If you have been following along with this story, of trying to get my son’s school picture taken then you know some of the frustrations I have been feeling. However today I have a bit of good news.

I actually managed to get Mr. L’s picture taken at a local elementary school with the same company his assigned school used. Now do I know if that school emailed his photo over to his actual school yet? No. Do I know if his school will remember to put him in his own yearbook? Only time will tell…

I do plan to follow up with these questions, I’m just not sure when to do that? I’m sure calling this week to see if his school received his picture could work, but I don’t know if there is a reasonable time to call and remind his school not to leave him out- again.

I feel like this all comes off overbearing, but do you trust his school not to mess this up?

Let’s just add that my kiddo has been having an awesome school year. Every day a paper comes home telling me how his day went, if he was happy, how much of his lunch he ate (ya know because I can’t asses this myself emptying his lunchbox every day but whatever), and then a note- which thus far has all been flying colors.

Until I had to take him to another school to get his picture taken… You know those routines can be like life lines to people with autism. Despite talking to my boys the night before, the morning of, on the way to the different school and on the way to the right school afterwards. This morning disruption still messed up my first born’s day.

I knew my kids were going to miss their morning school breakfast, so I even tried to make breakfast fun by swinging through McDonald’s for breakfast on the way to their school. But they were late and Mr. L knew it. He worried all morning about being late, he even apologized to the front office secretaries individually.

So of course I got a phone call from his principal.

About an hour before pickup she called to explain to me how my son had destroyed his special needs classroom, which by the time that got cleaned up, recess and his traditional lunch time had all been missed. He had to eat his lunch without peers in his classroom and his day was basically a wash.

At least his principal (who stills seems afraid of me) was nice and apologetic on the phone as she described their process of interventions and as she named all the team of adults who had to be called in. She asked if there was anything they should have done differently and I complimented her on how they handled it, which I think surprised her.

Hello! I am a nice person. If you are interacting with my children, just do your job right the first time, don’t loose my kids, and I’m not going to breath down your neck like a crazy person. I hate being that parent, I hate calling weekly, I hate keeping tabs on adults that should be able to handle themselves professionally.

However this principle lady did ask me if I could think of any ideas of what might have set Mr. L off, since this isn’t his typical behavior. And I said yes, it was probably because I had to take him to another school this morning, because her school forgot to include him in their pictures- which threw off the rest of his day.

Yes principal lady, my son had an epic meltdown because your staff messed up. Let’s call a spade a spade.

I did my job. I did everything I possibly could to help my son succeed, and the world sometimes just messes everything up. Ain’t that life?