The Po Show

Smarts

We had Tessa's conference this evening (a make-up conference, since our scheduled meeting last week was cancelled on the snow day).

I'd already seen her report card, and I looked up her score on the Developmental Reading Assessment. The latter took some digging, since her score was 24, and the scores for first grade stopped at 16. I did some more research and discovered that 24 is the level that kids are expected to be at the END of SECOND grade.

So yeah, her teacher says she's progressed phenomenally in reading this fall. Her fluency needs work, but her comprehension is excellent. The teacher said that in all of her years of teaching, Tessa has the best comprehension and retrieval of detail of any child she's ever encountered. This teacher is a straight-up kind of person, and she wouldn't say that if she didn't mean it. She also said she didn't give "4"s (meaning performance above grade) very often, and Tessa had a slew of 4s.

So, wow. I knew she was doing well, and I've been amazed at how well she is reading, seemingly all of a sudden, but I was a little blown away by these rave reviews. I find it especially amazing, considering how little time I've given to her schoolwork. She does all of her homework by herself, and she generally does not want to read to me, ever. I hear her read things out loud all the time, which is how I knew that her reading had improved so much.

Matthew's conference has been put off till next month, when his new modifications have been in place for awhile. They have been letting him use an electronic spell checker in class, to help him with his writing. His aide time is being increased (not by a lot, an additional 40 minutes a day, so that she can always go to specials with him, but that's when he needs her the most, so at least we got that). The school psychologist is going to be coming in to lunch, to help facilitate peer interaction. He'll have a scribe for the ELA testing next month, so he can verbally give his answers. He'll still be required to verbally spell what are considered the "fourth grade words" in the sentences, which he's going to have a hard time doing, but at least he won't get bogged down by the hopelessness of writing out the sentences himself. He is going to start one to one tutoring in the Wilson method to help him improve his spelling skills (which we're going to pay for, but I do think the private tutoring is the way to go).

I do hope, and am hopeful, that these modifications will help. Because, ouch, his report card was pretty dismal. If our school gave out letter grades, he'd absolutely be failing all academic subjects except math, and he has some big deficits there too. He can't write out his answers, he can't show his work (he just figures out word problems in his head, but can't tell you how he got the answer), he does not know his times tables still. He's a freaking mathematical genius, as far as understanding concepts and intuitively figuring problems out, but the mechanics are just so hard for him.

One of the ladies in the office was telling me today that she saw Matthew in the media center yesterday, and he was reading an encyclopedia. She remarked on it, and he told her all about what he was reading. She said her head was spinning, that she could barely keep up with all the things he was explaining. More of the Little Professor syndrome he's had since he could talk.

My two children, both so smart, so bright, but one so very well suited for school, and one just not :(.

Snow Day

Actually it was an ice day. I was shocked to get a call from school (automated system; they don't call every house!) at 6:58 this morning saying that school was closed. It was supposed to be a half day for conferences, so I was sort of peeved that they would close school when it wasn't even snowing yet. Surely they could go to school till noon, thought I. Especially since I was planning to go to Costco! What about MY needs?

So we went to the mall this morning before the snow started. Tessa bought a $40 bear at Build-A-Bear ($14 for the bear, $25 for the accessories! I told her, I don't pay $25 for YOUR outfits!) and Matthew obliquely asked to stay for lunch. (He's so Japanese in many ways: "What are we doing now?", he asked after we left Gymboree. "I guess we're going home," I answered. "Oh, is there anything else we could do? What time is it?" "It's 11:30. Did you want to have lunch?" "Oh! That would be nice!")

When we left the mall, it had been snowing for awhile. We stopped at the grocery store, which was a madhouse (people stocking up before the snow? It's only one day of snow! Not like a blizzard on the prairie that will last for three months!). The snow turned to ice, hard little bits of ice pelting everything and everyone.

We got home and had to leave again in an hour for Matthew's therapy appointment. It was already getting treacherous on the streets. The therapist looked surprised to see us. "You made it!", she enthused. "We are intrepid," I answered.

The roads were really slushy and horrible as we were driving home. People were being good and only driving 10 or 15 miles an hour, but still, a taxi in front of us started sliding sideways, wheels spinning. Happy for AWD, me.

Afterwards, I thought about how accustomed to winter weather we've become, CA babies that we are. There's something really wrong with that.

Addendum

As an addendum to my last post, I am here to report that this afternoon, Matthew asked if he could have some green beans for a snack. At first I thought he said ring dings. Which was pretty funny, considering he's never heard of ring dings and I would never dream of buying them :).

But no, he was asking for a bowl of green beans. I was ready to go out and look for pods in the backyard.

He Likes It! Hey Mikey!

Yes folks, I believe we have a winner! Abilify has been a great drug for Matthew, after the initial 3 weeks of being utterly unable to sleep and 3 additional weeks of being so tired that he'd have to put his head down on his desk at school almost every morning.

He's so much less prone to outbursts, so much easier to reason with. He gets huffy, but then he can stop himself, de-escalate on his own, and comply with whatever request made him huffy in the first place.

The thing that really has blown me away, though, is that he has been asking to try new foods. This is the child who has eaten almost nothing but fruit and Trader Joe's little pizzas for about 6 years now. On Thanksgiving he asked to try some green beans, and he loved them and has been eating them ever since. He's started eating hamburgers with barbeque sauce. He asked to try PASTA the other night! He has not eaten pasta since he was maybe two (and he didn't like it then).

Ross came home from work that night and was in the kitchen. I called out to him from the dining room that Matthew had asked to try pasta. I walked into the kitchen and he was grinning at me, saying, "I must not have heard you from the other room properly. It sounded like you said that Matthew wanted to try pasta." :D Matthew actually, and I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, ate a plate of lasagna the other night.

He's also talking to his classmates much more, engaging them in conversation. We saw his teacher on Tuesday and he said that a couple of kids actually *asked* to sit by Matthew, so he has new table mates in class.

We still don't know what the future holds, but I gotta say, I'm feeling pretty good about this drug.

(On a side note, have you seen the commercial for Abilify on TV? A woman is walking by herself through a field and some trees, looking sad and lonely. The voiceover is talking about bipolar disorder, the highs and lows. Then it mentions Abilify and the woman comes upon another woman standing by a fence. She perks up and they start walking together, not exactly holding hands, but walking very close together, very intimately. So what's the message here, that Abilify can turn you into a lesbian???)

Eight Crazy Nights

Well, the sun is officially down, so to my friends who celebrate: Have a Happy Happy Happy Happy Hanukkah!

Heart of Gold

Tessa had a writer's workshop assignment in school that went "When your piggybank is full, what would you go and buy? Why?"

Tessa drew a picture of herself and Matthew in a store, under a sign that said "Chars" (Chairs), and she is holding her pink elephant bank (that Susanna and crew gave her for her first birthday!). She is looking across the room with a big smile on her face (over a brown chair and a red chair), to a green chair with brown rockers.

Her essay goes (I've fixed up the spelling, since it's VERY inventive :)):

"If my elephant bank was full I would buy a rocking chair for my mom. Because our old one squeaks."

I actually had tears running down my face as I read this, it was so sweet and so funny and so remarkable. Out of all the things she could have written that she wanted to buy, she wanted to buy something for me. And it was the perfect choice, because she has heard me lament on a million occasions about how sad I am that my beloved glider rocker (purchased right before she was born, and the spot were I sat and nursed her and rocked her to sleep hundreds of thousands of times) has gotten so thrashed over the years. The kids have messed up the rockers by pushing their feet against the chair from the side, and by sitting on the edge of the chair and rocking. Plus Ross has sat in it a lot in recent years and he's not exactly, well, light. So I can't even stand to sit in it anymore, since it squeaks so badly and rocks too far back.

So my generous girl chose to write about buying me a new one, in green, my favorite color. Color me a puddle of mommy.