Eight days

That's how long Jacob lasted at his new summer camp before we got our first warning of expulsion.

"He's been 'wandering away from the group' consistently and it's now a safety concern. If he doesn't stop, we won't be able to keep him at Camp."

Wandering away is the polite way to say "runs off."

Why does he run off?

Well...he runs off if he's told to do something he doesn't want to do (like, "let's leave this activity now and go to the next one"). He runs off when he sees something he would like to do, even though the group isn't doing it. He runs off when he's embarrassed, if other kids are teasing him or if something happens that he suspects will lead to kids teasing him. He runs off when he's mad, usually because he's been reprimanded for doing something or kids are teasing him. He runs off to get attention.

In general, the only way we've found to keep him from running off is to either give him constant attention (and I do mean CONSTANT) or keep him in a fenced area and sit in front of the gate.

It just makes me so sad. And so tired.

I tried to put it in a way Jacob would understand, tonight: "This is the only camp where you can go swimming. If you run away, you are making the choice to not go swimming. Because any other camp we send you to will not have any swimming."

Swimming is, he regularly says, the only thing he likes about camp. He loves swimming. And it's a physical thing in which he's grouped with people of the same ability level, and his developmental delays don't affect it, so he feels normal. He's not the last, the slowest, the worst. This is a big deal. At this camp they swim twice a day.

I have no idea where we could send him if this doesn't work out. But, having frantically searched for options last time (just a week and a half ago), I do know for sure that none of the other places have swimming.

He only just, this weekend, got over his feelings of disgust and despair at himself for being expelled from the last camp.

PLEASE do not let this happen again, Jacob!!!

In other news, our agency sent a clinician today to help "support us" and work with the kids. (Too little too late, but it is nice of them. God knows I'll take any help I can get.)

Her eyes widened as I described his most basic actions. And then he arrived...Honestly, he was pretty good tonight -- I had to redirect him every minute so he would stop slamming doors, screaming, jumping on people, throwing things, etc. But that's typical whenever he comes into any new situation. He feels anxious (or at least, I think so) and then he acts like that until we're able to reassure him enough that he calms down.

Let's hope that, unlike the last clinician, she actually comes back. (The first clinician came only once. And never called us again, never came back again, even though we had appointments with her...she eventually told us we were making mountains out of molehills but took Jacob to be evaluated by a mental health professional and was told, in front of us, that Jacob had very serious issues and should have been prioritized for help. We never got any help after that, either...and then she quit her job, two months later.)

So I don't have much hope for this clinician, but hey, you never know.

On Wednesday we have our big appointment with the Major Psychiatric Doctor. This is the appointment we fought for...and for which we were recently told we could not actually attend or provide any information. Luckily they relented...but I imagine the day will be full of confrontation.

Bio mom and DSS don't want to face the fact that anything is going on with Jacob. They don't want to hear the truth. They're worried about what we might say. It might upset bio mom. There might be a confrontation, they said. It might be difficult.

Bring it on. I am so, so ready to deliver a nice frank dose of reality to those people.