And this… and that…

Lets talk about the list of things Ashley has to do before next fall and the list of things that she wants to get done by the end of the week that don’t need to be completed until next fall… they are one in the same!

We had Ayden’s IEP (individual education plan) meeting today regarding his speech (more on that later) which brought up something I hadn’t even considered until today. Sometime last week I let Ayden’s daycare director know of our intentions to take Ayden out of daycare in mid June. Not for anything other than to save money, however when I made his schedule for his remaining time at daycare, I did not take into account that he still has ‘school’ until June 10th. I sort of figured I could switch his schedule when I was done and thus was planning on it. Whoops… Ayden still has afternoon 4K even though I will have graduated. He can’t very well attend afternoon 4K from 8:30am-12:30pm, now can he? Didn’t think so! I realized this during the meeting when we were discussing therapy times. And you know what that means… I have to reschedule the whole first half of the summer.

This means talking to the daycare director tomorrow and letting her know that Ayden’s last day of daycare will be next Friday. Well, we are supposed to give two weeks notice, and obviously it will not be two weeks notice. I already paid $200 for the month of May (we still haven’t received our actual bill yet) and believe this will cover our portion of Ayden’s actual attendance. I will figured that out tomorrow. After making sure this is okay with his director (financial wise), I can pull him out whenever I see fit attendance wise, I need to email our case worker regarding our child care assistance and all of those changes. And that is not the only thing I need to talk to her about. I also added in things about next fall and assistance and so on and so forth (too long and confusing to explain here). She is really going to love me now because I just emailed her about two weeks ago regarding summer etc…

And then I need to get back to the YMCA sign Ayden up for the Great Escape program, but not before I make it to the Bliss Center and provide verification of our address change this summer so that Ayden can officially be transferred from Washington Elementary to (not McKinley) McDill Elementary. I spoke with the education center this afternoon and they said we could transfer Ayden to McKinley for the summer school program, but that the kindergarten class was already full and he would be attending McDill Elementary for kindergarten. Most likely he will be transferred back to his home school (McKinley) for first grade because they like to keep students at their home school. Now that I got the school part sorted out, I need to get the before and after school care part sorted out and then inform the speech coordinator that he will not be attending McKinley in the fall like I thought.

Speaking of that, the IEP meeting went really well this afternoon. The one grad student did a great job explaining everything to me, even though I knew most of how the form would go. I was surprised by some of the things that they found, but also relieved that Ayden will now be getting some help. I thought it was funny that Jay said when we got home that he didn’t understand a thing they were talking about. I suppose that it was easy for me to understand because I’ve been immersed in that sort of stuff for the past four years and he hasn’t. In any case, they laid out the goals/objectives they had for Ayden over the next year and I was very glad to have some sort of foundation to go upon. Beginning in two weeks, Ayden will receive speech therapy for one hour each week (minus the summer) for the next year. Obviously that means about three sessions before the end of the school year, but at least they will have something started and might be able to help guide me to what I should work on with him this summer.

Once kindergarten starts he will resume therapy, most likely in a group session and probably two times a week for a half hour. I would prefer one on one sessions for 45 minutes each at the clinic, but that will not be the case. It is not that the school SLPs are not as good, but I’ve learned that one on one sessions are more productive and often times in school sessions not much happens and the real progress is at home. While parent/home carryover is the big thing with all therapy, for most children I think one on one would be more beneficial. Okay so maybe not, purely my opinion. In any case, I know that he will be getting help and in the long run improving his speech intelligibility is the big thing.

On a different note, I picked up my cap and gown this morning! How exciting is that! It makes it just that much more real! I even tried them on, even though the gown is like huge on me. Ah… I’M GRADUATING!!!

I also had my aud practical exam today which went really good. I was SO nervous throughout most of it, but managed to calm down towards the end. My supervisor is so great that I will miss having her as a supervisor in the fall since I most likely will not end up with her two semesters in a row, but it would be nice. We have one final meeting next week, but that is just to go over my hours and such.

Tomorrow is my poster presentation and I’m not nervous at all… right now. Ask me a few minutes before my presentation, lol!

CIAO! LOVE ME!