Waiting for the Short Bus

I see all the moms chatting at the bus stop, waiting for their kids to come home from their first day of school.

And I keep driving.

I pass another bus stop. And another.

And I keep driving home.

But my kid rides the short bus.

Because he’s the kind of “special” that requires extra adult supervision to ride the bus to and from school.

The kind of “special” that gets bused to the school on the far side of town because that’s the one that has the inclusion program that he needs – the one with one teacher and three assistants and four kids in grades 3-5.

The kind of “special” that is stuck being the youngest kid in fifth grade even though he’s developmentally delayed and reads on maybe a first-grade level because his late-September birthday qualified him to start kindergarten when he was four, and I wasn’t allowed to hold him back a year because then our school district would not have been required to pay for his services. (And I can’t very well hold him back now while his best friend advances to the next grade.)

So I write this post while I wait by myself for the short bus to arrive at my house.

TheRyanFiles

The Ryan Files

My kid is great! And he has PDD-NOS and ADHD (e-i-e-i-o). The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Watch us navigate the world of neurodiversity at http://notanaffliction.blogspot.com/