To all the people who commented that Jared had been losing weight and I assured them that he hadn’t? Yeah, I was wrong. He’s down to 95lbs. The good news is that Sierra, now 5′2″, is catching up!
I don’t think Christmas has ever been this bittersweet for me before. Kellie picked out all the presents at Amazon the week before she died and they were delivered two days afterwards. Sending back her presents was awful. And wrapping all the gifts that she picked for me and the kids out was one of those things that makes you smile while you’re crying. I tried my best to wrap everything with as much care as she would have.
Decorating the tree was kind of a nightmare. Luckily, Jared helped out and demanded my attention the whole time so that I wouldn’t think about the fact that picking out the ornaments this year was one of the last things Kellie did. And the tree is lovely, but it would have been better with her here to add more lights and more ornaments, and to do a better job of spreading out the fake branches.
I couldn’t find all of the usual decorations we put out, and I’m not making any Christmas cookies. I was going to make fudge for the kids, but I forgot the ingredients when I went to the grocery store, and that’s probably for the best. All I really want for Christmas is to lay around and tell my kids that I love them.
Sierra just called to say that she’s on her way home from her dad’s house, so she and Jared and I will be spending it together. I’m so glad to have her back. I would have given up anything to have my kids here for Christmas.
I hope that each and every one of you that read this has a wonderful Christmas. I wish you all the best and hope that you’ll remember to appreciate every single moment of this happy occasion, and to hug everyone just a little closer while you’ve got them around.
I received another note from Jared’s service coordinator:
I wanted to let you know that from today on, Jared will be in Mrs. XXX’s (1st grade) class every day for math. I am in this class with him. This decision was made so that he could be in a team-taught classroom. He will still be in Mrs. YYY’s class for all other subjects. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
Here’s my response, mostly placed here so that I don’t lose it:
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean in your letter. I’m certainly not an educator, so I don’t know what the advantages of a “team-taught classroom” are for Jared. What I do know is that while Jared deals with change better than many autistics, changes like this are usually accompanies by a certain amount of anxiety and stress for him. Considering that his assistant has been changed, does changing his math teacher, his math classroom, his method of instruction and his access to the break-time de-stressors in Mrs. YYY’s class make sense? Also what advantage do we hope to gain by using a team, considering that Jared has such a hard time dealing with more than one person at a time? And the biggest piece of information missing from your letter is why this change needs to take place. Is Jared doing poorly in math? I he doing so well that he needs more advanced lessons? Why is this change worth making him anxious all day? Please understand, I want to support you and the other members of his team, but I feel like your short note was a little too short. If you’d like to expand, you can reach me at…
They’re trying to turn me into one of those crazy parents who fights with the school about everything, they really are. I don’t want to be that guy that turns the IEP meeting into a shouting match. I don’t want to be the father that makes the teachers afraid that he’s lawyering up. I want to be the friendly, jovial parent that the teachers like almost as much as they like his son. But as Jared gets older, that might not be in the cards.