NEVER SAY NEVER

Annabelle's last year's end of school party...she's been blessed with the same teacher since she was five years old ~ I put her in Devon Forest because in the three counties this is the only school that had a visually impaired class. At 13 months she was diagnosed with Macular Dystrophy (i had to google it too) she has no retinas so she only has peripheral vision...it is VERY rare in children and genetic (she was also adopted from Guatemala so there are no medical records) I digress...

we have been pleased as punch and looking forward to several more years (it's in the elementary school) FAST FORWARD riiiinnnggg.....riiinnnnggg (thursday morning before school starting on monday) Me - hello??? Judy (Annie's teacher) Dena? You got a minute? M - sure - what's going on?? J - well - the district has decided to disband the vision class and i will now be traveling teacher going to three schools M - um - what does that mean? where will annie be going? J - they've decided to put her in a different special needs class M - sniffling .... like what kind? J - come to meet the teacher tonight...i want you to meet Wesley M - now in tears...ok Well let me tell you - I got on facebook so fast it made my fingers spin - HOW DO I HOMESCHOOL??? I hit enter and looked at what it said....GULP...DID I ACTUALLY JUST TYPE THAT??? fortunately in these times there are plenty of crazy devoted parents who are homeschooling (no wonder alcohol sales aren't down in this economy) Someone told me to call SCAIHS (SC Assoc of Independent Home Schools) frantically I call and get a message (remember school starts in 3 days and I have NO idea what i am doing) I left a message in tears - I'm not quite sure how she understood a word I said but praise God she did and called me back in 5 minutes! She was as calm as a cucumber when she said "don't panic we've got you covered - there's plenty of time and we have a special education coordinator" I still went to meet the teacher ...the classroom was precious, the teacher was amazing - loved her techniques BUT when you're sitting in a classroom with pilate balls and the teacher says "no one is ever going to pick those up and toss them" to the mother of a visually impaired child ... i think "Lady, you cute but you are full of it" SOOOOOO while everyone was putting up their cute first day of school pictures Annie was vacationing at the lake with the grands and I was doing LOTS of research!! YOU CAN LEARN SO MUCH WITH GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK!

so today i went here - it's about 1.5 hour drive and spent 3 hours in conference/planning/soaking it in with the most wonderful woman ...she was full of resources, hints and most of all compassion/understanding ~ she has 3 children, one of whom is autistic and homeschooled them even when it was still cultish progressive ~ I left with a plan and a smile!

so now my new job is principal/lead teacher at "Envision Academy" with a student enrollment of ONE! Did I say NEVER??? I have a feeling God is laughing pretty dang hard thinking "when are you gonna learn child?"