torn

[Guest guest]

Took to meet his new principal and talk with her on Wednesday. She seems

very nice, and wants to pick the perfect 1st grade teacher for him. I gave her

his iep info from last year and everthing seemed fine. Its a much bigger school

than we are used to., 700 students, and its only k-2. There are 11 first grade

classes! His old school had 160 total and was k-5 and only had two kindergarten

classes! So this will indeed be different.

Anyway..I was fine with everything UNTIL I asked a question abou the bus.

wants to try riding the bus this year, as his old school didnthave

busses. I am certainly willing to let him try. If he hates it Iwill be happy

to drive him. So I asked the principal about the busses..is there a bus monitor

on board? She said no not on the regular busses, but if I wanted he could ride

a smaller bus (she winked at me then since thomas was there) where they had a

monitor and that they just had a GREAT time on that bus!

So I guess she was offering to let ride the short bus. Which really was

fine with me, I didnt give it much thought till I got home.

I told my 16yo daughter this. She flipped OUT. You CANNOT let him ride that

bus mom!! He doesnt NEED to ride that bus, and if you do he will be labeled by

the other kids at school from day one and picked on and they will ask him WHY

he rides that bus, and what will h e say? So DONT do this please!! She almost

started crying, really! I was kind of taken aback. I hadnt thought of it that

way.

So later in the evening I mentioned it to myhusband while we were in bed. He

looks over and says NO. You didnt sign him up for that bus did you?

That would be awful. and then went on to explain his reasons for thinking that

way which were the same as my daughters. He would be stigmatized, and then he

would wonder why he was riding that bus, since other kids will ask, and then so

on and so on.

I wonder if I have aspergers. I never ever thought about that. Not once. All

I thought of was yay a bus where theres more supervision and they have fun! How

am I going to look out for him socially if I cant even do this?

Am I an overlly protective mom? My husband certainly thinks I am. And when my

son does things that I think will be really hard for him, he usually does well,

in spite of my worrying. but the BUS? sigh. Of course, my dd pointed out that

I was worried about HER taking the bus on the first day of HIGH SCHOOL after

having been homeschooled for fiveyears prior. She thought that was silly for me

to be worried. Sweet but silly.

So what do yall think? Should I just let him ride the bus, the big regualr bus

and maybe he can just sit in the front? I'm not worried about his being bad

really, I am worried aobut he other kids being mean.

Or about him getting overwhelmed with the noise and yelling at someone and

starting a fight maybe. Or I could be totally wrong and he could make a good

friend in our neighborhood by riding hte bus, and it could be an enjoyable time

for him every day.

Thanks for listening to me ramble, I also have terrible pms right now so

everything seems HUGE to me. I made a cake from scratch two days ago and as I

was falling asleep last night, I realized that myf amilly hasnt eaten all of it

yet. maybe they dont like it. maybe it was yucky. I almost cried. Yep, bring

on the midol!! ha

kate