Frustrations

Well, I feel I need to warn anyone reading this in advance. I am really tired today and full of frustrations and just need a place to vent. It has been a long couple of days. My little bitty has been sick since late Thursday night and was still sick again through the night last night(or should I say early this morning). Bean has now caught the bug and has been joining her sister in the puke fest for 2 nights now. Lovely. So before I go off to steam clean my carpets again........I had a meeting first thing this morning. I had yet another meeting called by myself trying to protect my son from harassment at school. You see this is very frustrating. My son has a hard time remembering names of kids but can tell you exactly what they were wearing down to the color of their shoelaces. He, being a 7Th grader, has been placed in a class for gym first hour with 8Th grade boys. So, he does not know many names at all only a couple specific kids that do not think of him as some kind of weirdo. So yesterday he called me from school complaining to me he wanted me to come and get him because his tooth hurt. I talked to him on the phone and sensed that he just wanted to come home. He is having a problem with his tooth, the last of his baby teeth that has abscessed. I knew he has been on antibiotic and the tooth had not been bothering him since early last week when I took him to the dentist and he was given medication so I just figured he wanted to come home and play light sabres. He is a star wars junkie. Well I continued to stay home and clean my carpets and uncountable loads of towels from my ever so projectile pukers and when he came home he was in tears.....again. Some kids in this gym class were again picking on him and trying to convince him to punch other kids and telling him he would get suspended and get to stay home with his mommy. Nice. Once child in particular told him he was stupid so Boo told him he was a big dummy( that is a swear word for Boo) and the kids then spit in Boos face. I was so furious. We have dealt with this kind of stuff ALL year and quite frankly I am fed up. I have made countless trips to the school and nothing. They can't do anything with his word against theirs and non of the kids in the group that are doing it will step up and nark on the other so we just keep going round and round and round with them. Everything from trying to throw him in front of a bus to spitting in his face. I know that he is and will be an easy target for mean kids to vent. I try SO hard to give him the tools to protect himself in the situation. I beg and plead with the school to protect him and I get absolutely nowhere. So today, my husband went to work late and made an appearance in the office demanding to see someone that would help us. It was totally unbelievable. She was incredibly nice, brought kids in to question them, showed Boo picts of every child in his class and assured my husband she would most definitely get to the bottom of the issue and he would be safe and not harassed anymore. That kids would be held accountable, and he would be placed in another gym class with kids in his grade. So why did it have to come to this. Why when I go in there do I get blown off. Because I am a woman, because I want to protect him and I am not burly,just some crazy mom they have to deal with on a regular basis. I am not convinced the problem is over because unfortunately i cannot trust the administrators at our school anymore, and when they call me later, my husband will again be at work.
Why can't kids see what they are doing to this poor kid. Why can't they understand that Autism is beyond his control, Why can't they see that we are doing everything in our power to help him heal and if he could be totally better he most certainly would. Why do they not feel any compassion for someone that just wants to be accepted and have friends like any other child. Why would they think it is okay to just spit in someones face and threaten to end their life by throwing them down telling them they will get ran over by a bus and the world would be a better place. I wish for one day they could just be inside his body to see what a struggle it is for him every day. I know there are a lot of really good kids out there. Some that have been taught compassion and understanding. To those parents of them kids, I applaud you. I know there is a smaller number of the mean and demeaning kids than the good ones. I know I cannot put him in a bubble and protect him from every bad comment and threat, but right now my heart would sure be better if I could. We are working so hard to show him how to make friends and be a friend and it is situations like this that push us 10 steps back for every step we gain.
I am sorry for the long post, my heart is really heavy today. Please every morning, tell you children you love them, tell them you can't wait to see them at the end of their day and tell them the importance of being kind to others. A disability can happen to anyone at anytime. You never know when it is your turn or someone in your family you truly care about.
Now, with one eye open, I am back to cleaning my carpets.