New Schools and pre-father's day

Yesterday I went to my first meeting at Finley's new school.  The school principal, special education teacher, and Finley's new Kindergarten teacher all wanted to meet and discuss her needs for next year.  I was glad that they were so willing to get started early, and so we set Friday morning as the date I would drive up and meet with them.

I had a tour of the school first.  This school has had a vision impaired student before and was renovated a few years ago to accommodate that student, so when we walked around, there wasn't much to point out.  The principal was highly conscious of things in the classroom that might be a navigation hazard and had quick solutions for solving them.  It was a great tour.  The kindergarten wing is fairly new, so each classroom is big and bright, and up to code (imagine that).  Plus - they have bathrooms in each room, so that is going to help.  There is a large cut out Mickey mouse that stands right outside the Kindergarten wing, so that is a great landmark for Finley.   I could go on and on, but just know that the tour went very well and I was very pleased with what I saw.

After the tour, we went through her IEP (individualized education plan) page by page and talked about Finley and her needs.  And they were very interested in her diagnosis and her future vision.  The teacher that was in the meeting had asked to have Finley next year, and I think she is going to be great.  She asked a lot of great questions, and had wonderful ideas of how to work with Finley and her needs.  So I think we are going to be just fine.  They are already starting to look for a teacher for the vision impaired, have contracted an orientation and movement specialist, and have an aide in mind for Finley.  And the teacher was GREAT.  She was sweet, and "seasoned".  She teaches sign language to the class as well, and was excited about also doing a braille letter each week.  She asked me to come in and volunteer as well, so that should be fun.

All in all - a great meeting.  I left there with a big sigh of relief that we are going to start off great in this school  I can even separate the kids -there are three kindergarten classes, so Finley and Cainan will have two different teachers.  That is for Finley's sake, mostly.  She leans on Cainan a lot, and I really need her to learn independence and to self advocate.  I know that Finley is a bit scared to start kindergarten.  She was counting on her sister being on the bus with her, but she won't.  But Cainan will be there.  And she asked if she was scared, if she could hold Cainan's hand.  About broke my heart.  But I need to give her this shove.  I see her introverting more and more these days as her vision goes down hill, so I need to build her confidence that she can do this without her brother.

After I left the little's new school, I ran over to Arlington's school (in this district Finley and Cainan's school is K-2, and Arlington is Grades 3-5) to drop off her paperwork for her registration.  Her school is BEAUTIFUL.  They just fully renovated it this past fall - this is their first school year in the building.  It was really, really nice.  she will be excited to see it.  It is quite large, which might worry her, but I think she will adjust quickly.

I was back at work by 12:30, so it was a productive morning!

Today, Arlington had a play date with two of her good friends.

"E" is her bestie.  She wishes so much we weren't moving because of "E" (who is the girl to the right in the picture).  "K" is another great friend.  I know Arlington is going to miss her friends so much and that is going to be a big adjustment.

The girls stayed and played for about 4 hours and had a great time.  We had a picnic and did smores after lunch and then the girls went home.  Arlington also had a birthday party today, so she was ready for bed tonight.

We also went out and had dinner for Father's day tonight.  Mat and Arlington are going to Mass. tomorrow to walk the property lines so we can see where we are going to extend the new yard.  So they are going to be gone most of tomorrow afternoon.  So we went today.  We went our for BBQ - one of Mat's favorite dinner choices.  It was fun.  For father's day we got him his own Ipod.  He has mentioned it because of the train rides he is taking and longer (peaceful) car rides he will be making to work.  I had loaded a lot of songs and books onto his Ipod already, and left him some room to add a few of his own choices.  It was fun to surprise him with it.