Ds4 has been homeschooling for the last year and a half, and made amazing strides. I haven’t mentioned him for a while, so here’s a quick update.

He’s always been smart – I told his bio parents when I first met them that I was sure he would be! – and now is visibly much more confident and secure than he was when he was last in school (March 2019). His physical development has been fantastic – climbing, running, swimming; a father of a toddler with Trisomy 21 met him in a park and told me he can’t keep his eyes off him, that he was inspired to see a child with Down syndrome move like he does. I get the same kind of comments we hear with ds9 – are you sure he has Down syndrome? The regular kind? Really? But he doesn’t look like it….

All of our kids are very good mediators, and in ds9 he has his own one-on-one private tutor for hours every day. He even taught ds4 to swim this summer.

And now, finally, he’s going to school! He’s really ready in every way. And so am I.

We had hoped to send him to a local multi-age mainstream kindergarten a few minutes from our home, but after two conversations with the teacher, it was clear that she may be a good administrator but warmth and flexibility aren’t her strong points (or maybe they just don’t come across on the phone). Her obvious impatience with me and disinterest in having ds4 in her class caused me to eliminate what seemed like an ideal inclusive option, and instead register him at the special needs school that ds9 attends. It’s more important to me that he be in a place where there is warmth and appreciation of who he is, than to pursue an supposedly inclusive option that would leave him marginalized.

Though there’s an afternoon option that every other child in the kindergarten and school attends, I opted not to send either of them. That would mean them leaving home before 7:30 am and coming home at 6:30pm. Instead, they’ll be leaving school at around 1 and home by 2:15 pm. I’ve been told again and again what a shame it is that they’re missing out on all the extracurricular fun activities, but I’m okay with that. Building relationships takes time, and our connection with them would be negatively impacted if they’re gone all day, every day.

I didn’t send ds4 the first two days of school since he had a mild eye infection. Instead, we inaugurated the first official day of school with a trip to a beach at the Kineret.

There was a homeschool meet up scheduled at that same beach for 10 am and though I would have loved to have met other families, the beach isn’t really a great place if you have modesty concerns. We go early in the mornings when we mostly have the beach to ourselves.

Anyway, ds4 has been asking me for months when he’s going to to school, and was so happy to finally go with ds9 on the van this morning!

After I sent them off, it struck me that for the first time in a year and a half, I could do something without having to be conscious of the presence of a younger child. Though I still have two children homeschooling (12 and 14), parenting teens is very different than young children! It’s such a nice thing to have quiet space that isn’t carved out while my children are present.

Less than 90 minutes after putting them on the van, ds9’s teacher called. She notified me that the students in her class had a 45 minute session with a specialized teacher on the first day of school. That teacher just got a positive covid test, and ds9 will now have to go into quarantine for the next week and a half.

I wryly smiled inside – my quiet time will have to wait a while longer!

I’m grateful that at least ds4 was able to go on the school van for the first time together with ds9. I knew having his older brother’s ongoing presence would make the transition to kindergarten easier on him, but even if it was only one time during this early transition to school period, that still has been helpful for ds4.

And so the school year has begun, kind of!

Avivah