What

I'm beginning to learn what it means to have a good blog. It's pretty much the same thing as being a good writer. A friend of mine has a great blog (snickolett). Mind you, losing your husband to pancreatic cancer while conceiving and raising twins is great material. I don't begrudge her that and wish she'd had a long, well-deserved life with her husband.

I haven't added an entry in few months for a variety of reasons. I didn't have the time to talk about my sons' transition to kindergarten. Their IEP meetings at the new school were revealing. Overall, it was a good experience. In the case of Secondo, the meeting seemed pretty straightforward. We got a formal diagnosis of autism (seems that the fact that he's being counseled by the director of the children's psychiatric program at Childrens National Medical Center doesn't count). The speech therapist at their outgoing school proved to be a surprisingly strong advocate.

Primo was trickier. He's brilliant. Sorry folks, sometimes a daddy's got to brag. I taught myself multiplication at the tail end of second grade (it was in a part of the book after what we were supposed to be doing). Primo has picked it up at the age of 5.The thing is that his intelligence allows him to mask his needs. The speech therapist picked up on this, which is amazing given that she's never met him. Primo is engaging in some higher levels of social speech without having picked up the foundations. So, his speech is "weird". She gave us a clue as to why, more than anything I've received before.

Overall, we're delighted. The general ed teachers who attended the meetings were, to be charitable, unimpressive. I'll chalk it up to the fact that a general ed teacher has to attend the meeting and so it's one of those meetings you have to be at, but have to sit there nodding and pretending to be interested. Let's see how they do with my guys.

Back to the start of the post. A blog should be honest. Brutally so if necessary, but never with cruelty. I've held back for a variety of reasons and so this blog hasn't been what it could be. I've been working on a research paper that means everything to me. I put my heart and soul into it (yes, this happens even when you're writing about transient terahertz spectroscopy). If this blog is to mean something, I need to put the same effort and honesty into it. So, I'll be writing more often and self-editing less.

BB