BEATDOWN BUS

Wednesday.  It really just kind of sucked all the way around.  I can't even be nice about it yet, and it has been days.

Wednesday started out kind of rough.  I had to hurry and get kids out of the door because Baylee had her first appointment with her new rheumatologist at the childrens hospital in Saint Louis. And since it is about an hour and a half away, and we had to find the office...we had to leave kind of early.

So we went, we got there...still had to drive through some scary parts of town, but this trip I realized we get to drive past Anheuser Busch's beer college.  Yes, boys and girls, the beer college.  Don't be jealous.

We found it and to keep this much shorter than it otherwise would be....here is the summary.

--We were there for two hours, meeting with various people in the office.
--They did an amazing history and workup.
--Her left ankle is 'thickening', which means the muscles are starting to, well, thicken.  And more or less stop acting like muscles...which means her ankle has not so much time left.  She is losing flexibility, which will eventually cost her mobility.
--She gets her first treatment on September 1st.  But here it is in the oncology clinic.  So we get to hang out with all of the sweet babies getting actual chemo.  We are both nervous about it, but are looking forward to making the best of a difficult situation.
--The new doctor says that many of Baylee's issues don't add up and that he plans on spending time on her file to see if we can't get to the bottom of things!  YAY!

So we made the drive home.  Ate in the car...yuck, I hate eating while driving.  And I got Baylee to school before lunch was over and she at least got part of the day in.

I got home, got work done, cleaned the house and got ready for them to come home.  But no amount of preparing would have been enough.

The kids came in screaming...and crying...and Caleb wasn't talking.  So like the previous section--here is the summary.

--Caleb and his seatmate on the bus, starting playing "Scrub Nubs"...think "Noogies".
--Out of the blue, his seatmate said, "Secret attack!."  Put him in a head lock and started hitting his head against the bus window.  The bus was in motion, so the driver couldn't do anything.
--Sixth graders moved over and started encouraging the fight.
--Caleb got a few good face hits in.
--Savannah got out of her seat and broke up the fight.  She got in trouble for getting out of her seat.
--Shortly after that they were home.

So....they were all upset and didn't want to ride the bus anymore.  Yeah?  Me too!!!

I called the district transportation director, who had already heard about it and she was awesome...but I pulled the kids off of the bus anyway.

I managed to not cry until I went to bed that night.  The kids were already upset enough as it was.

Lessons Learned
1.  Like any mother, I can't be every where, every moment.  It still doesn't take the hurt of not being able to protect my babies away.
2.  Grateful my kids stood up for each other.
3.  That I am hoping more than I thought I was that the reason I am here will be made clear.
4.  As much as I am against my kids hitting....so grateful Caleb did.
5.  Finding Bully Beatdown on MTV is not helping my anger issues right now.