State of my world:
Julia’s head scratching has not abated with the delousing and aftermath. She is losing hair and areas without hair are increasingly visible to the casual observer. I think she is doing most of her scratching at night before she goes to sleep and when she is alone in the bathroom. Anxiety, habit, stimming or something else? Years ago, the way she finally stopped scratching her skin was on a three-strike-and-she-was-sent-home-from-school program. It was radical and it worked. I don’t know right now how much scratching is going on at school — I’m checking. I don’t think that school staff would be willing to put such a discipline into effect. Of course, if it is mostly at night, that it wouldn’t work anyway. I am in full worry mode. We will visit our doctor next Tuesday and her shrink on Thursday. OT is working on it as well. Needless to say, I am without control.
I spoke with a local reporter yesterday about Shabazz High School and my experience last spring when Julia applied for admission and was first asked for an interview and then rejected before the interview took place. I talked about inconsistent messages and requirements, and apparent exclusion of kids with IEPs. I told him that just before school closed for the summer and we were about to travel, how I got a call that they were reconsidering everyone who had applied and was rejected. (I don’t remember if it was rejected without interview.) Julia couldn’t interview before traveling and when we returned home, I check out the requirements again. Julia had been summarily rejected for not doing grade level math. Neither the requirement for doing grade level math nor her math skills had changed. I decided not to put her through an interview. I acknowledged to the reporter that the school has been good for kids there and I didn’t want to jeopardize the school for those kids. And yet, what of kids like Julia? I am conflicted. Continue reading
I began this two days ago and wrote more in the morning, the day after Judge Kavanaugh complained the his “family and [] name have been totally and permanently destroyed.” He also said what goes around, comes around.
Yesterday, on the month anniversary of the massacre by a 19-year old using a semi-automatic style weapon at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 dead and 14 injured, students all over the United States walked out of class to protest gun violence and to demand action by their lawmakers. These clear, young eyes see the NRA’s emasculation of the GOP, the party which controls all three branches of our federal government and 33 state houses across the USA. They see that the best the GOP president can do is host a roundtable discussion about violent video games after the NRA made him walk back his gun control comments. I’ve heard and read “grown-ups” criticizing students for meddling in issues they do not understand and insinuating that the protesters only wanted to get out of classes, but possibly those “grown-ups” know a very different kind of student than I know. I applaud the students who organized demonstrations of all sorts yesterday and who intend to demand more from the rest of us to end gun violence with gun control. 
Chasing Joy 