Is Being Lazy Part of having a Snow Day?

I just want to let boys play computer and watch TV all day--for the second day in a row. I have not yet turned on the TV today, but the computer has been on since breakfast. I'm home because they closed the University!!! Only the third time in 25 years. I'm trying to decide if I should email my students that the work due Friday is still due... or let them have a lazy day, also, and turn in the work on Monday!

It is so cold today that we won't even be able to play outside very long.

Joseph is still in his PJs.

Actually, these few days at home have been good for me. I've needed a bit of time to think and get myself focused. Alex has a teacher conference tomorrow. I think the most important thing I want to tell the teachers is "hang in there with us." We are not going to solve all of Alex's issues overnight. The psychologist says treatment will involve medication, therapy, and special ed. We are doing two of the three already. Maybe a different medication will help, but I think the therapy and special ed pieces will be more important. We are to have new testing done--and that may change the special ed services. I'm at a place with him where I know he has learning challenges, but I can see him learning. He is reading more and more fluently all the time. When he doesn't want to try, he can struggle with easy passages, when he wants to try, he is doing really well. So, it isn't the ability or the level of achievement that are the root issue, it is his motivation. Until we sort that out, we won't know what his potential really is. Math is a different story. He struggles all the time. We will have to keep working on that one.

Joseph has a conference tomorrow as well. I'm not going. I can't get past the bad feelings from the IEP meeting last October. Dave is going. He is the diplomat. All I want from Joseph's school is that they control his behavior and don't let him get away running away, grabbing, etc. Simple behaviors that he doesn't do at home anymore, but they still have problems with at school. Next year he will be in a different school. Not clear yet where, I'm working on that one. I did an experiment with Joseph the other night and tried to have a conversation all in sign. I always speak/voice with him and sometimes sign as well. The tutors sometimes just sign. He has always signed more with the tutors than with me (or Dave). He really did respond better to me when I didn't voice at all. He answered my questions appropriately, and we had a nice little conversation. He has enough language (in sign) to get everything he wants or needs, but language development beyond that has been slow. So, it is clear that he would benefit from me signing more. And me using sign only inspires him to respond. I guess if I make it clear that I speak his language, he will try harder to communicate with me. Now, of course, the problem with this picture is me. I can sign, but not very well. Old dog, new trick. I've never had much aptitude for language, and sign is so hard to learn well. In some ways the tactile part has made it easier for me to remember vocabulary, but the visual part is very difficult for me. I can say much more than I can understand. And it must be very frustrating for Joe-bear to sign something to me and have me stare blankly back at him while I’m trying to figure out what he has just said. Sometimes I figure it out, and it is echolalia, sometimes I figure it out, and it is something new and interesting. Sometimes I never figure it out.

So I guess this is a good day to laze around and let all this stew on the back burner. That reminds me, what should I let stew on the back burner of the real stove today? What do I have in the freezer that I could stew or simmer all day? I have cream cheese to make a cheesecake… Maybe I will do that. It IS Valentines’ day, after all.