April 10, 2011

Jocelyn is the tallest in her ballet class.  Doesn't really mean much right?  Well, what it means is that, in yet another example of how tall is actually a trait that biases one for success (ever met a short CEO?), she gets to be in the center for her ballet recital.  

Yesterday after her normal ballet class was the first recital rehearsal.  I really can't imagine being the teacher in charge of herding these 9 cats into something that appears to be a routine.  Makes the $20 rehearsal fee plus the $50 costume fee seem more than reasonable.

One extra cute thing from ballet class.  There was a break between the regular class and rehearsal where the girls all got to have a snack (if we brought one from home).  I had received the head's up via email earlier in the week and had thrown a granola bar into my purse.  As the teacher was excusing the girls, she explained that it was ok if they didn't have a snack because maybe their parents didn't know, and they could just bring one next week.  So Jocelyn came out to the waiting room and said to me, "Mom, next week we can bring a snack!" (insert big smile).  I whipped the granola bar out of my bag and she jumped up and down and clapped.

In other Jocelyn news, we got her report card this week.  I would summarize it as she'll be lucky to graduate kindergarten, primarily due to having the attention span of a jumping bean.  Good thing she's tall!  She just can't process anything she hears.  So she'll sit there appearing to be paying attention, and then have absolutely no recollection of what just happened and not know what she's supposed to do, so she just sits are her desk trying to remember and then doesn't finish whatever it was she was supposed to do.  I figured during my parent teacher conference I'd ask for more picture cues, but when I showed up in class there were picture schedules everywhere!  

The kids are in 4 groups and each group has its own picture schedule for the day and each kid's name is written on a clothes pin and clipped to the applicable schedule.  The there a larger picture schedule that applies to everyone in less detail.  So really, she has 2 primary ways of knowing what to do - look at the schedule, or look around and see what her friends are doing.  Also the teacher explained they pretty much do the same general things in the same general order every day.  Well geez, I can't really ask for more than that.

But the teacher was not concerned.  Despite generally being a silly heart and lolligagger, she's academically on target and keeping up fine.  I must say she's been writing a lot at home.  For example, the most recent picture of princesses that she drew had the following written on it: "I LOVE PRESASIS FurAVR AND AVR."  Yeah, the whole uppercase lowercase thing hasn't quite taken hold.

I also had Morgan's IEP meeting this week, which I was very excited about because I bought the classroom an iPad as a thank you for 6 years of wonderful service and brought it to the meeting.  They were VERY excited (several autism organizations have really gotten behind the iPad as a fantastic learning tool for kids with autism, and have even given trainings on using it and lists of which apps are the best and for what).  

He'll be moving on to the regular junior high next year, as sort of a guinea pig for a new program able to deal with his level of function.  The teacher will be one of the women that's been his para on and off over the past years and she's super, so we're pretty excited about that. 

Timothy started golf club this week, and had a dentist appt on Thursday and a school dance on Friday.  Josh, who continues to be dismayed by the skinny jean look, said he had a really hard time figuring out which kid was Timothy when picking him up from the dance because every kid was dressed exactly the same.

Jesse says he has three girlfriends.  I asked how he managed to snag 3 girlfriends, and he said he just told them they were his girlfriends.  Josh says when he picks Jesse up each day, Jesse says goodbye to each kid by name and generally plays the roll of big man on campus.