Crazy summer, crazier start to the school year too, knowing our luck!

We were lucky to have Jaymes at ESY (Extended School Year) for a month this summer. Without it, I think that someone (someone we all know and ado---er, read) might have gone insane. The ESY session cut the summer into 3 chewable bites, rather than one long stretch. Bite #1 was great! We had a ton of fun playing in the kiddy pool, coloring, and playing outside. Bite #2 was great. Jaymes enjoyed ESY, had a really great teacher, and made a lot of progress on his IEP goals. And that leaves us here, in the last stretch of bite #3.

Let's talk about bite #3 for a moment. It's that part of the summer where it's incredibly hot. Too hot to go outside unless it's for water play. However, bite #3 is also that part of summer where the $15 kiddie pool out back has done one of three things:

• Turned neon green, slightly squishy to the touch if anyone is brave enough to touch it, and incubating copious numbers of mosquito larvae.
  
• Gotten a hole in it as a result of 2 very energetic autistic boys and their equally energetic "typical" toddler counterparts and slowly emptying like a hemmoraging old friend in the back yard, only to eventually end up flat and sad, growing green algae in the couple of murky brown puddles left in there. Also, please include the above mentioned copious amount of mosquito larvae
• Be thrown away, in a fit of rage one day when a CERTAIN little boy with autism dropped mommy's horse's beautiful WHITE fly sheet into the green murky depths, and never replaced.

In our case, all three possibilities mentioned happened. The pool turned foul and green, slowly emptied from a hole made my Jaymes and Sierra and their two little pals who come over quite a bit. Even as it emptied, the little puddles remained, and got more disgusting each day. Finally, Jaymes snatched the fly sheet I have for Lucy (a gift, and one of my more prized possessions, horse-wise) and dunked it into the green hell. Luckily for all involved, it did not stain and no children were killed. The pool, however, was squashed into a green, moldy heap and shoved into the garbage can, never to be seen again.

Sadly, my husband did not see fit to replace it with a nice, clean, non-holey (not to be confused with holy, because believe me, that green mess was anything BUT holy) pool, and told me to spray the kids with the hose instead. As a result, we have no pool, thus very little outdoor play time, because it is TOO hot. The kids dislike sprinklers, and whole spraying them with the hose would be thoroughly therapeutic for me, they would not be thrilled with that decision.

Anyway, as we enter the last week of summer, I have run out of activities, energy, and supplies. The crayons are eaten or broken, the paper shredded. The scissors are doing good, and Jaymes loves to cut, so we could do that. The bean box (dried beans) I tried to make for Jaymes was long ago scattered all over my back yard, the only remaining evidence being the large bean plants growing all over that backyard. Maybe he's trying to grow a giant beanstalk to escape the boredom of life down here on earth. I'm sure the whole fairytale realm in the sky thing is more interesting than we are.

I've been trying to prepare for Jaymes next IEP meeting, which is in the process of being organized by the school's brand new, and very pleasant vice principal. I fully expect this meeting to be as unpleasant as the last one, and am in no way looking forward to it. I had thought it would be ok, because the person I've been talking to from ECAC said she'd come, but unfortunately can only come via phone. That will be VERY helpful, but I'd feel better with someone sitting next to me who can clearly SEE the panic on my face as I flail around in this meeting like a dying fish on the sand, and possibly come to my aid. (Hmm, lots of weird analogies today. I must be channeling my inner weirdo again. Don't mind me.)

Jaymes school starts in a week, as does mine. Did I mention I'm finally going to college? I'm not excited there either, 2 of my classes are in person and 2 are online. I had hoped for all online, I am absolutely terrified of going into those classrooms. Not to mention I have 20 mins to do a 25 min drive between campuses for 2 of my classes. Ack.

So, in a nutshell, this is where we are. More tomorrow about jaymes, who has become a very energetic, very stimmy, very grumpy little creature.