Anxious Mom

That Time I Thought I Was Going To Jail

This is a repost from over 4.5 years ago — with some light edits — so this will probably be new to most of you. A post I read yesterday about prank phone calls made me remember that time I thought someone from the sheriff’s department was on the way to pick me up.

I’ve been told that I’m a pretty vanilla person on this blog before, plus I’ve openly boasted about having never gotten a speeding ticket. As such, you might be surprised to learn that there was a time when I thought I was going to jail.

Back when I was 26, I tried marijuana for the first time. The boy was away (which I feel obligated to say, so the possible judgment is knocked down a tad), and my sister was home for the weekend. She is a marijuana aficionado and had been for quite some time. She made many, many efforts to get me to try it over the years, but I always declined. Not because I’m a goody two shoes (only partly), but also because I figured I’d look like an idiot considering how the three times attempting to smoke a cigarette went. (If you have asthma that you know gets really bad when someone else is smoking around you, trying smoking anything isn’t a great idea.)

I finally gave in. Peer pressure. It took a long time to get pressured into it, but by golly, it happened.

So, we went out to the carport and smoked. Well, I did two small puffs of the thing and coughed terribly and said that I’d just have a drink. That ended up being way more vanilla than you thought, didn’t it? No silliness, pretty lame as far as a story of trying weed for the first time goes. I’ve had enough wild times with alcohol to make up for that. Of course, those are probably still pretty tame compared to most people’s stories. The wildest things I ever did that I can remember was dye my husband’s hair red and take a bicycle for a spin around the block.

Fast forward to three days later. I got a phone call, which I screened because I don’t often answer my phone when I know who is calling, let alone when I don’t recognize the number. I looked up the number on the computer and it was the local Sheriff’s Department.

WTF?

I had a slight mental breakdown because I’m the paranoid sort, and dammit, I knew what something bad would happen if I tried weed, and then the phone rang again. I answered.

“Is this E?” the deep voice asked.

“Yes…”

“This is the Sheriff’s Department and we wanted to let you know that we have a warrant for your arrest for doing illegal drugs and will be by to pick you up at 4:00.”

Click.

I burst out into tears. I was going to jail for the rest of my life for doing that illegal thing one time, didn’t even get the effects of it, and I was going to be someone’s bitch. Noooooo!

My husband was working in his office and I went in there, crying still. “I’m going to jail!”

“What?” He looked rather amused.

“They called and are coming to get me. They have a warrant! I’m being arrested!” I sobbed.

“Why on earth would the cops call you to tell you that they’re arresting you and give you a chance to get away?” he asked.

I didn’t know the answer to that question. I didn’t know how cops do warrants with stay-at-home-moms who pose no threat to anyone.

“Well they are!” More tears.

He took my phone and looked up the number to verify that it was indeed the Sheriff’s Department. “This doesn’t make any sense. Who did you talk to? I’m calling them to find out what’s going on.”

Just at that moment, the phone rang again. Same number. He answered it. “You do know that she has certain Constitutional rights and that you can’t just come arrest her with no proof of something that was done on private property,” he barked into the phone without saying “Hello.” Crap, he was going to make me stay in jail longer.

Then he shook his head and handed the phone to me.

“Hello?” I was shaking.

“We’re coming to get you now. Be ready,” the deep voice said.

“I’m sorry, I won’t ever do it again!” I pleaded.

And then, “Bwahahaha!” came a high-pitched laugh, one that I had grown up with, belonging to my sister. “Man, I got you!”

As it turns out, there is something you can pay for to mask your phone number and put in any number you want to pop up on someone’s caller ID. Combine that with a voice changer purchased in the toy section from Walmart, and my sister had gotten me for a mere $10.

I wanted to kill her, of course, but considering how happy I was over the fact that I wasn’t going to jail at the moment, I laughed. Later I realized how easily it would be for someone to fake being from the credit card company or whatever using this masking technique to rip you off. (So don’t trust the caller ID!)

For the record, I used to play a lot of pranks on people and still do, occasionally. My sister and I had been engaged in a prank war at that point. She certainly won with that one.

What’s the worst prank someone has played on you?

Guess Who’s Back, Back Again?

Anxiety’s back, tell a friend
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back?

Considering my last post, I couldn’t help but use some of the lyrics from Without Me. Plus, the boy rapped the whole thing in the car yesterday, so it has been in my head. Considering he can remember something like that he’s only heard a few times or the entire lines from a play (seriously, his and everyone else’s), yet forgets I asked him to brush his teeth five seconds later, I think I should start rapping my commands to him.

Brush your teeth, teeth right now.
Brush them good, brush them good,
Brush them good, brush them good,
Or you’re grounded, you’re grounded, yes you’re grounded.

It needs work.

I recently wrote a post mentioning my reduced anxiety, and I must not have knocked on wood as usual. Nah, really though, I think it’s more that I just suck at picking up on things. You’d think someone who has had bad anxiety since she was a little kid would be more aware, but I’m not great at being in tune with my body. For the record, it’s still true that my anxiety is reduced compared to years ago, but maybe not as much as I thought at the time. Once I zeroed in on the anxiety, I realized that this issue has been building up over the past few months.

I’ve been avoiding going out shopping as much as possible lately. I’ll order whatever I can from Amazon, which I’m sure my mail lady loves, and most of the rest of the stuff is ordered through the Walmart app. We have Grocery Pickup at our Walmart, so I can just pull up to the side of the building and someone brings my stuff out. I’ll shop at Target or Aldi when it’s not busy, since those places don’t bother me much early in the day, but I avoid everywhere else like the plague if I can help it. I’ve never cared for crowds (and shopping at Walmart is never fun), but it just leaves me more unsettled than normal lately.

On Sunday, we went to get lunch and then went by Target afterwards. By the time we were in the car heading home, I was so agitated that when I got home I took a Xanax just to calm down. I was agitated because of the noise in the restaurant, how crowded and noisy Target was, how noisy my damn car was. Thanks, children. I put in my earbuds when were were halfway home because I felt like I was going to snap. (I wasn’t driving.) And I have definitely been snapping more over the past few weeks.

Combine that with going out to a play on Friday night and not wanting to talk to anyone because I was struggling with hearing, more of the same on Saturday night, plus not wanting to touch publicly used things again. (Salt shakers and ketchup bottles and other items touched by the public are becoming my nemesis again.) My husband asked me on Sunday if my anxiety was getting bad again since he had noticed these things. And I realized — yes it is, in ways.

I think a lot of it’s due to my hearing. My cochlear implant hasn’t been as helpful as I had hoped it be. It started off working well, as in I progressed from hearing clicks and robot-y sounds to voices and real sounds quickly. And within a few months, I scored high on the tests the audiologist gave me. Progress halted, though, and my speech in noisy environments hasn’t seemed to improve at all. (Speech in one-on-one situations in quiet environments was great, though.) My directional hearing is awful, and when I’m out in public, if someone talks on that side, I don’t usually hear them unless they tap my shoulder to get my attention so I can turn and face them. I’ve becoming increasingly self-conscious about my hearing and add to that background noises being more overwhelming, it’s a mess. I don’t know if there’s a sensory component or if anxiety is just making that stuff more noticeable and worse as a result.

The hearing thing has me so worried about my future. What kind of job can I get in the real world where I can either control my environment or limit most conversations to one-on-one with little to no background noise and avoid phones? I can’t come up with many job prospects in my area outside of teaching. I can keep the classroom quiet as needed and move around to talk to the kids. But I really don’t want to go back to teaching. I also don’t want to take a year’s worth of college classes so I can get recertified. I may not have a choice if I can’t come up with something else, though. Freelance writing is great, but isn’t exactly a career. I know I shouldn’t worry too much about that right now since I have a few years before I’d go full-time anyway.

I have an appointment with my primary care doctor soon, so I’m going to ask her about taking propranolol again. I took it for social anxiety several years ago, and it helped somewhat. It’s meant to treat high blood pressure, but is also good for anxiety because it helps you stay calmer and keep from going into panic mode. If she won’t prescribe it, I’ll ask my psychiatrist when I go in January. Hopefully it won’t interact with anything I’m currently taking. I’m also going to schedule an appointment with my audiologist and see what adjustments she can make.

Boo anxiety, but at least I’m a) aware and b) have a plan. That’s much better than in the past when it was running the show 24/7 with no end in sight.

90s Children, What’s Up?!

Little Man discovered a new-to-us show on Hulu called Fresh Off the Boat. It’s about a Chinese family that relocates from DC to Orlando, FL and has to adjust to suburban type living. It’s also set in 1995, so I have been loving seeing some reminders of my childhood. I was 11 years old in 1995, just like Little Man is now, so that somehow adds to the neatness factor a little.

The boy loves the show. In fact, the little Benedict Arnold bastard has been watching the show behind my back, leaving me to catch up on my own. That might sound harsh, but he did the same thing to his dad, who wanted to watch Green Arrow and Flash with him. We’re both on the verge of disowning him.

The main character Eddie is quite the slacker and loves the rap/hip-hop stuff that was all the rage in the 90s. Think Biggie, Tupac, etc. I never listened to them because I’m vanilla as fuck and have zero interest. The CD I had on repeat then was the soundtrack for The Baby-Sitters Club Movie. It was replaced a couple years later when Hanson released their Middle of Nowhere album with MMMBop on it. Did I say “vanilla” already?

The boy has been listening to a lot of music on his phone lately. He has entered the earbuds stage of adolescence — you know, the one where they listen to music nonstop and don’t want to speak to you as much. It’s a double-edged sword because you like talking to them, but they also tend to be smartasses, so it’s nice to skip out on that. I’ll admit, I haven’t really paid attention to what he listens to, because he builds his playlists out of the stuff we have on iTunes. The most kid non-friendly thing we have on iTunes that I can think of is a Weezer song called Can’t Stop Partying that talks about partying and drugs.

I can’t stop partying, partying
I can’t stop partying, partying
I gotta have Patrón, I gotta have the beat
I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me

It has some explicit stuff when Lil Wayne comes out and raps. It was the song that made me realize I should pay more attention to the music I play. That happened when the then 4-year-old LM started very clearly singing about mixing alcohol with pharmaceuticals in line at Chick-Fil-A. It’s not a good defense, but since I struggle making out the lyrics to a lot of songs (unless I read them a bunch of times), I didn’t take notice of the lyrics. I started trying to play closer attention after that. (But still failed at least once when Baby Girl sang No Scrubs.) But, like I said, as far as LM is concerned, I don’t pay much attention these days because there isn’t much of anything in our library that LM shouldn’t listen to.

You see, what I didn’t know was LM’s dad put Amazon Music on his phone. And there’s a shit ton of stuff to listen to on that.

What I also didn’t know was just how much LM has taken a liking to the kid Eddie from the show, namely his love for hip hop. So he started listening to all sorts of hip hop and rap, including Tupac, Biggie, and Eminem. (For the record, I did actually like Eminem in my later teen years.) I discovered this when my best friend who has my Amazon info asked me about why I was listening to so much rap all of a sudden. I wasn’t, of course, so I asked my husband, and he told us about LM’s new musical interests.

Oh boy.

I realize now that I wrote three paragraphs on LM’s new music, and that’s really not where I was going with this, so back to the 90s stuff.

Fresh Off the Boat has been fun to watch. When I was watching with LM, it was cool to point out some of the stuff that he’d otherwise have no clue about, like the damn Internet modems that hog your phone line. Who remembers this sound?

I had a love-hate relationship with that sound. I absolutely loved the sound of connecting to the Internet and doing all of the things that made me feel so mature, even if I did accidentally make myself a target for being kidnapped in Yahoo chat rooms by divulging my age and too much personal info. (Every 90s kid with Internet access did that, though.) But those of you who had dial-up modems know how long that shit could take, and eventually the love of hearing the dial-up noise went away as the rage took over.

How dare you take 5 minutes and 42 seconds to connect me?!

And damn it all to hell when someone would pick up the phone or you’d randomly get disconnected.

Oh and the times when I left it connected all night while I downloaded music from Napster and then Limewire and then Kazaa. (Granted, we’re in 2000 by that point, but it’s still childhood/young adulthood stuff.) Anything short of picking up the phone to call 911 for a heart attack and disrupting my downloads was deserving of a beat down. I tried to download movies as well, but they mostly ended up being porn videos, so I stopped that. (If y’all wanna talk about some scarring shit, try being the most vanilla and naive 15-year-old in the world and opening a very rough porn.)

The show talk about Zimas, which I had never heard of until a few years ago when my husband took a trip down memory lane. He appreciated the reference. The kids have Sunny D’s and Lunchables. Sunny D is the best, and I still buy it from time to time. I could never understand the appeal of Lunchables. Some of the kids are clearly in their Nirvana/grunge phase. The slang.

Releasing anything remotely related to the 90s is a surefire way to make money. I’m looking at you, manufacturer of the Oregon Trail game I spent $30 on. Everyone in my class loved using that old computer with the big ass floppy disk to play that came.

Watch it if you’re looking for something new and funny. It’s not as funny as The Office, but it has a lot of great moments.

What’s something from your childhood you’ve seen make a comeback or would like to see make a comeback?

Back To School

After a week at home following the tonsillectomy, the girl is back at school this morning. I was worried she’d need to be out longer, because even on Saturday, she was cranky, complained of headaches, wasn’t eating or drinking much, and was tired enough to be napping. She did a 180 yesterday, though, and aside from a bit of crankiness, she went through the day just fine. She actually ate more regularly and drink a bunch of water, so I know that helped!

BG had her tonsils removed because of sleep apnea, and her doctor thought that it might help with ADHD symptoms in addition to snoring. I definitely haven’t noticed as much snoring over the past few days. I’m guessing it may take some time to see the ADHD symptoms decrease if we do at all. Oddly enough, we’ve seen more of the odd sensory behaviors (she is rubbing everything and sat in the bathtub running water over her hands for half an hour three times, for example), which we were hoping would decrease.

I was working with her on some makeup work for school when she felt up to it, and lord, it was like pulling teeth to keep her on track. I see why she brings home so much incomplete work. Part of the makeup work was working on handwriting. From what I’ve seen of the other students’ work on display, she has the worst handwriting in the class. She has developmental coordination disorder, so the poor handwriting goes along with it. She also has a summer birthday, which doesn’t help.

I feel bad for BG watching her try to write, because it’s such a struggle for her. A lot of her practice is tracing letters, but she is rarely able to keep her pencil on the dotted line. It blows my mind how I can show her the right way to form a letter and guide her hand over how to make it multiple times, and she does the opposite or something completely different directly after. You wouldn’t think that she had three years of preschool, almost a year of OT, and her mom helping her every day by looking at it, poor kiddo.

The girl’s teacher kept in contact with me over the week, checking in on her. I thought that was really sweet. It means a lot to know you’re leaving your kid in the care of someone that cares about her during the day!

Things are about to get busy again. My husband and Little Man are both doing the Christmas play with our local community theater group, so they’ll be practicing three nights per week. LM wasn’t going to do it at first because his free time is reduced since his school day ends later and he has to go to bed earlier, but the director messaged us and asked and he agreed to do it. He really enjoys acting, so even though it cuts down on his time after school, at least he’ll be having fun.

The girl wanted to sign up for Cub Scouts. She went to the first meeting and decided she hated it for some reason she wouldn’t give us, so that’s out. Her grandmother is relieved, because it gave her a small heart attack that her granddaughter wanted to join something that is supposed to be for boys (even though that group is co-ed).

I did so much of that during our text exchange over Cub Scouts.

We tried to get BG to try another meeting, but she had a meltdown and was sobbing, so we let it go. It would’ve been nice for her to have the opportunity to socialize outside of school, but whatever. The Cub Scout leader gave my husband a form for a popcorn fundraiser at the very first meeting and said we needed to sell $300 worth of stuff, so my husband wasn’t inclined to fight BG over it too much.

Here’s to a good week. Happy Monday 🙂

About Anxious Mom, As Narrated By Morgan Freeman

While updating my About Me page, I decided to have a little fun with it. And since there has been an influx of new followers, I thought I’d share that page as a blog post. Welcome aboard, new folks.

Per the blog post title, you should read this in Morgan Freeman’s voice.

Anxious Mom, who is known as “Mommy,” “Mom,” or “Momo” by her children, is a 30-something woman who resides in the Deep South. (And by “resides,” we mean “suffers” due to the unbearable heat and humidity.) She has two heathens — a son in middle school and a daughter in kindergarten. When the children aren’t busy tormenting each other, they torture their mother in ways only children can.

There are many things Anxious Mom enjoys doing in her spare time. If you ask her directly, she’d probably tell you that she loves reading and doing intellectual activities such as going to the museum. If you observe her in her habitat, however, you’ll find that she mostly watches shows on Netflix and plays games in her downtime. She is particularly fond of comedies, including The Office, Parks and Rec, Friends, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She has jokingly said that liking one of those shows is required to be friends with her, but through careful observation, we have learned it is not, in fact, a joke.

If you asked Anxious Mom about her background, she’d tell you that she did a brief stint as a teacher before becoming a stay-at-home-mom. Since then, she has done freelance work part-time, including providing content writing and editing services. Her primary job, however, is working as a chauffeur. This is where she truly excels in life, as she has a penchant for punctuality (as long as her children and husband don’t intervene) and safety. The mother, who we suspect was a hall monitor in another life, is proud of having never gotten a speeding ticket. She does, however, fill her swear jar every other day thanks to her time on the road, so she isn’t as goody-two-shoes as she seems.

As you can see, Anxious Mom is a blogger. Some people call her a mommy blogger, and that irritates her greatly. “I am a mom who blogs,” she maintains, as though there is truly a difference. She has blogged for five years and writes about herself and her family. When she first started blogging, she wrote a lot about her mental health, and it’s suspected that she’ll do so again. The rapidly-approaching-middle-age mother is also fond of writing blog posts where she rants about meaningless topics.

This concludes our glimpse into the life Anxious Mom. You can read her other blog posts or follow her on Instagram for other mundane insights into her life.

So Long Tonsils

I talked to Baby Girl’s teacher about things. She said she admired how we advocated for Norah and told me some things she is doing in the classroom to help. She admitted not knowing a lot about autism, but said she is researching strategies to help. She told me her goal is to minimize situations in the class that may be stressful for BG and reduce sensory overload (or meltdowns).

That was good to hear, of course. She also told me that she got an FM system for the girl . I’ve never seen one, but apparently it’s supposed to reduce background noise and deliver the teacher’s voice to BG. She said some kids were curious about it, so she explained what it was and BG seemed happy with it.

The teacher also talked about how they would handle any issues that came up and said that either she or her assistant would take BG to a quiet area to help her calm down while the other stays with the kids. She asked for suggestions for strategies and other changes she could make in the classroom that might help. I’m so happy to hear all of this, because while getting BG through the school day without a meltdown is important, reducing that frustration so she isn’t completely on the verge of one after school is important, too.

Also, the principal said that while she may not get an IEP and be eligible for certain accommodations through the school district, she’ll have a personal education plan for the school itself. It’s a charter school and receives state funding, but they’re able to make their own rules. (Like allowing her to start late if we had chosen to do so and letting her leave early for her therapy appointments.) The district psychologist has no control over that, so I am assuming that FM system was provided that way since she’s technically supposed to haven an IEP to get one. Take that, asshole.

Good stuff.

The girl had her tonsils out yesterday. That poor child seemed like she was on the verge of panic attacks multiple times over the past few days. She was terrified of having the surgery done. She wasn’t worried about pain — that never came up — but the idea of having them removed scared her.

We expected yesterday to be very difficult, but BG was in a good mood when she got up. She didn’t seem too nervous, even when we got to the hospital. After we checked in, a nurse took her back to a room that had the Disney channel playing. We got her dressed in a gown and then the doctor and the anesthesiologist came in to talk to us. When it was time for them to take her back, she didn’t cry, but I sure did when I watched them wheel her away.

We knew the surgery would be quick, but were surprised when the doctor came out half an hour later. I expected him to say something was wrong and they couldn’t remove the tonsils or something, but he said they got him out and she did great. It took longer for her to wake up from the anesthesia than it did for the tonsils to be removed.

When we went back to the recovery room, BG was crying a little. The nurse gave her some water and we rubbed her back. She then asked:

“Where’s my Barbie dream house?”

Um, what?

“What Barbie dream house?” I asked.

“The one I’m supposed to get after surgery.”

“But you don’t even like Barbies. We don’t have a Barbie dream house, sweetie.”

This made her start crying really hard. “But I want my Barbie dream house!” she wailed. I can only imagine how confused we must have looked to the nurses since our daughter, who can’t stand Barbies and other “girl stuff” was crying over a Barbie dream house that she thought she was going to get for some reason.

My husband asked if he should go get a Barbie dream house for her. I looked it up and they cost almost $200, which is half of what we paid for the surgery. I shot that idea down. She did manage to get him to stop by Target and get another gift for her, though.

The doctor said that BG would need a week, maybe two, to recover. After a half hour nap yesterday, she was bouncing off the walls. Same today. You wouldn’t even know she had surgery. I shouldn’t be too surprised since she’s not one to respond to pain much. Even when she had strep throat, she never complained about it hurting. We took her to the doctor because she had a fever and was lethargic and found out that way. Hopefully she continues feeling well and it isn’t a delayed reaction!

GIF It Up

Yesterday, my husband was messaging me while I was waiting in the car rider line. He was supposed to have a meeting at 2:30, but it was a bit past 3:00, and he was still waiting on the guy from work to call. Since I was also playing Words With Friends, I just sent over a gif to express my thoughts:

His response:

Later on in the evening, after I got home and he had his meeting, we got to talking about the school psychologist who needs his throat punched.

“What we really needed was that gif of ‘What kind of shit is that?’ that you sent over yesterday to let that asshole know how we really felt,” my husband said.

I agreed. “Yeah, or something like this.” I hurriedly pulled up a gif on my app:

“Except louder,” I said.

And then an idea was born: the GifPad. We decided that having a tablet dedicated to pulling up gifs to express our emotions at any given moment would be the best thing ever. Because who wants to use words to express their feelings, amirite? Really though, some of those gifs really get the point across, and do so better than one of us going on a 5-minute long rant about why the psychologist was an asshole and how unhelpful he was with the girl. Plus, there’s the benefit of humor. It’s funny, so other people are less likely to get all pissy. It’s like how Southerners add “bless his heart” to things after saying an insult, except a modern solution.

Here are some situations where the GifPad would come in handy:

When your tween mouths off for the umpteenth time, you could go with the Michael Scott “I’ll kill you” gif, but since you’d probably want to avoid a visit from CPS, this would work better–

When your dad, who knows you have liberal beliefs, sends you the millionth meme on why Donald Trump is America’s savior and why liberals are idiots–

When your mother-in-law has fucked her computer again, despite telling her many times not to download attachments in emails from people she doesn’t know–

When some asshole takes 20 minutes at the Redbox and reads through the description of Every. Fucking. Movie. and then walks away–

When your husband pisses you off and tries to initiate sexy time later–

When your doctor wants to discuss your health at your well visit, when all you wanted was to get your blood drawn and flee–

And when your kid’s teacher wants to meet with you to “discuss his progress”–

I could also use that one at least a dozen times per day when people don’t talk loudly enough for me to hear.

The GifPad will be also configured with gifs that express positive emotions, but I won’t be using that, because smiling awkwardly works just fine for me.

What situation would you rather use the GifPad instead of words?

The Psychologist From Hell

Ever since BG was diagnosed as being on the spectrum, I’ve done so much reading. Part of that reading includes joining message boards on Facebook and checking out other parents’ experiences with their kids. I’ve seen so many comments about the hell parents dealt with to get accommodations and services for their kids. I felt relieved since we worked with the school in the past to get a 504 Plan for my son, and even though it took longer than I would’ve liked, it wasn’t an awful experience by any means.

And then today happened.

We requested a meeting to discuss a 504 Plan and speech services. LM had speech services at his teacher’s request when he was in second grade (before his 504 Plan was implemented), and I figured it’d be pretty easy to get them for the girl, too, especially since her speech issues are more severe. (I didn’t even realize LM wasn’t pronouncing his S’s right until the teacher told me.)

We expected to meet with the assistant principal (who also helps coordinate student services), the guidance counselor, BG’s teacher, and the school psychologist.

The school principal, a lady who coordinates speech therapy through the district, the school resource teacher, and the lead psychologist for the school district came as well. The school psychologist, who we absolutely loved with LM, wasn’t there. Things got off to a rough start with the lead psychologist (who we’ll call Asshole) asked why we were meeting. I was thinking, dude, there are like nine people in this room and you have no idea why we’re here?

I told him we were there to discuss accommodations for Norah’s ADHD and autism, plus talk about what speech services the school can provide.

“And where are you even getting this stuff?” Asshole asked condescendingly. “Where are you pulling that diagnosis from?”

My husband reminded him that we sent a copy of the report over weeks ago (and frankly, even if it didn’t make it to his desk, he should’ve come into the meeting with an idea of what’s going on). I brought in some extra copies I printed off and slid one over to him. Asshole made a face as if I placed a turd in front of him.

“I don’t want words on paper,” he snapped. “Where are you getting this stuff?”

“We aren’t just getting it from anywhere,” I said. “Following years of behavioral issues and developmental delays, we took BG to a child psychologist, who did a full work-up. Over the course of about a month’s worth of appointments, he did extensive testing and diagnosed BG with Asperger’s, or high functioning autism, and ADHD. He also noted that she has a language delay, sensory processing disorder, and motor skill coordination disorder. All of that is on the report from the psychologist.”

Asshole glanced at it and said, “Well, she might have a clinical diagnosis, but that doesn’t mean anything in a school setting, so I don’t know where you’re pulling this from.”

The speech lady spoke up and suggested we discuss her speech issues. So we did, and she said that BG likely wouldn’t qualify for speech services right now. They prefer to wait until they’re eight to start for the main sounds BG has trouble with. She did say that she would talk with her teacher on reminding BG how to form those sounds. The resource lady asked a lot of questions about her sensory processing and motor skills issues and said she could definitely work with her on that. She said she’d like to get an FM system for BG, too, and that it could deliver the teacher’s voice directly to Norah through headphones and that way she wouldn’t have to deal with so much background noise.

“She has to have an IEP and be a special ed student to go to the resource room,” Asshole interjected. “And I don’t know if we’re going to even evaluate her for an IEP. Maybe we’ll consider a 504 Plan.”

“We didn’t ask for an IEP meeting,” my husband answered. “We wanted her to get a 504 Plan to discuss classroom accommodations and speech.” I added that her teacher was already making the accommodations we wanted, but that it needed to be put in writing to follow her to other classes/grades. The lady over speech services said that she’d have to get an IEP to get formal speech therapy services, and we asked why LM got them without a 504 plan, and she said the speech services LM received were separate from that.

The resource lady asked if BG’s hearing had been tested and said some of the students she’s had before had speech issues because of hearing loss. I told her she was diagnosed with a mild higher frequency loss, but that her audiologist wanted to have her retested after she gets her tonsils out. She asked if there was a history of loss in the family, and I told her about my hearing loss.

I shit you not — Asshole chuckled. “WHAAAAAT?” he said in a loud, slow mocking voice. I’ve heard that mocking voice — the one indicated deaf/hard of hearing people are stupid — far too many times. If looks could kill. No one said anything for a bit until the assistant principal asked BG’s teacher how she did during the fire alarm yesterday, shifting gears back to the sensory processing stuff.

“Fine, no problems,” she said.

“Well, how’d she seem when you picked her up?” Asshole asked me.

“She was fine when I picked her up,” I said.

“I don’t see how there’s a problem with all of this then,” Asshole said.

“Oh wait!” BG’s teacher said. “I’m sorry, but I was wrong. She wasn’t there for the drill. She had already left for her therapy appointments when we did the drill. But I’ll make sure to give her a head’s up so she can put on her headphones next time.”

Asshole shrugged it off. The resource lady asked about meltdowns at home, and we discussed those for a while, with Asshole chiming in saying that these meltdowns are normal for kids in elementary school. Resource lady and the guidance counselor told him that while kids might have tantrums at home after school, that it wasn’t normal for a kid to have multiple meltdowns that get as extreme as hurting others and themselves. More shrugging off. He gave zero fucks.

The meeting lasted an hour. We were so pissed off by the time it was over. Again and again, Asshole made snarky comment after snarky comment. I can’t remember the last time I was around anyone who was so rude and condescending. I could tell he pissed off some of the other people at the table, too, because he was equally dismissive of their concerns or suggestions for helping BG. He also said it’d be easier if she’d just continue with her private therapies. I should’ve asked why he thought a kid with no problems needed private therapies, but I didn’t.

When it was wrapping up, the resource lady asked if she could keep a copy of BG’s evaluation. If she’s anything like the resource lady that I worked with years ago, she’ll probably try to help out BG whether she has an IEP or not. (The resource lady at my old school was an absolute saint and would include the kids whose parents would allow testing since she knew they needed help anyway.) The guidance counselor also asked for a copy.

“You can have this,” Asshole said and tossed it to the other end of the table. “I don’t need it.”

Perfect way to wrap things up.

I don’t get how someone who has never met my child, never heard the first teacher’s report about her, who wouldn’t even look at a psychological evaluation that’s sitting in front of him could just make up his mind and act like that. The lack of professionalism blew my mind.

After we left and discussed how horribly it went with that guy, my husband said he was going to talk to the principal and tell him that under no circumstance should that psychologist have anything to do with evaluating BG. Ultimately, all she needs is a 504 Plan with some accommodations in place, since we can continue taking her to therapies. And I know for a fact that we don’t need Asshole to initiate that. It’d be nice if those therapies were supplemented so she can make progress more quickly, but I’d rather keep things the way they are than have that douche anywhere near her.

On a positive note, I texted BG’s speech therapist yesterday morning about the tonsillectomy and said she’d miss next week. After her appointment yesterday afternoon, she told me she looked at her tonsils and was shocked at how large they are. She said that she’s had some patients in the past who had tonsillectomies that made incredible progress afterwards. She said when the tonsils are so large, it can push the tongue forward and cause speech issues. She said it’s not a guarantee that it’ll help with that too, but to keep our fingers crossed.

It’s amazing how much removing those tonsils could help. It will theoretically make the sleep apnea go away, which means she’ll get a more restful sleep. One of her doctors said that sleep apnea can cause ADHD like symptoms, so maybe those symptoms will improve. I’m sure that being more well rested would reduce her crankiness. And removing them might be able to help with her speech issues. It won’t help much as far as some of the other issues go, but that is still a lot. ❤