Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Things I Am Currently Stressing Over

Bet you can't wait to hear, huh? Bet you can guess what they are, huh?
(Alright...anyone reading the above with an old-timey, Jimmy Stewartish voice, while mimicking tipping their cigar ashes to the floor? No?? Huh...)

Money: It is freaking expensive to live here. The other half makes a great salary by all accounts and yet we still worry. Ridiculous.

The Real Estate Market: This one ties in nicely with the first. Let it be said that Mama Deb has finally accepted her fate and realizes there will not be a chance to sell--and subsequently move out of--this house until, AT MINIMUM, Spring of 2010. The final realization came last week after learning that a comparable house to ours came absolutely no where near appraising. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Anyone care to take dibs on which one is next....

SCHOOL! Yep, you guessed it. Still stressing about M's school. He did fine during summer school (different teacher, one of the same aides, mostly different kids, different elementary school...hmmm?), but has already shown great displeasure with going to class each day. We don't struggle every single day, but we're only about eight days in and I'd say five of those have been really tough. But what is tougher is hearing that he is very agitated, showing a ton of self-stimulatory behaviors, or easily angered during the school day. And at night we have been dealing with a little guy whose emotions are so out of control that he is starting to show a bit of rage towards mostly me and his little brother. It is both scary, upsetting, and enough to make a person really pissed off. There is only so much being pinched or kicked a Mom can take :(

And finally...

The grand combination of money AND school! Because I have just received a delightful little note from the district saying that though they are pleased to see M back in school this year, they need me to understand that they will not be able to continue serving him without me signing the latest education plan. (These are those IEP things I have previously mentioned. It is not recommended that a parent sign these if they are not in agreement with them. Because these plans have outlined an education that is to be granted in a public elementary school as opposed to the private autism school M needs to be in, I have not signed. I did this fully knowing that we'd come to this point eventually where one of us would be forced to take that legal turn...here we go!) So I am scrambling for advice from some specialists whose opinions I value and I imagine our next move will be to hire an attorney or an advocate. Can I curse here? Because I really want to yell out, 'FUCK.' There. That's better. Thanks.

That is all!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mama Deb....I'm Heather, the one who posted on Hopeful Parents today. We've been through the IEP disaster with 2 out of 3 different school districts that we've lived in. The 3rd district agreed to send our Ethan to a school for the deaf, the other 2 thought they had it all under control. Yeah, right. I know how you're feeling and there aren't enough curse words in the English language to give voice to the anger. I'd go ahead and move forward with an advocate and start thinking about opposing them on the least restrictive environment...

Good luck and whip some ass.

little miss mel said...

DUDE. Talk about a full plate. Sorry you've got such a heavy load. Doesn't seem right.

The ones that are sitting in the way here, can just sit and spin for all I care. :)

Mama Deb said...

Thanks, Heather and Mel. I've sent a note saying that I am still not signing and outlined the private assessment we paid a ridiculous amount of money for last year that says he needs a small, autism-specific class. (The one they keep disagreeing with!) I've told them that since the report hasn't been appropriately considered, that I'd like for them to now pay for an unbiased, third-party assessment. It's my understanding that they've got 45 days in which to get that completed, so hopefully we'll get some movement in our direction from that.

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