the judicial system sucks!!!

I guess I should hold off saying that until my sister hears back from her attorney. The last 2 weeks have been pretty rough for her. Her ex has visitation with my nephew every Wednesday and every other weekend. The last 2 Wednesdays he has called her up and just laid into her verbally. Very belligerent and threatening. This is why she divorced him in the first place. I wanted her to file a report last week with the police but we didn't have any solid proof of what occurred. Well, last night he made a huge mistake. He called my sister to bitch her out for something stupid. The daycare had an outing and she didn't pack a lunch. They were going putt-putting and to an ice cream stand that also sold sandwhiches. We both assumed they were eating there. The teacher never called us. She decided to hang up on him because of the language he was using. He calls back and she opts not to answer. The moron left a voice mail and the police department has an audio copy of it. Her attorney is in the process of contacting the mediator they used to see about revoking visitation for the time being. One because his episodes are escalating. Two, he bounces from his brother's house to his girlfriend's house. Neither of which we have an address for. He is so unstable. At this time he is not fit to parent my nephew. The poor thing told me he heard everything Brian said to Laura on the phone last week and that the girlfriend stood there laughing. Brian also had the nerve to refer to his son as a bastard. That one I heard because Laura had put it on speaker phone. For those of you reading this I would like your opinion. Brian states that my sister is a bad mother and is going to loose him because a: she still wipes his bottom after going to the bathroom (checking to make sure he got himself clean) and b: she doesn't let him take his own bath. Now in my opinion I side with my sister. Hello, he's 5.
My family is down because we know we are following procedure but it probably isn't going to do any good. Brian will find some way to weasel out of this just like always. My sister also found out from a common acquaintance that he has been MIA from work for like 6 weeks. My heart is just breaking for my sister and her son. She said the poor thing has barely said two words to her since getting home. He has been in his room watching his shows on Noggin. Unfortunately his therapist is on vacation untill the end of next week.

all in good time

I have been staying at my parents recently. I will be here until the day before my surgery and then back here recuperating. I drove down to my place today to check on Clark, the class turtle, pay my rent for the month of August, and check my mail to see if my new contract had arrived. Indeed it had. I am getting ready to start my 6th year with the Educational Service center of Franklin County. I finally was offered a 2 year contract. It's about time. My supervisor could not understand why I was still having to be evaluated every year. I told her it was because I was still only receiving 1 year contracts. With this 2 year contract, I will not have to be evaluated this year. Not that I do a bad job. I have always gotten excellent reviews. But even after 11 years in the field I still hate being observed. It is the not knowing what is going to happen during a lesson. That and the fact that I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. I do my lessons day by day instead of by the week. It has been my experience that anything can happen and I never seem to get through a week's worth of plans. I also hate being tied down by things. I have a general idea of how I want the week to go. It drove me crazy at my previous job that everything was so structured for the students. I realize our population needs routine but there comes a time when you have to teach them that routines may change. There are always things that are going to come up that we aren't expecting. There is also the fact that I just plain hate writing lessons plans. My assistant and I are so finely attuned to each other that she can pretty much run things when I am not there. My students know that we have a general schedule that we follow but they don't necessarily know what order we are going to proceed in. As I like to say "expect the unexpected". Therefore when I know I am being observed it makes me worry. My supervisors have never been on time for a lesson I am teaching. They always seem to come in midway. I also believe that every moment is a teachable moment and why waste paper if I know what I am doing. I know, I know. What if you get sick? How will the sub know what to do? I have "plans" in my sub folder. Also I call my assistant and let her know I am going to be out. I then e-mail her a copy of my days plans to print off. Like I said, she's good. There is also the fact that I rarely take a sick day. So needless to say I am ecstatic that I do not have to be observed this year.

plans always have a way of changing.

I admit. I was very upset last night. We were going to have to cancel our trip to Michigan. My brother and his notorious wife waited till the last minute as usual to confirm the date of my niece's birthday party. As usual it is a combination party with her sister's son. I wanted to say screw it. We had already ordered a gift card for her and it was to be delivered via mail. But Laura and Becky won out and and brought back from the dark side. You see, it's not that I don't want to see my brother and nieces. It's my sister-in-law. I think she just tolerates us for Jeff's sake. She doesn't go out of her way to call my sister or I. In the 5 years I have lived here they have come down 2 times. Mary can be a very moody person when she wants to be. Which is most of the time. Everything has to be her way. Her side of the family comes first. My brother complains that my parents never stop over. Well maybe because they don't want you to be embaressed that your house is a mess. Anywho, I digress. I could write an entire blog on my relationship with her. So, I cancelled our reservation in Michigan. I then got to thinking. What if we still went ahead with our plan but go somewhere closer and come back right before the party Saturday night. Question was, where to go? I remembered a place we went as children and I think the boys are going to love it. We are booked into a Holiday Inn Express (same chain) But this time we have a queen suite for about the same price a night we would have originally been paying. It has 2 queen size beds and a separate parlor room where there is a kitcenette and sofa sleeper and another tv. No fighting over what to watch and no roll away bed. The two boys can share the sofa and Laura and I can have our own beds. Although I have a feeling bubby will end up with one of us. He had bad dreams again last night. He goes to his dad's tonight and lord only knows where he'll be staying. That is another blog entirely. So we are heading for Grand Rapids, Michigan tomorrow. Hometown of our 38th president. The man that was president the year I was born. Gerald Ford. We are going to go to a Children's Museum and friday night we are going to drive over to Grand Haven to see an attraction that has been there for as long as I can remember, The Musical Fountain. I can remeber going with my parents and waiting for dark to arrive. The music would start and then the founntain would dance to the music. That was one of the few times that we were allowed to sit on the hood of the car. I think the boys are going to love it. I can't wait. Laura says everything happens for a reason. Maybe it does.

soap box time

Stupidity angers me. Stupidity towards children angers me even more. There is this radio personality for MSNBC that is very controversial. He goes by the name Michael Savage and his show is called Savage Nation. His latest off the wall remarks are towards the population of children with autism. His view is that 99% of those diagnosed with autism don't really have it and that they are just "brats". I went to his website and listened to his explanation of his remarks. He bases his beliefs off of the fact that he had a brother with a disbility that died in an institution. He says that the pharmaceutical companies are pushing for a diagnosis of autism to get their drugs out there. He feels that there is an overdiagnosis of the disorder. As an Intervention Specialist whom specializes in working with the autistic population, I do not think there is an overdiagnosis. What I think you are seeing is new awareness by parents. It was not socially acceptable to have a child with a cognitive disability many years ago. You didn't talk about it and you certainly didn't see them out in public. He stated that doctors have broadened the term to encompass more. Yes, that is true. There is still so much we do not know about autism. There are such varying degrees of it. So therefore we discribe it as a spectrum. There are key characteristics we look for when diagnosing and depending on the severity, it will determine where on the spectrum that child falls. I have worked with children that have had very average to above average IQs. They were very high functioning and you would hardly know they were on the spectrum. But then I have also worked with those that are on the opposite end of the spectrum, average intelligence but communication delays like you wouldn't believe. Behaviors coming out that stemmed from them not being able to let us know what it was they were trying to communicate. That's not a brat. That is a child crying out for help. It just angers me that someone can be so callous and make an assumption like that. Until you have been in the trenches with these children day in and day out and gotten to know them, you can not make a general assumption like that. Yes there may be a few cases where the diagnosis was wrong. I have dealt with that before. But to say that 99% of children with autism are faking it is wrong. I would love to invite that man into my room any day and have him tell me that my students are faking their disabilities.

As sleep evades me

It is almost midnight and I find myself having trouble going to sleep. I was just about there when my cell phone rang and it was a number I didn't recognize. I tried to go back to the sleep but then the creepy crawlies started in. I have been dealing with them throughout the day today. That is what I call it when all of my muscles begin to ache and I feel like I am going to walk right out of my own skin. So here I am up on the computer hoping this will helping wind down again. So I have a news ticker that runs across the top of my computer screen. Every now and then an interesting headline will catch my eye. One in particular did tonight. "Men sentenced for setting friend's crotch ablaze." Hmm. Sounds interesting. So I clicked on it and read the article. It would seem that two young men were sentenced to some jail and community service for setting their friend's crotch on fire as a practical joke. I guess the friend had passed out from too much drinking and like any good friends would do, they decided to pull a prank on him to teach him about the do's and don'ts of falling asleep drunk. Now I will admitt that I have played some jokes on friends but nothing like this. They doused his privates in cologne and set it on fire. I mean come on now. The man's testicles suffered 2nd degree burns. That goes beyond funny. My sister complains because my BFF and I played a few harmless pranks on her the night before my birthday when she fell asleep on the floor. All I did was draw a smiley face on the bottom of one foot and R.I.P on the other. Well that and put an icecube down her pants. Took her 15 seconds to wake up from that one. I absolutely draw the line at bodily harm. Those guys should have to serve time. After all it is assault. So my sister can thank me for at least pulling harmless pranks. Who lnows next time I might get the shaving cream out. Better be careful Laura. I love ya!!!! :)

here goes nothing

My loving sister calls me bright and early this morning on her way to work. It was ok though. I was up. Even with the Ambien I am still waking up every few hours. So, sister has decided she wants to get the hell out of dodge for a few days this weekend. "You can do the research on the computer. I was thinking Mackinaw Island or something like that." Well, Mackinaw would be nice but expensive. I chimed in with what about Sault Ste. Marie. She loved the idea. So I got busy and started looking for hotels in our price range and with features we wanted. Namely a pool, continental breakfast and a room with fridge and microwave. Holiday Inn Express is where we will be staying for 3 nights. As I was making the plans I got a bright idea. Why not kidnap one of my BFF's kids as a companion for my nephew. Ran the idea by my sister and she loved it. Made a call to the BFF and she said that was fine. I then talked to said child and he was up for it. Especially when I said we could go bug hunting. So I will be going for my pre-op testing Wednesday morning and then will head for North western Ohio. I will pick my nephew up from his Dad's on Thursday, get Andy and head to Toledo to meet my sister at work. She gets off around 2:30pm. From there we are going to head to Michigan. I am looking forward to it. I have very wonderful memories of family vacations in that area. Most recent being with just myself and my parents 4 years ago. Laura and I have always loved the area and we are both looking forward to introducing it to the boys. I will take my computer to keep a travel log but don't know if I will be accessing the internet or not. Will publish my stories when we return.

In Loving Memory

In the past, my parents and I have made an annual trek to southern Ohio to place flowers on my grandparents grave. Since moving to the big city, I have taken it upon myself to do it on my own. It is only a 2 hour drive there for me compared to a 4 hr one for my parents. I have been thinking about doing it this last week. So yesterday I was out shopping after my doctor's appointment and I stopped in at the dollar store. Generally I go to Hobby Lobby to get my flowers to make an arrangement but with gas prices the Dollar store won out. I picked out some very lovely mums that I know my grandmother would have loved. I got some floral tape and proceeded to make a nice arrangement to leave at the grave. I have decided that I will make the drive tomorrow. Upon talking to my mom today I told her what I was going to do. She thought it was very nice. She said that my Aunt Janet had called her to see if she was going to mass Saturday night. Mom thought maybe another mass was being said in my aunt Rose's honor. To her surprise it was for my grandfather. I can't believe that we have arrived at the anniversary of my grandfather's death. He died the weekend before my friend Kris and I were scheduled to move from fremont to Bowling Green 7 years ago this Monday. I have been missing him lately. I think it has to do with Aunt Rose. I know you are not supposed to have favorite relatives but my grandfather was my favorite. Towards the end of his life he and I had developed a very special relationship. During my first year of teaching I moved in with him for awhile to help take care of him. Being diabetic he got an infection in his foot and ended up losing a few toes. My job was to get him up before I left for work. I would make him breakfast before heading out the door. During that time I was only part-time at the school, so I would be done by 11:30. I'd get back to his place in time to get lunch ready for him. I would have a few hours to run errands with him before I had to head off to my other job where I was a cashier. I would have stuff out for him and ready to go for his supper. I usually returned home around 9:30. I would then take care of his foot and rebandage it for the night. He would send me out to get his lottery tickets and would give me extra money to get some for me. If I won anything, I got to keep it. It was also during this time that I started eating tomatoes. He loved grape tomatoes on his salad and he had to have salad every night at dinner. That was a fun time for me. I remember the last time I saw him alive in the hospital. I had stopped in after work to see him and he didn't know who I was or why I was there. The day he died, my mom and I were shopping with a friend of hers. We were in the lingerie department of Walmart when my aunt called. The three of us headed over to the nursing home he had transferred to from the hospital. Mabel sat out in the lobby with me while Mom went in the room. I will forever be thankful for Mabel being there that day. She helped us through a very difficult time. The funeral was lovely. The flag in front of the city building was flying at half mast in his honor. Past and present officers from the police department were on hand to be pall bearers. What a way to honor a man who served the city for 26 years. Everyone had their favorite "Big Ben" stories to share. To this day when people find out who my grandfather was, they always have something nice to say. I might not be able to make it to the mass tomorrow, but he will be in my thoughts as I visit my other grandparents.