IEP from Hell

Yesterday was my oldest daughter's IEP meeting.  For everyone who doesn't know, she is hearing impaired and the schools insist on having an "Indeividual Education Plan" (IEP) for every kid who is different in any way.  To make accomodations so learning is easier for them or something.  We meet every six months, and the meetings are quite a production:  the deaf/hard-of-hearing liason, the principal, the teacher, the speech therapist, the parents.  We all sit around and "decide" how to teach the poor kid.

I geared up for the meeting with an hour and a half of bikini shopping 2 months after having a baby and about 10 cups of coffee.  I really wanted to be on top of my game.  I was like a wet hornet by the time I walked into the school.  Shaking and hot and miserable and ferocious.  Definitely ready to duel the IEP Gods.

These meetings are also a total joy because my wife-beating, no-child-support-paying ex husband comes to them and pretends A) he gives a shit about his kid and B) he knows what people are talking about.  Which is a pretty funny joke because he puts no stock in education at all.  Which explains why, at 35, he works at Target and lives in a shitty studio apartment on 4th street in the ghetto.

So we all sat around the table and the "team" read --OUT LOUD, mind you--the papers they had sent out in the mail the week before. Which I had read before coming.  When everyone was done reading to me, I had my chance to ask questions.  My questions were apparently pretty offensive and rude.  Like "Do you think that I am an illiterate?"  "If you send these papers out in the mail, why do we have to have these stupid meetings?"   "Can't we just stop doing this?"  "Do you think this is as big a waste of an hour as I do?" 

Do these education professionals prefer parents who just sit and smile and nod complacently?  I mean, I am capable of reading the paperwork.  I came so they could tell me something that wasn't spelled out in black and white. Christ!

And then a glorious end to a day I already wanted wiped out of my memory forever.  I was sitting on the couch nursing Luna and Zane asked me "Mommy, why do you feed the baby out of your belly button?"  At least he didn't ask why I was nursing her out of my kneecap, I guess.  Fucking gravity!