The joy of advocates, IEPs and baked apples!

      What a busy September it has been with school starting for all three of my children.  The oldest is in her last year of college, and thankfully doesn't need any help from mom and dad.  We keep a roof over head, provide moral support and stay available for daily chats.  That is all the support she needs.
       My autistic son is in his last year of high school.  We had to deal with transportation issues with him,as the bus system had him listed as graduated.  It took two days to straighten out, but he's all set now.  I still don't know what his class schedule is this year and that is next on my to do list.  I've had to direct all my attention to my third child so far this school year.
       Child number three, my daughter with ADD and learning disabilities, is beginning her sophomore year in high school.  We didn't know what her schedule was going to be either.  I went to school the first day of school to see her schedule and make sure it was appropriate.  It all looked fine to me.  Last week I get the call to do her IEP.  I went on Friday and only her math teacher/case manager was there.  He was flipping out and saying maybe she should be in a different school.  So I let him get everything off his chest and said I wanted to schedule another IEP meeting with all the people who were supposed to be there actually there.  It was scheduled for this morning.  When you have an IEP meeting, your children's teachers should be there; OT, PT, and Speech teachers should be there; the school psychiatrist or social worker should be there and finally a representative from the SpEd dept of the school system should be there.  Over the weekend I contacted a couple that I know from my church who have two, grown, handicapped sons.  The husband is a retired judge and knows all the legal information. The wife has been involved with an agency that deals with handicapped adults for years.  They offered to come with me today for the next IEP meeting.  They had me call the school first thing this morning to let them know I was bringing advocates with me.  I'm here to tell you that everyone showed up for this meeting!  What a difference!  It turned out that my advocates have known the school dept. representative for years.  We all had a great conversation about my daughter, her strengths and weaknesses.  My advocates were so helpful in asking the right questions and also providing some great information on some services as well.  There will be some testing to see if she qualifies for any visual technology.  The math teacher was calmed down and actually admitted that she did really well on a quiz last Friday.  I am so, so glad that I bought advocates with me this time.  I have always gone by myself to IEP meetings.  I won't be going alone any more.  You get more respect and consequently more results if you have an advocate with you.  It's nice to feel like I did my all for my daughter today. 
         BAKED APPLES and fall, they just seem to go together.  I love going to the farmer's market and smelling all the fresh picked apples.  My son loves apple juice and apple sauce.  It seemed a natural to try him on other apple treats.  The easiest is the baked apple.  I use a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  I'm not sure that I can print it so I'll just say that it uses apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins and a little bit of water or apple juice for the apples to sit in.  I'm sure there is a cooking site that has their own version that you can find.  My son doesn't like cooked raisins and the wrinkly brown skin was a turn off.  However, once I scraped the apple out of the skin, he was fine with it.  Future blogs will have my very own apple crisp recipe and a recipe for apple sauce spice cake.  My son and all my family love both of these, plus they make the kitchen smell so good!  So stay tuned.  I hope you enjoy your fall and all the wonderful produce that will be out there!  Hugs to all of you!
                                                                                   Nancy

Some good information

      Hi everyone!  This is just a quick post to give you all some interesting information that passed my way today.  Going through my emails I found the recent Autism Speaks blog.  I read them to keep up on the latest news about autism.  I've read a lot of negative things about Autism Speaks recently on facebook, but I find them informative and I appreciate the research that they fund.  Any way, todays blog had an article entitled Finding Credible Autism Research.  They listed many places to look using many types of media. I wish I had a list like this 16 years ago when my son was first diagnosed!  All I got was a manila envelope with copies of a few articles in it from the Developmental Pediatrician that we saw! The world knows so much more about autism now than it did back then.  I'm so glad the information is getting easier to find. You can go to the Autism Speaks/blog web site to read it or my facebook page Autism and Cooking.  I have posted it there. 
       I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.  We've had glorious weather so far.  Today was warm, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds.  A perfect day by my standards.  I got out for a walk with my daughter and soaked it all in. Hugs to you all!
                                                Nancy