Life, school and a visit from Jack.

     Well, here I am 4 weeks into school and Friday was the first day we had a full load of 8 students.  8 students, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist and two assistive technology trainers.  Which makes for a very crowded classroom, sigh :(.
     It's been a very busy month, getting used to a new computer program for IEP's, which is not quite ready for us to use, getting used to new students and their parents, getting used to a new principal.  Change can be difficult and is always exhausting in my opinion.  It doesn't mean I won't be happy about the changes, just that I take a while to get used to new things.
     Last weekend I brought Jackson home with me.  He was not very happy about leaving Mommy and driving to Nana's house with Nana.  It's amazing how much it hurts your heart to hear your grandchild cry :(.  He eventually brightened up enough to find Iron Man in Target to buy and to tell me he didn't want to eat out, he wanted macaroni and cheese at Nana's house.  So that's what we did and he was delighted to find out that Pop Pop had been busy shopping and that there was now a new box of dinosaurs to play with and a put-together batcave with a miniature batman.  He already is the owner of a large castle like structure which contains a firehouse and police station.
     We spent a wonderful morning at the Air National Guard Air Show.  Jackson loved looking at the various aircraft and was thrilled to be sitting in a helicopter!  The best part however was the hangar set up as a children's play area with many bounce houses and slides which he loves, especially if there are other children to play with :).  We then went to the zoo on Sunday, but Jack wasn't really into it, he said he wanted to see the lions, but once seen, he gladly walked on.
     He is getting to be such a big boy and almost cuter than one child can possibly be :).

    

A New Year

Well school and started and the kids are back :)  I started out with 5 students who were coming back from previous year/years and then found I had two more and then one more.  8 students are all I can have, 8 students and 2 full time para professionals.  This is because the needs of my students are usually greater than those of students in a more typical early childhood special education class.  And believe me sometimes 3 adults are definitely not enough!  Just to get the kids into and back out of the classroom takes more than 3 pair of hands.  I have to go outside the classroom to get enough help.  Thanks goodness our speech pathologist has some free time to help us.

It's been a difficult start of the year.  Although I stayed in the same school, I was moved to a new classroom and have a new room mate.  I ha vethe only classroom for students with multiple disabilities which shares a classroom with another ECSE class.  We have a lot of equipment besides the wheelchairs we need for out children.  All the kinks are being worked out, though.

It is easy to forget how much new students change the atmosphere of your classroom.  It takes one or two years for many of my students to learn the routines and expectations.  Now these have to be taught all over again to the new students and of course they come with specific learning needs of their own.

And of course it didn't help that I was sick all week :(.  I went to an amazing outdoor concert given by Jason Mraz with my 26 year old daughter, Holly and evidently the high levels of pollen had their way with me.  I have been coughing and wheezing ever since.  I was coughing so hard that I had to go to the doctor to check on my sternum that I broke last year.  I presently have an order for an xray to use if it continues to hurt or gets worse.  I also have instructions from my doctor to not lift anything heavy!  Ha, like that's going to happen :)

All in all, it's been a tiring week and I am truly glad to have a 3 day weekend. I know it's going to be an amazing year.  My experienced students have grown and my new students seem to be a lot of fun.  I am very lucky to be able to love the work I do.

                                                           

Whoops They Did it Again! A film review

My husband and I went to see the movie "The Expendables 2" last night.  I had had a hard day at work and then therapy for my knee. so we planned to meet at a local theater where you can watch the movie and eat your dinner at the same time.  It's nice, you choose your meal from a menu, they even include alcoholic beverage, which my husband enjoys because, being English, he misses his Woodchuck Cider, which he can't find in a lot of places.  A "waiter" comes and gets your order and then delivers it while ducking down through the rows so that he/she doesn't impede anyone's view of the movie.  The food is definitely not high class, think cheese fries, wraps and some desserts, but it's fun.  Another great perk of this theater is there is always a small clip at the end of the previews (not really previews, they use old clips of the stars of the movie or clips from pictures similar to the one you will be watching) that stresses that you are to turn off your cell phones, no ringing, no texting and NO talking during the movie.  It's usually presented in a humorous manner, but they really mean it.  If you are sitting next to someone who is disruptive, all you need to do is write down your complaint on a piece of paper and stick it in the slot so it stands upright, exactly they way you order your food and a server comes and collects it and takes it to the management.  The management will then warn the offender once and if they cause any more trouble they will be removed from the theater without their money back.  I assume this is something they felt the need to institute because they do sell alcohol, but whatever the reason, it makes for an enjoyable viewing experience.

Anyway, there we were, my husband and myself, happy to see each other after a busy day and watching the movie.  Now, this is not the type of movie I usually want to see, but it got a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I didn't mind it.  The experience and the prospect of a date with my husband was what I had been looking forward to.  However..... about three quarters through the movie, the heros ( Stallone, Stratham and some other actors I don't know as well so I can't give you their names off the top of my head) were in a village, facing some suspicious village women who were protecting their young boys from the evil villain.  When asked who they were, our heroes answered, "American", "English", "Asian" and then..... wait for it...... the next guy answers "tard".

Why!!!! Why does someone feel the need to do that, couldn't you have said "ugly" or "sexy" or something else which would have caused viewers to laugh without using that ugly word which hurts, devalues and dehumanizes people with intellectual disabilities?  And what made it even worse, in my mind is that Sylvester Stallone is one of the writers of the movie and he has a son diagnosed with autism.  I don't think that automatically makes him a caring wonderful human being, but I would think it would make him more sensitive to using a word like that in a movie that he not only co wrote, but starred in.  Can he not fathom how that hurts people when he does this?  For me, the use of that word made the film not only sub par but insufferable.
                                                                   

Back to School.....

                                                          


We (teachers) start back to school tomorrow.  No kids, just teachers scurrying around like mad things trying to get everything back in line before our reasons for being come back.

My room is a mess!  We used to have 4 early childhood special education classes in our building, 2 classes shared a classroom each, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, with a little bit of overlap.  My class is the first ECSE classroom for students with multiple disabilities to share a classroom with a less restrictive class.  So anyway, they split up the classes that were sharing classrooms, moved two to another school and shoved all of my equipment, materials and such into the other ECSE classroom. 

Most of my students stayed with me for another year, but I am getting two new students.  One family has already been in (last year) to observe me and my classroom and the other has not.  I cannot even imagine the amount of courage it takes for these parents to send their very young, non verbal and probably physically fragile child to a brand new person in a brand new place.

I feel the weight of these parents worries.  I am afraid I will make an inadvertent mistake and frighten these parents into thinking I am not paying enough attention to their child.  I don't want that to happen.  I want them to feel as though their children are with people who will care for them exactly as if they were our own children.  In some respect, I actually pay more attention to my students than I did to my own children.  After all, this is my job.  I also hope that they will know that I will feel a real affection for their child and will want their child to be the very best he or she can be.  That's a lot to expect of a parent, though.

CMV

Did you know that there is a virus called Cytomegalovirus that causes few if any symptoms in healthy adults, but can cause lasting and and serious consequences in a child being carried by a woman who catches this virus for the first time?

Many people don't know anything about cytomegalovirus and most people have already been exposed to it by the time they are adults.  They probably didn't know they had it, how often do we get mild viruses and never really know where they came from.  But if you are a pregnant woman, who hasn't spent much time around young children and has gotten CMV for the first time, you have exposed your child to a virus that can cause him/her to have cerebral palsy, hearing, visual and mental disabilities.

According to "Stop CMV-The CMV Action Network", " CMV is the most common congenital (meaning from birth) viral infection in the United States. 1 in 150 children is born with congenital CMV in the United States. More children will have disabilities due to congenital CMV than other well-known infections and syndromes, including Down Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and Pediatric HIV/AIDS."

Since CMV is present in bodily fluids, pregnant Mothers, daycare workers, teachers and nurses are at a higher risk for passing it on to their unborn child.  Universal precautions should be used to help decrease the risk of passing CMV from child to adult.

Currently there is no vaccine available to prevent congenital CMV.

This film will leave an "Indelible" impression

Wow!
I just watched the trailer for the film "Indelible-the film" , India's official film for the World Down Syndrome Congress.  I enjoyed seeing people with DS living in a different culture than what I am used to.  I have had a few students with Down Syndrome in the classes I have taught, not too many because I usually teach students with moderate to severe multiple disabilities.  Like most of my students, each one of these kids have been very different from each other.  Sometimes this has been a function of their disabilities, but just as often it's been a function of their family and/or their culture.  This has been the same for all of my students as many of them have shared diagnoses, which is something I am always attentive of, but that diagnosis is rarely as important as their personality or the family they grow up in.

If would be a boring old world, if we were defined by only our physical beings.

                             http://youtu.be/MMVfy6_nxp8

Headaches and Communication

Ouch!  I have a migraine this morning.  I have chronic migraines and take a plethora of medication to try and stop them from arriving.  Sometimes they are so depressing, no one likes to wake up in pain, I would say, when you have to go to work, but who wants to be in pain when you don't have to go to work either.

I always worry about my students who aren't able to tell me when they are in pain or maybe just feel plain weird.  Especially those with seizures or who have had changes in medications.  Since one of the medications I end up having prescribed to me are anti-seizure meds, I have some idea how they can stand you on your head, make you dizzy, tired or even make food taste lousy.  But how do you know when this is happening to a child who can't speak?  How often do I or anyone else think they are being stubborn or "non compliant"?

  Communication is a beautiful thing.








This picture communicates "cute".  And he makes my head feel better :)