Busy November/December continues!

It's weird when you can say that things will slow down closer to Christmas, but strangely that is how it is for us this year:-/. I had a great girls trip to Las Vegas, we saw some shows and ate some good food. Sadly it wasn't super warm so we didn't get a lot of pool time, but I did sit in the hot tub a few times! As soon as I was back, it was time to get the house ready for Brian's parents who arrived the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Brian's dad graciously put most of my new closet organizer together (so exciting!) and we had Thanksgiving at the Daveys house. After Thankgiving we put up our (new) tree, did some shopping, went to see "Wonder" with Lynsey since she was really wanting to watch it. It was a fun week! All the while our vacation to Costa Rica was fast approaching but up until the day we left it didn't feel real . . . too much going on! I'll do a separate post(s) about our trip, but we had a great time:-).

We got back really late Tuesday and Brian's parents stayed until Thursday. We had Brian's work Christmas party last night, which is the final big thing on our schedule for now. Unless you count Adam's IEP meeting, which is happening next week. Adam's problem behavior at school has continued to happen (him going after the teacher and trying to grab her head or otherwise disrupt her while she's teaching). We have gained some more insight into why this is happening through some people from his team observing as well as Brian a few weeks back. The teachers still seem to think it's attention seeking when it is obvious to us and to Adam's ABA team that he is trying to avoid all the prompting (over prompting) he is receiving from his aides. Apparently they are using a lot of physical prompts, moving his hands/body to the position they want it to be in. I am not at all surprised that he is responding very negatively to this! Long story, but our ABA team has been so proactive and have even called upon some pretty high up administrative type people to come to Adam's IEP meeting next week (the school psychologist called me and didn't seem overly thrilled that we were requesting them, maybe it looks bad for her? I just want the best resources dealing with this, so her feelings aren't exactly top on my priority list!).

I truly believe his classroom teachers are doing the best they can, but I hope they will be open to new ways of handling Adam in the classroom. When I hear that he is getting stressed at snack time because they aren't properly helping him peel his orange, it infuriates me. Is it annoying that he keeps asking for you to repeat things? Of course it is - we get frustrated, too. But that doesn't mean you don't do it and help him when he needs help. Apparently they are just physically putting his hands on his orange thinking that somehow this will just spur him into action and he will start peeling and eating his orange like a typical child would. I have been sending him oranges because 1. it's one of the 3 fruits that he actually eats and 2. I just assumed someone was helping him peel them. It's hard for me to hear how they are handing him at school, hopefully some changes will come about with this IEP meeting and the behavior assessment that we requested.

Anyway, that's a little glimpse of what's going on with Adam! We were still able to relax and enjoy our vacation, although this was always in the back of our minds. Mark and Frances fared quite well with the kids over all, Lynsey actually missed us the most! We ended up having to chat with her a few times a day because she was missing us. Nathan didn't much care at all that we were gone, he was too busy building cardboard boats and planes with Grandpa! Adam had some stressed moments but all in all, I think he handled things pretty well. Now I have to focus on Christmas shopping, as our kids will have to open our gifts to them next weekend already. I can't believe our Christmas trip is almost here! I love all the fun things that have been going on, but a boring January is sounding pretty good to me right now!:-)