The first week is done!

We had a dinner party last night. Dinner for 10. Well, there were 4 kids, so they got a big ole casserole dish of home made mac and cheese, and the 6 adults had the good stuff. Mind you, when I think about it, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that the kids thought they got the better meal. The A-man made the dessert for the kid's dinner - a chocolate lava cake. He thinks he wants to be a chef when he grows up. Not quite what I would like to see for him, but I will encourage him in any field. He has an aptitude for maths and sciences, so we will just have to wait and see what forms and develops.

Anyway, while the adults were finishing the second or third courses, the kids went outside with S's telescope to look at the stars, and see if they could find any of the constellations. I think they did that for quite a while, actually. Well, between that and the trampoline, all four spent a fair bit of time outside.

Poor little Jazzy - she is always the only girl in the group - but she never seems to mind. She is a year older than S, but she hangs out with him while the A-man and her brother do whatever it is 14 year old boys do. Jazzy is in S's class this year. Her mom was telling me last night that it's almost as if she feels protective of S, and wants to do whatever she can to help him. I think that she is a very kind and sweet girl. Most girls her age would just go out of their way to avoid the oddity that is S, but instead, she recognizes and embraces his unique challenges. She gets very upset if any of her friends say anything negative about S. He's got himself a couple of guardian angels in his class this year. I'm glad.

I have a meeting this afternoon with a lady that wants some advice on how to work with her school towards improving her daughter's education. Apparently this girl has been on a waiting list for a psycho-ed assessment for four years, but her name never seems to come to the top of the list. I'm not sure what I will be able to do to help her - I don't know any of the players at her school - but she is just so frustrated with how the teachers treat her daughter. I have a friend that is a teacher at that school, and from what I gather, the teachers find the mom to be a little too "in your face", and that is probably why they resist anything that she tries to do. How do you nicely tell someone that THEY are the reason there are problems? I had told her in the past that I would attend a meeting at the school with her, but she just found out that the special ed teacher has already put together her daughter's IEP, and expects this mom to sign it! Yeah, right - a teacher that has put together a full IEP within the first 4 days of school? That just doesn't happen. Sorry - I don't care HOW good you are - no special ed teacher is going to do that so quickly. She knows that I am not a professional advocate in any way, shape, or form, but she just wants some advise. I'll see what I can offer.

Well, it would appear that Friday went well for the boys. The A-man told me he was 'dragged' to a local coffee shop for lunch, and he will NOT be doing that again. He said the line ups were crazy - huh, two highschools coming in at the same time...imagine that it would be busy - and he said by the time he got up to the counter they didn't have anything but muffins left. I'm pretty sure he will stick with the cafeteria when he wants to buy something. S has a project due in just over a week, so I guess I will have to get him started on that, and layout a bit of a plan of attack for him. He will fight me every step of the way, too. Oh well, I guess I'm not doing this job to be popular, right? I mean, did any of us ever LIKE our parents when they 'made' us do things?

Fun times...oh yeah...fun times!