The Beginning of the End?

I can't believe it's taken me more than a week to write about what happened at my son's school.

Well, it was been a doozy of a week. (Peaches turned four, Spring Break began, my mother flew in from the East Coast, I was sick, I took both kids to the dentist for the first time and found Peaches had two cavities, went to Disney Land, had an egg hunt, and some Schmockity ick hit the fan... )

Still, J and I giving a talk to Rooster's kindergarten class about autism felt monumental.

Just as we'd been following the uplifting and captivating story of MOM-NOS meeting with Bud's sweet and supportive class during lunch, we got word that Rooster had made some enemies among the kindergarteners and their parents. A few moms told their children not to play with our boy, and at least one wanted him out of the classroom.

Fortunately, Roo has a good teacher and an amazing inclusion specialist, both of whom are also lawyers. They made it clear that bullying and discrimination would not be tolerated in the classroom. I asked if perhaps I could come lead some parent education, and the kindergarten teacher through her hands up, telling me she considered it somewhat useless to try to reach the parents. "I gave up on teaching the parents," she said. "Every year one or two of them try to separate their child from others based on race or religion, so if they still do that in this day and age and in this city, I'm just going to focus on teaching the children. With the kids I still have hope. But none of this nonsense happens in the classroom. Rooster is a part of things just fine inside the classroom."

So, we have our work cut out for us.

We still plan to reach out to the parents.

But we started with the students.

It was the day before Spring Break - a Friday - first thing in the morning, and we met with an adorable group of five- and six-year-olds.

I want to tell you all about it, want to include the little speech we'd prepared, share with you some of the cute comments... but the truth is, I've started this post six times in as many days. It began with a sentence amazed it had been three days, then almost a week, then a week, then more than a week...

I think that the drama in kindergarten might have been the start of me unravelling once again. The talk went great, but prepping for it and giving it took a lot out of me, and there wasn't exactly enough of me to start with, if you know what I mean. It feels like it was years ago. Everything just keeps piling on and on and on, and I'm feeling defeated. In May Rooster will turn six. My current project is (supposed to be) planning an amazing birthday party to which I can lure his class. This is not very us-like; it feels like a SHOULD but it's not how we roll. And I'm not really ready to roll anyway. I'm more cranky, miserable, ungrateful, exhausted and blech than usual. So this is not much of post. It's more unravelling....