disappointing news

Yesterday I got an email from the autism centre that the Bear will be going to.

Attached was the newsletter.

In the newsletter was a little piece welcoming "Bear (not his real name), X and Y". 

Hmm, I thought.  That's odd.  I know he's at the top of the list, but they're welcoming him before he's even started.

Hmmmm, I thought.  That really is odd.  Why would they welcome him when he hasn't started?

So, I rang the centre manager, just to chat about coming in and having a look and a chat.  She said that Pacino and I could come without the Bear, then, closer to the time that he starts, we could bring him in.

"Any idea", I asked, "about when that would be?"

"Oh", she said, "not till early next year at this stage."

"Oh", I said, "because I was told by the enrolments officer a few weeks ago that he was second from the top of the list, and that he'd have a place by early October if not sooner."

"I'm not sure why you would have been told that, because any movement that was going to happen at the centre has already happened."

Alrighty then.

Second phone call, this time to the enrolments officer.  "Could you please clarify this for me?  No, you have no idea why I'd have been told that either, when he's about 6th on the list?  Well, I noticed that you've welcomed in the newsletter another boy called Bear.  Could you possibly have got them confused when you spoke to me?"

Yep, that's what happened.  She was terribly apologetic, possibly because I was crying so much I couldn't speak properly, but that didn't change anything.

Bear is not second from the top, and about to get a place any minute.

There are, in fact, five or six children in front of him, and there will be no place for the Bear until late January.

It felt like the end of the world, but it's not really.  I spoke to his speech therapist about it, and she said that it won't do him any harm at all to wait, and it might even be a good thing.  Their programme is very intensive, and the Bear doesn't cope well, at this stage, with too much on his plate.  Another five months could well make all the difference.

I'm obviously really pleased that it won't affect him, but if I'm honest, part of the reason I was so looking forward to getting the place was so that I could have a break.  I love the Bear beyond words, but he is very full on.  I've been hanging on by the skin of my teeth waiting for that place, and it's very difficult to think that I have to wait even longer.

However, life goes on, and I'll just have to think outside the square in order to get a bit of time alone.

In the meantime, here's another park photo, just because he's so unbearably (get it?  unbearably?) cute.