I'm raising a cloud-ignorant child.

So I did finally email that person I was supposed to email, and Bug qualifies as visually impaired by miles.  Which is surprising, for whatever reason.  Because I spend a lot of time thinking that I'm making this all up, and that there's nothing actually wrong with her, and then moments come that slam me back down and say, "No, this is Real."  Which is not a bad thing.  In some ways it justifies my intermittent psychosis.  I still never ever like to think about her struggling, though, so I'll probably keep ignoring that.

What was so odd to me, though, was the choice of words she used in her response to me.  And I quote, "I am sorry she falls into the visually impaired range, though."  Why are you sorry for me?  Why NOW, is there someone expressing this (needless) sentiment?  At least I am finally in a place where this does not make me emotional.  Facts are facts.  She is what she is.  Visual impairedness (I made that word up) is so nuanced, anyway.  And then another teacher said this to me: "I know this is a big transition time for your family."  If you mean we are EXCITED AND ELATED that she will be RECEIVING SERVICES then you're right, this is a big transition.  But I don't want to let on, lest they take anything back from us.

She has to have another assessment plan opened to add this all to her IEP, which they can't do before they get the official forms from her doctor, and then there are XX number of days that they have to do that, followed by XX number of days for us to agree to it, followed by XX number of days for them to respond, etc etc.  I have no better solution, but I will tell you that forcing special ed educators to push paper while reducing the amount of time spent in the classroom with students is a waste of everyone's time.  God forbid there's something without a metric!  RIGHT, SACRAMENTO??

I think we may be putting dance on hold.  I honestly don't know what to do.  This week didn't go well, at all.  She finally came out, unprompted, that it was "hard to see Miss B."  I'm already sitting in the studio for reassurance... I tried helping her out with a few moves when she wanted to give up, and she became instantly more confident and wanted to keep going, but I can't keep doing things like that.  I don't feel that it is fair to the instructor or to the other families.  But what other options do we have?  Keep her in a class that she can't follow, but that she would enjoy if she could have someone next to her side the whole time (not really feasible), or just pull her out completely?  I feel stuck.

Someone said to me that their three-year-old just "wasn't ready" for organized activities due to attention issues.  I don't believe she is being impeded by attention issues.  I will call the dance studio and see what they say, but it makes me a bit discouraged.  This ties back in a bit to the "coddle/push" debate.  I'm still firmly on the "push" side, but not without reasonable accommodations.  Like, laser tag would be super hard to play if you were forced to wear dark sunglasses.

We have our first swimming lesson tomorrow with a different company than we used before.  This time I went the direct "special-ed" route, and got her a free private first lesson (versus a free group first lesson).  I will be very curious how she responds.  I will not be in the water with her, which I think is fantastic, because she gets really manipulative when she's nervous and knows we're in a group where I have to play extra nice.  I'm hoping this teacher has some iron gnads.

Tonight we went up to Balboa Park to watch a Salsa Orquestra at the Organ Pavilion.  It's my favorite music, ever.

Our attempts at getting her to find the beat on 2 and 4 are still mostly unsuccessful.

Thank God I had my camera on the ONE NIGHT we actually "ate our colors."

I wish I was lying when I say that my child asked, "what are those white stripes in the sky??" Because she DOESN'T KNOW WHAT CLOUDS ARE??

Walking home through the park.