While I was reading another blog the other day (What Do You Do Dear?), I reached a conclusion. I was also reminded that I promised an honest account of our life. There are times you need to know how beautiful our lives are with our two amazing children. Then…

There are times you need to know that we are FREAKING OUT. The Ides of August (well the beginning of the month anyways) are upon us. This time of year in our house should be renamed from August to the month of Chaos. As you know my wife is a teacher and I work for a college. August is a stressful month. Teacher work days, tuition deadlines, late nights at the office, demanding students and parents, and the list goes on.

Well, these things are all pretty normal for us this time of year. We adapt to chaos well. We even pride ourselves in our ability to adapt and carry on. However, this August is different. This August we are freaking out. Monkey turns the FIVE in March. Holy freakin’ *expletive! FIVE! FIVE! FIVE! FIVE! I can’t stop typing it because I can not believe it!

In addition to the unbelievable fact that we must really be getting older and our awesome son is too, in one year we will be forced to cross a bridge that, very honestly, we are not even ready to think about seeing in the distance. Monkey will be required by South Carolina state law to start school. School, right. We  have to do that. Kids go to Kindergarten at five. I did or preschool or something.

We live in rural county with poor school choices all around. The public school system is not a choice for our special needs child and the local private school is not what I would consider equipped to even host Monkey for a play date (I’m sorry in advance to the natives, I don’t want to hear about this when I see you. you know I’m right and if you don’t… Bless your hearts, I am right).

So, what was the grand plan when we decided to move back here anyhow? The dream is homeschool. Now I have to apologize to all the friends and family that live in great school districts. They aren’t good enough either. A gagillion page IEP is not my idea of a good time. My child will not be put in a chair all day and pushed around like some sort of invalid, nor do I think I should have to spell it out motion for motion. You either understand how to read my son and are genuinely interested in helping him or you’re not. That’s all. I have nothing against you in your plight in the human race. You just are not equipped to help my son learn to be the best human he can be. You’ll be too busy reading the instruction manual to positively participate. Just because your school system can teach the masses and even Special Education to some extent, does not mean you can handle my son. I know that there are great Special Educators in this world, we went to college with one and I would hire him personally to homeschool my son if I could afford to do it.

We are particular about how we care for our son and don’t fully trust a whole lot of people to do it at all. This is our problem, I know. We accept full responsibility for our dilemma. But nonetheless, here we are. Did I mention we are freaking out? We both work. Albeit that my wife works from home, this still does not leave a lot of time during the day to devote strictly to the education of our son. We need her income, we need my income. We have not won the lottery yet and are not independently wealthy. So, we do like the rest of you. We work.

Not to mention the fact that he has seizures. All the time and has historically after heavy seizure periods, developmentally regressed. There are some who argue why we even need to worry over his education at all. To you, I have no words, you probably don’t read this anyhow. He goes to occupational and speech therapy every week. Yes, the school system would do this for free. No, they don’t have the right people in place to handle the job. Those awesome folks are few and far between unfortunately.

I could keep going. I could type until next year, maybe it could keep me distracted so I don’t have to deal with it, but I’ll stop.

So here you go. This is us, freaking out.