Category Archives: School

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 23, 2015

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY August 23, 2015

Outside my window… dark. It got into the 90’s here today which was irritating but unfortunately not uncommon for August. (And yes, I’m seriously praying that Jon gets a call to a colder climate. The Arctic Circle is looking lovely right now.)

I am thinking… about some of the more asinine arguments and statements in favor of homeschooling that I saw on the Web today. I have friends who are amazing homeschooling parents like Dawn and Kelly so I’m definitely not opposed to it (also because my husband was homeschooled); but seriously, some of the crud I read today would be at home on the Sanctimommy page on Facebook.

I am thankful… for Daniel going back to school tomorrow. I’m kind of bummed that we didn’t get to go to Meet-the-Teacher on Friday but it was worth it to get the extra respite time with my parents.

In the kitchen… cheese and crackers because it’s too hot to do anything involving the oven, microwave, or stove.

I am wearing… the black cat nightshirt that my mother-in-law got me here as a coming-home present.

I am going… to pray Compline from the Book of Common Prayer when I’m done here.

I am wondering… how Daniel will do tomorrow with his longer school day.

I am reading… Friendship Cake by Lynne Hinton. I was reading Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu but it deals with the subculture that surrounds families like the Duggars and it just wasn’t a good thing in which to immerse myself at the moment.

I am hoping… the pain in my foot from walking almost 6 miles on Friday will go away.

I am looking forward to… being able to go for prayer walks and work out once Daniel is on the bus tomorrow.

I am hearing… various things on iTunes and YouTube.

A Daniel story for today… he said “mo nanna” (“more banana”) to my mom when she was watching him while I was somewhere last week.

Around the house… silence. It is positively blissful.

A favorite quote for today… “The worship-to-panda ratio has gone a different direction.” — Rend Collective in this video:

One of my favorite things… club soda when I’m trying to beat my Coca-Cola addiction.

A few plans for the rest of the week: PT on Tuesday, a bunch of phone calls, and getting medical records and such ready for a bunch of Daniel appointments.

A peek into my day… I was trying to explain this video to a friend last week. I find it hysterically funny because I’ve attended a church like this.

Post Script…

This is my favorite worship song and very few people outside of the UK or my chapter of Intervarsity know of it.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

7 Quick Takes: Ramblings from Tiredness

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

504 plans and IEP’s. Around this time of year, the question of 504 plans vs. IEP’s comes up in the groups with whom I hang on Facebook. This is the definition of a 504 plan and this is how it compares with an IEP. (The difference is accommodations vs. specialized instruction.)

For those keeping track, Daniel has an IEP.

— 2 —

For moms of non-verbal kiddos… Daniel’s 1:1 buddy from VBS at my church sent me this. It also works for elderly adults who may wander.

— 3 —

Prerequisite baseball take. Currently, the Dodgers are losing to Cincinnati and the Giants are beating the Nats. Life is as it should be. 🙂 (Why yes, I am conveniently ignoring the fact that the Giants are 3.5 games behind the Dodgers in the standings and am instead baiting my husband with tonight’s scores.)

— 4 —

Cosmo and controversy. Last week while heading somewhere with Daniel (I think to get x-rays), I heard something about Rite Aid and a couple other national supermarket chains putting Cosmopolitan magazine behind a screen in checkout stands because the titles are too lewd for kids to read; and apparently, kids are asking their parents some pretty uncomfortable questions based on them. (We’re talking questions about sex acts and anatomy that their parents aren’t comfortable explaining to a 4 year old.)

So… should Cosmo be put behind a screen: yea or nay?

— 5 —

Don’t piss off women! Donald Trump insulted Megyn Kelly last week by blaming her hard questioning of him on her being on her period so there’s now a hashtag on Twitter with which women are trolling him with their period announcements.

I’m also heartened by Donald Trump being uninvited from the RedState Gathering for being such a jerk to Megyn Kelly. Even better: Megyn Kelly was invited in his place. It shows that Republicans are taking women seriously this time.

— 6 —

Eschet chayil! Dr. Frances Kelsey, who protected Americans from thalidomide, died last week at the age of 101. Because of her, the US was spared the scores of kids born with deformed arms and legs, deformed eyes and hearts, deformed alimentary and urinary tracts, blindness and deafness born in other countries where the use of the drug hadn’t been restricted. (It was used as an anti-nausea med and crossed the placental barrier.)

Irony of ironies, it is actually one of the chemotherapeutic agents used for my father-in-law’s type of cancer but they are meticulous about making sure that anyone prescribed it has no chance of getting pregnant or getting anyone else pregnant. It is also used to treat leprosy.

— 7 —

For Potterheads. This is funny but mildly NSFW.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: A Somewhat Better Week

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Daniel’s IEP. Daniel’s IEP meeting was yesterday and it was the triennial one so there was a pretty significant amount of testing done. I learned that I should have really pushed for more OT and PT when he was in preschool because they’re still working on a lot of foundational skills and he is still pretty delayed. He’s doing some normal kindergarten work but he has the potential to get behind his age group peers so I’ll be working with him on age-appropriate curriculum when he comes home from school so that they can focus on catching him up in other ways.

One thing everyone mentioned: how sweet he is, how happy he is, and how compliant he is. It’s not a guarantee with a lot of autistic kids so I’m pretty thankful I have a sweet one.

— 2 —

Sweetness. I missed Bible study on Wednesday because I woke up with a migraine and when I walked into the midweek Lenten soup supper, some of the members hugged me and told me that they had missed me that morning. It’s so nice to be loved because I’m Jen and not just because I happen to be married to the pastor. It’s also nice to be welcome to do what I want instead of what people thing the perfect pastor’s wife should do.

— 3 —

Gah. Daylight Savings Time starts on Sunday. Does anyone else hate this weekend of the year besides me? Let the sleep deprivation begin (or continue if that’s the case for you)!

— 4 —

PSA on the current challenges to the Affordable Care Act. The challenges to the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court are not just an attempt to get rid of the birth control provisions. It would roll back care for people like me who cannot get healthcare except by the public exchanges. While Covered California’s website is a piece of crap, the insurance I have is covering all of my medications which are for things that are hereditary and things that arose as complications from my pregnancy with Daniel. It could also mean that insurance companies would not have to cover maternity care which would screw just about every woman who has a baby because none of their prenatal care would be covered as well as the hospital bill from the birth. Seriously, I cannot understand how politicians who are pro-life and against birth control can support this because what it’s doing is giving women another reason to consider abortion.

As far as the federal subsidies in question, they exist for people in the 34 states that have refused to set up exchanges where people can buy insurance. My insurance is subsidized currently because of my income and without that subsidy, we couldn’t afford insurance. (We qualify for Medi-Cal but the system is so overtaxed and for some incredibly stupid reason, the plan we were assigned has no doctors within an hour’s drive of us.)

I’m seriously not trying to start a fight here or play one political party against another — I’m trying to get people to see that this issue does have a face and said face is me.

— 5 —

Spring is here. It’s in the 80’s here today. While I miss four distinct seasons (and I’m sure people in New England and places in the southeast with the ice storm are wanting to throttle me right now), it is kind of nice to have flip-flop weather.

— 6 —

My baby is growing up. The changing table/dresser we had for Daniel was pretty much irrepairable and he had outgrown his toddler bed so we disassembled both of them on Monday for a dump pick-up on Tuesday. We’re now using one of the dressers in the room that he’s occupying and we’ve got the futon pulled out so he has a full-sized bed. It was sad in a way because he will probably be our only child and this means that his “baby years” are over, even though he’s definitely not functioning at an almost six year old level these days.

One downside for the cats: Freya now doesn’t have a perch where she can snoopervise the neighborhood and watch birds. She has taken over my desk but I can tell that it isn’t the same for her.

— 7 —

Adorableness. One last cool thing from my Confirmation on Sunday: since the bishop was present, we had festival-level worship which meant that we had flags and incense in addition to the normal crucifer and torchbearers. Incense in worship means a thurifer (to swing the thurible with the incense) and a boat boy to carry the boat (bowl with the incense). The thurifer was one of the young fathers and the boat boy was his oldest son who I am guessing is probably 6 or 7 years old. It was seriously adorable to see the two of them together!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 31, 2014

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY August 31, 2014

Outside my window… dark. It was seriously hot today — 96F.

I am thinking… about the Victoria Osteen debacle and the various quotations from Luther’s works that apply.

I am thankful… for my mother-in-law letting me sleep in the last few days because I’ve been up dealing with a sick kid or on-call in case we have to do an ER trip.

In the kitchen… clean. I just loaded the dishwasher.

I am wearing… my MomCat shirt and black capri sweats from Lands’ End. I generally write this at night and these are usually my sleeping clothes.

I am praying for… Mary of Passionate Perserverance as she and her husband make decisions regarding their daughter Courtney.

I am going… to hopefully catch up on sleep tonight.

I am wondering… about a number of things in my life that I can’t talk about on here.

I am reading… Gone with the Win by Mary Daheim — it’s one of her B & B mysteries so it makes fun of a number of Seattle institutions and landmarks. I finished up all the scrapbooking mysteries by Laura Childs and have ordered all of the Cackleberry Club books of hers from the library.

I am hoping… to have a good day with Daniel tomorrow as he’ll be off school for Labor Day. We might hit up the mall to go for a walk.

I am looking forward to… my dentist appointment on Tuesday, hoping that we will get me into an endodontist with all possible speed to fix my broken tooth and end my jaw pain.

I am hearing… Mary of Passionate Perseverance doing her “Coffee for the Heart” video from this past week.

Around the house… quiet — I’m the only one up.

A favorite quote for today… “The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

One of my favorite things… ice. Chewing it numbs my jaw a bit.

A few plans for the rest of the week: dentist appointment on Tuesday morning, doctor’s appointment for Daniel on Tuesday afternoon, and whatever else comes up.

A peek into my day…

Daniel in his school shirt.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

7 Quick Takes: The Exhaustion Fairy Visits, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and Back to School Night

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Brett. The seriously good news: HIS FAMILY IS FULLY FUNDED AND CAN BUY THE PLANE TICKETS HOME! After two years of praying for him, this is amazing news. God willing, his adoptive family will send me updates on how he does.

— 2 —

Kindergarten. Daniel is in his second week of school and seems to like it. I’ve run into a couple of his aides while out and about and they are in love with him. His transportation is worked out as of last Friday and I think today was the first day he didn’t get on the bus in tears. (I figured there would be a week of adjustment that way.)

— 3 —

Back to School Night. Jon and I went on Wednesday and got almost individualized attention from Daniel’s teacher. Jon was able to network a bit and it was a reminder for me that my kid is not that weird. It was totally up Jon’s alley (he is a people person and a networker) and he actually had FUN at the impromptu PTA meeting afterwards while I curled up into Laura Childs’ New Orleans.

They were talking about Common Core and the implementation at the school. As one who has the possibility of moving between states or halves of states, I’m actually all for the standardization of curricula and we’re being given the chance to review any Common Core curricula that our kids will be using. I know a lot of my homeschooling friends are up in arms over this and that’s understandable; but I’m not finding any problems with any of the material that I’ve seen.

And seriously, our kids are not learning how to twerk in PE like some people have claimed.

— 4 —

Laura Childs. I’m almost completely through her scrapbooking mysteries and have requested her Cackleberry Club mysteries from the library. Yes, she is that good. Her author website is here.

— 5 —

Exhaustion fairy. I somehow missed a dose of medication on Wednesday and had a really bad time sleeping that night so I spent Thursday like a zombie. My mother-in-law took one look at me when she and Jon got home at 6 and ordered me to go to bed. I wrote a couple of these last night but fell asleep typing. I’m still tired this morning but functional thankfully.

— 6 —

Bill Gothard. I’m reading stories on the Recovering Grace website and it’s showing me how much of a bullet I dodged when I converted. I had pen pals who were part of ATI and while they thought I was strange, I’m seeing that they were part of a cult. *shivers*

— 7 —

Bill Cosby and Victoria Osteen. Is anybody besides me convinced that Joel Osteen and his wife are the Christian version of Oprah? (By the way, my church attendance is *TOTALLY* about God, not about making myself happy.)

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Kindergarten, Grumping, and Murder Mysteries

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Brett His family passed court a few days ago and are now in the 10-day waiting period. They are, however, not fully funded and need $2500 added to their FSP before they can book their plane tickets home. Here is the link to their FSP. Could you please share it on your blogs/Facebook/Twitter and let people know that the number needs to read $13,000? Thanks!

— 2 —

First week of school. In case you missed my post on Monday, Daniel started kindergarten this week and it’s been a mixed bag. We love the school, his teacher, and the aides. What we don’t love: the transportation hell that we’re in. They hadn’t gotten him on any of the class lists last Friday so I had to bring my BINDER OF FUN down to the school to fill out paperwork and give them every recent evaluation of every kind. This also meant that they hadn’t gotten him routed for the school bus… and I’m glad my mom suggested I call and find out. Well… Claremont Unified decided to use their transportation instead of Bonita Unified doing it. On Wednesday, we put Daniel on the bus… which then refused to start. OK… one more day of taking him to school. We put him on the bus again this morning and it was fine… except that they screwed up the pick-up time and Claremont Unified decided not to call Daniel’s school back to let them know that they were dispatching someone. I realized that his bus was in front of me and called the school to tell them not to put him on the bus. The school secretary was spitting fire over the whole transportation screw-up (as I would hope she would be, given that Daniel is non-verbal and people had seriously screwed up) and I got a call from the principal personally apologizing for what happened.

Is all of this making me wish I homeschooled? OH HADES NO!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no regrets about putting him on a bus and sending him to school — I just wish the person coordinating this stuff (the special ed person for Claremont Unified) was actually competent. I’m at the point of asking for her head on a platter and I don’t think the people at Daniel’s school would mind helping me with that! (They’re pissed with her as well.)

— 3 —

Special intention. I had a seriously painful dental appointment today… and it was just the consultation. Blue Shield of California also screwed up my insurance so my dentist can’t even refer me out for treatment because they don’t know what insurance will cover or who of their endodontists I can see. Could y’all please pray that they can get their acts together so the office manager of the practice and I can hammer out a treatment plan on Monday? I’d also love prayers for my headache to go away.

— 4 —

Sleep deprivation. You know you’re sleep-deprived when you swallow your handful of night pills and then realize they were your morning pills for the next day. God willing, I’ll sleep OK tonight…

— 5 —

Baseball. The Giants are only 3.5 games back from the Dodgers right now. They could conceivably take the division if LA starts playing as crappy as they normally do. The Cardinals are also 2nd in their division though it’s fairly close with them and Milwaukee — only 1.5 game back.

— 6 —

Murder mysteries. I’ve gotten addicted to Laura Childs’ scrapbooking murder mysteries about a scrapbooking store owner in New Orleans named Carmela Bernard. There has already been some crossover between these and her tea shop mysteries and I’m wondering if her tea shop people (in Charleston) are going to make a trip to the scrapbooking store in New Orleans or vice versa.

— 7 —

Special intention. Could y’all keep praying for our special intention regarding ministry? Please and thank you!

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Why I’m Not Homeschooling: Socialization

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Several of my homeschooling mama friends are blogging about their upcoming school year and a conversation with my mother-in-law coupled with all of their posts on the subject brought to mind a large reason why I am emphatically *NOT* homeschooling Daniel right now: socialization.

Before I go into my reason for saying this, can I get something out of the way first?

I’m fully aware that in most cases, homeschooled children have no issues with socialization and are capable of getting along with other kids and adults.

Mine is the exception. One of the things that Daniel’s preschool did was mainstream him during recess and field trips so that he was able to spend time with neurologically typical kids. The point of this is to show him how to behave in certain situations, to help develop play skills, etc. We could have probably done preschool with him at home except that I really wanted him to have this opportunity. Thankfully, there was a preschool only about a block away that had the exact program we needed and he thrived there.

Living with my in-laws this summer (and dealing with the incompetence that is Special Education in the Claremont Unified School District) showed me that there is a big reason why I do this. When Daniel is around other kids, he behaves better, focuses better, and is starting to take social cues from them. If he were around other kids in places other than at school, we might be able to consider homeschooling. However, my normal for church is this post by Kathleen and the churches Jon has pastored lately do not have any kids that are Daniel’s age. (We haven’t been in a parish with really any kids period since 2010.) As much as I *love* getting the stink eye from people (/sarcasm), it gets really embarrassing to be asked by people why I’m not making my kid try to behave while he is spending storytime at the library running around trying to open/close doors because that’s his autistic stimming behavior of choice. (Well, it’s that as well as opening/slamming drawers and flipping light switches.). It’s also incredibly mentally tiring to still be in “parenting a toddler” mode when your kid is five and to constantly be trying to figure out how to reach your child who is largely locked up in their own head because they can’t talk. (Autistic kids tend to deal with apraxia of speech and Daniel is no exception.) Without being in school, he is around his incredibly introverted and quiet mother (me), his dad, my father-in-law who has cancer, and my mother-in-law who is trying to take care of my father-in-law. We’re not exactly the best people to teach him how to be a 5 year old.

Additionally, Jon/Daniel/me are in transition mode at the moment and school is pretty much the one stable thing right now. Autistic kids tend to do the best with a very set schedule and the easiest thing to do right now is to give him that in the form of a school day. It also gives me a chance to try for some freelance work to help with finances and I tend to be a much more mentally healthy person when I can contribute to the family financially. (OK… getting out of the house by myself also helps.)

I’m not trying to justify my decision to myself or others in the least — it’s one of those nights where my brain won’t shut up so I’m up blogging to get it to calm itself.