Townsend elementary

This school year Melanie was main streamed. She's had her ups and down but luckly more ups. When school first started Liz was with her. Melanie struggled with putting her backpack on by herself and swinging on the swings with no help.  That has now improved. She does struggle with ignoring her friends and paying attention to the teacher. Melanie likes to talk when she's not suppose to and she likes to tough/hug her friends when she's not suppose to. Yesturday she got a sad face because she wasn't listening and today she was hitting and pushing. Melanie thinks that if she does something to a kid and she gets caught that by saying sorry she should immediately be forgiven and then she can continue doing what she was doing as if nothing happened.  Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. I don't understand how she can have several days with no problems and then we will have several days with problems. I want to believe that she's just being a kid and that every kid in her class behaves that way at some point.  I have noticed that as she's getting older she's pushing everyone's buttons so I've deceided to take Melanie to PCIT and hopefully this will help her out in school and at home.  Overall I am pleased with how well shes doing and the teacher thinks so too.

Dance

Today I took Melanie to a beginners ballet/tap class. We went to the 5-7 year old class. Even though it was a beginners class the kids were very advanced. Melanie was able to keep up with them but she struggled with the steps. Everything was going great until she deceided to become friends with a girl. The girl looked older than Melanie and she already had a best friend in the class. The girls kept pushing Melanie away everytime she wanted to be close to them. Melanie doesn't understand their mentality so she kept saying to them that they were mean and not being nice. My heart broke for her because Melanie always seems to attach to one kid and only that one kid. She doesn't have a problem making friends but for some reason she attaches to one kid only. So towards the end of the class she was upset and started crying which lead to her not wanting to participate anymore. As we were leaving one of the girls was already sitting next to her mom, Melanie approached them and told the mother "she and her sister were mean to me." So I explained to her mom what happened and the mom told the little girl to be nice and the little girl said it wasn't her and so forth.
We checked out with the front person and she asked why Melanie was crying so I told her then she offered for Melanie to stay and try the prek class. So we did. Now this class I loved the teacher was very patient and showed Melanie how to do the steps. Melanie looked happy and you can tell she was enjoying herself. Towards the end she had a little breakdown because it was time to go. Melanie does not like things to be over especially if she's having a good time. The lady in the front again was so nice that she gave Melanie some cookies to Cheer her up.  Overall she did very well especially since she did two classes back to back. I asked her if she wanted to come back and she said no. That's her favorite word.  We will try it again next week. Hopefully she will continue to like it.

Flashback

Today I read a post about a mom who flew with her daughter who has autism. It brought back memories of when Melanie and I flew from Los Angeles to Oklahoma by ourselves. That day was a nightmare. I barely made it to the airport. I was pushing Melanie in the stroller with our luggage two carry ons and her carseat. We has about 30 plus minutes before we board and melanie was getting restless. I pushed her in the stroller, went up and down on the elevator several times and then there was the dreaded escalator. She wanted to go down the escalator but we couldn't because I had the stroller and our carry ons. The child cried and cried for 30 minutes. Everyone stared at us. I just wanted to dig a hole and hide. I knew by the look in their faces that they were hoping that we didn't sit next to them. We were in boarding section A but I deceided to board almost last. I knew that if we boarded early Melanie would have been even more restless. As we boarded the pane you could see the look on those people faces a look of terror. We made it to our seats. Melanie wanted to sit by the window so I  let her. There was an empty seat next to me and then a man approaches the seat and I say "I guess you're the lucky one" and he smiled. He made a comment about her crying and I said just give it a few minutes and she will fall asleep. Before the pane took of I moved Melanie to the middle seat. About 15 minutes in the air she feel asleep. Thank you Jesus. Then about 45 minutes before we landed she woke up, that's when it all started again and thus time she was energized. Several times Melanie would try to get out of her seat, she cried, kicked, pulled on the seats you name it he did it. The man whom I think his name was Kevin was so nice and understanding. He helped me keep her entertained. Before we landed it was time for her to put her seatbelt on and the stewardess passed by and asks me to buckle her in. I was struggling and she kept telling her to buckle up. Finally I told her that she is not going to listen to you but she will listen to a man. So I asked Kevin to tell Melanie to sit down so we can buckle her. She did exactly what he said. So every time Melanie would start to meltdown he would talk to her and she would behave. ( Melanie always listens better to her daddy than myself) We finally landed. I was finally in Oklahoma and Kevin was going to board another plane. I thanked him for helping me with Melanie and we said goodbye.  I was so nervous the entire time. I remember telling Adam that I would never fly by myself with Melanie again. That next time I would wait for all 3 of us to fly together.  That was a day that I would never forget.