Small and LARGE Steps

We have seen some pretty significant changes recently, and I wanted to share them with you.

We had Jonah's interim IEP meeting yesterday, and it went really well. We met in order to update Jonah's goals and change his placement. We needed to update his goals because he had mastered almost every goal since November when we wrote his original IEP. For those of you who are not familiar with IEPs, they are written with goals that are attainable over a one year period and then re-assessed at the end of that year, so the fact that he had completely mastered so many goals blew his teachers out of the water!!!! Many of the new goals that we added for next year are Kindergarten level goals. We also changed his placement so that he will be in a Governer's Pre-K (lottery Pre-K) this fall. When I mentioned to a neighbor the program that he got into, she was floored. She asked if I had camped out all night to get him into that school. It is obviously very high demand. It is where all of the Gwinnett County teachers send their four year old children. That is always a fabulous recommendation. Praise the Lord that Jonah got a spot in their classroom.

Also, on his speech and language screening, Jonah scored within normal limits on both expressive and receptive language skills. This was absolutely thrilling considering the fact that speech has always been his primary deficit!!!!! Praise the Lord.

Also Daniel had a fabulous day with Ms. Susan yesterday. He said "elephant," and was identifying individual capital letters by sight. He has been pointing out letters and numbers out of sequence in books and labeling them for about a week. Ms. Susan was amazed. She said that he did so many new things in therapy yesterday that she couldn't even write it all down.

Two smaller, but no less important accomplishments occurred this week as well. We went out to eat for lunch after church, and we actually both got to enjoy our meal. No one had to leave the table with a child before everyone was finished. There were no tantrums, and both boys cleaned their plates. This is one of those small things that many parents take for granted, but we were so thrilled to enjoy eating out again for the first time in a long time. :)

After lunch, we took the boys for haircuts. Although it took three lollipops to get through it, we had the smoothest haircut ever. There was no screaming involved and no restraining necessary.

It is the little things that we almost forget to notice because they happen so gradually, but as a parent who has suffered through many uneaten meals and botched haircut fiascoes, I am a happy camper!!!!!!!!!