Live, From Third Grade

Leo's math teacher sent me more pictures this morning.

I love that she does this.

I also love the expression on Leo's face in that first shot.

"He looks so proud!" I replied in an email, to Mrs. L's pictures.

"He Is," Mrs. L wrote back.


These show Leo using the class' new smartboard. The school was awarded a grant which gave one to every classroom in the building. For those who don't know-and I didn't until last week's parent-teacher conference-it's essentially a giant, interactive computer screen and has rendered televisions/DVD players and overhead projectors (here's where I show my true age!) obsolete in many classrooms.

Speaking of the parent teacher conference, Leo is doing well at school. His teacher thinks we made a wonderful decision placing him in this new setting (as of September, we pulled him out of the "cognitively delayed" classroom and put him in a "language and learning disabilities" class).

All in all, it was a pretty uneventful conversation with the teacher (which, I guess, is what you want?).

*He's making friends, adjusting to an increased amount of responsibility (for the most part, he's in charge of his own schedule, for example he knows at 9 a.m. he has "inclusive PE," with the rest of the third grade, at 11:30 he has art, and so on).

*He is, according to his teacher, Mrs. F., one of the best readers in the class.

*He's making friends. One of his most loved activities is the morning "Snack and Conversation" where the students sit in a circle (and yes, have snack) and talk about a prompted subject: "What I did over the weekend" or "The Best Thing I Did On My Summer Vacation." While the students do sometimes have difficulty understanding him, they all sincerely try to figure out what he's saying. As they get to know him better, it's becoming easier.

*Meanwhile, we are seeing a huge improvement in Leo's speech since the start of the school year and I can only presume it's related to the fact that he's surrounded by kids with much better speech and more sophisticated vocabularies. Leo's speech is becoming more natural, more, conversational. At night I walk in the door and he asks me "How was your day, Mommy?" It's little things: he's using words like "quietly" and "carefully."

*The subject Leo continues to struggle the most with is math. I'm quite confident this is genetic and has nothing to do with extra chromosomes since I was an absolute disaster in math too. "Is he doing third grade math?" asked Mrs. F. "No, we're going much slower for him because it's taking longer for him to figure certain concepts out. But that's just fine and he's progressing and that's exactly what we want to see."

*His favorite day is still Friday, when Mrs. L., the math teacher brings in her "therapy" dog Finn. The children read to Finn and visit with him. Leo is his Number One Fan (and yes, Mrs. L. promised to send me a picture she next time Finn makes a visit). Stay tuned.

Speech. Again. And Some Needed Comic Relief.

I met with two of Leo’s teachers and his school speech therapist yesterday for his parent teacher conference

The good news is, academics-wise, Leo is doing well. His handwriting is progressing. He’s an active, eager participant in class discussions as he’s always been. As I mentioned a few months ago, Leo now attends the learning disabled class for language arts and that is apparently going (mostly) swimmingly (he's not as cooperative or enthusiastic about math, which he also goes to this class for but hey, he comes by that honestly--I was a horror in math throughout all my school years). The class is comprised of children with various, minor “learning problems,” some are not quite reading at grade level, some have dyslexia. If you saw these kids in the hallway, you wouldn’t look twice but they’re in this class because they need just a little extra help.

The “learning problems” teacher (let’s call her Ms. F since that rolls off the tongue a bit more gracefully, don’t you think?) adores Leo. She said he’s a hard worker, loves to be involved in class discussions. Her kids have welcomed him into the class and seem to really enjoy his presence. The interesting thing about this group of kids is they all know they have a problem. They know they’re different, that they’re not good at something and they need help. I don’t know this for sure but I’m going to take a leap and say that I don’t think Leo gets this (about himself) right now. I actually hope he never does but at the same time I suppose it’s a double edged sword—don’t you have to be fairly intelligent to grasp something like that? And I know Leo is incredibly intelligent. One of the many signs of just how smart Leo is? He completely knows when you are pretending to understand him. Most times he's not satisfied you get what he's saying unless you repeat it back to him.

In the meantime, Mrs. F proclaimed Leo the best reader in her class (remember, he’s in second grade and there are third graders in this class). Now for the comic relief: There is much reading aloud in her room and the other day after Leo read his portion, one of the children who really struggles with reading took a deep breath, sat back and said “I think Leo’s a genius.”

Now for the not so cute. Speech. Leo is continues to be very, very difficult to understand. He’s been in private therapy (supplementing what he receives in school) since November and when I asked his school speech therapist if she’d seen any difference since then? She answered a resounding No. My heart sank a little. I wasn’t expecting a miracle, but I guess I was expecting something. A little glimmer of hope. A small bone. At the same time, I obviously want her to be honest. Stroking my parental ego does no one any favors.

It’s baffling to me. Leo says some words and phrases (“That’s boring!” and “Mommy, I’m still hungry!”) clear as a bell. Others (and there are many, many others) leave us scratching our heads. We get frustrated. He gets impatient and understandably frustrated. Of course he does. He’s trying to communicate. We, his family, and to some extent his teachers, get a lot of what he’s saying by context. But we can’t expect the rest of the world to know Leo’s context just to be able to have a conversation with him.

Leo is an ebullient, chatty presence everywhere he goes, including the daily “snack and conversation” held in Ms. F’s room. The other children are extremely patient and curious and include Leo fully. They are, according to Ms. F, just dying to know what Leo is saying. Join the club.

And speech is everything. Or, speech is his bridge to the rest of the world. And the thing is, it’s not like Leo doesn’t have things to day. He’s not speech delayed anymore by any stretch. In fact, he won’t shut up (never thought I’d say that!). He is so friendly and outgoing and interested in the world and people around him. I just worry about how long that openness will last if he’s constantly met with “What did you say? Huh? I’m sorry Leo, I can’t understand you.” I’m afraid if we can’t help him figure this speech thing out, at some point, he’s going to shut down, to not even try.

Both his school and private therapist agree that they want him to be checked by an ENT for something physical (inflamed sinuses? Tonsils? Perhaps a palate issue though wouldn’t this have been discovered already?)—something—anything that night explain why speech is so largely unintelligible. His ABR last summer was all clear so we know he can hear. I’m looking into apraxia but that’s something for a neurologist.

I just want to help him. He has SO much to say.

He's That Kid

“Well, you know Leo is very special,” began Mrs. L. at this morning’s early morning parent-teacher conference.

I rolled my eyes and giggled a little, “Yeah, special, I’ll say!”

Hey, a little humor never hurt anyone, that’s my motto.

“No, really,” Mrs. L. continued, reaching over to touch my arm. “Really.”

So the first good news is that in spite of Mrs. L's accolade, I managed to not cry (happy tears) at this term’s parent-teacher conference. Leo is doing well. Handwriting is progressing; math is going well. He’s apparently a master colorer (this is big in terms of hand writing). Socially, he appears to have broken up with his little girlfriend (ah, young love) but is good buddies with a boy in his class named Terry.

His favorite subject appears to be social studies. He reportedly enjoys listening to a lesson and then answering questions about what he’s learned (he’s that wiggling kid in the front row with his hand always up, says Mrs. L, which I love).

Of course the transitions we struggle with at home are nowhere to be found at school, which is wonderful (I’d rather he behave at school and fall apart at home but still, sure doesn’t make our lives any easier). The noise sensitivity he displayed last year seems to have dissipated so that’s good. He’s starting on the Edmark spelling program, which will mean his homework is a bit more time consuming, so we’ll see how that goes. And he’s going to have weekly spelling tests which for some reason is exciting to me.

But perhaps most importantly, I learned that Mrs. L. prefers tea over coffee, making my holiday gift preparation much easier this year.

And, pictured above, my little drummer boy, just because.

It Takes a Village

This morning was Leo’s spring parent-teacher conference. I last met with Leo’s teacher in the fall. I speak with her on the phone or via email or Leo’s communication book fairly regularly, so I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know.

Even though it made the morning a bit extra hectic (and I had to bring Ellie with me) I like to get to Leo’s school as often as I can and it’s fun to visit Leo’s classroom. This morning, for example, I found out they are growing potatoes! Leo pointed to the tiny green sprouts poking through the dirt in the big purple Rubbermaid container and signed “baby.” Well they were baby potatoes, he was right.

Perhaps my favorite detail about this morning was seeing pictures from the Dr. Seuss Birthday celebration a few weeks ago. There was Leo, in a circle with a group of (all typical girls). He had his legs crossed, was leaning back in his chair and reading aloud from The Cat in the Hat and the girls were enthralled, clearly under Leo’s spell.

You certainly can’t complain about a meeting with a teacher that begins, “Well everyone loves Leo.”

I’m not surprised to learn that Leo is the “mayor” of his school. He greets everyone in the hall and everyone knows him. He is collectively adored.

I pressed her for the negative. It couldn’t be a total love-fest. Was there anything he needed to work on? Anything we should be doing with him at home?

He still has a hard time transitioning sometimes, but he is easily “redirected” when reminded of an upcoming fun activity. He can be a little overly “chatty,” both with his neighbors and teachers. He is constantly asking questions. Why? What’s that? (Obviously not much of a “problem” in my book for the speech delayed kid to be talking too much but I can imagine it can be annoying as a teacher).

Mrs. L. does think Leo could improve his handwriting, which I was surprised to hear, since I think it’s pretty darn impressive. But clearly I’m a little biased.

The discussion turned to the haircut/sensory concerns. Mrs. L. wanted to know what exactly was Leo’s “issue” with getting his hair cut, so that she and the Occupational therapist could figure out some techniques to help him overcome it. I explained in highly technical terms, that he basically flips. Out. I shared with her the fact that Leo’s been seeing an ENT since he was about six months old. Maybe he just doesn’t like people going at his head with sharp objects?

She agreed they would continue to work on it and even joked she’d been tempted to make a few snips here and there, when they were working with the scissors, but she was worried Leo would get the wrong idea and think it was acceptable to use scissors on other people’s hair.

And then I said in all seriousness, if you can cut Leo’s hair, I give you my blessing. For real. I was pretty much convinced she would have better luck than we do at home. I think we can all agree that most (all?) children are completey different people at school vs. home, so why not? I can see someone reading this and thinking, what, you can't even cut your own kid's hair? But it's not that simple. It reminds me of how Leo was potty trained at school for ages while he still continued to have accidents at home, or how he has always been so good about holding the hands of teachers or aides but up until very recently, would try to bolt when I walked with him.

They are just different creatures, when they're away from us. I firmly believe this.

Back to today. I arrived at work this morning (about an hour after meeting with Leo’s teacher) to a phone message from Ms. L.

“Just wanted to let you know we’ve made some progress in trimming Leo’s hair. It’s not finished yet but it’s a big improvement! I’ll keep you posted.”

And then an email, a few hours later:

Hi Maya,
As per my phone message to your work number, we are still working on Leo's hair - it's definitely a work in progress and will take days to complete. The Health teacher, came in today and told us that she used to be a hairdresser. She has all her equipment at home and will be happy to cut his hair (fix what I've done) once we feel he is ready. We're aiming for the Wednesday after vacation. She would like to know how you would like it cut. If you could find a picture of a haircut you like and could send it in that would be great.
Mrs. L.

And shortly after that email, another note arrived, with these attached:



It’s clear that they are using this as a “teachable moment” which I think is sweet. And smart.

Mrs. L. said that Leo "fussed a bit" [I had written her back inquiring how he reacted to the haircut]. She went on to say: "I did a little at a time. We used a doll and "cut" the dolls hair ( it didn't even have any hair) and then Leo's hair. I'll try to do a little every day to even it out. Tomorrow we talked about doing the front (just so it's not hanging in his eyes)."
Mrs. L.

My heart is swelling. It takes a village, indeed.

They Want to Take Him Home

I met with Leo’s teacher for his parent-teacher conference today.

Leo marched into school like it was his place. He took me right to his classroom, knew exactly where he was going.

While I met with the teacher Leo worked on the computer, turning the little mouse right where it needed to go, typing on the keyboard.

Mrs. L started the meeting off with:

“We love Leo. He’s doing great.”

I was worried I was going to start crying right then and there. I mean, I wasn’t expecting bad news. There had been nothing to suggest Leo wasn't doing well. It’s just so nice to hear that he is, straight from the source. What can I say, Leo chokes me up. Often.

Mrs. L showed me what he’s been working on, handwriting, math, reading and vocabulary. She said he’s only had two potty accidents the entire school year (much better than he does at home but that’s another story).

So far, he’s only “run off” twice (I had concerns going in about the size of the school, the number of kids, Leo getting, you know, lost), and both times were en route to a trailer that the P.T. uses for therapy sessions. I guess going outside can get him distracted. I imagine him thinking Such pretty leaves on the trees! What a cool playground over there!

He still isn’t loving the lunches I’m packing (I’ve had to find more cold alternatives and he’s just not a sandwich guy). The teacher keeps asking me why I don’t want him to have hot lunch. Sorry, but the options are kind of junky sounding. He does get cheese pizza on Friday, which he loves.

Mrs. L. said she’s so glad that she thought to ask me (via a note in Leo's communication book) who “Ruby” is (she’s our golden retriever, aka Leo’s second best friend--after Ellie). Apparently Leo talks about Ruby A LOT at school.

The only real downer was when I asked about Leo's language. I've noticed in the last few weeks he seems to be speaking more, putting more words together (see the report on the four word sentence over the weekend) but Leo is still pretty difficult to understand. I asked Mrs. L if most kids at Leo's age get easier to understand as they get older. She said it's really hard to predict and it's very "individualized." What? No crystal ball? No guarantee that Leo will be one of those people with DS for whom speech is not a problem?

Oh well.

Mrs. L. concluded by saying that Leo is doing everything he should be and progressing nicely with all of his skills. And also, that “everyone in the school loves him, they want to take him home,” and that he “gives great hugs.”

All of this is wonderful, except for the taking home part. Sorry guys but he’s all mine. Although there are certainly days when I might consider letting someone borrow him for a few hours.