Category Archives: discrimination

Greetings on a New Day.

As we start week 3 after placement back at home for our youngest, I am struck with awe about how he can be two completely different kids.  There is the David we see when all of the kids are home, and there is the David we see when he is one – on – one with us.

We had to complete our weekly blood draw to monitor the ANC levels of his blood.  One of the meds he was on while he was in the residential placement caused issues with is blood.  It is a known side affect.  Now that the levels are returning to normal, he is struggling to get over a chest cold and sinus infection, so hopefully he will be able to go back on the med.  He was so much more stable mentally when he was on it. We didn’t see the large peaks and valleys in his affect then.

Moving forward, my wife and I are on the mend.  I at least don’t feel like my head is going to explode with every movement anymore.

Today, as part of our education plan, we had an outing.  We caught a ride up town to the clinic this morning, and then walked home. Along the way, we stopped and visited with the man from the hardware store, and then stopped at his store and ordered a new dryer for mom.  While we were there, we asked a lot of questions about things, and generally just interacted with the wonderful people working there.  New dryer should be here later this week.

Then we took our new garbage can and walked home.  Along the way we worked on making sure that we crossed the street appropriately, and talked about snow and how snow flakes are formed.  It was a very productive morning for the little guy, and he asked a lot of really good questions.  Now time for some free time, and then lunch.

Still working on getting the facilitated IEP set up.

Day 9 ~ A long night, a short day, exhausted

David, our youngest was up and down most of the night with his cough.  Poor guy sounds like he is going to cough up a lung or something.  So I spent the night monitoring him to make sure he was ok.  Long night.  His breathing finally calmed around 5 am so I got to sleep a bit.

You forget how quickly 6:30 comes until the wife turns on the light so she can get dressed for work.  So I was up and about, got all of the kids off to school this morning, and then laid on the couch.  David woke up briefly, long enough to eat something so that he could take his morning pills, and some cough medicine.  Then he sacked out again.  So I snoozed as long as he was snoozing.  Had to lay some noise traps around his bed so that I would wake if he did.  (he can be sneaky, if he thinks he can get away with something, he will try.)

Four hours later, I am up and about, feeling more rested.  Coffee in one hand, shame it’s decaf, and a diet coke in the other.  Bring on the day!!!

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Completed the paperwork for requesting a Facilitated IEP.  We will see how that goes.

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I am thinking about writing an article about auto-immune disorders and how they affect men with special needs kids.  So if you have an auto-immune disorder, and you have special needs kids, and are willing to answer a few questions, please let me know.  You can send me your information through the contact us page.

Day 8 ~ Facilitated what? and new friends !Success!

Since coming online with the new blog and website on January 3rd, I have made an incredible number of new friends.  Some really fantastic people are connecting with me.  How lucky am I?

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Back to the topic for the night.  Have you ever experienced a Facilitated IEP? According to the website http://www.directionservice.org, a facilitated IEP is:

“A facilitated IEP meeting is an IEP meeting that includes an impartial facilitator who promotes effective communication and who assists the IEP team in developing an acceptable IEP. The facilitator keeps the team focused on the proper development of the IEP while addressing conflicts that arise. IEP Facilitation is not used to resolve disputes unrelated to the IEP.”

In the state of North Dakota, the facilitator is paid by the state, which in turn enforces the impartiality of the facilitator because they can’t be influenced by either the school district or the parent.  This makes sense to me.

So tomorrow I will make application for a facilitated IEP.  Hopefully that will get my our back into the public school.

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On another note, We had a fairly good day today.  Ah heck, let me rephrase that, everything considered, today was FANTASTIC!!!  We had some minor incidents that had to be mediated between the youngest two boys, but hey, ya know what?  give you a little hint… sometimes brothers argue and fight… I should know, my brother and I fought like cats and dogs.   We are both still alive and value our relationship.  So I consider this largely normal behavior.

What we didn’t have today.  We didn’t have any melt downs.  We had some pouting, but pouting isn’t the end of the world.  When something necessitated the need for a time out, the time out was handled without complaint.  Overall, this day was a huge success!

Tomorrow looks to be shaping up to be a good day as well.  Why? or how can I know that?  Easy! Everyday is a good day!  If you wake up each day, isn’t that a good day?  If nothing else happened, at least you woke up. 🙂  Cheers. Carl @whynotfathers