I had one mom tell me this morning that they already had sprouts. Thinking to myself that this seemed awefully fast (5 days), I said, "You did put the jug outside, right?" The reply, "Oh, not yet." Then, I hear the same thing from several other moms. I explained that this is a tough love gardening approach, and to hurry up and put those jugs outside, so that they didn't have to harden their sprouts off later. Leave it to the parents, to not follow the directions, LOL! I should have told the KIDS to put the jugs outside!!!

I really appreciate everybody's input. It has been really valuable to me to read and help me work through this. I talked with her BFFs parents last night whose daughter is not at the school. Her BFFs mom picked up for me as I got stuck in traffic behind a wreck. She read her folder notes and was a bit shocked about the complaints such as wasted time during center time, not standing still in line, etc. Then her husband mentioned that it is not worth for your child to be feeling like she isn't good or picked on at this point in her life when you can do something about it since even though the teachers doesn't say it all the kids know who is the one they call bad and no point in harming her self esteem at this age. He also said he has never ever seen her act like anything but a normal 5 year old and they are around us a lot. They also have a strong willed daughter. He told me to listen to my instincts. I felt better to have talked to them and validate that I think it is a bit extreme. He also said he was sure the administrator wasn't used to talking to somebody who is well educated and researches everything and then contradicts her. They both know the person in question. It is funny because that is almost exactly word for word what I thought after talking to her yesterday morning about what the law actually says. Yesterday went good and later in the afternoon when I checked in to see how things were going they said if she wasn't asleep by a certain time then she'd get to read books and do puzzles. Seems like they decided to listen to me about what the state said after all. This morning was more like a normal drop off with one exception. My daughter said as soon as I parked and came to her side to help her out that "Mommy I have a tummy ache" and I asked if she needed to go and potty, the answer was no and I could feel it seemed more psychological than physical as she was dragging to go into school. Since late last week this has been going on about not wanting to go in vs. she used to run ahead of me and be all excited. I really feel for her as it can't be easy to process. I left her with that I think she is an awesome kid and I know she is the best and she reluctantly let me go. Then this morning I got a call from principal at the school we were hoping she would get into for Kindergarten - didn't make it into pre-K, saying they have an opening in the Spring in the pre-K class. I'm going in on Tuesday to meet with the principal. DH and I are going to discuss some more, but we are fairly certain we will switch. I don't want to deal with anymore threats of you can leave if you don't like it when discussing things as I feel it is unproductive and I feel bullied when it is said. The upside too is that if she already is a student then she can continue into the Kindergarten program and we don't have to worry about being on the waiting list. I also looked at their published schedule and they have story/naptime and at a much later time that seem to fit much better with an older childs need for a nap than the 1.5 hr earlier that they enforce at her current school which works for younger children. Their time is more in line with the time she actually falls asleep on the weekend than the time we tell her to go and take the nap (we try to stick to the same schedule as school). This just seems like a wonderful gift to me as I was worried about moving her through too many places and doesn't seem like it could have come at a better time. One of the boys on our street is also in this class and she plays with him and his older sister who is in 1st grade at the school. This post was edited by lyfia on Fri, Dec 13, 13 at 15:07

Yogurt was always a big favorite when Ashley was small enough to still take snacks to school. I also sent "mini" muffins with a dab of jam in the middle, those were always a big hit. Pretzels with cheese dip or peanut butter to dip them in always went over well, even better if I made homemade whole wheat pretzels. Bread sticks with pizza sauce and/or ranch dressing is good, and so was chocolate pudding. We filled graham crackers with nearly anything you could think of, from marshmallow cream and homemade jam to leftover frosting to peanut butter and jelly. Little bags of snack mixes contained dry cereal, dried fruit and maybe a handful of M&Ms, plus some nuts. The kids like walnuts the best, for some reason. Once we tried those frozen chocolate dipped bananas but they were messy and even though I was only a block from school I couldn't keep them frozen long enough. Oh, and my kids always loved ants on a log or anything on a skewer and I always cut out cheese, sliced meats or brownies with cookie cutters into different shapes, usually numbers or letters or "boys" but sometimes farm animals. Tortillas got rolled around anything that sounded good and a big surprise hit was English muffins topped with pizza sauce, canadian bacon, pineapple and cheese. I baked them at home, packaged them up and they ate them at room temperature. (shrug) Whatever. Oh, and those tiny little bite sized bagels made great little tuna/ham & cheese/turkey/whatever sandwiches, just right for little hands and little appetites. Annie

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I am thinking about Carlotta's suggestion of having him leave after a number of "misbehaviors". I am not sure that she has anyone who could pick him up and take him home, BUT I am wondering if a trip to the office to do his Time Out rather than in the classroom might do some good too. I mentioned before that mom doesn't think he "gets" the cause-effect thing, but if he doesn't, wouldn't he figure it out real quick if he sees others getting rewards and he doesn't?????? This little boy is also a twin to a non-Down Syndrome brother. The twin without Down doesn't have any problems with behavior. However, the twin with Down is fuctioning at approximately a 2 1/2 year old level, so it could be age related as Carlotta said. Thanks again, everyone, for your suggestions. I'll pass them along and see what kind of response I get.