If I wanted schooling, I'd-a gone to school.

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Bean starts at a new school tomorrow.

We checked out a couple places and settled on one Friday; she had a chance to hang out and interact with the kids, and Dave was even able to show the director a video of a Bean meltdown and the director essentially said "she'll have to do worse than that to impress me."

They're used to dealing with kids of all abilities here, and her OT is welcome to come and do her therapy at the school, so we'll have to look into that. It *is* going to be a challenge trying to get Bean and then get Miss O by her school's 5:30 cutoff, so between that and the fact that I'm just not impressed with the way Bean was treated by some of the teachers, I think we need to find a new place for Miss O.

So send good thoughts Bean's way - but I think this will be a positive experience for her.
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Let's just get to the truth, here, okay?

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Yesterday started okay, but we were like a mile from home and Bean asked me "when are X and Y going to get divorced?" (X and Y being a friend's parents.) She asked it in her unassuming, matter-of-fact Bean way, the way only she can. I replied "X and Y aren't going to get divorced, they love each other."

And she promptly dissolved into tears and heaving sobs.

She told me she was jealous and sad, that she wanted her daddy and I to get married again and stay together forever, etc. It's just heartbreaking - she almost had me crying with her because it's such a fundamental want, but one I can't give her.

I get so much more of her emotion and angst about the divorce than Dave does, I think. The stuff she asks me, the challenges she gives me ... I don't think she puts the screws to him quite so much.

And when she asks him, he tells her we're each going to marry someone new and then she'll have a "bonus mommy" and a "bonus daddy", verbiage that I frankly find nauseating. To me it's total leading the witness thing - you're predisposing her to calling the new spouse "mommy" or "daddy" and that's just wrong. Am I crazy?

So then she comes to me and starts drilling me on when I'm going to get married to someone else. And since I'm honest like that, I tell her "mommy's not getting married any time soon." It occurs to me now that I should have just breezily said 'someday' and dropped it, but my brain and responses don't work that way - I always default to the truth. That's probably why I get a lot more - and a lot deeper - questions.

Anywho, as she pressed me about why I wasn't getting married, I said to her "when a marriage ends, both people are sad; I'm not ready to risk being sad again." I doubt that the sad part was true on Dave's side, but I try to make the feelings/choices about the divorce as mutual as possible, so it doesn't seem like she has to choose sides.

Did I misstep? When we talk, I start with the simplest, most honest answer I can; it's only when she presses and doesn't seem satisfied with my response that I start peeling the onion. So I started with "not any time soon", transitioned to "I don't need anyone else to make me happy, so I don't need to be married", baby-stepped to something else, and ended up at "I'm not ready to risk being sad again."

Giving ducky-and-bunny answers just isn't me - I'm a WYSIWYG kinda girl; I'm not sure how well that translates to parenting ... I guess we'll all find out in the 'tween years when she either goes all Goth and hates the world or leads a compassionate crusade to free cows from being eaten. Because, you know, she won't eat beef anymore because cows are her favorite animal.
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I do. Sometimes, think that far ahead.

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I had a 'woe is me' post scheduled for this a.m. already, but just saw this topic come across a sensory disorder mailing list - has anyone heard of Dabrowski's Overexcitabilities in Gifted Children?

Most of these categories describe Bean with eerie accuracy. Eerie. I've read that sensory disorders are more prevalent in gifted kids, but stuff like this puts me on a circuitous "chicken - egg" thought pattern: does the giftedness cause the disorder, or vice-versa? Can the disorder be calmed by feeding the overexcitability? Is this just another shade of lipstick I'm putting on the SPD pig?

I can relate to so much of what I'm learning about Bean, especially the emotional liabilities of giftedness, since I did the gifted thing starting in 4th grade. I keep thinking I don't want to let her down, or miss something or, worse, mishandle something and give her some of the same difficulties I had.

And still have.

(Quote from "Chosen")
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I'm gonna give you all a nice, fun, normal evening if I have to kill every person on the face of the Earth to do it.

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Thanks for the comments here and on Facebook ...

It's so hard to make these kinds of choices on your kid's behalf.

I never really felt "right" about Bean's current school, but I chalked that up to me being antsy about my kids being at the same school that Dave's GF's kids go to, and the associated weirdness therein. But when I went with this school it was the lesser of the evils; none of the five we saw really dinged my bells on every level. One came close, but I had real concerns about my kids' safety there. And the assistant director talked a good talk about being prepared to handle Bean's needs and physicality.

A friend suggested a "normal" preschool we'll probably put on the short list, but I'm really inclined to just find Bean a "special" preschool where I can relax and not wait for that call every day. (I use these words with air quotes because, 1, what is "normal" and 2, I'm too lazy to type out all the PC, ducky-and-bunny wording for things.)

The "normal" school doesn't force naps, which would be huge, and has a lot of active, physical aspects that would be great for Bean. She needs both mental and physical stimulation, but I think she needs a bit more physical just to satisfy her body's needs.

I just want her to be a regular kid, not the oddball - and opting for a school that caters to the oddballs, well, then she'll have a chance to shine and be appreciated for who she is, not be metaphorically smacked down all day for just being who she is. Could this "normal" school provide her with a similar setup for success? Possibly; but having now run the course at two "normal" schools, I really want the reduced stress of her being somewhere her dad or I aren't going to get a call from every day because of her outlier behavior.

She deserves to be seen as a regular kid, because she is. She's just as "good" and "smart" and "nice" as all the other kids, she just has a different set of barriers to her showing all that. We all have our foibles and challenges; we all have things that make us different from others, that make us difficult to interact with on some level.

So wish us luck; it's so hard to schedule these visits and actually appear to be a valuable employee. But at least this boss seems to get that kids trump work sometimes, and has been very supportive so far. I just don't want to push my luck :(

(Quote from "The Prom")
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Wordless Wednesday

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You can't go around hitting people. What, were you born in a barn?

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Well, we're in full-on "new school" search for Bean; she hasn't been kicked out, but they do want to cut her back to part-time at her current school. She simply will not nap, and they aren't staffed to accomodate one-on-one levels of care. I know it's not their job to cater to one child, but I also think they've put up barriers to Bean's success by not allowing her a lovey at nap time and by some of the word choices teachers have used with her.

Yesterday Dave again got the call to go pick her up; he got her and took her to his work, and I came and picked her up from him as soon as I could. Today, Dave missed a call and the message said "call me back", so he did and left a message - by the time they had things in hand, but the original intent of the call had been for him to pick her up.

There are two schools that we're most interested in: Sammy's House and The Emerson Academy. Both have indicated an ability to work with SPD kids, so we'll try to knock out visits to both this week.

It's so difficult for me to know my kid isn't happy at school; it totally alters my ability to give 100% at work, as I have to peel her off me in the morning, then get that sick feeling in my stomach once 1:00 or so rolls around, just waiting for the call to get her. Even if Dave picks her up and can keep her for the afternoon, I still have the guilt/anguish/resentment thing going on over all of it.

I get frustrated with Bean, but it's transient. In her heart, she wants to be a "good" kid. She's not doing this stuff just to be a turd. I get more frustrated with her school, but logically understand that they are not a private care facility - they have a bunch of other kids to look after and can't provide 1:1 care.

But they also do things like pretend to call her parents and then tell Bean (directly or indirectly), that we won't come get her unless she naps. When I was driving Bean home Monday, she was all upset saying "Miss Sarah said I didn't know her but I do!" Turns out Miss Sarah threatened to spank Bean, Bean said she wouldn't do it, and Miss Sarah said "you don't know me". Was that a verbatim play-by-play? Not sure, but that's the gist of it from Bean's perspective. When I told the assistant director, she basically dismissed it "that doesn't sound like Miss Sarah". Maybe not, but Bean didn't pull that "you don't know me" verbiage out of thin air - Miss Sarah said it to her. I just don't have exact context.

When Dave was picking her up one day last week, he also heard a teacher (the one that Bean says always talks to her in a mean voice) say to another child "Stop crying; you're four years old, you're too old to cry." Seriously? And she said that in front of a parent, so obviously she thought it was perfectly okay. Now, it's no Miss A from the last school, calling the kid a baby and having all the other kids stare at him when he cried, but it's not *that* far off.

So I don't want Miss O at this school, either. I do, however, either want her in a distinctly different class and area from where Bean is, or in her own school. Bean has become pretty mean, intermittently, to Miss O - she'll hit or kick her if O is bothering her, and hit her in the mouth the other day, hard enough to cut O's lip against her teeth. Bean needs a break from O and, more importantly, O needs a break from Bean.

But even that stuff, I'm not sure how much she intends as mean behavior and how much is just reactive and almost out of her control. I seriously hadn't driven a mile from their school this evening and Bean had already kicked O a few times, been hollered at, and dissolved into self-loathing sobs of "I'm the baddest kid ever! I'm bad 20-hundred. I'm a horrible big sister - I don't take care of my baby sister at all! Mommy doesn't love me!"

My life is such a melodrama sometimes. I feel terrible for Bean, but I sometimes lose my ability to sympathize with her because she can act so horribly toward people. Especially her sister and I.

When your morning starts with her kicking you and screaming at you, then waking her sister, at 5:00 ...

And then proceeds in a fashion you'd expect after a wake-up like that ...

Then you get the call that she is being disruptive at nap ...

Then you pick her up and she screams at you when she gets in the car because she can't have a cookie ...

Then she kicks her sister two or three times ...

It's hard to maintain any level of sympathy for her, and instead I feel the frustration and resentment rise. My reset button is pretty easy to find, and her heart is solid and pure, so we can reestablish good rapport pretty easily, but sometimes I lose sight of the fact that I want to be her advocate and her ally, and not just another one of her detractors.
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It's like we're sisters!

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As I was cleaning the kitchen tonight, I asked the Big Girl to read to Little One. She obliged happily, but Smalls didn't want to give up her book. Biggie picked up a different book and offered to read that to her instead, and Smalls agreed. They looked at pictures and numbers, and then the together time devolved into rougher pursuits.

It has occurred to me, on more than one occasion, that having a sensory-seeker for a big sister must be pretty cool for Smalls. Because the games they played tonight all consisted of Bean essentially being sat and jumped on, with Miss O giggling and Bean encouraging her to keep bouncing. Miss O was either born to fulfill the role, or has just adapted marvelously, because she cheerfully follows big sister's lead, be it reading, singing the A, B, C song or whatever it is they're doing now that results in giggles and muffled voices.

How do they love each other? Let me count the ways ... actually, that shouldn't take long, as Bean often tells me she doesn't like Miss O or want her around or want to be with her or ... well, you get the idea.

But sometimes they have a moment, like at the Waco Zoo a couple months ago





Or playing at home





Or making new friends





And I think they might just be okay.



Relatively speaking, of course.
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