Magic

Last night we took the kids out for dinner. We'd heard about a nice-sounding restaurant with a "kids eat free" night on Sundays, and we're always, ALWAYS trying to find places that fall within that elusive category of Noah Can Order A Damned Grilled Cheese Sandwich But Mommy And Daddy Can Order Something Besides A Damned Cheeseburger. This place looked like it might fit the bill. 

I missed the thing on their website about the magician, though.

We didn't know about the magician until our waiter stopped by to check in on us -- yes, yes, everything is fine! The food is delicious! Love the kids' bento-box style meals! Ezra ate every bite, including the entire section of ketchup, and Noah still cannot BELIEVE he just got a side of Goldfish crackers AT DINNER, like ARE YOU KIDDING ME, OUT-OF-CONTEXT SNACKTIME, THIS PLACE IS AWESOME -- and he told us that a magician would stop by in a few minutes to show the kids some tricks.

Uh-oh.

Right on cue, Noah started to protest and amp up into a fight-or-flight level of worry. "No magic! No magician! I don't want a magician! I don't want that!" 

Jason and I hugged and reassured, we explained and cajoled, we communicated telepathically across the table like: Get the check now. We know how this is going to end.

And then...poof! Like magic, he appeared! At our table! A magician! OMFG A MAGICIAN. 

I wish...I wish you could have seen it, you guys. I wish I'd videotaped THAT, the whole thing, so I could watch it over and over again. 

Noah wielded a blue crayon like a magic wand and shrieked with delight when it made a foam ball disappear. The magician handed him another ball that turned into two -- then three! -- when Noah squeezed it tight. Then he handed Noah a marker (uh-oh) and asked him to write his name (UH-OH) on a playing card (MAYDAY MAYDAY)...and Noah did it, along with a request to turn the O into a smiley face. He laughed some more and clapped and was thrilled and amazed with each simple slight-of-hand card trick. He asked for an encore with the magic balls and it was graciously provided. 

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops. Didn't matter. That tiny deviation from the expected. A kind stranger connecting with my child, making him laugh, helping him overcome the invisible whatever without even knowing it. It felt like it turned everything around, a big fat UNDO button for all of this summer's low points. 

After dinner, Jason nudged me in the direction of the magician: "Birthday. Party. I'm not kidding. Go ask." He'd just finished performing for a mother and her son so I cut in briefly and asked for his card. That's all I meant to say, but then I realized I should probably explain why I was suddenly crying.

"Thank you," I kind of choked out, "My son doesn't usually...things that are supposed to be FUN sometimes...he gets...well, you really made our night."

He handed me his card and assured me that Noah did great. I stammered out something about birthday parties and said I would be in touch and felt kind of dumb. 

The mother at the table smiled and nodded at me. "I know," she mouthed. 

Noah got to keep the card with his name on it. "This is my magic card," he says. "The Magic Man gave it to me."

What It Looks Like

A lot of families, as part of the path to diagnosis and treatment, videotape their children's behavioral...quirks, I guess. Tics. Possible symptoms. Just so the doctors or therapists or evaluators can "see" what you see at home. 

We've never done that, at least on purpose. Noah's school does a lot of videotaping for therapeutic/assessment purposes, but I've always just INTENDED to capture the normal happy fun stuff. I say "intended" because if I go through old videos of Noah I'm often kind of retroactively shocked by something we inadvertently captured that's like, "THAT. RIGHT THERE. THAT TURNED OUT TO BE THING." Noah tip-toeing across the living room; screaming in terror the first time we put him on a teensy pedal-less baby tricycle; telling some great-sounding story that we would only later realize was little more than an echolalic script. 

We're still in insurance limbo. We haven't heard the results of our last and latest appeal, which will dictate whether we get to 1) file a grievance with the state, or 2) finally get a couple months' of bills paid right before filing for YET ANOTHER request for an extension of benefits, bwaaaaaaaaahhhhzzzzzzzbbbtttt etc. I also need to go back to the school district with proof that Noah does indeed regress without extended school year options, and that his fine motor skills are not the only area of OT concern. I also just need certain people to see it, to believe it.

So I've been videotaping him. 

This is Noah trying to sit still and watch a movie. This is Noah starting out like any typical, high energy kid, before his movements become less and less controlled and more and more compulsive. This is Noah after I try to curb a single stimming behavior involving his fingers in his mouth, after he's past any point of self-regulation or ability to chill the hell out. This is not Noah performing, or having fun, or being like this on purpose. This is two minutes and 17 seconds of what he's like almost all the time now.

This is Noah without occupational therapy. That's it. This is nothing. This is fixable. 

I'm not imagining that two minutes and 17 seconds of our life will magically convince anyone who actually matters to help us fix this, but don't worry. I've got more. Ho ho ho, motherfuckers.* I've got more.** 

*Not you guys, of course.

**Not all for you guys, of course. Just this one and then I'll mostly drop it. I'm really just threatening invisible insurance and IEP people with the equivalent of sitting through a 587-slide presentation on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. I AM SUCH A BADASS. MIGHTY TARZAN CHEST-THUMP!***

***Ow, that hurt.

Not Exactly Fearless Blogging

About 10 minutes or so into the Blogging Autism panel at BlogHer, the table surface started to get all fuzzy and my eyeballs felt hot. "Shit, I'm not gonna make it," I mumbled to Christina, as we'd already briefly debated the odds of getting through the session without crying.

Nothing had even been SAID yet, beyond introductions to the panelists and the theme for the discussion, and yet there I was, hiding my reddening face behind my conference schedule as the weight of the previous days with Noah decided to drop from the ceiling and land squarely on my chest.

"It's just been a really bad week," I whispered as my neighbors patted my back and scrambled for tissues, probably wondering what the HELL had managed to happen in that 10-minute timespan, because I'd all but floated in like, WHAT UP BITCHES, LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU WITH ANECDOTES AND EXAGGERATED HAND GESTURES. ALSO, MY SHOES ARE CUTE, NO?

Just a few days before, Noah had a panic attack. A really, really bad one. And while we've certainly dealt with anxiety and freak-outs in the past, this was...different. Worse. Especially because goddammit, wasn't he doing so much BETTER, a few weeks ago? We're supposed to be moving forward, onward, upward. So why are we rewinding? 

And so I sat there, trying to squeeze the image of Noah's furious balled-up little fist swinging at (and making contact with) Jason's face out of my brain, along with the bewildered, terrified face he had immediately after, his wide eyes desperate with guilt and fear over that involuntary fight-or-flight gesture. A few minutes later, he'd kick me in the chest while screaming NO HANDS, NO HANDS! at the top of his lungs. 

A half hour later, his hands would still be shaking, his breathing ragged.

(I wrote a little bit about this night over at The Stir, but for the sake of completeness here: This was all over a Star Wars DVD. One of his little friends had told him The Phantom Menace was kind of scary. We assured him it really wasn't. By the time Jason pulled the DVD out of the Netflix sleeve, Noah's anxiety amped up to the point of no return, as if the mere presence of the movie in our house would bring about a Ring-like curse of death in seven days, or cause Jar-Jar Binks to climb out of the TV and annoy the living shit out of us for all of eternity.)

(Fucking Jar-Jar, man.)

I sat there, as the full realization and possible implications of what another violent panic attack could mean for Noah hit me for the first time, now that we've decided to fully cast our lot in with the public school, where a child who hits or breaks things can be quickly yanked from the inclusion track and tossed in the self-contained "intensive needs" unit. Would this happen again? Will this be a "thing?" A new thing or just a new symptom of his other things? Will he need medication? I don't want to put him on medication. I don't want that attack to ever happen again. I don't want him to be scared. I want him to feel safe. He was doing so well. I know these things are never linear but I WANT LINEAR. BECAUSE HE WAS DOING SO WELL. 

If I hadn't been so utterly mortified to be crying in the first place, I probably would have punctuated my internal monologue with an "it's not FAIR" fist bump to the the table. 

The discussion, by this point, had turned to the myths of autism -- namely, the uber-negative portrayal we all know from the media, that a Spectrum or sensory diagnosis dooms your child and family to a life sentence of misery, because it's just so "awful" and "sad" to be forever tied to a child who cannot love or laugh or live any meaningful life -- you know, because they're too busy hand-flapping in the corner and calculating out Pi to the 3.000th decimal, while you change their adult diapers and spoon-feed them pudding. 

Everyone in the room laughed at the suggestion of the "misery." 

And so did I. 

 

Loud, and long, and clear.

 
 

Backwards Motion

It's been a tough week. Power outages, Mamapop outages, booze outages, oh my. 

And then there's Noah.

Noah...well. Noah has not been receiving any real occupational therapy since school ended, and it's showing. It's showing HARD. 

He's a ball of tics, all of a sudden. A ball of walking, wiggling, finger-chewing, repetitive stimming behaviors. He speaks in scripts, he lives in rituals. He doesn't walk, he runs, while shaking his limbs and making vibrating-like noises with his mouth while every person in the area turns to stare because what the...? Ice cream is too cold, macaroni and cheese is too slimy, using a fork is too hard. He hums and squints and worries about everything. Last night he clapped his hands over his ears when I reached for the faucet because it was all too loud, TOO LOUD. 

He doesn't look me in the eye, anymore. His eyes stare somewhere off in the distance, right above my head. I repeat requests and questions to him, over and over again, before finally shouting his name to get his attention. He snaps back from outer space and seems surprised that I'm even there. 

"What?" he asks.

At camp, he's not participating as much as he used to, choosing instead to escape the group and spend his time doing laps of that strange wiggling-stim-run around the classroom over and over. Any emotional outburst from another child drives him up the wall. He begs to go to the OT room, a request the understaffed room can only occasionally grant, and even then, it's not the same without his therapist there pushing him, giving him what he needs in addition to want he wants. (Which is: Tire swing, all the damn time.) We sent him to the speech-focused camp simply because that's the one we had insurance approval for. Bad call, in retrospect, but...well, there's no rewind button on these things.

We're appealing our insurance's rejection of his OT sessions, of course. We have one more appeal -- this is our third, and we're doing it with help from Jason's company's insurance broker -- and then we get to file a complaint with the state and force yet another review and appeal.

A review and appeal for services Noah received in DECEMBER, by the way. If we're lucky, they'll approve our request for coverage through last...February? March, maybe? Then the process starts all over again, for the next approval of an extension of coverage for therapy that ALREADY HAPPENED. Now that it's obvious that Noah still desperately needs regular OT sessions, I'm guessing we'll be finishing up the appeals process sometime in 2032. 

(Insert crazy back-of-the-throat GAAAHZZZPPPBBBTT sound and a good head-smash against the wall)

I realize, though, that we are lucky -- at least we know what the problem is. We know what's missing and we know how to help. We can pay out of pocket, since the school district program is mostly concerned with his fine-motor skills and not so much the other havoc that dyspraxia wreaks on the rest of his body. It's just...so tough to see some of that hard-fought, so-throughly-documented-just-a-few-months-ago progress go away, but at least we saw it in the first place. He can do it, and so can we. Even Noah knows. He begs me every day when I pick him up from camp: I want to go to OT. I WANT TO GO TO OT. 

I know. And dammit, you're going to go to OT. 

Dear Insurance Company: Please Define "Effective"

Our insurance stopped covering Noah's occupational therapy back in November -- conveniently, right around the time we hit our out-of-network deductible, and actual promised benefits would actually have to be paid by them, but they indicated that they'd be happy to consider an extension of the coverage, so long as we provided them with X, Y and Z.

Two months later, they came back and said that actually, could we also send them W? And expand on Y? And provide some background on Z? 

And we did, and Noah's therapists did. We got doctor's notes and his school typed up reports and then longer reports and then the insurance claimed we hadn't sent something that we actually had, and on and on it went. For seven months. We continued to send Noah to therapy, the claims we submitted anyway came back rejected, the bills piled up unpaid. For SEVEN MONTHS.

Then finally, a decision: 

Scientific legitimacy for sensory integration therapy has not yet been established. While accepted by occupational therapy standards of practice, there is disagreement in the medical community to the effectiveness of sensory integration therapy.

Rejected.

***

Noah never got mosquito bites, or at least, that's what I thought. I rarely, if ever, saw any welts, even when my arms and legs were covered in them. I assumed he had some kind of immunity to them -- if he did get bit, he didn't swell up, he never scratched. 

He never scratched anything, though. The ugly, scaly eczema that plagued him every winter seemed to bother me more than him. He hated the feel of lotion though, so sometimes I just left his skin alone, since he wasn't complaining. 

This winter, when the dry skin appeared, he scratched his body so hard he broke the skin, peppering himself with tiny scabs from his fingernails night after night. The itching, it turned out, was unbearable.

And this summer, he definitely gets mosquito bites.  I think he has all along. I just don't think he knew what to do about them. 

***

He walks barefoot across the grass, the beach, the scratchy welcome mat. He never used to.

He rides a bike, a scooter, the merry-go-round, the coin-operated cars at the mall. He never used to.

He says, "I'm thirsty." And, "I'm hungry." And, "I'm hot." And, "I'm cold." He never used to.

***

I remember the first time I heard him humming in his room, when he was supposed to be sleeping. I peeked in, expecting to see him singing to a stuffed animal or toy. Instead, he was violently rocking himself back and forth, flipping his head and torso back and forth, back and forth, with his hands tucked sweetly next to his cheek, in the sign for "sleep," though the fingers in one hand were wrapped tightly around a double-A battery, his attachment/transition object du jour.

He still stims. It no longer interferes with school, it's no longer quite so obvious to people who aren't looking for it, but I know he stims. He resets his vestibular system with a weird-looking full-body wiggle thing, and he still hums and lines up toys and squints at lights and chews on his fingers. Sometimes we can snap him out of it; sometimes he just needs to find his own way back to center. 

At night, though, he sleeps curled up with a stuffed rabbit he calls Knuffle Bunny. He hasn't rocked in close to a year.

***

I told another mother at camp about the insurance company's decision, bitching a little about the fact that if they really believed SPD/SID was bunk, they wouldn't have approved all those earlier sessions in the first place, or sent us on that seven-month paperwork goose chase, so WHATEVER, YOU CHEAP JERKS. Her solution: Take him back to the doctor and ask for a different diagnosis, one that they'll cover. 

The funny thing is, if we'd been able to see a developmental pediatrician last summer, I have no doubt that we'd have left with a PDD-NOS diagnosis, at the very least. But there was a wait, and by the time Noah was re-evaluated, he'd been receiving speech and occupational therapy twice a week for several months. "He's just...not," we were told, when it came to the Spectrum. He's a lot of things -- SPD/SID, dyspraxia, low tone, language delayed, extremely bright, this and that and this  -- but he's not any one thing that matches up with any one diagnostic checklist. Maybe he was, at one point, but not anymore, I mean, look at him. 

I'm sure, if we had pressed the insurance angle, we could have gotten someone to commit to a Spectrum diagnosis -- a diagnosis I've been accused online of purposely avoiding or not admitting to -- but all I ever really, genuinely wanted for Noah was the right diagnosis. We had it. I thought that would be enough.

***

Scientific legitimacy for sensory integration therapy has not yet been established. While accepted by occupational therapy standards of practice, there is disagreement in the medical community to the effectiveness of sensory integration therapy.

I respectfully, emphatically beg to differ.

Old Hat, Cont'd.

Camp, day two. 

Huddled at B&N again with, unfortunately, no wallet. Hiding behind a...pillar thing so the Imaginary Authority Figures don't catch me poaching free wifi despite not purchasing anything. Though I would love to purchase something! Maybe one of those Twitter marketing books could tell me how to beg for spare change. If every Rockville-based follower stopped by with a nickel I'd be halfway to a latte right now! Where are you assholes? God, but social media is useless. 

I've now been officially singled out as an Old Timer at the drop-off and pick-up. Mothers are all but sidling up to me all, word on the street is that you've been here before and know a few things about this here special ed jungle. Can I get a preschool recommendation in exchange for a playdate? Who's your occupational therapist? Come on, man, help me out, I'm dying over here.

It's funny, but true. I apparently now give off the vibe of someone who knows what they're doing. Maybe I seem less...insane or high-strung or HI HI HI LIKE ME LIKE MEEEEE than I used to, or because I know all the therapists and counselors and even a few of the volunteers by name. Maybe it's just because I already know how to get that stupid fence open in the front of the building, no, here, you gotta lift that thingie like this.

Or maybe it's because Noah is now running around with his confidence going at full-tilt, laughing, riding bikes, talkingtalkingtalking, doing everything that everybody else wishes their kid was doing, everything that he WASN'T doing this time last year. A year of bumbling and fumbling has made us wise, completely by accident. 

This morning I shook hands with a mother who has a brand-new PDD-NOS diagnosis and no earthly idea what to do next about it. She moaned out loud when she heard that Noah issues presented before he even turned two because her child is five already and they just found out and have lost so much time and I saw that overwhelmed, panicked look her eyes and I had no idea what to say. 

So I said that I'd heard Noah and her son played very nicely together yesterday, and the words were only halfway out of my mouth before she asked if we could have a playdate. I said that would be awesome, let's definitely do that. I smiled, and so did she. 

 

 

 

Backpacks, Loops & Spoons

Today's the last day of school. There are parties, ridiculous fake graduations, special year-end slideshows. I'm bringing the napkins and paper plates. 

Noah wears a backpack now. We can drive around the loop without a bone-melting, ear-piercing tantrum. He can hold a crayon, cut with scissors, ride on the big-kid swings and a merry-go-round. He can write all his letters and his name, and will draw pictures of things he likes from his favorite books. He's starting to read a few words and is really, really good at math. We suspect that what we first assumed was synesthesia is actually something more like perfect pitch -- he identifies the song colors right along with key changes, and can describe the color of other tones in the world, like cell phones and car horns. 

And he can eat ice cream with a spoon.

Last summer, right before school started, we went to a pizza restaurant and bribed good behavior from Noah in exchange for chocolate ice cream. Which arrived not in a cone, but in a bowl with a spoon. Noah still ate everything with his fingers, but couldn't handle the mess and the cold of ice cream which is supposed to come in a cone like it usually does what is this nonsense no spoon no spoon NO SPOON. Needless to say, this was not a restaurant outing that ended well. He freaked out, epically, and we abandoned the ice cream on the table, and drove home in angry, baffled silence.

I've written quite a bit about our battle with utensils over at The Stir -- how it's been the perfect storm of fine motor skills, oral hypersensitivity, insanely picky eating and Noah's general refusal to do anything that he's not immediately good at. How we enlisted the help of teachers and OTs and strategic snacks and school and bribes of old first-gen iPhones. 

Well.

Game, set, match.

These little triumphs -- loops and spoons and hours and hours with patient, amazing teachers -- have helped win a bigger war: Noah is confident and flexible now, so much more willing to try new things and join the group. The world is not out to get him anymore, to overwhelm him with things he doesn't like and concepts he can't process. He understands how to play and how to talk and how what when why who. 

I had to miss his Field Day last week because of work, though when I saw the announcement I admit I didn't think it was anything worth rearranging my schedule for -- Noah probably wouldn't participate but would just run around the outskirts and yell at anyone who dared put demands on him or offered to show him how to hit the teeball. 

Another mother took photos for me -- photos of Noah throwing beanbags, attempting a long jump, happily holding the edge of a parachute next to his friends, leading the rolling charge in a huge herd of children chasing a ball almost as big as they were. I was shamed to realize that I still expect the Then instead of the Now. 

And the Now is better. The Now is so good. 

 

 

Congratulations, Noah, on a great year. We're ridiculously, insanely proud of you. 

A Very Good Weekend

Jason and I overthink the weekends, sometimes. We get our hearts set on elaborate outings that end up being enjoyable for all of 45 minutes but require three times the planning and travel time. 

We purposely decided not to do that this weekend, and the most ambitious activity we planned was a trip to the playground. We spent a buck-seventy-five apiece to ride the park's miniature train, which to Noah and Ezra, ranks just above everything else in the world in terms of face-melting awesomeness. 

 

For Noah, the most thrilling aspect of the train is the fact that he gets his very own ticket, that the conductor personally takes and punches a hole in, just like in The Polar Express. I especially enjoy watching this very serious transaction early in the season, when the conductor -- usually a teenage boy or retired train-loving grandpa -- is not achingly sick of his life yet and still seems openly charmed by little four-year-old boys who regard him with immense awe and reverence, because in their minds a summer job driving an electric train for the Parks Department is just about on par with being an astronaut or professional dinosaur wrangler.

 

He's a Leslie Knope in training. 

 

Ezra technically rides for free, but he was so heartbroken over his lack of a very own ticket that we splurged and laid out an extra $1.75. And it was totally worth it. 

 

The first time Noah rode this train he was Ezra's age. He cried and clung to me in terror, to the point I thought they'd have to stop the train and let us trudge through the woods back to the station. He was never, ever like Ezra, who simply accepts that things are fun because they are meant to be fun. If other kids seem to be enjoying themselves, well, he'll take that as a sign that we're NOT all going to die a fiery explosive death while being force fed mashed potatoes and finger paints. 

 

To be fair, Noah's been enjoying the train ride for several summers now. And the slides, and the wobbly bridges, and the rock walls, and the big boy swings, and essentially most playground equipment he was once too fearful or uncoordinated (or both) to attempt. (Never mind that "once" could be as recently as last month for some of the last few obstacles.) The list of things he can't (or won't) do is shrinking at an awfully, wonderfully fast clip these days. 

 

 

 
He has all the confidence a little boy his age should have, and probably some to spare. "I'm going to do it myself," he announced in the car, while attempting to buckle his own seat belt. "And you're going to be so proud of me."

 

 

 

 

And Ezra, our Fearless Monkey, looked on from his own seat as Noah successfully buckled himself in. You could tell he was so jealous, but he clapped for his big brother anyway.

Verdict

In the end, the decision was easier than I thought it would be. Jason and I essentially did a "on the count of three everybody say their gut feeling okay one, two, three" conversation and both blurted out the same answer.

And it felt like the right one. Even though it wasn't the answer I originally saw myself choosing, honestly.

Not that we haven't revisited the topic over and over and over again since (because oh, Christ, we have, and I am so sick of talking about this, even though I am here on my blog continuing to talk about it gah stab this entry with a fork I am so done). But each time we've ended up back where we started, nodding in agreement. 

We're going to stick with the IEP, the public Preschool Education Program.

(breathes into a paper bag)

I think I've mentioned it before, but we are fortunate to live in an AMAZING school district. And we live in a pocket of that district with especially well-regarded schools. Every time I set foot in the elementary school where Noah attends PEP I am endlessly impressed with the facility and the teachers and the quality of services we get for free there. ("Free" after high housing prices and taxes and blah dee blee.) And it is where we want Noah to attend kindergarten the year after next. (His September birthday puts him juuuust past the cut-off so we've got a nice automatic cushion of an extra year). Of the two schools he attends, this is the one that has laid out a clear plan to get him there, with whatever accommodations he still needs at the time. Keeping him in this program should hopefully result in a steady progression and a seamless transition.

The private school has been mostly pessimistic about Noah's chances of mainstreaming in kindergarten. So I guess we're choosing optimism.

I still wish Noah could attend both school again next year, but he can't. I hate having to look back on how far Noah's come since September and figure out which program deserves most of the credit, or if it really is both. And while neither school will have a morning option for him next year, the private school is run by an organization that DOES offer other services in the morning. Occupational and speech therapy, sensory integration groups, etc. He will definitely need additional services next year. (So trust me when I say: our decision really has nothing to do with finances; going a la carte with this stuff isn't really any cheaper.) His favorite occupational therapist moved from the preschool to the outpatient division: he's never stopped asking for her, so as much as I know he'll miss the school, I think he'll be really, REALLY happy with regular sessions with her.

So yes. I think this is our best shot at duplicating our current arrangement next year. It won't be the same, but hopefully: close enough.

We actually took Noah to his IEP meeting -- it's distracting to have him there, but I just like the team members to SEE HIM and interact with him while discussing all the more clinical stuff and All His Shortcomings instead of talking about him through the filter of paperwork.

He sat next to his teacher. He behaved beautifully. Though all he wanted in the world was her attention. When she gave it to him, he lit up. And I watched her face, and...it was so kind and loving. Genuinely loving. She laughed at his jokes and asked him questions and knew exactly how to bring him back to "inside voice" and was obviously so proud of the progress he's made this year. "He is soooo smart," she sighed, as she gave the rundown on his academic skills -- which for the first! time! ever! were actually in line with what we knew he could do. If he stays in PEP, she'll be his teacher again.

I watched her face and swear I could see what she wanted and hoped for him, and what she believed he was capable of. And in that moment, it was like looking into a mirror.

Choices We're Lucky To Have (But Still Don't Want To Make)

Well. So. That happened. And it was fine. And now I have absolutely no clue what we're supposed to do next. I've been sitting here in a sandwich shop for an hour and a half staring at a bowl of cold soup, trying to string words together, trying to come up with anything else besides: Damn! Fuck!

The Immersion Program. It doesn't exist! I mean, it does, but not for kids Noah's age. Kids his age have one basic option: a five-days-a-week version of the class he's in now, though with more of a focus on the kindergarten transition. And it's in the afternoon. They want him in it.

Where did we get the brilliant idea of sending Noah to a non-existent immersion option? From his five-days-a-week private school, who originally suggested it without fact-checking the age requirements. The private school that also wants him to return next year. That also meets in the afternoon. 

He cannot attend both. We have to choose, one over the other. 

I realize how silly this sounds: We only get to send our child to ONE nationally-recognized special-education program? And one of them is FREE? Damn! My life is so hard, dawgs.

And yet. Damn! Fuck!

In one corner, we have the public school program. A very academically driven program, focused on skills and behaviors. And oh yeah, it's FREE. Noah's progress there has been well-observed and documented and everybody loves him. I know plenty of parents have negative experiences with district special-ed programs, but our experience has been the polar opposite. They admit he will be probably the most verbal and highest-functioning child in the class next year, but feel this class is still his absolute best shot at transitioning to kindergarten (and this is the school where we want him to attend kindergarten) the following year. He could have the same teacher, whom he also loves; he'd enter kindergarten with protection and an established IEP in place. AND ALSO: IT'S FREE. Walking away from this program would be insane. 

In the other, we have the private program. The one we agonized over. The one we saved up for and sacrificed for. It's less about the academics and more about addressing Noah's underlying issues, on developing core competencies and stuff like confidence, trust, bonding, the idea that school and peers can be fun. He loves it more than anything on earth, and they love him back, and have helped us figure out how to parent Noah in more ways than I could ever list. I do not regret a single penny spent. We could probably arrange outpatient therapy there, but I know it won't be The Same. Since October, he's blossomed and grown and made enormous strides and the whole place feels like a big extended family now. Walking away from this program would be insane.

So that's where we are, with our very uniquely privileged problem. 

And now I have a meeting with the private school people so I can tell them what the public school people told us. And then I need to tell myself that with so many amazing people who care so deeply about my amazing kid, there's hopefully no such thing as a wrong decision.