Lazyasses and Liars

So a few weeks ago I made that unannounced visit to Kiddo's school.

I specifically went around lunch time, planning to catch them in the lunch room where the teacher and aide couldn't scramble to make it look like they are doing their jobs. My timing was perfect... they were about ten minutes into lunch with about twenty more to go. The look on Kiddo's teacher's face said it all when I came in. Plastered on her mug was the exact expression I get from kids when I catch them doing something I just told them not to do.

Her face said "OH CRAP" but after an awkward pause she chirped, "Oh, hello!"

And as anticipated, no Go Talk in sight. Weird, seeing as lunch is the most practical time for him to have it out!

I sat across from her and Kiddo and painfully watched as she almost completely ignored him for the rest of lunch. She was sitting near several other students and didn't seem to have a problem regularly interacting with them. The only thing she had to say to Kiddo (who, interestingly enough, was the only student without a lunch tray in front of him) was to occasionally verbally remind and then prompt him to keep his feet flat on the ground when he got bored after fifteen more minutes and started stimming. A cursory glance of the lunchroom revealed that few of the other boys his age had both their feet down. In fact, many of them were standing, moving around the table, etc.

I had many opportunities to question and criticize the teacher, but that was not the goal of my visit. My plan was to just grin and bear it... stay quiet and uninvolved. After "hey how you doing?" I actually didn't say anything at all to Kiddo's teacher, just watched her. Which obviously ruffled some feathers.

I have this thing about handholding with people just because they have a disability. It pisses me off. If you can walk by yourself and don't want to hold someone's hand, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO! In fact, its one of Kiddo's goals with me to walk more independently. So what does his teacher want Kiddo to do as soon as the kids get up to leave for lunch? Hold MY hand!

"Would you like to walk with Kiddo?"

"Sure, he can walk with me. Lead the way, buddy."

Kiddo obviously knew how to get back to his classroom and walked just fine on his own, stopping once to laugh and hug me briefly before merrily moving along.

By the time we got back to the classroom, I'd been in the school for about forty minutes. I had gone to the office and gotten a visitor's pass, though I suspected that wasn't enough to technically observe Kiddo's class.

I quietly watched as Kiddo ran towards the new mini trampoline in his classroom (again, Go Talk has a trampoline button!) while his teacher looked around nervously. Then suddenly, she walked up to me and informed me that in order to observe her class I needed confidentiality clearance and an appointment. Why didn't she just kick me out at lunch? Interesting.

"Oh, well, they gave me a visitor's pass and I thought that was all I needed. Next time I'll make sure I get the necessary appointment. Thanks so much!" Then I left.

Take note, that last sentence was just about all I said the entire time I was at the school. Apparently Kiddo's teacher recalls a very different conversation.

Later at work I told Kiddo's mom about our encounter. She was of course, not surprised but irked that his Go Talk wasn't out. She told me she'd call the school as soon as she could to get the proper paperwork sent so I could visit again soon.

The next day Kiddo's mom said she'd called his teacher to get the paperwork, but that she had a really strange story to tell. According to her, I had gone into the school for less time, acted in a rage, and-- best of all-- CUSSED AT THEM! She of course found this story completely ridiculous and we both wondered aloud why she would make up such an absurd lie. Later, I was saying how crazy she must be to my husband. He replied with, "Crazy? Its not crazy to lie when you think your job is threatened."

The good news though... Kiddo got a Go Talk 9 (finally!)!!!! At least his speech therapist isn't a lazyass.

Should have known not to get too high of hopes for Kiddo´s new IEP and teacher.

Kiddo´s backpack sits by the front door each day when I get to his house. When I come in, I open it to get out his Go Talk so he can choose a snack and later activity. Despite having a section in his IEP stating the need to use his Go Talk in the classroom so as to reach his communication goals, I can see it hasn´t been touched all day. There are five slides for the Go Talk, two of which are pretty much exclusively used for home use. I usually see one of these slides, the same one last used by me the day before, in the machine. Same as yesterday, the day before, the day before that...

I hate feeling in my gut that people (the ones who have the schooling, funding, and pay check) are not doing their jobs.

Kiddo´s school may soon be getting an unannounced visit.

.....


Kiddo´s speech therapist, on the other hand, has done her job well. For the past six months, we have been seeing a speech therapist once a week, and now we´re doing monthly consultations. She can fully testify to Kiddo´s ability to use the Go Talk meaningfully, even insisting that with enough perseverance, he should be able to use an IPad someday. Too bad the school seems so hellbent on holding him back.

Best Disability-Related Thing I've Seen All Week

The other night my husband and I went to Kilby Court to see DopeThought, a local hip hop artist who we wanted to check out because we booked him to play an upcoming benefit show for a friend of ours. Kilby Court is a neat little indie venue, complete with Christmas lights and a fire pit. Typically, the kinds of folks you see there are indie/hipster kids with impeccable taste in clothes, perfect hair, and a slight aura of false superiority.

This show, however, had a much more diverse crowd than I've seen at rock acts at Kilby. Including, much to my glee, people from a group home having an outing! I love it when I see people with disabilities, especially those who have been resigned to live in some type of institutional setting, out enjoying activities other than bowling or a kids matinee.

And a late-night hip hop show of all places! Love it, love it! I wish I'd asked them where they are from, their staff won a lot of points with me and should be sent anonymous gift cards or something.

This Seems Eerily Familiar...

Kiddo’s recent IEP meeting went better than anticipated, though not as well as I would have liked.

First, the few good things. Kiddo’s new teacher is younger and better educated, has greater enthusiasm, and is much more open-minded than his last one. The district speech therapist has also been converted, at long last, to the Go Talk’s efficacy (thanks to Kiddo’s other speech therapist), and even claimed that she’d get him a 9+ for this year. At his meeting, we even sat in a circle instead of the “’professionals’ on one side, mom on the other” configuration that Kiddo’s mom had been subjected to in previous years. His mom was also a lot more assertive than I’ve seen her at previous meetings, which made me want to regularly yell “GO MOM!!!!”

However, too much of the meeting seemed familiar. The bulk of Kiddo’s IEP team seemed reluctant to put “needs augmentative communication” in his IEP plan. Their pitiful argument was “but what if he doesn’t need the Go Talk and is using verbal communication at the end of the year, we’d still be required to use it!” Never mind that if they miraculously got him to verbally communicate, we could always change the IEP. They eventually broke down though when Kiddo’s mom and I rebutted, “yeah, and his IEP was like that last year, and ya’ll just used it as an excuse to NEVER use his Go Talk.”

His teacher, while she’s certainly an improvement, didn’t offer many goals for the year. She wants him writing his name by the end of the year, and spontaneously communicating five times a week. That’s it. No colors, no numbers, no self-help or social skills, no alternatives to aggressions, etc.

Last year Kiddo could sort colors and do some basic sequencing with 100% accuracy. His occupational therapist can attest to this. When we asked how the school would build on these skills, they replied with “Oh, but he can’t do any of those things…” We asked how they tested him, and they were vague. I pressed again, and they tried to change the subject. I turned the bitch switch on and flatly informed them that he had been able to do these things last year, and that they’d just have to teach him again if he hadn’t maintained them. They reluctantly added “sort colors” to the IEP plan.

The meeting ended more abruptly than I had anticipated, with half the team suddenly getting up and excusing themselves. Go figure. After it officially was over, I gleefully reminded everyone about how wonderful it was that parents can choose to update an IEP whenever they darn well please. Kiddo’s mom smiled knowingly, his teacher looked a little afraid.

People in power should always be a little afraid. ;P

Peace.

Hey ya’ll. Moving while going to school is a good way to eliminate free time. Add months of unreliable internet to the mix and you’ve got a dead blog.

But I’ve been busy. Since moving into this apartment an abundance of produce has come out of the big garden and into my kitchen… tomatoes, kale, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, pinto beans, and a few other things. There are also five chickens and a rooster there now, and the four ladies are currently on the verge of laying eggs.

I have also started garden-related work at my new apartment. I’ve built a compost bin and started building a deep bed for veggies out of dumpstered stone, cement, and countertop materials (like some very pretty granite). The other side of my yard is nonstop shady, though when springtime comes I plan on planting some things on that side as well.

Kiddo is doing well, although honestly some events which occurred with him and his family over the summer have also halted my writing here. Nothing really involving me, per say, but mostly things I don’t feel ethically comfortable blogging about.

One thing though, of the whole pile, which would end up being mentioned in any future posts, and might as well be coughed up now. Kiddo’s mom is pregnant with their sixth child. Now, since I live in Utah and we’re talking about Mormon culture, discussing this situation must be done delicately, but that's not going to happen because I'm unfortunately not very delicate when writing about such matters.

The LDS/Mormon Church puts a great emphasis on matrimonial reproduction. While not going so far as to endorse the insanity of the Quiverfull movement, the Church has historically encouraged having large families and has regarded birth control as deplorable. As Mormon prophet Spencer W. Kimball said in a 1970s speech on marriage, “I have told many groups of young people that they should not postpone their marriage until they have acquired all of their education ambitions. I have told tens of thousands of young folks that when they marry they should not wait for children until they have finished their schooling and financial desires. Marriage is basically for the family, and there should be no long delay. They should live together normally and let the children come. . .” Emphasis mine.

So, not only should you get married “without delay,” you should just let those babies start coming, regardless of socioeconomic situation or education. If Justin and I followed this credo, we would be living in poverty, trying to figure out where we could even find housing with enough room for kids, worrying about how we could pay for school or even have time to get an education, etc… I call it being responsible, the LDS church contends I’m flirting with sin. Whatever. Just one of the many reasons I’m not a Mormon anymore.

Kiddo’s family often heartbreakingly demonstrates this doctrine’s lack of wisdom. His parents married young, with college completion a few years off, and starting having children right away. Five in nine years, soon to be six. Their house is quite small for the amount of people living there; only two hardly-adequately sized bedrooms are available for the kids. They had to add a third when the fifth baby was born so the parents had somewhere to sleep. Now, number six is on the way, and I can’t imagine where they’ll be putting that second crib.

Last year, their dad made less than $40,000, and they rely heavily on social services so their kids can eat easier and have access to healthcare. What makes this situation even stranger is that the LDS church, especially in recent years, has inflated the role of self-reliance in their dogma. The contradiction often ends the same though, with a family making no money having too many kids and then turning to the much-hated government for help.

I was once sitting in the kitchen with Kiddo’s mom as we waited for the kids to eat snacks. We usually skirt subjects like politics and general worldview in our discussions… they usually lead down awkward roads and have to be ended abruptly. However, this time we were somehow onto the subject of the role and size of government. She made a statement about how sometimes the government does things that are nice but she really didn’t believe in the government taxing people for “forced charity. “

Like, the food the government buys for your baby? The Medicare that pays for your prenatal care, the taxpayer-sponsored dentist who cleans your kids’ teeth?  The forced charity that pays for me to come here and give you time to nap, clean, or run errands?

Those words sound really bitter, but I’m really not mad at Kiddo’s family for this. These attitudes and actions are developed in a culture which makes you fear hell for not struggling to attain what are for many, ultimately, conflicting and impossible-to-reach standards, and in a monoculture like much of Utah, are very hard to break down. 

 Ah, unsustainable pregnancies. A constant source of frustration. 

Some Recent R-"isms"

R is sitting on the family's plush rocking chair, as she and Kiddo and I listen to music. Out of seemingly nowhere, she abruptly states, "So one time, when I was a little baby, I was at church... and my mom gave me to my dad and then I POOPED ALL OVER HIM!"

"...R, where did that come from?"

She laughs hysterically.

"Weren't you wearing a diaper?"

"YES! The pee stayed in the diaper, but the poop came out ALL OVER MY DAD!" She continues laughing for several minutes.

Listening to a Kid's Bop CD later on, R takes note of some of the lyrics in a song being blasted from the family's stereo.

"These kids are SMART, Christine."

"How so, ladyface?"

She pauses before stating, matter-of-factually, "Well, they're saying NUMBERS. What smart, smart kids!"

Swimming!

Kiddo loves anything liquid. Most of the materials we use for his sensory integration program are "messy," and he is naturally drawn to anything remotely wet. However, he also likes feeling safe and grounded.

Kiddo's dad is the manager of some of the public pools and aquatic centers here in Salt Lake City, so in the summer we always go "swim." I use that term loosely to describe Kiddo's previous experiences in the water, because he'd really do anything but swim. He loves the water, but mostly he'd just sit in the same spot for hours, stimming out in the shallow end, occasionally holding his breath and submerging long enough to get his hair wet. He would scream and recoil at any attempt to bring him into deeper water.

Until this week. I don't know whether it was the new season, his growing confidence, the sensory integration, a change of mind, or a combination of these things (or something else entirely), but he let me take him into deeper waters! He held on tight, but would laugh when we jumped up in down or when I'd throw him a few feet in front of me (with a big splash!) before pulling him back up.

Then, his brother J asked if he could use one of the pool's kid floaties. DUH!!! I told him "Yes!" and to grab a small one for Kiddo as well. The one J grabbed was a little too big, and Kiddo absolutely had no interest in wearing it and put up a bit of a struggle as I tried to slip it on him, but once he was strapped in and back in the pool he had a change of heart.

I really wish I'd had my camera, because he made the best faces as he floated about, unsure of what to do with his arms and legs at first. Eventually, however, with some encouragement, he began dog paddling around the entire pool. He would slowly swim from one end to the other, and when he had finally made it to the concrete, he'd smile proudly to himself and giggle before kicking off again. :)

Peace.