The boy wonder became my hero yet again today

So the mediation tanked.  Not because of me but because the school district decided to breach the agreement before it was even signed.  The rat finks.  They so irritated the attorney that he quit and referred me onto someone else. That guy gets the system and the situation but is slow to get it together and meet, schedule the important stuff, etc. 

What do normal people do? 

In the meantime, a kid at the new school is starting to bug, trip and hit Alex.  I watched this kid with a funky haircut and blue streak be somewhat generally mean even I was sitting in the room.  He kept getting sent back to the "safe" class because he was hitting in the "main" classroom.  At first nobody at the school "knew anything."  Then when I was able to pinpoint incidents, and confirm a pattern of bullying, they went silent.  And then they started to blame Alex again. 

The principal refused to do anything saying kids hit kids and they try to redirect them.  A senior attorney for the school district keeps redirecting all attempts to stop the bullying back to Alex being a special needs kid, like federal law will allow them to put Alex in harms way.  It will not of course.

There was once again a sharp object in the equation.  Nobody will discuss that either. 

So Alex stays home while I try to get the school to help make it safe for Alex.  They are so terribly slow to even meet about it.  It makes me sad because it is another year of education they are ripping away from him.

Ironically, Alex was put in a fairly extreme head gear contraption earlier today.  It is complete with jaw pulling rubber bands and a steel rod anchored to the front of his face to try and secure it all.  He really needs to wears it 24 hours a day but the doctor accept at least a minimum of 14 hours a day.  The head gear has various movable parts and I liken to having to balance a bowl full of jello and grapes on the front of your face. 

Alex - the hero child.  He initially took it off in public but put it back on in my office by the end of the day and is really okay with a 24 hour regimen.  Tonight he even reattached it himself complete with the rubber bands.  This kid is such an amazing inspiration. 

People were so freaked out today when they saw it, they just kept giving him stuff, I think to make him feel better.  Alex is okay with it all, but he worries that people will laugh and point at him.

Alex will stay home from school tomorrow too. 

An attorney that wants me to pay him a pile of money tells me, for free, that the school system has to accommodate the no bully issue under an IEP (federal law) because it impairs his ability to learn.  The law may say it, but I do not see it. 

I just want my son to be able to go to school.   I want him to be safe while he does it.  The headgear even makes me stop and take notice.

If the school cannot make it safe for Alex, we will see behavior that we saw this summer. That is not acceptable - at any level.  He was so out of control and doctors were pumping him full of heavy mental meds that should have felled a large grown man - and still he did not stop.  If it happens again, I can see the entire children's hospital here in town marching on the school district.  At the end of the summer, the doctors told me to do whatever was needed to get Alex to stop his severe and outrageous behavior.  They will help stop it all.

Back to the most amazing child - my son.  He will endure.  He is turning and literally facing physical issues that would drop an adult to their knees.  He is my hero.  And he is having a happy life.   

People always talk about the negatives children bring from their life before adoption but I do not.  I have talked to too many other parents that struggle with significantly more difficult, long term behaviors - from birth children.  I remember my siblings too.  These families have no difficult history of abuse to point to when trying to deal with the behavior of the children.  I also am haunted by what my former foster children were being labeled the last time I heard about them.  Simple issues were being raised to severe behavior disorders - at two, three and four.  I sometimes wonder if kids simply align their sense of self with these diagnoses and the treatment that results.  I still have mama nightmares for these children that will never leave my heart - even the knife wielding, so not safe, 10-year-old boy who knew my neighborhood because his family had slept in the park a block away.  May God keep them safe. 

Rather I would note the positives like what Alex brought home from the before time.  He always tells the truth, unless he is telling a joke.  He also has a radical sense of justice, not just for himself, but for every other child he knows.  Alex is always kind to younger children and is very protective of them.  He loves to coo at babies. 

He is the absolute picture perfect son.  Watching him today, he became my most favorite hero again.  What a guy.  That is not to say that I expect anything other than 10-year-old boy behavior from him tomorrow.  But Alex will be a happy child.  He will be loved. And he will be safe.