We had a small army as Peter's 'team'...there was our sped director, the behaviorist, the psychiatrist, the Occupational therapist, the speech therapist that is the head of his home therapy program, the Occupational therapy assistant, the speech therapist that treats Peter at school, Peter's current classroom teacher, the woman that will be his teacher next year, the director of the Collaborative that Peter's class belongs to, plus me and Jay!
How many people does it take to put together an IEP? Apparently 12! lol
Everything went well, though, and next year's plan is in place. We will see how it goes with a transition to a new school and a bigger class. A couple of the kids were in Peter's class last year. The positive side of that is they are familiar faces. The negative side is that they tend to play off of each other and cause behaviors.:(
So...we will just have to see how that goes! I'm not going to even going to worry about it until September!
I have to say that the psychiatrist, who I was meeting for the first time, was incredibly positive and had some interesting ideas as to certain behaviors of Peter's that we discussed. She praised the way Peter took the tests that she administered and really highlighted the areas that are his strengths. She had done extra supplemental tests that, though they didn't 'count' towards the score, showed that he had skills in areas that didn't show up on the main test only because he struggled to understand the directions or abstract connections. I really appreciated that!
The only real hard part of the meeting was hearing about the new program. While it certainly contains a lot of academics, they begin to focus more on daily living skills.
That was a little tough. Knowing that the focus is the highest level of independence and community involvement that Peter is capable of just makes the reality of his diagnosis and disabilities that much more permanent.
I don't have any illusions that, without a miracle(which I still pray for), Peter will wake up one day and be a neurotypical child. Our long term financial and emotional plans have accepted Peter as having a permanent disability and finding out the ways to protect him and make sure he will always be able to get the care he needs. Along with praying that miracle prayer, my daily prayer is that one(or several) of his siblings will be open and able to care for him when the day comes that we are no longer able to. My prayer extends to include the openness of my future grandchildren to care for their Uncle Peter as well.
Some things just aren't easy.....
But........today is a day to celebrate!
Mike is graduating from Community College! I've tried to make the day special for him....starting with breakfast out with just Jay and then special food, a special cake, and a surprise night planned with friends.(Yeah...I decided to surprise him:)
The celebration at our house continues into Sunday when Andrew graduates from high school!
I'm sure I will have lots of pictures to share on Monday!(I have made the cake part and the cheesecake part of the oreo cheesecake cake....so far so good! I will make the frosting and put it together first thing tomorrow morning! Pics to follow of that, too!)
Until then, I hope to get through my to-do list before the celebration begins!(or at least the parts that really, really have to get done!)
I hope you have a great weekend, too! As my friend, Colleen, likes to say...."See you on the flip side!":)
