a day off to catch up

Ha!

My office is closed today for Veteran's Day. The older kids still have school, and I plan on taking Thomas to his sitter today anyway. I've been so excited to have a day to myself, but my list of things to do keeps growing by the minute.

I thought I'd get a start on Christmas shopping, maybe exercise (my resolve in that area has dwindled lately), clean the house, figure out what to do about our leaky water heater, catch up on laundry, write a blog post... all before Henry gets home from school at 4.

I've been wanting to share some entries from our communication notebook with Henry's teacher:

10/16
Henry had a rough day today. Didn't want to do work, but did a great job in APE (Adapted Phys Ed) with one on one help. Lots of touching and kicking. We bumped up rewards for good behavior but weren't too successful. I'm sure tomorrow will be better.

10/17
Better afternoon-worked well with OT and one on one in class. Still not completing independent work. But much better than yesterday.

10/23
Great morning- love the haircut. Did some independent. We are working with clothespins and other fine motor to strengthen fingers. It is not his favorite. OK afternoon very touchy with other students. Will continue to work on that.

10/24
Forgot to tell you we are taking Henry to 1st grade* for snack and read aloud (started yesterday). He did well, working on not talking out, getting used to a big group and taking turns. Henry and a few of the students are becoming a little aggressive during tag (grabbing and pulling instead of tagging) so we are redirecting tag to other things for now.** Trying to keep hands and feet to themselves at school.

*She means the "regular" first grade class. It bugs me that they call it "going to first grade" because he IS a first-grader and is doing first grade work, no matter what room he is in. But it doesn't seem worth quibbling with her over the wording...

**They were all excited when the boys in this class started playing tag together. But it didn't take long for them to get carried away. Typical boys in that regard.

(I wrote back that Henry had told me he did something "with the first graders" so I was glad that he had been excited enough about it to communicate it to me! I was pleasantly surprised that they'd decided to do some inclusion, considering all the trouble it seemed like he'd been having with doing independent work and with using un-gentle hands.)

10/26
... Didn't go to 1st grade today because of tantrum at playground and wouldn't walk into the school. 1st grade time is right after playground in the morning...

10/27
Great morning- better independent work. Has indoor recess did a little better with hands. He has started taking off his glasses when he doesn't want to do his work.

(Maybe this is why the nose pieces of his glasses are always breaking.)

10/30
Good day-did much better letting go of grip on students and teachers today :-) Really good mood!

11/1
Big afternoon, power went out for 45 minutes. Henry did great. Had a little trouble figuring out why computer didn't work but everything else was fine.

11/6
Henry had a really rough morning scratching, kicking peers. Refused to do anything in APE. But the great news is the rest of the day was fantastic! He went to music with 1st grade & calendar time. We were very proud of him! We are going to try adding more 1st grade time and see how he does :-)

11/7
Not the best day today. Lots of grabbing and scratching. He did go to library with 1st grade.

11/8
Much better day. Keeping hands to himself much more. Listening to directions and completing work.

(Yesterday they had a field trip to a local candy factory and a pizza place for lunch)
11/9
Great day- very good at factory, ate lots at (pizza place) and we also got to see some of the Veteran's parade. He loved the bands and waving his new flag.
_______________________________

I often see no rhyme or reason to Henry's good days vs. bad days. He seems to be making good progress, so I will just roll with it.

Time to get everyone ready for school, so I will save our most recent Emergency Room visit for my next post!

By the way, I don't take for granted the reason for my day off today. Thanks to all the vets who've sacrificed so much for all of us. Especially my dad who went to Vietnam when I was a newborn infant. (I'll have to find some pictures to post from that era!)