Oh No, I Don't Think So.

First term at school ended and the long awaited report card appeared.

Maybe you remember how I talked about the transition to the new school having gone better than expected, or how Tiger was gaining weight etc. Suffice to say, from my end I thought things were going swimmingly.

We have a communication book that goes back and forth daily, and I've only received the expected messages, Tiger got hurt in gym, exited music for the hub, had a confrontation and so on and so forth.

She hasn't been sent home with any homework, other than her reading and spelling.
My IEP goals  are focused on increasing her safety, social skills, motor skills and improve her reading. She's seeing the OT, using the hub, she's been happy. I wasn't really concerned with her academics as she had already completed grade 1 at the private school.

So imagine my surprise when her report card came and discovered that she was failing.

Yeah! Tigerlily the kid with the above average IQ is flunking her second run at grade one.

Now this shouldn't have come as quite the surprise it did. There were calls about her refusing to print, thus the OT. & she refused to participate in music and gym. I just didn't realize and wasn't told that she was refusing to do ANY of the work.

Again at home, I was reading with her everyday, and she was taking a pile of books to bed with her every night. We practiced her spelling she was showing obvious improvements.... to me, but above all she was happier. She had started typing in her objectives on the computer search engines. She learned to play computer games using the keyboard and mouse and was really good at it switching seamlessly between the two.

Now I know the Tiger can be a handful, willful, difficult etc. I know she likes to try and manipulate you into giving her the answer and spends more time fighting about completing a task that it takes to actually do the work but come on, give me a bleeping break. Let's just say I was a wee bit miffed by this having gotten so far without my knowing about it.

Now I'm not blaming the school.... entirely. Tiger made some choices here.

So step one was to lay down the law on Tigerlily. Yeah those electronics went bye bye.
Out came our flash cards, workbooks, and homeschool curriculum.
Talks about honesty, effort, manipulation and choices were held.
Daddybear even had a heart to heart  about "gettin er dun" & his expectations of her both at school and home. ( He almost never criticizes her so this was a big deal )

Step 2 was for me to get in touch with the school,  and ask them to kindly explain themselves, book more meetings and conference calls and basically call them out on letting Tiger get away with such obvious bullsh*t.

They of course said that they had to grade her based on the work she was, or in Tigers case wasn't producing and insisted that she was performing at JK-K level.

I sent them examples of Tigerlily's work from last year.
Reopened her IEP and added private assessments out of classroom in quiet space one on one and asked that a copy of every test be sent home.

& Guess what?

Last week she scored 42/42 on her science test.
They had her at a level B for reading...... we are now at level E in just 3 weeks.
Just by following the accommodations laid out in our IEP.

Surprise the HFA/ ADHD girl can do the work, if, you provide her with an environment she can cope with.


The High Functioning Life, if our kids our failing, it's because the system is failing them.


HFL Mama

Backsliding Into Baking

Well it happened again. It seems that early in the year, every year, my Tiger gets seriously ill.
Not  just a cold kind of ill, I mean weight loss, unconsciousness and this year a racing heartbeat off to the emergency department we go, kind of ill.

 Last year it was almost a month before they figured out it wasn't a virus but a lymph node infection.
The year before that, it was bronchial pneumonia. This year it was, a new super virus. I know this, because it took four people to hold my Tiger down for a blood draw  and 2 people, to hold her for the chest Xrays and we never did manage to get her to pee in the cup. The kid can withhold for days. Eventually her fever broke and her heart rate slowed and we were home around  4 am.

Anyways, this years illness came with a sore throat, which meant Tigerlily wouldn't eat.
If you ever say "They'll eat when they're hungry" I'll tell ya to " Kiss my sashimi."
but that's an argument for another day.

So that happy dance I was doing over Tiger having broken the  40 pound barrier is over.
She was really sick for four days and lost 4 lbs. I tried everything last week to get her to eat but it was crushed ice and icy water only with the occasional popsicle to pacify Daddy. Now her stomach has shrunk down to nothing and she hates the feeling of being full so its BAKING TIME! Cookies and cakes, muffins and breads,  as many calories as I can get into the girl before she has to return to school after our March break.

As you all know the other reason I bake is to relieve stress.
I admit it I'm a stress baker and stress eater, so those pounds I lost running back and forth between daycare munchkins and Tiger all week well  I don't think they'll stay gone long.

Oh yeah, I may have failed to mention that I opened a home daycare as my solution to not being able to find employment that wouldn't mess with Tigerlily care. (shhhhh I know, I know, quit with the I told you so, I admit it,  you were right).
Yes my new job is to play with kids all day and its lots of fun. After Tigerlily the neurotypicals are so easy. Seriously, I love the munchkins, I'm just not making any money, because I turn around and spend it on stuff for the rugrats, right now I've got my eye on a sweet wagon to get them home from the park in. Too bad I spent $650 on an emergency vet visit on Monday night.
Yeah its been a long week.

I think I'll go bake something for the rugrats.


The High Functioning Life, it's more like 2 steps forward and 10 steps back.


HFL Mama