Dr. Williams and the wrong Autism Mom

"Oh cool!  I got a bunch of comments on my blog while I was sleeping. Must be those Australian readers of mine. Let me go read them and...Aw feck it.  Not this crap again!"

A little backstage view of my blog for you.  Every few days, my blog and social media gets slammed with this jackass who claims how this doctor can cure my kid.  Yes, I report the comments as spam and block the accounts but it sure doesn't stop them. Let's just say they have a fixated interest in me. 

Dr. Williams and your magical cures, I have HAD it with you.  Officially.  Now given how much you post on my blog and all the weird hours that you pop up, I know you're an overseas scam.  I'm pretty sure you're also a Nigerian prince who just needs help transferring money that is rightly mine due to a crazy ass story you spin that I am somehow related to you.

I have written previously about this sort of thing. He was a lovely fellow. You can read about that here.The List  You really ought to read it.  I'll wait.  I'll go get a coffee.

Are you back? Super! Anyway, in that previous installment of bullshite cures I was feeling very generous that day and blocked out the contact information of the person and their sales pitch from Hell. That guy actually sent me his phone number and as tempted as I was to share it with the world so all of you could give him an earful, I figured causing his voice mailbox to explode would be kind of mean.

But this "Dr. Williams" guy?  Well he seems extremely eager to hear from all of us as he posts his email publicly everywhere.   I think it's time we give the good "doctor" exactly what he is craving. LOTS OF ATTENTION!

You see "Dr. Williams", we the autism community are tired of snake oil salesmen and scams.  We are completely disgusted by people like yourself who prey upon families. We are sickened by folks like yourself that try to make a buck off of fear.  We have had it with folks like yourself who try to make autism look like a big scary monster.

The thing is "Dr. Williams", you messed with the wrong bitch. I have quite a few fellow #TeamQuirky folks that have my back.

So, since you seem so eager for pen pals, allow me to print your email address nice and big so we can all see it and send you some notes about what we think of you and your "product".

Drwilliams098765@gmail.com

Have a nice day "Dr. Williams".  (Oh, it case you weren't aware, that's Jersey Girl for "Go Feck Yourself.")

"Ways I Have Failed Bigly with Parenting a Kid with Autism."

Hi! If you haven't figured it out by now I really suck at all this. If anything can come from my failures, it's that  you can read blogs like mine and learn how to avoid doing stuff like this yourself. I'm like a walking PSA!

Take today for example. We finally have a therapist that's coming to the house to work with the Kiddo and so far it's been great! Kiddo really likes her and she has him doing all sorts of stuff. It's been great because I learned a long time ago that Kiddo will usually be extremely willing to learn and do stuff with a person that didn't have twelve hours of labor with him only to wind up having a C section and is still numb around the scar site to this day. (Not that I'm bitter or anything. It's just one of those things of his. He likes to "perform" for them, the attention junkie that he is.

Miss "J" has started showing him how to make his bed independently.  Last week, he was really pleased with himself and for a couple of days, kept it up. Proud of all that work. He didn't want to mess it up.  Of course, like a lot of stuff, he starts sliding back to his old messy ways.  I saw this morning he left it unmade and I left it like that knowing she was coming over.  "They can work on it later."

I should have checked the bed.

Like really, really, really should have checked the bed.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, check the bed.

So she goes in there with him to work on it again and she discovered pretty quickly that the blankets and sheets were wet.  Meaning he wet the bed and me, being a clueless dope, left it there on his bed all damn day for her to discover.

I wanted to crawl under the covers and die but I couldn't even do that because they were covered in pee. Really Kiddo? Like, really?  I passed a kidney stone while pregnant with you with NO pain medications to keep you safe.  This is my "thank you"?!?!?!

"Okay, we're going to learn how to strip the bed. Got sheets?' and like a trooper she had the Kiddo come on over and strip the bed.  She made him feel the damp parts and said "This is wet.  This is what wet sheets feel like."  and I hastily brought in a fresh set and ran out of his room with the wet ones mortified.

She doesn't get paid enough to touch my son's peed steeped sheets. She does not. I need to find out what kind of liquor she likes because damn, if she didn't earn a cocktail today.  Oh my God "J", I am so sorry. So very, very, very, sorry.  I will never not check the bed again.  I swear.

Folks, learn from this huge failure.

ALWAYS CHECK THE BED!

Kiddo busy looking up clips on YouTube on ways to get your mom to make your bed for you because life skills learning is a drag. 

School's Out For Summer!

Holy smokes! It's the end of the school year.

This bears repeating.  We are at the finish line of the school year from HELL!  Amen and Jesus take the wheel because I don't know how the heck we got from where we were to where we are now.

Oh, I know.  We left the craptastic middle school and found a place that actually gets him and has these novel educational ideas like following his IEP and doesn't keep him confined to the same classroom all stinking day.  Hmmm, imagine that.

I've never had a school year that felt as long as this one did.  I'm sure it's because we have all been through so much but I'm not gonna lie.  I am happy to see this one wrap up as I am OVER IT! As I type this the Kiddo is doing his usual pacing route in my kitchen through the living room, self talking a mile a minute his exact schedule down to the last minute of his last day of school.

Kiddo's exact plans for the first day off. He's been practicing on the weekends. Yes, he is in there. 

The part that kind of bugs me the most?  I kind of feel like we lost half a year of schooling.  So much was bad that the rest of the year was literally just picking up the pieces. Time is the enemy with autism and it kind of kills me that so much was spent on stuff that should not have happened in the first place.  I know a bunch of you right now are thinking "Is this chick named Elsa because she needs to LET IT GO!".  I wish I could too.  It's exhausting being sad about something isn't it?

We have an exciting few weeks coming up though. We're headed out on a road trip to a family resort that we have been to before and loved.  Daddy Fry and I must check the website for it everyday, just staring at the pictures like it's our own social story.  Hell, we even had a whole conversation on what poolside cocktail we're going to order first. Kiddo is making his own schedule of visiting first the outside pool then the indoor one with french fry breaks in between. I look forward for not making a bed or cooking a mean for a couple of days.  If there was ever a vacation we earned, it's this one.

Then it's right back to school for the Kiddo when we get back.  Extended School Year aka "Summer School".  Now don't you feel bad for him for going. He has gone every year to ESY since he was three. He doesn't know any other way and frankly, a busy Kiddo is a happy Kiddo. That wraps up mid August though.  That's when sh*t will get interesting.  Over four weeks off before school starts again.  Yeah, I'm panicking already about keeping him busy. I'm considering renting him out to vacuum at people's houses. Hey, he's good at it and he's mooched long enough off of us. ;-)

Can't wait for the Kiddo's music therapist to teach him this one. 

$103,500

This is the cost for my Kiddo to attend his out of the district placement.

For one year.

Not including door to door transportation. From what I can gather, add about another 30 to 40 grand to that total.

My town's Board of Education had it's "big" meeting a few weeks ago and the budget is made public online.  Anyone can look it up in their meeting agenda. Which because I'm nosy I did but also because I know my town.  This is usually how I find out big changes are happening.  True to form, I learned that my son's caseworker is leaving.  She didn't tell me.  The meeting agenda did.  Had I not looked, I still would not know.  She still hasn't informed me.  I do not even know who is replacing her. Guess it will be a nice surprise for me one day.  Gee, so swell of ya school district.

But let's get back to that figure shall we? How do I know it?  Well there is a list of every single student that goes out of district and where and the cost. No, it does not list the students by name but since it lists one tuition and and the cost of a one to one aide at his school's name, I know it's him.  He's the only student in my town that goes there. (Currently.)

And you know what I learned with running my eyes over this list?  That it's a loooong one.  There are easily over thirty students going out of district for their education.  Now I know not all of them are kids with autism but given the rates in the state we live it (New Jersey is 1 in 41), I bet a good hunk of them happen to be on #TeamQuirky.  I started adding up the costs and when I hit around TWO MILLION DOLLARS, I stopped.  These are financial terms a Costco shopper like myself cannot put my head around.  Two million loads of laundry, that I know.  Two million dollars and counting??? Are you freaking serious???

Now we are damn lucky because our district pays for Kiddo to go to his school.  I know so many districts would be "NOPE". I am not knocking that at all.  What I question is doesn't the Board of Education see a whole lot of money going out of their district just to teach the students that live in the district they represent?  When the figure goes into the millions, shouldn't this be alarming? Or at least make them say "Hey." or something??  If my cable bill goes up, I tend to notice that.  You all aren't seeing this part of the budget rising?  I'm watching this part go up every single year.

Of course, since the budget went up the mommy grapevine started going. My own social circle of the Autism Moms Mafia were sending texts and emails back and forth saying the same of "HOLY CRAP! Is that the tuition for one year? Just the one??? If they don't pay it, then what????"  Then what indeed.  Cause despite this whole school choice/voucher thing that our pal Betsy DeVos is going on about, I don't exactly have the spare 90 plus grand a year to make up the difference for my Kiddo to go the school of our choice. If they did not pay, there is no way on earth short of selling both my kidneys and all the eggs in my ovaries that we could.  (And I'm pretty sure I need at least one kidney and I'm getting up there in years so no one is going to pay top dollar for my old lady eggs even if I list them as "vintage".)

Oh and get this.  Kiddo's school was ONE OF THE CHEAPEST!  The cheapest!  We actually did them a favor by picking where he went out of all the schools we toured. We saved them money.  YOU'RE WELCOME SCHOOL DISTRICT!  You're welcome.

But you know the worst part of this. Now knowing the exact number of the cost of his education (and all the other kids) I live in fear of what I just discussed above.  That some BOE member is gonna be all "Wait a minute.  We need a new football field or some sort of sports thingie. What? We don't have the money?  Oh wait, let's start slashing the budget."  You and I both know where their eyes are gonna land. And it will be done in that "Gee, do all these kids really need their one to one aides?" way or suddenly some of us will be told that our kids have magically improved so much that they can go back to their district.

Despite that fear though, not on my watch. Don't even think about it. My Kiddo is worth every freaking cent of that $103,500.00. He's 13 now and he'll be in that school till he is 21.  You better budget accordingly and tell the football team to hold a mother loving bake sale if they need something.

 My Kiddo and his education are more valuable than that.

"Dear Board of Education, There is a complete lack of french fries on the lunch menu each month. Please correct this atrocity."