Craven self interest in the schools, Part 2 (of what looks to be a very long series)

In theory, the schools are supposed to create an IEP (Independant Educational Program) for any child, gifted or disabled, with special educational issues. With three of my kids labelled as "gifted" (and my feelings about the use of that label will have to be a whole separate blog),I've long understood that the IEP is merely a formal set of hoops that we sign our way through so that our kids canl be pulled out of their boring classes and do the same fun stuff with other kids whose parents advocate for them; there is no true individuation of their curriculum. So it shouldn't surprise me when the school district shows openly that the IEP process is a sham.

As my earlier post said, in our last meeting with them, our school district, while pretending to be cooperative, let us know indirectly that they weren't going to play nice and place our kid in the private school that could really serve her needs. This morning my husband talked to the director of special ed who told him straight out, without any IEP (in fact, before having even a meeting with us to create a make-believe IEP) that "the most appropriate placement" for our daughter is their crappy classroom with their untrained teachers and that there is "no way" they will reccomend a placement at the private school that is actually equipped to teach her.

So, again, I thought I was jaded and unsurprisable, but their unabashed openness about letting finances decide what's "appropriate" for a child shocks even me.

P.S.- The otherwise helpful and lovley private school has said they need TWO months of tuition up front. At $50,000 a year over nine months all I can say is, Ouch!

Meet the Munchlers!!!!

My incredibly talented brother-in-law, Stephen Savage, designed these adorable lunch boxes. They're going to be widely available, they unzip all the way to make a lunch mat (and for easy cleaning. Fellow parents, remember those icky food-stuck-on corners of your kid's lunch box? A thing of the past!), AND they cost a mere $9.95. Cute, sensible, and a bargain.

....and so we fight on.

My husband just got back from a meeting with our school district about school placement for our special-needs daughter. Before the meeting I felt and acted very detached about the whole thing. Kirk, with his usual optimistic outlook would say, "MAYBE they'll see that we're willing to fight this all the way and just give us what we want...." To which (having grown up in the cynical-making lap of the US government) I'd roll my eyes and say, "Yeah, in your dreams." So, in fact, I was right. Hypocrisy and greed win out as usual; placing a child who only learns by ABA/discreet trial methods in a class where no one's trained to teach that way is clearly the "most appropriate placement."

But when Kirk told me the outcome of the meeting, I literally began shaking and I felt something very tiny and hidden crumble inside me. And it was optimism and hope: hope that the world would go the way it should; that these educators who, no doubt, went into the field because they wanted to help kids, would really try to understand what is best for Charlotte the girl rather than than look in fear at Charlotte the precedent. Silly me. I'll know better next time.

Mom gets Warped

I took my teens to the Warped Tour today. It's a multi-band, multi-tent, Lollapalooza-type event. It was swarming with teenagers who cared desperately about their images; they dressed in black and were pierced, tattooed, dyed and trying very hard to look scary. There was, however, one boy, in particular, that I noticed. He wore sprayed-on-tight black pants with a metal-spike belt buckled firmly below his crotch and riding under his butt. As I watched him, I thought to myself, Someday he'll look at a picture of himself now and realize that, while the tight pants were cool, the choice of where and how to fasten his belt was not. And he'll wonder "What was I thinking?" But then, even worse, he'll see a teenager defiantly wearing his belt below his ass and he'll want to stop this teenager and tell him, "You don't need to do this. I already did it for you and I learned that it was stupid." But he won't. I know all this because I once wore platform shoes.

What I decided

As a woman who's had some serious travails, I've heard all manner of comments about God's intentions in my life. When I had a miscarriage and D & C (at a Catholic hospital) the nun who tended to me when I woke from the anethesia, crying my heart out, told me that Jesus wanted my baby. To which I replied, in my head and my heart and,very possibly, with my mouth, "Not as god-damn much as I wanted it!" After my daughter was diagnosed with autism I was told that God never gave us more than we could handle. Then I had a nervous breakdown. Ooops. Dished out a little too much there big guy.

But, of course, I pray to God for help when I'm in need, see God's face in the wildly unnecessary beauty of the world. So I've pondered this question of God's intentions and intervention for some time now. And here's what I've finally come up with. I don't believe that God directs and decides all things. I don't believe God took my baby or that God made my daughter autistic. I believe that God set this world in motion and that there is randomness in the recipe for life. I also believe that in chosing how we face these things that come our way - in chosing whether to turn away from them or walk toward them - we can chose to live our lives as expressions of God's love, pure and equal, for all things - for me wounded and weeping for that little scrap of life I'd just lost, for my autistic daughter with her deep neurological myseries, for a butterfly that lives one day of perfect beauty and then dies. So as we receive, we can try to give. That's what I decided.

Star of Panama window, revisited

I was commissioned by a friend to make a mosaiced window, for her mother, of the view from their family home in Ecquador. They had a Poinsettia/Star of Panama tree in their yard, and beyond it a view of Mount Chimborazo. Her mother, who lives in the US now, is slowly losing her eyesight and my friend thought a stained-glass window, with its bright colors and simplified forms, would be perfect for her mom.

The first image here, is the first sketch I did of a Poinsettia plant. They're lovely plants - each leaf, with its mix of colors, is like a stained glass window in itself.


The second image is a mock-up of the window. The mountains look like a heap of mashed potatoes, but I knew what I meant. I started out making the window this more distant view of the tree, but the leaves were all tiny and uniform and it drove me crazy. So I tightened the focus in to make it look as if you're standing right by the tree. Better for her mom, more fun for me.

The third is my now glued-on window. It hasn't been grouted yet, so it's far lighter and less unified than it will be, and the colors don't pop out the way they will when they're all surrounde by black grout.


I'll be out of town for ten days. Hope to post the completed window when I get back and am happily freckled and sun washed from the beach.

OK, this is stupid but.....

How annoying is Bjork? I admit she was weirdly wonderful in her swan dress at the academy awards. But seriously, do any of you actually sit and listen to her music? Me (philistine that I am), every time she comes on my radio I try to listen for about 20 seconds, because I feel like I should like her. But inevitably I start to feel like I need to jam a sharp stick in my ear just to get some relief from the sonic torture, and turn the girl off.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Please weigh in.