Status Report

I should be dictating this as I've designated these blog posts as 'practice' for getting used to dictation. My hands are a mess, I need to acquire this skill asap. However, the kiddo is behind me watching My Little Ponies on Neflix. Yes, she loves the gateway drug to 'tramp stamps'. (I'm pretty sure the cutie marks are sponsored by the tattoo industry.)

So typing it is.

We went to visit one of the grant eligible schools for the kiddo. Picture a large, sweeping mansion with art nouveau details. The architecture was ornate enough to be a set for some 1980s movie about a rich girl learning what life really is.

Something like that.

The library alone had gilded and fluted columns with crystal chandeliers. It would be like if The Great Gatsby was a school.

It's about an hour from where we live and located in a financially elite area. The tuition is also twice that of the grant, something we didn't know previously. The high tuition means the school likely attracts mostly autistic kids with intense need for services. Because autistic kids would receive a grant to cover the exorbitant tuition.

Since our grant income is limited and we don't have an extra grand a month to throw at a tuition and a jammed rush hour commute, that school is out (although my heart will go on for that library).

It's difficult to quantify what it is I want for the kiddo. I do know she doesn't need to be in a 100% special needs school such as the one we just toured. She benefits from peer models and has done well in pre-school.

My thoughts so far are: I want a small class size with services like OT available should she need them (she will), a sensitive gym teacher who gets that missing the ball is actually the best my kid can do as well as an administration that's going to listen to my input because it's really going to take a village to raise my kiddo. We're all going to have to be pulling for her.

I'll know better what the kiddo really needs after the cognitive testing.

We tour another school next week and I'm crossing everything that it's the right place for us. We're in a bind because it looks like she lost the lottery for the charter school in our area. The public school option is...not great. She'll be lost in a sea of kids who don't know the alphabet and can't count past five when she's reading (yet is probably dyslexic) and doing basic addition and subtraction (she's surprisingly good at math).

As for how I'm doing...nothing much has changed. I was suppose to start progesterone a few days ago but am holding off to see how I feel. I'd like to get another baseline test of all my hormone levels just to see where they're at.

All my books are off the Top 100. Nothing lasts forever (except adrenal f*ckery it seems) so I knew this day was coming. It's making me nervous because I don't know what my income will be like now. I hope to finish my next project this week and am fleshing out the idea for a story two projects from now. I try to be sure I have something ready to publish every month, although it's quite a difficult task the longer the books get.