School is no place for meeeeee...

My child is living Chrysanthemum. She was so excited to go see her school today and I just know she loves her name. (OK, she doesn't really speak much, but if she did, I know she would tell me, "I looooooove being named 3.0!!!")

And today, a happy, confident 3.0 met Victoria.

dum dum duuuuuuuuuuum

3.0 has a particularly long name and when she was being introduced to the class, one of the aides said, "Can we shorten that to 3? Something a little simpler than 3.0?"

That aide is temporarily deadened to me. I channeled my inner Mrs. Chud and told her we usually shorten her name, but I did refrain from telling her to put her head up her butt, I mean, down. +3 points for Mama's good behavior. -1 point for Victoria-the-aide.

As luck would have it, my kid won't be hurt by that. Thank goodness for small favors.

Other than that, the class is darling and they already hired an aide in anticipation of 3.0 and another child's arrival. I was very impressed. The teacher was too, actually. She said she's seen fast hires, but she first saw 3.0's file last week and she has a new aide TODAY. There will be 10 kids in the class and there is one teacher and 2 aides. The class seemed calm and happy. And 3.0 was VERY thrilled to see she would get a backpack.

While 3.0 is scheduled for 2 days a week of speech therapy (30 minutes per session), she will be getting 4 days a week right now and that will probably stay that way. Also, they think, at this point, there will be room for her for the extended summer program. Her IEP doesn't say she needs it (or even recommend it) but the school said if there's room, they think she could benefit. They brought it up - not me - sort of feeling out if I was interested. +3 points for the school.

The teacher actually lives in my neighborhood and while I don't know her, she knows many of my neighbors. +2 points for the teacher. The school will let me pick 3.0 up early enough to get 1.0 and 2.0 on time, as well. +2 points for the school. The IEP team didn't mention that if I didn't choose to have 3.0 bussed, I'd need to reconvene an IEP meeting to change that. -5 points for the District. The school said they'll make it work if I need it faster. +2 points for the school.

The office staff was loooooovely and they had cute kid art hanging up, which always makes me so in love for a place (I have fancy-framed kid art on my walls, too!) +2 points for the school. They also had 2 of those creepy crying time-out dolls against a trophy case. -1 point for plain old poor taste.

3.0 seems excited and was asking everyone in class, "Wan-ta-be-friends?" +150000000 points for her. She is clearly the big winner.