Cramming

We are in the midst of preparing for several major Jackson happenings. The first is his official assessment at the PACT World of Care Daycare to establish his eligibility for the program. I'm not too worried that he won't qualify, everyone (including the social worker at the daycare) seems to think he's over qualified, never the less, we will go in as prepared as possible.

The second happening is a visit to and assessment by Kennedy Krieger's Assistive Technology department. The purpose of of our trip downtown on Monday is to explore other state of the art communication devices that may be useful for Jackson in the classroom and other public settings.

The dreaded IEP is scheduled for the morning of Wednesday the 13th (lucky number 13!) During which we will be surround by twelve county employees (administrators, educators and therapists) telling us (hopefully in a well thought and educated way) what services Jackson needs and what services they're willing to give him. We're pushing for an intensive 5 day program but we've been warned there is no guarantee we'll get that. (These people don't know me very well...)

And then rounding out the week, next Thursday Jackson and I will travel the well worn route down I-83 to JHMI for another brain MRI. The doctors are fairly certain that everything will look normal, but it has been over two years since his last MRI and they want to be sure nothing unexpected has happened in that crazy little brain of his.

In preparation for our upcoming educational encounters, Jason and I are sitting down over the course of several evenings to go over all the paper work; The private and county evaluations, doctors reports, standing orders, Jackson's previous IFSP (educational plan), an acutal IEP, Parent advocacy laws and rights, etc, etc. It is of the utmost importance that we are a completely unified front in our battle to get Jack the resources and services he needs. Preparations which seem a bit like cramming in college - although we haven't pulled an all nighter - yet.