Our First Week at Home

DRUM ROLL PLEASE . . . DENNIS WILL BEGIN 2ND GRADE AT LOVETTSVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ON JAN 31ST!

I will get to the details of how this came to be later on in the blog, but I wanted it posted at the top just to keep your interest because the rest of the blog is well ... pretty blah as far as my posts go! :)

Not too much excitement the past few days, but we did have some company on Thursday night (will write more on this later). On Wednesday we just hung around the house and I decided to try some home schooling until we can get him evaluated for public school. I printed out letter pages A - F with coloring pages to accompany each and let him choose where he wanted to start. He choose the dog, so D it is ... D for Dennis, too! :)

Showing off his artwork -
first piece (of many I'm sure) to go on the wall in Dad's office

What you might not understand about why this is such a wonderful thing is that with Dennis' mild CP he has difficulty with fine motor skills, especially when it comes to using his fingers. Also, no one in Ukraine has taught him how to write, not even his name. He usually uses both hands to hold a crayon, so we have to keep an eye on him and make sure he's only using one hand. Also, when we watched him color in Ukraine he would often scribble well beyond the lines and would not change colors or distinguish between the items on the page and color them different colors. The fact that this page is mostly inside the lines and has several different colors is a huge improvement just since arriving in the US ... and being worked with by our 10 yr old daughter, Ashley! We tried tracing the letter D, but that didn't work out very well. We'll try again another day.

Daddy's coat is just a wee bit too big!

On Thursday I took D to Target to pick up a few things before our company arrived that evening. The Rowell family we met in Ukraine had an overnight layover coming into Dulles before leaving out of Baltimore the next day ... for those who don't know us all that well ... we live 30 mins from the Dulles airport and just over an hour to Baltimore ... so I offered them our extra beds and rooms. They arrived at almost bedtime for us and they were exhausted and basically just made plans for the next day and got everyone off to bed.

This morning the Rowell's looked like they felt much better! Ash, Sam & Amanda were off to school at 7:15 and most of the others were not up. I found Sam helping Dennis get dressed in the hall and asked what was going on ... he said the 15 yr old was still asleep in their room! :) Teenagers! Once they all got up we had breakfast together and then the kids mostly played with the Wii and DSI and Gameboy until it was time for them to leave for their flight. The rest of the photos with the Rowell family can be found in my Homecoming 2011 album on facebook.

Then I took Dennis with me for a visit to Care Net, where I work as a paralegal (currently I'm on parental leave). Que shameless plug ... Care Net is a national Christian pro-life non profit organization serving over 1100 pregnancy centers across the US and Canada. I LOVE working at Care Net! :) I was so excited to see my friends and colleagues today and of course everyone LOVED sweet Dennis! He gave everyone hugs and was all smiles and blushes as we basically stood around talking about how cute he is ... my boss even said she was going to take him home with her, but I stood my ground! ;-) Then we talked about the paperwork to get him on my health insurance plan and had lunch at Not Your Average Joe's ... our favorite work lunch location ... I was craving Ahi Tuna Nachos and D had chicken strips & fries with a ton of ketchup!

While at lunch I got two calls ... on my new DROID 2 (Christmas present, by the way). One was Amanda's dr saying he tested the sample from her infected toenail and wanted to change her meds. The other was from the school VP asking what we wanted to do about school for Dennis. I decided to stop by the school on our way home.

We had a good talk about his CP and high functioning level, but that he would need help with getting his lunch from the lunch line and may need adaptive rec for PE and recess. She said they have several kids with CP, some in wheel chairs and they use a "buddy system" for lunch and other situations where a student needs physical assistance. She also told me that the PE teacher works with all levels in his classes and the school's occupational therapist would sit in on the first few classes to help determine how they can best meet his needs in this area.

Regarding the ELL (English Language Learners) program, he will have 1/2 of his day as 1 on 1 with the ELL teacher! I saw the classroom that is used for this and it was filled with large alphabet charts and bold colored numbers and animals, etc. I let her know that he also has a speech impediment, which often accompanies CP, so that will impact his learning/speaking of English. The ELL teacher was not there today, but I can stop by next week and meet her.

I explained how developmentally he is not on par with 10 year old kids in the US, more along the lines of an 8 yr old and asked that he be evaluated as an 8 yr old rather than 10 for grade placement. I also told her that research shows that most children with even mild forms of CP have learning disabilities. She agreed, but said that it would be much easier to evaluate him for an IEP (learning disability) once he's been enrolled and we have a basis to work with.

As far as how we determined grade placement ... she said they usually don't put kids behind their age group due to ELL issues, but with his other developmental delay issues, and agreeing to treat him as an 8 yr old, she recommended 3rd grade. I told her my other son is 8.5 and in 3rd grade, but that Dennis is no where even close to being able to be in the same grade with his brother. I think that if he really gets up to speed quickly and catches up with other 8 yr old peers, then we could make an adjustment later. I would rather him be in the lower grade than the higher because it would be more embarrassing to be held back rather than just start in with younger kids in the first place. Due to his small size, no one will even know the difference.

She was concerned about him needing to "transition" into a school and classroom setting. I explained that his classroom at boarding school was about the size of her office and had 10 kids in it. She relayed a story of a boy that came to the school a few years ago that would not even come into the building after getting off the bus because he was so scared! She said that boy started with 1/2 day, 3 days a week and finally worked up to full-time. I don't think that will be necessary. He will ride the bus with his 3 siblings and Ashley mothers him quite a bit so I'm quite sure she will take him to where he needs to go until he knows it well enough for himself!

After we decided grade placement and that we don't think he'll need transition time, she asked when we wanted to start! I said as soon as possible of course. We had already told her previously this week that we have a dr appoint for him next week on Wed, so she said to come in on Thursday and register him! She said on Friday I could ride the bus with him to school and meet his primary teacher and then he could start the following MONDAY!!!

After this there was about 30 mins before the bell would ring to let school out, so I thought the other kiddos might want to just come home with me. We went down to Ashley's class and they were playing "Just Dance" on the Wii. I told the teacher that we heard they had gotten a Wii for the classroom and my husband wanted to know what educational purpose it served ... the answer - indoor PE! Well, um ... right whatever you say! ;-) Ashley came right to D and hugged him, picked him up and hauled him to the back of the classroom where she had been on the computer. She asked permission to leave with me and we went and got Sam and Amanda from their rooms ... then we had to sign out and we went home!

Week 1 accomplished! :)

Oh, and we scheduled a joint welcome home/birthday party for the "twins" next weekend on Saturday!

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