Kinder (sniff) garten

Dear Life,

This week has been a fantastical crazy week of getting my kids off to school. 
I felt totally prepared on Tuesday night.....lunches made....backpacks finished....clothes laid out...even went to sleep early. (This is not typical for me)
Woke up on time and everyone got ready and ate breakfast.  Before they went to school, Stuart sat each boy down and gave them a father's blessing.

(A father who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood may 

give father’s blessings to his children. These blessings

 may be especially helpful when children go to school,

 go on missions, get married, enter military service, or 

face special challenges. A family may record a father’s 

blessing for family records, but these blessings are 

not preserved in Church records. Parents should 

encourage their children to seek father’s blessings in

 times of need.)

He gave Kumaka his blessing first.  This is the first time Kumaka actually understood what was going on.  He sat in his wheelchair, folded his arms, and occasionally opened up his eyes to peek at his father while he was receiving his blessing.  All of a sudden, Kumaka starts to tear up....and then starts quietly crying.  The spirit was so strong in the room...the tears started flowing down everyone's face.  I held out my hand to Kumaka as Stuart finished his blessing.  As everyone else got their blessings, Kumaka was still very emotional.  It was touching to see him feel the spirit so strongly. (We talked about it later and explained to him what he was feeling)

The bus came, and we loaded Kumaka up, took a picture, and then followed the bus to his school.  (Annual tradition)
And that's where the picture perfect beginning of the school year spiraled for me.  
Kumaka has been placed in Special Education due to his orthopedic impairments.  He is supposed to be included in a typical classroom twice a day for a total of an hour.  That was the school's idea not mine.  I want to see him in a typical classroom all the time. We needed to discuss his placement in Kindergarten before school started, and have an IEP to legally put in place everything he needs, but that didn't happen.  I realized that my boy had to go to the Special Day Class for most of his day....and as I watched the cute little twins in their cute matching dresses go to another classroom, and the other adorable little boy march smartly to his regular classroom, the tears came unbidden.  Kindergarten is a huge milestone....you look so forward to sending your child off to school with a sweet little note and a lunch all made up...and you hope he makes friends in his new classroom and his teacher is nice.  I didn't count on getting blindsided by watching the kindergarten classes all lined up outside waiting excitingly for their teacher to come get them...with their parents taking pictures with big smiles on their faces...and wish my boy was with them instead of the special class.  I didn't get to go to the classroom to take a picture of him at his desk.  I came home and mourned that loss.  I felt like a train ran me over.  

Yes, I know that my son has a few extras.  I know that he needs different accommodations than other kids.  But sometimes...just sometimes...I look at him and think "he's just a boy who happens to use a wheelchair"....and I forget about some of the other things that goes on.