A sentence or two and an IEP

First let me start off by saying thank you to those that read this blog. I appreciate the time you all take to read my ramblings and see the progress that my little monkey has made over the years!!!(: Michael has his 4th grade IEP today. Usually, I'm a basketcase... Full of anxiety and nervous and easily offended when I have to sit back with Brad and hear all the professionals list what Michael CAN'T do. But today I have a good feeling about this!! The thing is.. We know Michael has so much potential. We've seen it. We know he wants to talk. We are going to continue to fight the fight and we know we will be successful in getting Michael the appropriate education!! Go Michael Go!!! So why am I so sure of myself??? Why do I feel so confident in my nonverbal, speech apraxia child, who has never spoken a sentence in his life or more than a handful of words in the 9 years he's been with me, how am I so confident in his abilities??? Because although Michael can't communicate with us like everyone else... He's making huge progress talking via his iPad. He isn't just pushing pictures and having those pictures say the word... He's creating sentences. Noun. Verb. Appropriate sentence structure!!! On Wednesday, I was busy with Cam, Michael was on the couch with CJ and we were just watching tv... Michael had his iPad in hand, and without any prompts, he spoke a sentence. I WANT COOKIE.... And then later I WANT CHOCOLATE MILK. Wow!!! Two sentences!!! And both were appropriate. You see, we had a cookie cake and I had told Michael he had to wait... And he kept pointing to the cake, but I made him wait. As soon as he spoke those words... I caved!!! I'm going to get that boy his cookie cake because he SPOKE a sentence. He created a real sentence!!! I'm so so proud of you!!! My little monkey is growing up and I'm so excited to hear what words he speaks next!!!

Soccer is FUNNNNN

Michael started his FAVORITE fall sport last weekend! SOCCER!!! Michael has been talking about soccer for a couple weeks, in his own little way... he shuffles his feet and points to the ground. (Soccer). Jacob had basketball tryouts and Michael signed 'basketball' and I said, no buddy, you have soccer on Saturday. you start Soccer really soon. On Friday, I picked the boys up from school and as soon as Michael got in the car, he shuffled his feet, and lifted his pointer finger (1 day). "Yes Michael, one day and you play soccer". He started smiling and clapped and clapped his hands! He knew, hes been waiting for soccer to start for a while! Saturday morning at 6am, Michael came in my room like always, and woke me up. I looked up at him and he was smiling and holding his soccer jersey from the previous year!! I said, "Michael, do you want to wear that today??" "yes" with a knock of his right hand. Alright- we are dressed and ready to go. Sissy is with us and we make the 45 minute trek to the soccer park!!! We are so fortunate to live in a community with resources like the SPENSA program that has so many volunteers and staff to help special needs kids play soccer. Its actually pretty overwhelming to see how many groups of kiddos are there to help assist people like Michael. Soccer lasts an hour with about 45 minutes of time to let the kids prepare for the game. They learn the logistics of the game, kicking the ball down the field between cones- Michael's not a big fan of the cones- he just made a b-line for the goal.. Then the group broke into two groups and played a real game. Michael did really well! He got the ball away from a kid a couple of times and scored a goal (wrong end for the

goal, but really who cares!). The only thing we are really going to have to work on is him hogging the ball and trying to make everyone move out of the way so he has plenty of room to kick. HA! he gets the ball and he will stand there and wave his hands back and forth so the kids know to give him space. And he wont move until he's content with that. You have to imagine the ref "Cmon Michael, kick the ball". Cam and I saying, "Michael, Michael, you've got to kick" and hes just standing there waving his hands, and shaking his head 'no'. He was going to kick the ball when he was ready!!! It amazes me how well Michael can communicate with people that dont know him. He amazes me everyday! Proud of you buddy!