Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Jennifer Flinton's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, November 7th, 2009
12:40 pm	Crippled couple It rained a couple of weeks ago here and I stupidly twisted my right knee trying to quickly walk across the grocery store parking lot (I have really acclimated to all the Texas sun - can't stand to be out in the rain for longer than necessary). I have been limping around ever since. It is better on the weekends when I don't do as much physical activity - I think all the up, down, running and crawling around at my job aggravates it. Anyway, on Wednesday Jimmy somehow hurt his right foot while swimming in our pool. I watched him, and he tends to lead with his left foot when he jumps in (over and over), so I think he whacked his trailing right foot during one of these jumps. It doesn't appear to be broken, but he's got a nasty bruise on the bottom and is also limping around. So together we make quite the cute crippled couple. Update: Just came from taking Jimmy to the doctor for x-rays of his hurt foot. Nothing is broken, thank goodness. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
6:14 pm	Why I like Texas Jimmy was able to swim today, and had a blast. Nothing like 80 degrees and bright sunshine on November 1st! He even got a little tan on his face. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
12:32 pm	Texas observations It has been raining here for the past two days, after a summer of 100+ degree days and no rain. Rain-related observations: People in Texas cannot drive in the rain. They also freak out and cancel all plans because God forbid they go out and possibly get wet. 74 degrees feels really, really cold when you're used to 105 degrees. I had to switch to long pants and shoes and socks, I was so cold. Church is also a big deal here. Growing up in California, I only knew one family who went to church, and they were kind of considered weirdo zealots. In Washington, I knew two people who went to church (not counting all the Mormons in my last Olympia neighborhood). Here, I only know a handful of people who DON'T go to church, and they're all west coast transplants. Many churches are so big here, they need to have local police direct traffic when they let out! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, September 7th, 2009
7:03 pm	Granite Ranch Paul was here visiting briefly this weekend. He was supposed to arrive Thursday evening and have 4 days with us, but he overslept, missed his flight, and therefore arrived on Friday evening instead, so we only had 3 days. But that's better than nothing. On Saturday, we drove 1.5 hours west to join a group of our friends at a place called Granite Ranch. It is a big ranch house in what they call the "hill country" of Texas. Our friends had bid on it and won it in a fundraising auction last spring, and had requested Labor Day weekend to cash in their win. We were 5 families, all with an autistic child (all the other families besides ours also had a non-autistic sibling). The ranch house was very large, and there was a bedroom for each family. Since we were only coming for the one night - Saturday night - they reserved the separate guest house / apartment for us, which was really nice since it gave us a little more privacy and made it much easier to put Jimmy to bed Saturday night. It would have been hard to put him to bed at 8 pm in a houseful of loud adults and children still partying! The ranch has a lake, lots of acreage with hiking trails, and a pool. They even had some longhorn cattle on the property! For me, it was fun to get away with Jimmy and Paul, and have some "adult time" with friends who understand what living with a child with autism is like. After the kids all went to bed, the girls sat out on the back patio with drinks talking, and the guys sat inside playing poker (apparently Paul even won!). It was a great time, overall. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
7:34 pm	A long first week Last week was Jimmy and my first week of school. First of all, Jimmy is doing fantastic in his new autism classroom. Because they had so many Kindergarten and first grade age autistic kids, they moved Jimmy (who's in second grade) up into the big kids' autism class. So now he's the youngest with kids up to fifth grade age. I was a little worried it might be too challenging for him, but apparently he is holding his own just fine. I got nothing but good reports home all week. My preschool class I work in was crazy. First of all, we started out at capacity - 20 students; 14 special needs and 6 typical peers. On top of that, our school is double it's normal size this year because we are temporarily housing an entire neighborhood's students while their own school is being built. We have almost 1200 students - 10 Kindergarten classes alone! Luckily, this year we were able to split the class according to how we wanted instead of being at the mercy of the district. So, in the morning class we have all the brand new 3 year olds, and in the afternoon class we have all the 4 and 5 year olds. This way, we can plan a curriculum most appropriate to the group. Most of our new kids are very high needs, which is a contrast to last year when we really only had 2 high needs kids. We have one new boy who isn't even assigned to our school - his parents fought the district to get him placed in our classroom instead of the one he'd normally be assigned to. He is extremely high need. If you can imagine how a child would be if he were locked in a closet for his whole 5 years of life, that is him. He goes from attacking the other students to destroying things to trying to escape to trying to pull the fire alarm / open supply cabinets / eat small objects he finds on the ground, etc. You get the picture. The only way to keep him and the other students safe is for one of us staff to basically shadow him constantly. One look away and he's got another student in a choke hold. I spent our half hour of PE each day last week literally running from one end of the gym to the other, back and forth, blocking this kid from hurting himself, others, or getting into something he shouldn't. I'm sure I lost 10 pounds in the process! In other news, Jimmy's bus driver decided it would save her time getting done with her elementary route and on to her middle school route if she arrived 10-15 minutes early at my school and dumped Jimmy into the school office. Never mind that it is absolutely illegal to give a special ed student to anyone other than someone on his or her emergency contact sheet. You can bet I raised hell with the district's transportation supervisor. But you know what? Even though her supervisor talked to her about this, and specifically told her she could not drop Jimmy off with anyone other than me, she tried the same thing the next day! The only reason she wasn't successful was because Mary arrived and told her she couldn't unload Jimmy until I came out at 3:15 (I can't clock out until then, which is why I have that time down as the drop-off time). She drove around the block and came back at the appropriate time. I'll be curious if she tries it again on Monday. No one in my school's front office is equipped to babysit a sometimes aggressive and volatile autistic kid, nor should they have to. They are busy doing their own jobs. Luckily, when they dumped Jimmy the first day, one of my coworkers (who is a one-on-one aide for an autistic boy at my school, and who has a teenage autistic son herself) recognized Jimmy and stayed with him until I came up and got him. I also spent all last week feeling slightly faint and dizzy, and even passed out briefly during recess on Tuesday. I assumed it was due to the increased activity (compared to summer) and the heat. But I went in to the doctor yesterday and was diagnosed with vertigo. Fun times. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
12:01 pm	School Nurse I forgot to mention that when we went in on Thursday to meet Jimmy's new teacher, I dropped off a list of all Jimmy's medications and supplements with the school nurse (it's easier than listing them all on the form she sends home each fall). We have had a number of run-ins with this woman. She is very opinionated, and is clearly disdainful of our choice not to continue vaccinating Jimmy (we have a notarized affidavit on file with her exempting Jimmy from vaccines). Last year, whenever Jimmy had the tiniest bug bite, she would send him home from school for fear it was something contagious, like chicken pox. Never mind that she also has on file a copy of the titers test we had performed on Jimmy that shows not only is he immune to all the diseases he was supposed to get booster shots for, he is hyper-immune (titers way high). That means that the other kids, who have their booster shots, are likely LESS immune than Jimmy. But because she perceives us as "anti-vaccine," she makes our life difficult by singling Jimmy out. So anyway, when I dropped off the form on Tuesday, she couldn't refrain from making a snarky comment about how many medications and supplements Jimmy is on. As many of you know, we are following the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) protocol with Jimmy - one of the main reasons we moved here is there is a big DAN! medical center in Austin. With the DAN! protocol, you try to make up for deficiencies by giving a lot of supplements. The school nurse not only is disdainful of us for not vaccinating Jimmy, but she clearly looks down on the whole DAN! protocol, too. But her snarky comment was totally unprofessional and unnecessary. It was a good thing Paul wasn't there. He cannot stand the woman (partially because she is a big, fat heavy woman with a brash personality - a combination he has always had trouble with). He would have yelled at her. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 21st, 2009
9:57 pm	I met Jimmy's new autism classroom teacher yesterday. This year, they have a larger than normal number of autistic kids age Kindergarten through 1st grade, and an equal number of autistic kids age 2nd through 5th grade. So they decided to split the two classes up that way. Normally, the younger class is Kindergarten through 2nd and the older class is 3rd through 5th. So, since Jimmy is going into 2nd grade, he is getting a new classroom and a new teacher than last year. The new teacher, like most, is really young and sweet. Maybe 25 years old? She is true Texas, constantly calling me ma'am. I think she is being very ambitious by attempting to have the kids sit in individual desks like we did when we were in school. Nowadays, they usually have the younger elementary kids sit at group tables with 4 or 5 other kids. They don't usually get individual desks until like 5th grade. I can just see some kid having a tantrum tossing one of these desks across the room... Even though the new school year hasn't even started yet, I asked the new teacher about the district's proposal to get rid of the older kids' autism class. This subject came up late last school year - at the time, the district wanted to cut the class right away. But so many parents screamed about the short notice that they agreed to keep the older kids' autism class for one more year. The district's rationale was that if an autistic kid had not made enough progress to move out of the autism class and into general ed by 3rd grade (which is the whole purpose of the autism class - to prepare them for general ed), they weren't likely to be able to by 6th grade, either, so the older kids' class was redundant. The district has lots of data showing this, and as much as it pains me, I think they are right - if anything, kids usually get more imbedded in self-contained classrooms as the years go on than less. So, that means that at this time next year, we'll either be sending Jimmy to general ed (with a one-on-one aide, of course) or to a functional life skills class, depending on how he's doing. Frankly, I can't see Jimmy being able to learn anything in a general ed environment, so that probably means functional life skills. To the district's credit, they've totally revamped the functional life skills classes (and renamed them "functional academic classes"), so they aren't 100% focusing on riding the bus to the food bank and ordering burgers a McDonald's with picture cards - they're actually working on academics and still using the STAR curriculum we moved here for. So it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for Jimmy. Whether Jimmy goes to general ed or life skills, I will request he be transferred to the school I work at. It makes the most sense logistically. I intend to spend this school year grilling and observing both the resource teacher (who would work with Jimmy if he were in general ed with a one-on-one aide) and the life skills teacher at my school to see how their programs run, and see which would be the best fit for Jimmy. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
7:35 pm	Hoarders Last night I watched a program I had recorded called "Hoarders." It was about people who have a mental illness which causes them to hoard things in their houses until they are health hazards, with stacks of stuff everywhere and just narrow paths for them to walk through. It was sort of like watching a car wreck - horrific, but you just can't look away. In all my years of working in mental health, I never (knowingly) came across someone with this disease. It is hard for me to understand how people can stand to live in such deplorable conditions, let alone allow it when they have children. In the show I watched last night, one of the two cases they showed was a young couple with three children, and they were worried about CPS coming to take away their children due to the condition of their house. Well, of course! What did they think? CPS takes kids who's lives are in danger because of hazards, and the house was both a safety and a health hazard. They used their hallway and staircase as the laundry basket! The second case was an older woman who hoarded mostly food, and she had rotting food all over her house, as well as pets she clearly didn't clean up after. It was absolutely disgusting. I can only imagine how her house smelled! She was clearly quite mentally ill - she said she would regularly eat things that were (years!) past their expiration date as long as they "weren't puffy." To her, things didn't truly go bad until they had so much bacteria in them, their cartons would swell up. Crazy! I know I tend a little to the OCD / anal retentive side when it comes to keeping my house straightened, but even so the two cases on the show were over the top disgusting. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
8:00 am	So I had to break into my own house yesterday evening. Jimmy and I came home from speech therapy at around 6 pm and my garage door opener wouldn't work. Stupidly, I've given away all my spare keys to friends, family and now our cleaning lady, so I didn't have a spare house key with me. Besides, because of Jimmy's occasional tendency to escape, I have security chains up on all my doors, so having a key wouldn't have helped with those. So I called Mary (who has a key to my house) and we went to Home Depot, got a new battery for my garage door opener, as well as some bolt cutters for the chain. The new battery didn't help, so Mary used her key on the back door and we used the bolt cutters on the chain. No problem. Nice to know it's so easy to break into my house. Turns out I had flipped the "lock" switch on the garage door opener pad so Jimmy wouldn't open it from the inside. Obviously that doesn't work because we were able to leave, no problem, we just couldn't get back in! In other news, a friend of mine from Olympia had been out of communication for over six months. All of a sudden last night she posts pictures and such using a new last name and saying how much she's "enjoying living at the beach" (not something people usually say about Olympia). Doesn't that sound like someone wanting people to ask where she's been and what's new? Which I did, but she deleted my comment and sent me a cryptic private e-mail asking me to e-mail her privately at a new e-mail address I didn't have. Weird. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
4:26 pm	Twilight I just started reading the first book in the "Twilight" series. This is not my normal type of book to read - I don't like romance nor science fiction, and I'm certainly not an adolescent female. But two of my good friends whose opinion I trust have said good things about the series, and I figured if I liked it, I would have a whole series of books to keep me occupied for awhile. I've made it a little more than halfway through the book. My initial impression is that the story is extremely predictable (think Romeo and Juliet with vampires) and repetitive (every other page the two protagonists are alternately professing their love and saying how they simply cannot be together). The dialogue is stilted. The female protagonist is such an idiot, I am constantly wanting to slap her (think of the stupid young couples who choose to spend the night in deserted cabins in 70's horror movies). All that said, the book is strangely addictive. I read that first half in like an afternoon (and that's with constant interruptions from Jimmy). Even though I can predict almost verbatim what will be said and done on each page, I find myself compelled to keep reading. I imagine this is why the series has been so successful. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 7th, 2009
10:12 pm	Austin Sight-Seeing Tour, Day Five Today Mary joined me again. We went to a restaurant I'd wanted to try called the Roaring Fork. It reminded me a lot of Anthony's. Afterward, since it was so hot, we just went over to an area called "the Arboretum" where they have some shops and such. It wasn't exactly a thrilling last day of my freedom / tour, but I was happy. I am going to check if the place that had Jimmy's camp will do it again over the Christmas break. Jimmy really seemed to get a lot out of it, and I certainly enjoyed the time to myself! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
5:34 pm	Austin Sight-Seeing Tour, Day Four Today I first had lunch at the P. Terry's burger place I was supposed to meet my friend at yesterday. But instead of going to the drive-thru one south of downtown, I went to the one closer to the UT campus (and closer, therefore, to Jimmy's camp) which has a small indoor seating area. It was pretty good as far as burgers go. Afterward, even though it was a cooler 107 degrees today, I opted to go somewhere indoors with air conditioning. So I went to the Blanton art museum that I missed on Monday when it was closed. Turns out today was the day to go - Thursdays are free admission. So that almost made up for the fact that I had to pay $8 for parking a second time. The art museum was ok, but not nearly as interesting to me as the LBJ library and museum on Tuesday. After that, since I was already on the UT campus, I decided to walk a few (shady, treelined) blocks up to the famous UT tower from where Charles Whitman shot all those people in August of 1966. Considering how flat Texas is, I can see how that tall tower gave him a great vantage point. After that, I stopped for an iced tea (have to keep hydrated in this heat) and headed back to Jimmy's camp a little early. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
8:45 pm	Austin Sight-Seeing Tour, Day Three Well, today didn't go according to my carefully planned tour schedule. I had intended to meet my friend Shelly for lunch at another famous Austin restaurant, P. Terry's (a burger joint). Turned out she couldn't get away to meet me, and the P. Terry's in the Barton Springs area that I was supposed to meet her at was only a drive thru. So I ended up going to a Mexican restaurant I'd been to once before that I liked called "Guero's." It is also a famous Austin restaurant, so I felt that I at least stayed true to that part of my plan. It is in an area of town called the "South Congress" or "SoCo" area. That area reminds me a lot of how the Pike-Pine and Capital Hill areas of Seattle are becoming - hip, small boutiques and restaurants geared towards 20 and 30 somethings. Afterward, I had intended to go walk around the park near the portion of the Colorado river they have dammed here called "Town Lake." But my car's thermometer said it was 108 degrees outside, so I changed my plan again and instead went to the shopping area near 6th and Lamar. That is where the original Whole Foods store is, as well as some other expensive stores. Reminded me of Pine Street in downtown Seattle near Westlake Center, et al. I stopped and had a really yummy ice cream at Amy's Ice Cream (another Austin institution) - Mexican vanilla with pecan praline sauce. After all the food today, I think I'm just having a salad for dinner! Since it's supposed to be very hot all week, I think I may have to bag my outdoor sight-seeing in favor of indoor places with air conditioning. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
5:36 pm	Austin Sight-Seeing Tour, Day Two Today Mary joined me for sight seeing. After we dropped Jimmy off, we went to lunch at a traditional Austin restaurant called the Kerbey Lane Cafe. It was very good. After lunch we went to the LBJ Library and Museum. I was surprised how interesting it was. I had planned to go to the art museum I missed yesterday, as well, assuming I'd only spend a short time at the LBJ Library, but we ended up there the whole time. It was interesting to read all the notes that people send the president as well as see the newspaper clippings and such from that era. A lot went on in the USA politically during Johnson's term (and just before) - the civil rights act, Vietnam, the Apollo landing on the moon, the shootings of both Kennedy's, and just the whole 60's scene, musically, socially, politically, and through art. As far as a period of time to study, those years were pretty interesting. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
8:46 pm	Austin Sight Seeing Tour, Day One Today was Jimmy's first day at camp, so it was also my first day sight seeing in Austin. After dropping Jimmy off, I went and had lunch at a Greek restaurant that was recommended to me by my realtor's wife. It was just a bit south of the place Jimmy had camp on Guadalupe Street (aka "The Drag" outside the UT campus). It was quite good. Afterward, I drove a bit further south to the southern edge of the UT campus. There, I went to the Texas State History Museum and the Texas State capitol building. Both were interesting, and thankfully cool since it was 103 degrees outside. I would have liked to see the Blanton Museum of Art kiddy-corner across the street (especially since I'd paid $8 for parking and didn't want to waste it), but it turns out it is closed on Mondays. I may go back tomorrow if I have time. Tomorrow is the LBJ Library for sure, and a walk around the UT campus. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
9:42 pm	Austin Sight-Seeing Tour This coming week, Jimmy has "camp" each afternoon. For an autistic 7-year-old, "camp" is basically a small group of kids in a therapeutic setting being taught to play and interact appropriately, with a very small staff-to-student ratio. I will drop Jimmy off each day at 1:00 pm and don't have to pick him back up again until 4:00 pm. Since the camp is in Austin, I don't want to drive all the way home to Round Rock for those three hours, so I intend to do some sight seeing in Austin. I have lived here a little over a year and really have not seen much of Austin. With Jimmy, it is nearly impossible to go anyplace, and with Paul gone most of the time, I really don't get to do much. So, I asked our realtor's wife, who was born and raised here in Austin, where some good places to go are. The first two days I intend to check out the places in and around the University of Texas campus. There are several museums, as well as the LBJ Presidential Library. Plus, there are the standard eclectic shops and restaurants on the street they call "The Drag" outside the UT campus (basically the equivalent of "The Ave" outside the UW campus in Seattle). So I'll check those out. Then, for Wednesday through Friday, I hope to check out downtown Austin, including the capitol building, the Barton Springs area, and the Town Lake walking path (e.g. dammed portion of the Colorado River that Austinites insist on calling a lake). There are a lot of restaurants and cafes I'll likely try, too. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be nice to be able to see some places in Austin. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 31st, 2009
4:16 pm	Rain It has rained here for the past two days. This is nice for a couple of reasons. One, we sorely need the rain. And two, the rain dropped the temperatures down into the 90's instead of the 100's where it had been since the beginning of June. However, 95 degrees + big downpour = sauna outside. I could feel my pores opening just bringing the garbage can back in from the curb! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 20th, 2009
9:28 pm	Feel guilty I am not a very confrontational person. I actually actively avoid confrontation. So I feel really guilty right now for yelling at the construction manager for our pool over the phone earlier. Our pool is great and I am overall very pleased with the work. However, the biggest problem we've had throughout the process is poor communication. First, the pool sales rep told me that they, the pool company, would take care of the safety fence. I found out weeks later that I had to take care of that myself. The safety fence company is coming tomorrow to install the safety fence. Next, due to the bitchy neighbor, we had to have our AC units removed. We based the dates for removal and reinstallation on what the pool company told us. Turns out we could have had AC for at least the first full weekend of that week. Living without AC for even an extra day when it's 106 degrees outside is not fun. Throughout the 4-week process, there were numerous times the construction manager would tell me things would be done on certain days, only to have the on-site construction manager tell me differently. A week ago, the construction manager told me we'd be swimming by this weekend. My pool is, indeed, finished, but it's still full of murky water filled with all the crap that fell in during the construction, attracting lots of mosquitos. This morning, I left a voice mail for the construction manager asking for dates for two things - when the portion of fence they removed for the excavation would be reinstalled and when the murky water in the pool would be cleaned out and the pool started up. He didn't call me back until 6 pm tonight. Instead of directly answering my questions, he told me that the City of Round Rock inspector would be out tomorrow and did I have an alarm installed on my back door? Huh? That's the first I heard of needing an alarm. Next, he asked whether the gate on our fence panel (the one sitting there waiting for them to reinstall it) had a self-closing spring and latch, and whether the latch was 54 inches from the ground. Huh? again. Then he asks me if the poles on the safety fence are bonded, whatever that means, and indicates that if they are not they might cause the pool not to pass inspection. He says he would prefer if the safety fence could wait until after the inspection. I was so angry I yelled at him. I said first of all, I was far more concerned about my autistic son drowning in the pool than I was about their timeline. I said that I had told the sales rep from day one that I wanted the safety fence up before any water was put in the pool for this reason, and due to their difficulty with communication, this hasn't occurred. Next, I told him that since they were the ones who recommended the safety fence company, shouldn't they be the ones to know whether the poles were bonded or not? I didn't think of it in time, but I should have also pointed out that it was very unprofessional to tell me about requirements for the inspection the night before the inspection - not enough time to comply. I wasn't sure at the time if he had told Paul these things, but turns out he hadn't. Anyway, now I feel guilty for yelling. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 13th, 2009
1:41 pm	Our pool is almost finished! Well, I just gave the pool company the final payment for our new pool and spa - they had us give several payments throughout the construction process rather than one big payment. I am told it will be done either this weekend or early next week. I can't wait! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
11:23 am	Hot week The hole for our brand new in-ground pool is being dug this week. As per my previous post, our bitch of a neighbor on our south side wouldn't grant access for the excavator to swing wide around our AC units and cross onto her side of the property line, so we had to have the AC units removed to allow the excavator access to our backyard. It has been right around 100 degrees every day here for the past week or so, so as you can imagine, our house is very hot without AC. Jimmy is in summer school now, so right after I put him on the school bus at 9 am, I go run errands in air conditioned stores until he gets dropped off again at 12:30 pm. Then we head straight over to my mother-in-law's house down the street. We hang out there all afternoon and through dinner, and don't come home until the sun has gone down around 8:30 pm. Even so, the house is an oven when we get here at that time. We've got several fans going, plus the ceiling fans, but it doesn't help much. It has been dropping into the mid-70's at night, so if we sleep with the windows open, it cools the house off by around 11 pm or so. The AC units get reinstalled on Saturday afternoon. I can't wait! We're getting a fiberglass shell pool, and it will be delivered and installed into the hole in our backyard (via a crane over the top of our house!) on Friday. Then it will take a couple more weeks for them to do all the decking, safety fence, electrical, plumbing, and detail work necessary for the pool to actually be usuable. Come mid-July, Jimmy and I should be able to swim in our new pool! (3 Comments |Comment on this)