I have mentioned my husband is working on a huge project at work which has left me doing 100% of the childcare in my house for almost two weeks.  He has not been here and awake when the kids are except possibly in passing.  The project is almost over but he still may have to work this weekend. Most nights he does not get home till ten or eleven o’clock and a couple times it was after midnight. I feel for him. He looks awful and he is tired.  The kids get in his presence and want all of his attention positive or negative and me… I need out.  I need to get out of the house. I need to go to work.  Last night as I was on a Google hangout with my rock star blogger friends I realized they were the first people who wanted to talk to me as a person not as a parent, since I was at work last week.  That is not ok.

Tonight he has to come home!  The kids will get the Dad time they need and I will get out of the freaking house.  My poor customers are going to have me all up in their faces with me asking, tell me what is going on in the world. Tell me a baudy joke or curse or something!!

Today Aaron had a field trip with the school.  I adore the first grade teacher, she is amazing, and we have forged a friendship the years my kids have been in her class. She asks often about Ryan and I told her the new level of hell he is experiencing at the hands of bullies.  She shook her head and sighed.  I then said, don’t worry I have a few plans to get him out of this school.

Aaron decided not to go back to school after the trip.  It was nice to spend time with him and do things we used to do together when he was a little guy like pick up trash on our way to get Ryan at school. I digress.

As Aaron and I got to the house there were two letters in the mailbox addressed to me.  They were exactly the same letter. Curious.

They were acceptance letters for both boys to attend Education Plus Academy Charter.  It is an interesting concept for a school.  It is a cyber charter with an education center. Each class has ten to thirteen students but each student has an individual education plan, learning disabled or not. Read here about the school model. Each students receives a laptop and the learning is computer based. Here is the typical day of a student. I love that if Ryan is struggling he will receive one to one tutoring in the afternoon.  Hold on to your hats people, as long as the assignments for the week are done there is NO HOMEWORK.  Yes, you read that right. They were accepted into the leaning center that shares a campus with The Center School.  It was the people of the Center School who recommended I look into Education Plus. They were very excited to have such a quality program sharing their campus and they knew the $25,000 tuition was out of our price range.  I actually called the Center School to get the number of Education Plus and they were very excited we were considering this alternative for our kids.

I feel like I have won the lottery. I have been jumping up and down all day inside and out.  The thought of Ryan having a recess at every transition excites me.  Having so few kids in a class excites me.  The resources for Ryan like OT and speech in school blow me away. The thought of Aaron being able to move ahead in his work is amazing since he earns all A’s now they will find a way for him to be challenged.  For once Ryan won’t be seen as being a moral failure but as a learning disabled person who might need some TLC to get through school not punishment.  The only downside is the commute but that will be about twenty minutes each way. I don’t care.  If this is a better placement for both kids then it will be worth every mile I have to drive.  We may not have to give up our idea of urban living, our lovely neighborhood, and our support people who live nearby, which just makes me so happy.

It made me infinitely sad to hear Ryan say, Mom with three recesses a day I have a ton of things to lose if I get in trouble. I smiled and said, I don’t think you will lose recess at that school.  His mind was blown.

The kings in their chair!

I thought today would be the last day we were going to use our Please Touch Membership.  It expires at the end of the month and the boys are getting big at nine and seven years old.  We have been members since Aaron was born in 2005.  I used to take a young and so impulsive Ryan when he was two years old and a baby Aaron to the Please Touch when it was downtown.  It was always hard to go to the Please Touch with Ryan, but we had so many successes there. I remember his first big behavioral win. I took him to the show, Scat Cat’s Junior Jamboree.  He sat the whole time enjoying every minute of the show.  Every time I took him to story-time or anything else where you had to sit, it was a complete failure. Today we went to see the Scat Cat show out of nostalgia because we have seen it about ten times over the years.  It was bittersweet to be there with the big kids.  I had no clue that Ryan was different from the other kids when he was little. I thought everyone’s kid tried to hang from lights in the ceiling as soon as they could crawl.  I thought everyone’s kid was sensory seeking. What did I know??

We have been there so often over the years the long time employees know us. I guess it is not often a tattooed Mom shows up with two kids with bright red hair. Today was no different.  We arrived in the parking lot and Ryan started talking about the kids who are bullying him at school.  He said all they talk about is sports and dating girls.  They hate me and call me Momma’s Boy because we dropped off a cupcake to Ryan in his class when it was Food Allergy Awareness week and Snitch because he told when they were threatening him over other things. I said they are not here Ryan.  He replied good.  Those kids want me to grow up faster than I am ready to.  I don’t want to date girls I want to play. Right there he put a voice to his 30% more immature than regular kid statistic for ADHD kids. I said, Ryan be a kid, enjoy what you want, you will never see those kids again after twenty one days.

Ryan is very tall for his age.  When on swim team the twelve year olds pushed him behind them thinking he was older

They were impressed with Ryan’s science skills!

than they were and he is nine.  Add in the immaturity for his issues and he basically acts seven and looks twelve.  It is a hard place to be.  Today at the museum he did not let his size stop him.  He jumped in with two feet.  When we attended a science show he told the person running the show about sound waves and how the ear works. The person was so impressed she made him her assistant.  The other parents asked me about my very smart kid and I smiled.  After the show I thanked the woman who ran the show. I told her that Ryan had numerous learning disabilities and ADHD.  He is failing three classes and what she did for him today went a long way to help his self esteem.

We also had lunch at the Please Touch.  It was the first place I was safely able to feed Aaron out of the house. I remember the guy asking me the first time we were there if we had any food allergies we were dealing with as we ordered. I almost hugged him then and I would do it again.  It was no different today except now Aaron can eat the whole bowl of pasta because he eats that much.

His eyes match the water ice!

As the boys joined in the end of the day parade they started begging me to renew the membership.  I said guys you are big, are you sure?  Then all the way home they told me that they thought they would be interested in coming to the Please Touch for another year.  What got me was Ryan saying, Mom finally it is not totally overwhelming to be there and you are going to cancel, C’mon!

Well, I guess I am renewing my membership before next week while I can still get a discount!

Ryan hates puzzles. I am so proud of him!

School has been really tough the last week or so.  Suddenly the teachers are piling on the homework and a big test which required thirty three flash cards of study for the quiz, the test will be at least fifty. Yes, you read that right. Of course because it is Ryan we had to go through them 500 times.  Ryan’s behavior is going downhill again.  He is stressed and angry which makes him defiant and super impulsive. I tell you it is a real treat to be in my house right now. (Yes, feeble attempt at sarcasm) Everyone is thrown off because my husband is off working a million hours a week and I am completely over homework.  I am done making the kids do things that none of us find value in.

If we were returning to school next year I would be pitching a real fit. For a few weeks Ryan was getting his homework in on time but with the intense studying he is doing we held some of his homework to the weekend.  The next day after school he came in and told me that he was being punished for not having all his homework.  I told Ryan to tell the teacher it was illegal for her to punish him for not having your homework, extra time for homework is written into your IEP.  The examples go on and on and on and get more blatant as the end of school nears. I keep helping the kid to advocate for himself since two of the three teachers WILL not interact with me.

There is sunshine on the horizon. I don’t think either kid is returning to this school.  Until it is finalized I am not revealing our plans but I think I have found a solution to our intense school woes and I am crossing my fingers things fall into place.  No fears I have a plan b, and a plan c.  No matter what Ryan is not returning to that school and it is hard to see the light through the piles of work but I think I may be starting to see a glimmer. Maybe.