Pumpkins, Halloween and meetings at school.

Do I say this every week? Working away from home full time makes the time absolutely fly by! This is my fifth week working in Cannon Falls for the fall and I miss my boys so much. The Sammy and Elijah hugs I get upon returning home every evening are the sweetest things about my entire day.

Halloween was fun! We did our annual family pumpkin-carving evening one day last week. The boys were more involved than they have ever been before. 

Here is Dan, intent in his carving. Notice Elijah's tired gaze? This is something we see a lot lately.

Sammy and I carved our pumpkin in no time. Ghosts in the graveyard.

Sammy hiding from a photo, as usual!

The gooey stuff around Frankenstein's carvings is glow-in-the-dark paint.

The one typical NLD characteristic that Elijah definitely does NOT have is limited facial expressions. :)

My silly, adorable Sammy.

The boys scored with candy on Halloween. We took them to a nearby mall for trick-or-treating and then brought them back home to go to a few houses in our neighborhood. They love handing out candy to kids who stop by our house, so we always make sure to leave room for that. When the doorbell rang, they would RUN to the door and hand out candy while shaking (Elijah) out of excitement.

This year Sammy did what I used to do as a kid. He laid his candy in rows and counted it all. He memorized exactly what he had. I know this because I may have stolen candy from his pumpkin after he was asleep and he totally busted me the next day. He blamed it on Elijah..."ELIJAH STOLE MY COLORFUL LICORICE!" I haven't touched his pumpkin since. The kid knows. Don't mess with Sammy's candy.

I got costumes for the boys last summer super cheap, but Sammy insisted on wearing his robot costume for the THIRD year in a row. :) He might still be wearing this when he's 12. He did willingly wear his cute new Toy Story alien costume a few weeks ago at another Halloween party. Could two boys possibly be any cuter?!

Cute blue super-crayon (Elijah added the "scary mask") and robot, trick-or-treating at the mall!

And this is what I walked in on this morning before leaving for work. Genuine early morning brotherly love. These two love each other so much!

Dan and I had another meeting with Elijah's team at school this week. It was a tough one for us. We were informed that Elijah's behavior has been getting progressively worse while at school, which has included frequent physical aggression and name calling. Dan and I were both startled by some of the things we read in the eval report. Since, we have been in closer communication with his teacher so we can appropriately discipline on days when he becomes physical and calls names.

Next week is our official IEP meeting. In this week's meeting, his teacher pushed for getting an aide in the class who would be solely dedicated to Elijah. She told the team that she pretty much has most of her focus on one child throughout the majority of every day....Elijah. :( That obviously stretches her and detracts from her relationships with the other children. Dan and I are on board with this, so we will see what the team thinks next Wednesday.

Still, we do not feel understood. It seems like the majority is placing focus on ASD instead of NLD, which makes sense considering his new special-education label at school is ASD. I kept mentioning Elijah's tank being totally empty and him being above boiling point, but I received a lot of empty stares back.

I called Dr. M, E's neuropsych, today and asked if he would be willing to come to school to chat with the team. He said he absolutely would! Music to my ears. I feel like he could word things differently and not be the "protective mother" that people hear in these meetings. I'll attempt to set up a meeting for early December so that can happen.

More later. I'm tired. Dan will be away for the weekend hunting, so the little boys and I have some fun planned (cleaning! baking! sleeping!). Thanks for peeking in. Have a great weekend!