not so much onward & upward, as round & round

My little Doodle Bug came home yesterday looking very much like an exceptionally short 15 year-old. He was wearing baggy red track pants and a black t-shirt. Wearing his backpack, listening to his ipod, and sipping from a fast food soda cup.

It was a pretty disturbing to the eye, and it took conscious thought to remember it's a curious george backpack, the ipod's playing Route 66 from the Cars soundtrack, and the cup has water in it.


I haven't posted much about it, but he'll be starting kindergarten in the fall. Pgh is really awesome. The district has a lot of "Autism Support Classrooms" sprinkled throughout the district. Of course, there's the school with the most popular program that everybody scrambles to get into. It and the 2nd most popular program are both on the east side of the city. The side that's closest to CMU. The side with the whole foods and the trader joe's. (yup. Pgh has only one of each.) In other words, the "good side" of town.

That autism classroom has a waiting list as long as your arm. We went and visited this classroom. You know what we found? The school has no playground. No slide. Not a single swing. No nothing. They have a blacktop & and basketball hoop. They have PE twice a week. You know what they do when it's "cold" outside? The kids stay inside for recess and watch a movie!

Now "cold" is a relative term. In Illinois, we got letters saying to send snowpants to school, because if the windchill was above 25 F, the kids were going outside. In Pgh, when it's that cold, they might cancel school. WTF!!! If it's even near freezing the kids don't go outside. So these kids spend recess for weeks on end watching movies.

Maybe the schools are just so old and badly insulated, they can't keep the kids warm even inside the building. Needless to say, my hyper-active doodlebug ain't going anywhere near that school.

Turns out that we did really like the school on the west end of town. The school had a playground. AND, on days when it's too cold to go outside, recess alternates between going to gym on one day and watching a movie on the next. Even better, the classroom had a good, low-distraction environment. I had to spend several days trying to talk to the district autism program coordinator, so I could explain that we're moving.

Wow, I haven't blogged regularly enough to explain all this crap quickly.

Um yeah. So we are getting out of this crap apartment just as fast as we can. The original plan was to stay on the east-end near CMU & send C to the autism program over here. After looking at all the schools & all that crap, it looks like we're going to move to the west-end. Only one problem. The district can't promise us that he'll be assigned to the school we request. What happens if we buy a house on the west-end, and they try to send him to some other school?

So that's why I had to talk to the district coordinator. He's now on the top of the priority list to get into the school we like. Which is really the best she can do, because she is NOT ALLOWED to make any promises.


So we are all very happy, and now we get to go find a realtor. D'ja follow all that?


And I need to study for my quals. Why am I blogging? It's either because I like you guys, or because I'm stupid. Maybe both.