IEP Meeting, Flash Mob, Allergist, Field Trip, Soccer

This week we had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting for Matthew.  It had been a year since the last one and we needed to review it.  His Learning Center teacher, the Vice Principal, regular education teacher and the speech teacher were all in attendance.  I really love Matthew's teacher this year.  I am really glad he will hopefully have her for the next three years because she really seems to want the best for Matthew.  I say hopefully because I just learned they are going to put in a second learning center classroom at his Jr. High school so there is a chance Matthew might end up with a different teacher :(.  I hope not, but I will cross that bridge at a later time.  Anyway, Matthew is falling behind his peers even more in school.  That is no big surprise.  His teacher feels that he would benefit from attending one class a day with the functional skills class (the kids with mental handicaps that are worse off than Matthew).  She feels he would benefit from learning basic life skills that would help him like cooking, grocery shopping, dealing with people in the community, etc. more at this point in his life than going through the motions of a regular education.  As much as I don't want to face this reality I really do think it is best for Matthew as well.  By attending the functional skills class one period a day he will be able to participate in their weekly field trips in the community.  He was able to go on his first official one yesterday.  I gave him a grocery list with two items on it as well as a few dollars to buy it with and a few dollars more to order lunch with.  The functional skills class went to McDonald's for lunch to practice how to order and pay for their food according to how much money they have.  Matthew ordered a Happy Meal just because it came with a toy.  They then to the grocery store to find and buy their grocery list items as independently as they could.  Then they are given the assignment to bring home those items and make a dinner with them with help and then report back how it went.  Matthew picked up two packages of hot dogs and two packages of buns to go with them.  He was so excited to cook dinner for us yesterday. It's a good thing he bought two packages of each since he ate 6 hot dogs with buns all by himself for dinner.  HOLY COW!!   Can you tell that kid LOVES hot dogs?!  I think these skills will be good for Matthew to practice and learn so I am glad for that.  The rest of the IEP meeting went pretty well.  They are going to evaluate Matthew for occupational therapy to help strengthen his hand muscles which will hopefully help with his handwriting.

Speaking of Matthew he can be so sweet and so frustrating at times.  The other morning he came upstairs wearing a pair of pants that were way too big.  They kept slipping off his hips with each step.  I asked him to go and change into some different pants that fit him.  He did not like that and immediately went into humongous tantrum mode.  It was bad.  He finally changed into a different pair of pants, but they were too short.  I was afraid to ask him to change again so I let him rock the Man-pris (Capri's pants for boys) all day at school.  It was about time for his bus to come and he was still throwing a huge tantrum.  Because he was still screaming and yelling I made him wait outside on the porch for his bus.  His bus came three minutes later and we had some peace for a few minutes until my doorbell rang.  It was my neighbor who lives two houses down from me (I haven't even met her yet).  She was asking if everything was ok since she heard all the commotion from Matthew on the porch.  I was embarrassed by his behavior, but what can you do?!  She was nice enough to come and check on us to which I explained that he was autistic and was having a huge meltdown that morning.  Hopefully she believed me....Matthew can be really sweet as well.  Wednesday morning I was still in bed when I heard him open my bedroom door and yell surprise.  I then heard a big liquidy splash all over my carpet and bed.  Matthew was trying to surprise me with breakfast in bed with a big bowl of cereal with milk already in it and a big, full glass of milk, but in opening my bedroom door he lost his grip on it all and it all spilled on to my carpeted bedroom floor.  I was upset for the first 10 seconds, but then I realized what he was trying to do and appreciated the gesture.  I helped him clean it all up and then I got to carpet clean my bedroom that morning.  Matthew can certainly be sweet sometimes.

The love of ketchup my Dad has, has been passed down to Matthew!  There's no doubt he is a Terry!  Just a few days ago we had chicken noodle soup and he asked if he could put ketchup on it.  We really go through ketchup because Sarah and Noah like it as well.  Funny kids!

 Matthew goes to a few regular education classes throughout the day.  He is in PE and art this semester.  He actually brought home this water color painting of tree stumps the other day.  I was impressed:

 Tuesday was Daniel's semiannual visit to the allergist.  They checked his height (50 inches), weight (53 pounds) and lung function because of his asthma and it was great.

 They also checked for lower lung inflammation which looked good (no inflammation) YAY!

 Then they took us back to a room.  Sarah went and sat on the bed.  I had to tell her that this appointment wasn't actually for her this time and to get off the bed.

 Let the skin prick test begin.  Here's the before:

 Dripping the allergens on his back:

 Two minutes after scratching each allergen into his skin:

 After the test was over:

 He still quite allergic to milk and tree nuts so I need to get another Epi Pen refill.  However, his peanut allergy (peanuts are legumes not tree nuts) are barely showing any reaction.  That coupled with his blood test 6 months ago show that he may have outgrown his peanut allergy.  YAY!  To make sure we get to try an in office oral challenge.  I get to bring some peanut butter and they will feed it to him bigger and bigger amounts every 15 minutes over the space of three hours to see if he will react.  If he doesn't we don't have to avoid peanuts anymore.  YAY!!  Peanut butter cake, cookies, pie, etc. here we come.  I'm so excited!!

Yesterday I was able to go on a field trip with Daniel and a buddy, Shawn.  The whole second grade rode Frontrunner and Trax over to the Clark Planetarium.  There were so many parent volunteers that there was at least one parent per two kids which were much needed odds to make sure everyone got the right connections.  Here is me, Daniel and Shawn on the Frontrunner down to Salt Lake.

 We only had about 20 minutes to explore the planetarium before our star movie started in the Dome theater. We checked out the cloud machine:

 The tornado machine:

 The HUGE perpetual marble machine:

 The mock Mars landscape:

 The moon rock:

 The scale which showed what your weight would be on all the different planets:

 Then we watched our Star constellation show and then headed back to school after eating a quick sack lunch.  It was a fun day.  I was glad G&G T were able to come up and watch Sarah and Noah for me so I could go along with Daniel.

Josh and Daniel have started the spring soccer season.  Josh begged me to take a picture of him in his soccer uniform so here it is:

What a handsome guy!  I will get Daniel's picture later.....hopefully I will remember :).

Today at the Jr. High they had a school wide talent show.  They got the special needs kids involved, too.  Aaron and I were able to go and watch Matthew and his classmates perform a flash mob dance first with a few student body officers and then it spread to the whole school.  It was really fun to watch and Matthew got so excited about it.  It was pretty awesome!!

Matthew had a lot of fun doing it.

In other things Aaron became pretty impatient with waiting for Daniel's oral peanut butter challenge.  He didn't want to wait until next Monday so Saturday we bought a big tub of peanut butter.  We then came home and gave him a huge spoonful.  He liked it.  We waited a few minutes and then gave him another huge spoonful with chocolate chips on top.  He liked that even more.  I guess he can now eat peanut butter.  YAY!!  Aaron's impatience has now saved us a $30 copay and three hours of sitting around in the doctor's office while trying to entertain Noah who has become quite the stinker as of late!  I am alright with this :).  Here's the momentous occasion of Daniel eating his very first bite of peanut butter (what you can't see is Aaron and me jumping for joy in the background!):

 Here's Daniel eating his very first peanut butter and jam sandwich.  He actually like it, too.  To mark the occasion I even made peanut butter cookies tonight.  This is going to be fun!

As for now I think I am all caught up on the blog.  I really need to stay caught up because catching up is hard because trying to remember everything is not easy.