Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

This morning I was at Julia's school from 8 until noon with the executive board of PTO to discuss and then recommend which proposed grants to fund, and then I was back at 1 for our parent teacher meeting.

Draining and exhausting, but it is living out loud.

The PTO meeting was hard. We needed to discuss core values, changes in our working paradigm, and which requests to refuse outright. Just a few years ago, I hear there was money for all of the grant requests -- some of things we would not have even considered now. For the past two years, grant requests have way out paced the fund we set aside for grants. And so many of the requests are for things like books, new programs, and sub pay, that would have been funded with the school's budget. We are a lucky school that we have a means of supporting programs that have been cut, and I believe that the people that I sat down with today care so very deeply about all of our children.

Our parent-teacher meeting did not yield any surprises. It never did with Cheshire (except for once). Julia chugs along slowly, held back by resistant and angry behavior. Her behavior during the conference was a case in point. Where she is fully capable of amusing herself in a classroom full of books and places to draw, she whined, cried, demanded, and refused every idea for her. We were saved by another teacher who took Julia into her room to amuse her while David and I talked to Julia's two teachers.

Prior to this, there has always been talk about how far Julia had come and what the expectations for the rest of the year were. I asked about that today at the end of our conference as if it was just a forgotten piece of the discussion. There are no more projections. It is not that there are not expectations of Julia and not that those involved with her education are content to leave her anywhere. Instead, I see teachers who are using every strategy they can muster to get Julia interested, accommodate her interests, and move her forward, but Julia's development and Julia's learning are not, for the foreseeable future at least, and maybe always, within the normal range in any way. Julia is moving ahead in reading -- from level one to level two so far this year and I believe, she was get a good deal further this year -- 10 or 12? But kids in first grade get to about level 20. Math is still numbers and she is still confused when she gets to the teens. She is doing rudimentary addition, but only on good days and only very concretely.

There is evidence that her social interactions are maturing. She is not able to be civil to Aaron, who she had such a hard time getting along last year. Ginny talked about how Julia had talked to Aaron and asked him for things when they meet. There are two other kids in Julia's class who have taken a liking to her and the teachers encouraged me to cultivate those friendships. Those friendships, and the few others that she has will be a very necessary bridge for her. They will start creating a community for her as she moves through school.

We talked about ADHD drugs, and the teachers gave us their opinions -- that it might help, that it usually takes time to find the most effective drug, the most effective dose, and the right balance of drug and side effects, that it might be a part of a solution. They emphasized that there is no magic pill. Here's what I want some drug to do -- I want it to help Julia center herself and stay on task enough that she can concentrate to the degree that will let her advance in her reading, understand numbers, and be able to take instruction in art.

I am sober and tired tonight but not discouraged or depressed. Julia has a path ahead of her that we cannot see at all. Maybe this is what all parents of kids with cognitive challenges learn -- that path is not ours, that the path is strange to us, but makes sense to our children. And I am wild, crazy in love with this child.