Are we ready for summer?

Anyone else feeling the stress that comes with the end of the school year? Are you out already? 

We are officially on one week count down in my house. The boys are excited and I am stressed! We started off this week with a book fair at school complete with carnival. One boy was quite pissed that we could not attend, one boy was quite pleased that he didn't have to go. I dislike the 50/50 split immensely. We will cap off the week with the end of year award ceremony! All the kids get an award so arrive when your class is scheduled, pick a comfortable seat, and get ready for a long and hot afternoon. 

End of year brings end of year teacher gifts! I love love love to give our teachers gifts. My boys are not easy students and our teachers this year were exceptional. When I added up everyone who helps the boys through-out the day (every day), I came up with **15** teachers and **5** assistants/specials teacher! YIKES!!!!  I guess I better get busy on those personalized clip boards. Don't worry, I promise to post pictures. 

End of year also bring IEPs! For Adam we have had two so far, his annual in which we requested "additional adult support" and a second IEP to evaluate the data to determine if he qualified for "additional adult support". I am a firm believer in data and it showed that Adam needed redirection more than 320 times in 9 days (that may look like a typo, but it isn't) which makes me wonder how he made it through this year at all and why this problem hasn't been noticed sooner. I have ALWAYS said that it is my higher functioning ASD child who is going to slip through the cracks, this is evidence and I will need to be more vigilant from now on. We will have another meeting this summer after they have evaluated staffing which sounds like they are putting me off and I think they totally are. Those meetings were exhausting so I don't mind taking a few weeks to regroup before we go back to the table. 

Cameron's IEP is next week. This entire year we've been doing the medication trials and now its time to re-evaluate how the year has gone as a whole instead of weekly and monthly snapshots. I was surprised to see just how much Cameron is expressing an interest in being included in the "typical" classroom when in the past he has preferred the extra attention by the teacher and didn't really give a fig about the other kids. I think he is starting to notice girls *sigh*. Not a lot of special needs girls given that ASD is taking over the program and the incidence rate of boys with ASD far outnumbers the girls. I am hoping that we can find some new inclusion opportunities going in to next year at this IEP meeting. He currently is only included in Math (his strongest subject) and some Specials classes. 

Awards Ceremonies.... IEPs..... end of year chaos... Are we ready for summer??

There are big pros and cons to the summer months. How awesome it is to be able to stay in jammies until mid-morning (or later) because you have no place to be? That, for me, is the best part of summer, we can relax that morning schedule for a bit. We've got some inclusive camps coming up, Extended School Year will fill up half the day Mon-Thurs in July, we're going ahead with RDI and we'll be keeping up with all our specialist appointments PLUS Adam has to have his tonsils and adenoids out and we are hoping to take a family vacation. How it is again that I thought summer was ever relaxing? On the bright side, I should be home more so I can blog more! If you have any ideas and requests please let me know! I've got partially completed posts on the topics of IEPs (survival of the fittest or the loudest?) and Autism Crafts (a sub-genre of itself in my home!).  See you at the pool! Don't forget the SPF 1,000!