Virtual School

Jerah waiting for school to start.

Jerah and one other child are in the virtual classroom. Jerah was crying because his favorite teacher aid had not signed in yet. The other child was on the floor, crying with a blanket over his head.

Once Jerah’s favorite aid logged on, he was happy. He really likes the Microsoft Meetings part of Virtual School.

Some days he does not want to go to in person school. We have a dry erase board schedule so he knows what’s coming each day. One day he was looking at the schedule and at the bottom I had written “School tomorrow.” Jerah pointed at the board and said, “No school tomorrow.” I replied, “Yes, there IS school tomorrow.” Jerah glared at me, pointed at the board and firmly stated, “*I* said NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!” I sort of laughed and said, “Yes, buddy. There IS school tomorrow.” He contemplated this briefly, walked over, erased where I wrote “School tomorrow,” and shouted, “THERE! *NO* SCHOOL TOMORROW!” 🤣 I had to bribe him with a trip to Dominoes. In the world of autism we don’t call it bribing, we call it a positive reinforcer.

Another cute Just Jerah story involves him having a pain in his foot. He jumps up and down constantly. He can jump really high. He gets ribbons for jumping in the Special Olympics every year. Jerah yelled “OUCH!!!” I come running from the other room, “What happened, buddy!?” Jerah pointed at his heel and whimpered, “Foot elbow hurts!” His foot elbow! 😍😅

Anyhow, I guess I will get back to watching Virtual School. Jerah’s reading ability is progressing nicely. I am excited about that. We have been doing really well at home together since he has been home from Hawthorn Center. We have only had a couple of aggressive outbursts and one evening where we had to have the crisis team come out and intervene. This is an amazing improvement over how we were a year ago! Praise God!

Okay… Autism Class Virtual School is the best TV show ever! I love watching! It’s my favorite! 😍😂

Tablet school

Jerah doing his tablet school, selecting wrong answers on purpose. 😂

It’s been a busy few months.

Jerah is doing well. He has in person school 4 days a week and on Wednesdays he has virtual school (if you can call it that!)

At first they did an online Microsoft Meetings version of school. Wednesday at 10 AM we would log in and see his teacher and his teacher assistants. Jerah LOVED IT! He really enjoyed seeing everyone on the screen. First week, only Jerah and one other student logged in. Second week, same thing. Third week, Just Jerah. All that set up and all three teachers/assistants for Just Jerah. One student.

So, they changed to tablet school. They send home a Google Chrome Tablet on Tuesdays and we send it back on Thursdays because they don’t want anything to happen to the piece of junk that doesn’t work. Google should stick to their search engine, because their laptops and tablet completely suck. If I were Google, I would not want my name associated with those pieces of crapola. But that’s Just Me. First day of tablet school, we finally figure out how to turn the dang thing on, and its battery is more than half dead. Then it decides it must do a “Critical Systems Update” which logged us out of EVERYTHING. And we did not have the information to log back in. I emailed the teacher and we had an email conversation half the day trying to fix it. There are four different log ins and all four are set up with a different log in name and password… cuz, that’s helpful to parents. Last week was week 3 of tablet school and I finally scrapped that idea and logged him in on my own tablet which worked much better. Except that Jerah has decided that he LOVES the noise it makes when he gets a wrong answer. So now he gives wrong answers ALL the time. He knows the correct answer, so I just let him have fun. We do goofy tablet school for a bit and then turn to more important things such as how to do laundry and how to cook food in the microwave.

Will be trying to write more here… I love blogging, but my life is incredibly full at the moment. The ministry I oversee was awarded a very large grant for expansion of the program. Lots of planning and preparation this month as our expanded program launches Nov 1.

I will part with this… I saw a T-shirt recently that stated “Hustle so hard your haters ask if you’re hiring.” I did.

Holy 2020, Batman

This year has been one for the books.

A Boy and His Chicken

I am inclined to say that I have writer’s block. But I don’t. I have too many things to write and they’re getting all jammed up inside my head, so many things and I don’t know what to put into this blog and what to keep to myself… so we’ll start with an update and end with the chicken.

Really Rose

I’m about to get really real here…

CAT CATASTROPHE!

Some day soon, I will write about the events that lead up to Jerah’s admission to Hawthorn Center, a state psychiatric hospital in Michigan. I am not ready yet. But shortly after he was admitted, I ended up adopting another cat. I think it was Hemingway that said “One cat just leads to another.”

Oh my lanta! He wore a mask!

The call of the auto parts store and all the logos therein prompted this guy to don a mask for the first time! Ain’t he so cute!?

We have to run some errands today…

Just Jerah is excited to go Bye Bye

Jerah is excited. Momma is not. Jerah hasn’t been in public since the car broke down on the 3rd. I was sort of glad it broke down! He doesn’t always tolerate the public well. It is nerve wracking for me to take him places. Prior to his four month residential stay at Hawthorn Center, he was regularly becoming violent and hitting and headbutting random people… He is doing so much better now, but the fear of going into public remains the same for me because we haven’t been in public much since he came home on the June 30th.

Telehealth… LOL!

I was told that the telehealth appointment with Jerah’s psychiatrist would be a voice call only… at 9:20 AM today. So here I am in a ratty T-shirt and sloppy pony tail, Jerah still in his pajamas, and my teeth aren’t in… I am missing a lot of my teeth… because you know… well, meth. I wear a flipper until such time as I get over myself and go have the remaining top teeth pulled for a full upper plate of dentures or implants. Who has time for all that!? I don’t wear the flipper much at home, I use it for when I am out in public (although having to wear a mask means I sometimes leave the flipper in a case in my purse!) So….