http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:47:00 -0500 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:47:00 -0500 Well, it is September, and time to get back at things full force. Where did the summer go? And where did my resolution to write every week go?? Seems they both disappeared down the same black hole that resides somewhere in my home. I spent a busy summer, like most people I know. But this year had an added twist for us. Last December our son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a part of the autism spectrum, but more specifically I like to think of it as the "pocket protector syndrome" because a lot of children with Asperger's remind me of the classroom "nerds" from the '80's when I was in school. Please accept my humblest aplogies and good wishes for those who actually are diagnosed with this syndrome, for I by no means intend to belittle the problems encountered by people whose brains are wired in this way. I have been attempting to set up some Occupational Therapy for our son, because he has fine motor issues and what I think are sensory integration problems as well. Here in Ontario, we have a lovely health care system paid for with our tax dollars. It is accessible to everyone in the country as long as they have a health card from the province. I can use that health card all across our beautiful country, and never have to pay a cent for health care. It's great. However, can anyone explain to me why getting health care, paid for by our Ministry of Health, would be contingent upon my child being registered with our local school board? Anyone? Buhler??? No, I thought not. And therein lies my dilemma. Because to get the therapies paid for by our government, I would have to register with our school board, something my husband and I choose not to do.(For those reading from the States, this is perfectly legal here in Ontario - we don't have to register our intent to homeschool if we don't want to, and the Education Act supports that interpretation of the law). Enter much anguish and mental gymnastics, as we debate back and forth what to do. After some fact finding phone calls, where we discovered that the average Occupational Therapist charges $90/hour for service, we made the decision to go ahead with an assessment, paying out of pocket. But with the intention that once we have our assessment, we will not have much to do with the therapist because we can't afford it. And even the assessment would need to be put off until we could pull together enough funds. Enter God. This weekend, God answered our prayers in a most unexpected way. Here in Canada, if your child is diagnosed with a disability, you get some tax breaks at the federal level. Well, once we had our diagnosis, the accountant who helps us with our taxes made us aware of the tax laws. And we followed her directions to notify the government, and asked to have all our taxes reassessed, for the last 10 years. And there it stood, with us expecting a refund of a few thousand dollars. On Saturday while I was doing some banking, I almost fell over in shock. The teller had handed me my deposit slip, with our updated bank balance. Only, the number was off from our records by several thousand dollars. When I asked, in a stunned way, what had been placed in our account, the teller informed me "it says electronic funds transfer from the government". God is so good. Right when my husband and I had come to the conclusion that we would be obedient to not register our son with the school board, and instead find some other way to obtain the funds for his treatment, God had already prepared the money we would need. I am still stunned at the timing of this refund, and how God has met our need, even before we could begin to worry about how to meet it. And that is an amazing way to start our school year - praising God for answered prayer and met needs. What a great reminder to me that if I continue in obedience to Him, God will, indeed, answer our prayers for our son. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/590601/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:47:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/590601/ Exhaustion. Don't we all experience it? Right now I am so tired I can hardly manage to type three words without a typing mistake :-) It seems that I never remember that doing two twelve hour midnight shifts in a row is really not the best thing for me anymore. I'm not really sure why it is so hard this year to do nights. I like the quiet that falls over the maternity home where I work when all the residents and their children are tucked safely in their beds for the night. Not that I don't enjoy interacting with the residents, trying to help them learn about this crazy life called parenting, but some nights it is all I can do to wait patiently for lights out. And now, I sit here wondering why I am doing this, as I struggle to stay awake. My work responsibilities are finished. I can't read anymore of The Old Schoolhouse, because I keep nodding off despite my interest level!! So that leaves composing a new blog entry to stimulate myself into wakefulness. I hardly think this will count as great literature, but there you are, I'm not sure that Shakespeare himself could compose something meaningful in the state I am in tonight <g> http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/491040/ Sun, 2 Mar 2008 04:10:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/491040/ Or at least, that is what my MIL says when life just keeps throwing you odd circumstances. And I think that I qualify for that! This past Sunday I went to work as usual(thankfully I am lice free =8-0) and thought that things were going very smoothly until......I went to the basement to start a load of household laundry and discovered 3 inches of water throughout the majority of the basement! After 3 hours of very primitive clean up involving a bucket and a dustpan and a mop, I was able to determine 3 different areas in the house's foundation that were letting in water. Sigh. I think that next Sunday had better be a calm, no issues shift or I just might think about not going in to work on the next Sunday http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/484364/ Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:23:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/484364/ Valentine's Day......flowers, dinner out, cards, romance :-) Or reality - a walk in the cold to get some milk because we ran out! Cooking some shake and bake chicken and making both a pie and a cake, because the men in my life both like different desserts LOL But the day has been a good day for reflecting back on what is really important. The fact that I have enough money to go get the milk, the fact that I have a son and husband to cook for.....those are the things that make the day good. Not the cards, or the flowers(which I have to buy for myself because my husband never remembers), not dinner out(especially when you can't have chocolate cheesecake for dessert since your son is allergic to it ) and the romance - well, it is still there, but perhaps a bit differently than it was 17 years ago when I made our first Valentine's meal together. I work with teen moms, and many of them were lamenting that they won't have a "special" day today because they don't have a man in their lives. The fact that they have some lovely, healthy children, food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads doesn't seem to really cut it, especially when compared to all the "hallmark" moments they see on tv or in the ads. I wish that each of them would come to know the real love behind this day....God's love that was so extravagently poured out onto us through Jesus. But unfortunately to most of them, His name is just part of a cuss word in their vocablulary. So I guess that it is up to me to show that love in my actions. I pray that I make a difference in their lives. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/481099/ Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:23:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/481099/ This past weekend, as usual, I worked at a local maternity home. What wasn't usual was that 5 of our residents have come down with lice. EWW! One of the toddlers was literally crawling with them. So instead of a fairly peaceful 12 hour shift, where I was anticipating reading my latest TOS magazine, I spent my time looking for and treating 10 residents and their children for head lice. Because our home is privately run, and relies mostly on donations for survival, our equipment is basic, to say the least. We only have enough sheets and blankets for one set for each bed/crib. This meant that I absolutely had to do laundry before most of the residents could go to bed. I finally got enough clean bedlinens to send the last of them to bed at 3am - and I started by 9pm! I continued straight through with laundry until I left at 8am. This was besides taking time to treat myself once I had all the residents in bed!! And I treated all the upholstered furniture in the house as well, since the chemical used is best applied when people, especially little lungs, are not going to be breathing it in. My poor husband was so supportive! When I called him from work early on Monday morning to talk, he quickly agreed to leave my jammies in the front hall so that I could strip off and immediately put all the clothes I wore to work in the wash before I basically stepped into the house! Needless to say, I did not get to bed at anywhere near my normal time on a Monday morning. And I was up at the usual hour too, since I still had school to do with my son, after I took another delousing shower! Oh, the joys of working with a transient teenage population :-) http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/479383/ Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:17:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/479383/ Yesterday was a great day for my son. Our homeschool group sponsored a free "dunk and munch" time at one of our local pools. The group paid for the pool for an hour, and the adjoining community room so that anyone in the group who wanted could come and swim and visit for free. It was a really nice social outing, for moms and kids!! The best part is that we brought along a friend for my son. Since he is an only, and has Asperger's, the whole social scene can sometimes be a bit bewildering to him. Large crowds can be overwhelming, and just "mingling" in with a bunch of kids really doesn't work for him. So this year I intentionally planned for him to have a friend come with us. This is a relatively new friend(within the last year) and the best part about it all, from my viewpoint, is that he is the oldest child in his family and one of his younger brothers has a few "issues" as well. So not only is he used to dealing with a special needs sort of personality, he is also really pleased to come to a home that is so much less chaotic than his own :-) After lunch, the boys petitioned me to have this child back to our place for a continued playdate, to which I happily agreed. At the end of the afternoon, when we were driving him home, he asked if it would be okay to have our son go to youth group with him on Sunday evening. And my son wanted to go!! Now, for those of you with "normal" children, this won't seem like a very big deal, but in my family, this was absolutely huge. Not only was my son wanting to go to an unknown place, for an unknown program involving unknown things(all of which are quite scary for him), but he has made such a connection with this boy that he was actually invited. That is the part that blew me away, because my son very rarely gets invited anywhere. First of all, he has some very severe food allergies, which tends to make other moms nervous - as in, will he have a reaction while he is in my home? what can he actually eat? that sort of thing. But the main reason he doesn't get invited anywhere is because of all his "quirks". He is a very pleasant natured kid, except when you run into one of the areas that are difficult for him. Like dealing with small children(like there are many homeschooling families out there with no small children!!) or abrupt changes in plan(he has a very strong need to know what is happening, when it is happening, etc) or general unpredictability in a situation. When you trigger one of these areas, he responds fairly loudly and aggressively, although never physically - just shouting and the nastiest face you ever saw. But it can be pretty scary to watch a meltdown. So he doesn't get invited places. I guess the biggest hurt to all of it is that his meltdowns just look like bad parenting, you know? The kind of hands on hips defiance that makes your blood boil. And it really all goes back to his inability to read social cues. But from the outside, it can look like a spoiled only child just getting upset because he isn't getting his way. So yesterday was a stellar day - for him and for me! And it was one of those days that really caused me to count my blessings, because God is good enough to care about my child making and keeping a friend. No big deal for most kids, but a real answer to prayer for mine. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/475577/ Wed, 6 Feb 2008 09:55:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/475577/ Well, here I am, in the world of internet blogging. I never thought that I would do this, as I am not the journal type. But I am starting a lot of new things this year, and decided that this would be one of them. I homeschool my only son. My husband works for our local regional government as a social worker. I work part time in a maternity home for teen moms. I also help to run and organize our local homeschool conference, which is proving to be a challenge this year! Today is such a beautiful snowy day that I am procrastinating every thing else that needs doing to sign up and start a blog :-) Really, all that needs doing is the housework, finish some school, lots of shovelling, make dinner, hopefully get to a meeting tonight(a little doubtful given our snow...) So if you have read this, leave a note and let me know. I am hoping to be able to update this a few times a week. It will probably wind up as my personal ramblings....but I would love to answer any questions you have :-) http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/472571/ Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:38:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/legomom/472571/