"It was depressing"

"It was depressing"

That was my hubby's answer when I asked him how back-to-school night was for The Boy. Our babysitter cancelled at the last minute, so he went solo since I can visit the school during the day when he is at work. He had not been to a BTS night in a few years, and he was excited to see the classroom and meet some new members of The Boy's team.


The evening is divided into two halves so those with two children in the school can visit both classrooms. For us, we visit the Learning Support (Life Skills, SAC, or whatever name your district gives it) classroom, and then proceed to his mainstream classroom. The Boy only mainstreams for a small amount of the day, but it's important time for not only him to see and model typical classroom behavior, but for the other students to know him and, hopefully, learn from him too.

But the BTS presentation in the typical 2nd grade classroom is geared towards typical 2nd graders. They are reading 100 books. They are doing more complex addition and subtraction. They are learning multiplication. They are typical 2nd grade students. And The Boy... is not.

We know our son is far behind his peers. He's far behind his sister who is 3 1/2 years his junior. His 14-month old brother creeps closer and closer to his developmental level each day. But sometimes until you get smacked in the face with "what should have been" you don't realize how different it really is.

I'm glad he went. I seem to get smacked in the face more and focus on the "what if" and "could have been" thoughts. Not always, but more than The Honey Bunch does. He seems to take it more in stride, and it makes me feel like I'm wrong for feeling like we lost the lottery, even though we gained a sweet and amazing (in-his-own-way) boy. But it hurts for him too. He sees the other dads throwing the football or out riding bikes, and he hurts for what could have been too.

Because sometimes it is depressing to see how different it could have been.