Confereneces and steps forward

It's a new year in Owen's life, so that means a new color for my posts.

Conferences were a couple of weeks ago and my conference with Mrs. Savage (O's teacher) was very enlightening. Over the last three years I had noticed things about Owen that made me kinda sit up and go, "Hmmm." I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was normal (or within normal) or if there was something else there. Things like his ability to very quickly master puzzles, the sensory issues he seems to have, his mastery of number recognition (100) and counting ability (120+) six months ago, his inability to be still, how he verbally obsesses on certain subjects (My touch my piggie's belly, for example). Mrs. Savage mentioned to me that due to his very low fine motor skills (mentioned also by his day care teacher last year) and the verbal obsession thing, in addition to other things, she was suspicious that he may be high functioning Aspergers. Remember that I said that I had noticed things? This thought had occured to me before she said anything. I had no basis for comparison, though, so I decided to let it go until he got into a formal school setting. Other people I know agree that this is a definite possibility.

One of the benefits to Owen's birthday being in the middle of October is that conferences also fall at the middle of October. He turned 4 four days after the conference, and our annual check-up with the doctor was 11 days after the conference. In that time, I put together a list of things which lead me to be concerned about Asperger's. The list ended up being 2 pages long. The pediatrician (who is fresh out of her residency - his appointment was the first time we met her) agreed that it was worth digging into a bit more so she gave us a referral to a specialist. As it stands now, I have received and distributed a stack of surveys to each of five different people (two family friends, Mrs. Savage, the PE teacher at school, and Owen's day care teacher from last year) plus filled out my own stack. The parent surveys (done my the family friends and me) are in to the specialist as I hand-delivered them on Tuesday. I have the PE teacher's survey to hand deliver this week and Mrs. Savage put hers in the mail the day I got it to her. I am just hoping that his day care teacher from last year has hers finished and in the mail. I guess it can take up to two weeks for the office to get the mail once it's been delivered to the hospital due to the routing and filtering.

I talked with the intake nurse for this same doctor's office (the specialist) yesterday for 20-30 minutes and she sorta got a feel for Owen and my concerns regarding him. She also suggested that we do a speech eval since people have some difficulty understanding Owen at times due to mumbling.

When I dropped off the parent surveys this week, we at least got some sort of an appointment set up for him. Because he does not have and IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and is not receiving any services at this point, we have an appointment for an assessment to be done on December 21. This appointment will take 2 hours. Hopefully the appointment with the specialist won't be too long after that, though it could take anywhere between 6 and 8 weeks after they get all of the paperwork (surveys) in for us to get an appointment...they'll call us once everything is in to schedule the actual appointment with the doctor.

I knew this day would come

i got my first phone call asking me to come to the nurse to help take care of my baby today. he fell up the stairs (yes, up) and gave himself a pretty good bloody nose. his teacher called me at 3:15 (school is out at 3:30, i teach until 3:25) telling me to come down to the nurse. i sent my middle school student who works in my room after middle school lets out at 2:45 while she waits for her little brother to get done with school at 3:30 to go ask one of the paras from across the hall to come in to watch my class so i could go be a mom. as soon as the para was in the room, i headed down stairs to the nurse's office. once we got him cleaned up, into a fresh shirt, and calmed down, he came up to my room for the last 10 minutes or so of the day. his teacher sent up his backpack with another student. all went well in my room. i got back in time to dismiss the class i had.

tonight i went to the Y with family (sisters in law, brother in law, and nephews) and rode the bike. i got there a little early and told myself that i would ride until they were done. when michelle finished her ride, i was sitting at 52 minutes and some seconds. i decided i would go to 55 minutes. over 8 miles! woo hoo!!!! i know i'll be paying for it tomorrow in terms of not being able to move the lower half of my body without being in fairly significant pain, but it's all good. owen was asleep when i got home. he had an eventful day so i'm not too terribly surprised.

the funniest thing owen said to me today was in the lunchroom: "mommy, go back to your classroom!" i guess it's his school now, i just work there.

on another note, my little boy will be 4 in two weeks. i'm am amazed that it's that close!

coming in to his own

for those of you not following the progress on facebook, owen has made major steps this week at school in regards to me and music. he had music on monday, but was asleep in his classroom so missed it. wednesday, he came in and did a fairly decent job of doing what i asked. when it was time to leave, he went with his class and there were no tears. on friday, i saw him in the lunchroom as i was picking up older kids to come up to my room for recorders. he was putting his tray away (the one day a week he gets hot lunch) and came over to say hi to me. i told him to give me a kiss and then go back to his table. he did just that. no arguing, no tears. it was such an amazing thing to see. two weeks ago, he would have wanted to come to me and stay. probably would have wanted to a week ago! oh, and on thursday we had an assembly. he saw me and waved and stayed with his class. :-D

i am so incredibly proud of my little boy (typed "baby" and then replaced it with "little"...)

my lunch time is with owen's teacher. yesterday she told me that he had received a botany lesson on the turtle puzzle (each part of the turtle is a different piece in the puzzle.) they have a classroom pet turtle, named flash. o's teacher was telling me at lunch yesterday that owen was doing the puzzle and as he was doing it, he was holding up a piece, telling flash, "look flash! this is your ________". cracks me up!

this is owen on school

this is what my little boy is doing at the moment. it's 6:00 p.m. and he's out. we're waiting for daddy to come home so we can have dinner. it was an ok day today. a couple of fits b/c he didn't want to be away from mommy. his class had music time today. he's used to having lots of freedom in my room because prior to today, it's been just him and me in there. class time was a challenge, but it's that hurdle i knew we would have to cross. now that i now what we have to deal with for the music class dynamic, i can start maybe figuring it out. one more day this week, then a three day weekend. we'll need that!

First day of school

This one is from after school. It was a great day!

Owen, Mommy and Daddy before school started today.

Owen and Mommy

Owen and Daddy

Today marks a new chapter in Owen's life. He started preschool today at my school. This is real school, and he goes 9-3:30. His teacher tells me he was wonderful. He was cooperative, well-behaved, listened well, and had a wonderful day. He didn't sleep at quiet time, but that's just fine by me. He looked at books instead. Tomorrow is day two of what I am calling "The Great Experiment". Tomorrow means I get Owen for the first time in music class. We'll see how that goes.