Frustration

My biggest frustration this week concerned Zeke. Get ready for a long story. It has lots of positive points and a few big negatives.

My kids get out of school at 3:20pm but because I don't generally leave work until at least 3:45pm, I had to figure out what they were going to do in the meantime. Brittney has gymnastics practice after school and Riley, Taylor and Anthony can take the bus to Headstart but because Zeke is now in a wheelchair, it's complicated to get him anywhere.

I put in a request to have the special education bus with the wheelchair lift pick him up after school. They accepted the request with no problem but we had to wait for the paperwork to process through before they could actually transport him. They expected it would take about a week.

Zeke's resource room teacher suggested we check out the GAP after-school program, which is located right in Zeke's school building. I immediately made some phone calls. The GAP director knew us from when we had Taylor in Kindergarten GAP, so we had already established a good relationship with her. She then called the director of the Medary site where Zeke would possibly attend. The director there knew Steve from somewhere (Ok, I don't remember - I think he said Swiftel but maybe it was Dak) and she was anxious to help out in any way she could. She spoke with her staff on site and they knew Zeke from recess supervision and were super excited to have him in their program. So the GAP director called me back and we enrolled Zeke for $9 per day until the special ed bus could take him to Boys & Girls Club. I was so thankful that God worked out all the details and I was also reminded that how we interact with others in our day to day lives can come back to help or hurt us. Thankfully, in this situation, it helped!

After the paperwork processed through, Zeke was picked up after school by the bus with the wheelchair lift and then transported to Boys & Girls Club. We were really happy with GAP but needed to utilize The Club because of price. GAP has a set monthly fee, which is out of our price range, while The Club has a yearly membership fee of only $20.

The only problem with The Club is that every time our kids go there, they are missing items when we pick them up. The open-faced lockers are in a common area so anyone can grab anything they want. After losing numerous items, including many hats and pairs of gloves, I talked to the staff. They apologized but didn't offer any real help. Once a few weeks ago when Zeke's backpack was lost, I finally located it on top of the lockers where he couldn't possibly have reached it in his wheelchair. So we know he didn't put it there.

Riley's backpack was missing from The Club for about a week. We finally got it back the other day. The final straw was when I picked Zeke up last Tuesday night and no one could find his winter coat. There weren't many kids left by that time and we looked everywhere. So I had to take him home in the freezing cold without a coat on. Which, by the way, was a really nice Colombia coat someone had given us that had both a zipper and snaps so he could put it on by himself. It also had Wilkins written in black permant marker on the inside.

I had had it with chatting nicely about what we could do because obviously the problem was not only continuing, it was getting worse!

So that night I chatted with the Program Director at the Club, who was actually very helpful. Then I went home and called Zek's teacher to see if she had any suggestions. They were already keeping a set of gloves and a hat at school so it wouldn't get sent to The Club at all. She volunteered to call The Club in the morning and talk to them about options. Finally, the next morning, I texted one of my friends on the Board of Directors for The Club to see if she had any imput. She called me back right away and offered to make some phone calls and help us figure out a solution.

As much as I hate to do it, sometimes I turn into a mama bear when my children are concerned. But I think I can honestly say that I remained polite during the entire episode.

The Boys & Girls Club is now going to take all of Zeke's belonging when he arrives at The Club and keep them behind the desk until we pick him up. Nothing has been missing since then. We still haven't found his coat and I finally broke down and purchased him a new one yesterday. He's been wearing one of Steve's for the past few days and it's way too big. But at least we're confident that his new one won't go missing. It's a cheap Walmart coat but at least it's warm for the snow we're getting today!

So a BIG thank you to all the people who helped us figure this out!!!! Because our boys really do love spending time at The Club :)
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