I know, it's been quite a while since I blogged. I don't have any one great reason, but I do have a lot of small ones that I won't get into here. It seems pointless. In a nutshell, I've been crazy busy.
You see, I've enrolled in school. I tried the college thing after I graduated high school, but it just wasn't for me. At least, not at that time. My dad passed away half way through my junior year of high school and at that time, I was really trying to just graduate high school alive. Anything beyond that was unclear and out of reach.
So at that time in my life, college wasn't in the cards. I tried to go to trade school at one point and was elated about that. But right before my program started, the school closed that particular schedule, which was the only schedule I could take. This left me feeling like a failure.
School was finally in my grasp, I could make something of myself. I could be around our social group and be proud that I had completed schooling and I was something. And then it was taken away. A normal person would've said "Well eff this" and enrolled in another school, but I was just drained. The process of even getting started at that point had just been too much and shortly after, I ended up pregnant with Roo.
The thing is, I've always had dreams. It's not like I've been a slacker. My ultimate dream was to go to school for photography (something I had already taken plenty of courses in, along with film) and travel with National Geographic writing about my experiences and photographing all of it for the magazine. Obviously this was my "If you could do anything in the world" dream. My second to that was to teach art or creative writing. It's always been in the back of my mind.
"You could be going to school right now, you know. That teaching thing isn't so far out of reach." my subconscious would say.
So now that I'm confident with Monster in school and the timing is right, it's off to school I go. When I graduate, if all goes according to plan, Roo will be starting kindergarten.
On top of my excitement over starting school, Monster is starting the evaluation processes for getting his 504 plan or IEP.
The funny thing is, the psychologist said that she didn't know what we're worried about because he's gifted.
Yes, gifted. The ADHD is there, but so is this... other thing. I've always known how smart he is. He surprises me daily with these little nuggets of information that he's either retained or figured out for himself.
I've never considered myself particularly intelligent. I know I've got the whole common sense thing covered, but "book smarts" never came to me. As an adult, I know this has more to do with dyslexia and dyscalculia and teachers who are ill-equipped to teach this sort of brain, but the lack of confidence still lingers. So to hear that my son is gifted is quite the shock. For funsies, Jeep Man and I had Monster take an IQ test that's made for children ages 6-16. We know he's only five (and a half) but we figured he was close enough. People, he scored 130. On a test that he's not even supposed to be able to take yet. 1 freaking 30.
I'm positive that he gets this from his father. Jeep Man is one of the smartest people I know. He can figure out the mechanics of anything and have it taken apart and put back together, only learning the object as he goes.
Obviously this means that our decision to put him in Montessori school was a good one. He won't be limited to a curriculum that he's above just because of his age. Clearly he'll need intellectual stimulation and if he's reading on a second grade level, but stuck in a first grade routine, he'll be bored out of his mind. Bored children equal rowdy children.
He still doesn't know that he's got ADHD. We'll tell him when he's old enough to understand exactly what that entails. We also haven't told him about his giftedness (that's so not a word). We will, but only once we figure out exactly what it means for his education.
My life as of late has been a whirl-wind of activity. Appointments, school events, studying, gathering paper work for school plus the holidays coming. Oy.
So please, forgive my absence. I promise to come write about some of the funny that's gone on in these past few weeks as soon as I can get this laundry done... or maybe before. The cat is looking awfully comfortable on that pile and it'd just be rude to disturb her. ;-)
~ Dee
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