First Week of School (Not Your Pencils, Teachers or Books)

It is Friday night and one heck of a long, hard week is officially behind us. 

I can even brag that we passed our ABC's. 

Yay!   I am such a proud mama!!!

Insert eye roll.

Well yes, my girls are in 4th and 6th grade and should (and quite obviously do!) know this material.   The ABC's that I am referring to are slightly different.

Adjusted:  Two girls are happily adjusted in their new grades at their schools.

Briefings:  There is no adult crossing their paths that hasn't been briefed on the business of diabetes.

Crazy:  I am slightly more stained, stressed and undoubtedly older than I was before this week began.  Crazy might be the best overall mental adjective one could give me at this point.

And because I am exhausted, my excuse anyway, I instantly rearranged those ABC's to this:

Crazy Adjusted Briefings.

Which makes me laugh because after suffering, I mean sitting, in two long 504 meetings, that is exactly how I feel!

Those 504 plan meetings, aka Crazy Adjusted Briefings, are torture.  Even though we have been at this for a few years, I never tire of sharing information designed to keep my children safe.  What I do tire of is having to defend that information.

One administrator comment, "You want a teacher to remind a child to test while on a field trip?  That sounds like it is going to be hard to do.  After all, we have teachers who are busy and might forget.  I don't think we should rely on that.  Can't the child just remember?"

Crazy adjusted briefings indeed.

What is most challenging is keeping a level head and not immediately reacting to the comment.  Instead, while all I want to do is poke them in between their eyes, I have to build a team environment and open the conversation to adjusting my request with the school's concerns.

In the end, we determined that we could set a cell phone reminder to help both our child and the teacher remember to test blood sugar at appropriate times during the field trip.  In fact, even though that wasn't part of my original request, I did feel better knowing that we had an extra step in place should a busy teacher forget.

All of that negotiating, discussion and repressed emotion is draining.  While I await for the final draft of our 504 plan(s), I am taking it easy this weekend, enjoying the start of autumn and spending a little quality time with our family.

And maybe cheering myself up with this happy thought... there are only 175 more days of school.