Peek-A-Boo

It dawned on me today, I haven't post anything in awhile. If you have read earlier post you know that we chose to educate our kids at home, with the help of the ALE programs. I made a change this year from CVA to Three Rivers Homelink.

 I felt like some people were pressuring me into putting Melodie in to traditional public school. So to compromise I chose Homelink, it offers her 6 onsite workshops. Socialization.

SOCIALIZATION as defined in the dictionary:

socialization or socialisation  (ˌsəʊʃəlaɪˈzeɪʃən)
— n
1.	psychol  the modification from infancy of an individual'sbehaviour to conform with the demands of social life
2.	the act of socializing or the state of being socialized
socialisation or socialisation

 I am beginning to HATE that word. People really throw it out there  as soon as they hear "homeschool", without knowing a child. Like my kid is some kind of shut in because we don't put her in a class with 25 other kids for 8 hours a day. Because I enjoy being the one who see's that  AH'HA moment. Melodie does get a little nervous around LARGE groups of unknown people. However she makes friends very quickly, with kids her own age, older and likes to care for those who are younger. She does have some social issues, but they were there LONG before she was school aged. I don't think it's because we didn't put her in traditional public school for kindergarten.

This is starting to sound like a rant. I apologize. It just hits a nerve.

The point being, there is a lot required for starting the school year, the program is only in it's 5th year of existence with about 400 K-12 students. Due to lack of funding, and space they share a building with a local church, as the district doesn't have enough room to house the program.

So in the last week we have had group consultant meeting, orientation, open house, school pictures, wrote her WSLP as required by the state, and started at home class.

I also babysit three days a week and we have therapy once a week. My plate has been a little full.

I'm still waiting on her Science, Language Arts and Math curriculum. Part of that was my fault, but thanks to my mom things should arrive shortly. So far this year we have spent $715 out of the $800 we get for the year. I hope to be able to save the rest for a field trip or two.

Melodie's compression suit arrived, I think the pants are too big. we are going to send them back for a smaller size.  She loves her compression suit, and I think it is going to be a HUGE help for he onsite classes.
She has been able to stop taking the Clonidine at night. She takes a 5 mg time release melotonin.

She isn't taking Focalin every afternoon, but most. Still every morning. I can say that I never expected to be off or reducing ANY meds yet, this is amazing.

As me make leaps we begin to change the norm again. Again we enter a state of transition. With the help of my support system, and Katie our SID OT, we shall survive.


"Well why was your fork IN your EYE!"

Why we chose A.L.E.

A.L.E.

If you've never heard of it, I'm sad to say google will fail you. You'll get results on beer, logistics, Antarctica even. But if you google:

Alternative Learning Experience, then you get a whole host of info. 

In this post, I'm going to talk a little about our experience, the who's, where's, why's, and how's.

When Kaiden was two, I joked about home schooling him. The schools in our area were dreadful. So bad that we received a letter for our oldest telling us that her school had failed its report card, and that we had the choice to transfer her to another school in the district. However, all the other schools had failed theirs as well. 

We didn't really feel we had a choice, home school it was.

For the first year we went on our own. With a few workbooks from Costco and the internet, we banged together a fourth grade curriculum. We also discovered  few issues, her previous school had not taught them the multiplication facts. We knew there had been issues, no spelling tests, no math tests. 

So we had a smart, but now lazy, kid on our hands. 

I started researching and found out about A.L.E.'s. 

Our kids could get a wonderful education, at home, and still be a part of the public school system. 

Fantastic.

First we tried WAVA. 

Washington Virtual Academy uses K12 curriculum. To be honest, we were a bit overwhelmed at first. When our boxes arrived they weighed in at 180lbs, for only two kids. 

We trudged through Kindergarten and Fifth. Not really clicking with the curriculum. I think it's a wonderful set up really, it just wasn't working for us. Kaid was quickly drowning in phonics, but excelling in comprehension, math, science, and history. Sarea was lost when it came to math. 

I started to watch a little closer and realized something, Kaiden was dyslexic. 

Phonics and dyslexia don't work together so well. We looked into whole language approach. Still nothing, he was a pre reader and wouldn't budge. His doctors claimed it was the school districts responsibility, the district claimed it was his doctors. So I did what any worried mother does when she has access to the internet. 

I googled.

During one of my googling sessions, I happened upon a woman who had not only a dyslexic son, but a dyslexic granddaughter. She told me to stop stressing out, to stop frustrating him. Let it go.

She told me that with her son, she just let him be, encouraged him, but didn't push him. At around 7, he started reading. He still had problems, but it was much better.

So as hard as it was, I did. We put phonics on the back burner, we focused on other area's and treaded lightly on reading. When he was seven, we had a breakthrough. His grandmother bought a flashcard set of sight words. We started working on them every night. All of a sudden, he was doing it. Like a light switch had been flipped. He was still at K level, but he was READING.

Now a year and a half later, Kaiden will be starting a gifted reading program. He went from a Kindergarten level to a Fourth grade level in a year and a half.

He is going into third grade, but he is in an accelerated fourth grade math program.

This program has been a godsend for us. Columbia Virtual Academy, the options we have for our kids education is just phenomenal.

So we turned our dining room into a school room and never looked back.

I'm not saying that home schooling four (sometimes six) kids is easy. But it's a decision we didn't make lightly and it's worth it to us. And we have  moments like this:

And we get to do fun experiments all the time.

I get to see that "aha" moment when they understand something. I get to learn how their brains work and it is so amazing.


Quote of the day:
"STOP LICKING ME!" Said to the almost 13 yr old...

Brickyard Road

Our goal is to share our story. The ups and downs. The good and bad. Non sugarcoated truth. It's my personal hope that we can help even one person, who feels like they've done everything they can and nothing is getting any better.

Only days after Melodie's intake appointment for SI Therapy she had convinced other children to twist her arm and break it.( THANK YOU legoMama for catching that one.) She wanted a cast so bad she was willing to suffer through a summer with a broken arm. That's says a lot considering Melodie's favorite place is in the water. 

Couple things about Melodie I may have forgotten to mention. Her safe place is water. Bath, shower, pool, puddle, it really doesn't matter. She also associates her world in color. Remembers playgrounds by the color of the play equipment and refers to them by such. Remembers people by their favorite color, or the color of their house or car. That's just the way her brain likes things to be. 

I get a call, that Melodie wants a purple ( her all time favorite color) cast so bad she is trying to break her arm....OI! are you kidding me? I will admit I had a hard time with it the more I thought about it. I can understand wanting a purple cast. It's a great color. But willing to purposely break your OWN arm to get one...I cried a little. What is going on in that brain of hers. 

I remembered we had SI therapy and that maybe Katie could help, at this point I didn't care if she knew all the answers or not. She knew more than me, and for the first time it all made perfect sense. 

So we started her "menu" my co-author and I took two days at my house and gave it a go. Things seemed to go so smooth. Now we've had a couple days on our own, and we're learning. Musical Chores is SUPER AWESOME. One of the activities listed was stop and go games. So we put it to music, you clean when the music plays , you FREEZE when it stops. It's fun and very productive. 

Joint Compression, she just loves it. 

We have crab walk races, find the skittle in the bag of rice, legos, she uses her squishy ball when she reads or has to listen to instructions. We play the same music every night (Zen Garden) for bed time. We start every day with a warm face wash. We have found that she likes to have a heavy stuffy on top of her when she sleeps, and likes to be rolled tightly in a blanket.

I will say that last night was not a good night, she couldn't stay asleep, and even when I was laying right next to her she would wake up and yell for me. The lack of sleep is where I really have a hard time. It affects everyone in the house. Including Lilly. 

Melodie was very good while shopping today. Daddy was home, and we all went to the mall. This was a pretty big deal considering the last time I took Melodie to the mall we had to leave because she was too nervous. She picked out some new clothes and talked daddy into a book and a bracelet. Daddy's kind of a big softy though. 

Things are always a little different when he is home. He is a truck driver and currently gone 4-5 days, home for 2. So we adapt, because well, we don't really have another choice. Some days we wish Daddy was home more, but we are certainly thankful for the sacrifices he makes to provide for us. This allows us to home school ( ALE style), it allows Melodie the things she needs, and Lilly to spend her days with Me and Melodie. 

There are days I'd like to sell them to the circus, even told Melodie that's why she took gymnastics. But in all honesty, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have kanji symbols on my forearms, Strength and Courage, those two words have gotten me though the absolute darkest of times. But that's a whole other story. My point being, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am a stronger mother now than I was a year ago, and I am determined to fight for my kid, and help others. 

In His Own Time, Not Mine.

Kaiden's therapist gave us a list of activities specific to his test scores that we should pick from to make a menu. The theory being, if we continually feed the need for sensory input we will avoid the seeking behaviors. Much like how eating a steady diet avoids hunger. 


As thrilled as I am about finding the correct diagnosis, I'm overwhelmed by what needs to be done. I knew going in that it wasn't going to be a simple, here fix my kid, scenario. But I think that somewhere deep inside, in that place that parents don't want to admit exists, I was kind of hoping it would be. 


So I sat with my list of activities and my menu and filled it out. That part, was easy.


Now the difficulty lies in trying to incorporate these into our every day life. Five kids, four homeschoolers, two dogs, two cats, and various other insanity seems to block the best intentions. I am not ashamed to admit that today, we did not do all of our sensory diet. I am however proud to admit that we did do our evening routine. 


A typical evening/bedtime routine would comprise itself of calming activity. My youngers get the, let's lay quietly in bed and look at a book, listen to music, and relax, treatment. 


Kaiden's typical (now) bedtime routine is as follows:


Football Drills - Throwing Postures, Up Downs, Suicides
Wrestling - 15 minutes of throw down with his older cousin
Joint Decompression - Gently pushing/pulling the joints from shoulder to toes


Then we are ready for bed. 


I know we can do this, we have to do this. I will do everything possible to help my son be at peace with himself. 


I tried to work on his page earlier, The Evolution of a Kaiden. I found it a lot more difficult than expected. Sifting through all of his past, everything he and we have gone through. I feel as though a part of his life was robbed by this disorder. Like we were robbed of that time with him. The constant fight just to keep him level. Like all we ever did was correct him. 


I can't get that time back for him, or for us. I can't make his bad times go away. So I'm going to try and focus on what I can do. I can make it better from here on out. I can help him now. And I can watch as he becomes he person I know he can be. I can let my pride shine through him. Because if there is one thing I am, it is proud of that boy. He has overcome so much, even before we were able to get him help. 


So for now, I will take a deep breath. I will realize that nothing is instant. It will take time and practice to get this schedule correct. We will be flexible. I will be flexible. I will leave my worries in God's hands and know that eventually we will get there. I don't want to reach the end and realize I didn't even enjoy the scenery on the ride. 


Quote of the Day:
"Mommy! I got a rhyme! Nookie Cookie, that rhymes right?"

How we got here, and Who led the way.

Eight years ago my co-author made the off hand comment; "He is so adorable, if I have kids I hope they're just like yours."


This phrase has somehow become a reality. 


Both of our first borns, who are three years apart, are one person in two bodies. Male and Female, Yin to well Yin, actually.





Kaiden is eight, he has Sensory Integration Disorder. His test shows that while he does not have Autism, he has pretty severe integration issues.











Melodie is five, she has Sensory Integration Disorder. Her test shows that while she is not Autistic either, she also has pretty severe integration issues.








I'd like to point out that when comparing their tests, there was only a one to two point difference in scores. These tests were given on different days, in different situations. 


One person, Two bodies. Down to even their facial expressions when having one of their SID moments.


Continuing this "curse" of ours, we both had second borns. What can I say, we're brave people I suppose. 


These are our control group for lack of a better term. They are the "normal" children. Again they were three years apart. Again they are the same people in two bodies. Both hitting the same milestones, both having the same quirks and personalities. 

Jaelyn is five. She is a "normal" child. She believes she is a princess and is fantastic at getting people to do what she wants.









Lilly is two. She is a "normal" child. She also believes she is a princess and follows Jaelyn's footsteps on how to get what she wants as well.












Personally, I hate the word normal. But I use it here to illustrate what is considered the norm behavior. As much as the word may bother me, there has to be some baseline to find out how far a child deviates and how to help them. We don't think of our kids as broken. They both have different strengths, where something is lacking, they've made up for it in other area's. 


It has been a struggle to get here, we've been told ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Bipolar, Unspecified Mood Disorder, Dyslexia, Aspergers. 


We've been told:


They will learn how to cope, this is a life long ordeal, they'll have to learn to live with it, they'll have to figure out how to work within their means.


And then we met a woman who told us:  


"What I'm going to say will change your life." It did.


It brought us the diagnosis of Sensory Integration Disorder. It brought us to another woman, named Katie, who finally said those four little words:


"I can help them."  


This is just an introduction to the members of our circus. Kaiden and Melodie both have their own unique story to tell so we've created a page for each of them. Welcome to the madness, we'll be blogging about our day to day struggles, successes, and our adventures in therapy and A.L.E. schooling. Feel free to tell us your stories.


Quote of the day:
" If you're close enough to LICK someone, you're close enough to stop SHOUTING. We're not deaf. Yet. We may be soon if you don't stop."