Hello world!
We are still alive, and planning to continue with the blog. I basically took a year off because there were some changes in our family. First, we added a new member! We have a new baby boy who is as cute as he can be. During the pregnancy, my husband got promoted (yay!) but it came with a relocation to another state. In the end we were able to stay in Virginia, but while we thought we were moving, we kept busy trying to downsize, looking for new schools, house... and all what a family relocation entails.
As you may recall, I previously talked about our options for Patrick's school. We were torn between private school, public school, and homeschooling. He didn't pass the test at the private school, so that option was out of the question almost immediately. I kept exploring and evaluating the remaining two options, but when we found out we were moving while being pregnant, we decided to just enroll Patrick in public kindergarten, so that I would have time to deal with everything that was going on at home.
Patrick has a great teacher and really enjoys going to school. There is the occasional morning in which he doesn't want to go to school and cries, but he is perfectly fine and content by the time he arrives at school. He has made new friends and the great thing is that two of them are basically our neighbors, so he gets to play with them sometimes outside of school.
We also took a break from his private speech and occupational therapies. He receives speech and OT at school, although only a fraction of the time of what he used to get privately. The bigger plus from the public school, is that Patrick has an special aid. There are other 4 kids with an IEP in his class, who also receive help from the special aid. She is most of the time in the classroom and takes turns helping out the kids like Patrick.
Now, if you read the post about the school choices, you may remember our idea is to have Patrick repeat kindergarten. So he did his first year of Kindergarten in the public system, and now, for his repeat year, we were hoping he would do it in the private Catholic school by our home. Enrollment time is almost here, so I tried to have him do the school test at home, and sadly, I realized he isn't anywhere ready. It's actually quite the wake up call to realize he didn't improve much during this year at public kindergarten, so, we have decided to finally give a chance to homeschool.
My idea is, among other things, to outsource some of his education, include a special ed a few hours a week at home, restart private therapies, enroll him in sports to target his motor delays... basically, the idea is to give him a completely tailored education. He is a special kid who deserves a special education. I'm glad I have a few months before we start, so that I can gather all the resources and make a plan. I will be happy to share it with you once I have it. The special education program in the public system has failed my Patrick (and many other kids) in different ways. I'm glad we gave it a try, but sad to realize it didn't work. We don't want him to only be able to be in school with other regular kids, we want him to actually LEARN. I may talk in detail about our issues with the special ed system in public school later on, but for now, we are excited to finally help Patrick reach his full potential.
More later!
