Her latest post is about bullying…a topic near and dear to my heart.  Please read her story and absorb it all in.  Her words are powerful.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

Blind baby.

Bat.

Four eyes.

Retard.

Blind bitch.

Freak of nature.

Freak.

Freak.

The words echo in my head. Memories of the past, like flags flapping in the wind which I can hear, and which serve as reminders of various occasions. I am scarred deeply from the taunts of other children. I learned to fight back, to scream, to strike out, to tell adults, but none of it ever did any good. I was just a freak anyway. I couldn’t see where the kids were coming from half the time, but I tried to face them, and yell taunts back, telling them they were ignorant and using words far too complex for my tiny self.

The teasing started when I was three-years-old. It’s how I learned I was different from other kids. Before pre-school I had no idea that I wasn’t like other people. I learned fast. I was different and it was not a good difference.

Taunting continued through my years of school. My mother would try to soothe my worries each night, giving me ammunition to spit back at the bullies. My brother would threaten to beat the other kids up if he ever heard them teasing me, or saw them picking on me.

By junior high the teasing was so bad that every morning before school I was physically ill. My stomach would cramp violently and I would be sick. I was so different from the other kids from my blindness to my as yet undiagnosed aspergers’ syndrome. I remember running into our backyard and clamping my hands onto one of our raised flower beds, as I sat upon it, tears streaming down my face, my words pleas to stay home.

Even the teachers weren’t always nice to me. I have this perseverative behavior of tapping something on my face. I would commonly use a pen or pencil because they were available. This was calming and I would do it when I was thinking. A teacher once called me before the class and demonstrated what I did and told me it looked stupid and she better not see me do it again. I tried to keep such behavior to myself at home, where my parents allowed me to do it alone, and not in public, but sometimes I would become overwhelmed and out the behavior would come. Teachers always pointed out the dark spots on my nose from trying to write close to my face with a dark pen, or soft leaded artists pencil as well. It just added to the kids who made fun of me for basically kissing my books as I tried to hold the large print editions near my face for close inspection.

By high school I was using a long white cane for mobility. Most kids started to shun me because of it. My closest friends even acted awkward around it at first, not knowing what to expect, but they overcame it quickly and treated me normally. Only one friend never changed in how she viewed me.

High school was just more of the same though. I had few friends and the school was larger which increased the amount of bullies. I would cut class and go to the agricultural area of the campus and play with the animals, or to the library to read audio books, or just chill. I felt alone, and I began to realize that I really was a freak because I wasn’t like the other kids. When they hid my cane one day while I was busy cleaning out rabbit cages in the school’s barn, I finally cried when I went to go to my next class, unable to find my way there. I groped through the spider webs in the barn’s corners, and tripped over pieces of equipment, but I finally did find my cane, and boy was I ever mad, even through my sorrow for being a freak. I wanted to get even, but knew I couldn’t.

It was the first time in my life that I just really wanted to die. Depression over came me, but I told no one and went about my days. I didn’t reach out to anyone, because I didn’t want adults to worry, and wasn’t sure what my friends would say. I stopped going to school when I fell ill because of a kidney infection. I was very weak. When I recovered it was easier just to stay home. School was a living hell. My mother knew that I wasn’t thriving with the other kids torturing me, so she seldom forced me to go to school.

As a result, one day the truant officer came to our house. She was a neighbor of ours. My mother greeted her warmly and offered her a cup of tea. She was all serious though, and informed us that she was visiting on business. Basically everything was laid out on the line. I either had to return to school or they were going to kick me out. I didn’t care. Let them kick me out, I thought, happily.

It was decided that I would transfer to the alternative high school. It was known for having gang bangers, teen mothers, drug addicts, and kids who were in trouble with the law. I didn’t know how I’d hold up against all of them, but I did know that it was fewer hours every day, and it had an unstructured format, so I could work at my own pace and help plan some of my studies. That part of it was right up my alley.

On my first day I was terrified. My mother dropped me off and I felt like I was back at pre-school with my mom leaving me for the first time. After a few hours I started to relax. The teachers were addressed by their first names. We had time cards we had to have stamped to prove we were in class, and it was up to us to show up. Homework was a privilege we could only earn by participating in class. The more work we got done the sooner we could graduate.

The best part, was from the moment I set foot on campus the other kids were welcoming. They didn’t ask questions about my blindness. It was a given that I couldn’t see. It was just another difference, like they had differences, and I was respected for it. The other kids talked to me about other subjects, normal subjects, and I felt like I was part of the whole.

A year after I had been at the alternative high school a new student started attending classes. He stepped in front of me one day, my cane making contact with him. He opened his mouth and started to chastise me for hitting him with my cane, even though he had purposefully stepped in front of me, and in a flash he was surrounded by a group of guys. They told him that no one made fun of me. They laid it down like a rule and threatened to mess him up if he tried it again. He got really scared, and started spouting apologies.

That was the only teasing I ever faced at that school.

I made friends with pot heads, teen mothers, kids who were on probation, a guy who was openly gay and sometimes cross dressed, and kids who were in a gang outside of school. Who would have thought I would have earned respect from a bunch of misfits. Who would have thought the teasing had ended. I felt less and less like a freak.

I went on to graduate first in my class, and went to college. I never would have done it without the support from those teachers and students. At the same time, I’d not be who I am today without the bullying. All of it combined has made me the person I am today.

While sticks and stones won’t break my bones, names will certainly hurt me. I have deep scars from being called horrible things in my formative years. It was hard to develop a sense of self in my teen years when I was so conflicted between what I knew what was true of myself, and what others were calling me. Now that I know who I am, I just look back on it like another chapter in my life. I am stronger for what I was made to endure.

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Well, 2:30 rolls around and I start talking to Emma about cleaning her room up and getting changed back into her clothes.  It’s gymnastics day, you see.  First go ’round she wouldn’t have any of it.  I tried again.  No luck.  It came to a huge melt-down on her part…and tempers all around.  Not fun.  Not how I envisioned our first day of break.  But Brett reminded me: it was her first day of break.  We broke the routine of school.  She was already thrown for a loop.  It just ended the day on more of a sour note.  I’m hoping the rest of the week runs smoothly.  Tomorrow we have plans to see Chipwrecked with her BFF from school.  Wednesday will bring us lunch with Daddy!  And Thursday will give her special time with Oma.  I’m hoping she’ll mellow out, or I’ll be wishing January 3rd to come quickly!

I’m not the only one who has this issue…I just know it!  This wasn’t the first, of course, and definitely won’t be the last.  And while it was pretty intense, it wasn’t the worst.  Can I get an “Amen”?

Here is a school picture of Emma after.

Do I really need to say anything else?

By supporting Jumping Waves, in the end you can help out a family who desperately needs the help of an advocate to find the perfect placement for their child.  If you’re not finding anything that suits your fancy in my Etsy Shop, you can donate to Jumping Waves by simply finding the Donate button on the left.  The donation, which is tax deductible, of course, will go straight into an account used to help families get the support of an advocate.  I have already turned in my application to create a non-profit organization.  If their schedule is accurate, by the end of the year I will be Jumping Waves, Inc.

**Disclaimer: Brett and I are fans of public schools.  We were raised in public schools, I taught in public schools, and our son is now attending a public school.  We want to make it obvious that public school is not for everyone.  It is not for Emma.  And we really only came to that conclusion after we hired an advocate and got some clarity on the situation.  Peace out.  And yes, I like using italics.  

I will say that from the time we signed the contract and she received our documents to the date that we actually filed (“we” meaning the attorney) was about 1 month.  It moved pretty quickly.  Fortunately.  Because I was a big ball of stress during this whole time.  It was surreal.

I had hoped, as most do, that this would be resolved out of court.  However, when you file with the court, you get a court date.  Automatically.  And here (perhaps it’s different where you are?) your court date is about 9 weeks out from the date you file.  Sure enough we had a court date for early November.  To have that on your calendar “Court Date” is a little freaky.  We hoped, again, that we wouldn’t need the court, and we could settle it outside.  Something that we did, which is common, is we waived any right for mediation.  I can’t remember the exact term, but basically, we didn’t want to set up another meeting that would, in essence, become a glorified IEP where we plead our case.  Again.

The best news came a day before my birthday.  They wanted to settle out of court.  And we would proceed with negotiating the settlement.  I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday gift!  I have to tell you, negotiating a settlement is like negotiating buying a house.  Except it’s not fun.  It’s more stressful, and you’re not getting a house at the end.  But the back and forth is the same.  And you hope that they get their head outta their ass and do the right thing.  But that’s usually asking too much.  We were just happy to be working towards a settlement.

In the meantime, Emma had started at the new school.  She actually started back up just shy of 3 weeks post surgery.  Amazing.  She was adamant about going back to school if it was going to be the new school.  And guess what.  She was doing well.  And she was happy.  And learning.  Imagine that.  You can read about her first few days at the new school here.

I’ll finish our Attorney Journey…it gets good!

She sent me her contract of agreement and that in and of itself was 6 pages! I read through everything.  I even forwarded it to my aunt, who is also an attorney.  I wanted to make sure everything sounded legit.  With the signed contract and the retainer fee, she also requested all documentation from the last 2 years. Due process prohibits any claims beyond 2 years.  In total, I sent her 300+ pages of documentation (keep everything, my friends!) that was organized by year.  So in 2009-2010, Emma was in KG.  Within that section I had progress reports, report cards, IEPs, IEP addendum’s, evaluations, therapy progress reports, and anything else that might pertain to her education.  I bound them with paper clips (the individual documents) then put all the progress reports in a multi-page protector, and repeated with report cards, IEPs, etc.  It was bound in a 2″ black 3 ring binder.  Let me give you a hint, if it’s not obvious.  The more you do for your attorney (or advocate, or anyone you’ve hired to help you), the easier it will be for them to look through the documents, less time is spent searching for specifics, and therefore the less money you will pay.  Keep it organized.  She was appreciative of my efforts.

Within a week she had briefly glossed over the binder.  She knew what information she needed from me- alas there was more!  I ended up transcribing 4 meetings we had over the course of the spring and summer.  Most of these meetings averaged 2 hours long.  Props to any transcribers out there.  It’s tedious work.  Not to mention it stirred up all these emotions from the past few months and made them fresh again.  I spent many, many hours at the computer transcribing.  I was getting headaches from looking at the screen for too long.  It was not fun, it was not easy, but it was a part of the process to get Emma exactly what she deserved.  And a good lesson to me (and to YOU!!!)…record ALL of your meetings.  You will be happy you did, even if you never use them again.  To know I have every word spoken is a comfort.  I actually purchased a digital voice recorder app for my iPad and used that.  It’s called Recorder Pro and it is very inexpensive compared to actual digital recorders out there now.  And what’s great is when you get home, you can easily download the recording onto your desktop.  And that’s where mine sit in one nice folder.

Keep in mind this is all preparatory work.  Nothing had been said to anyone…no letters had been written…nothing had been filed with the courts.  Meanwhile, Emma was still recovering from her surgery.  She was still immobilized and we were carrying her everywhere she wanted to be.  It’s kind of a blur!  Mason was starting Kindergarten (at a different school in the district, mind you).  And along with Emma’s recovery was her impending return to school.  She wanted to go back so badly.  And she asked for the “new school.”  It was something we couldn’t ignore.  In the back of our minds was the rule that once due process was filed, the students could not change schools under any circumstance.  We took a risk and enrolled her in the private school.  We paid the hefty enrollment fee, as well as the first month’s tuition.  It was brutal on our checkbook, to say the least.

Once this process started, there was no turning back.

Doing arts and crafts on her jumbo bean bag, just a few days into her recovery.

I’m noticing that with my writing, I’m using “I” a lot.  Don’t let me mislead you…all these decisions were made jointly by Brett and myself.  While I did the majority of the legwork, any decision we made, we made together.  Always.  And again, I’m here to chronicle the experience, the journey, and to help people in our situation know what to expect when they make the first move to find legal help.  I will continue our Attorney Journey tomorrow!

During the spring semester and summer months, we had meetings with our advocate and the district to discuss “options.”  I chronicled all of those meetings because they are important to our journey, and I knew that at the time.  You can read about our meetings starting here.  Our advocate, by the way, is amazing and she will continue to accompany us to our meetings for quite awhile.  I don’t see us ever dealing with a school district without an advocate.  You can learn more about our advocate on her website.

I had a wonderful trip to Paris, which seems like a dream.  It honestly doesn’t seem real anymore.  It was a wonderful “dream,” though!

Ten days after I came home, we had our meeting with the district to determine where the most appropriate placement for Emma would be.  It didn’t go favorably, remember? To have to endure a meeting like that one day before a huge surgery for your daughter is something that no one should have to go through.  Too many emotions going on in such a short amount of time.

Emma had her hip surgery the following day and it went well.  We had 3 nights in the hospital and while we had ups and downs, things went really well.  We came home in a state of mind not unlike new parents have bringing home their newborn baby.  Will I break Emma?  How fragile is she?  How dependent is she?  We had to learn about the new (and temporary) state of our daughter.  She was immobile for 6 weeks.  It was tough.

From leaving a meeting that did not go as we had hoped, to surgery barely 15 hours after the meeting, I dropped the subject on my blog.  But deep down we knew we had decisions to make.  Do we press forward?  Are we so certain of the district’s wrongdoing that we were willing to take legal measures?  Are we so certain of Emma’s placement that we would personally place her at this private school and take her out of public school?  It’s a huge risk, that if it ended poorly, would mean Emma would have to return to the district, due to lack of finances.  This is definitely not a decision to enter lightly.  The only time we had hired an attorney was to draft our will and all that legal “shtuff”.  This was different.  It took many discussions, and they weren’t easy.  There were tears and uncertainties.  Ultimately it was a discussion that we had with a very close friend that helped clarify the decision.  She encouraged us to press forward.  We had come this far.  We were this passionate about doing the right thing for Emma.  What did we have to lose (minus a nice little retainer)?  Brett was (understandably) nervous about the finances.  How would we juggle attorneys fees with the monumental cost of a private school?  In short, we couldn’t.  We couldn’t swing those bills.

We are so fortunate to have the family that we have.  We are truly blessed.  We had family that told us that Emma needed to be in the right setting.  The district wasn’t worthy of educating her.  And therefore we had family that helped pay for her tuition while we ultimately decided to proceed with legal action.

That day after the meeting (which was the day before the surgery), our advocate immediately gave us the name and number of the attorney she recommended.  She warned me: she’s a tough ass.  She doesn’t mince words.  And she’ll tell you exactly what she thinks.  Perfect!  I don’t want some soft cookie representing us.  Oh yeah, and she’s undefeated.

I have to tell you this story, not because I want “revenge.”  Not because I want to “expose” anyone, though I have visions of that.  I am telling this story because people need to be aware of situations with the districts.  We need to be aware of our kids progresses they make.  The evaluations that they undergo.  And when things don’t work the way they should, I want people to be encouraged to know that there are options out there.

Until tomorrow, my friends!

We had Emma’s parent/teacher conference today. To see and hear all that she is learning made us SO happy! It’s so nice to get confirmation that you’re doing the best thing for your child! And it shows with Emma. She’s such a happy little girl again. We are so blessed!

It got 32 likes and 7 comments. (read: we are loved!)  Here are some more important numbers from that Parent Teacher Conference:

• Emma knows 22 letters (names and sounds).  At the end of first grade in May, she knew 6 letters (names and sounds).
• She knows all of the lowercase letters except for “j”.  She didn’t practice lower-case letters last year (mostly due to our insistence that she not).
• Emma can count to 29 (missing 16 and 23).  At the end of first grade she could count to 16 on a good day.
• She can remain on task for 30 MINUTES.  It is in her IEP that she can only maintain concentration for 3-5 SECONDS. (that fact, right there, almost brings tears to my eyes)
• She is on the “chip system” at school.  She earns chips for performing positive behavior.  When the jar is full she gets to pick out a treat.  She didn’t have a system like that at her old school.
• She has 2 best friends in class.  She doesn’t get jealous of them.  She doesn’t act rude toward them or lash out when they perform a task better than her.  She hugs them daily and has wonderful relationships with them.  Last year she had 3 best friends but would occasionally act out when she saw them progressing in school.

We couldn’t be happier or more ecstatic about Emma’s progress.  She is proving to EVERYONE that she has the ability and the capability to learn and to love to learn again.  And to the director of special education at the district, I ask, “what do you have to say now?”

No, Mom.  I go to a real school.

And there you have it, friends.  Does anyone need anymore convincing?  Certainly not me! She’s definitely a smart cookie, and no one will tell us otherwise.

On a side note, please check out my newest cards in the Paris Collection!  I am in love.  And I’m also working on a new product that will be perfect for the upcoming holiday season!

Click on the picture above to go straight to my Etsy store!

Have you started shopping for the holidays yet? Not me!

Mason off to school. ✓

Grocery shopping. ✓

Helping out in Mason’s class. ✓

Started an awesome dinner.  I have to tell you about this.  If you couldn’t tell by my previous checks, I’m a little domesticated.  I like it that way.  Anyhoo.  On Facebook, there’s a new group (started not even a month ago) called the Crockpot Girls.  It is a forum (with over 1 million “likes”) of tried and true crockpot recipes.  I posted a question about chicken recipes because my chicken always comes out so tough and over-cooked.  And the key is to put it in frozen!  So today I tried Chicken and Dumplings, which can be found here and holy cow it was soooo yummy!  Kids inhaled, as did hubby.  Yes, it’s not totally healthy, but for the more healthy conscious I used healthy request and/or fat free cream of chicken soups.  And boullion cubes.  But full fat biscuits.  Just saying.  I just wanted to pass that group and recipe on to any mom’s out there looking for easy yummy meals.  You’re welcome.

You know when you have this HUGE to-do list and you really don’t know where to start?  That’s me. And that’s why I’m posting here.  And on facebook. (p.s. endorsement for “liking” Jumping Waves on Facebook right now)

Okay, enough about me.  How are you?  How was your weekend?