Great IEP!

I know, most parents don't combine the word "great" with "IEP". But it really was. Our 3 Early Intervention providers came along with me and David, and there were a whole bunch of people from the public school: the director, the special ed teacher who will have Sofia in her class, the PT, the OT, 2 speech pathologists (one did the eval, one will actuallly be working with Sofia), and the Inclusion Specialist.

I started with thanking everyone - our EI people for their tremendous work (I brought along my binder with 3 years worth of Progress Reports from them!), and the public school folks for how comfortable I felt watching them evaluate my daughter.

We passed around some pictures of Sofia - yes, I put a photo on the table, but we also talked about her reading the newspaper at Starbucks:


The various specialists gave their reports and summaries, and then we delved into the IEP document. Fortunately, we've been through this with Sam (and the OT and one of the PTs are on his team, too), so it was all familiar. And I am comfortable with the language of the IEP and of Sofia's various needs.

It went really smoothly. I only felt I had to push back once, when they suggested only 1 pull-out per week for speech (plus one in-class). We agreed on 2 pullouts plus one in=class.

The funniest thing was deciding the schedule. We ended up with starting her on 3 days per week, with a possibility of adding another day later in the spring, and definitely 5 days in September. But for now, it'll be 3 days (M/W/F) for school, PLUS I'll bring her in on Tuesday and Thursday just for PT - the PT isn't in the building on M/W/F, and this way she only gets pulled out once per class (2x/week for speech, once for OT).

Our EI Team Leader emailed me later, and I must quote her: I have to say...this was the first time I've been to an IEP where they left the frequency of preschool days up to the family/team to decide. But that's really what we did! And they were very agreeable to possibly adjusting the schedule later as needed. We all agreed that this child is VERY ready to start school!

David had to leave early to pick up the boys for Tae Kwan Do, and various others trickled out, but I was there for a total of almost 2 hours. After we finished the IEP, the teacher and the director gave me a tour of the preschool, and the speech path showed me her room (and checked in on how Sam is doing!).

I'll take Sofia in to visit the class next Friday morning, and then she'll start PRESCHOOL right after vacation, on the 25th! WOW!

Of course, when I finally left the school to go take over from David (Sofia was home with the sitter all afternoon), I finally realized that I had a double-ear-infection, and my head felt like it was going to explode! When I got home with the boys, Sofia (who is also sick) was already asleep, so I let E deal with the boys and I went to bed.

This morning, after dropping off the boys, Sofia and I hung out at Starbucks and the bookstore with our friend R, and then we went first to my doc and then the pediatrician. My doc is funny - every time she looks at my ears (when I have an infection) she makes the funniest noises of disgust! The pediatrician was super-late, due to attending a funeral, but I didn't want to drive back and forth, so Sofia and I just hung out for an hour waiting for her. Sofia has a sinus infection.

After the docs, we hung out at the drugstore to get both our meds, then home for lunch. I managed to sleep for about 20 minutes while she watched TV, and that (and the zithromax) made a huge difference! Then we drove over to school (since she won't nap at home). Poor baby, while she was sleeping, she kept coughing and sneezing all sorts of gunk.

Took Sam to his shrink, then took Micah to get his bangs trimmed. Then picked up Sam, came home, argued with Micah, and left when E showed up so I could go to my class.