Hey Stormy,
There was a little piece of my mind that just stayed separate through the whole thing, and I was analyzing the conversation. At one point I said, "This has nothing to do with you. I want to be closer to work. I want my son to go to another school so I can try for services again." She turned that around and basically said, "Well you're getting what you wanted. You're getting away from me. That's what this is all about." I noticed that my decision reflected only on her, and I wondered what I had done to make her hate me so much.
This morning, she gave me another lecture. Here's a paraphrased version of it.
This morning she harangued me about how M's autism will get worse. Do you know what? I was reading the psych eval yesterday, and the things the psych had recommended for M. Groups like boy scouts, being involved with peer tutoring, etc. All things that require SOCIAL interaction. He gets none of those things now, and I'm sorry, but going to church and to Sunday school for a couple of hours once a week isn't enough.
She told me I'm taking him out of a stable home environment (Yeah, right, can you call this stable?) and I'm going to shove him from pillar to post at camps and latch key and he's just going to get worse. You know what? I think he'll get better. That sort of structured play is exactly what the psych had recommended. She said older kids would pick on him at school (he's going to be in 5th grade, he'll be the oldest at the school.) And he needs to learn to deal with bullies, really.
She said that I think he's all grown up now ( I don't, but I do think he needs something better than this), and that I'm pushing him to grow up before he's ready (He can't even get a glass of water at home without a production). And that I've spent a week turning him against her because we played some games instead of me watching TV with her.
Then she tells me that my dad will want to retired and they are going to move some place far away so they can live cheap and it wouldn't be Warren or Lincoln county. She also told me they're locked into a lease (they're paying month to month), and they would move as soon as they could. (In other words, if you're moving, get all your stuff out, and I"m not watching your kid.)
And I'm going to be responsible for M regressing even more, and she wondered why he'd been all hung up on dinosaurs this week. Please note, that when M and I went out to lunch on Saturday, he never once mentioned dinosaurs, although he did talk about tarantulas some. We talked about moving and what to get for Father's Day. In the time we were gone he never once mentioned dinosaurs, except in relation to the movie he'd gotten from the library.
She also went on about how I'm close to the mall, and there's all sort of stuff that goes on in the mall parking lots. My complex is across the road, and kids who are doing crime at the mall, probably aren't going to say, "hey let's go over there and see what we can do there." Criminals just don't work like that. She said that I would have no yard for the dog. The dog doesn't play in the yard now. He goes out to do his business, goes for a long walk and comes back in. He might run a few circles in the process, but he's pretty much an inside dog. (More on the dog in a minute) She then went on about how much stuff I have and how small the apartment is going to be when I have furniture in it. It's roughly the same size as my living space now. And how I wouldn't have room for all of my son's toys. Son and I talked about this and about how we needed to get rid of some things. Son doesn't play with anything except Legos anyway, or maybe cars on occasion. At the point that she started going on about this, I was tired of the discussion. I just didn't reply.
Now, the dog we have, I bought for Son because I had read autistic children related to pets very well. I thought it would give him one friend he could always depend on. Since I got the dog, my mom has done nothing but complain. The dog messed in the floor, she complained. He sheds, she complains. He's underfoot, so she complains. Yesterday, she complained that he'd scratched her tables. Never once has she said anything about the positive effect the dog has had. My son and the dog are buds, and when he's home, that dog never leaves my son's side. She went on a long spiel yesterday about how the dog had scratched her tables and she never got new furniture (not true, my dad would have bought furniture for her) and how she had to clean up dog hair. Made me feel loved, let me tell you.
