I’m at the park right now writing this. It’s fucking February and I’m in the park with shorts and a t-shirt and no shoes. I know, you Canadians want to tell me to fuck off right now for actually complaining about that, but this shit is lame! Where the hell is our winter this year?? I WANT WINTER, DAMMIT.
Anyway… so you know how we autie parents spend so much time complaining about all the people in our lives who just don’t “get it?” Well, I thought I’d take a moment to show some appreciation for some people who do get it. It will be a nice change of pace, don’t you think??
Today we have an IEP meeting. I’m not expecting anything unusual, it’s our annual and we’ve already had an emergency meeting this year to discuss “the incident,” so nothing today is going to be very earth shattering, with the possible exception of me saying “I’d like to opt him out of The Test,” and the SPED representative giving me the same line of horseshit that she gives me every year about how "he’s going to be taking tests his whole life so he might as well start getting used to it now!" Because my kick ass advocate will be there, and she’s going to say “SHUT THE FUCK UP, TINY DISTRICT WOMAN” (she’s kind of a “force,” my kick ass advocate. I’m pretty sure her business cards actually say “Kick Ass Advocate,” instead of just the usual “Advocate.”) Anyway, according to the chart up there, we are in our usual state of Blue: even if things will go smoothly, there’s always a little bit of misinformation and guile to be expected. You know, like “he’s going to be taking tests his whole life so he should practice for them now and the reason we don't want you to opt him out has everything to do with his future test taking abilities and nothing to do with our participation percentages or anything like that no I swear that’s really really the reason.”
Anyway, back to appreciating people. My awesome tutor will be coming with me to this meeting, which means I don’t have my usual afternoon babysitter, so I’ve asked my friend Cathryn to watch the kids (I’m using her real name because she has no online persona and therefore no secret identity to protect). But Child 1 doesn’t like having to go places, in general, really, but in particular if I’m not there, so Cathryn is coming over to my house, with her two kids, and she’s watching all four of them for however many hours this is going to take. Isn’t that just the coolest thing?? I’m so happy that I have a friend who understands and is cool about weird autism things. Her kids aren’t autistic, she’s just one of those incredibly cool people who “get it.”
And so, I would like to dedicate this post not only to snark but to my friend Cathryn, who “gets” it. She probably won’t read this unless I tell her to, and MAN will she be embarrassed when she does. HA HA HA HA HA!! I think I’ll just leave the screen open on my laptop when I leave for the meeting and have her stumble across it accidentally…… SURPRISE!!!
