I'd like to introduce you to . . .

my son, Conner.

Every year around this time I start to get a little ancy, get a little nervous, get a little worried because it's the time of year when teacher/student selections take place. I begin to fret over teachers and classmates and I begin to pray and pray for the right people and right friends. 

Although Conner went to school three days a week last year this is different because he is in a regular class and the teacher/student ratio is going to be much higher. It scares me to death.

I was bouncing my thoughts around to a friend-type/acquaintance person who works at his school and the advice was just to not worry and "trust the system." Honestly that statement has made me so MAD!! So in order to not jeopardize that relationship in telling them just exactly how I feel about it I'm going to have to write it down before I explode! (and if you are reading this blog then that odds are great that you are not that friend-type person - PROMISE!)

First, this person works at the school and will never have to "just the trust the system" so that advice was just rife with hypocrisy. Second, "the system" does not know my child and does not have his best interest at heart.

Which is why I feel the need to introduce my son to you - he is four years old and is a bundle of sweetness, mischief, laughter, ninja kicks, and hugs! I have cried countless tears over his little body - tears because I fear I've failed him, tears because I know I've failed him, tears over my inadequacy to know what's best, tears of worry over his health, tears of worry over his speech - tears of joy and frustration and fatigue.

I've slept many nights curled up around his sweet body while it is racked by unexplained fevers . . . I have woken him up in cycles to administer medicine take away rashes that covered his whole body and left him a scratchy mess . .  I have held his hand for countless finger pricks and shots and tests . . . I've kept journals of fevers and symptoms and everything in between.

I've taken him to 5 different speech therapists and been overwhelmed by guilt because the reason he needs them is due to my own afflictions.

I have fought for him and spoken for him and loved him and cared for him . . . as I have and will for all my children.

So to tell me to trust a system to know what's best for him is a HUGE slap in the face to me, his mother. 

I am however trusting in GOD who has done all these things alongside me and more things then I'll ever know. I am trusting that my prayers for the right teacher and the right kids and the right speech therapist have been answered according to HIS plan and not my own. I am trusting that when I send my little boy who does not have the words that people will understand into that big school where I cannot interpret for him that God will give others ears to hear and to understand. I am trusting strangers to love him and care for him in the hours that I am way from him - I am trusting that God has orchestrated all of this for the good of Conner . . . I am trusting God, not your silly system.

And when you see me on August 20 and I am a big ball of tears and a heap of Kleenex you'll know that's me trusting . . . because he'll be there and I'll be here and that my dear friends is trust in something bigger than your system.