stream of consciousness blogging.

the meeting I had with our D11 SPED teacher on Tuesday was good.  Here're some of the things that we learned:

- they are woefully understaffed for para's this year, but Dominic will still be with him all morning (the whole time he is there).  Knocking on whatever wood keeps this up.   Next year since we're tentatively planning on him being there full day, he'll have a full day para because they'll do a staffing matrix end of this year w/their needs.

- He's got his own desk in his first grade classroom, in the back, near the table where he will be doing some of the ABBLS work.  the idea is for him to be doing some things independently throughout the day - we'll see how that goes.

- in first grade, they have a 2hr long reading chunk of time, a 2 hour long math chunk of time EACH day.  And then 1 hour every other day for science and social studies (they alternate).  And no Art.  This baffles me.

- Dominic gets to have lunch and recess with his age peers this year.  He didn't get to do this last year, so I'm pleased he gets to this year.  

- During reading time, apparently first graders take turns reading aloud.  The sped is going to rotate Dominic through and let the other first graders read to him, hopefully for enrichment on both parties, plus its got the chance to build some relationships.


Dominic's first week of school has been decent.  He seems to have moved right back into that routine.  Alpine, well, he's behaviorally a mess there, but we expected the transition month to be rough.  We will give it another week to even out and if it doesn't, look at adding back in some of the supplements we'd removed

Speaking of Alpine... when they were at their old location, there were herds of Deer and the occasional Bear around.  Ar the new location, there're no deer.  Instead there's a herd (family? Flock?) of mountain goats. Curvy horns and all.  And the occasional bobcat.  Yes, bobcat.  There was one that crossed the parking lot during drop off yesterday.   The therapists wisely waited until he was across before retrieving children from their cars.  Could you imagine?  "Kitty Cat!!!! Want Pet!!!"  *shudder*


No Alpine this afternoon, they have an inservice.  Since d11 is so tight on para's, they can't support Dominic for full days at all this year like they did last.  So he got to come home early today.  He went straight outside and played in the dirt.  He actually wasn't filthy, but soon came in and said Ba Ba.  I said, you want a bath?  YES.  So he got a bath.  

Our fundraiser is making progress.  As of this writing we're at 11%, which is pretty good for just a few days in.   I'm hoping to get a lot of people to do a little each, with the concept that if you were in town, we'd go out for a meal or coffee, and we'd probably each spend $10-$20 and have a couple of hours of visiting.   So I'm hoping the logic will flow that people have that $10-$20 for something related to us and could therefore pitch it in.  We'll see.  I'm also doing a stupid joke fundraising tactic on facebook.  For every 1% of our goal we reach, I will post a groaningly bad pun.   Also bouncing some ideas around in my head for a top donor prize (homecooked meal by me? private yoga class from Rod?  Handmade something or another from Dominic?  nothing concrete yet, but keep your eyes peeled).  Its really interesting, the iPad fundraiser kicked off much more quickly.  People are much more willing to donate to a specific, tangible thing than the never ending therapy bill.  I'm hoping that knowing we've set this fundraiser up so that the check itself is written to Alpine instead of us will help with that.  Here is the link.  Its also in the sidebar. 

Huge thank you's to our donors.  You really have no idea how much these donations help when added together.