Wednesday Whining

The Sotos Syndrome conference will be in Niagara Falls this year. And I really want to go. It's the last weekend in July, so I was trying to figure out a way to tie it into some sort of family summer vacation.

Idea #1: Vacation!

Fly to the conference and back, and spend a couple of days in New York after. Dude, airfare is freaky expensive. Airfare alone could run as much as $4k, plus conference registration x6, food, plus possible hotel in New York, plus anything we DO in New York. So, maybe as much as $6 or even $7k. Um, no.

Idea #2: Road Trip!

Yeah, let's pack four kids in a car and drive 4-8 hours a day for 4-6 days, occasionally stopping to glance at a tourist attraction or pee. Head to the conference, then fly back home. Except that one-way airfare, plus a car rental, plus all those hotels along the way, plus conference registration x6, plus food somehow equals around $5k. PLUS, I have to take a ROAD TRIP. With my KIDS. Not so much.

Idea #3: Fly and Drive. And Pay.

Fly to Philadelphia. Rent a car and drive to my brother's house in Jersey. Ditch the girls and maybe Baby J., drive to the conference with D. and maybe Baby J., then spend a few days back in Jersey, daytripping to NYC, Phila, and maybe even D.C. Fly home. This is still expensive, but it is the least expensive option I have found. It may still prove to be prohibitively expensive, but I'd still like to try to make it work. Realistically, airfare could be $1500, and I don't know how much for the car. Plus daytrips and food means probably around $4k, which is still more than I want to spend.

I really want to go, but I also really want to get out of debt, you know?

HOLY CRAP, INTERNET! SHE LIVES!

You probably thought I died. Or, heck, maybe you didn’t even notice I was gone. Well, I’m back. And I’ve got a lot to say, so settle in.

My absence? Blame it on that lovely time of year known as Passover, also known as the Season of Our OCD-ness Manifesting Itself as an Unnatural Need to Clean Every Surface in the House, Even the Ones in Rooms We Do Not Use, Like the Upstairs Closet and the Shelves in the Back of the Garage. Or you can just say Pesach. Whatevs.

Anyway, in order to make it easier, the children do not attend school several days prior to the start of the holiday. Wait, that doesn't actually make it easier. Huh.

But today, oh blessed day of days, they are back in school, which means that they are not here and demanding to be fed and entertained MULITPLE TIMES A DAY. Woohoo! So.

1. The School called to inform us that they will not offer D. a place for next year. The consensus on their part was that he was not socially or languageally able to handle the requirements for the class he would be in next year.

2. As a result of Number 1, Mr. WG announced that we would not be returning to The School for therapy, and plus he doesn't believe in all that developmental therapy Mrs. Block does anyway, because it's out of network, so it can't be REAL, right?

3. Remember how I said that Mr. WG is losing it? He seriously is. Like, seriously. I guess it had to happen at some point, because how long can a person live with me and stay sane, right? It's kind of funny to watch him, but I'm also hoping he hurries up and works through his crap so that I can go back to being the one with the Issues.

4. We have a new speech therapist who is OK. Competent, certainly, and she has potential. So we'll see how that goes.

5. We officially accepted D's placement in the PPCD for next year. And I verified that the bus that will pick him up and drop him off daily is, indeed, yellow, as any other color would have most certainly been a dealbreaker.

6. The title in that last post three years ago? That’s a Hannah Montana song, peeps. It’s called Just Like You, and it’s about how Hannah is really, totally just like you, provided that you are also worth about a billion dollars and slated to head up your own empire.

7. Huh. I guess I didn’t have as much to say as I thought I did. But I promise to say it more regularly now that The Endless Days of Cleaning are behind us.

It's a Crazy Life, But I'm All Right

Who knows what that title is? (Hint: if you have a tween daughter, you're much more likely to know.)

Anyway, here's what's been going on.

1. We toured the PPCD. The facility houses preschool through kindergarten only and has regular and special education classes. Classes include MI (multiple impairment) classrooms with kids who have feeding tubes, walkers, and other accoutrements, PPCD classes for blind and visually impaired kids, and PPCD classes for kids with developmental delays. They are huge into inclusion. MI kids join PPCD kids when appropriate, PPCD kids join regular classes when possible, etc. They have a swimming pool and they teach the kids to swim. They have a speech therapist who pulls kids for individual therapy as mandated by IEP. They have a lot of cool stuff. The school day goes from 7:30 to 3. D. qualifies to be picked up and dropped off AT OUR HOUSE by a bus. It sounds pretty good, and we are leaning heavily towards it.

2. We are still waiting to hear from The School.

3. My friend had a baby, her fifth girl. When it was time for her to go to the hospital, her husband was MIA. So I drove her and hung out with her till we tracked him down. He was on the phone with his father and didn't hear the call waiting beep. NINE HUNDRED TIMES. So then, he told us that he'd run home to get the computer and change his shirt. It took him two hours. Fortunately, they have a fantastic marriage, plus it took her a good 12 hours to actually have the baby, so it was cool. When I left her room (well before the pushing stage began), I picked up her parents at the airport, lied to them for an hour about where their daughter was, and then drove them and the other four kids back to the hospital to meet the new baby who had finally deigned to make an appearance.

4. We hired a housecleaner to help with Pesach prep. It was heavenly to have someone else scrub the toilets, and even more heavenly to open my office closet and see it all neat and organized. Totally worth skipping meals for a week or so to pay for it.

5. Mr. WG went slightly, briefly insane. It was fun, but he seems to be back to normal now.

How bout you? How've you been?

Forward Motion

D. is at The School RIGHT NOW. And I am here typing on my computer, which means that I am not in the classroom with him, as I was last year.

This is Day One of a Two Day Visit. I will, of course, update you as details become available.

In other news, we got a call from the public school people telling us that D. qualifies for PPCD (preschool program for children with disabilities) placement for next year, if we choose to go that route. So we have a backup plan if The School doesn't work out. I'm hoping the choice is supremely clear to all of us, because it's just so much easier that way. I'm touring the proposed PPCD class on Monday morning.

One major advantage of the PPCD is that it is public school, which means... free. But that will mean very little if we discover the classroom is dark, stinky, or not helpful. One major advantage of The School is that it is an amazing program that could help D. a lot. But that will mean very little if he doesn't get in.

Interesting times ahead, peeps.