Two More Days... Two More Phone Calls

Yep - one yesterday, one today. Again the sinking stomach.

The staff has learned that the first words from their mouths need to be, "it's nothing bad," or I will start to panic. That's just sad.

But for once (or twice), neither call was bad.

Yesterday, it was the head of the program. He was taking one of the other boys out biking around a nearby lake, and DS wanted to know if he could come along and just go running (He loves to run). I said sure! Definitely a better outlet for extra energy than some of his past choices!

When I picked him up last night, I asked if he had run the entire 3 mile course. His answer?

"Yes, I ran the whole thing... well, most of it... actually I walked about 2/3 of it... no, not that much.... maybe 1/3 plus 1/2 of a third." I made him work through the fractions, which came out to half the course. That's the same as the whole thing, right? No matter, I'm just happy with the positive choice.

Today it was one of the counselors wanting to let me know about an incident. There were some neighborhood boys walking through the playground, and they grabbed the ball from a game DS was playing with some other kids and went around the corner. DS followed them to get it back, but unbeknownst to him, they had waited, hiding just out of sight, to jump him. They punched him several times in the back and ran off.

Apparently he handled it very well, and was being given ice for the pain. Since these kids aren't part of any program, nobody knows who they are and they can't really be disciplined. They're going to do their best to find them, and will kick them off the playground if they appear again, but really, there's no hope of any effective consequence. I'm just relieved that DS is fine. Besides, what am I going to do? Threaten to sue and press assault charges?

Of course, it says something when your first sense of relief comes from knowing that your child wasn't the aggressor this time, and then the relief that he's OK. I'm not sure what it says, but it says something....