Unexpected Announcement

We had my daughter's annual IEP meeting last week.   Maybe some people think about them as meetings to dread attending.   In our case, it's a happy time where we get to say hello to my daughter's teachers.   This year, as with most things involving meetings or people being together, the meeting was held via Google Meet. 

We got into the call and were moving along at the fastest pace a snail can go.  Fast, because we didn't have any issues and the meeting was going along at a good clip.  Slow, because there is so much that needs to go into the IEP documents themselves that it takes time to go over everything. 

My husband and I just attend.   The teachers have written everything up after having observed my daughter and finding out where she has gotten with respect to her prior goals and what they think she should accomplish over the following year.   It's a lot of words that equate to a lot of work to prepare for.   These are the same teachers who have to do the actual teaching themselves.   They have to find additional time to write up with it is they plan on teaching in the future. 

We got to the adaptive P.E. teacher.   I don't know her well, but I really like her a lot.   As Mary Jane was talking about my daughter's goals, she stopped and said, "I won't be working with her myself because I'm going to be staying at home for the remainder of the year and helping remotely."

Something was wrong.   I could tell.   We have another teacher who's pregnant and it makes complete sense to have her stay home.   Mary Jane took a deep breath and said, "I've been diagnosed with leukemia."    

None of the teachers or the vice principal on the call knew.   We didn't know what to say.  How can you possibly comfort someone on a group call through a computer and even if we had been there in person, we wouldn't be able to hug her.   I felt awful for Mary Jane. 

She started to cry and said she told herself she wasn't going to cry.   We all said things—I don't even remember what now.   Mary Jane tried to make us feel better it feels like because she told us it was a better situation than it could have been and that she should be back in the fall after treatment.  

I hope things go easily and as comfortable as possible for her.   I think Mary Jane is wonderful.   My daughter thinks so too. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is just not going to let us know what he wants from Santa.   If I had a great idea of something he'd like it would be one thing, but I'm fresh out of ideas right now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wouldn't tell me what she wants Santa to bring her either, saying Santa will just know.   Then, this morning, she had decided.  Fortunately, the thing she wanted (not a wheelchair) I'd already gotten yesterday.   She loves Christmas-themed, dancing, singing plush animals.   I'm going to regret the cacophony once she opens them up, but at least I got her present from Santa covered.