a girl who has such good conversational and social skills.

She said several times she had a good first day, though she was a bit puzzled by Elastigirl -- "You mean she can't talk?" she asked two or three times, and she looked askance at Superhero (again with the allergies and rash, so again with the squealing and obnoxious behavior) several times, but she seemed happy.

But of course my days can never be that easy.

I walked Elastigirl up to class today, and we were chatting and playing together.

(Granted, "chatting" consists of me giving her deep pressure on an arm, while saying cheerfully, "I'm squeezing your arm!" and her repeating "squeeze" or saying "more," but, still...who'd've thunk I'd be chatting with Elastigirl?)

That, of course, was my first mistake.

Then, at PE, Elastigirl wouldn't walk with Aide J...because Aide J just kept saying, "C'mon, Elastigirl."

She wandered up to me, so I took her hand and swung it vigorously back and forth, which she loved, so I held on and gave her arm a tug.

(This is not at all like it sounds, but that's the only way I can describe it -- Elastigirl loves the sensation of people pulling on her arms, and seeks out spinning activities where she can hold and and then let go. So, she thought it was fun...I wasn't, like, torturing her or anything.)

She giggled like mad and ran after me. So we kept going. Every once in a while, I'd say,
"Swing?" and she'd either say "swing" or "more" or sign "please," and we'd do it again. We made a whole lap that way and kept going. As soon as she saw Aide J following us, she dropped to the ground.

So, I just walked on a bit and ignored her. She got up and followed after me. We'd swing once or twice and she'd drop again, but she always followed me.

Thus, I dug my own grave.

Then, after recess, Elastigirl suddenly paled and started crying. PH was out today because he threw up on the bus, so of course we were worried that she was about to puke all over everything, but she calmed down. Then, later, she started wailing again, and as we watched to see if she was going to throw up, she urinated (she wears pull-ups).

So, of cousre, we suspect a urinary tract infection -- which, of course, is one thing I don't know how to say in Spanish.

Anyhow, to add to all the mess, her parents never reapplied for the lunch program (I know I'm not supposed to know, but when a child has intense needs, etc. etc. etc.), so her lunch routine -- which she's followed from kindergarten to fifth grade is messed up, thus making her grumpy.

She was a wreck after recess, so as we got ready to leave, I asked Aide Mrs. B. to hang out in case Aide J needed help getting Elastigirl to the bus.

And, thus, I shoveled the dirt on my own grave. She asked me if something was "wrong" and proceeded to start to cry.

So, to sum up: if Aide T. offers to help, Aide J does the opposite. If I offer to help, Aide J says "no thank you" and ignores my suggestions. If Aide S offers to help, Aide J says "no thank you" and ignores everybody's suggestions. If Elastigirl so much as looks at any one of us, we get the pinched jealous face. If we don't offer help, she moans about how she doesn't think she can handle the scratching.

When I suggest -- for the fiftieth time -- moving away and ignoring the inappropriate behavior, I get a knowing nod. And then I see her crouched down beside Elastigirl, who has just tried to scratch a kindergartner, telling her how that was bad and would hurt and yadda yadda yadda, and then looks shocked when Elastigirl takes a swipe at her.

So, to put all this in words that I know at least Amie will understand, I have my dad's mom working in my classroom. Yee-haw.

Statistics

So, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but in all 5 years I've been teaching, my class has defied statistics by having more boys than girls.  In some years, the ratio is fairly close.

Last year was a record, with 2 boys and 8 girls (25%).

This year has just gotten closer, with the addition of girl #6, making it 3 boys and 6 girls (33% boys).

I met the new New Girl (Student T for now until I -- or, more likely, Cat -- come up with a nickname for her) after school today.  She seems nice, but in a year where we've been teetering on the edge of the abyss, the first thing I did was complete the aide request form I was going to do with my program specialist this week (she forgot).

Then, I stuck my head in the principal's office and told her that if she promised to sign it, I promised not to run for the hills screaming.

Yet.

Also, it turned out that Bulldozer was not sick, but had, in fact, two dentist appointments, and he's expected to be out the rest of the week.

Which, in the Bizarro World that is my life, means he'll be there with bells on tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Elastigirl hugged Cat before leaving today and somehow that means Aide J thinks I'm the devil.

Yay me.

One of these days I'm going to try reverse psychology on her.  I'm going to tell her to get right up into Elastigirl's face and tell her how she absolutely should not be doing X, Y, or Z.  Maybe then she'd ignore her.

Or, more likely, would choose that one instance to listen to me.

Meanwhile, we discovered part of the secret of Superhero's recent behavior issues.  He's been breaking out in a rash every time he gets near the school's lawn.  So, now that we've figured it out, we just have to figure out what to do about it.  Today after lunch I had him wipe his face and arms -- all of his exposed body, really -- with a couple of wipes to get the pollen/dust/whatever it is off, and though he had a hard time at first, he calmed down and did a fairly good job.

Which, of course, means that two days from now, it will be a new puzzle and a new issue.

Ah well.

Traveling

The brother of a good teacher friend is in the process of traveling home from active duty in Iraq.  Please send good thoughts his way for his safe return.

More later.

Bizarro World

Today, Bulldozer had a meltdown.

Okay, he had several, which is unusual for a Thursday anymore.

What is really, really weird, though, is what triggered the first one.

He was doing his journal, after doing speech -- without a single attempt at hitting, yay -- and had written that today was Thursday.

Yay Bulldozer.

Then he had to write that it was November.

Not October or December.

November.

Instant level 8 meltdown, complete with wounded-mo0se-like wailing and culminated in actual screaming -- which he borrowed from PH, not-yay.

Now, if he had some sort of deep moral objection to November, you'd have thought that it would have manifested itself in the several other days' worth of journals that all also happened in November.

On a totally unrelated note, NASA has nifty sounds recorded by the Cassini-Hugyens spacecraft near Saturn.  Some of them sound like they could have been lifted right from a 50s sci-fi show.  What do you think?  Coincidence or prescience?

Happy Birthday Amie!

Hope you had a great one. :-)

Groundhog Day

Warning. I am going to whine. I am going to be...petty and probably not well-represented here. It's just that kinda day.

So, as I said recently, any sci-fi show that can even remotely justify doing a "groundhog day" episode does one sooner or later; the most recent was Blood Ties. As with anything that has become a cliche, the execution can be really good or really bad...and this one was quite good.

My life, on the other hand, has rapidly begun to resemble its own groundhog day episode, except that the student having issues changes.

Today, it was PH, who got on the bus screaming and didn't stop until about 9:15. I have no idea what caused it, because the only explanation he could give me was not true -- he said someone on the bus bothered him, but the bus driver said he'd gotten on the bus upset.

In return, both M and Superhero were angels (M did lose it at the end of the day, but after listening to that, I was about to lose it). Superhero even exceeded what I'd intended for him to do on his science quiz. Yay.

(Of course, I can't count; I made him a water molecule to complete for the quiz and gave him one H and two Os.)

I had a hard time shaking the week off this past weekend; it's weeks like this that make me want a job I can go to, do my job, and leave when the day is over.

Meanwhile, Elastigirl was very grumpy after lunch today. I reminded Aide J (again) to move away from her, and got a wide-eyed, "Oh, okay," for my efforts. It's like she wants to get the bejeezus beaten out of her, which is a concept I'm not willing to entertain yet.

Then, when Speech Person DFT came in to talk about Elastigirl, she started to speak to Aide J (not me). Elastigirl was in full meltdown mode at this point because, as usual, I was speaking to brick walls today. (She even used her VOCA -- speech device -- to request attention, and I got dirty looks for reinforcing that, 'cause, apparently, VOCAs aren't better than scratching...but what do I know?)

Anyhow, I told DFT that she shouldn't speak to Aide J at the moment because Elastigirl would not be able to handle it. What does she do? Speaks to Aide J for a really long time. I try redirecting her twice and give up, secretly -- and, yes, I know this is petty and ill-becoming -- hoping Elastigirl would snap and hit her for a change, if only so I could say, "I told you so."

However, I did see a nifty bumper sticker on the way home that said, "Give Bush and inch and he'll think he's a ruler." Heh.

If I get over myself, I may post later on the writer's strike.

The Trouble With Martians

Back before the Internet was the Internet, before the AOL floppy disks that promised 10 free hours!, before the general public even knew what email was, there was CompuServe, and there were bulletin boards.

Now, I realize that for those of you who didn't grow up related to Early Adopter Computer Nerds, that means very little, so I'll take a wild guess and say I'm probably thinking of the mid to late eighties -- say around 87 or 88.  1990 at the latest.

Anyhow, around this time, my dad began to correspond with David Gerrold, who is famous among fandom circles for writing the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" in his late teens or early 20s.

Of course, in true nerd fashion, they never discussed tribbles or Trek, but rather Lotus Notes or somesuch.

I've always felt just a tiny kinship with him after that, just by virtue of the fact that he was a kinda, sorta, maybe virtual acquaintance -- dare I say friend? -- of my dad's.

So, I was quietly rooting for Martian Child -- which is based on his life, though they changed a few key details (he was never married, for one, and wrote the eponymous book about being the single gay parent of a troubled, adopted kid -- which I didn't know until I heard about the movie).  It doesn't look like it did too well.

In his review, David Gerrold seems to have liked it.  So at least there's that.

And, no, I didn't see it.  Movies give me headaches -- I believe that I can see the difference in frame rate (film is essentially 25 frames per second, where TV is 30) and my eyes strain themselves, trying to ignore the flicker -- but I'll probably rent it eventually.

Finally!

If you're a sci-fi fan, you may have noticed that quite often a character in a sci-fi show will say something dramatically optimistic.

For instance, when faced with a ginormous fleet of attacking nasties, you might say, "If they want Armageddon, then by God let's give it to them!"

Or even just a simple, "Whatever comes, we'll be ready for it."

And the observant sci-fi fan says, "Ooooh, Will, you just doomed everybody."

(Pardon me for mixing my fandoms, but I'm trying to make a point.)

A while back on her blog, Jane Espenson (of Buffy and Gilmore Girls fame) talked about reworking old jokes by acknowledging that they were old.

Tonight, a sci-fi show did that with the old "We can handle it" thing.

I give you:

Coreen:  I can handle anything that they throw at us!

Vicki:  Oooh, I'm sure we'll read that in the Book of Famous Last Words.

Heh.  It's cheesy and brainless, but for some reason, I like cheesy and brainless right now.  Plus, Henry's way cuter than Angel was...but not cuter than Spike, who had the benefit of the accent.

This Takes the Cake

I have complained before about certain days in history being boring, but I think November 9 has just claimed the prize.

(For the record, I chose the Berlin Wall.)

At Least I'm Not the Only One

I have no particular affection one way or the other for Robert Goulet.  I'm sorry for his family, naturally, but it's kind of like looking at a local obituary page -- I have no attachment to him specifically.

Except for one thing.

Ever since I read the news that he'd died, I've had the song "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen" from A Chorus Line stuck in my head, because of this verbal aside during one of the verses:

"Robert Goulet!  Robert Goulet!  My God, it's Robert Goulet!"

("Too young to take over / Too old to ignore / Gee, I'm almost ready / But what for?")

Later in the song, it's:

"Steve McQueen's real sexy.  Bob Goulet out, Steeve McQueenie in."

("Why do I pay for all those lessons? / Dance for grandma!  Dance for grandma!")

Fortunately, at least two people in this thread had the same reaction.

I may be weird, but at least I have company.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Ironically enough, this has nothing to do with the latest sci-fi show's obligatory Groundhog day episode (which, yes, I did watch...it was rather good at that).

In my first two years of teaching, I had an aide we shall call ME. ME was...well, to put it nicely, she was not the brightest candle in the inn. But she was well-meaning and generally nice, and a very good match with the student with whom she was paired.

Around spring break of my first year of teaching, I received two new students: a fourth grader named Girl C and a fifth grader named Boy T. Girl C, despite her emotional issues, was a very nice girl and I enjoyed her a lot. Boy T...well, Boy T just didn't understand why the rest of the world didn't understand that he was the boss.

It was not all Boy T's fault. Though he had, officially, borderline intelligence scores, he also had severe ADHD as well as seizures. He took medication for both, but the medications interacted such that neither was ever completely controlled.

Boy T wasn't a bad kid, mind you -- he was just bossy, impulsive, and whiny. God, could that kid whine.

ME hated him.

They butted heads constantly. It was always, "Well...I'll just see what Miss Spoowriter says about that!" Seriously.

Enter PH (Boy J). In many ways, PH reminds me of T. He's got the same sense of entitlement -- but where they're both entirely externally motivated, there was a big difference.

T thought that if he did good things or if you praised him you liked him; if he did bad things and if you scolded him, you were trying to "break [his] heart."

PH does good things so that good things will happen to him. He couldn't care less what people think of him, as near as I can tell. When bad things happen to him, they simply happen -- they have little or no correlation with his own actions -- again, as near as I can tell.

And, of course, there's the voice. There's just something about that wheedling, whiny voice they both have that just drives me up the frelling wall.

But, I am aware of the fact that I, sadly, just don't like PH that much, and am constantly on my guard to make sure that I am treating him fairly and not showing how I feel about him.

You may have guessed that, like with ME, this is not the case with one of my aides.

Now that things have settled into a sort of routine, with Aide T able to take some of the weight off my shoulders (I have, in fact, probably been relying on her too much, but it's been so nice to have Bulldozer and/or Superhero be someone else's problem for a while that I've enjoyed the chance to breathe), I am noticing some things that I was simply too swamped -- tsunamid, really -- to see.

Aide J does not like PH.

(Again, not that I blame her, but it's obvious.)

He was very, very bad yesterday and was one ticket short of principal's recess tomorrow. Today was his last chance to earn it (technically, I suppose tomorrow is, as I give tickets for homework too, but the day PH returns homework is the day Vulcans land and make first contact).

So, today, Aide J gets all up and down his case about everything. It was like she wanted to make sure he didn't get principal's recess. At one point, she was actively arguing with me over the fact that he should lose a card because he didn't use the prefix "Miss" for a teacher, because they'd Talked About It Yesterday.

Yesterday is a long time ago, I pointed out. That also assumes he (1) knows what "disrespectful" is, (2) was dropping the prefix specifically to be disrespectful, (3) remembered being told not to do so yesterday, and (4) decided that the best was to be disrespectful was to say "Aide B" instead of "Aide Mrs. B" or "Teacher C" instead of "Teacher Mrs. C."

'Cause, you know, a kid who thinks it's funny to yell "poopy head!" for an hour straight will be so amused by calling Mrs. Smith "Smith!"

Ironically, Patrick had a summer school teacher once who got all up in arms over the same thing -- except this was a severely delayed 7-year-old with a horrible stutter who had a vocabulary of maybe 20 words. The fact that he knew her name was "Butler" was a minor miracle in and of itself.

The moral of this story: pick your frelling battles, people. The kid made a ginormous mess yesterday and spent half an hour yelling obscentities (F you, s**t) and cackling in glee when M repeated them. Dropping the Mrs?

Yeah....

A New Arrival

After a drama-filled pregnancy, Baby L has made her arrival into the world at 5 pounds, 11 ounces and 17 inches in length.  Congrats to Teacher M, and here's to a happy baby who won't put her mommy through any more drama...until she's at least fifteen.

And the Sub Was...

The good news is, Aide K is being reassigned to 2nd-Grade-J (the one who...well, let's just say, "the bathroom thing").

The bad news is, Aide S has strep throat.  Her sub today was Flake Aide D.

Then, at recess, Elastigirl's stomach flu caught up with Aide J, and she fled to the bathroom, where she promptly vomited and went home.

The other bad news is, Program Specialist PM tried really hard today -- as in, came to my classroom and disrupted my routine -- to get Aide Mrs. B to move to one of two other students.

Of course, when Elastigirl had yet another incidence of diarrhea, he fled.  Quickly.

Meanwhile, I'm more or less where I was yesterday -- nauseous all the time...to the point where I wish I'd just get sick and get it over with.

However, Bulldozer's dad brought him today to talk about his bad day yesterday, and I was able to tell him that Bulldozer is much better when he brings him (not that that was true today, but I think the week was more or less a loss).

It Had to Happen Sometime

There's a reason I jokingly refer to illnesses in my classroom as "plagues."  We do our best, but we're talking about kids that don't use tissues appropriately, don't use them at all and require assistance to do so, don't cover their mouths when they cough, etc.  So, when one gets sick, they all -- as well as us adults -- invariably end up sick too.

In fact, in my first year, the only thing that stopped a nasty cold from making its third or fourth round through our ranks was spring break.

So, given that at the moment, we have a stomach flu, possibly strep throat, a sinus infection, and an upper respiratory infection infecting various people, and given the amount of stress this year has caused, I knew it was only a matter of time.

What amuses me -- prone as I am to coughs and bronchitis (thanks, I believe, to growing up with a chain smoker who smoked in the house) -- is that, of everything, I ended up with Elastigirl's stomach flu.

I'm going to bed early just so I won't know I feel nauseous.

(However, kudos to Spirit and Opportunity, for having their mission extended again.  Their ninety day mission began in January of 2004 -- something like 1300 days ago -- and is now approved to continue until 2009, if the Rovers That Could last that long.  Nifty.)

It's a (You Know) After All

I was sitting at a table in the Red Robin at the mall tonight when a woman across the way caught my eye. She looked awfully familiar, but I couldn't place her.

Thankfully, she didn't have that problem, and it turns out that she was a fairly good friend in high school, who now teaches a 1-3 special day class in the area. Cool.

The Next Tip

Okay, so the prior tip seems to be somewhat effective; most people have figured out portions of the "don't respond to attention seeking behavior with attention." This, of course, varies by adult and by child. People get it with PEM, some people get it with Superhero, and a couple people get it with Elastigirl.

I have now decided to move on. Poor Boss felt the Wrath of Aide J last Friday because Aide J was grumpy and I was distracted with -- who else? -- Bulldozer. So, the tip of the (more or less) month is:

Part 1:

Specific directions are always better than general directions.

(I am guilty of this too!)

A child that may not understand "clean up please" will probably understand "please pick up the papers on the floor."

Part 2:

If a child doesn't respond, break the task down into steps; make each step a separate request.

Many children have trouble with multi-step directions. While we want to teach this skill, it's important to remember that what looks like defiance may be lack of understanding.

Meanwhile, Bulldozer did not want to be at school today, and Elastigirl had three incidents of diarrhea in a 15-minute time period, but we couldn't get ahold of anyone to come get her.

At least life isn't boring, eh?

A Rant for Another Day

So, I've been watching the commercials in praise of Indian gaming, and wondering...

...why do the tribes have to justify anything?  Reservations are sovereign territory.

Hmph.

More on that another day.

Meanwhile, I've found a nifty site called FreeRice.  Supposedly, they use ad revenue from the site to donate rice to poor areas across the world. 

When you arrive at the site, you are greeted with a multiple choice vocabulary question like "ingredient means _____" and you click on the appropriate synonym.  Each time you do, the page refreshes, and the ads reload, thus generating more ad revenue for the site.

They present this visually, by the way, showing a bowl filling with 10 grains of rice for each word you get correct.

For each three words you get right, you advance a level (from 1 to 50).  The highest I've made it to so far is 45.

Even if the site doesn't donate the money as it says, the vocabulary game is fun.

Also?

Every time I've played I've been given the word "effulgent" (it's the only word I've gotten more than once).  The only reason I actually know the word is from Buffy.  Heh.

In other news, the wayward cat has been found.  She is the least intelligent of all of them, including Jaime, who we think has brain damage from his traumatic infancy, and apparently didn't notice she was lost all by herself in the garage for nearly 24 hours.

Either that, or she couldn't find her way back to the door.

No, No, No, No, No, No, NO

So, I'm innocently typing up school stuff (I'm going to take advantage of no kiddos tomorrow) when I hear...

It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle-belling
And everyone telling you
Be of good cheer
It's the most wonderful time of the year

I'm terribly sorry to be a party pooper, but IT'S NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN YET.

Ahem.

That Will NEVER Happen Again

At one point today, my class of (normally) eight students, three aides,* and me consisted of all four adults and Bulldozer.

* One of those aides provides individual (a.k.a. one-on-one) support to Elastigirl; another is pretty much with Bulldozer 100% of the time.

Funnily enough, only one of those absences (Princess) had to do with the raging wildfires. Superhero was sick; the bus driver said Elastigirl was sick; and M's parents (henceforth christened PEM, for P.E. M) called in and said she was sick.

Then, Boy J was being assessed for his tri all morning, Angel had DARE class, and The Boss had speech.

Hence, four adults and Bulldozer.

It actually bordered on ridiculous; however, since it will never happen again, I'm not going to stress it too much.

Snicker

So, I got the quote here, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is the quote itself:

Whenever I see dialogue written without proper ending punctuation, I reach for my gun.

Then I realize that I don't actually have a gun; instead, I've simply grabbed my spare toothbrush. And while a toothbrush is indispensable in the fight against tooth decay, it's quite ineffective at firing high-speed projectiles, even if you point one at your computer monitor and go "pew pew" in a strained, high-pitched voice.

What we need is some sort of combination toothbrush revolver, obviously.

How come I can never come up with images like that?

I Should Just Keep My Mouth Shut

About a week ago, I commented that it was unusually cold for early/mid-October, and was surprised that we had not had any Santa Ana winds yet.

Yeah, bad idea.

Apparently, winds topped 108 miles per hour in one place last night, which is 3 mph shy of a category 3 hurricane.

Wow.

There is a dense cloud of smoke visible from my house, though the wind is -- thankfully -- moving it away so that I can't smell it. However, seeing it sucks. There's also a fire near my aunt and uncle's house; they were getting ready to get on a plane in Sacramento when a friend called and asked if they needed help evacuating. They are under an evacuation watch but have not had to evacuate yet.

Meanwhile, I am wondering what I will have my kiddos do tomorrow, since school will probably have indoor recess because of air quality.

I hate fires.

Azzip

One of the first words Patrick learned to spell as a kid was "pizza."  So, my parents and I learned to call it "azzip."  When he figured that one out, it became "that round food" and various other euphemisms.

Today at school, M proved once again that she is sharp as a tack.

(I made a vow to myself a couple of years ago, when I began to read blogs of folks who have autism, that I would never want to be "that teacher who thought I was dumb."  At the time, I was thinking of Now-Seventh-Grade-E, but that promise, as I was reminded today, applies to all of the kiddos in my class.)

In any event, M very much likes PE.  She especially likes to run laps, which helps her expend some of her excess energy -- and, I think, helps her constipated and impacted BMs be just a little easier and less painful.

Well, all the kids in my class go to general education classes for at least small parts of the day, barring one -- whose parents specifically requested that she not.  The fourth graders (Bulldozer, Boss, and PH) go to PE.

We have all very quickly learned to tell them, "Oh, it's time for Mrs. Teacher K's class!"

(And before you say it, yes, I should be desensitizing her to the word PE.  Please allow me to desensitize her to the notion of others using the bike and computer first.  The word PE provokes loud requests; the other two can provoke physical responses.)

In any event, today I told tow of my aides, "Oh, because of the assembly yesterday, that class we don't mention is today at 9:55."

Not two seconds later, we hear:  "PE!  Run!  PE, run!  PE time!  Let's go!  PE!  Run.  PE, run?  PE time?  PE time!  PE!  Let's go PE!"

Sharp as a tack, I'm tellin' ya.

California Version 2.0

So, the Disney blogs are abuzz with today's news of the proposed revamp of California Adventure.

As usual, I'm ambivalent about the news.

On the one hand, some of the new stuff sounds very cool.  I adore Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, so the upcoming Toy Story Mania sounds neat (I'm a sucker, apparently, for interactive rides...not a surprise, really, given how much I loved Horizons).  Patrick, being the Disney history buff that he is, will love the interactive Walt Disney Story.

But on the other hand, I kinda like DCA as it is today.  It's lower-key than Disneyland, but I like that.  I like feeling like I can meander through the park and take my time.  I don't feel pressured that if I don't zoom through all the attractions that I'll miss something.

So, we'll see.

Of course, if they can make it look as awesome as DisneySea, all will be forgiven.

The Mini Has Landed

I am a total nerd. I find opening, and setting up, new computers to be a fun and exciting process.

More later.

Something Else the 21st Chromosome is Good For

So, I'm working on journals for next week (I have, unfortunately, finally caught up with what was done ahead of time) and distracting myself with a nifty Flikr group highlighting pictures of folks with Down syndrome, when I run across this.

For those of you who don't want to click on the link, it is a little boy (I'd guess two to three years old) chewing his tumb!

Several years ago, while my mom was chatting with Chaline's mom, they got to talking about medical issues. Somehow, one of them mentioned that neither of them sleep well. Chaline has sleep apnea -- for which they can no longer do surgery like removing her adenoids because she's now on coumadin for her blood clots -- and Chaline's mom mentioned that Chaline chews her thumb while she sleeps!

For years, Patrick always had one or the other thumb in his mouth. He still chews his thumb, but only -- by his own report -- when in the shower and when underwater in our grandpa's pool (why he came up with that rule nobody knows).

The thing is, most kids suck their thumbs. Until Chaline's mom mentioned it, I had never known anyone who chewed their thumb rather than sucked it.

And now I find this little guy.

Seriously, is there a 'thumb chewing' gene somewhere on that 21st chromosome that kicks in when there's three copies of it?

(For the record, from what I can see, neither Superhero, Elastigirl, Princess, nor the Boss chew their thumbs, but still...the fact that of the three people I know (of) who do, all three have Down syndrome is kinda odd.)

Exhaustion

Have you ever been so tired your eyes hurt?  I don't mean a headache behind your eyes -- I mean the eyes themselves, right at the bottom eyelid.

I was never prone to insomnia until I started teaching.  It comes and goes now -- and, fortunately, has been mostly "gone" the last year or so.

However, I think that over the past week, I might have slept a total of two hours a night.  It's gotten to the point that I forgot to copy News-2-You at school today, and then forgot to bring home social studies -- which I was pointlessly going to modify.

I say pointlessly because I'd also forgotten that we have an assembly tomorrow when we normally read Charlie and that we will have to read Charlie tomorrow afternoon -- thus, no time for social studies.

So despite the fact that I will surely hate myself for this as early as, say, tomorrow, I plan to take some NyQuil (I've lost the Unisom I bought for Disney World and don't particularly want to drive to buy more) after dinner and try to sleep.

First, however, a couple tidbits from today:

1.  Only 3 meltdowns on a Monday.  Not bad, Bulldozer.

2.  Superhero's sister is sick.  Superhero doesn't appreciate this.  This means K gets all the attention.  Superhero REALLY doesn't appreciate that.

3.  Aide K started crying today because she just doesn't understand what she's supposed to do.  This was after I'd used the visual supports in the classroom to place kids at tables, told which adults to go to which table, and then told which kids to go to which adults.

4.  There was a sub aide today in one of the 2nd grade classes that has two kids fully included (M and J).  She is Aide K's long-lost sister.  She was inside the boy's bathroom after M and J finished and didn't notice they were gone, and later -- I swear to God -- was seen rolling around in the grass.

5.  The weather was cold, dreary, and drizzly.  I LOVE IT!  :-)

I think that's it.  Maybe more later if the NyQuil doesn't work...there's no point laying in bed staring at the ceiling.

They Do Say it All Started With a Mouse

Just before the train fiasco (a.k.a. Broken Ride #1), we stopped to watch the daily Flag Retreat Ceremony.

I got distracted, as I often do, and noticed that the trees in front of the marque for the "About Disneyland" movie, as Patrick calls it, had given it an apropos new name.  :-)

An All-Mac Family

So, my mom's Dell (about which Blogger once deleted a CAPSLOCK OF RAGE) has died.  It crashed in the middle of re-installing Service Pack 2 and won't boot.  I (stupidly) said that I could hook up the drive to an external hard drive enclosure, add a new hard drive to the computer, and resurrect the files on it.

Fortunately, my mom decided instead that she wanted a Mac Mini.  Patrick has been using my old faithful iBook since I got my PowerBook nearly 4 years ago now, which means that the iBook is -- I think -- close to 7 years old.  He's familiar with the Mac platform, and will be able to more safely use the Internet on a Mac (clicking bad things won't install viruses, for example).

I will still have to put the Dell's hard drive into an external drive enclosure -- it's got several hundred slides I've been slowly scanning, for instance -- and pull over my mom's iTunes library.  But hopefully this is the end of the CAPSLOCK OF RAGE.

That means that between me, my mom, my brother, and my grandfather, among us we have: three Shuffles (1 first gen and 2 second gen), a 1st gen iPod, a 3rd gen iPod, a 5th gen iPod, an iPhone, an iBook, a Titanium PowerBook, a G4 Mini, and a Core Duo Mini.

My dad and grandpa -- both of whom had PCs when they ran off of things that looked like cassette tapes and plugged into your TV -- are either loving that we're geeks or turning over in their graves that we're Mac geeks.

Me, I'm just amused that all of this has resulted from the fact that when I started working as an aide, I bought an iBook so that I could run iTunes, which was the best media player of its kind at the time.

'Course, that's exactly what Apple wants; they even have a name for it -- the Halo Effect.

Edited to add:  I'm an idiot.  I still have Sparky, my faithful PC, that exists solely to run Boardmaker and Writing with Symbols.  Someday, when I get an Intel Mac, Sparky is going away and I'll run XP in Parallels just for those two programs.

Presented Without Comment

Coming Home

Patrick has not been to Disneyland since mid-July, when he went with his girlfriend for one last hurrah before our annual passes expired.  We had decided not to renew them until after Disney World, and as one thing led to another, we ended up not renewing them until yesterday.

Kristina Chew of autismvox.com often describes the ocean as her son Charlie's home.  I think in many ways, Disneyland is Patrick's.  Not out of any particular love for the characterst, but for those familiar rides that he associates with important things.

At Disneyland, things don't change.  Star Tours is Star Tours.  It will be the same ride, with the same dialogue, and the same environment, today, tomorrow, and next year (until they update it, as rumored).

At Disneyland, things are predictable.  The train will always go from Main Street to New Orleans Square to Toon Town to Tomorrowland and then past the dinosaur diorama (which terrified Patrick until we named the dinosaurs after characters in the show Dinosaurs).

Life isn't predictable, as Patrick has had to learn as he's gotten older.  Sometimes things don't work out the way you plan them -- for instance, your dad isn't here to see your high school graduation -- but at Disneyland, things are always the same.  And if they do change, it's easily predictable and takes a long time (say, the construction of the Nemo subs).

Ironically, our trip yesterday involved a lot of unpredictable things.  The first ride is always the train, which broke down.  It's a Small World broke down (the motors that keep the current going stopped, and the boats drifted lazily back and forth in the silent room -- they turned the music off -- while the characters still moved and danced...it was eerie).  We then went to the Jungle Cruise, where the microphone didn't work.  After dinner at the Plaza Inn to watch the fireworks, Patrick and I went over to Space Mountain (for Patrick's first ever ride in California; he rode it in Florida and loved it) -- which, yup, broke down as we were about 9 trains' worth back in line.  (It restarted shortly.)

But it was still Disneyland, the place where Patrick seems most comfortable.