Condition

Tom’s pretty laid back about a lot of things. As far as he’s concerned, Olivia isn’t so much special needs as she’s just special, just like Alyssa and J and J and D. They’re his kids, they’re special.

I like that about him. I’m okay with the fact that he leaves the IEP and school stuff to me. I don’t mind that he’s never had to sit in on an IEP meeting. What more could he bring to the table than I already bring? He’d just be one more body warming up a room that already probably has too many bodies.

But last night after the school open house, after we’d found O’s and A’s classrooms and dropped off school supplies and met teachers, I was sitting at the desk filling out paperwork and Tom walked in during a break from his endless session of salsa-making and asked, “Does Olivia’s new teacher know about her condition?”

I had to smile. He rarely, if ever, calls her syndrome by name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say ‘5p- syndrome.’ I don’t think he even knows what Cri du Chat is, let alone that it’s another name for 5p-.

And again, that’s okay. To Tom, Olivia isn’t a syndrome, she’s his daughter.

But he does care about her school experience and he knows that the more her teachers know, the better prepared they will be to make her experience the best it can be. So he asks the questions that concern him and I answer as best I know how.

I replied, “They’ve read her IEP. It’s in there. But I just wrote about it on this blue piece of paper right here.”

He nodded, his question answered, his concern addressed and allayed. He was comfortable in the knowledge that I had everything under control, although he did suggest I make a copy of a couple of papers with dates on them seeing as how I tend to be, ahem, a bit dodgy when it comes to takes and times. Well!

This morning he and Olivia waved goodbye to me after the three of us saw Alyssa onto the bus. O’s in afternoon kinderkids this year, so she gets mornings with her dad. They’re both cool with that and I couldn’t be happier with how this new school year is starting.