At 4:30 on Monday, I sat Ian in front of the TV for a half hour while I made dinner. He had seemed a little out of it during the afternoon, but he's always quiet, so it didn't raise a red flag. And then it happened. He vomited on the floor. In the way that only small children can vomit. He just opened his mouth without warning or ceremony and two meals and a snack late in a gluttonous mess in front of him. Half chewed hotdogs bits still visible. Slight moan.
By Tuesday morning, there was nothing left inside of him. He was warm and listless, panting with slight dehydration. Tuesday at 11:00, the social worker was due to arrive.
As part of the school district's evaluation of Ian, which was the necessary step before they gave him speech therapy, they required a visit from a social worker "to get to know the parents better." Yeah, right. They wanted to make sure that I wasn't a chain smoking, boozer who kept my kid in a closet.
I thought about postponing, but that would delay his services even further. So, in between coaxing Ian to drink fluids and keeping him company on the sofa, I was tearing around the house cleaning up and squeezing in a shower. At 9:00, with my hair in a ponytail, vomit on the toilet seat, and dirty dishes in the sink, things looked grim.
We rallied, and by 11:00, the house and myself were respectable enough. Ian was a mess, but there was nothing that could be done about that. Doris looked about and asked me questions about my pregnancy and birth. Information that I had already supplied three or four times. She asked about our education levels and occupations, which I am not really sure tells you much about my son's speech problem.
I'll have some post in the future fully detailing the horrors of receiving special education services from the local school district. But I just wanted to give a snippet of what they're putting us through. The visit from the social worker was just one part of on going hostility, suspicion, and disrespect.