I Don’t Post Because It’s Hard to Say

Today, I met with the day school my other kids attend to see if they felt it would be beneficial – for D. and for them — to enroll D. there in the fall. He hasn’t been accepted at The School yet, and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe there’s a reason. Maybe this is meant to be.

I scheduled this meeting with the director of the early childhood program and requested that D’s current teacher be present.

I began with high hopes.

“As you know, D. hasn’t currently been accepted at The School. That’s something that we can work on, if necessary, but we figured that since D. is here for the summer, and since we haven’t gotten phone calls or notes home alerting us to any problems with him, we thought we would pursue enrolling him here in the fall. Now, we know that D. has special needs and that he is different from the other children, and I really need you to be honest with me here. If you think there’s no way he could possibly participate in that class next year, this is the time to say it. And understand that if we enroll him, it would be with a shadow.”

The teacher allowed that with a shadow present, it might work. She was not unkind, merely realistic. “He doesn’t come to circle time ever,” she said. “And if he doesn’t want to do something, you can talk yourself crazy and it won’t make a difference. He doesn’t participate in many of the activities we do as a group.”

The director turned to me. “What does he tell you about his day here?”

What does he tell me about his day? Well, let’s see. Nearly every day, I say, “D, who did you play with?” (Pause for answer that doesn’t come.) “Say, ‘I played with…” And D. responds with, “You want to go see Daddy?” or “Here’s Baby J!” or “It’s a garbage truck.”

Songs? Davening? No, we see no evidence of that. He knows the names of the teacher and the students, but he doesn’t know – or at least, he is not able to share – any of what he does at school with us.

In the end, the director told me that she would be happy to have him in class, but she wants to make sure that I would be happy. Would D. really gain anything if he went through another year of not comprehending circle time? Would I survive constantly measuring him against his classmates?

A brief aside: I have a friend with a child a little bit younger than D., in his class. She constantly tries to minimize his delays. “My daughter does that! He’s just being three. But look how far he’s come!” I assume this comes from kindness, but it drives home the point that no one really gets it. Yes, he has made progress, but when he is STILL scoring ONE TO TWO YEARS BEHIND IN MOST AREAS — this is not good.

Then I came home and told Mr. WG about the meeting. I said, “I think we should pursue getting him into The School. I think he needs that.”

Mr. WG announced that The School is clearly run by a bunch of MORONS who wouldn’t know chromosomes from mitochondria, and they already said that D. wasn’t a good fit for their school, which OBVIOUSLY means that they don’t want to work hard, and if they are a school for special needs, they should understand hard work, and WHY OH WHY would we even CONSIDER allowing them to ATTEMPT to educate our precious child.

It was a mildly emotional discussion, as you might have gathered.

This is my life lately. I think I know what I’m doing, and then something throws a wrench in the works and I’m clueless, and it’s making me nuts.

One day I think D. is making incredible, amazing progress, and the next day it’s, “D. do you want apple juice or milk?” And he says, “No milk.” And I say, “OK, so apple juice.” And he says, “No apple juice.” And then 15 seconds later, he’s drinking apple juice from the bottle.

In the end, sometimes I don’t know if he’s really any different now from the way he was two years ago, dragging chairs around to get the Cocoa Puffs, and not doing much more than that. And I don't think there are words in existence that convey the intense pain I feel as I read that sentence.