Well Cole will be attending school for the first time this year. I am amazed at how fast the time has gone. I feel like it was the other day when Cole was being evaluated by Early Intervention. I thought the day would never come when we would say bye to his therapist from EI and we would be preparing for school. Cole's EI therapist have been such a big part of our lives and not having them here has felt like we are missing family. Thankfully I have cell numbers and Facebook pages for some of them and we can stay in touch.
As for the start of school I am almost ready with his belongings but emotionally I am far from it. I know that he is going to thrive in school once he gives it a chance but it will be a big change in life. We had our first IEP meeting which was not at all what I thought it would be like. We were in and out of the school within a half hour. Of course missing from his IEP is the OT that I was told they will be doing so I will now have to call the child study team this week. Also while i read over the IEP I noticed that its seems like Cole will be pulled out of class for a lot of things. I wonder if they really plan to pull him out or they just put that on there to remind them of what extra things he needs. I plan to make a list of questions I have for the child study team and ask when I call them. I also wanted to make a list of some questions I have for his teacher. We are suppose to actually meet with his teacher this week sometime. Of course I have no clue when since the teacher is suppose to call us. Hopefully I hear from her tomorrow. We also have a dry bus run on Friday since our school district buses the children. I was not going to put Cole on the bus but I know it will be a lot harder to drive him in and drop him off. He is very attached to me to say the least and I already know I will be crying his first day. My only concern is because is no verbal I will have no clue what is happening on the bus. My greatest fear is that something will happen and I will have no clue that something bad is happening. I have yet to hear anything bad in my district but still worry. I am hoping to find comfort when I meet his teacher and we do a dry bus run. I am also hoping that with school Cole will communicate more words, follow directions better and be able to sign, point or communicate when he wants something. I really have basic goals for him where the school has a lot of other great ones. My hope is we can handle this transition with no regression but my gut feeling is that we will regress before it gets better. So how many people thought their first IEP meeting would be longer then it was? Did you feel all the goal set were all good goals? How do you feel about your child starting school and are you ready?
