Why Advocating for Your Kid is Important

In my blossoming career as  an occupational therapist, I've had the opportunity to present at many meetings, especially CPSE meetings (I work with a birth-five population). My part at most of the meetings is pretty well-scripted. I write the report for the school district 2-3 months before the meeting, assess levels of functioning compared to expected levels and averages of same age peers, and write goals for the next school year. The day of the meeting, I write myself a quick cheat sheet that summarizes my report in bullet points. When it's my turn to speak, all I have to do is read off those bullet points and ask for services in the frequency/duration/location I believe is most appropriate. I've done this many times before, and usually have 8-10 preschoolers on my caseload, so chances are I'll be reporting at a similar meeting later on in that month.

For many of the parents I work with, this is the first of many school district meetings, and they don't know what to expect. The parent does not have a script to follow, and generally does this once a year, not 10+ times per year. Lots of parents just say their required bit at the beginning of the meeting and then go along with whatever the therapists and teachers recommend. After all, they know best, right?

Wrong. You know your child best. I see your kid one or two hours a week in a controlled setting. You see your kid every day, dealing with so many different settings and circumstances. I may have a sense of your child's personality, but you know your kid better than anyone else. You know what makes them happy and grumpy and frustrated and sad. I may know her favorite Disney Princess, but you put the movie in for her every day, play pretend with her princess dolls, and tuck her into her princess sheets every night. Don't underestimate what you know about your kid.

Now, I don't mean to belittle therapists and teachers. We studied for a long time to get Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate degrees in some cases. We have very worthwhile input. But the difference is clear. We are experts at child development. You are the expert on your kid. 

Please advocate for what you believe your kid needs throughout their schooling. Ultimately, you will be the only consistent member of your child's educational team. Therapists will change. Teachers will change. Chairs of committees will change. You are the consistent leader of your child's educational team. You set the tone.

A personal anecdote to drive this point home, let's look at how my mother advocated for me. I did not have an IEP as a child. I was a voracious reader, and my brain was always going in a thousand different directions at the same time. I was scatterbrained, inattentive, and somewhat impulsive. I would climb a tree without a plan of how to get down. I had some minor sensory issues, and I was terrible at paying attention to tasks that weren't challenging for me.

My mom supported me in so many ways. Instead of concentrating on the traits I had that might hold me back, she turned them into strengths! She didn't yell at me when she found me wedged between the couch cushions or perched way up in a tree. She shook her head and smiled when I took some electronic thing apart or refused to wear socks or anything with frills. And she kept me busy. We took trips near and far, we went hiking and biking, we took weekly trips to the library. She enrolled me in soccer, and let me try both the cello and the clarinet (although I quickly gave up on both). She encouraged me to learn about whatever I wanted, as long as I kept up with my school work.

My dad too. He coached my soccer teams, taught me how to play football and tennis and how to cook simple dishes. Once I was old enough, he took me mountain biking. He took me out to restaurants to try exotic foods. He gave me outlets for all that energy.

When it was time for me to go to school, my mother talked with all my teachers about me. She told them to keep me busy, and to let me work ahead if possible. She picked teachers who she knew could challenge and engage me. And she always let me bring a book to school.

With this simple advocacy and relationship-building with my teachers, my mom ensured that I would not fall through the cracks, and set a precedent for my entire educational career. She made it clear to me that I could work ahead, seek out work that was challenging for me, and read every book that I wanted to, as long as I did my school work. She challenged me to get good grades and take the most advanced classes, because she saw early on what I was capable of.

It is because of the support of my parents that I am here in this position today. Thanks to the precedent they set early on, I continued to be a student-athlete until high school. I joined clubs and took most of the advanced classes that were offered. I won my family's summer reading contest every year until I went off to college. And I took so many advanced classes that I skipped a year of college and got my Master's degree in four years. Now I have a job that I love going to every day. And I absolutely would not have been able to do all of that without the support and advocacy of my parents.

Summary of this long winded rant? Form working relationships with you child's teachers and therapists. Ask lots of questions, and get involved when you can. And don't ever let anyone stop you from advocating for your kid, even at those nerve-wracking IEP meetings.

Book Review #1 - "The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards"

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards is the debut novel by Kristopher Jansma. I stumbled onto a copy at a nicely organized used book store in Webster, NY. This particular version is labelled as an "advanced uncorrected proofs - not for sale", which of course made me want to buy it more. Other than a few odd details, such as a lack of acknowledgements, I didn't really see much difference.

On to the actual book. On a superficial level, this book is about a group of insufferable, narcissistic people. I would never associate with any of these characters in real life. But this is not a negative review. Quite the contrary, I loved this book. Jansma's writing prowess elevates a story about three annoying people to a novel that you can't put down. He will make you care for these characters that you so want to hate. You will wonder why they make such bad decisions, but root for them just the same. You will be enthralled by the narrator's ridiculous journey around the world and his questionable morals.

The plot centers around a romance that is doomed to fail and a trip around the world. It can be hard to follow at times, due to the story-ception (story-within-a-story-within-a-story structure), but the characters are so well developed that you won't care. This book reminded me what I love about fiction - that feeling of living another person's life for 253 pages...and then struggling to move back to your own reality. 

I recommend this book because of the writer's detailed prowess. You will enjoy stories inside of stories inside of stories and root for detailed characters throughout their convoluted and ill-fated journeys.

Overall (avg): 3.6
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 5/5
Readability: 3/5

See my other blog http://bookwormot.blogspot.com/ for more reviews!

Commence the Nerdom!

So I just came across this fantastic website, and I'm totally geeking out, so here:

http://www.eatthispoem.com/city-guides/

I'm seriously dying of nerd right now. This website is about travel and books and food. I love travel and books and food! So, with that inspiration in mind, and my ever-present fascination with lists, here is my literary bucket list - with some places I've already been included so that I can tell you how amazing they are.

1.  Library of Congress.
2. Powell Books in Portland, Oregon.(Better allow myself the whole day).
3. Autumn Leaves in Ithaca, NY (Been here, love this place. They serve vegan food upstairs with a pirate theme).
4. Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France.
5. Recycled Books in Denton, TX (I spent so much time here. It's an old opera house- complete with balconies and weird little rooms and apparently, a ghost!)
6.  Strand in NYC (according to CNN.com - this part of NYC was called "book row" and had 48(!) bookstores. Strand is the only survivor.)
7. John K. King Used and Rare books in Detroit.
8.Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee (Mostly because this bookstore was founded by Ann Patchett, who is a great author, and has become an icon for the movement to save brick and mortar book stores).
9. The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, CA.
10. The Book Thing in Baltimore, MD. (Freeeeeeeee Booooooookkks!! OMG I can never go to Baltimore again).

Okay, I should stop at 10 or this list will never end.

The Time In-Between

Now, if there was anyone out there that knew me only from this blog (I'm pretty positive there isn't - God knows they would have gotten bored and wandered off by now), they would be surprised by numerous elements of that last post. Especially considering my last post was almost a year ago! I contemplated writing a separate post about my life in the intervening time, but upon reading the unpublished posts about my last travel assignment (the most interesting sentence mentioned "hopping the fence to whataburger in the town with the second biggest Eiffel Tower) I decided that a short summary would be more appropriate. So, here goes:

I spend 3 months alone in Paris, Texas, working at a newly opened pediatric clinic. It was a good job, and the people were very nice and small town-y. However, as far as excitement goes...well, there was that time I took an hour's drive to Eisenhower's birthplace and toured it with a middle aged married couple. Actually, my for-real favorite part was this super cool used book store that used to be an opera house in this tiny little college town that Jessie and I took a ghost tour of before she left. Did you know you can be a professional storyteller? Weird.

Anyway, I had a nice old guy neighbor who gave me cookies and pie, and a 2 minute commute (which is unremarkable considering you could drive the length of the town in 10 minutes - allowing for a few red lights).  When I was ready to fly back my Mom flew in to a tiny (as in "mom, what gate should I go to when I get there?" "Well honey- there appears to only be one gate.") airport and accompanied me on the rest of my trip home. Road tripping with your mother is seriously underrated guys! Well, actually, not every mom can be as cool as mine. I have the road trip karaoke videos to prove it!

I got back and met the guy I had been talking to online while I was in Paris (we'll call him Matt - because that's his name), and lo and behold, I love that nerd! We will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary very soon (yes, we're counting the long distance time before we met in person. It was very important to us and the formation of our relationship. Silence haters!)

I got a job working with kids within a couple weeks of returning. I'm still working there and I love it!

I lived with my parents for a while, but finally got an apartment in August. I really put down roots; I mean seriously, I bought a couch and a bed and my grandmother bought me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. The worst part is that I was very excited to use that new vacuum. Beep beep! Boring adult coming through!

I split the holidays between my family and my Matt's family, and the season was devoid of bloodshed. I ran a 5k in downtown Rochester in December (a major goal of Matt's), and I wrapped all of my Christmas presents by myself. The end of 2014 leaves me feeling like I'm doing pretty well, and excited for the year to come.

Books - shelves, stacks, and piles of them!

Currently, I am sitting on a couch flanked by two stacks of books. One stack is books I've started in the past year and not finished, and one is the nonfiction books that I think my boyfriend would like. I am facing a shelving unit full of hardcover books, which my TV sits on. To the left of that, in the corner, is a shelving unit containing all of my paperbacks, alphabetized of course. In my bedroom, there is a small nook in my nightstand above the drawer. I thought it would be perfect for about 10 old-looking books. My point is that I have rented an apartment in the city, bought a couch and a bed and dressers and lamps and a chair and a TV and my favorite part of all of my new domain is my books. They are the objects of my fascination, portals to other worlds, and as much as I love the functionality of couches and beds and and dressers and lamps, I really really love holding the physical copy of a good book. The physical weight of knowledge - that is what I'll really miss when the abundance of e-readers makes my voracious buying of used books comical. And even then, I'm keeping my books. Go troglodytes!

The Trip Back

Side note: Did I spell travelling wrong? My phone autocorrects it to traveling, but chrome doesn't autocorrect it either way. On the other hand, autocorrect has that annoying red line under it. I am not putting a hyphen in that. No way. Okay, crisis solved. Apparently I'm secretly British, because the Brits spell it with two l's and Americans spell it with one. I'm leaving it. God save the queen!

Another side note: This is my background music right now - Kelly Valleau plays a mean guitar. Check it out! I can't help but be awed now that I'm learning how to play guitar myself.

Anyway, onto the real point of the entry...a blast from the past for posterity's sake. As I'm preparing to road trip to Texas yet again, I'll tell you the story of my epic trip home from Lubbock.

Our first stop of note was the route 66 museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. This place was one of the biggest museums I've ever been to, and it had everything from replica buildings to old cars to old-timey farm equipment. Lots of good photo ops there.

Next we trucked it through Arkansas to stay near Little Rock for the night. On our way we tried to stop for dinner in this creepy town called Fort Smith or something, and our GPS took us to the haunted mansion. No joke, we find this Vietnamese place on the internet that seems perfect, so we tell my wonderfully smart smart phone to take us there...and we pull off into a dark neighborhood....hmmm, this doesn't look right. We drive around a bend and up a hill and our GPS (which we lovingly named Cindy) screeches "your destination is on the right!" To our right, perched atop a dark hill  at the end of a super curvy quarter-mile driveway lies the haunted mansion. Seriously, if lightening struck around this thing it would have been right out of a movie. Needless to say, we  did not go there. I recall saying "No. No no no. F*** pho." I think we ended up going to a Wendy's that night.

In Little Rock we visited a civil rights museum at Central High, where the little rock nine forced the issue of school desegregation. It was a nice museum with a very powerful message. Going to the site of something you read about in history books really brings it to life and makes you think about how recent this stuff actually is.

The next civil rights museum we went to was at the Lorraine hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. This museum was small, but eerily powerful, because you have the opportunity to stand steps from where the shot was fired from and look out the window across  the street to the hotel where Dr. King died. Then, even more humbling, you get to cross the street and stand on the balcony in the very spot where  he died. That's one very powerful way to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

While we were in Memphis, we also visited the famous Beale Street (sort of accidentally...we were looking for a starbucks, but it closed minutes before we arrived). We visited Graceland and stayed in a Elvis themed hotel, which was actually more fun than I thought it would be, considering I have very little interest in Elvis. We also ate at this weird Vietnamese place (are you sensing a trend? Jessie enjoys her Asian food :)) where I asked the server what he suggested, and in broken English he told me I should get this strange sweet and sour soup, but I had to eat it very fast. This is especially funny to you if you've ever shared a meal with me, because I am a notoriously slow eater most of the time. Anyway, he kept passing by our table and rushing me along...it was quite the odd experience.  I think he was trying to say that the soup wouldn't have it's alleged medicinal/spiritual benefits if I didn't eat it fast enough. Well, I didn't finish it, and gosh did it stink up the car. Plus it was disgusting left over.

I swear I didn't hop the ropes for this pic...

In Kentucky, we visited Cave City, home of the Mammoth Cave, which was honestly pretty underwhelming. I enjoyed dinosaur world far more, even though it is intended for six year olds. In fact, the only people there with Jessie and I were a little kid (probably 4 or 5) and his family. Believe me, we were having even more fun than that kid, especially since we had spent 2 days in a car already and had just woken up to our first snow of the season that morning!

After that we zipped through Louisville, slept at Jessie's brother's house in Ohio, and got home as fast as we could :).

Fun facts:
Gas prices-
Lowest: Fort Smith, AK (the sketchy place) - $2.71/gal
Highest: Pittsburgh, PA - $3.29/gal

In hindsight that jump doesn't seem like all that much...

I'm back!

Hey y'all, happy new year!! I'm back from Texas! Actually, I've been living with my parents again since November (which is quite the adventure in itself!), but I just haven't been blogging. Lame, I know. I didn't blog about a lot of the awesome stuff I did in Texas, so I'll try to do a quick rundown here to catch you up. Also, I love numbered lists.

1.  I went horseback riding through Palo Duro Canyon. It was sooo pretty and it was by far the most challenging terrain that I've gone on a trail ride on. No worries though, my horse was awesome :)

2. I visited New Mexico - Roswell, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. The UFO museum in Roswell was fun and photo-worthy, but there really wasn't that much else around. I did have an amazing green chile burger at a mexican restaurant there though.

Can you tell which one's me?

Santa Fe was pretty. We got to stay in a nice little motel with lots of character there, and it was only mildly creepy. We also drove down canyon road, famous for it's art galleries - which were unfortunately all closed by the time we got there. Our walk on the river was pretty though.

The balloon fiesta in Albuquerque was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, and should definitely be on your bucket list.

So. Many. Balloons.

 
The line to park at the balloon fiesta started on the highway off ramp - at 5am. It was all worth it though when we got to see the first 10 balloons light up the early morning sky. Later in the day we stood among hundreds of hot air balloons as the took off. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen (in case I haven't said that a million times in this post :))

3. I visited Dallas, which I apparently pronounced wrong, according to my native Texan coworkers. I say it like Dale-iss, they say Day-lus, and my coworker who was also from NY says Dill-iss. Strange. Anyway, while we were in Dallas we went to some museums, a great vegan restaurant, and a vegetarian food festival. The food festival was cool, although I was a bit out of my element - which is strange because food festivals are one of my favoritest things in the world! Really there was more indoctrination than food, but it was a good experience.

4. I got to see Switchfoot live on their Fading West tour! The venue was tiny, like high school auditorium sized, so that was awesome, and it was Jessie's first concert!

5. I dressed up as a Wizard of Oz munchkin for Halloween at work. My Lubbock coworkers were awesome!

6. I took an free ASL class at the local college, Texas Tech. That was a very cool experience, and I got to know some of my coworkers a bit better.

7. I had a lot of spicy food and tacos!

So there's a quick summary - almost two months later :). Next post to come - our epic road trip home!

San Antonio!

Since this was our first labor day with actual professional jobs that gave us labor day off, Jessie and I decided to take advantage and go on a mini-vacation. We contemplated the idea all week, and then finally on Friday night, we made hotel reservations in Austin and San Antonio.

In Austin we met up with Jessie's cousin and went out to a vegan restaurant called Mother's cafe. I tried their much-hyped veggie burger, which was pretty good, though I think they should just stop calling them burgers at all. Then we went down by the river and saw a very unique attraction. Austin's motto is "keep Austin weird," and we certainly helped do that at the bat bridge. A large group of people waited around this nondescript bridge at sunset to see thousands and thousands of bats fly out and off to their nocturnal endeavors. It was quite the sight.

The next day we got vegan tacos from a food truck and then vegan donuts from this farmers market co-op thingy. The lavender vanilla donut was literally the best donut I have ever had - sorry Dunkin'.

San Antonio was like another world...it was so different from anything I'd seen anywhere else in Texas! The river walk was exceptionally beautiful, and thus I took 1000 pictures of it. We took a boat tour and heard all the history of the buildings and bridges, and the ducks miraculously avoided the boat. I helped an older woman use the camera on her iphone and she asked where I was from, because "that accent ain't  from here".  Apparently I blend in well (or don't talk a lot), because I actually don't get this question all that often. Anyway, I managed to squeeze in a short explanation of where Canandaigua, NY is (NOT NYC) before the woman's friend launched into her rant about how everyone was on their phones too much. I then proceeded to ignore her and take hundreds of pictures and immediately post them to facebook. C'est la vie.

After our tour, we wandered around and I got souvenirs and free samples. Then we settled on a Mexican riverside restaurant and had some awesome margaritas and tamales.

Oh, the Alamo and the other historic missions were pretty cool too.

Lubbock

I've been here in Lubbock, Texas for 2 weeks now, and it's finally time for a blog post. Who would have thought it would be so hard to write about the most adventurous thing I've ever done?

Firstly, I have to apologize to the Texans. Before coming here, I complained to all my friends that I hated the southern accent and I hoped I wouldn't pick it up! Well y'all (hehe) I have to say that after a couple weeks I really don't mind it at all. Initially I was counting how many times people said y'all in a conversation, but now it just flows right through my brain and I don't even notice.

They have cactii in Texas!!

Another odd point about Texas...the pace is entirely different. People talk slower and move slower. Except on highways, where the speed limit is usually 75. Although apparently the 5 over leniency does not apply when you have NY plates. Also people in Lubbock seem to be terrible drivers...for example, merging lanes are very short, but people do not move over so people can merge, and the people merging just pull into traffic willy-nilly, without looking! Crazies.

Our road trip here was fun...and soooo long!! It took us 3 days. Here's some of the highlights, so I don't bore you to death.

Imagine the giant salads you could eat with this

• World's largest wind chime (which you can actually ring!) and world's largest golf tee in Casey, Ill. 
• World's largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, Ind.
• Having the pharmacy tech call a "code 5 in cosmetics" over the intercom to get someone to open the bathrooms for us in a Walgreens.
• Going up to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis
• Seeing the world's largest fork at 5am in a lightning storm

That's all for now...more to come as the adventures continue!

Aliens!!

Well hello again blogosphere!  Gosh, I haven't written a blog post in more than two months! So much awesome stuff has happened in that time - I went to the zoo (twice), and got slightly drunk one of those times... I hiked Grimes Glen again, went on another wine walk, watched Pitch Perfect two more times, and went to Fairport Canal Days and the Greek Festival on the same day with dearest Jojo.

 I love these limb-flingy things

 I spent the 4th of July at a wonderful lakehouse  with my best friends, where we put two people on one person kayaks and clumsily paddled about (and Dan and Nicole flipped twice!). We got to see fireworks all around the lake...it was so awesome.

I saw Despicable Me 2 at an overcrowded drive-in, played some awesome Kan Jam, had ice cream at the lake a few times, left my wallet at the sandbar (and begged Dan to come back and find it with me, which he did :) - what a great guy!).

I got lost on my way to and from Ithaca, but when we finally found a waterfall, it was beautiful! Then I got a fakin (Jessie's word, not mine!) lettuce and tomato sandwich at this vegan cafe, got asked to be in a music video, and gave a guy a dollar for bus fare in hipster downtown Ithaca. 

I also got to see Meg again, sing weird Indonesian karaoke, roast marshmallows, visit the Carousel Mall for the first time, and now I'm writing this from my family vacation in Cape Vincent in the 1000 islands. Our house here is super cool - we have our own dock and a water trampoline (which accentuates my natural lack of grace), and the house used to be a stop on the underground railroad! How cool is that!?!! Oh and the title of this entry - across the river (in Canada, eh), there are like 30 windmills - huge grayish industrial windmills with flashing red lights on them. And all the lights - probably 60 of them in total - blink at exactly the same time. I feel like I'm going to be abducted by aliens. Canadian aliens.

Anyway, I'm also feeling so preemptive homesickness because, in addition to all the wonderful summery things I mentioned above, I've also graduated with my Master's degree, passed my national licensing exam to officially become an OT, and accepted my first travel OT assignment in Lubbock, Texas.

My adorable little stowaway

That's right, Texas y'all. Oh gosh please don't let me pick up that accent. please. A week from this Monday Jessie and I will depart for our first OT jobs in Texas. It's a 2 day road trip where we'll get to see the world's largest fork, a section of historic route 66, a huge-ass ketchup bottle on the side of the road (idk if that's the biggest in the world or whatnot), and the gateway arch, among other yet unknown attractions.  Everything I've dreamed about in regards to OT and travelling is coming to fruition, but it's certainly going to be bittersweet leaving my friends and family. 

So that's what you have to look forward to blog-wise...I'm hoping that I can blog more consistently in Texas, because I'm sure I will have a ton of good stories to share.