Jaymes: Mighty king of the car radio.

It's funny, but when I think about it, I realize that I subjected my poor little guy to loud, decidedly NOT classical, music (the horror!!!) at a very early age. Early, as in three months before he was born.

I was very pregnant when I decided to go to my first concert, Toby Keith/Blake Shelton in St. Petersburg, FL. I dragged my friend Tara along with me, and we had a blast. Having never been to any concert before, I was blown away by the cool pyrotechnics and the confetti falling from the roof. Very cool. The only down side to the situation was Jaymes' reaction to the loud music. He spent the entire concert flailing around in there, two stepping on my ribcage and possibly channeling a crazy person in a mosh pit at a different type of concert.

He has always enjoyed music, but has never shown any preference for some songs over others. Usually he's been happy if it's just turned up fairly loud. Recently, however, he has shown a preference for the more upbeat, fast, noisy songs over sappy love songs. I have two country stations programmed to my car radio, and if the one I'm listening to puts on a song I'm not wild about, I just hit the other button and see what's playing. In the last week, if I do this and change to a song Jaymes does not like, he will glare at me and say "put it back back on!"

This has now also spread to the use of my Ipod in the car. Sometimes I want to switch songs halfway through, so I'll use my Ipods nifty "shake to shuffle" function to find something else. Today I was given a very stern talking-to by Jaymes, who does not feel that I should be changing songs halfway through. Even more seriously, I should not be picking a slow, sappy song over a more fast paced song.

I've played around with this in the car, in an effort to see which songs Jaymes likes best, and have come to the conclusion that as long as I wait for one song to end before picking another, he's ok. But, he really seems to prefer songs by male artists, and songs that are pretty lively. I listen to a very unique combination of music, and apparently I am passing on my odd musical taste to my son.

He still loves those Toby Keith songs, but is not a huge fan of Blake Shelton. He loves most of the country rock type songs, as long as they're men singing them. He also loves Nightwish. Now, I'm not a metal type person, but a friend introduced me to this band and I'm addicted. In particular, Jaymes loves their song "Over the hills and far away," despite the lead singer being a very much soprano female. I think he loves it for it's very loud, very rhythmic drumming. Kind of reminds me of Jaymes' pounding on his bedroom walls at 5am on the weekends.

Anyway, that long and rambling collection of thoughts came about mostly because I keep thinking how cool it is that Jaymes is making known his preferences. Music has long been one of those things for him, he likes it all but he never has cared one way or the other. I love that he has developed his own unique musical likes and dislikes. I'll admit I have not really been thrilled at this when I have to listen to a song I despise because Jaymes does not want me to change the station, but other than that, it really makes me happy. Seems like he is growing, changing, and becoming his own person a little more every day.

Update on the school stuff... I had a meeting with the principal, and we talked about the issues with Jaymes classroom teacher, the issue with Jaymes getting food he shouldn't be, the sticker sheets, and whatever else my little brain could remember.

I'm not entirely convinced I explained my issues with the teacher very well, but I think I got across that I don't like feeling like I'm being treated disrespectfully. I gave her the sticker pages and the notebook with all the jabbing little notes, in hopes that she would notice the things that bothered me. Apparently there is not an option of changing classrooms, there is only one other AU classroom and those kids are 3rd-4th graders. Jaymes is very small, so she had a good point with that. I would not want him to get hurt, and it would be unreasonable to expect the teacher in that classroom to be trying to teach kindergarten along with the upper grades. I'm not sure that would even be possible. I don't know that we accomplished much regarding the teacher issues, but at least I tried.

We talked about how Jaymes is doing in the classroom and in the regular ed classroom, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear her say that she's observed and he's doing really well. his teacher had given me the impression that he was being disruptive, couldn't sit, or participate... But everyone else says he is doing wonderfully. I mentioned wanting to talk to the teacher in the kindergarten class, and I ended up getting a call that day from that teacher. She is really friendly, and was very open to ideas on how to keep Jaymes participating. She said he loves to do calendar, and the weather. He'll look out the door for her, and tell her the weather. He does that at home too.

I'm really thrilled that Jaymes is doing well. I guess I just need to ignore the jabs (in the form of notes about potty training, sticker loss, lists of things he is doing wrong) and stick with listening to what everyone else tells me. I was VERY happy to hear that the principal and teacher's aide are on board with my hope to keep him getting out to the regular education environment more and more, as he improves.

I really like the principal. She makes the time to discuss these things with me, and has always been incredibly accommodating as far as scheduling things. She does get out and spend time with the kids, and Jaymes loves her. While not everything was solved, I feel a lot more positive after having had the sit-down with her.


Oh, and that IEP meeting I've been trying to schedule with the teacher for the last month? Scheduled with the principal in about ten seconds. Funny how that works.


The IEP meeting is on November 3rd, hopefully that goes ok. I'm hoping it's friendly, and not hours long. I'm trying to go into it prepared, asked for a draft IEP so I know what to expect, and am going to try and be as openminded as possible.