I held so much hope for Monday’s IEP meeting. I thought I was dealing with people who understand my daughters issues and want the best for her- silly me. I felt like I was sitting in front of a firing squad with little to no comprehension about the situation at hand. I was explain basic autistic traits while everyone blinked loudly and stared as though I was the first person to ever utter a word about autistic traits. Over and over I heard about how my daughter is a superstar at school. I’m glad that she is working hard, but from her behavior at home it’s obvious that she is working too hard. Everyone was smiles and compliments about how well she has learned to control her behavior… for most kids this would be excellent news, for mine, it is symptomatic of the problem at hand. Mira at some point or another realized it was not social acceptable to have a breakdown in the company of strangers or people she is not fully comfortable with. This made things like leaving the house, a lot less complicated. This made things like returning home, a lot more emotional. Once in a safe zone she falls apart. Often she can’t even get through the car ride home anymore without snarking, yelling, or lashing out in some way. That combined with signs of depression, panic attacks, nail biting and a regression in speech set off alarm bells. I called for a meeting, a BIG meeting, thinking that having the school psychologist there would help… she was mildly helpful, just not enough. The teacher was on the defensive and I felt like she was unwilling to hear and or understand what I was talking about. I didn’t even bring up the fact that Mira told me point blank that this teacher makes her sad - I didn’t want it to go unnoticed as the truth and have it taken more as a weapon. I did get the teacher to agree to try and work on destressing Mira before she has to come home, even allowing me to bring in a bean bag chair and pillows for squish therapy. I explained the symptoms of stress in Mira - tip toe walking, obsessive hand cleaning, refusal to touch things, spinning, repetitive speech and am hoping the teacher will take this to heart and not push her so much when she is symptomatic. I found out that Mira barely qualifies for occupational therapy and will receive it only once a month. The purpose will be more to track that she is improving and staying the course so she can mainstream into a normal kindergarten next year. With what seemed like a discouraging meeting I did get one tiny nugget that seems to have grown into a huge blessing. They passed along the phone number of a group that offers free play therapy, with the warning the wait list is typically a minimum of 4 months long. Today I called. At first I was informed that the wait list was not a mere 4 months long, but rather 8 to 12 months depending on the age. With a heavy sigh I agreed to add her to the impossibly long list and started giving our information- Name, Age… Wait.. She’s under 5. Yes she’s 4 1/2 (receptionist voice drops and is almost a whisper) We have 1 opening at 130 on Thursdays, she would have to start tomorrow. What? Yes yes yes! We’ll take it! There will only be a few sessions before the therapy is ended for the year. There are no sessions in December or the first part of January, but we can immediately work on the major problem at hand and she will be in ongoing play therapy when the baby is born. I am VERY excited about this. Perhaps this will help her cope with the school situation that is obviously not the best for her but also seems next to impossible to change at this moment.