Bryan

Bryan and I headed over to Stephenville on Monday night. We got to our cousin's house about 7 and Bryan had a blast. They have some land along with some animals. They have ducks, geese, cows and horses. It was too late for Bryan to ride the horses so we decided that the next time we go to pick him up we will stop by Stephen and Malissa's for some horse riding time. The have a 5 year old little boy and he and Bryan palled around.

I got both of the kids down around 9 and I headed off to bed for some much needed catch-up sleep. I figured I better be well rested for my long day on Tuesday and the drive back home. Kylee got up about 4 and I had to feed her to keep her from waking everyone else up. But all in all she did great! She even lasted through the hour meeting and slept all the way home.

I got to meet Bryan's teacher Tuesday morning when i dropped him off at school 30 minutes late! We were in town I just couldn't find the school and he wasn't sure where we were. It ended up that we had to drive through the Tarleton campus to get there so that through me off. Kylee and I went back up to the school to have lunch with him and he enjoyed that. He said that he doesn't have any friends and didn't talk to anyone else during lunch. I hope that changes soon.

Kylee and I headed back up to the school at 2:00 for our 504 meeting. For those of you not familiar with the education lingo, dyslexia is not under the special ed umbrella. So it has to have its own name. All other disabilities are grouped into 504's. Even if a kid breaks his arm and has to write with the other hand, that would be a 504. So anyway the counselor, Bryan's teacher, the education director from the home, Bryan's house mom and I were all at the meeting.

I gave a little background on Bryan and then we discussed some issues he was having. I really like the counselor. She is going to look into special ed testing. They had started the paperwork in Austin when he lived with his mom, but when he moved nothing else was done. I tried to have him tested, but it was too late when he got to my school and Pirtle refused to test him, saying it was unnecessary. I had to complain to get him tested for dyslexia. Can you tell I'm frustrated? So anyway the counselor was very willing to get that ball rolling and I appreciated that.

His teacher said that she had already observed some weird behavior. He had crawled under his desk on a couple of occasions while the teacher was going over directions. She said it was not for attention and she didn't even notice it until another kid pointed it out. I think he got overwhelmed. He had also been rocking and humming in class. They were wondering about Asberger's. As most of know he has been tested for that, but it was inconclusive. One one scale he was, on one scale he wasn't. We decided to retest him later after treating the reactive attachment disorder some more.

Most of the meeting went very well and I can tell that everyone really cares about him. But there was one part that was disturbing. The teacher brought a picture that Bryan had drawn and it had a gun in it. When she asked him what the gun was doing he said it was pointing at his head. I was shocked and very sad when I saw it. Jonathan and I are trying to figure out what to do with this. Please pray that we can do what is best for Bryan.