I never considered my self as a strong person. It was never an adjective I would use to describe myself. Life happens though and it usually ends up being those life experiences that makes you stronger. My divorce definitely helped make me a little stronger. I learned a lot about myself during that time. Learned that I am strong enough to pick myself up and move on. Learned that I am strong enough to live by myself. Though even after that I’m not sure I would have still considered myself strong.

It’s amazing how children change you. I finally came to realize how strong I was when I had to convince other’s that Courtney needed a helmet to correct the shape of her head. That strength had to come out even stronger when I was noticing regression and significant language delays in her and needed to convince loved ones that we needed to be concerned. Now, here I am, fighting for an appropriate education for my little girl. I wrote a not so nice (but professional) e-mail recently to the principal of her school and as I sent it, I was kinda in shock that I wrote it. I truly didn’t know I had it in me! It made me think about how you never want to mess with an animal who is with their baby. Kinda makes me want to say, “don’t mess with this mama bear”!

I’ve been very frustrated the past 24 hours because things have been brought to my attention that causes me to believe that as well as Courtney seems to be doing at school, I’m not sure she is being challenged. I am so glad she is happy at school and she’s not being aggressive towards her new friends, but I feel she is happy at school because they are letting her run the show. I think it is great that she is able to handle being around a class full of “typical” peers. I think it’s great that she is enjoying playing in the different centers including the paint center where she seems to love to paint herself more than the paper. But is she learning? Are demands being put on her? It appears I need to start building up my new found strength as we meet again with the team in a couple of weeks.

My beliefs on how children with special needs should be educated has been tested a lot lately. I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how the state has an initiative for all preschoolers with special needs to be educated with their typical peers. I’ve heard that all the research shows this is the most effective way to teach children with special needs. So what they are telling me is that all these years i have been teaching in a way that is hindering my student’s success? I don’t doubt that the research shows inclusion is the way to go. I would also say maybe as teachers, we need to change our thinking some on which children are ready for inclusion. Teachers can be very protective of their “children” and may need to let go a little bit and know it will be ok. But does the research show that it’s the way to go for EVERY child? I like the example in the picture I posted. A couple children go into the doctor’s office all with different symptoms. Would you really give all of them cough medicine to treat their different symptoms? Of course not. So why does education have to give all children the same type of education? Let me put it this way…when picking a college to attend. I knew I would not do well in a large college where class sizes are on average above 50 and the teacher’s barely know your name. I knew the type of college setting I needed was small. If that’s the type of setting that I do best in, how would it be more beneficial for me to be in a different setting? So I feel what the state is saying is who cares what the “symptoms” are, there is only one way to treat it. That my friend is not fair. Great, it’s equal and all. But for some children, it is not fair. Want to know what’s ironic? This poster was put up at a workshop on inclusion for all. Hmm…

As most know, this is personal to me in so many ways. This initiative makes me worry about the student’s in my class being that all of my students have very significant delays. Most of all, it makes me worry about my daughter. Two weeks ago the “typical” students started so she is now part of a class of 15. Though there have been reports of biting, she has not bitten a peer. Though the daily reports say she had a good day, it’s been very vague so not really sure how it is going. I’m trying to hang on to the idea that no news is good news, but I’m not believing it. I guess I will find out more at the follow up meeting in a couple weeks.

Tonight got me though. Tonight was Curriculum Night. The first part of the night we got to go in Courtney’s classroom where the teacher gave a little presentation about the class. She introduced herself, went through the daily schedule and the different curriculums that are used. I sat there and listened to these different curriculums that i know for a fact are way over Courtney’s head. The teacher went on and on about how they are teaching letters and their sounds, how they teach hand writing, how they teach the rules of the classroom. She kept saying, “so if your child comes home talking about this, that is because this is what we are doing”. The only thing I could think of during all of her presentation is this is WAY over Courtney’s head. She is working on things like feeding herself, drinking from a cup, sitting for an extended length of time, not putting everything to her mouth, following directions. Sure, expose her to it, I get it. What was most frustrating though. No where in the teacher’s presentation, did she talk about how she is going to address the needs of the children who are not ready for some of these things. Though she did quickly mention that it was a blended class, from her presentation, it is not taught like it is a blended class. For a blended class, as a parent, I sure felt like I went into the wrong room. I shouldn’t have felt that way.

All this inclusion talk has left me not only doubting my teaching styles but questioning if I’m being a bad parent for thinking my daughter shouldn’t be in a blended class. But I’m sticking to my gut. Cough medicine will not work for a child puking. Blending will not work for a child who is developmentally not ready.

I sit here on the the eve of Courtney’s 4th birthday looking back on all the adventures she has taken us on in just 4 short years. Adventures that have brought happiness, laughter, joy, frustration, tears, fear, and many sleepless nights. Adventures that if you asked me 4 years ago today if I was prepared for, I would say not a chance in hell. I remember the day we brought Courtney home from the hospital. My sister Cheri called me and I immediately broke into tears. I remember telling her that I was scared to death because now I had this little girl that I’m suppose to just know how to take care of. She reassured me my feelings were normal and that I did know what I was doing. To my surprise, we did.

Watching her grow into her little ball of energy has been life changing. I knew things would change once we had kids, but I never knew how much I would change. Courtney, has changed me. Being her mom has made me a munch stronger person. Because of her I’ve had to learn how to trust my gut and find my voice to fight for what I believe. From when she needed a helmet, needed early intervention, needing additional therapy to getting her an appropriate education. I also never knew how well I could learn to function on very little sleep. But snuggles with her in the middle of the night made it worth it!

I’ve also learned what the saying “it takes a village” truly means. Whether it be people helping me watch her and Alyssa, therapists, friends and family giving their love and support or even those who just cheer us on via social media. I will never be able to thank our “village” enough!

Tomorrow is more than just her birthday. Tomorrow is the day her class goes from 5 children to 15 children. I only wish I could be right by her side tomorrow to help her feel comfortable and regulated. I watched her this weekend during her different birthday parties really struggle at times with all the people. She was able to hold it together and both gatherings ended up a huge success, but I was there to help her. I won’t be there tomorrow.  I can only hope it will all go well.

So…Courtney, the happiest of birthdays to you! Mommy and Daddy love you to pieces and are so proud of you.

When you are a working mom, part of your job is finding that balance between work and family. It takes figuring out how much time you can put into each. You have to work at making sure your family doesn’t interfere with your work and your work doesn’t interfere with your family. I found this difficult from day 1. I use to spend every night doing at least a little bit of school work but once Courtney came along, that stopped. I definitely felt like I wasn’t putting as much effort into my job as I did. And like any new mom, was always wondering how my new baby was doing without me.

That balancing act was nothing. It’s a whole different balancing act now. Of course it’s harder because now I’m a full time working mother of two, but that’s not the only reason it is harder. When Courtney was a baby, I wasn’t an autism mom. Now I’m an autism mom. I’m not only an autism mom, I’m an autism teacher. So here’s the question…how do you separate the two when they are so similar? My two worlds have merged in such a way that I’m not sure it is possible to separate the two. I spend all day at working wondering how I can incorporate what I am doing with my students with Courtney. At home, I wonder how I can incorporate what I am doing with Courtney at school. One of the hardest parts of my dual role is realizing that Courtney belongs in my classroom. I make that sound like a bad thing. It isn’t a bad thing at all, but when you teach children with pretty significant needs and you come to the realization that your daughter actually belongs in your class, that’s hard to swallow. It’s also difficult spending all day trying to work through meltdowns, overstimulated behaviors, and the all the other day to day things you have to work through with a child with autism only to go home and have to find the energy to do it at home too.

Here is where it has been really hard the past couple weeks. Courtney is in a class that I don’t feel will appropriately meet her needs. Unfortunately, this is probably making us the most talked about parents in the teacher’s lounge. I can tell you for certain, if I was the teacher and I had a parent like me, I would be sick to my stomach any time she wanted to talk to me. So this week, when my advocate asked me to send a note to her school team requesting data, I immediately felt sick to my stomach. I know as a teacher, I would feel uncomfortable if I received an e-mail like the one I sent out to Courtney’s teacher. I had a week moment. There was a moment that I asked myself if I was doing the right thing. I asked myself if I want this stigma. I asked myself if I was up for this fight. Later that day I received an e-mail from Courtney’s teacher. She has been biting. I wasn’t surprised one bit. That is what Courtney does. When she is frustrated or when she is completely over stimulated, she bites. Last years teachers new this and we talked about our concerns with this behavior at her meetings because with this new setting we have concerns it will increase. What was concerning when I got this e-mail was the biting is happening before the typical children started. I want her to succeed in this setting. I really do. But it didn’t have to be this way. So after receiving that e-mail and my advocate also sending me a message saying she could back off a little bit if it’s making me uncomfortable, I quickly replied back…don’t back off, push as hard as we need to. I need to do what’s right for my daughter.

This entry was kinda all over the place…lol. That’s how my brain works sometimes!

It’s a double post day! I had to put a post about the joy of watching these two form a bond. This beautiful picture was taken during Courtney’s therapy session. Her team of therapists take her for walks to work on her holding an adults hand without dropping to the floor or trying to run away. Sometimes, Alyssa gets to join in on these walks. When this happens, the therapists try to work on socialization. One of the things they will have them do is hold hands. This isn’t as hard as you think it could be because Courtney LOVES the feel of Alyssa’s hands. She has since Alyssa was a newborn. Usually the challenge is Alyssa not wanting to hold Courtney’s hand. Today she was all for holding her big sister’s hand.

Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Alyssa, I was so worried about how Courtney was going to adjust to having a little sister. I was certain she would either hate her little sister or not even acknowledge her existence. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Courtney definitely doesn’t hate Alyssa and Alyssa is probably one of the few children that Courtney does actually acknowledge. If you watch carefully, you can see Courtney checking out what Alyssa is doing all day long. Courtney will be sitting playing on her iPad while Alyssa is running around and Courtney will look up occasionally to check on what she is doing. Courtney will have this look on her face like she’s thinking, “what is Alyssa getting into now”.  Then there are those moments where Alyssa will be sitting on the couch or on the floor and Courtney will just go up to her and touch her hand. For the most part, Alyssa is absolutely fine with these short interactions.

The most amazing part of their relationship though is how at 21 months old, I’m pretty sure  Alyssa has already figured out that there is something special about her big sister. As much as Courtney is her big sister, I think Alyssa is already catching on, that she is Courtney’s guardian angel. Am I imagining that she is already is catching on to this? There’s been numerous times where we are trying to leave the house and Alyssa will go try to get Courtney from whatever room she is in and bring her to the door. I have watched Alyssa try to spoon feed Courtney her cereal, and try to show Courtney how to use her talker. Then there is Alyssa’s bedtime routine. Alyssa has to say good night to us all and she always tries to give Courtney the biggest hug. Joe and I have said again and again, the best gift we gave Courtney was Alyssa.

We survived. Mommy and Courtney survived her first day back to school. Even though I’m not completely happy about the blended placement, I am happy that the first week or so is just the students with special needs. So she gets to get use to her long day with just a small class.

I wasn’t there to see her off today. It was her grandparents. I was frantically checking my phone for updates through out the day from them or her teacher on how her day went. This morning while waiting for the text from her grandparents saying she got on the bus, I was at a welcome back breakfast at my school. A women came from behind, touched my shoulder and said, “I want to hug the warrior mom. I am definitely Team Courtney.” It was a fellow colleague who has spent the past several months following my posts/blog. That hug and the little comment saying she’s definitely on Team Courtney just made me feel so good at that moment. Knowing that I have so much support from everyone, really gives me the strength to be the best I can be for my girls.

Someone has asked me recently why I blog and if I found it helpful. I don’t blog for sympathy, I don’t blog to boast, complain or anything like that. I blog because I do find it helpful to write out what I am thinking. I blog, because I have found it healing to read other blogs of mom’s who have children with autism and I hope to do that for others. What I have found most helpful about blogging, is the support I get from those who read my posts and blogs. So I want to thank all those supporters. Thank you for being Team Courtney! It truly means a lot.

My dad called me tonight on his way home from Ohio to ask me how things went at the big meeting. It just happened that he called me while I was driving Courtney through the neighborhood to get her to sleep. She had a meltdown at bedtime and sometimes that is the easiest way to get her down. During the phone conversation, my dad mentioned that he was worried for me because he was worried I would get emotional during the meeting. He said it can’t be easy to talk about the challenges your child has. As a parent you go into meetings hoping you hear nothing but good things about your child. Here Joe and I went to a meeting, with the help of our awesome advocate, to prove why our daughter is too severe to be in a specific classroom. Instead of listing all these positives about Courtney, we were talking about her lack of social skills, her lack of peer relations, her lack of communication, her increase in biting and other aggressive behaviors. I had to talk bad about my beautiful girl. (Side note, It wasn’t all bad. We talked a lot about how much progress she has made in 1:1 settings.) So when my dad said he was worried about me getting emotional, I assured him I didn’t but I told him it is hard. It’s horribly hard to focus on the bad.

I was able to remain calm during this meeting for a couple reasons. The main reason is probably because we have this fantastic advocate who has become our voice through this. I have also learned through some difficult situations in my life, that if I dig deep and focus on my goal, I can stay level headed and not let the emotions get the best of me. The goal in today’s meeting? Getting what my husband and I think is the best education for Courtney. I bought a Disney shirt for Joe, the girls and myself that had the autism puzzle pieces in the shape of Micky. At the bottom says “till all the pieces fit”. Part of my job as Courtney’s parents is to be a part of this journey, the good, the bad, the ups, the downs until all the pieces fit.

So today at the meeting, we were ready to dig deep to get what we feel is best for Courtney. We let her team know what we do not agree at all with the placement, but we are willing to try it but we wanted some modifications to the placement they were offering. Though they didn’t come through with all the modifications, it was evident that they were willing to try to work with us. Though we agreed to things at this point, we made it clear that we are going to be carefully watching her progress and we want to meet again soon to reassess. I still struggle with the fact that we are not on the same page, but I’m going to dig deep and have faith that this will work out. If it doesn’t though??? I’m in this until all the pieces fit!

It wasn’t too long ago that Courtney was on a banana strike. During the strike she would occasionally ask for one (using her talker), take a couple bites and be done or she would just not ask for one. I get frustrated when she goes on a strike with a food item because her list of foods are so limited.Courtney’s diet for our two weeks on vacation consisted of banana, cereal, bagel, slim Jim, fruit pouch, yogurt, goldfish and milk. She’s been on quite the banana kick during this vacation. She was eating 2-3 of them a day! Then 2 days ago it suddenly stopped. She was still asking for bananas but as soon as we opened it and handed it to her she pushed it away. I’ve been able to figure out the exact ripeness that she likes and I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with that. Today it got me mad. We were out to eat and when she pushed the banana away after asking for it I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream, “just eat the damn banana!” I held it in and instead turned to my husband and said I need a beer.

Later on Joe asked me why I let that irritate me so much. The thing is, i wasn’t irritated about the banana. The banana was just the breaking point. It’s her eating in general. During our two weeks on vacation we have done a lot of eating out. That is two weeks of packing up a bag full of food to bring to these restaurants because there’s not a chance in hell she would touch anything there. It’s the making sure that you can find these very specific items in the places you are traveling too. It’s 2 weeks of packing up so much lactose free milk because that’s literally all she drinks. It’s 2 weeks of watching her eat the same 7 things over and over. So when you get to the restaurant and your daughter presses banana and then refuses the banana…Tell me what mom’s wouldn’t lose their shit?