Gregory’s meeting was my hardest meeting out of both of them. The teacher. ST and the extra help reading teacher all focused on one thing with Gregory. His shutting down. I know he does this. At home I can talk him through it. I can refocus him on something else and talk about what he is feeling what he needs what he wants. However the teacher can’t seem to do it. She leaves him alone until he is ready. I told her from the get go Talk to him. Redirect him with a stuffed animal. Talk to him through the bear or whatever it is. He will open up again within minutes. Not an hour! He misses so much being left alone in a ball on the floor. No wonder when he comes home from school he is more outspoken that he normally is. I just thought that he was getting used to everything going on in school and becoming better. His shutdowns at home are less. They really listened to me yesterday at the meeting. I didn’t give them the chance. They asked questions and took notes of what I had to say. I will be sending in Gregory’s favorite bear to school with every day. They decided to use my method with his own bear.

Gregory is making lots of progress. Just not enough to satisfy his teachers. I will have a CSE meeting soon. I have demanded they do some testing. Something about Gregory not being able to process information correctly. I also asked about placing Gregory in the Social Skills program. This is something Curtis did last year and it really helped him. This will happen once I have the meeting to redo is IEP. Progress is slow and painful. Mostly for me because I think there is something under all of his delays. Something that I just can’t put my finger on yet. I have researched and researched and just come up empty handed. I also have been told that its possible that Gregory is mimicking Curtis. That because he is so close to Curtis that Gregory was not able to develop properly. I want to go down this road I really do but I can’t allow myself to put blame on my shoulders for Gregory’s delay. Even though deep inside I already am. The teachers want me to go back to reading nursery rhyme books to him and Dr. Seuss books as well.

Rhyming is big part in learning language. He is suppose to be able to Rhyme.

Example the teacher says House. Gregory says Mouse.

She says Boat. Gregory says water.

man he says boy

train Gregory says tracks.

Do you get what he is saying? I do and quite frankly Gregory is doing what he thinks is right. Boats go in the water. A man starts as a boy. Trains are found on train tracks.

Now Curtis.

By June Curtis needs to know how to count to 100. He is up to 13 can’t figure out 14 is next then goes from 15 to 29. I have redone the christmas shopping list. This is why I tend to put off the actuall buying of Christmas presents until I have had my parent teacher meetings. I am going to find tubs of whatnots that have 100 things in them. Curtis and I are going to start counting with them. In the meantime its pennies, cheerioes, fruit snacks whatever I can get my hands on and start counting with him. I’m also going to get abc magnets. Yes I know…what?? you don’t have those??? Not anymore. The kids have thrown them out one by one. Now I have a Z and a R left. Can’t practice spelling words in a fun way with those letters. Curtis is not focusing when given his spelling tests. Work on his counting and his spelling words and he will make great strides.

Have you noticed how all public restrooms have the auto potties?? You know the ones that go off without you pushing a handle down?? Ya those. Some jerk off decided it would be a wonderful idea to have the school have these as well. Pre K to 2nd grade have a bathroom in the room. With these auto potties in them. I know you are wondering why I am bringing this up. Well its because Curtis is afraid of loud noise. His tolerance level has improved greatly thanks to moving out of town and into the country. Though we dread 2 things as a family 1. Going into PY town with Curtis. Why? The firehall has an Air Horn that goes off every single time there is a fire or the fire trucks need to be dispatched for any reason. Or the fire captain is being paged. I kid you not. Its one of the things that send Curtis from happily skipping ahead of you to Being in your arms and screaming in a milo second. I kid you not my freind. 2. Taking Curtis anywhere that has an auto potty. He hates them. He fears them. When he was young enough to go potty with me I used to block the sensor with my purse. He would walk out of the stall and I would grab my purse and run with him out of there. Daddy uses his hat now that he is too big to go in with me. Last year in school it was a hat as well. This year at school its a post it note. When I was told a posty note was being used I already knew the trouble that could come out of that. Over time a posty looses its sticky. It could fall off during the worst time for it to fall off.
In fact that is what has happened on Wednesday. Curtis was happily doing his thing thinking he was safe from the auto potty when the Posty fell off. Curtis flew out of the bathroom and into his teacher’s arms before she noticed his pants were still down. 20 mins later she was able to breath enough to help him get dressed. 10 mins after he was able to go back to work. They want me to tell them how to help him cope with the noise. Its not something I would worry about right now. I was going to worry about it that next year. Not a good idea they say. Its time now. They are going introduce Curtis to an old pair of head phones. The big and bulky kind. He can wear those when he goes in there. Good Luck getting them back of his head if he ever does hear the auto potty.
What were they thinking when they put them in the school?? How many other children I wonder fear the auto potty????