All about Cole

Cole has been having trouble in school for a couple years now. It mostly involved him refusing to do his work although he's perfectly capable of completing the work. This school year started off no different, but I think his teacher this year wasn't happy to just let it go. She has really pushed with him, trying to get him to do what he's supposed to do without success. And then she began reporting things to me that were a little more disturbing, like the fact that he has only one friend at school, or strange behaviors he was displaying (talking to himself, pulling his hair, things like that). We began taking him to a marriage and family counselor hoping that we'd be able to figure out how to get him to do what he was supposed to do, but after the first appointment with the MFC, it became obvious to me that there was something more going on. So, three months ago, I began the process to get him tested by a neuropsychologist so that we could get a diagnosis of what exactly was wrong so that we could then begin to treat it and help Cole succeed in school.

In the meantime, I began to take on a much larger role for his schooling, trying to get him back on track. Our straight A student came home with a D on his last report card, so it was obvious that he needed more help from me. I spent three weeks where I went to his school twice every day. I went in the morning to give him a recess (his grade doesn't get recess until 2 pm which is difficult for a normal 10 year old boy, but impossible for Cole) and then in the afternoon, I would spend 3 hours in the classroom with him helping him stay on track. On the days that he absolutely wouldn't work, I brought him home and did some "homeschooling" with him using the work his teacher gave me. I even kept him home on days after he had a really bad day so that I could get him caught up on his work. I had to stop pulling him out of school because I was told by his teacher that if he reached a certain number of absences that, regardless of the reason, the courts would get involved and I could be fined for not having my son in school (interesting since essentially I was insuring my son was getting the best education possible). I recently stopped spending every day in the classroom with him as well because it just wasn't helping long term. Really what Cole needs is an Individualized Education Plan, but without a diagnosis, the school couldn't help me even though it was obvious to his teacher and I that accommodations needed to be in place for Cole (his principal, in his infinite wisdom, told me that my son is ADD and as soon as we medicate him for that, the problems would be solved basically). It has been a very difficult thing to watch your son struggle so much and know that you are his only advocate, the only one on his side pushing and fighting for him. I just kept thinking that we just needed to hang on for the diagnosis because the IEP was coming if I could just wait long enough for a diagnosis. Of course it was always on my mind that I could just pull him out of school and homeschool him, but I had a lot of reasons I hesitated to do that. The biggest reason I hesitated is that Cole is having problems socially and I felt that it would be counterproductive to pull him out of his biggest social environment.

Last month we finally had the testing date. Cole and I spent 8 1/2 hours down at Phoenix Children's Hospital while the neuropsychologist tested him all day. I prepared myself well for a day in the waiting room with my laptop and books, but while I'd been warned it could take up to 6 hours for the testing, I hadn't actually thought it would take that long. I saw another family in the waiting room with me all day, so I knew they must have been going through the same thing, but even they left before we did. I just kept telling myself that all my time would be worth it if we got a proper diagnosis out of it.

That brings us to yesterday when we had the appointment to get the diagnosis. She diagnosed Cole with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (which autism falls into this category), but it's kind of a catch all when they don't know exactly what is wrong. She said that she knows that there is something wrong with Cole socially but that it's being muddied right now by his second diagnosis, so until we get that under control, she won't be able to pinpoint exactly what is going on with that. Cole was also diagnosed with Depressive Disorder which is impacting everything else that is going on with him and making it hard for him to want to be social. I've set up an appointment with a psychiatrist's office so that we can begin to get that treated, and hopefully once we've got that under control we will see some improvement with everything else. In fact, we are supposed to get it under control and then take him back to the neuropsychologist so that she can get to the bottom of his social problems.

With all of that, from what he was scoring in some things, it is obvious to us why he is having trouble in school. Some of the other things that he tested poorly in were in his executive functioning which is how the brain handles tasks. It handles working memory, our ability to get started with work or breaking down large amounts of work into more manageable parts, and complex problem solving among other things. This alone explains a lot of Cole's problems in school because his brain just isn't capable of handling things the same way. He also has trouble with his processing speed. Much like a computer's processing speeds affect how quickly a computer can handle tasks, so does our brain's processing speed. Cole's speed is just much slower than other people's, so it takes him much longer to complete a task even though if you were going just based on intelligence he should have completed it much faster than most people. This speed is also affecting his fine motor skills, and he's having some trouble with problems that involve his fine motor skills. When explaining these results to us, the neuropsychologist showed us a bell chart and explained how most people fall into the bell shaped range while anything outside the bell shape is abnormal, either high or low. Most of the things that he tested low on, Cole is actually testing in about the average range, but his intelligence is so high that sometimes the difference was twenty points or more which is really abnormal. She was explaining to us how we want to get his functioning skills to match his intelligence more closely. Another interesting factor was his score on independent skills (such as his hygiene, tasks related to taking care of himself). With his intelligence in the abnormally high range, so should his independence fall into that high range. Cole tested so low on this that he would be at the same range as someone with mental retardation. What this has meant for us is that it will be things like us having to tell him five times to brush his teeth before it gets done every single night. Or that if I don't tell him to change his clothes and underwear, he will literally wear the same thing every day. This score didn't come as a surprise to us since we've been dealing with this for a really long time with him, but it does give me hope that maybe we can get this under control. The neuropsychologist already gave us some ideas on how to deal with this, so I'm happy that we can get started on helping him become more independent.

I'm sorry that this post ended up so long, but I hope that I was able to explain things well enough to understand. Since I'm just coming into some of this knowledge, it's hard to explain to others what I'm just starting to understand. For any of my stamping people that have actually made it this far, I hope this explains why I haven't been holding classes the last few months. I hope that as we're able to get him the help he needs that I'll be able to resume doing some of the things I want to do. Obviously as a parent when push comes to shove, you do whatever you have to do for your child first and put your own needs after your child, and that's kind of where I've been for the last few months. As we gain more control over these things, I hope to be able to stamp more and do more of the things I want to do. But, most of all, I just want to see my son succeed at school and be happy.

Christmas Extravaganza

Saturday, December 3 1-4 pm at my house, we will be making two sets of tags, one small gift, one card, and one gift bag. The cost is $15 and includes the cost of everything needed to make the projects. If you wish to bring your own adhesive and scissors, please feel free. To register for class, please click on the RSVP link here on my website. Here are close ups of the projects we will be making. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Halloween (finally!)

    

 There is a real problem with studying photography and being a perfectionist. It makes you think that every photo you take has to be perfect, especially as the holidays come around. After all, I began this whole photography thing as a way to have better photos to scrap. Despite my best intentions, by the time the kids were dressed up in their costumes on Halloween night, I had lost the light. I'm not terribly comfortable with the flash yet (especially as my camera broke and I've been using a loaner one from school that is older than mine and I can't control it as completely as I can mine). So I improvised and made them dress up for me again this weekend so I could get good pics...of course what any good mom would do, right?







 
Bailey was not decided about what she wanted to be for Halloween until we were at the costume store and saw this costume. Then I told her about the artist behind the piece that this costume was inspired by and she really loved it. Of course, it took the cake when I found this wolf's head in a basket. I could never get her to wear the hood, but I think she made a pretty cute Red anyway.


Cole had a really hard time finding what he was going to dress up as this year. He really wanted to be a ninja, but the costumes were all too small. He's at that size where the boy costumes are too small and the teenage costumes are too big. He kept saying, well, maybe I'll be Luigi until he finally tried on the costume and he was hooked. If we had more time, we were going to make him a brick for over his head, but time escaped us this year. Maybe next year!


By contrast, Lindsay has known what she was going to dress up as for a whole year. The nice part for me is that she could use Cole's Harry costume from last year, we just found her some cute Gryffindor knee highs and a cute little skirt and she was in business. We tried really hard to get her hair to be "poofy" (her word to describe it) like Hermione's, but she has hair just like her mama: stick straight and unwilling to style. I thought she was a cute little Hermione anyway.




For the first time, Jason and I both dressed up for the ward Trunk or Treat this year too (of course, being behind the camera, there is not actually any proof of this, but I swear I did!). When Jason and I were shopping for costumes, I had an idea of what I wanted to be, and I was really hoping to get J to dress up as a couple with me, but that didn't work out. Then he was going to be Mario for Cole but they didn't have a costume in his size by the time we went out looking for us. I did think it was pretty clever, though, when he decided to dress up as Jason. I really loved how goofy he was at the trunk or treat too (although he would end up scaring the little kids a little until he took off his mask to show them it was really Brother Mauss--of course, they don't know that he's even scarier than Jason!). It's always fun to see people you only see dressed up in church clothes actually dressed in costumes and there were some pretty funny ones. Although we were so rushed this year that we didn't really have time to enjoy it, I love Halloween. Of course, the weather wasn't really cooperating leading up to it, but finally on Halloween it cooled down a little and gave us a little taste of fall. Having lived in Arizona for 5 years, this has definitely become my favorite time of year!

Second photo shoot

 Soccer this year is seriously crazy for two reasons. First is because I decided not to put the kids in the City of Surprise soccer program because I felt like they weren't really learning how to play the game. Instead I signed them up for AYSO which is 30 minutes away for practices and games. Second is because my kids were put on teams that practice opposite nights (of course!). (On a side note, the kids practice at my college, so add in another couple trips to and from the same location for school and you'll see where my sanity has been for soccer season). Lucky for me we were able to find someone on each team we could carpool with or I would be even more insane than I already am. The family that Lindsay plays with has a daughter that plays as well, so when we carpool, I get to have the older sister as well. She's a real cutie, and when she first found out I'm taking photography, she and her mom made sure to tell me that Emily loves having her picture taken. So when it came time to work on the rule of thirds, I thought she would make a perfect model, so I set up a time to borrow Emily for a little photo shoot. Apparently she was so excited when she found out that she screamed, so I know she'll be good for more photo shoots in the future.

When I got there to pick her up, Emily was all dolled up and ready to go. I had spent the morning walking around where we live trying to find a good location and I found this great place really close to my house.

Emily was a great model, did everything I asked her to and was patient as I tried to get what I needed for my assignment. I'll definitely be using her in the future since it was a cinch taking her photo. I'm pretty pleased with the results, so I hope her parents like the photos when I give them to the family on Saturday.

 

Of course some of my favorite shots came when she wasn't exactly expecting it. It shocked her the first time when I snapped pictures of her swatting flies, so I just let her know that anything was fair game. So as we got to the end of the shoot, she was getting a little hot and started pulling her hair off her neck. I thought it was cute so I asked her to do it again, and this is what I got from her:

 

Definitely one of my favorite shots from the day. I had so much fun with her, I can't wait to work with her again!

 

Another assignment post

I think all I've posted about lately has been photography, but it sure feels like that's all I've done (well, other than driving my kids everywhere, but that's not really fun to hear about). The assignment we had this week was to learn how to control the depth of field in the photograph, so we needed 30 short depth of field photos and 30 long depth of field photos. My long depth of field photos were really terrible, so I'm not going to post any of them here, but I was pretty pleased with some of my short depth of field. This is my friend's little girl, and it definitely helps to come out with nice photos when you start with such a beautiful subject. She had me laughing too because she was a total diva. First I was going to shoot her inside, but there wasn't enough light. I suggested we go outside thinking we'd go in her backyard, and she insists that we need to go to the park across from her house. After we'd been at the park for a little while, I asked her if she could stand somewhere for me, she says, "No, Jessica, I need to get some water!". After the water, I convinced her to go in her backyard, and I suggested we try to take some near the pool, she refused to go in the pool gate ("No, I'm not allowed!"). She's such a funny little girl and I love her dearly, so it was a lot of fun to work with her. I asked her if she'd let me take pictures of her again and she said yes, so I hope to have some more fun with her soon.

New toys and time to play

Another quickie, but I'm so excited that I got a new toy today.

I even got the time to play with it a little and took some pictures of the page I worked on yesterday and Bailey's invitation for her birthday party.

I totally moved furniture around today just to be make my own little studio so my pictures would come out better. Can I just say how much I love photography? And the best part, I think, is that they're only going to get better. :D

A quick card

This was for my card club this last month. I haven't found the time to be crafty lately other than to rush making my daughter's birthday invitations, so I thought I would post this one. I absolutely love the colors in this card and desperately need to buy more of this paper before it goes away! And I've been having a great time using my markers now that I sort of know how to use them so my images are popping a little more. I just need more time to practice now!

More photos

I'm behind on sharing my photographs for class, so here's one more assignment before I start taking the pictures for the next assignment.

This assignment, we were supposed to practice using the three motion techniques (stop action, blur, and panning) in a creative way. I really struggled with this assignment, not the techniques so much (well, definitely panning, but if you've ever done it, you know how hard it is to master!) but the creative aspect of it. I drove all over taking photos of different things without coming up with something that I really liked. Finally I decided to just have fun with my kids, and sure enough, that's all I needed to do.

I got down into the pool and had them run and jump over me into the pool while shooting the entire time. I think I ended up with over a hundred pictures, most of which aren't great, but this group turned out pretty good.

I really liked this one, I just wish I hadn't got the sun flare right in his face. I tried having the kids jump the other direction away from the sun, but the house in the background just took a lot away from the pictures. But I really love how the sun lit up the water beneath him and his splash down into the water. 

This is the one I presented in class. I love how it looks like he's stepping on the frame of the picture or that he looks like he's walking in the air. Hopefully I learned my lesson from this experience, and instead of driving all over trying to get different things, maybe I should focus my lens on my favorite subjects and work on getting better pictures of them. That is why I started taking this class, after all, so that I had better photos to scrap (now if only I could find the time to scrap!).

Bad blogger

So I'm a bad blogger...and this post isn't really going to cure that because it will mostly be pictures. But, I wanted to catch up a little on my progress in my photography class. I'm having so much fun learning all about photography, hopefully it shows in my photos. 

For this assignment, we were supposed to find our subject we wanted to photograph and then break it down into five smaller close up shots instead of just one overall photo. I immediately thought of a few ideas of what I could do with my son while he was playing with his toys, so Cole was my (sometimes un)willing subject.

This started out as a different photo. I focused on his feet because he does this really weird thing with his toes and I wanted him to do that in the photo, but I couldn't get the shot I wanted with him messing with his feet. I really liked how it turned out though because this is the position he is in a lot of times while he's playing with his toys.

This kid's hair is always sticking up all over the place, so I had to get one of the cowlick.

When I first got Cole into Star Wars at age 4, he was too young for the larger, more breakable action figures, but I found these little guys and we started his collection. He now has hundreds of them and he's never wanted the larger action figures. Even at ten, he still plays with these one. You can see the wear on Luke, how much Cole plays with this toy.

This one is my favorite and the reason I started photographing Cole at all. This boy is always carrying Legos around in his pockets and I knew I wanted to do something that showed that, and I was super pleased with how this photo came out.

Another photography assignment

I've figured out the way my photography assignments are going to work out, at least for now. When we work on something, we're going to have an "A" assignment and a "B" assignment that are on the same thing. The A assignment is due first and is a technical assignment, us just showing that we can capture a picture correctly. The B assignment is a creative assignment, can we capture the subject technically correctly while being creative about it. So my A assignment was just to take some pictures of a main subject, and I shared some pictures from that assignment. Incidentally, we also chose one picture from the group of pictures to share with the class, so for the A assignment, I shared one of my lightning pictures. Although it wasn't technically perfect, it worked since it was a really advanced technique that I was attempting. So yesterday our B assignment was due. This time he wanted us to just go out and capture creative shots about what interests us and these are some of the shots I came up with:

This last one is the one I will present to the class on Monday (we ran out of time yesterday to get through everyone's). I really like vintage things so I went out to an historic park and tried to be creative with what I photographed and how it came out.  Although this assignment calls for us to photograph what we like to photograph, I didn't take any portraits of my kids for this assignment. Part of that was accidental (we're so busy right now I don't have the time to take them for photo shoots) and part was due to circumstance (they're getting tired of me taking pictures of them), but I'm glad it worked out that way. While I want to take good and even creative shots of them, I think for the ones I'm presenting to class it's better for me to be unattached emotionally from the pictures, which is hard to do when it's a picture of your child. I saw that from a couple members of the class yesterday and was doubly glad that I wasn't attached to my pictures. Especially as we are going to be discussing their shortcomings, I think I would much rather not have my kids in my photos. For now, though, I'm really pleased with how much I've learned and I'm looking forward to improving. In all the years of college I've taken, this is, hands down, my absolute favorite class.