So, I've been meaning to post all week. And, of course, I didn't. So, now I have too much to say. But, I'm not going to say it. However, I must tell you about hockey, We Shall Overcome, and the upcoming meeting.

Hockey - we have a bunch of hockey nuts around here. I thought that I already wrote the saga of our backyard rink, but apparently I only posted a video. But, if a photo is worth a thousand words, then a video is at least 100,000 or so, so here's another one. I will say that although it took a lot of blood, sweat, tears, hours of Flannery's vacation, and waaaayy too much swearing, the backyard ice is totally worth it. The kids love it and have spent countless hours sliding around out there. One day after a long, tiring day of school Collin went right out to the ice by himself (the kid normally won't even go upstairs or downstairs without a companion), shoveled it off, and skated until dinner.

We Shall Overcome - Collin and Cayla love their school music class and sing their music class tunes all day. We were entertained with Wee Willie Winkie all September. This winter it has been We Shall Overcome and This Little Light of Mine. In fact, Collin and Cayla have been asking if we are coming to their MLK performance. We haven't heard anything from the teachers, so we're not sure what they are talking about. They insist they they will be wearing animal masks and singing We Shall Overcome. Ummm, OK. Anyway, Cayla sometimes sings, "We shall overcome . . . we shall overcome", but usually she sings, "We should overcome . . . we should overcome", and then the other day, her version turned into, "We are overcome . . . we are overcome". Yikes.

The meeting - So, Cayla's MET/IEP meeting are on Tuesday - hallelujah! I cannot even begin to tell you how draining school has been on Cayla and subsequently on the rest of our family this fall. I know that this meeting will not create some magical change, but at least a plan with accommodations and supports (a LEGAL plan) will be put in place. We spent the weekend pouring over the draft of her evaluation trying to figure out what our goals are for her and what we will be pushing for on Tuesday. Our biggest concern is her speech and language, which tested out very low. Basically this means that it takes her a long time to process what people say to her and she often has trouble saying what she wants to say. Right now her classroom is a fairly high academic setting - the kids are working on cutting out pictures with specific long and short vowel sounds and writing stories using their 28 sight words (the, and, here, etc.). To make a long story short, we are deciding between her staying in her present classroom with a lot of visits to the resource room (for reading, writing, math, etc), staying in her classroom with a full time aide, or moving her to a self-contained classroom. There just happens to be a K-2 self-contained classroom for children with mild cognitive impairments at her school. And that is where Flannery and I think she should be. Now, wish us luck so that we can convince her IEP team that that's where she should be. Actually, for all we know, the self-contained classroom may be what the team has been thinking as well - communication has been less than stellar. But shitty communication is a topic for another day.