The Blog Where I Write About Our Life: IEP Conclusion and the First Week Of SCHOOL!

Little Man's teacher gets better photos of him than I do!

Little Man had his final IEP meeting last Friday! We received a long list of goals that he will hopefully accomplish at least some of this year, and I was really happy with them! The goals were all very doable and took into account exactly where he is developmentally. Two big ones that I am hoping will work out are potty training (!!!) and following a direction when asked without "maladaptive behavior" - aka a huge tantrum. Even if he only manages to accomplish a couple of the goals on his list, he will make amazing progress this year. I have high hopes!

During the meeting we discussed the plans for Little Man's next sixty days until we will meet again to make sure we like the direction his therapy is taking. He will have Speech and PT once a week for 30 minutes each, and OT will be every other week for 30 minutes. I was a little hesitant to agree to only twice a month on OT because I think Little Man needs a lot of help in the "life skills" kind of areas that OT provides. But they reminded me that his classroom will basically be OT-type activities all day every day, and so I agreed to it for the time being. He will also be getting swimming classes once a week in a therapy pool!! I thought that was awesome, since I'd never even heard of that in an elementary school. Little Man loves the water so it should be fun for him!

His teacher Ms. M was in the IEP meeting and she was really sweet. She looked to be about my age and was very enthusiastic about Little Man and finding ways to reach him. To cement the good vibes I was getting, on our way out the door we ran into a former therapist of Little Man's who raved about Ms. M and how great she is with the kids. Ms. M also uses a huge Smartboard in her class and loves using music with the kids so I think it is going to be a good fit for Little Man. She promised to look up some pictures of Little Man's favorite characters (Thomas and SuperWhy!) to use on the Smartboard too, which I thought was a nice idea.

After the meeting ended, they let me know that he could start the next Monday, if I didn't mind driving him until they had time to work out the bus situation (he will get a special bus with a para and a seat with a five-point harness). We eagerly agreed, since Baby Vegas is not sleeping through the night yet and I couldn't wait to have just one at home so I can "sleep when the baby sleeps."

So he started school, and despite a 20 minute tantrum during drop off the first day... he loves it! His teacher gives us a daily report of his progress, and he is getting a smiley face every day. She showed us his daily schedule and it is jam-packed with activities and therapies - I'm not shocked at all that when I pick him up at 3:30 he is exhausted! Supposedly there is very little time to chew on things and rip books, but it's still early... I am curious as to how he'll be once he is more comfortable. This week he only went three days because he had an orthopedic appointment on Thursday and there was no school Friday, so next week will be his first full week.

I'll leave you with some awesome pictures from our first week of school!