I don’t know if the latter will hold true, but the former certainly is. Sophie’s entire class is invited to her birthday party tomorrow. No matter what she tells you.

Yesterday afternoon — after the local NPR commentary I did about her birthday was long in the can — my friend Vicki (mother of Anyssa, a classmate of Sophie’s) texted after school:

So, I talked to your daughter and asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she told me that I couldn’t go to her party and I asked her why? And she said because I was a boy! But it’s ok for Anyssa to go! But she gave me a kiss said bye!

Whoops. Someone clearly needed to have another talk with Sophie. In fact, I better go. I see that Ms. X just called.

http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/200905/sofiesbirthday

It’s still well over 100 degrees — heck, it’s barely October — so it just doesn’t feel right to call the semester half in the can. But it is. Sophie is halfway done with her first half of kindergarten.

And Annabelle’s half done with the first half of second grade. Ray and I beamed through her conference — she’s a little above grade level for reading and right at grade level for math, and her teacher, Mrs. Z., adores her. The feeling’s mutual; Annabelle practically melts when she hears Mrs. Z’s name. I grilled Mrs. Z about mean girl stuff and whether AB’s a nag (no and no) and we talked about Annabelle’s morning ritual.

Before Sophie came to school with Annabelle, AB had us all to herself. Ray or I would drive both girls to the end of the block, put Sophie on the school bus (the pre-school insisted, and it was a cush ride — just Sophie and one or two other kids, and she had her own car seat) then drive AB to school, where we’d have a few minutes of one-on-one before the bell rang.

That’s over this year. This year we’re juggling both girls, and while Sophie’s much better than she was a few weeks ago, from the moment we step out of the car she has to be encouraged to stay on the straight and narrow. I have to leave Annabelle to put her own backpack on, while I make sure Sophie doesn’t run into traffic. We have to pause when Sophie refuses to relinquish the crossing guard’s hand. And we usually have to chase Sophie in one direction (out to the playground) or another (away from the older kids’ classrooms). Annabelle’s old enough to line up with her classmates when the first bell rings — and most mornings she does — but she’d rather I stay by her side and walk in with the line. I try, but most days I’m corraling Sophie into her own classroom.

And so we have developed a ritual. Annabelle stands outside her classroom, waiting for one last hug. “Once she has that hug, she’s fine,” Mrs. Z. assured us yesterday. She thinks it’s sweet. So do I, though I see it as a sign of my own neurotic tendencies, lurking.

But there was no denying it was a terrific conference. I made Ray give me a high five as we headed for Ms. X’s room across the breezeway. “I just worry about Annabelle once she hits fifth and sixth grade,” Ray said. “Yeah, that’s when I began screwing around, too,” I replied. (Although I think our definitions vary dramatically; my idea of screwing around was not doing my homework and reading unassigned books. Ray was way cooler — I’ll leave it at that.)

We were late for Ms. X. She had all the paperwork laid out, and first handed us the reports from the therapists — occupational and speech. I was immediately struck by how little those reports meant. Sophie gets 20 minutes at a time with these women, who are certainly well-meaning but also paid to simply catalogue their activities with special needs children. So much of the job is about making sure the reports are done, to satisfy the requirements of the IEP. What the kindergarten teacher has to say is the money shot, I realized. (I knew this already, sort of, but it was really made clear when she handed us those reports.)

I was eager to get a look at Sophie’s report card. I have to admit that I was a little startled to see a couple of “N”s for “needs improvement”. I’m thinking back, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an “N” on a report card. Not on one of mine (in third grade, I did get an S minus — S is for satifactory, the minus was NOT — for handwriting, which pissed me off so much I cleaned up my act immediately) and not on one of Annabelle’s.

But Ms. X is more than right, of course. Sophie DOES need improvement when it comes to completing tasks on her own. Most of her grades were P for progressing, with a couple S’s thrown in. And Ms. X swears she’s doing remarkably, that she is listening better at carpet time, following directions, even staying on the playground at recess. (The playground safety thing is still on my mind; I’m trying to figure that one out — a blog for another day.)

Ms. X pulled out a looseleaf binder, and flipped through Sophie’s section. She showed us that Sophie has, indeed, mastered every one of her sounds. “And she’s really not the last one to do it?” I asked (I asked AGAIN, I’m geting annoying, I know, but I had to hear it).

She looked through her notebook and reported that Sophie is actually the FIRST kid in her class to get every single sound. Sophie recognizes almost every letter (a couple exceptions: the lower case L — duh, it looks like an I! — and the “typewriter g”) and is on her way to counting to 100. She can sight read several words:

And check out her “first quarter portrait” — true, she does have just one nostril:

She got an “S” for writing her first name, and Ms. X assured us she’s stopped drawing on other kids’ papers. The PE teacher reports that the kids are “mother henning” her less and interacting with her more as friends.

Of course I sat there wondering what Ms. X isn’t telling us, though I hear from her nearly every day. (Again, my neurotic tendencies.) I know things are far from perfect. On Monday morning, Annabelle tripped on the playground before school. Of course she was standing right in front of me when it happened. (Don’t you love being there to witness your kids’ injuries?!) I grabbed her hand, then Sophie’s, and started marching to the nurse’s office.

It wound up being close to nothing, but Annabelle did get a bloody lip, which startled both Sophie and me. Halfway to the nurse, we passed two good mom friends; they agreed to walk Sophie to class. “I’ll be back to say goodbye!” I called to Sophie as I hustled Annabelle away.

In the nurse’s office, Annabelle was washed and Band Aided. The bell rang. A few moments later, I heard the quietest knock possible on the door. It took me a minute to even realize what it was. I opened the door, and there was Sophie. She marched in the door and walked directly to Annabelle, giving her a hug and examining her wounds. Before I’d had time to react, the door swung open and in walked Ms. X.

“Sophie, that is not all right! You are not to leave the classroom!” Ms. X said, in her perfect stern kindergarten teacher way. Sophie followed her out the door, sheepish. (My friends had deposited her in the classroom just fine; the escape happened later.)

In some ways, Sophie’s actions were totally appropriate. She was worried about her sister. But they were also completely unsafe. Ms. X assured us yesterday that Sophie’s not the only kid in the class with challenges — far from it she said, laughing. But of course I worry.

I will always worry.

Ray hadn’t seen the bulletin board with Dan the Flying Man. I haven’t read the book, but I’m guessing Dan is a character who flies. Ms. X asked each of the kids to draw themselves flying, and stapled them up in a line. Ms. X pointed out Sophie’s flying figure — a happy blue shape, not as complex as the others’, but way better than she would have done in July, that’s for sure.

And my favorite part is that she’s up there flying with her classmates, keeping up. She looks pretty good.

Sophie’s IEP team is meeting, to review her first month of kindergarten.

When we were putting the finishing touches on Sophie’s IEP (Individualized Education Program, the document that prescribes her school situation, from what therapies she gets to where she pees) I insisted we reassemble the team (everyone from principal to teacher to therapists to parents) a month into kindergarten, to see how Sophie was doing.

I could feel some internal eye rolling; IEP’s are a huge pain in the butt, if only for how hard it is to get all those people in the room at the same time. But at the time I signed the IEP, I had real doubts — mainly about Sophie’s safety at a “big kids” school. Why not get together to see how things are going, and make changes if necessary?

OK. It was agreed. When the speech therapist — a lovely woman who’s new to the school, if not the profession — suggested we meet September 11, I bristled. School started August 4th. That’s NOT a month. It’s five weeks. But I kept my mouth shut. I have learned to do that, in such situations. The ballbuster me (gee, wonder where Sophie gets THAT?) has learned to make way for the sweet-as-pie-mother-of-a-special-needs-kid me. Well, sometimes the ballbuster gets in the way. We’ll see tomorrow. But for now, I’ve been fairly sweet, if I do say so myself.

I didn’t say anything about the date, but when the speech therapist then emailed to confirm this would just be a “get to know each other” session, I freaked a little. Um, no, I replied. This is an IEP meeting. There might be changes necessary.

I hear the speech therapist is freaked, too. Apparently she IS rather new, and she’s used to dealing with kids with speech delays, rather than global disabilities. And here it gets a little confusing: Sophie has the “mild retardation” label but her IQ is so high (and yes, I know, IQ tests are bullshit, but hey, better high than low, I always say, to paraphrase Shrek) she doesn’t qualify for services from the special education teacher, who would typically lead the team.

In any case, I am approaching this meeting with trepidation. I already know that I won’t get what I want, which is a parttime aide to keep Sophie safe on the playground and at lunch. And I know (after a conversation with the school psychologist yesterday) that I better brace myself for the advice (yet again) that really, Sophie might be better off in a “pull out” program, the one where the other “special” kids go.

But because of her aforementioned IQ, she doesn’t qualify for that “special” program. She belongs where she is. But she needs to be safe. Between this and Sarah Palin, I really do wonder — AM I ON AN EPISODE OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE???

Part of my coping mechanism — when faced with tough kid challenges and fear of the future of America — is to organize. Well, to try. I’ve already shown you pictures of my playroom, so I can’t pretend. I’ve had the stamp pad out a lot. I figure anything that can go in a Rubbermaid from Target is, somehow, containable and doable. I made a new bin for Sophie’s paperwork — and that’s just the stuff from the last couple months that needs to be filed.

So we’ll have this meeting tomorrow (which will generate even more paper for the SOPHIE PAPER bin) and we’ll talk about a lot of things and I’ll bring  up the aide and I’ll get shot down and that will pretty much be that, unless I decide to go all ball buster on them and I really don’t want to do that. I wish I believed in God so I could pray for Sophie’s safety, because at this point that’s my best bet.

And here’s the kicker: My ace in the hole did not pan out. A few weeks ago, I talked to a rather zealous but well-meaning former state legislator, who was horrified Sophie doesn’t get an aide. She insisted that Sophie’s got state dollars attached directly to her, because of her diagnosis, and that I simply need to play that card in the IEP meeting, to tell the group that I know how much extra money they’re getting for Sophie, and that they better spend it on her.

So I made the calls and the preliminary figures are in. I’m double checking, since this sounds so ridiculous even for the painfully backward state of Arizona, but if I’m right, here’s the extra amount of money dedicated to a kid like Sophie (a kid who qualifies as “mildly retarded,” boy I hate that term, I think I hate the word mild even more than the word retarded!), each year of public school:

Nine dollars.

That won’t even buy my Starbucks for a week.

I woke up this morning and realized I’m still hysterical, so I won’t write about Sarah Palin — not yet, maybe not ever. But I’ll dance around the edges.

Last night I walked past our playroom (once the formal — ha! — dining room in our ramshackled but well-loved house) and realized it looks just like a “before” picture for one of those shows, like Clean Sweep. That’s appropriate, since I spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder, waiting for Stacy and Clinton from What Not To Wear to pop out and offer me $5000 to quit dressing like such a schlub.

I’ve not seen Sarah Palin’s house, but judging by her look — from her hair down to her heels — it does not resemble mine.

For now, I will say no more. I am going to focus my hysterical energy on cleaning out the playroom and giving the toys the girls have outgrown to the needy families of babies with Down syndrome and teen moms.

Whoops. Did I say that?

I can tell you this: She didn’t score high in the behavior category, if there is one. At one point, she climbed up behind the psychologist’s desk, grabbed a back issue of New York magazine and started paging through, laughing like crazy. (Knowing she was driving me crazy.)

Then last night we swam with the fabulous Ms. X, kindergarten teacher, who got a taste of her own near future when Sophie refused to leave the party. Everyone insisted it was cute; it terrified me.

Sophie even acted up this morning, in front of Ms. Janice, the lead singer of the rock star teacher line-up, the one who swears in two years she never witnessed the kind of behavior performed today at the breakfast table. Sophie’s taken to making this snorting noise and bumping her head into my chest, when she’s annoyed with me, which is often. She stood up in the booth, showed us her chewed up bacon, and refused to behave til her stuffed dog told her to. (A trick I’ve been employing constantly, it seems.)

We did all laugh when I handed Sophie her orange juice. She immediately took a big drink, her tongue sticking right out beneath the straw (a Down syndrome problem, that tongue — too big for a small mouth, combined with low muscle tone).

“Sophie, put your tongue in!” I said.

She stuck it out further.

“Sophie, put your tongue in,” Ms. Janice said, in perfect pre-school speak.

The tongue went back in.

It’ll be back out, I’m sure, when I see Sophie tonight. I just wonder how she’s faring with GaGa; they left breakfast for the mall.

I haven’t tried it (um, no thanks, don’t want to hear the sound of my own voice again — don’t you hate that?) but looks like you can just click and listen.

This week we discovered the double-messy bun(s). On the day this photo was taken, Sophie also had her shorts on backward (she knew, she insisted) and I worried that I’d really gone over the edge with the whole “I’ve gotta be me, I’ve gotta be free!” approach to childish expressions. But she actually got a few compliments. And no one seemed to notice the shorts.

I’m still not saying “for sure” on this one, even though I got confirmation from the producer today — but I MIGHT have a piece on the radio show This American Life, on the episode airing this weekend.

For me, that’s right up there with beating Kristy Kyl (yes, U.S. Senator Jon Kyl’s daughter, no, we didn’t have the same political views) at high school debate camp. In other words, I’m psyched! And for once, no caveats.

The piece is about Sophie (surprise!) and info about the show is at www.thislife.org — it airs on public radio, it’s different in every city. In Phoenix, it’s on KJZZ at 2 p.m. on Saturdays.

And with that, the shameless-self-promotion-portion of the blog is now over. For today.