Monday, March 14, 2011

Waiting for the Bus to Come

Nathan started preschool the Friday after his third birthday in January. The first day was a little hard for him, but he loves going to school now. Nebo School District started a "Baby 3" class for preschool where the new 3 year old child attends school with one of his parents on Fridays for an hour and a half. Since Nathan had the first birthday of the year, he didn't have any classmates for a month. Jake and I were very concerned that he needed to be with "model" peers and so we stated that he needed to be in preschool at least 2 days a week. I felt as if we were having to negotiate his education, but a least Nathan was able to be put in another class with other children who are eating and speaking better than he is.

Nathan's team of teachers are really nice and I am impressed with what they are doing to help him in school. I am disappointed with the feeding therapy that is being given by the speech therapist and will be asking for a referral for an occupational therapist to come and work with Nathan as well. A portion of Nathan's Individual Education Plan states that he will eat and drink so much by next year and so far the speech therapist has left the feeding completely up to me. Then she had the gall to say that she has so much time allotted to Nathan and did I want him to have more speech therapy or more feeding therapy? That's why I want another therapist... Nathan needs both equally but apparently even though its in his IEP its no big deal to her. I understand our responsibilities for working with Nathan at home. We have been working very hard eating for 3 years. That included weekly visits from the occupational therapist from early intervention, bi weekly feeding therapy from Orem Pediatric Rehab, quarterly evaluations from the Dysphagia Clinic at Primary Children's... and daily home work with Nathan. We have put so much into this and we are very invested as a family to help him. He has an opportunity to get help at school and the mama bear in me is angry that his therapist is acting the way that she is. Sigh. I am going to be speaking with Nathan's teacher this week about getting the referral so we'll see how that goes.

Nathan's very favorite part of going to school is being able to ride the bus on Thursdays. He loves to wait for it and every Thursday when I come home from work when I ask about school he tells me about riding the school bus, or as he pronounces it ("Cool Bus"). I think Elisabeth is a litle jealous that she isn't able to ride the bus to school, but when I remind her that she is able to go to school with her Dad and that Nathan doesn't she usually quiets right back down.





4 comments:

Annie said...

He is so cute with his coat and hat on, all ready to go to school! ;)

Allison said...

Oh I would have been SO frustrated with your speech therapist! I can't imagine that he wouldn't qualify for additional OT hours, so I sure hope that you can get his teacher on board. In any case, he looks so cute out waiting for the "cool bus". :)

carolyn q said...

He just seems to little to be riding the bus. But those pictures are so cute.
(HUGS)

Lisa said...

That's right, the cool bus! I wish it would have been called that when I was riding it as a freshman in high school! :)

That is frustrating about his therapist; I hope you can work something out.