School Revamp

We homeschool year round. The kids are about a grade and a half of where they are supposed to be in pretty much everything except handwriting. They are MASSIVELY behind there - and will probably never ever catch up. They both have dysgraphia and we've even been sending The Girl to occupational therapy (OT) to learn ways to strengthen her hands, learn new ways to teach her, typing programs, and other ways to help her circumnavigate this. We've been working with  The Boy on these things as well because you can't read either of their handwriting STILL. Well, come to find out (and I had a suspicion) a couple of weeks ago as I was asking Girl some questions about what she was doing in OT because the report from her therapist had been rather vague. That "it's SO fun" but she wasn't *learning* anything we weren't already doing at home and HAD NOT been the entire time was what I gleamed from the conversation. I asked her about several aspects of things that she could be missing. Nope. She wasn't missing them. They just weren't being done. Our insurance doesn't cover OT really at all so we've been paying out of pocket for it. Which, if they are teaching her things and is beneficial, I don't mind one single bit. BUT. I do not want to pay $120 a week for a glorified babysitter to play games with my kid to teach her jack shit. I can pay myself to play with her. I love the OT we use. She has helped us a tremendous amount where it comes to The Girl's sensory issues, behavioral issues, stimulation issues. But this is clearly NOT her best work. So, as of this week, we are again therapy free. And I broke up with them over email because I am a complete and utter pansy. So, instead of leaving my house every Wednesday at 2 to get home at 4:45 to 5 for a 1 hour appointment. (Yes, 3 hours for a 1 hour appointment.) we are now freeeeeee.(And $120 per week less spent.)

Both kids have also had medication changes within the last month. The Boy has gone from not talking to *anyone* but people in the family, to most people he knows. I'll take it! He'll actually go off and play with other kids almost like a real kid now.  The Girl stopped sleeping again so we changed her sleep meds and found out she grew and out grew her dosage levels of other medications so we upped that slightly. It's only been one day on that so hopefully she won't go all wonky and turn into the Poltergeist child permanently. 

But one of the biggest changes is their school. I keep wondering if I'm leaving something out of what I've assembled for them. Whether on accident or by my own biased and preferences. So we're trying an alternating schedule of what we had been doing for the last while - just dividing the full schedule up into slightly smaller bites, not even dividing the days in half - and adding in Easy Peasy Homeschooling in too. Because the work, even at their accentuated grade levels, is too easy for them on the Easy Peasy. But, from what I've seen so far, it focuses on some folk lore, story telling, and game playing so it teaches in a different method than what I normally use. It's a religious based instruction, but since it's online we can take and leave the parts we don't want.

The Boy spend his time on the math online puzzles today instead of Lego Star Wars on the Xbox. *shrug* I figure religiously based or not, I'm ok with it. Plus, I don't feel like I'm going to be leaving SO much out if they are getting things for another source as well. It all goes back to the inadequacy we all tend to feel this time of year when people all talk about *planning* and *curriculum* and such. They do SO well with what we've got set up, I don't see a reason to screw with it much. But they LIKE the computer a lot I figured we would give this a go. I don't want all their stuff on the computer. That seems... like a bad idea.. but if they'll do MORE because some of it's on there.. Ok.

Aggravation

You know what I hate? Stupid Snits. People who send you an email or voice mail or txt or something that indicates communications and just flat out demand something. Aggravation is really all it causes me. It doesn't cause me the desire to help you out. It makes me want to go all Hulk Smash and beat you.

 So we're doing the whole house buying thing. The paper work may kill us all still. (NEVER use Arvest for your mortgage BTW.) Our loan lady has sent us saying we have to have this CDIB card because everything is on hold until we have it. Well, I'm getting ready to head to Talequah today to GET it when C calls me because there's an issue with underwriting. We don't qualify for the Indian Loan thing because we haven't sold the current house we own yet. Now the awesome thing? The loan girl KNEW THIS when she said it would work. She wasted 2 weeks of our time with this and has been complaining everyday about this stupid card, which we now don't need, on something we can't even use! Pissed I am. Now, it gets better. She then sends a list of things she wants within 24 hours if we want to close on the contracted time. WTF?? Ok you screw around for 2 weeks chasing donkeys and now try to blame it on us?? Part of the things she wants - she's demanding be prepared by a CPA. Our CPA is off on professional development and is super pissed because he has to change his entire schedule now. Yeah. Clusterville. All because this chick is stupid.


Then, we have the text at 2:30 while I'm trying to convince the kids that they DO want to move by showing them that Sand Springs has most of the stores and stuff they like. The text is my mother saying "So, my doctor said he wants me to go to the ER.." Really? (Sorry, mom.. It's true..)

Or perhaps the 4 1/2 hours IN the ER with no doctor, no nurse.. Nothing. No one came in to check on her, to see if she was alive, to see if she was even there. Even when I disconnected her leads and oxygen and heart monitors so she could go to the bathroom.. Nothing. It's screwed up.

Then there's just stupidity.

 Let's take the lady at The Girl's OT. The receptionist calls and says she can't possibly ever make an appt for a re-eval before the end of this year. She has been told to not do it under any circumstance. (Yeah, like I believe that.) I tell her fine, make one for next year. Whatever. How about January 3rd. Really? Can't do this year but January 3rd? Ok. Sure whatever. Then get a voice mail the next day saying she has an appointment scheduled for December 21st. Huh? What? I call to see what's going on. "Oh, well. I talked with the therapist and she cleared it up, she meant any NEW patients." Right. Sure. It only got more special from there.

Long Week

It's been a long week and it's just now Tuesday afternoon. Mostly, I had a meeting with the folks who did the girl's testing earlier this month. I'm not sure I *entirely* agree with it, but it's not entirely wrong either. They've now got her classified as Non-verbal Learning Disorder instead of aspergers even though it is exactly the same as aspergers. Gotta love the change in fancy names. It also means we've made a good amount of progress teaching her how to interact - or how to pretend to interact - with people vs how she was previously. Anyhow, they've also got her listed as ADHD. That's the one I tend to disagree with. But I guess she doesn't ever sit still, though by that standard, I would be to.

Next, they've listed her with dysgraphia. THAT is true. Her handwriting is bad. Barely legible still, even though we work on it almost daily. She knows how to form the letters, but it just doesn't get better. They did an IQ test - to see where she was able to function and she's brilliant, until you add in writing of any form. Then a drastic drop happens simply because of the issue of having to convey the answer to a written form. So, she's brilliant, but you won't know it if you saw her write or asked her to write the answer down.

They kept the OCD and Sensory Integration Disorder from previous diagnosis. They've referred us back to OT. So getting discharged from OT in June may have been only a temporary thing. Apparently there are some therapy things for dysgraphia.. I dunno. If it helps to teach her better, we'll try it. I don't know what to do with the rest of it really.

Both kids are acting up some this week. Both are overly excited about Halloween tomorrow and then a few days after that is the Girl's Birthday. Then the weekend after THAT is her actual party. Then Thanksgiving. We've restarted all of her previous therapies, brushing and listening therapy. Which is a giant pain in the rear, to be honest. The sibling jealousy has already started for the Boy. It's irritating to watch them cry a week before the others birthday.  They really do think they should be twins.