6:45 p.m. - 2007-11-13
happy birthday to me...
I live in a tree,
My children are monkeys,
And I need to go pee....
OK, three-quarters of that was bogus, but it rhymed. A quick update on life in the Pegverse, as it has been much too long (gah! nearly a month!) since my last report.
For the past month I have been dealing with the joy that is my brilliant yet scholastically inept son and his school. For the past couple of years, his teachers--the special ed teacher and whoever his normal classroom teacher is--have been wishing him "medically evaluated". Translation: "please get your hyperactive git medicated so he'll pay attention and work to his potential." Which is not *unreasonable*, just partially misguided. I've been saying for even longer, "do you think he's dyslexic?" Dyslexia being a genetic trait that runs in my family (and apparently is a dominant trait in humankind). This fall, it all came to a head. I asked him to be tested for everything, especially dyslexia. My son was tested, but not to the level I wished. I took care of the medical portion, the school did an *abbreviated* IQ test and a surface skills assessment test. I was... underwhelmed... by what the school did. After the meeting where the teachers exclaimed in surprise over my son's brilliance and I did not exclaim in disgust over the insufficient testing, NowMyHusband & I decided to take it from a different angle.
I will leave out the drama that was getting a referral, being shoehorned into a doctor's schedule for today, setting up a similar bit of testing through a nearby university.... I shall also forgo whining about taking three girls and a hyperactive git to a psych's office today in the middle of nap time. (suffice to say, it was a nightmare.)
NMH joined me at the doc's office & I promptly left to drive three girls around town for a while so they could sleep. The report he gave me on the rest of the meeting was this: Based on the testing report from the school, what we really need is a neuropsychsomethingist to assess the first born son. Now I get to call the nice grad student at LocU and tell her what we've been advised by the person with the PhD and apologize for not being able to help her fulfill requirements. Because when someone admits that they aren't high enough level to help, you thank them for their honesty and bump it up a notch.
Translation: it will be... January... before we can start to address the issue accurately. In the meantime, elementary education continues to plague us with unrealistic expectations and goals. Never mind the former-immediate family issues that are leeched onto "what is being done?" I hate being first at awkward things like bizarre dominant traits.... Happily, NMH is taking care of giving his mom the updates. I became far too defensive about the subject--never a good thing in family relations....
At least I didn't have to cook dinner! In all, a much better birthday than last year....
