As Sam and Jonah and I entered the clothing store today around lunch time I felt as if we were stepping into water. Something invisible yet pervasive. It was almost sensible, like passing from shadow into light.
Sam has been involuntarily non-serviced by Portland since September 13th, when he and I were turned away because ... it is contrary to policy for POAs to accompany their children beyond the school entrance. Three weeks later his IEP was perfect, except that ... it is contrary to policy for POAs to accompany their children beyond the school entrance.
Today Jonah joined Sam and I. He's been having sleep events for most of the past week, since I put up the Firefox bits on the sidebar, the night after Firefox 1.0 became generally available. Three nights ago he and I spent the wee hours watching La Veuve de Saint-Pierre. Two nights ago it was whatever was on Nickelodeon. Or the reverse. After the better part of a week of sleep deprivation, the variation of importance is how hyperactive Jonah was, and what techniques worked, and what didn't. As I put his socks and shoes on him at the door yesterday MB remarked that his left cheek was pale. I looked. Yup. Pale up to a clear change of coloration, from ear to eye and down to the corner of his mouth, with a sort of rosiola on the frontal margin of the face, extending from below the eye to the mouth, where it merged with the periodic rosiola like markings from pacifier use. Dully I said "Yup. No idea. Slept on the couch, him tucked up behind my back, compression as usual. Bye." And that was that. Or so I thought. The Q and A ritual was repeated at Jonah's school. "Yup. No idea. Sleep event, 2am to dawn. Slept on the couch, him tucked up behind my back, compression as usual. Bye." This morning the drop-off was different. They'd made a call. As mandated reporters. They suspected abuse.
So now the boys and I are ... free. We have to work up an ABA program for two, not one, and embark on the great sea of literacy (Jonah just read back to me from the side of the fridge "big green frog sing ing from the water", only its brown, and he's added the word "moon" before "big", and "sing" is "sing a song") and numeracy in a quiet oared skiff, rather than the big liner that runs noisily through public life.
Its as if we've all just escaped from a BIA boarding school, where control and predation are the real currencies. Corruption isn't simply people skimming profits into their own pockets, it is also the hijacking of schooling, education and special education, and not simply by the Rodents of NCBY.
Oh. We think it was the leather equivalent of pillow face, but that's just a guess. We really don't know, and not knowing constitutes abuse or neglect or both. Jonah's ped isn't playing the game. For non-emergency non-illness visits, the next opening is on December 9th. I was irked by that at first, but then I realized that "defensive medicine" was playing along, and freedom was an alternative.
Posted by EBW at November 17, 2004 05:13 PM | TrackBack