The IEP's and the Tobey Jude

Yesterday we had both of the boys' IEP's. For those of you in the non-special needs sector that is Individual Education Plan. I used to dread these things, but they are so different in Plymouth.

We had Edwin's at 7:50 in the morning which is one of earliest meetings we have had. Edwin only attends school for 4 hours. And he has a breakfast, lunch and recess in there. He also has what they call sensory breaks. Somehow, he is keeping up with all the "normal" students and doing Honor roll work. So, we have decided to start having him stay an extra half hour a day for now, and he is going to eat lunch with the 4th grade class. Our hope is to have him in with the "normal' kids most of the time by the end of the year.

Tobey's was at 9, it went great! The see Tobey starting to recognize letters and numbers. And they are ready to put him on more of an academic plan. After he gets his letters and numbers down, he will learn money with the help of his Ipad. He can do so much on that thing and will probably be more technologically savvy than his Mom. And then they want to put him in a normal classroom for a little bit each day. Now, I never thought in a million years that Tobey would sit in a normal classroom...huge blessing.

So, since I am on the subject of a Tobey Jude. The little guy was fighting a bad cold for quite a while and he was having fevers every other day. We took him to the pediatrician a couple of times but it always seemed to fall on a "good day". The school was noticing that his blood oxygen level was getting low and his heart rate was abnormally high. And between us, the school and his Dr there was probably 50 phone calls. On Tuesday and Wednesday he was running high temps and we did that whole Tylenol and then Motrin trick. And then Friday night he was screaming his head off. But because the little dude doesn't talk much we had no idea it was pain. And then we noticed his ears were leaking and then today we found out that both of his ear drums burst and he has a severe bacterial infection in his ear canals. So, now the boy is drugged and blissfully sleeping with no pain. This is the part of Autism that just sucks, I can't tell the difference between screaming because of a tantrum or pain. I can ask him if he is in pain, but he can't tell me. At the Dr's today they were asking me questions about him and all I could say was I don't know. Very hard. So, he goes back next Friday and we will find out about putting in tubes and then we will discuss getting his hearing tested because they are worried about him losing some hearing. So, any prayers for him are appreciated. The whole hearing loss thing is terrifying to me with all the other communication issues.

That is about all here at Holsteinville.....I hope you have a good night!