Today was a darn good day.

With one exception (a big one, she left the playground at recess) Sophie did well in kindergarten. Annabelle continued on her merry second grade way. We had gelato with Ms. X to celebrate Sophie’s Week One successes, and dinner after that (yes, we had dessert first, shoot me!) with Papa.

Papa’s my dad; my mom is in Denver with my sister and her family, so the girls and I kept him company — and I have to say, the dinner table was a much more enjoyable place tonight than it was last night. (The topic of my previous post.) The highlight was when Annabelle told him the “smell mop” knock knock joke — and he fell for it. Really, if you’ve never heard my father say “Smell my poop” — loudly and in public — you haven’t lived.

I was loving life for a number of reasons, today. I just finished back to back cover stories at work. That’s the petty reason. I’m considering how short life is, vis a vis my grandfather’s slow, (hopefully not) painful, sad demise. That’s the more heady reason.

Then there’s a reason I can’t really label, but I can tell you it’s caused me to throw my pity party aside, momentarily at least.

I didn’t spend (much) time today, dwelling on Sophie’s snarly hair or Annabelle’s lack of piano practicing or even worrying about the whole DS/kindergarten thing: Should I insist Sophie wear a name tag every day? (Maybe those safetytats weren’t such a bad idea.) Should I fight for an aide in the classroom, or at least on the playground? Should we quit music therapy because it’s too much on top of Sophie’s busy schedule? Should we start swimming lessons?

In the grand scheme of things, really, that’s fine tuning. Sophie’s set in so many ways. I didn’t realize that til I met another mom today. She has a 6-year-old son with Down syndrome, and for the past four years, he’s had no services at all.

None. No physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy. No early intervention pre-school. No adaptive PE or special ed resources or respite or habilitation or government-paid health insurance. Nothing.

Here let me say that that’s all I’ll say about this mom and her kid, in the way of identifiers, because I don’t want to invade their privacy. But I have to tell you about them. Since 2004, this mom and boy and their family have lived in Arizona. And in that time, he’s gotten nothing — not through the schools, not through the state’s Department of Economic Services. The mom told me she tried, when they moved here. She called and got a caseworker who never called her back.

I held back the tears til she’d walked away, and while it’s not really my style, I wanted to run after her and give her a hug. For all my eschewing of support groups and instruction manuals and the first season of “Life Goes On,” I’ve still insisted on services for Sophie, services I contend have gotten her where she is today. (The “system” agrees. Well, why wouldn’t they? But they do deserve a whole lot of credit.)

No one makes these services easy to find, believe me. Somehow, when Sophie was born, Ray made his way to a government office and got her signed up. Every new step has been a battle. I don’t blame anyone who can’t find their way — or loses it.

I think the only thing that motivates me to keep trying to get help is the fear of being alone, and ill-equipped to help Sophie without a team of professionals.

I got in the car and picked up the phone, made some calls and sent some emails and will get that mom some contact information. Her son is not potty trained, she told me. He does not speak. He doesn’t know any sign language. One of the parents is always home with him.

I tried to explain to her what’s out there, in the way of help, but she looked at me like she didn’t quite believe what I was saying.

I want to meet the little boy, and yet selfishly, I’m terrified. I know you can’t compare kids with Down syndrome and that that’s not what this about, not at all. And yet of course, if I’m going to be honest, I will tell you that yeah, it is, a little.

There’s no telling what this boy would have been like with early intervention services or what Sophie would be like without them. Early intervention is not a cure-all. But it’s all I’ve got, and I can’t imagine not having had it, the last five years.

I can’t help it. I need to see what might have been.

And more important, I need to help this family, the way my family has been helped, if only to in some small way pay it forward. Or at least try.

Today was the last day of pre-school. Actually, it wasn’t, because Sophie ditched. Annabelle’s camp was done so I had a sitter anyway, and when I asked, Annabelle said she’d prefer to have Sophie stay home with her.

(INSERT AUDIENCE TRACK: “AHHHHHHH”.)

So we didn’t really say goodbye. That’s okay. I hate goodbyes and I’ve had more than my share, this summer. Leaving this school is cutting the final cord, before kindergarten.

We leave with good memories of the place. Here’s the link to a piece I did about Sophie and her school, a little more than two years ago, for KJZZ, the local NPR affiliate:

http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/200605/amysilverman

But while I do adore the staff and teachers and director (who accomodated Sophie when they didn’t have to — there’s no mandate at a private pre-school to take a special needs kid, and she was one of only a couple) there was something missing.

In three years, Sophie didn’t make a single friend. Not even an acquaintance, really.

There are lots of reasons for that — ways to justify it — but I think for now I’ll just move on, and hope for friends in kindergarten.

For now, I have a bigger concern: Should I order Safetytats?

I’m oddly fascinating with this product, in a train wreck sort of way. It’s horrifying, that you’d have to tattoo your kid (albeit temporarily) with their name and number. It’s reminiscent of those of kid leashes I hate, of computer chips for your pet, of — dare I say it? — the Holocaust.

Okay, I know that’s a little silly, but that’s what I thought of.

The Safetytat is made for places like amusement parks, but I immediately thought of kindergarten.

One thing I’ll say for the school we left today: Kids don’t get lost. The staff/student ratio is practically one to one. I’ve had interns there tell me they can’t find kids to play with, there are so many adults around. (Perhaps one reason Sophie hasn’t sought out her peers.)

Kindergarten won’t be like that. Kindergarten will be 22 kids to 1 teacher. One very good teacher, but one teacher.

Still, I don’t think I can bring myself to tattoo my child, to keep her safe between the cafeteria to the playground.

Or maybe I can. I’ll hold off on a final decision til after the first week of school.

This morning I had a quick meeting with Gordon, Sophie’s pre-school Gordon. He has a very long beard and a very short window of time to talk — his priority is the kids, which I love.

But he wanted to meet this morning to tell me two things he’s noticed recently, about Sophie.

First, he said, she is starting to seek attention from her peers.

“That’s great!” I said.

Um, no. Apparently this is going on in an “immature” fashion — Sophie is grabbing other kids’ toys and getting upset when they react negatively. She grabs like a 3-year-old and reacts like a 5-year-old, Gordon said. Instead of screaming and crying, she gets sad, trying to hide her tears and disappointment at her inability to engage.

Rip my heart out.

Second, Gordon said, Sophie is clearly nervous about kindergarten. I haven’t ever seen Sophie really exhibit anxiety about anything at all abstract. “Scawy!!” for a ride at Disneyland, sure, but nothing less concrete than that.

But he insists she’s worried. He can tell, he told me, because Sophie talks a lot about her teacher and going to school with Annabelle. She seems fine with that, Gordon said, but she asks for Mommy more than usual.

I wanted to walk back into that pre-school room and grab Sophie up and — what? Take her to work with me? Home school her? Not good scenarios for either of us.

I need a cocktail.

I saw it yesterday in our breakfast with the still-fabulous, still-celebrated Ms. Janice — without her classroom as an accessory, she’s now become simply a very good friend, rather than teacher. I had the role of the enforcer (not one I carried out too well, I might add) at the breakfast table.

The fact that pre-school’s quickly moving into the past became a sharper reality this morning, when I pulled the Morning Monkey quilt out of the dryer. (Ms. Janice has Morning Monkeys and Afternoon Alligators — what a workload.) When Sophie had her heart surgery last fall, the folks at her pre-school were phenomenal. Ms. Janice and others came to visit at the hospital and at home, and everyone sent presents. One night Sophie’s bus driver, Sam, showed up on our doorstep with a stuffed Winnie the Pooh.

But aside from the visits, the best present she got was the Morning Monkey quilt.

A mom I’d never met (she had a son in Ms. Janice’s classroom) made it for Sophie — it must have taken her days (would have taken me years) to sew this beautiful quilt made of several fabrics, each square printed with a photograph of a member of the class, including the teachers, aides and therapists.

Every night, Sophie insists we cover her with the Morning Monkeys (her own photo looks just like a mugshot, I swear, if you can imagine a 4-year-old getting arrested) and every morning she wants me to pretend to be Alex (her boyfriend) or Tatiana (her friend) or Ms. Sydney (her beloved speech therapist). Today she named each kid and adult, kissing her finger and placing it on a face, one by one.

But this morning, I noticed that the pictures on the quilt are starting to fade. Just like pre-school.