Monday, April 28, 2008

Today has been a pretty hard day for me. First of all, this morning, I went to take tom to work. As I was walking out the door he said...did you mess up the car last night? I said no, why? He said...because our car got broken into. I didnt really think anything of it until we started finding things that they took. Thank goodness our car is still here...and everything they took can be replaced. We are blessed that neither of our wallets were in the car and everything was in the house with us. The one thing that hit me the hardest was they took Jacob's backpack. With all his therapy stuff in it including his "Ipod" he calls it...its just a little mp3 player but that was his one and only therapy tool that worked wonders for him!!! And he was very upset that he could not have it and told everyone at therapy today that the bad guys took his ipod. So I guess the next few days is going to be spent cleaning out the garage so that we can park our van in it. I dont want to take any more chances. When we first got married, our car got broken into and a week later, someone stole our car. I actually was 9 months pregnant and the stress made me go into labor with Jacob...haha. But now im very paranoid that someone is going to steal our car. We all thought the doors were locked because we lock the doors every night but we must of just slipped and not locked one door because you have to lock it by hand. I am just greatful that nothing was taken such as our ID's, credit cards, or bank cards!!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

So some of you know about the not so fun experience we had with Jacob in school this past year. We ended up taking him out after being in there a month and putting him in a therapy school. Well hes been going to their school and its been awesome!! Come August they are opening it up to a private school. The cost to keep him in is 27,000!!! Can you believe that? I don't see why its so expensive...like anyone is going to be able to pay that. But getting into this school is our only hope for him to have a good education. I tried to get him into the Autism classroom but they said no because they have too many kids but not enough room so hes either going to have to go to a normal class (and if you know Jacob that is so not happening) or the IK class again where he was before. the IK is Integrated Kindergarten. And that's where half the kids have IEP's and have are normal. IEP's are kind of like "rules" that the school has to follow for your child's needs. That's fine but Jacob needs more than just the IK class. He was very aggressive and the teachers couldn't handle him and so would just push him aside. He would come home saying that he was a bad kid and he was crazy...and its from those teachers telling him stuff. He still brings up that hes crazy all the time. We have now made it a joke thing to be crazy because I dont want him thinking that its bad. So, getting to the point...haha. So our only hope to get into this school was to get a scholarship from the state. And they pay some or all of the tuition to the school of choice. So I sent in all my papers...and got a call a few days ago. She told me that Jacob got denied =( I am so sad...I dont know what we are going to do now. I am going to other school districts to see what our options are there. I am visiting Mesa and seeing how their autism classes are and hopefully they wont push Jacob out like Gilbert has. If I have to drive him to school every day, I will for the right school!

With that being said...we are still having major behavior problems with Jacob. The people at his therapy center told me that his behaviors have gotten a whole lot worse in the past week. It seems like every week they are telling me that...haha. I met with them again trying to figure out a positive reinforcement program to come up with that will be used at therapy, at home, out in public, at grandmas house, at a babysitters house...everywhere. And let me tell you, its VERY hard trying to ignore the bad behavior but praise the good behavior. I didnt think it was going to be as hard as it is. Of course your initial reaction to a child doing something bad is to tell them no..but with Jacob we cant do that. Everything works on "5 stars" system. So like if we are at a restaurant or something we would say ok Jacob you need to get 5 stars and if you do you can pick out whatever you want for dessert. So every time he is good you tell him...good job you just got another star until he has his 5 stars. But when he does bad behavior you ignore it completely but the second hes doing good behavior that's when you praise him so he knows that its that kind of behavior that hes supposed to have. It has worked A LOT when ive enforced it...but its so hard to do it at all times. Especially when hes throwing toys or hitting Tyler or something destructive! His eye contact is getting worse also. It makes me wonder if there is something going on that is doing this to him. I wish I was rich I could take him to all these doctors that specialize in these kinds of things that don't take insurance.

Oh, this past weekend we went to a picnic put on by Jacobs therapy center. It was at the Power Ranch Club house thing and it was a lot of fun. But when Jacob would see his therapists he was hiding and did not want to look at any of them or talk to any of them. Then afterwards he told me he was scared. It was really weird. But we had a great time and the boys had a fun time also playing with their friends and playing on the playground.


GO suns!!! Its playoff time! Hopefully they can win it all!!!

And GO Dbacks!!! They are doing awesome this year so far!!!