Is it summer yet?

This happens every year. The day when the kids (or namely just the kid, you know, the ADD kid) just give up for the year. Classwork gets blown off and homework is a nightmare. It's like they know that it's ALMOST summer, so it should be goofing off time, right?

Yesterday I get an email from the teacher. "Kimberly refused to do ANYTHING today, I'm sending all the work home [for you to deal with]." Fabulous. Because I had soooo much extra time in MY evening to deal with homework PLUS three assignments she didn't get done in class.

Yesterday after school we had a meeting to review Kimberly's 504 plan. It went well. We made a couple of changes, took out some stuff that was outdated, and looked at what would need to be done differently for 6th grade. They start switching classes in 6th grade, so things are going to get interesting. Some things were rephrased, much to my delight, since I was a little miffed that the previous teacher's label of "disruptive" had remained in one section. All in all a good meeting, but because of it we had an hour and a half less time for homework and stuff that should have been finished in class.

Needless to say we weren't able to get it all done, so it carried over to today. When I picked the kids up from school Kimberly was rambling on and on about some video assignment she had to do. Now I have to admit I wasn't completly listening. For one thing, I have ADD too, and for another, Kimberly loves to talk. I swear she talks just to hear herself talk. Really. Like she will read the makes and models of all the cars we pass on the road. So I kinda tune her out sometimes. So I'm all whatever, she has some kind of report, it will probably be due in a couple of weeks and we will have some time to work on it. I tell her that we don't have a working video camera and I'm thinking to myself maybe some kinda powerpoint presentation will suffice.

We get home and I tell her to start on her homework, that she has a lot to do, because she has to get the rest of the assignments done tonight too. She asks "so you want me to do tonight's homework first, then work on the assignments from yesterday?" I tell her yes. She goes off to her room. An hour later I go to check on her thinking that she should be done by now and I need to prod her to get to work on the other stuff.

I find her sitting on her bed watching tv. I ask her where her homework is and she pulls her assignment sheet out of her backpack. Wanna take a wild guess what it said?? "Read for 20 minutes. Timeline - didn't do in class. 10 events in her life. She wants to do a video instead of writing." So not only has she wasted an hour doing nothing, we have last night's assignments PLUS now a timeline video thing that I don't have a video camera to do.

So I tell her "guess what? since you spent an hour goofing off AND this timeline thing could have been done in class to begin with, I'm not going out of my way to help you do a powerpoint on it, you are just going to write it." I'm such a mean mommy. For Kimberly writing is the most difficult thing on the planet. Not that she isn't incredibly creative, it just requires the kind of sustained attention that she is so terribly lacking in. So it's in her 504 that she can do alternative assignments that don't require as much writing.

Now it's time to play "let's make a deal". Kimberly loves to try and bargain. Someday she's going to make a great lawyer or snake oil salesman. After 15 minutes of her trying to bargain, now I'm getting frustrated. "YOU AREN'T GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND CHILD, NOW GET TO WORK, YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME TO GET THIS DONE".

Finally she sits down to work. On one of the assignments from yesterday. Answering 3 questions about a chapter in a book they are reading in class. Five minutes later she's whining about how she can't answer the questions because she didn't read the chapter, because she was still working on one of the other assignments that she didn't get done yesterday. ARE.YOU.FREAKING.KIDDING.ME??

I tell her to go work on the timeline and I start thinking of how to solve this little dilema.
I search online for the answers.
No luck.
Maybe the library that is 3 minutes from my house has the book.
Nope.
Call Barnes & Noble.
They have it.
Hold it for me, I'm on my way.

Forty five minutes later I'm back with the book. She's finished the timeline and showered. She reads the chapter. She answers the questions. It's 10:15 and she finally goes to bed. Bedtime is supposed to be 8:30. Tomorrow she will be tired. When she's tired she has bad days at school. So her inability to get her work done yesterday is going to snowball and ruin our whole week.

I just want it to be summer. No more school. No more homework. I'm done too.

Updates

I was reading through my older posts just now. I like reading what I write. I crack myself up. Hopefully lots of other people think I'm as funny as I do. In reading my old posts I came across a couple of posts that I felt required updating. So here you go.

Remember when I told you that Lizards Can't Swim? Kimberly fished a dead lizard out of the pool and then decided it needed to be buried? I even included a nifty picture of the burial? Well about a month ago I found a box in my garage labeled "Do not open. Lizard inside" Yup, you guessed it. Apparently after the burial, Kimberly decided she wasn't done playing with the dead lizard and robbed his little lizard grave and played with him some more. Then she decided to stash him in the garage for safe keeping. Well let me tell you, by late June it's a nice 110 degrees here, and it probably gets up to like 130 in the garage. Not the best place for keeping a 4 month old dead creature. Eww. I threw the whole box away and didn't even peek.

On another note, remember in March when I proudly told you I had finally sorted the sock basket. Well, I can now, not so proudly tell you that it hasn't been touched again since. In my defense we haven't had much need for socks in the last two months with the kids out of school and all, but I'm still pretty ashamed.

Lastly, remember when I told you about our 504 meeting. It went so well. I was so encouraged. Well by the time I got the actual printed version in my hands I was not happy with how things were worded so I sent it back asking for certain things to be corrected. The teacher then countered my corrections and refused to sign off on it. We ended up needing to have two more meetings with the District 504 supervisor on hand to mediate. Of course she understood where I was coming from and the fact that I was 100% right on everything I was asking for. As a bonus, she even suggested some really cool shit I hadn't even thought about. The end result was, the day before school ended we finally had our 504 plan in place. It only took all year. The teacher still wasn't thrilled with the fact that she had to sign off on it, and I wanted to say "Why do you care? It's not like you are going to have to do any of these things since there is only one day of school left", but I didn't. I think maybe she was worried about the other teachers kicking her ass when they found out about it.

Through the looking glass

Today was a big day. We finally had the 504 meeting, and it went better than expected. Kimberly's teacher came to the meeting with a list of accomodations that she has been providing and seeing success with in the classroom. Could this be the same woman who told me a few weeks ago that she didn't think Kimberly needed a 504? Now I have to wait for them to actually write up the plan and review it, but I think (finally) the worst of it is over.

As for myself, today was the day that I started my ADD treatment. I finally decided, after several years of speculating that I had it, to go and get myself diagnosed and see if it didn't make a difference in my life. It took quite a lot to get to this point. It's hard to admit that there is something wrong with you, and that you don't have control over yourself. I've spent the last few years believing that if I got this far without treatment I didn't need it. But just as I tell my daughter that she needs to take her pills to help her do better at school, would the pills not help me to do better in life? Am I setting a good example for her by not getting myself treatment? So I made an appointment and went. Even on the way there I debated whether I really wanted to take this step. After speaking to the doctor and going over the list of reasons that I felt I was most likely ADD, he agreed. He gave me a prescription and encouraged me to make an appointment with a therapist. This was already the next step in my plan because now I realize that I am not the things I have thought I was for so long. I'm not lazy, I'm not a procrastinator, I can finish what I start, but I needed the proper tools.

This morning was surreal. As I opened the bottle and took out the pill I thought about the consequenses (and the Matrix). Take the pill and know the truth. Take the pill and truly be awake for the first time. Take the pill and realize my potential. It was scary. There is something very comforting about what is already known. If I didn't take the pill my life would go on as it always had. I would continue to do the things I always did. I wouldn't have to re-learn how to do anything. I wouldn't have to admit I was less than perfect. I wouldn't have to face the world as an adult with ADD. I could go on being the quirky girl that my friends, husband, and kids love who can't ever remember where she left her car. In the end I chose to take the pill. We will see what happens now.

What part of DISORDER do you not understand?

Isn't it just lovely when you are having a conversation with someone and they don't seem to listen to anything you say. This is how I've felt all year every time I talk to my daughter's teacher. She seems to live on her own little planet. It's not the same one where I reside.

Today I had my parent teacher conference with my daughter's teacher. She said that my daughter was doing well, progressing well, etc. When my daughter mentioned that she was excited to finally be getting her 504 plan written up, her teacher got this horrified, deer in the headlights look, and proceeded to tell me that she didn't think my daughter needed one. She then said that my daughter could do everything required in class if she would just focus. FOCUS? Is that not another word for Attention? Is Attention not the thing that my daughter has a clearly diagnosed DISORDER with?

I'm so sick and tired of everyone thinking that my daughter should just try harder, I could scream. She tries hard. She tries very hard. I wish people could see that. It's so frustrating to her when people treat her like she is lazy or not trying. I'm happy that next week is spring break and I get to spend some time with my kids away from school. They deserve it.

The big day

I finally have a date for the meeting to write my daughter's 504 plan. I'm so very nervous. I've obviously never done this before. I've read so many books and internet articles about them since I first learned about their existence last year so I think I have a pretty good idea about what I want included in it, but once again, I feel like the underdog. I've learned that school districts aren't exactly forthcoming with information about how to obtain or write a 504 plan. They don't exactly tell you what is available to your child. You have to be informed and go in and ask for it. I feel like I am preparing for battle, which is not a feeling I enjoy. The next 22 days will be devoted to brushing up on my knowledge. If anyone has personal experience or knows of a good website on the topic, please share.