Program Reviews, Spitting and Another Tearful Night: "I don't want to go to school"

Quick redesign which I think is hopefully better.  And I have been neglectful to this blog, YET AGAIN, but Lord has life been busy!  Had a bad week, to say the least.

Leading up to this awful day, I got a note home from the teacher a week or so prior (a "behavior" note).  Two things were indicated.  One, "cannot complete individual work independently" (hello, have you heard of say, AUTISM?!?).  Second, "can't get along with peers" (or something to that effect).  My gut reaction to both of these is (1) is my child being punished for a having a disability (mild or not)?  and (2) what do they want me to do about it?!?  Welcome to the world of JIMMY!

Jimmy a few weeks ago watching his cousin at a football game.
He enjoyed himself tremendously!

The worst was the note I opened a couple hours ago (another "behavior" note).  This one was a little bit more of a legitimate behavior--spitting at a classmate.  The teacher also included with this note a sentence about how Jimmy has been very defensive and not "cooperative" with classmates.  Jimmy was upset that I read the note, and the already tense situation with his homework he'd been working on just got even worse. (It didn't help that is was homework he should have done on Thursday).

He can have very severe mood swings which have tendency to get me moody, too, despite the fact I'm trying to help him cope with homework and the emotions.  Anyways, he had a little meltdown.  It seems to be me that his brain and hands quite often don't seem to "connect well" and he writes what he doesn't mean to and when he's really agitated, he'll correct things over and over again).

Anyways, he blurted out to me something like "nothing works!"  And I asked if he meant his homework, and he said in effect no, everything is that way (he said this with tears and was very upset).  Needless to say I choked right up and for almost two minutes I had to hold back tears and swallowed hard, because I hate to see him so sad and couldn't at the moment provide him any real comfort.

The dragon "Toothless" from
How to Train Your Dragon and this is from a scene
that Jimmy just LOVES

We got the homework done, so we settled down to watch "How to Train Your Dragon" for the gazillionth time!  The one dragon, Toothless, reminds both of us as a big adorable cat, and it's something we bond over (I love dragons and sci fi so it's no wonder why I love it!) for a couple weeks now since it came out on DVD.

Thankfully he fell asleep pretty early (rather one time due to the time change).  The last two months have been pretty hard on him.  Not only is he coping with change (I think most people understand how much routine and sameness are so important to autistic kids), he has two teeth starting to come in, although no fevers, etc.

I have a parent teacher conference in two weeks and a program review (GULP) the same week.  He is due for a triennial review.  I always get real real nervous before these things, and while I mostly get the results I expect, and I also get reaffirmation that Jimmy is indeed different.