You've Messed With the Wrong Chubby, Middle-Aged, Suburban Mom!

The title is a joke, but what happened this morning is not.

When I first met her, I knew right away that she was going to be That Mom.  There's always one in every class: The one who needs attention, who's a drama queen, who believes her child is more gifted/fragile/intelligent/kind than any other child on the planet.  The one who, just about every day, pulls the teacher aside for a "conference."
For whatever reason, That Mom always gravitates toward me.  Countless times I have stood on the street corner after dropping our kids off and listened to her concerns.  And felt badly, because she has a lot of anxiety, and I can certainly relate to that!  But I CANNOT relate to the extremes.  (Wearing a hoodie to disguise oneself & watching the kids/teachers during PE class?)
There are only 4 kids in the class.  She has already accused the other 2 of hitting/pinching/striking/etc. her son, to the point where they leave bruises on him.  None of this has been confirmed, and there are, at ALL TIMES, at least 2 teachers with the kids. This is a special ed class.  They don't go anywhere or do anything unsupervised.  Any rule-breaking/questionable behavior is noted in a classroom log.

This morning, just after I dropped LG off, she came up to me, got in my face, and said "Your son is punking my son!"

First off, let me say this: In his 8 years in public school, and after working with over a dozen tutors and therapists, LG has NEVER had a single complaint made against him ,whether by a parent, a teacher, or another student.  He is NOT violent.  He doesn't hit, punch, kick, etc.  And when it's done to him, he will NOT retaliate. In fact, I cannot even count the number of parents, tutors, therapists and teachers who have made a point to tell me how much they like him, and how sweet he is.
Because he IS.  He is one of the sweetest, kindest kids you could ever hope to meet.

But, according to HER, yesterday he squeezed her son's arm hard enough to leave marks. I'll say this: He has a behavior, when he gets overwhelmed, where he WILL squeeze someone's arm.  But he doesn't squeeze hard, he never leaves a mark or bruise, and he always pats the spot he squeezed, as if soothing it.  He has NEVER hurt another person. But she claimed her daughter (who is in high school, and who was there this morning, looking embarrassed), saw the marks as she was giving her brother a bath last night.    I said "My son doesn't do that.  If he grabbed your son, I apologize, and I will certainly talk to him.  But he doesn't hurt people."  To which she yelled, at an even higher decibel, "The teacher saw it!  She put it in the log!"
Then she started going on about how her son is so nice and sweet and gentle, but my son and another child are constantly kicking him.  I KNOW LG doesn't do that, has NEVER done that, and I told her so.  Her response?  "YOU JUST SAID HE DOESN'T GRAB PEOPLE!!!!!!!"

At that point I walked away.  I went to the front office.  In the meantime, the classroom teacher had called the principal when she saw this woman accosting me.  They spoke to her, and then they spoke to me. From what I could glean, they have told her, apparently more than once, that if she has an issue with another child, to bring it up with them, and not confront the parent.  Especially on campus.   The altercation this morning was right in front of our kids' classroom.

This is a woman who insinuated that a student who, sadly, committed suicide recently could have been murdered by his step-father.  As I mentioned, she's accused all the other kids in the class of violence against her son, claiming she has "witnesses" (other students who allegedly came by her home and told her they saw these kids hurting him.  Of course, we only have her word for it, since she won't name any of the supposed witnesses).  Who watches her kids' PE classes from her balcony (or in disguise) to make sure the teachers aren't...well, doing whatever it is she imagines them doing.

Basically, I have finally come to realize that she is not firing on all cylinders.  The principal suggested I take another route to bring LG to and from school, since our current one takes us right by this woman's home.  She (the principal) very clearly communicated to me, without actually coming out and saying it, that this woman has a long history of this type of behavior, that she is familiar with it, and that she knows what's up.  This woman's daughter went to the same school, so the administration has known her for a few years.
I've had a few hours to process this.  I'm still pissed off (no one accuses MY KID of that kind of crap and gets away with it!), but I realize the best way to deal is to not acknowledge her AT ALL, to talk to the teachers, and keep behaving like nothing's wrong.

To, basically, Keep Calm and Carry On.

And maybe let it drop in conversation, while she's there, that my brother's in the FBI.

And that I've studied Krav Maga.

So don't mess with me, punk!