A Jealousy I Want to Let Go

This morning was beautiful. The weather was springlike. It was sunny, but cool with gentle breezes. We took the children to the zoo and had a wonderful time. Mid-morning we stopped at a set of benches for a snack. The children climbed on some rocks and we rested a while. As we were sitting there, a mother stopped to sit with her 7 month old baby in a stroller. They were adorable. They exchanged smiles and giggles. The baby babbled and blew raspberries. I just sat there insanely jealous of the experience I never had. I need to let it go. Yes, I didn't get to do the infant bonding, smile exchanging, babbling baby thing. Yes, that sucks. However, life isn't perfect, and I have two wonderful children. I shouldn't let seeing other wonderful babies and happy mothers cast a shadow on my day.

We have a children's book: Zen Shorts by John J Muth. It is a story about three children who meet their new neighbor who is a panda. Each child visits the panda individually and is told a short story based on a zen principle. One of the stories is about two monks. One monk is old and wise while the other is young and still learning. After observing a rather spoiled woman ungratefully waiting for help from her two servants, the older monk carries her on his back across some water in her path and she goes her way without thanking him. The two monks continue on their way. The older is content while the younger spends the next several hours fuming until finally he asks the older monk why he isn't angry. The older monk tells the younger monk that he left his burden behind hours ago (the lady) and asks the younger monk why he is still carrying his burden (his anger).

I think of this short story every time I have this experience of being jealous of a happy mother with her smiling, babbling infant. I want to be the older monk, not the younger. I visualize letting go of a dark balloon filled with cloudy smoke and watching it gently drift away into a sunny sky until it disappears from my sight. I try to imagine the jealousy floating away and myself feeling lightness and a sense of relief and just letting that negative emotion go.

I'm not having much success so far.

Miscellany

Thank you to all of you who come by regularly to check in or who are subscribed to this blog through your email or a feed reader. I enjoy knowing that there are people out there who enjoy reading about our family and and find the informational articles and card sets useful.

_____________________


Michael has had (relatively mild) eczema since he was a baby. It's better now, but occasionally in the winter he still gets flare ups. I've been noticing an area on his chest that's been rough the past couple of weeks, but suddenly it has spread all over his chest and over to his arms, he is actively complaining about being itchy, and we're having trouble keeping him from scratching. I am beginning to wonder what chicken pox looks like if it is caught by a child who has had the vaccine. Anyone have any thoughts? If he really does have chicken pox I probably shouldn't send him to school on Tuesday. Boy it would be a shame for him to miss his first day.

_____________________


I fine tuned my idea about slipping worksheets under glass to use as repeatable dry erase activities. Now I'm slipping them into sheet protectors which I've taped to the top of the glass. Taping them down prevents them from sliding around when the children draw on them and erase them. Having the worksheets on top of the glass in sheet protectors lets me switch them out much more easily.

_____________________

Our new kittens continue to be wonderful. They are actually pretty good about taking their medicine and it seems to be helping. They are each getting four syringes of oral liquid medications a day. One of the medications tastes so bad they foam at the mouth. And yet they still come when I call. I am amazed and grateful.

_____________________

We live in a house where our back yard is connected to five other back yards. Every other house has dogs. We frequently hear lots of barking at rather annoying hours which bothers my husband more than it bothers me. The children often don't seem to notice either. However, this weekend my parents are out of town celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and we're dog sitting their two chihuahuas. This evening when we were in the backyard (my husband working on the deck, the children in the sand table, and the dogs playing relatively appropriately and quietly) one of our neighbors let out their dogs. Much chaos and barking ensued. I managed to chase our two guests to the other side of the yard and keep them there quietly, but the neighbor's dogs continued to bark very loudly for at least the next 20 minutes. Finally, my husband walked over and politely asked them to bring their dogs inside because their barking was scaring the children (which it was). Ahh, neighbor relations are always so much fun.

IFSP - Transition Meeting Edition

I was pleasantly surprised by the transition meeting. Of course, my expectations were low, so I had lots of room to be pleasantly surprised.

So here's the summary of how the transition process works (here in my area, at least). Approximately six months before your child turns three a transition meeting is scheduled. You meet with your Early Childhood Service Coordinator and a representative from your local school district's special education program. (In our case our Parents as Teachers teacher was also there to give information about our specific school.) The purpose of the meeting is to familiarize you with the steps involved in transitioning from Early Childhood Services to School-Age services and to get your signature on a bunch of forms that allows the school district to talk to a variety of people (your early childhood SLP, OT, any preschool teachers you might have, any doctors that might have pertinent information, etc.).

The process, as I understand it, will go like this: About three months before Ava's third birthday I will take her to be evaluated. I will find out on that day if she will qualify for services. If she does not qualify, she will continue to get services through Early Intervention until the day before her third birthday and then it will be my responsibility to arrange (and pay for) any services I feel she might still need at that time. If she does qualify, we will hold an IEP meeting within 30 days of the evaluation to decide what services she will receive once she turns three. Then, when she turns three she will begin to receive those services.

Potential service options will be individual speech or OT sessions, a special preschool program, or both. If we get individual therapy sessions, instead of coming to our home we would bring her to our local school for those appointments. If the IEP team decides the preschool program is appropriate we would bring her to school either two or four days a week. If she gets both, the SLP and or OT would see her in the preschool classroom or possibly pull her out of class for therapy.

Because Ava's birthday is in March, there is a final twist. The IEP team might decide that it is too close to the end of the school year to transition her at that time. If so, the schools would contract with her current early childhood therapists and pay them to continue to see her until the fall.

Everyone at the meeting was very professional and extremely nice. They seemed genuinely interested in Ava and her best interests. They seemed to understand her specific issues (speech and sensory) and how they interact and effect her life. They seemed to want to help. Now we just have to wait and see how the evaluation goes and if she will qualify.

So, in summary, the transition process looks like this:

1. Hold transition meeting (6 months before 3rd birthday).
2. Have child evaluated by school district (3 months before 3rd birthday).
3. If child qualifies, hold IEP meeting (2 months before 3rd birthday).
4. Transition from getting services from early childhood to getting services from school district (on 3rd birthday).