Not an "A" in Sight

Report cards came today. I really miss the old grading system that we had when I was a kid. It was straightforward, A through F, based mostly on tests and quizzes, or special projects. The report cards my kids get don’t make much sense to me; 1-4 with 4 being the best. I don’t know what it takes to get a 4 because none of my kids ever have.

I was a solid A student from Kindergarten right on up through senior year. The only time I didn’t get an A was when a teacher went out of his way to punish my truancy and evil attitude in some roundabout manner. Back then test scores were test scores and no amount of incorrigible behavior could alter them.

But now it seems to me that grades are based on opinion. For example I have one child that devours books, all books, books well beyond his grade level... and yet he only got a 3 for reading, and not even for all of reading because now reading is broken down into multiple line items. The same kid has consistent math test scores ranging from 90 to 105, but only got a 3 in math. Because 4 is reserved for those who exceed the standards and are above grade level. I wonder how they test for that.

And Masha’s report card, well shit... welcome to “1”s across the board. They may as well have stamped a huge red F on the report. Is this what inclusion looks like? Shouldn’t I just suck it up since I wanted her to be in with everyone else? Shouldn’t she be graded by the same standards? The real problem I have with her report card is that it doesn’t mean anything... it doesn’t tell me anything about how well she is (or is not) learning. Of course she “does not meet Common Core standards—receives support and is significantly below grade level,” but is she learning well?

Why does any of this matter to me? Because I used to love looking at my line of A’s and I know just as I got a kick out of that, my oldest son feels bad that he can never seem to get the best grade. When you are doing the best you can, and that is not enough to get you the best grade possible, what does that do to you? In time he will probably begin to believe that he is not capable of getting the best grades. I wonder if that will start to eat away at his desire to put in the effort. I want him to believe in himself, to believe that anything, any profession is possible for him.

The ability to store, process, and recall information in this life seems to be one of the keys to being able to make a path for yourself that is satisfying. I want more for my kids than to just earn a living. I want them to find careers that bring them joy and excitement, and challenges. There is no shame in non-skilled jobs, but there also seems to be not much pleasure there either. I want them to be able to have what I had... a career that eventually makes Monday mornings as interesting as Friday nights. Can you get there without the best grades? I’m sure there are ways, but the reality is that racking up top grades in school is likely the fastest way there.

Ok, yeah I know... a bunch of really smart guys skipped college and made cool lives for themselves in the tech field. And yeah, I know lots of natural artists made it without college. And I know there are plenty of people who went the college route only to end up wandering through life barely making it. So good grades and college aren’t a guarantee that you will end up making a living at something you love, but mediocre grades and no college are even less likely to lead to a satisfying career.

Back to report cards. In my mind they are little harbingers of how hard or how easy life might be for my children. I realize that they are just one facet of growing up, and that there are so many other pieces of the pie of life that lead to being a healthy, successful, and peaceful adult. But still, I miss seeing A’s.

School Bus Blues

When Masha started General Education Kindergarten last year, she was transported to and from school on the regular ole bus with her big brothers. It wasn’t long before the problems started. She wouldn’t keep her seat belt on and it got worse from there.



(Do any of the other kids on the regular bus wear their seat belts? Uh, no.)

But she started moving around too much, leaning over the seats, bothering other students... and spitting. Apparently someone on the bus modeled that for her and she picked it up lickety-split. I fielded phone call after phone call about how bad she was, and I tried idea after idea trying to get her to behave. I even begged, bribed, and forced her brothers to take turns sitting with her to try to keep her behaving in a positive way. That only made things worse, and in retrospect it probably wasn’t my best idea ever.

The bus ride is so boring for her. Other kids sit together and chat, or they whip out their handheld electronic games and play. Kids socialize on the bus, at least that is how I remember the long daily rides when I was a kid. Masha sits alone and she has no games to play. The special books I sent for her to only have on the bus turned into projectiles. Eventually she started kicking the windows, causing the driver to have to pull over to deal with her. The school refused to provide an aide, so I suggested a 5-point harness seat belt.

Instead they kept pushing for her to ride on the special bus, and I had no ideas left, no fight left... so I agreed to try it. I figured they would work with her, teach her the proper way to ride the bus and that before too long she would be back on the regular bus.

Oooh, lesson learned. If it goes on the IEP, it is LAW and it is a nightmare to get back off the IEP. The little bus came with an aide and a harness that I had to strap on her everyday over her clothes/coat. Once on the bus, they literally clipped her to the seat by the shoulders and lower back using the metal loops on the harness. The aide also coddled her. She waited outside the bus and took Masha’s backpack for her and then helped her up the steps and into her seat, allowing her zero independence. Since this bus is used for multiple children with special needs across multiple schools in our district, Masha’s bus ride became much longer, and she was forced to leave class 15 minutes early everyday to get loaded onto the bus so that it could depart prior to the regular bus loading frenzy. A couple weeks lasted months.

One day, while waiting with Autumn and Masha for both their buses, a very bad thing happened. I forgot the harness. When Masha’s bus came (before Autumn’s this time) they refused to take her on the bus without it. I was stunned. The kid can’t ride on the stinkin’ bus one freakin’ day without being strapped in like a convict? I asked them to wait for me to drive up our (sorta long) driveway to get it, and they said they did not have time for that. At that moment, I forgot that I am a nice lady and became Psycho Bitch. Seriously, the rope snapped, kwim? Masha was standing on the bottom step of the bus while the aide was trying to talk me into taking her back home, and I said “No. No fucking way!” (Yeah, I took a lot of heat for that one. Sorry parents of those kids on the bus that may or may not have heard me.) I turned around and stuffed Autumn (who I was holding the whole time) back in the van, jumped in and drove up my driveway with Masha still standing on the bus step.

Yup, they waited for me to return with that harness. But I decided right then that Masha was done riding that bus. I insisted that they begin teaching her what is expected of her. I demanded that she be back on the regular bus within a week or so of practicing without that contraption on her.

And it all worked out just fine. Then over the summer, she attended camp for 6 weeks. She rode the full-sized camp bus every day with no problems, and I was one proud mama.



This Fall, she started off on the regular bus again and everything was going just fine; until I got the phone call today. Masha is taking her coat off and opening her backpack and throwing her stuff on the bus floor. And although she is staying in her seat belt, she is getting up on her knees and looking over the seats. She is causing her driver so much stress that he “missed a turn down a street one day last week.” I felt like pointing out that this dude backs over the mailboxes at the end of our road once a week, what’s his excuse for that? But instead it went kinda like this:

Me: I fail to see the problem with Masha removing her coat. In fact, if Masha can now unbutton her coat, that is an OT goal completed and I am impressed.
Principal: It’s cold out now.
Me: Yeah, Masha will figure that out.
Principal: blah blah blah blah
Me: No, no special bus. How about an aide?
Principal: blah blah blah blah, probably not.

I am tired people. I am sad. I am feeling defeated. (But mama, SHE KEEPS HER SEATBELT ON!!!!!) Yeah, there’s that. That’s big. So I suggested we try more detailed social stories, and I have a few more ideas up my sleeve but really the problem is not going to be solved anytime soon.

Because the real problem is that she is bored and lonely on the bus. No kid sits still and alone, day after day, with nothing to do but stare out the window for forty minutes. Am I right?

Unschooling Kimani

So remember back over the summer when I freaked out about the unexpected additions to Kimani’s school Behavior Plan and said I was thinking of homeschooling her? Well, I did it. I mean I am doing it. Sort of.

First off I have to say that I am super proud of myself for attempting this. I could have been a SAHM with no kids at home during the day which theoretically means I could be working out at the gym five days a week, planning and executing gourmet meals, finishing the book I have been writing for three years, or maybe just sleeping all day long. But instead, I traded in my freedom to give my precious Tasmanian devil a safe and happy Kindergarten year at the Mommy Academy of Table Dancers.



I suck at this. I knew I would. I told you I would. I bought a bunch of stuff to work from: the big Preschool lesson plan book, a bunch of manipulatives, and edible arts and crafts supplies. I managed (on the third try) to write an acceptable homeschool plan for our district and met with them to rework the IEP so that therapies could still happen. (That is not really working out, but it is a whole separate post.)

In September Kimani played along. We went bowling and grocery shopping with PECs cards. We went apple picking and visited a farm. We studied the color red and the math concept of One and Two. We dressed the weather froggy and painted pictures. We played on the iPad and read Moo Baa La La La. Sounds great right? Well it wasn’t great. It was tortuous because one of us is extremely, ahem, self-directed (okay, maybe we both are). By October she was not willing to play along at all for the things she doesn't care about.

She and I both learned a lot in that first month. She knows that two, when it comes to yummy things, is more desirable than one, and given the choice she will say, Two. She can now say apple. She can jump on her trampoline for long periods of time without holding on to the sides. She knows the difference between pink and red. She now knows that the grocery store gives away cookies to little girls and will say cookie as soon as we enter the store. Because her receptive learning ability is higher than her ability to express herself, these little milestones mean that she is really picking up quite a bit. I learned that she does not want to do anything schoolish. Put a puzzle together? NO! Draw a line (or heck, hold any writing utensil and make any marks at all) NO! Sit for any book other than Moo Baa La La La? NO! You get the idea.

I also learned that she loves to do things that are real, like cooking, shopping, or outings. She prefers playing with whipped cream over playdough. She prefers loud dance music or sitting on the piano and tapping the keys with her feet to playing with toy instruments. I learned that Kimani really understands the PECs system and wants to use it to communicate. I learned that she prefers unschooling to homeschooling. And so now, I am trying to incorporate pre-K level science, math, literacy, etc. into everyday activities that she is willing to participate in. Tomorrow a special education teacher is coming to visit. We might be adding an hour a week of consulting time to the IEP, depending on how impressive she is.



I also learned that while it does make me crazy to never have any alone time anymore, the trade off of getting her all to myself for hours on end is really cool. It has been a long, long times since she was my only child at home. Everyday I see advances albeit teensy tiny ones. Some days I am really encouraged that she is more educable than I had realized. Other days... well on other days, I try not to think about what this looks like in three or four years. One good or bad day at a time, right?

Kimani's Pre-K Graduation

This was supposed to be a post telling you all about Kimani’s first days of Kindergarten but once I got started writing it, I realized that we can’t go from Pre-K to Kindy without some fanfare and a pile of cute graduation pictures, right?

On Friday August 16th, Kimani graduated from Pre-K and I did not cry. Maybe I teared up a little, but no drops spilled over. Was that because she is my 5th kid graduating from Pre-K or was it because she will be attending Mommy Homeschool Kindergarten this year instead of going to the private self-contained program we had agreed to last spring? Or was it because they covered up her adorable graduation dress with an over-sized tie-dye t-shirt and I was too annoyed to cry? I don’t know, and I don’t care, the whole thing was simply too exciting to analyze.

Here she is making her entrance into the gym




First the kids sang for us. Sometimes Kimani was cooperative and participated.




Reaching for the stars her certificate. (A certain someone could have thought about how her cleavage was going to show up in the pictures, or who knows... maybe she did.)




Kimani’s idea of posing for mama, NOT.




What she really thinks of all this fussing




Getting congratulatory kisses




Making mommy clap for her. Those are Jade’s hands joining in.



I kinda wish Kimani could stay in Pre-K forever since there seems to be no better next step for her.

Masochistic Me

Today I did my first school supply shop of the season.

I contemplated doing it yesterday, thought I might bring all five kids and just “see what happens” and after packing them in the van found myself at the Starbucks’ drive-thru instead. After a sip of caffeine, the self-injurious idea to go into a store with all my kids passed and we all went home.

Then last night my mom called and offered to come sit with the gang for a bit so I could get the shopping done today. Wow, thanks mom! I clipped together the three lists of items I need for Masha, Jade and the Gecko and weighed my store options. Staples? Target? Walmart? Last year I had to hit all three in order to fulfill the very specific teacher requests.

I made the call to go to Walmart because I figured if I got lucky time-wise I might be able to throw in a little grocery shopping too, big dreamer that I am. Wally’s was way more crowded than I ever remember it on a Friday morning at 11:30: except for maybe that one time I ended up there on Christmas Eve because our copy of The Grinch that Stole Christmas was missing (as if some damn grinch had stolen it from us) and Christmas Eve would have been completely ruined without a showing of the Grinch, but that is a whole other story.

The school supply lists in my hand were full of brand names... a Mead this, a Fiskars that, Ticonderoga pencils, and Crayola washable thin & thick everything else... God help your kid if you cheap out and buy that off-label stuff because then the teacher will know that you are either broke or really bad at following directions.

After about 45 minutes of digging through bins, comparing items to my lists, and doing the mental mathematics of whether three 2pks of glue sticks is cheaper than one 6pk (it is), I realized that there might be a hidden camera somewhere... that maybe this was a Survivor tryout and damn, I was not about to get kicked off before I even made it on. Surely the guy whose cart was blaring rap music complete with F-this and F-that lyrics up and down each school supply aisle was a prop, right?

Oh and did I mention that I was on a timer? My mom had to go somewhere so I had to be home by 12:30. The pressure was incredible. Toward the end, I just started throwing extra crap in my cart thinking I could dump it off on the way to the checkout if I decided they don’t really need it or it was the wrong stuff (sorry, yes, it was me who left those pocket folders on the shelf near the checkout.)

I spent $54, got home by 12:38, and made a big dent in the school supply shopping task, and I got my daily dose of You Suck at This. Who could ask for more?

Shoes Are Ableist

All five years of her little life, Kimani has preferred to go barefoot. She will not stand for having shoes on unless she is actually using her feet for walking. Once she stops walking, the shoes come off.

Turns out, this is a problem. It is a BEHAVIOR problem that needs to be formally and legally documented as such:



Almost everything (other than her taking off her shoes) on that document is bullcrap. The medication effect, the clapping, the escapism; all conjecture.

I called the school psychologist and we talked. I explained that shoe wearing, although deeply ingrained in our culture, is not natural and so not wanting to wear shoes is really not a behavior but in fact a preference for remaining in one’s natural state of being. I said that based on this there really is no reason for a legal "plan of action" for putting her shoes back on when she needs to use them.

She conceded that this is true but that there are RULES and that Kimani’s non-conformist behavior (I shit you not, she used that word) is affecting her ability to learn, and that of the other students because she requires extra adult attention to get her shoes back on. Then she explained that she is only following the State Department of Education regulations. Regulations defined by laws, and rules and codes... and now Kimani's bare feet have become a legal behavior problem that interferes with her education.

And it is not just bare feet... they added two other behaviors to a plan that we reluctantly agreed to this time last year. She puts everything in her mouth, even bad stuff, so we agreed that it was a safety issue and went ahead with the whole Functional Behavior Assessment process, and look where it got us. She still mouths everything and now has three more behaviors that are working their way into her permanent legal record. In case you are curious the other two are "dropping" instead of walking when they want her to and dumping toys/clearing spaces off.

I asked what they might add next, spitting food or grabbing other children’s food? And she said “Yes, that too, we could add those too if you want.” Ha ha ha, if I want. No I don’t freaking want. She totally missed my point. Kimani is one total non-conformist person who without protection from the system that is trying to help her will end up locked in a box.

I feel like her whole future is on the line with what we allow concerning these things... her access to the least restrictive environment, her legal rights and freedoms, and the path her education will take. She is headed to that place, the one that only some parents and some administrators, and some teachers and some aides know about. And I will be damned before I let that happen to her.

My first thought was that I am going to have to homeschool her. That is so not me :-( Guess I better see what all is involved in that solution.

If you homeschool a child with disability, pipe up and encourage me. Tell me how you do it.

Does Your Heart Go Out to Me? Then Act on It

Thursday 3/21 is World Down Syndrome Day. Last year I spent the day at the United Nations in NYC with hundreds of other advocates. We hoped that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities would move forward, and that the United States would sign the disabilities treaty. Last December the US Senate chose not to ratify it.

Last October, during Down syndrome awareness month, we wrote posts for an awareness blog hop. You learned, once again, that our kids are as equal and amazing as your kids. But you already knew that because you have seen the videos, pictures, and news articles about people with Down syndrome being... well, being everyday people.

Then this month, Lexi’s "I’m Jealous of You" post got picked up by Mamapedia and Scarymommy and, after reading that post over a few times and digesting the comments, I realized that you don’t really understand that people with Down syndrome (and other neuro differences) are equal to you.

Lexi is an excellent blogger with a ton of great posts, but that post... that moment of personal venting and frustration is the one that got picked up and mainstreamed. Why? Because that post is viewed as the honest truth of mothers of children who are disabled. That post is what the greater public believes is true and thus, it is welcome on the grand stages. The deeper truth, the reasons behind what makes our lives a constant battle, the inequality of our children and how that frustrates and angers us (or makes some of us jealous) is not invited to speak up.

Here are just a few of the responses to the post,

"You are raising a child with an extra chromosome of LOVE. You are beautiful. You are stronger than the rest of us."

"Awww…you deserve a medal. All parents with special-needs kids deserve a medal. Thanks for a great post."

"My heart goes out to you and all the moms of special needs children. Those children are so lucky to have you. We are here for you! xo"

I feel like all of this awareness has opened the door for us but we still don’t have a seat at the counter. We are tirelessly sharing our stories, our pictures, our lives in the hopes that awareness will bring equality. But awareness on its own will not do that.

Awareness elicits various responses:

Affectionate pity — "She is so cute. He is an angel from above. Those kids are so special." (Those kids are different. Those kids are not fully human.)

Renewed gratitude for your own situation — "Wow, thanks for reminding me of how blessed I am" (And how not blessed you are, and how awful it must be to be you.)

Elevating the parents to a status of Other — "You are stronger. You are amazing. You are special." (You are different from me, You are separate from me.)

Share it, off the hook, self back-patting — "I reposted this on my wall so everyone can see that I think you are awesome and kids like yours are so special." (I accept you and pass you on. I’ve given you my support.)

While I believe that all of those responses are initially well intentioned, they do nothing to further the rights of people with disabilities to have full inclusion in society, proper medical care based on need and not congenital diagnosis, full protection by society, and to be seen and treated as a normal part of our culture.

Awareness must lead to action or it is futile.

So this time (and don’t feel like you have to wait for World Down Syndrome Day or Down Syndrome Awareness Month) I ask you to act on what you now know, what you are aware of. The next time you are in your child’s classroom, look around. Do you see any children with Down syndrome or other neuro or physical differences there? No? Ask the teacher, ask the principal, "Where are they? Why are they not with my kids?" Tell them that you believe in the equality of all people, and the rights of children like mine to be educated in regular classrooms alongside their peers (your children).

She Tries Not to Cry, She Fails

Alone in the parking lot, the loaded question he asked plays over and over in her head as she turns the key in the ignition. "I will not cry. I will not cry," she whispers into the darkness as the van’s engine purrs to life. "You knew this was a possibility," her thoughts chastise as hot droplets spill over her lashes against her will. She swings the van around in the school parking lot and lets its bright headlights lead her home.

"Have you considered keeping her where she is now?"

That is what he asked her. But what he meant was that her little girl is not even good enough for the self-contained Kindergarten room she’d fought to keep her other daughter out of.

What he wants her to do is send the girl to a private school for very special children but she is afraid. (The school is in the same center as her babygirl's current preschool.) She has seen the children who comprise that K-2nd grade classroom. She knows she is a hypocrite but her heart can’t help it.

Why can’t pre-K last forever?

Healthy as a Horse (with Down Syndrome)

Autumn lost her balance and fell backwards at school on Friday. It happened in the Motor Room (the gym) and “she hit nothing on the way down and landed on nothing but the padded floor.” I showed up for the Hanukkah Shabbat party about two minutes after it happened and she was still being held and comforted by a teacher. When they handed her to me I noticed she was bleeding from the back of her head. (This part of the story deserves a post of its own but probably isn’t going to get one.)


(a happier moment at school)

Fast-forward to Saturday... The boo-boo on Autumn’s head was still bothering her and whenever we tried to get a good look at it she would do the “STOP PULLING OUT MY FINGERNAILS” cry/scream. So I called the Ped, whose on-call service told me to take her to urgent care.

In the intake room I was asked to fill out the usual paperwork. Under the Surgical History heading I wrote AV Canal repair, and under Medical History I put none, because Autumn has never been sick or hospitalized for anything. Twenty minutes later, we were ushered into an examination room. (Which, by the way, Autumn refused to walk into. She backed herself up against the hallway wall and started crying, “No, no, no.” Smart chica.)

The nurse asked for the medical sheet and perused it quickly. She gave me a smileless look and said, “We need to know her medical history from the day she was born.” My brain fired off some smart aleck response but my mouth said, “She was adopted at 10 months old and has never been sick, except for having some reflux as a baby.”

My response produced an upgraded “I think you’re lying” smileless look, and the nurse questioned me, “No bronchial issues? No RSV? No heart problems?” I jumped in with, “She had an AV Canal defect repair and her cardiologist says she is fine now.” The inquisition ended there, but picked up again when the doctor came in. He pushed just as hard for some nugget of medical history or past illness.

It wasn’t until we were long gone from there that I realized what had happened. I had not listed Down syndrome as part of her medical history. It had not even occurred to me to list Ds as part of her medical history. And why would it? Down syndrome has never made Autumn sick or caused her to be hospitalized. But that urgent care team must have thought I was leaving out the biggest medical history treasure of all.



And just because I know you like to know these things... It was a puncture. It should have had a stitch. It is still gucky and we are treating it with topical antibiotics. That’s right, she fell on nothing and it punctured the back of her head.

You've Got Homework

Remember way back when you were in school and the most your parents had to do was give you lunch money and sign your report cards? (Unless you got a really bad test score and then they had to sign that too.) Well, sometime between the 70’s and the 90’s someone decided that parents should sign nightly homework sheets, and that my friends was the beginning of Parent Homework.

After that came the reading sheets giving bedtime nighty-night stories a whole new purpose. Though I felt uncomfortable "reporting" the stories I read to my children each day, I went along with it.

And now, 15 years into our school/parenting adventure, we find ourselves with a 1st grader who gets homework that a six year old child cannot complete independently. Our role has changed from providing homework oversight to being active homework participants. One of us has to go through the work with him... reading full length poems, explaining complex instructions, walking him through the questions, and checking off five different parts to the homework each night.

Because Jade’s homework requires about 45 minutes of parent participation, it gets done when and if I have the time to do it... which is not necessarily when he would like to do it. So for the first few weeks we battled over it and 45 minutes went well over an hour. Some nights it didn’t get done, and at the end of the week the packet would have some blank pages.

The first time the teacher sent the packet back and asked that Jade "make up" the blanks, I wrote her a note explaining that what gets done is what gets done and I am not carrying over last week’s homework into this week’s. At our conference I explained my reasoning, and I thought we had an understanding about how homework would go.

Until the week when there was only one night it worked out that homework got done. First there was the Frankenstorm, then Halloween, and then momma left town for a few days. When I got home on Sunday night I found Jade’s homework packet in his backpack with a note saying that he was to complete it over the weekend and bring it in on Monday. At first I was annoyed with my husband for not looking in the backpacks on Friday and doing the homework with Jade over the weekend... but then I realized that the real problem is that the homework is not appropriate for a first grader to do on his own. So I wrote a little note explaining our week and said that we would not be making it up during the coming week.

When Jade came home from school on Monday furious, throwing his backpack on the ground and yelling all the way up the driveway, I knew something went very wrong at school. I asked him to talk to me about it and he finally told me that he had to miss recess to stay in and do his homework packet.

That was it for me. I was pissed. If mommy doesn’t do her homework, Jade misses recess? I wrote to his teacher and suggested a positive alternative to Jade missing out on something he loves. She sent me back excerpts from the school’s homework guidelines and suggested I use my "sticker reward" idea at home. I won’t bore you with the back and forth details, but it went on for a while with the teacher insisting that Jade’s homework will get done, if not at home then in school.

Now if the homework could be done independently by a 1st grader, I would agree with that, but it can’t. So I said either he gets homework that he can do on his own, or he does what he can on the packets and loses no positive activity time at school as a consequence of not completing the whole packet.

Queue the meeting with the teacher and principal wherein I learned that they know the work requires adult participation. I was told that the school is providing us with a bonding opportunity, and a way to invest in our child... that there is not enough time in the school day to do all they need to do, so the homework provides a chance to go beyond just practicing math, reading, and spelling. When I said that I don’t think it is appropriate for the school to be pushing into my home with bonding and investment requirements, I got the "You are the crappiest mother in our district" stare.

So I guess instead of family game night, we are going to have family homework night. Come on children, you bring your math sheets and I’ll bring the popcorn. Woot woot, isn’t this fun?

A Fart Changes Everything

I would like to tell you that being a mom to kids with “special needs” is no big deal, not different at all than having five typical children... but then I would be lying. Not just lying to make a point (like a good politician might do) but outright plain old lying, which is what I do to myself on this particular subject most of the time.

It is different, and lots of the time it is a big deal. Take this morning for example... it was just about 7 a.m. with the bus scheduled to arrive at 7:20. Masha was eating breakfast and letting me braid her hair. Autumn was sitting next to us enjoying her sliced banana. Suddenly I smelled a terrible fart that had made a silent entrance. I knew Masha was the culprit. I asked her if she had to go poop, and she adamantly insisted, “No, babygirl toot.”

99% of the time, Masha goes on the potty. She is very good about Number Two and has only had a couple “can’t get her pants off fast enough” poopcidents, so I let it go... because if I force her to sit on the potty when she really doesn’t have to go, it is just a 10 minute crying ordeal that would likely lead to missing the bus.

At 7:16, I piled three kids into the front seat of the van and drove them down the driveway to wait for the bus. I did the face inspections, wiping away crumbs or toothpaste... and there it was again... a real silent stinker. Now we all know that there are different kinds of gas... and this kind is usually a harbinger of belly ache poo. I firmly ask, “Masha, do you have to poop?” She gets very upset, stiffening up for a fight, “No, nooooo.” Then she proceeds to blame it on her brother.

A regular mom, a typical mom, an ordinary mom would just explain to her five year old that she can go poop and then mommy can drive her to school... and then her child would admit the urge or put mommy’s mind at ease with a convincing, “I really don’t have to go.” But no so in my case. Now the stakes are higher... the bus is down at the dead end turning around... seconds away from taking them for the day, and I have to decide what to do. Do I hold her back, literally kicking and screaming, force her onto the potty and wait out her tears until she gives in and poops (if in fact she really has to)? Or do I send her to school and risk an accident there?

My stomach is churning as I give over her backpack and let her run up the bus steps. If this were Jade last year I would have been like, “Oh well, I hope it doesn’t happen but if it does, c’est la vie in Kindergarten.” But this is MASHA, and if MASHA craps her pants in class that will be a whole different story... that will be a reason to say “she is not ready for Gen Ed.” That would be a reason to say she FAILED the probationary period and has to go to the special classroom where they think pooping in your pants is par for the course.

And so as a “special needs mom”, I get to spend the day worrying about her... Wondering if she really did have to go, and if she will be able to tell them and get her pants off quick enough in a new bathroom. Yeah, for me—the SNM, a simple fart changes everything.

After school update: Masha came home in the same clothes she left in and with no note in her backpack, so I am assuming she had no potty issues today :-)