Bird on the Street

Thank You, Universe

10:03 pm

I think Friday was a rough day for many of us. If you’re anything like me, your fears and worries about a whole host of things bubbled to the surface–not just school violence, but all of life’s worries. By the end of the day, I felt drained and maybe a little pissed off and really had nowhere to direct it.

Which is probably why I got gutsy and corrected someone on twitter in the middle of stream of tweets about the second ammendment. I mean, I try not to wade too far into the fray–especially when people are still reeling from these kinds of events, but I saw a tweet calling the shooter “retarded.” I’d share it with you, but it’s since been deleted.

And I couldn’t help but say something:

Honestly, I expected harsh words, or blaming someone else, or getting blocked and unfollowed. Something. I was surprised when I read this:

Twitter can be tough with the 140 character limitation, but to me, this meant that he thought that calling someone “retarded” was the medical definition of mentally ill as opposed to the PC version. I did my best to explain that it described people with mental impairements. Again, not a great explanation in 140 characters, but here’s what I replied:

And this, THIS was the response:

Can you believe it? I think I may have actually educated someone. On twitter of all places. AND he deleted the original tweet from his stream. I tell you what, it may have been one crappy day, but that was a bright spot in the middle of all the madness.

Filed Undergood things, Uncategorized

Isaac Incoming

12:01 am

Greeting from the place where hurricanes hit! In the world of Facebook and Twitter it seems a bit old-fashioned to update my blog with this information, but I figure we’re all at different speeds technology-wise, so here goes:

Isaac is predicted to make landfall in the area sometime late Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Right now they are predicting that it will make landfall as a category two storm, but these things tend to go back and forth a lot before the storm actually hits and yesterday it was supposed to be a one, so who knows what it will be like when it actually gets here. Hurricanes are known for being fickle–they’re fun like that.

Yesterday we made the decision not to evacuate. Before you freak on me, we live very far north of the mandatory evacuation line and they haven’t even called for a mandatory evacuation. Most people seem to be staying put and “hunkering down.”

We made this decision based on a couple of factors. One major one was our experience evacuating for Gustav in 2008. Charlie was only one at the time and the stress of evacuation landed him in the hospital with a case of dehydration and suspected shunt failure. Shunt was fine, but two days in a hospital is never fun. We’ve also rode out a tropical storm here and didn’t lose power. Having any child makes the decision to evacuate difficult–having a child with special needs makes the decision even more complicated.

So. We’re staying put. Someone loaned us a small gas-powered generator and we have enough gas to run it for about three days. We have a portable AC unit, which we will be installing in Charlie’s room since he has issues with over-heating. We should also be able to keep out fridge going, so we’ll have some food stuff although we’re counting on eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

If it looks like the power will be out for longer than a few days, we’ll be heading out to the closest open doors–possibly Mississippi, further north if necessary. I’ll be updating my Twitter feed (it’s over there on the right) as long as I have cell service, but it does get spotty during storms.

Filed UnderUncategorized

Kindergarten

10:18 pm

Much to my chagrin, Charlie had the nerve to continue growing up all summer and this week he started Kindergarten.

For some, this would be a big step, but for us it’s more of an inch. Charlie will continue spending most of his days in the Early Intervention classroom and will go to the Kindergarten classroom in the afternoons for social interaction.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I am a big fan of inclusion–I worked as an inclusion teacher for two years–because I know how much a child can benefit from being in an inclusive environment. I did a lot of soul-searching, however, and decided that the thing I want most for Charlie is for him to be part of his community. While I believe academics are important, I don’t think that’s where Charlie needs the most work. I’ve already taught him the basics of reading/letters/letter sounds.

So this year he’ll be working hard on self-care. His teachers will be focusing on making him a part of his routines–that whole independence thing. In the afternoons he’ll be working on figuring out how regular kids relate to one another and to him. It’s all pretty important stuff.

On the first day of school, the kids from his Kindergarten class walked down to the Early Intervention classroom and got to meet Charlie. The sat on the circle mat and he sat in a cube chair. They got a quick introduction to his wheelchair and how it works. Several of the kids remembered Charlie from when they were in pre-K the year before.

smiling boy in wheel chair