The Road To 3: Preschool Pressure

I'm blogging over the next few weeks about our journey to age 3 with Nash, my youngest son who will be turning the 3 in October. Check out my first post The Road To 3: Started at 2 here.

I cant talk about Nash turning 3 and leaving the Birth to Three program without details of our transition to the possible School District Preschool program through the state for early intervention. This program is available to children ages 3 - Kindergarten age, in Nash's case that means 5, as he will be a month away from 6 when he enters Kindergarten. Children (unless peer models) must qualify for needing special educational services. A evaluation is done by Nash's current therapist (Speech and OT)as well as the school district. The process started with paperwork and meetings about 3 months before Nash's third birthday, in our case July. As we are getting closer the evaluations started to happen earlier in the week and Friday was Nash's last evaluation at the school district.

Jodi, Nash's speech therapist arrived earlier in the week to do her part of the evaluation. Nash was thrilled to see her, it had been a few weeks for one reason or another we had missed speech sessions and so he was just overjoyed to see her. (This warms my heart, and is a far cry from a year ago at this time when he wanted nothing to do with her and we had to show him a picture of her a few days before she would come over to transition and give enough "warning" that she was in deed coming over to "play") she brought books, and picture charts and lots of paperwork and we started. Nash was eager to *preform* and please her and really enjoyed working with her on the evaluation. In the last few weeks he had hit this plateau and then just blew past it and had a huge growth in verbal skills of all kinds. This boded well for the evaluation to show just how far he (we) have all come. Jodi and I just sat in aw and grinned ear to ear as he showed off his hard fought skills some very new and some back from when we first started speech a year ago this month. In the end he scored at not only his appropriate age level but above for some areas.

Bittersweet! Why? Because deep in my heart I feel Nash needs this preschool program, and while his speech is now at a dare I say ;) *normal* level for his age, it will hold him back a little in the overall BIG picture and evaluations for getting into the school district preschool program. But all in all Jodi and I high-five at the end of the speech evaluation and Nash knows he has done a great job. One part of this that is not part of the evaluation but is still an area of concern is he would of done NONE of that had it been anyone else.He only did so well because it was Jodi. His social adapting while better is still far from where we would like it to be and luckily we have 3 years to work on that before Kindergarten and he is still young and we know he is growing in that area.

Next came the school districts part of the evaluation, I received a call a few weeks ago to schedule it and was told a little about the school he would be attending. A local Elementary School (for Privacy reasons we will call it was Nash's calls it "The Blue School" or Nash's School from here on out) its not the school the boys would be attending normally. That school (which will be Wyatts school for Kindergarten next year) does not have a preschool program. Its one of the closest ones in the district to us that does have the program. Its convenient, and I am familiar with the area and very familiar with the Kent School District. I attended school in the KSD for almost 5 years and Graduated from Kent Meridian High-School in 1997. Growing up in a family of teachers, administrators and principals, some who worked in the KSD. I only have good things to say about my time in the KSD and I am confident that my own children will fine the same good education (along with great parent involvement of course!!!!) that I did in the KSD.

So we went Friday for our meeting with the school district and Nash was immediately enthralled with the school, the class and the staff. He calls it "My blue school!" because of some blue paint he saw. Flash backs to the first evaluation we did, only this time my baby was not a baby anymore and he had grown not only physically but emotionally. He was not huddled behind me anymore, and he would now make brief eye contact with the teachers and give a little wave with a bat of the long eyelashes and a hello as only Nash can. I was so proud because he tried even in such an overwhelming situation, we were in a room with 6 educators and Nash and I sat around a table with them ready to tell the why I thought Nash needed this program. Nash soon found toys and played right by my side careful to keep a close eye on each and every one of the teachers....they noticed right away that he found a tote of cars, trains, planes, and boats that connected together. He pulled out EVERY train and connected ONLY the trains so by the end of our meeting he had at least 25 trains lined up in a row across the room. He would politely say "No thank you" when one of the teachers offered him something else or asked to talk to him. He was very sweet but didn't want to *play* with them yet. He played quietly next to me while I answered questions about Nash and his development.

Questions ranged for ages 0 - 5, so many obviously didn't pertain to us and we had a good laugh over some. Like if he walks to a friends house on his own yet. I mentioned this was a trick question with someone near bye to call Child Protective Services if I was to answer yes ;) because clearly I wouldn't let my 3 year old walk to a friends house. Others more serious about Nash's ability to do things himself, dress, brush his teeth, wash hands. This was the areas in which we then touched base about his "Sequencing" concerned we had. We have been just starting to work on this with his OT. I explained how Nash had problems doing more than 1 thing at a time. So something as simple as putting soap on his hands....then washing them.....then drying them is hard. Just TELLING him sometimes is now enough, you have to psychically do it with him and move him from one step to the next. Another example is when eating Nash will fill...sometimes over fill his mouth. This is because he will not chew AND put food in at the same time. So he will fill his mouth put down his spoon or fork and THEN start chewing.....try it sometime.....not easy. I quickly put my finger sweeps and choking skills to good use. Now he is monitored at all times when he eats so he takes small bites then chews and then takes another bite. He will also then only be given a very small amount of something to assure that he wont overfill his mouth. This is both sensory (filling his mouth) and sequencing (or lack there of).

A hour and a half later we had finished a 5 page evaluation and they had observed Nash who had now started playing with the speech teacher who had a Thomas Book which helped him connect with her and open up to her over last half hour of the evaluation. I was given a large stack of paperwork and told I would be called in a few days to let me know if he qualified. We set up another appointment for October 1st so if he did qualify we could have it on the calendar to start the process so he could start school October 11th. I never wanted more in my life to slip her a $20 and ask "so what do you think? is he in?" I know so bad right?!

Nash said goodbye and we left "The Blue School" and I honestly cant say if I FEEL he is in or not. Its very (and ironically enough always has been) borderline with Nash. Drumming to his own beat, he never has fallen into one clear cut category. In the past this has been hard for me. I am a planner in all areas of my life, not just in the fact that I would LOVE to know if he is going to be in the school or not. But also in general knowing where we are, what we are doing and how we are going to do it. Thats so hard to do with children (Wyatt too!) who just dont fit into a cookie cutter mold, not even close. Ironically enough, while it drives my OCD'ness crazy (and my friends and family know this all to well) its the best thing.....they are the best thing, that has happened to us and I wouldn't change anything.


So we wait.

~ Kristen