Surprise visit...

This morning I woke up groggy, because a certain little monster thought he should stay awake giggling until 12:30 in the morning!

I got out of bed and into the shower before lolligagging through the morning until music therapy at noon. Except...I forgot half of Max's Education Care Team was coming this morning to do some assessments before his IEP meeting next Tuesday!!!

I had just sat down after getting dressed, and hair combed through when the doorbell rang. I didn't think we had any deliveries, so I sat there for a second, trying to decide if I wanted to answer with my wet hair...but it sounded like there were a couple of people on the porch, so I went for it.

DOY!!!! I opened the door to the support services (special education) teacher, and her student teacher, and also the AAC (augmentative speech therapist) teacher smiling at me. I welcomed them in with apologies that I had COMPLETELY forgotten about our appointment!

I got Max into the dining-room and they got right to work, before I could realize that Max needed his diaper changed. Peee-eeeeew! Plus I was scrambling around still giving him his medicines. What a mess!

So, they got to the testing and assessing. First, the teacher brought out two animal figures that made noises. An elephant and a tiger. She asked Max to look at which was the tiger. It was in her left hand. He turned his head to look at the elephant and said "uh-uh". She kept saying, you keep looking at "this hand" is that the one you want? Again, he said "uh-uh" and chuckled. So, I pointed it out he was saying "uh-uh" that the elephant was NOT the tiger. She then asked him to just point out which one WAS the tiger...so he looked at it, with a little look of..."no fun!". HAAAA!!!!

From then on, he mostly stuck to showing her what she wanted. They went through big letters and little letters, he chose correctly the uppercase A. He knew the colors, between yellow and red, he chose yellow, even though she asked for red. I told her that was his all time favorite color, so she asked if the yellow was his favorite and he looked at it again. She said, can you show me red? And he showed her.

She then moved on to pink and blue...he knew the blue one when she asked. Grey and Brown...and he knew the bear was brown...I don't know that we've ever gone over the neutral colors! Purple and orange....she kept referring to purple for the Rockies (baseball team) and orange for the Broncos (football team). I thought I would wait and see if he would answer...but he kept looking back and forth between the two colors. He finally settled on the purple, which she asked for, but I told her we don't follow the sport teams here. She then said, and orange and grapes? I said, he doesn't eat by mouth...how about a pumpkin and a purple monster? That worked and he got it right away. Context is everything, as Steve loves to say!

She wanted to see if he could tell us "favorites" next, so she got two of his favorite books and asked him to choose between the two. She held up "Where The Wild Things Are" and "The Cat In The Hat". She asked him to tell her which one was the Cat In the Hat...this one he did have a little trouble with, because in school, his home teacher has had him choosing which one he WANTS. So that one was a little confusing to him. But, he quickly showed them he could choose his favorite number between 7 and 8...he chose 7. He'll be 7 in a couple of weeks!

Then just for fun, and I think to try to stump him on SOMETHING they pulled out a 6 and a 1 card. She didn't tell him what the numbers were, but asked him how old he was. Not only did he fix his gaze on the 6, but he went ahead and touched it with his left hand. :) Proud, proud, proud, Momma!

They wanted to see him use his talker, which he politely refused. But, they really wanted to see it...so he really showed them a great big fit. I calmed him enough to get him to choose with his talker that he wanted to play with his computer. He finally got there and smiled. Little booger!

He then showed them the "Fall Is" stories he did yesterday, but was really done with all of the showing off...and mostly ready for MUSIC! (Which was what I told him we were doing today...oops!)

They all left feeling impressed with his abilities. I felt happy he showed them he did have a lot going on! I only freaked out once when the teacher coughed on her hand and went to touch Max...I yelped...HAND SANITIZER! Don't touch him!! Yeah...freak. I guess if nothing else, they'll know we're serious about the germ thing!

IEP is next Tuesday...we'll see what they come up with, and what they have to say about his assessment today.