The First Day of First Grade

Hi, I'm Cherie.  I am Katie (15), Ryan (10), Ema (8), Sean (6), and Kiki's (4) Momma.  Today was the first day of 10th, 5th, 3rd, and 1st grades, as well as pre-k.  It was a crazy day, and fortunately all of my hard prep work paid off and we had a stress-less morning.  We were made it to school on time!  And then as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Sean got a bloody nose.  Sean has autism.  He is high functioning, possibly Asperger's, but that doesn't make the days go by any more smoothly.  He is also my entire world.
Sean's bloody nose cleared up, and he went with his teacher.  I was more of a nervous wreck than anyone, finding the principal to inform her that I had a new cell phone number and would be keeping it with me every moment of the day.  I was available to run to my little guys rescue.  I didn't get a phone call.  It was a relatively good day.  There was an incident with Sean not wanting to do some writing so he was kept in for recess, but other than that, he did very well.
Who knew that being kept in from recess would make Sean want to quit first grade?  That he would have such bad sensory overload (possibly from not having recess?  Just a thought) that he wouldn't stop spinning and climbing or bumping into complete strangers.  That I would have to throw him over my shoulder and carry him to the car, then listen to him scream the whole ride home (thankfully it's less than five minutes), and then have him tear my entire house apart.  The house I had spent my first kid free afternoon in months attempting to get back to a pre-summer tidy.
The worse part of the entire situation is the feeling that I had that I am entirely alone in this world.  Well, not entirely, I have Sean, but considering 96% of the time, he's in his own world, I would have to say that I am not that far off.  I have a lot of friends.  A lot of genuinely kind hearted people who want more than anything to be there for me.  A husband who will go out of his way doing or buying stuff that he thinks will make me happy.  Very few people understand how hard it is to have a child on the spectrum.  I'm not just talking about the obvious stuff, like all the financial sacrifices, never having any time to yourself, and the endless therapies and experts.  I am talking about the selfish stuff.  I put 110% of my soul into helping my son, and I feel like I am not making any progress at all.  I know I am.  I can see how much he has changed over the years.  It still hurts to have days/afternoons like today.  It hurts deep down to know that none of my well meaning friends can even begin to understand.