Moving up in the world

When we started our hockey adventure in the fall, it was hard to imagine that my kiddle would ever 1) get on ice skates, 2) Move independently, 3) whack a puck into a net accurately and 4) focus enough to actually get any learning done.

But Isaac and his hockey addicted brain made it through a season of Learn to Skate for Hockey and has graduated…to Mini Mites!

Today, he started his first real “learn to play” session…Mini Mites. We don’t expect him to be amazing by the end of this short session…not a chance! But, we do want him to keep skating.

Coach Walt is back and there are a bunch of high school hockey players helping out with the sessions.

Isaac is now participating in full out learn to play drills and working on stick and puck handling.

and he still has his beloved #3 jersey…

So, here we go. The year and a bit of Mini Mites has begun! Go Mini Mites!

And for the record, we’re still bringing our winter gear to the rink. That rink is FREEEEEEEEEZZZZZIIIINNNGGGG!

Hockey Love

Being a hockey mom has its ups and downs. The downs are when equipment breaks and you either a) don’t know about it or b) know about and forget totally until the last minute-both options resulting in a mad scramble to get the offending equipment fixed before practice in a relatively short amount of time.

Today’s almost major panic attack came when Doug said to me…

“Umm…did we ever get Isaac’s helmet fixed?”

What? Fixed helmet? The helmet was broken?

He claims he told me the night of the last Learn to Skate class. I’m going to go with the fact that he probably did and I had option B happen. I forgot.

Did I mention hockey starts at 11:10 am on Sunday? Before any of the shops open that deal in hockey equipment? Yeah. Had to get done NOW.

So, I shuffle off to my old favorite place-yep, Kemp’s! I knew they’d know exactly what to do with this broken face cage. I also figured I’d ask them about a new mouth guard for a kid who hates them and to sharpen the Shrimp’s skates. Can’t go into a new session of hockey with dull blades, now can we?

I walk in with the messed up helmet and the skates. They not only fixed the helmet-it needed some screws and new spacers to make the face cage sit on the helmet itself properly. Turns out the person who put it together in the first place used plastic spacers…and not metal ones. So, the nice guy at Kemp’s not only replaced the missing screw, but he changed both spacers to metal ones to make the face cage more stable!

Skates were sharpened and all of that. I went to cash out, expecting to pay SOMETHING for the fix.

Nope. Just the skate sharpening. He refused to take any money for the fix on the helmet!

Excuse me? I’m prepared to pay….

nope-not a cent for the helmet.

and I got a new Bauer calendar to boot!

Gotta throw some love Kemp’s way. They are, by far, the classiest, best run, most awesomest hockey place in this area. The staff is so disgustingly knowledgable and loves hockey so much that it’s an absolute pleasure to go in there.

(I’m banging my stick on the ice in hockey applause…)

Dear Mother Nature,

We go through this EVERY year.

THIS

Is not acceptable. It is almost April. You know the rule. NO SNOW ON MY BIRTHDAY.

Thank you.

You know a conference is bad when…

one of the principals of another attending school falls asleep in the closing session and your principal turns to you and says “this is AWFUL!” and offers it up for the “souls in purgatory.”

No, I’m not kidding.

Special needs and first grade, take 4-the report card and meeting

So, I bet you’re all wondering how the meeting went and if all of my twitching was worth it…

well…
it was.

We pretty much got what we wanted out of the district, except summer OT. I don’t understand why with Isaac’s scores that summer OT is out of the question,but it is.

The other good thing is that Isaac is at grade level in a lot of his subjects. Normally a parent would EXPECT this,but this is Isaac, and he tests like garbage and is so highly distracted that even if he knows the information, he has trouble getting it out. So, the fact that we got some decent scores in some subjects is just amazing to me.

Since I was highly concerned about the “coteaching” room next year (the school uses a consultant model of coteaching. Not sure if I like this or not….) I put in a call to Plastic Principal. She had a good 30 minute conversation with me about the time frame of Isaac being out of the classroom-there’s lots of things that he’s pulled out for-6 specific times for therapy.-and I don’t want him missing any of classroom life. Turns out my kid is the only “coteaching” kid and resource kid int he first grade. Seriously? How is this possible? Turns out the rest of the kids with special needs are in the k-2 room, and most won’t be pushing into first grade at all-they’ll be pushing into Kindergarten, because they can’t hack first grade. My kid? He can hack it.

So, interesting…very interesting.

we shall see what happens come September. Right now, my focus is getting through kindergarten in one solid piece.

First Grade and special needs, takes 1-3…

So, here we go again. IEP time. Nothing fun as per usual. Let’s do an abridged version of the first two takes, shall we?

Take 1 involved getting the IEP…and noting all sorts of garbage. Also noting that there was a COLORING GOAL on the IEP. Nope. not happening, especially here. This take also involved all sorts of very controlled scream emails to darling Consultant teacher (who, may I add, should be given a medal for putting up with me this year.) and OT Aide who Isaac sees. When I got nowhere fast, I threw an email to the BIG OT. She responded to my questions with the following line:

“we don’t teach penmanship.”

Umm..what? That’s not what I asked! Seriously!

I asked about why my child was having a COLORING GOAL and why the goal that I actually liked (letter lines and formation) was dumbed down.

ARGH!
This resulted in me emailing darling consultant teacher and demanding that BIG OT being at the pre-IEP meeting.

See Laura tear hair out. See Laura loose sanity!

So, Monday morning rolls around. I’m tumbling out of bed with a long, long day ahead of me and the BIG OT calls me, saying she can’t be at the Tuesday meeting (I understand. I only demanded her presence on Friday.) and basically asks me what I was thinking for the goals and things. I reiterate that I am NOT happy, and review what has happened since January. (Heavy regression, nothing done. you get the idea.) and how I’m putting him in private OT, because he’s behind for HIM. Not the rest of the kindergarten world…for HIM.

Long story short…I WON! I got goals that work for what they need to do and what I want. NICE.

Take 2 happened when I got the inital draft of the IEP and sent the mail off to the consultant teacher about questions on the IEP. I got a call back from the Speech therapist who tends to run the show if you don’t keep her in check. She’s been around a while, and Isaac loves her, but she does tend to run the show.

She called me at home when the Consultant teacher forwarded her my email about concerns and questions with the IEP. She was on the phone with me rewriting parts of the IEP, and at one point, she breaks into the OT things-and I tell her that we need to find a way to get Isaac writing…and she says…

“well, that’s not in the cards. Just deal with it.”

Umm, excuse me? I’m not asking for him to write a dissertation by hand. For cripe’s sake, I type everything because I go faster this way. All I want is for him to write his NAME by June!

Oh, save me!

Take 3 came at the Pre IEP meeting yesterday. This had my jaw on the floor.

The PT, who I’m not overly fond of-I think it’s a PT thing, brought up our future trip to Shriner’s Hospital in Springfield (I’ll blog about that later. Lots of reasons, lots of explanations there…). I let them know that he would be going so that they could list any concerns they have and I can bring them to the musculoskeletal team. I also wanted to get work that we can do in the car on the hour and a half ride.

So, during the meeting, the PT says:

“so, why after all of this time, did you even THINK to make an appointment with Shriner’s?”

Umm…it was all I could do to be polite and not rip her head off. It’s not her business, just be happy that you’re being asked for input on this. SERIOUSLY!!

Blah. at least this is less eventful than last year…

Haircut Hell

Isaac needed a haircut. That was obvious. I was thinking of taking him to the good ‘ol Supercuts near the Game Geekery, but he wasn’t having it. He wanted to go to Snip-its. Prizes, video games and toys to play with while he got his hair cut…enticing.

I relented. I drove the extra mileage to Snipits to get him his haircut. We’ve been there before. It makes life a bit easier when Isaac is in “wiggle mode” to have people who only deal with kids. He’s gotten good cuts there, and it’s really no more than the Supercuts…so I was all for it.

We got there, and the vibe was interesting. There were two stylists on, and one was having trouble with a French braid-her wrist was bad…and the one who got us.

Isaac was coloring in a NASCAR coloring book and didn’t want to stop, so he had a small whine fit. The stylist went from nice, cheerful and patient to grumpy, surly and really wanting out. You could see it in her body language. She began to get snippy with Isaac and was rushing his haircut. She grumped at Isaac every time he moved his head and I ended up restraining his head so she didn’t cut him with her clippers or scissors.

I wasn’t too thrilled with the haircut, but figured it was me and the fact that I was not happy with the stylist. We paid and got the heck out of there. Our stylist wasn’t even there to tip, because she made some excuse to run to the back of the store and hide while we were checking out. This should have been a signal….

Over the next 24 hours, we washed Isaac’s hair, and really got a good look at it. As we were on our way to the RPI Big Red Freakout (that’s a post for later…) I noticed the horrid haircut he had gotten. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the fact that we hadn’t washed his hair…or he had gotten something in it…but it was a bad cut!

Ms. Grumpy Butt hadn’t done even half of a decent job…

I called the place as soon as they opened on Sunday morning (which is NOON!) and explained the situation and asked if Ms. Grumpy Butt was there, because I didn’t want her touching Isaac’s head again after the disaster that was his current haircut. The assured me that today was her day off and to bring Isaac in for a fix. I was beyond skeptical of their ability to fix the disaster that was his hair. It would take almost a miracle to fix the professional hackjob that was done on his head.

We walked in and were greeted by the stylist and told them that we had an appointment to get Isaac’s hair fixed. The first stylist we talked to was in a rush (and I figured this did NOT bode well) and said “fix?” I said “look at his hair! It’s atrocious.” She took one look and the disbelief on her face was amazing. She checked us in and walked away shaking her head. The receptionist then got a look at Isaac’s hair. She was appalled as well at the condition of his hair.

We were then called and got a cheerful, sweet stylist who took one look at his hair and asked the following questions:
1) Who did this?
2) what time were you here on Friday?
3) Why did you leave with his hair like this?

So, I answered all 3 questions…and the answer to the 3rd one? We were so uncomfortable with the vibe and the stylist’s attitude, that we just wanted to get out and go home. We had other things to do and I figured it would settle out when we washed it. No such luck.

The new stylist spent a good 30 minutes FIXING the hackjob that took 10 minutes to create. The entire time she was fixing it, she kept remarking how she couldn’t believe that this came out of THIS shop. She also did what Ms. Grumpy Butt didn’t-engage Isaac. Ask him questions, play games with him and joke around with him the entire time that he was getting his hair fixed.

We walked out with a good haircut (thank goodness), a name that we can call ahead and see if she’s there and our faith restored in Snipits.

But oh, brother was it hard. Haircuts shouldn’t be this hard….

Hockey and the US…keep them playing for longer-make them lifers!

I’ve spent the last two weeks watching more hockey than I’ve watched in a LONG time. Doug commented that he felt like it was when we had the Center Ice package back in California-hockey…all day, every day!

Isaac watched with us, and I could tell the wheels in his head were turning. He keeps remarking (to this day!) that Ryan Miller is the coolest thing ever. I can’t disagree, but I keep trying to change his thinking, because I really don’t want a goalie in my family.

I digress about the not having a goalie in the family…

So, I dig into my email this evening and find a mail from the hockey association Isaac plays for. They’re having a meeting regarding the American Developmental Model (ADM) for youth. They’re going to be discussing the hallmarks and how it fits in with the SYHA organization. I spent a lot of time combing through this model when Isaac demanded to play hockey, so this wasn’t news to me What was news to me was the shocking statistics of retention of players.

What really scares me is that if we don’t get it right NOW, we may not have a future generation of US born hockey players to challenge the world like this year’s team did. We may not see the next Ryan Miller, Zach Parise or Brian Rafalski. The scary statistic is that 60% of kids who start hockey drop out before pee wee. They learn to skate, play and play maybe a season of mites and squirts. They never make it to pee wee and past. This is an issue. Hardcore. If we only have 40% making it through now, what’s to say that number won’t drop?

The ADM emphasizes diversifying in sports-not just playing hockey. For some, that’s a bold statement. For us here, it’s actually welcome.

why?

Isaac thrives on motion. He loves the rink, but I want him to see the wide world outside the rink. If he goes and plays fall or spring soccer, goes and swims, he’s developing key skills that will assist him in the rink. Can we keep him skating? Sure! BUT, he doesn’t need to be in the throws of hockey year round.

It also forces my child with special needs to interact with other kids. He has found his like minded group at hockey, but he needs to diversify (see? there’s that word again) and meet new people, who he may find just as like minded…but he never would have met if he didn’t play soccer or swim or go run around at the park. Then, when he goes back to the rink after a month or two off, he finds his friends, like N and T who love him for the nutty hockey player he is. They’ll all be back where they left off, encouraging each other, playing together and maybe bringing new blood into the fold with their friends they met in other sports!

Does that mean that I’m definately opposed to sending Isaac to hockey camp this summer? Nope. I’m not. that’s one week in the grand scheme of things. If he goes for ONE WEEK in the summer, he’s got the rest of the time off before he comes back to the rink in November.

I think this is the right way to go. Keep more than just 40% playing hockey. Of course, there are always the detractors, but come on. You have to start somewhere.

Play, Love, Excel.
That’s the ADM motto. I think it’s a good one.

You learn to play, learn to love the game and then excel to the best that you can be.

More sports should adopt that.

Play. Love. Excel.