the meeting

 my work day was weird, i spent all day fiddling with something confusing and broken. in the middle of it, though, gd and i went to the school to meet with mr smear's teacher and the principal.

while waiting for the principle, we were talking to a teacher while petting the dog she had on a leash. suddenly, a little boy hears our son's name and enthusiastically says "you know mr smear? kids tell me where he is and i love hitting him in the face!"

just as he finished his sentence, his carer suddenly appeared from the classroom he was supposed to be in and hustled him away.

i was stunned. i was furious. i wanted to threaten him, and beat him. and his carer. i don't care if he's autistic - he is - he's been picking on, hurting, and traumatizing my boy.

the good news is that we've been informed that the school has recognized their inability to handle him, and he's out. the bad news is that it's not before he's done immense damage to a kid who was already struggling with anxiety and feeling unsafe.

it's really not fair.

it's also the first time that any of mr smear's stories have been completely, thoroughly proven true. this little fucker just confirmed everything. there was no exaggeration.

...

i was a bit nervous about the meeting itself, having no idea in which direction it would be going. i think we got everything out on the table, and by the time we were done each side of the table had homework to do. while i'm still bitter about the autistic bully business, i am happy with the principal and teacher's efforts to help our son integrate in a healthy way.

...

mr smear's second mma class went really well! i was so surprised by gd's reports that i wasn't sure if she was trolling me, or if our son had been replaced by a doppelgänger :P

...

in the evening, tahoma arrived for a quick visit that ended up being quick a few hours. the circumstances are sad (his mother passed away last week, so he and his husband returned to israel for two weeks from their year-long travel adventure), but we had really interesting discussions and debates and we were really glad he managed to make time for us.

...

tomorrow wasn't going to be complicated, but it's our cousin's 99th birthday and a whole lot of us are going to celebrate him. even if he's lost his faculties, we're at least going to be with the family. i've been feeling uncomfortable that i haven't seen him since we arrived (my mom and gd and mr smear saw him last year), but it's a weird sort of discomfort because at this point he and his wife don't always recognize their own kids...