Mira’s Turning Five – Everybody Jump, Jump!

Had Mira actually followed directions, today would have been her birthday. Her due date was May 21, and I had hoped she’d be one of those rare babies born on her due date, continuing a family tradition of being born on the 21st of a month.

Instead, she decided to wait nearly a week to make her entrance so I could endure anxiety over another c-section (she was a VBAC, meaning I was required to go into labor without medical help) and enjoy one more week of being enormously pregnant and spending my nights in the recliner trying to find some small shred of comfort so I could sleep.

She was then born on Memorial Day weekend, ensuring she could never have a successful birthday party on her birthday, because everyone has plans for the holiday weekend. It wasn’t hard for the first few years – we invited only close friends and family to our house. But this year she’s turning five, and after all of the invites to her classmates parties at different party houses around the city, Mira wanted a special party of her own.

So even though she isn’t turning five until next Sunday, she had her big party this weekend at a bounce house facility. (Imagine a big warehouse filled with all sorts of inflatable things to bounce on and slide down.) This was our first adventure at having a party somewhere other than our house, and it went really well.

I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the party, most of which is due to my own issues with birthday parties. As a kid, I had just one party. I invited all of my class, planned out games and food, and wanted it to be a big, fun time. And then no one from my class showed up. The only other person close in age to me who was there was my best friend, who lived two doors down. I was heartbroken that no one in my class wanted to come to my party, and I’ve never had another non-family birthday party since. If it wasn’t for my best friend showing up, I might have given up on the idea of celebrating birthdays entirely.

Hours before Mira’s party, I started to feel that tightening in my chest. What if no one shows up? A few of her classmates had already RSVP’d that they weren’t coming, and several didn’t respond at all. We had three confirmed to attend, but I worried they’d back out at the last minute.

(PSA to all parents: please RSVP to any invites your kid receives. We had limited space and could have invited more kids if people would have responded to us.)

Thankfully, all three showed up, along with several kids from our close friends. We were well short of the 25 kid maximum for the party, but it was still a lot of fun.

Mira, of course, LOVED being the queen of the party.

No, Mira, they’re not ALL for you.

Sigh…my baby doesn’t need help opening her presents anymore.

Everyone bounced and jumped and played, even the adults. Everyone ate snacks and cupcakes. I’d like to hope that every child expended enough energy to sleep well that night. (You’re welcome, parents.) And like a good little hostess, Mira thanked everyone for coming and personally handed out the goodie bags at the end.

Overall I’d call it a success. Now if we could just get her to understand that she’s turning five, not sixteen.



Setting Up A Token System

In the past week I’ve described the token system we use for chores and good behavior for the kids to three different people, so I thought why not share it with everyone? We don’t give an allowance weekly at this point because neither of our girls have a strong enough grasp of money, and because many of the things they want aren’t things at all but privileges that have little to no cost to us.

We reward Cordy and Mira for good behavior and for helping around the house with doubloons. The idea was originally given to us by one of Cordy’s therapists, suggesting a token system can work well for kids with high-functioning autism, as they can see a concrete reward for tasks they accomplish and then use those tokens to “purchase” the perks they want.

The idea for using doubloons came from Jake and the Neverland Pirates last fall. Cordy saw it on TV and loved how the pirates collected doubloons for solving problems throughout the show. At the same time, Cordy was obsessed with dressing as a pirate princess for Halloween. Aaron realized that would be the perfect token system, so he bought a big bag of plastic gold coins, grabbed a mug for each kid (from our renaissance festival days) and we started to plan the system.

I think they’re Greek coins instead of pirate doubloons. Eh, they don’t know the difference.

You can make the system as loose or rigid as you like. We’re somewhere in-between. There are daily tasks that they know they earn doubloons for – these are often tasks that they have trouble remembering to do, or are difficult things we want them to master.

For example, Cordy has trouble remembering to turn off her bedroom light each morning. She gets one doubloon for remembering to do it each morning. She also has to take a pill each morning, which she doesn’t like to do, so she gets a doubloon for doing that, too.

When the task can be done without reminder and without the need for a reward, we phase out the doubloon reward and find other routine tasks to reward for. They get doubloons for helping Aaron or I without complaining (like helping us load/unload the dishwasher or take out the recycling) and for assigned chores that they complete.

We also award them doubloons for good behavior. If they’re playing well together, or if they spontaneously do something helpful, they can get bonus doubloons. 

They keep their coins in the mugs and then use them to buy privileges. Some of the privileges they can choose from:

  • Extra 20 min on the computer/iPad – 1 coin
  • A treat of 1 piece of candy – 3 coins
  • Staying up an extra 30 min after normal bedtime – 5 coins
  • Getting fast food for dinner – 5 coins
  • A trip out to the zoo or another fun place (if we didn’t already plan for it & time allowing) – 10 coins

Of course, anything that Aaron or I decide to offer to them doesn’t cost anything. If we plan to go to the zoo one Saturday, they aren’t required to pay. If they want something that isn’t on our list, we can assign a doubloon value to it. Mira once wanted a Happy Napper toy, but she had no money. We set a value of 20 doubloons for it, and she saved her coins until she could cash them in to buy her toy.

We like using this system at the moment because the coins have no actual money value (other than the few dollars it cost to buy the bag of them), so they can use them for non-money privileges like extra computer time or staying up late. Many times these privileges are just as valuable to them as anything they could buy. When they’re older we can move to an allowance instead of tokens, but at this age it works very well.

The system works well because it is flexible and can be adapted for nearly any family. You can set your own guidelines on how tokens are earned and cashed in, and you can adjust the rewards and tasks that earn tokens as a child grows and masters new skills. It’s a fun system that lets kids earn their privileges and gives parents a chance to set non-monetary rewards for good behavior. Win-win.



We (Don’t) Wear Short Shorts

Now that the weather is warmer and my children have proven they’ve grown just enough over the winter to no longer fit in last summer’s clothing, it’s time for my annual disgust at clothing for girls. And really, it focuses on just one item: shorts.

I’ll begin by saying my girls are not the dainty flowers who never show a drop of sweat. Oh no, they’re hot, sweaty creatures who come home from summer camp each day with their sweaty hair matted to their heads. So shorts are kind of a necessary item to help keep them cool.

My problem with girls’ shorts is in the length. Nearly all shorts for girls have an inseam somewhere between barely reaching the top of the thigh and indecent. Those that are slightly longer often have leg openings so wide that they might as well be loose mini-skirts, or are skin-tight bike shorts.

 I love the fabric of these Children’s Place shorts, but that inseam is WAY shorter than you might think!

Cordy and Mira are seven and nearly-five. (Mira won’t let me forget her birthday is coming up in a few weeks.) They are not lady-like in any way. When they wear dresses, we must pair them with bike shorts or leggings, and probably will continue doing so until they’re older. Like maybe eighteen.

I don’t want people seeing my children’s underwear. I want them to have shorts of a reasonable length that they can play in comfortably without fear of someone seeing a flash of Disney Princesses or Dora underneath. Is that really so much to ask for?

No. Way.

Apparently it is. In my search for shorts this season, I’ve come across very few options. When I do find “bermuda” shorts (which fit the length requirements, even though some manufacturers apparently go too far and make these nearly capris), they’re often out-of-stock so quickly that I missed out on the sizes we need. I guess I’m not the only parent looking for longer shorts.

Target had some great longer shorts last year and I bought as many as I could at the time, even buying a few a size up for Cordy. We’re using the larger size shorts now, but we still need more thanks to a kid who is hard on clothing. They have a new bermuda design this year, but the fabric is even heavier and the waistband is very thick – I bought a couple of them to try, but the fit isn’t nearly as good as the previous ones.

Thick fabric (waist tie isn’t real thank goodness), almost knee length, but otherwise not too bad.

All I’m asking for is a reasonably priced pair of knit shorts with an elastic waist (Cordy can’t work zippers or buttons, and yes, we’re working on it.) with a length that falls somewhere mid-thigh with a straight leg or slightly tapered shape to them.

Maybe it’s time to start shopping in the boys’ section?



Happy IEP Surprises

Yesterday we got to spend an hour in an IEP transition meeting. While any type of meeting tied to an IEP would cause me an incredible amount of stress, this was Mira’s transition meeting for kindergarten and we already had the heads up from her teacher that they were planning to discharge her from any additional support.

We knew this was going to happen and we were in total agreement. Mira entered special needs preschool two years ago because of a speech delay known as speech apraxia. She had great verbal comprehension, but her annunciation was extremely poor, to the point that no one could understand a word she said. Even as her parents, we could only interpret about 25% of what she said. When she was first evaluated, they also noticed some weakness in gross motor skills, but otherwise she was a typically developing toddler. (Read: no autism.)

Years of speech therapy made a huge difference for Mira, and now she’s understood most of the time. So we weren’t going to argue that she was ready for kindergarten without any need for support. But we still had to sit through the meeting to review the final assessment from her team.

Most of it was what we expected. She still has some sound substitutions when she speaks, but there’s no consistency to when she does it and she didn’t come close to the threshold for still needing services. Her verbal comprehension score was the highest the speech therapist had ever seen, so we know that’s still going well.

Her occupational therapist said she had great fine motor control, better than many kids her age, as long as you exclude her weird pencil grip. Continuing a long family tradition, she doesn’t hold her pencil properly, and her odd grip is different from any other odd grip in our family. (And all four of us hold a pencil differently, with all four ways being wrong. Ah well, thank goodness for typing!)

The physical therapist told us that Mira has improved in her balance and coordination, but still has issues. She seems to have weak ankles and continues to be plagued by invisible gremlins tripping her all the time. The kid can fall down walking across a smooth, even floor. It’s possible she just has poor motor planning – or her brain is acting faster than her muscles can keep up with. Either way, she recommended Mira get more involved in physical activities to help with her balance and coordination, but that she scored high enough to no longer need their help.

The big shock came from the school psychologist. A standard part of the evaluation is a test of cognitive ability – in other words, an IQ test. She told us that Mira took a long time to complete the test, not due to any problems, but because they have to keep going in each section until she missed too many to continue.

Although apparently she took the test while wandering the room, putting her head down, resting her feet on the table, and generally wiggling all over the place. She had to bribe Mira with candy to get her to sit still, but admitted that Mira answered the questions just fine while moving all around.

I expected Mira’s results to be on the high end of average, or maybe even slightly outside of average. Her teachers have praised how well she does in preschool, and we know she’s a bright kid.

The psychologist covered up Mira’s scores with a piece of paper and uncovered them slowly, one at a time. This confused me – why the big reveal as if we’re on a game show? And let’s reveal the number in the next column…

Mira’s scores were amazing. She scored in the 99th percentile in all areas, or as interpreted by the psychologist: highly gifted. She was answering questions rated for kids over 8 years old. As she went through the data, it didn’t feel real to me. A day later, it’s finally sinking in.

I’m not trying to brag, although I’m super proud of her. The results caught me by surprise; I think I laughed out loud when she explained the scores to us. I’ve always thought of Mira as a smart little girl, but gifted? Apparently I was underestimating her. And like her sister, she doesn’t like to show what she knows to us until she feels she’s mastered it.

So the team recommended she no longer receive services for special needs, but did recommend that once she starts kindergarten we meet early with her teacher to discuss how to deal with her. She’s high energy and can’t sit still, needing a lot of extra work to keep her mind engaged. She’s a motor mouth and bossy, even to adults. (She thinks she knows it all.) If she is corrected or told she made a mistake – even the slightest correction – she breaks into tears and doesn’t want to continue what she’s doing.

But she’s also helpful, cheery, and loves to learn. She makes friends easily and is a master of social interaction. Her teachers adore her and love her enthusiasm in class.

We left the meeting happily surprised and confident that she’s ready to tackle kindergarten as a typical student. She may be gifted, but there are no supports for that at her age, so we’ll rely on working with her teacher next year to make sure she’s properly challenged at school and at home. 

And yeah, we’re probably doomed.


School Lottery: You Have To Play To Win

Or, like the real lottery, you play and still don’t win.

I’m learning that my kids certainly didn’t get the luck of the Irish when it comes to school lotteries. When Cordy was entering kindergarten, we applied for the school lottery to keep her at the school where she attended pre-K, knowing it wasn’t her home school but was a good fit for her. We were allowed to lottery for up to three schools, and so I picked two others that had a curriculum that might work for her.

That year, she didn’t get any of her three choices. It was only through an IEP loophole that the school principal made it possible for Cordy to stay at her current school, which has overall been a good place for her.

As much as I try to deny it, Mira will be starting kindergarten next year. (WHERE DID THE YEARS GO?) We had the lottery option again, and chose to select three schools for her. One of the choices – and really our top pick – was Cordy’s school. It only made sense to have them both at the same school, so I would no longer have to coordinate two different school arrivals and then wait an entire hour between bus drop offs in the afternoon. One pickup, one drop off = simple.

Just to be safe, we also listed two other schools in the district with excellent reputations. Our assigned home school is OK, but doesn’t have the academic report card and word-of-mouth recommendations that the other schools do. One of the other choices was a school close to Cordy’s, so at least they’d be close to each other if not at the same school.

I convinced myself that this was just a formality and Mira would likely be accepted to Cordy’s school. After all, the district does state that they have sibling preference as some part of the lottery algorithm.

Proving that my daughters should avoid any games of chance in their lives, the letter arrived last month stating that Mira did not get a spot in any of the schools we tried for. She was so far down on the wait list for each school that they’d have to accept two new classes of kindergarteners before she might even be considered. In other words: no chance at all.

I’m disappointed. Having both girls attend the same school was my ideal option. Not only because it’s an excellent school with teachers and administrators I like and respect, but also because it would have been amazingly convenient for me. If I needed to pick them up, they’d be in one location. There would be only one bus schedule to follow.

If Mira attends our assigned school, it means my kids are on opposite ends of Columbus for the school day, making picking both of them up at the end of the school day impossible without cloning myself or developing transporter technology.

But unlike Cordy’s loophole, there really isn’t a loophole for Mira. She’s not already attending Cordy’s school, and she won’t have an IEP. I’ll keep exploring all options, but everything at the moment points to me accepting disappointment. I can’t take Cordy out of her school – the disruption would be very hard on her – but there’s no way to get Mira closer to her short of moving to a house closer to Cordy’s school. (Which we’ve considered, if it wasn’t for that whole housing market crash.)

I’ll attempt to plead with the principal to see if she knows of any way to make it happen. With Cordy it was easy – the principal and all of the staff were enchanted with her, so they wanted her there. Maybe I’ll take Mira with me to talk to her. Then again, considering Mira and her bossy nature, maybe leaving her at home would be best.

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