Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Tug of the Heart

I was in the middle of heating up my lunch when the phone went off. I have it set so that I know exactly which teacher is calling or texting me, so I knew this wasn't going to be good. Joey was having a bad day. He had bolted from reading, screamed through science and was now breaking down in math. Definitely NotAGoodDay.

I seized our back-up meds, dumped the soup I had been heating into the crockpot to stew with the meatloaf, and headed for school. Only one of the front secretaries even bothers to have me leave my license anymore. I sign in, note that I am expected to the thin air because they all know that already, and head down the hall.

His teacher and para are in the hall, chatting. This isn't the math teacher he's supposed to be in with, its the other teacher, and she has vacated her classroom so that Joey's resource teacher can use it to calm him down. The other child the para is in charge of helping isn't in school today. That may be one facet of today's melt festival.

I peek in, and the resource teacher gives me the thumbs-up, so I go in. He sees me, wraps his arms around me, leans his head in.

"Mommy, take me home. No one wants to be around me today."

I explain that I am not taking him home, that I have brought him some medicine, and I let him have it. He takes it, cuddles in again.

"Take me home. I want to go home."

The resource teacher suggests they go for a walk instead, and he agrees; off they go. I watch them disappear around a corner to walk up and down the stairs.

It is time for me to go, so he can settle and the resource teacher can do her magic, and get him to do some learning today- likely 1:1, in the small chunks of activities he knows he can handle when he's upset. I know there is something wrong in the other classroom, the one with the reading and the math. The other teacher and the para keep talking, discussing strategies to help Joey through a lesson, through a day, through times when he needs to be engaged, through breaktimes to get him calmed.

I turn and walk down the hall, so I can be gone before he sees me.

But all I want to do is take him home.

2 comments:

kristi said...

Yes I would have caved and taken mine home. Hugs.

farmwifetwo said...

I wouldn't have taken mine home either, but sometimes you wish it was just that easy.