Reflections on love, parenting and life from a middle-aged cowgirl. Fueled by good wine, strong coffee and the conviction that learning is a lifelong process.
My first thought for an opening sentence: Life has sure changed a lot. Then I step back, read that, and think to myself, "Well, duh." This is not news, nor is it particularly stirring as an opening sentence. Change is a given.
My life's path is littered with the detritus of discarded hobbies: knitting/crocheting/embroidery, painting, drawing, crafts, gardening, making jewelry. At least once a week some new idea will spring to life. (One fortunate side effect of aging is that thec tendency to empty my wallet buying all the accoutrements of my new favorite thing has lessened. I am more likely to dip my toe into something to see if it will stick. If nothing else being physically limited has taught me quite a lot about the limits of my energy and my attention.) Over the years, three interests have endured: Books, horses, music. Oh, and YOU. The people.
For many months through the winter and early part of this year, the minute elements of just making it to work and home and getting in and out of bed became monumental tasks, eliminating my ability and freedom to pursue much of anything. At one time it would have created the opening for a lot of writing, but I was in such pain and crippling depression that I could not think of anything to write about that didn't carry a great likelihood of my family and friends having the suicide hotline number tattooed on my forehead. Then in the beginning of the year, after many agonizing conversations with doctors and therapists, we took the scary and difficult step of having my youngest placed into a residential treatment setting. (He's since come back home, and as huge and scary as it seemed at the time, it ended up being very good for him and for all of us. )
Even though I couldn't write much about it, during that time of long dark days, the interactions I had with my friends and acquaintances on social media were small beacons of light.
While there's no substitute for being face to face with the people you know and love, the internet has opened up the world in new ways for all of us. During those months when my ability to get out and about was so limited, Facebook was just a screen away, and it was filled with very real people. When I was struggling, even if I couldn't find the words to reach out, I could still be in touch with people, and with a few notable exceptions, I found that it helped to see everyone's thoughts and lives filling up my screen. When I did manage to reach out, people reached back and they offered care and comfort.
At the same time, seeing others go through struggles of their own helped me to put my own into perspective, and gave me reasons to get out of my own way. Boil down most anyone's life to the bare bones and you will find that we all struggle. We all have pain, physical or emotional. We all have shit that goes wrong and upside down and we all have days where the bottom of the barrel is a lot closer than the top.
I think we're on the uphill climb now, though at times it didn't often seem like things would ever get better. In the meantime - thanks for allowing me to share my struggles with you and for letting me share in yours.
Having a friendly relationship with my ex makes it a lot easier for all of us. The best part is that we have flexibility in our parenting time. Because of projects at work, I've had to work on some of my weekend days and go in much earlier than normal. Rather than send the kids to their grandparents I simply gave their dad a few extra days on his parenting rotation. By midweek I was feeling lost without them and he had no problem letting me have them for after school and dinner.
It helps soothe my heart to know that even though they're with their dad every other week, I can still see them whenever I need to. They are growing so quickly that even just a week makes a difference.
It nearly takes my breath away to watch them.
My daughter is at that stage where the awkward angles of puberty and the gracefulness of a young woman co-exist in uneasy measure. She is yet clear-eyed and innocent, despite intermittent episodes of what appears to require the exorcism of a a snarling teenager demon. I study her surreptitiously, trying to reconcile this tall young woman with the sturdy toddler I remember trying to keep up with.
When I wake my son up in the mornings he automatically reaches his arms around my neck, even as he is trying to snuggle his face deeper into his pillow. He wants me to pick him up and carry him out to the couch as I have always done, but this summer he gained 13 pounds and he is getting too heavy for me to lug around. He's a skinny drink of water, my boy, all kneecaps and elbows. He plays his games on the iPad or computer with remarkable intensity; it is a serious business, in his mind. His wish lists include game manuals and mods.
Walking in front of me are two human beings who are soon going to grow up and leave me behind. That's how its supposed to work, we all know that. But what happens if they make decisions I don't agree with? What happens if the paths they choose are not safe for them? We have babies because we want children to love; what probably never occurs to most of us is that they don't belong to us even a little bit.
I have friends who were on their own the moment they turned 18 -- mom and dad expected that from then on they were no longer responsible for the well-being of their kids. Others were on their own even before that, thanks to absent parents, neglect or abuse. I find that heartbreaking, and I'm continually grateful for my own parents whose philosophy has always been that even though your children won't always need you to parent them, you are stilltheir parents -- from "womb to tomb," as my mother says. Sometimes this has meant helping out when finances were tight or nonexistent - buying groceries, making a payment for one of us, buying something as a "gift" for us that we really needed but could not afford. My parents have been the people in my life I could always count on, even when they haven't been too happy with my choices. They've stood up for me even when I haven't wanted to recognize or appreciate the things they've done to make my life better or easier. They know who I am, the good things and the things that aren't quite so good, and they love me anyway.
That's not to say they have lived every moment of their lives waiting on their children to need them. Practically as soon as they dropped me off at my dorm freshman year of college they sold our old home and built a smaller house with a guest bedroom. If I'd ever ended up homeless, of course they would have taken me in, but it was pretty clear that once the door closed behind the last child to leave home they did not believe it necessary to keep living in a larger house than they needed. As soon as it was certain I was accepted at the UW and starting classes I think they breathed a huge sigh of relief and started booking trips to all the places they'd never been able to visit while honoring their responsibilities as parents.
I learned some great lessons from my parents about being pragmatic rather than sentimental and about how it is possible to love and care for your children even when you don't care for the things they are doing or the company they keep. They weren't perfect parents, of course (sorry Mom) but then again I haven't been a perfect daughter. (Sorry again, Mom.)
I hope I will be handle my childrens' evolution into adulthood as well as my parents handled mine. Its easy from this viewpoint to think that I will cope just fine; in reality I am sure SG will be called upon fairly frequently to dry my tears and there will be numerous discussions with my ex that begin with "CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOUR SON/DAUGHTER JUST DID?" We'll survive. We'll still have parenting to do; the things we will deak with will have a higher difficulty rating.
About a month ago I took my horse to a schooling show. We've had a lot of fun doing various things all this year, and I was excited about the progress we've made. I was sure that we would have a great outing.
I might not have minded so much about the serious show people that showed up (at the end of the year? For a schooling show? After you've clearly cleaned up on the real show circuit?) if it weren't for the fact that my own horse and I had a really rotten day. I'd brought his two stable mates and on top of that his half-sister and one of his trail riding buddies were there. He couldn't stop worrying about where all of his friends were for more than two seconds, and if he couldn't see any of them he'd get panicky. He was prancing and trying to take off, wouldn't stand still, wouldn't stop calling to them. In the ring he kept trying to angle himself toward the exit. All in all the day was horribly frustrating and disappointing. The judge hated us, but that's OK because I wasn't super fond of us, either.
I try not to care about competing. At this stage in my life if we are doing something that actually awards places, I'm pretty happy either way, so long as I'm happy with myself and my horse. But for days after that schooling show I felt so small and incompetent. My thoughts kept spiraling downward.
Maybe I really don't know what I'm doing.
Maybe I'm doing everything wrong.
Maybe I should just quit trying to do anything except trail riding.
Maybe I'm just an idiot.
I had a couple of really good rides at home in the weeks after that, and a fairly good lesson. Then this weekend we did a half-day western dressage clinic and a dressage schooling show. I entered the Introductory test for the senior age group and the open group, along with a few friends of mine that also take lessons with me.
We placed well, but more importantly Bugs and I had a really good day together. He wasn't perfect, but he was better than he has been and we didn't break our patterns or have a bucking fit across the arena. I really enjoyed the whole day, and being around my friends and watching everyone ride.
I liked the format of the show. It was my first dressage experience, so it was new to me. In dressage each rider goes individually the judge gives scores on each element of your ride. There are a LOT of elements, and even if you mess up on one of them, your whole ride isn't a wash. Not only does the judge give you a score, but you also get comments as to why it was a better or lower score. Those comments not only let me know what we need to work on but also helped me to feel some confidence about the things we are doing right and the direction we're moving.
Last night as I was reflecting on how much better I felt after having a positive show experience, I recalled what I often say to others and what has been a powerful message for me at other times of my life:
Everything changes.
No matter how well or how badly things are going, you can count on things changing.
Race Car Man is struggling so badly in school right now. We've had a meeting almost every two weeks all year long, but things are not moving in the right direction. The strategies that have been implemented that are supposed to help him are not helping him; they are escalating the situation. His teacher is frustrated, his dad and I are frustrated, but most importantly, my son is frustrated. His therapist was able to get him to discuss how he was feeling through some indirect questions, and he expressed to her quite clearly that he feels like he is a "bad kid" who makes "bad choices."
I can't adequately explain how devastating that was for me to hear. The tears flowed.
This year has been so difficult. We had asked for an aide for him full-time, and we got one, but the first one didn't last and the second one is still new and in the words of the district "needs training." In other words, not qualified.
The district psychologist has observed him once. I've been pushing for the district to engage the therapist he sees, who is the director of our local autism resource center, to do some classroom observation and feedback for the teacher, and they've resisted. They spent four weeks observing him, had an aide assigned and we had one conference call with the psychologist who still, despite saying he would, hasn't contacted our therapist to discuss the situation. Two months into the school year and things are worse than they were the week he started. My son is not accessing any learning, and we've had to pick him up more than five times in the last four weeks.
Last Thursday he was suspended for two days after a morning in which his behavior escalated almost from the time he arrived at school.
I feel like his disability is not being taken into account when he begins to react to his choices. If he isn't making good choices, maybe none of the choices he's being offered are incentive enough for him. If his behavior keeps escalating, clearly the strategies they are using to try and calm him down are having the opposite effect. Rather than expecting my son to change, I want the school to change their approach. I don't blame his teacher. She hasn't had another student like him. She's been begging for help for quite some time, stating clearly that she has exhausted all the tools she knows and needs help with some new ideas. Its not that she's not open to changing things -- she doesn't know what to change to.
I was feeling really hopeless on Thursday. And in truth, I'm not sure I'm not feeling a little bit that way today. But on Friday I talked to our therapist and she got me in touch with a local volunteer advocacy group, and she was able to give me some bullet points to request from the district, and she provided some potential options for us that I haven't looked into before. I was able to request a meeting with the district special services director and the advocacy volunteer is attending along with my ex and I.
This morning we met with the school administrators and his teacher so that he could come back from his suspension, and I feel like we got a great deal of support and agreement from his teacher, the principal and the school psychologist on the things that we want to see happen from the district.
I needed a reminder that even though things feel hopeless and difficult, they won't always be that way. Nothing stays the same.
Saturday morning started out much like most every other Saturday morning when the kids are at my house. By 6 am one or the other of them is at my bedroom door asking whose turn it is to get on the computer. I randomly choose one of them and try to sleep for a few more minutes through the cacophony of disappointment and victory. I drag myself out of bed, search for my eyeglasses and stub my toe walking down the hall to make coffee.
Fall has finally hit us here in the interior of Washington State, and this weekend had a forecast that called for staying home in ones' PJ's. The arrival of fall also means that the available hours of daylight to get on my horse are dwindling. So, despite the dire weather reports, I made plans to go to my friend's place. She has a lovely covered arena and we decided that if it rained we could practice for the schooling show this weekend, and if it didn't rain, we could go out on the trails that lead from her place out along the Oregon side of the Columbia River. SG and her partner get along quite well so we packed lunch items and some wine and decided to make a good half-day of it.
Getting horses fed and the trailer hooked up and loaded is always the easy part. Getting my kids out of the house requires earplugs, a cattle prod and kevlar protective wear.
"I don't WANT to go!" my daughter cried, stamping her feet. "I want to stay home and play Animal Jam!" "NOOOOOOOO!" my son screams as I instruct him to end his Wii game.
Their protests, though heartfelt, don't move me. There are going to be plenty of inclement weather days this winter for them to turn into screen-watching slugs. Bugs is already starting to grow his winter coat which leads me to believe we are in for a cold, icy November. For now, I intend for my children to be outside as much as possible, even if I have to force them.
Once we got to Julie's, they forgot all about their games at home. Ted had a burn pile going over by the pig pens and they couldn't get out of the truck fast enough. They scrambled like puppies down to watch the flames, and for the next couple of hours I didn't hear one single whine, complaint or "I have nothing to DOOOOOOO".
They got to see the big 700 pound sow and her piglets and touch the noses of the weaner pigs. They "helped" Ted do chores and played with the 6 year old son of the lovely young lady who trains horses at Julie's. They got dirty and wet and generally had a wonderful time.
SG got to hang out with Ted and make plans for butchering a pig next week (hel-LO Bacon!). I not only got to ride my horse in the arena but on the trail as well when the rain gave us a nice intermission and we scurried out to the trailhead. Just about the time we got back the wind started to pick up and big raindrops splattered my back.
I guess we all got to unplug a little bit. It was nice.
Race Car Man didn't make it an hour at school today when we got the call he needed to be picked up.
I've gotten a lot better about not feeling completely and panicked when this happens, but even though I'm much more composed, I'm still disheartened and frustrated. Three times since our meeting now he has had to be picked up from school, and other days the only reason he's managed to make a whole day at school was because his dad was in the classroom helping.
This morning it was that he forgot to bring his MP3 player, which he uses on the bus as a tool to help him not worry about other students and whatever they might be doing.
I'm just not sure what the right placement is for my son. His school seems completely unequipped to deal with him, but the only other option within our district is a class for students with behavioral issues. Yes, he has behavioral issues, but he also has autism and from talking to teachers and our therapist, who is aware of the classroom, we really believe it would be an even bigger detriment to him to place him there. Which leaves us exactly where we've been since he started Kindergarten: We have a smart student with a lot of issues who is unsuccessful in a classroom situation without a lot of individual support. We have a school district who thus far isn't offering the kind of support we all (including his teacher and the administrators at his school) believe he needs in order to stay at that school and access learning in his current classroom.
I have two inner voices. One is all doom and gloom and whispers to me of terrible outcomes, of a child becoming an adult who is completely unprepared for the outside world. Who is still living in my basement and dependent on me and not living a fulfilling life with a job he loves and friends of his own and maybe even a wife and kids. That he will never blossom or grow or get the chance to show the world how amazing he really is because I've failed thus far at figuring out how his puzzle pieces fit together.
The other voice tells me that everything is going to be fine, we will solve this and we will get there. I just don't know today, at this moment, how exactly that is going to happen. And I have to be OK with that because there's nothing I can do at this moment to alter the situation. I have made my call to the Director of Special Services. I have spoken to (argued with) my husband. I've spoken with my son's father. We have a therapy appointment already lined up. We are doing what we can and I have to put a brake on myself not to start getting ramped up and upset and making a thousand useless phone calls that won't do a damn thing to change the fact that probably there is no miracle solution to all of this. That the long term change will happen if we just keep plugging away at it, working on the solution to the puzzle that is Race Car Man. That answers will come to us that we haven't thought of yet. That ultimately, I can't even worry about the future because the only day that counts is today, and even if today didn't start off well I can still change it.
If I have to choose only one voice to hear, then by all means, let it be the one that points to a better place.
When I let myself live in the present I find that even though things might not be going well right now, my circumstances WILL change and I have the power to influence which way they go.
Race Car Man came a long way last summer. We took him off the ADHD meds and noticed a significant reduction in his anxiety and sensory issues. When the school year rolled around, his dad and I agreed together that we would start the year without resuming the ADHD meds and see how it went. Needless to say, his teacher was less than thrilled, but we went ahead. She reported an increase in distraction, but he also seems to take way less time to change his behavior when things aren't going well.
She's seen, though, a marked change from pretty good behavior and attention span right about the 11:00 mark every day. We knew we needed to add afternoon medication, but when he had his psych appointment on Thursday my ex and I stood firm in our belief that he needs to stay off the ADHD meds. Not only do we not want to lose the 10 lb weight gain he had over the summer, but we also feel that the behaviors his teacher is chalking up to "distraction" are just as easily caused by anxiety and sensory overload. One of the things I love about our psychiatrist is that he listens to us. He agreed. He did add an afternoon dose of the other two meds, which we expected and are fine with.
The last couple of weeks have been awesome in terms of reinforcing the need for an aide - he's had issues almost every day. Nothing yet as bad as our worst days last year, but still some tough days. On the days my ex spends in his classroom he has a constant challenge helping Race Car Man make good choices and participate in class activities.
This year one change is that Race Car Man fills out his own schedule for the day. For each part of his schedule he chooses a reward, and then he must earn more "smiles" than "frowns" for the individual components of the activity. Last week, almost the entire week, was straight down the shitter. He didn't want to participate, cooperate, communicate or reciprocate. He just wanted what he wanted and damn the schedule. Then on Friday he pulled himself together and had his most spectacular day at school so far. He filled out his schedule. He got smiley faces on all of his activity components and earned all his chosen rewards. He got along with his classmates. He shone!
Monday it was back to the same-old shenanigans, yesterday too.
His great day on Friday lets me know how much he is capable of. His rough days afterward tell me how much of a toll it takes on him to do that much.
We'll just keep plugging along, I guess. We have our followup IEP team meeting a week from Monday to find out if the district is going to follow through with an aide for him. Cross things, people. Cross things.
This week has been a long one and I am hoping that by saying I am glad to see it be over that I am not also simultaneously cursing all of us and causing next week to be somehow worse.
The only place that seemed truly safe and sane was home, where it was just SG and me, the kids having been with their dad all week.
I don't really talk much about work here and that's not going to change. Speaking in generalities, though, CRAZY WEEK. So many metaphorical fires to put out!
It was the second week back at school for the kids. This is a big year for both of them; Amazon Girl started middle school. For the first time in three years the kids are in separate schools. I know this is simultaneously scary and tremendously freeing for both of them. They love each other so much, even with all the fighting they do. Race Car Man has always had his big sister there to depend on and now he's learning to be in the world on his own. Amazon Girl has always felt the need to look out for her little brother. This year she gets to worry about herself and I know that's a big weight off of her.
Both kids have had their challenges already, only two weeks into the school year.
Race Car Man has had a combination of great/bad/OK/good/terrible days. There's no pattern with that one. It would be great if we could predict with any certainty what kind of challenges he is going to have; that way his teacher and classroom aides could at least have an idea of just how much wine they were going to need (or not) at the end of a given day!
Last year at two of his IEP meetings I brought up the thought that he may need an aide who is primarily dedicated to helping him but who could assist his teachers when he was coping OK. His teacher was for the idea but no one else seemed to want to pursue it.
On the third day of school I ended up writing a letter to the district formally requesting an aide.
I am very pleased that I received a phone call very quickly from the Director of Special Services and we have a meeting set up for Monday.
Amazon Girl has had different challenges.
To add some historical context: In the third grade a boy in her class fixated on her for some reason. His obsession expressed itself in constant teasing, poking, touching. She finally complained to me about it and I brought it to the attention of her teacher and school administrators. They observed, confirmed, and promised to keep an eye on things. Eventually he escalated to pushing, yelling and finally hurting her. The day he bent her hand back so hard we had to have her wrist x-rayed was the day I went a little ballistic with the school, and the other student was disciplined. They put my daughter in a different classroom, which I was not happy with but they were separated. Ultimately we ended up moving her to another school, not because of this boy but so that she and her brother would be at the same school after he was placed in his special ed classroom.
Fast forward to sixth grade. The middle school she now attends has students from several elementary schools in the district, including her old school. Guess who also happens to be at her new school? He is not in her homeroom classes, but he ended up in the same rotation for the last class of the day -- Health/PE. Apparently he started right back in with the verbal harassment, which I wasn't aware of. But on Wednesday he crossed the line. As she was walking out of her health class, he shoved her from behind, so hard that she slammed into the metal guardrail of the portable walkway. Her stomach was still hurting the next morning. She didn't tell any adults at school, but met her father in the parking lot and after telling him what happened, called me at work to let me know as well.
My ex and I went together to the school at 7 am the following morning and filed a complaint. The complaint was taken seriously, the boy was interviewed. Amazon Girl texted me later that she had met with the principal and told that the boy was being transferred to a different afternoon rotation so that she would not be in class with him.
I am very hopeful that this is the end of the problem. If he touches or harasses her further we will be contacting the police. I suspect that there are things going on with this kid that I couldn't possibly know about, and I have sympathy for that, but he can't be allowed to hurt my child and cause her to be scared to go to school.
I've told my daughter to find an adult right away if he comes near her or speaks to her. But I've also told her that if she can't find any other help and can't get away from him that she should defend herself.
Right now she's happy because she doesn't have to be in class with him; we can only hope that this is the end of it.
It hasn't been a total wash, though. My stepson Josh finished his Navy flight school testing and has been accepted to fly jets! He's moving to Mississippi later this month. Before he does that he gets to go to Texas to do this test where they put him on a centrifuge and spin him both with his pressure suit and without until he passes out. I am told this is to measure his G-force tolerance. Personally I just think the military gets its rocks off on making people incredibly dizzy. After that he takes a short vacation in Hawaii and I am also told I am not allowed to hitch a ride in his suitcase. On a very sincere note, his mom and dad and all of the rest of us are incredibly proud of his accomplishments. Congratulations, Josh. You are a terrific young man and I believe you really can do anything you set your intentions toward.
As for the rest of it, I would just like to know what it is that I could possibly say or do that for Pete's sake would convince the universe to let us have a whole lot of nothing happening the rest of the school year. I'm open to suggestions.
Friday evening, after a long day at work, the last thing I wanted to do was go out, so I kissed my husband goodbye as he went off to represent us at a night out with his parents and brother/sister in law, and I dialed up the local delivery guy for pizza for me and the kids.
I was fairly exhausted from the long week and the late 4th of July fireworks and all I was really interested in doing was my best imitation of a couch potato. Race Car Man had other ideas.
He really, really wanted me to go out in the pool with him. He knows he is not allowed to go swimming unless he is supervised by an adult. The water comes up to his shoulders in our pool, but he is not a good swimmer and I won't take the risk.
He's so enthusiastic about this pool that one night last week one afternoon when it was time for a break he wouldn't even buy into my offer of an hour playing Minecraft. Yes, the pool is THAT AWESOME. His bravery has grown by leaps and bounds. Last summer he wouldn't get his face or head wet at all and wasn't happy without floaties or a life vest on. By last Friday he was dog paddling without assistance and timing how long he could stay underwater. My insistence that evening that I was not ready to swimming with him until after dinner didn't go over very well at all.
As I sat browsing Facebook and waiting for our dinner to arrive, I could hear him slamming things around in his room and muttering to himself.
He came stomping down the hallway and through the kitchen, and just before I heared him open the door to the garage he shouted "I'm going to the wilderness so I can swim when I want!"
lolwut?
I hurried up and out the door in time to see him starting to march around the corner of the yard to the side street.
"Where are you going?"
He stopped and turned, glaring. He had his Sponge Bob bacpack on his back.
"I'm going to the WILDERNESS!"
"Where exactly is the wilderness? Because unless its somewhere in our pasture, I'm going to have to insist not."
"Well I want to go swimming and unless you agree to go in the pool with me, I'm leaving. FOR THE WILDERNESS."
This is one of the many moments of parenting where my sense of humor undermines my authority. Its so hard to sound stern when you're laughing. Plus he hates it when he's serious and I'm laughing.
"Honey, you can't go live in the wilderness. They don't have Minecraft. Or swimming pools."
"I can go swimmng in the RIVER."
"Honey, the river runs too fast, and its too deep. Plus, remember how you don't like going in the pool unless the water temperature is at least 85 degrees? Its not even close to that warm in the river."
He stomped his feet. "I WANT TO GO SWIM."
At this point, the pizza arrived.
"Look, come in and have some dinner and then I'll go out back so you can swim."
"I'm not eating! Not until you let me go swimming!"
"Will you at least come in the house?"
It took another five minutes of cajoling before he would come back into the house, but only after he first decided he'd just move into the front yard for the rest of the summer. Lack of a tent and the realization that it would be really uncomfortable when the irrigation clicked on at 10 pm convinced him his own bed might make swankier accomodations.
Yesterday after getting some chores accomplished, he got plenty of time to show me his fancy swim moves. After we splashed around for an hour or two we took a walk down the street to the river and watched folks zipping around in their boats and jet skis. He put his hands in the water to test the temperature.
"How cold is it?" I ask.
"Oh, its not bad," he replies.
"'Not bad' enough to swim in?" I query, grinning.
He threw a rock, then another rock.
"Mommy, little kids shouldn't swim in the river. Its too deep, you know."
I guess I won that argument, but then he declared his little legs too tired to walk all the way home and guilted me into giving him a piggyback ride up our street.
Aside from being a great source of career satisfaction, my recent changes in job duties have also played whack-a-mole with my ability to meet deadlines and get things accomplished. My normal duties didn't go away with the move to our business partner's offices, and so I where I used to work in shorter, intense spurts, now I find I have to increase the intensity and the amount of time involved in order to have any hope of getting even the minimum done needed to keep the hungry hordes at bay.
By the time I get home I'm mentally wiped out, but with SG working the outage, I'm still flying a bit solo when it comes to laundry and kids and animals. He's a huge help when he gets home in the mornings, covering those last details of getting the kids ready so I can leave for work. Evenings when the kids are home are a chaotic, lovely jumble of feeding humans and animals and trying to skim at least the worst of the days' messes before I collapse in my chair with an ice pack on my sciatica.
Despite feeling tired and sore, I'm making more effort this year to ride as often as possible and engage in more social activities. Last year when SG was out of town I had a tendency to hide when i was down or lonely (which was a lot) and I think that was not so good for me. This year I'm committed to every other week dressage lessons and riding every single weekend. I have plans for going out with friends and with SG (once the outage is over. TWO MORE DAYS!) Last weekend was the only weekend in months I didn't ride, but it was my 30th high school class reunion, so I have a good excuse. I was too busy having fun and waxing nostalgic over days gone by, and after being out of town since last week I'm now paying the price at home and at work. Not to mention I've been trying to get the pool put up for the last three weeks - not by actually doing anything but by continually reminding SG to call his nephew to help me do it. Monday night I finally bit the bullet and started working on it. Damn if I didn't get it half done when the skies started thundering and flashing lightning before dumping rain all over me. Its rained every day since.
The kids are on their second week of summer break. I didn't get much scheduled for the month of June, but come July and August they've both got camps to go to. Amazon Girl will take swimming lessons again and go to a horse camp and then two art camps and a music camp. It was harder to find camps for Race Car Man. There are some science camps locally but none with the appropriate staffing or resources to deal with his complex behaviors. I was torn about signing him up for camps through a local disability resource center, but when I reviewed the curriculum I felt like it would be a lot more enriching for him than just having him at home or at daycare. I've managed to set up a schedule for him that inludes several weeks at the ARC camp, a vacation bible school, some time at daycare and some time off with me and time at his dad's. Overall I'm satisfied that both kids will have an enjoyable summer. I'm avoiding adding up all the various costs for the camps because I'm pretty sure I don't want to look at the total. Oh, its worth every penny of it. But its a lot of pennies.
The last week of school for the kids was a bit poignant for me. The moving up ceremony for the fifth graders was on Wednesday. I managed not to cry when Amazon Girl was handed her certificate for a Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. Thursday was field day, and I spent the morning with Race Car Man. He wanted very much to do two activities - the rope climb and the sack race. He was not at all interested in trying anything else. We talked about it for a little bit and eventually he agreed to try a few things. When the 11:30 bell rang for his group to go back to class he'd thrown the football through a hoop, tried the frisbee toss, rolled a ball at a stack of cans and chucked a nerf ball as far as he could get it. I was proud of him not only for making the effort to try new things as I was for his ability to change his mind about doing so. It was a little bittersweet; spending time with him in the comapny of other boys his age reminds me in a way I'm not used to just how different he is from neurotypicals. At the same time, I recognize that those differences aren't necessarily bad. Yes, he has what might be considered deficits, but he has an amazing number of positive attributes as well.
Next fall Amazon Girl starts middle school. It will be a big change for her -- for both of them, really. Race Car Man has had his sister to lean on ever since kindergarten. They ride the bus together, go to aftercare together. In some respects its probably been as hard for them as anything. They're typical siblings in the way that they both fight with and love one another fiercely. Next year Race Car Man will have to learn to navigate alone, and as much as I think it will be a challenge I also think it will be really good for him. Amazon Girl will finally have the chance to concentrate on herself and not need to worry about trying to keep her brother out of trouble. It will be a most decidedly interesting year, for all of us.
I have a feeling it will be here sooner than I'm prepared for.
Life is an endlessly-evolving narrative, one with twists and turns and moments of suspense. Sometimes I think my son's life purpose is to make sure the twists and the suspenseful moments are the norm rather than the exception.
We had a fun incident with his transportation a few weeks ago, and by fun I mean the kind where you want to bang your forehead on your desk repeatedly. The kind of fun that makes you wonder if there is a school administrator anywhere who actually knows what their legal requirements are when an IEP is in place. The kind of fun any parent of a special needs child gets to experience on a regular basis. Which is why most of us lean toward rampant alcoholism.
There are important factors to note in regards to public school transportation services and special needs children. If a child's behavior is an adjunct of that child's disability and that behavior does not constitute a danger to the child or to others, the school is required to provide the service. However, on the day that my son decided to make a big noisy stink because he thought maybe doing so would bring his mother home faster, the school prinicipal decided to remove him from his bus despite the fact that neither his driver nor the aide on the bus thought that his behavior was a danger. The school called me to come get him. Immediately. Except I am at work, which they fully well know is an hour's drive away. SG is at work as well, a 45 minute drive. My mother was on that day the closest adult who could get him and she would need a half hour to get to the school to collect him. The principal insisted he be picked up immediately.
What am I supposed to do?
"What would you like me to do?" I ask, a shrill tone creeping into my voice.
"Well, if I had a child with your son's behavioral issues I would have a better backup plan," she informs me.
After I curtly advised her that my mother would arrive as soon as possible, I hung up the phone and started picking chunks of my brain off the walls and floor of my office.
I've since spoken with the district assistant superintendent twice, the director of transportation twice, and this morning we had a followup IEP meeting. At various points throughout these conversations I have raised my voice at least four times and managed to limit my use of the phrase "call my fucking lawyer" to just once, though I'd be prouder of myself if I hadn't said that at all.
I just hate this shit. I hate the feelings of helpless anger and shame when I have to deal with the district's inability to understand either my son as an individual or their own legal responsibilities in regards to his educational services. I hate feeling judged by someone who doesn't have a son like mine, who has never a day in her life had to try to have three or four different backup plans in case things spiral south for her child. I hate feeling like I have to defend our family and the fact that we do have backup plans - about four or five of them - but that sometimes circumstances dictate that none of them are workable at the moment. I hate losing my temper and my composure when I'm talking to people to whom my child's well-being isn't as high a priority as I think it ought to be. And as silly as it may sound, I hate the thought that people somehow think my son's autism is some kind of failure on the part of this family.
I hate that they don't get him. That it seems to me they see only his behavior and his diagnoses and not the person. That they don't see his sense of humor -- or when they do notice it, all they can do is say "but he's so morbid" and act horrified.
I want the best for my son, but I often feel I don't know how to provide that or even to find out exactly what it might entail. I envision a future where instead of the world insisting that my son find a way to conform himself to the needs of the system, the system find a way to understand what my son wants and needs and the best way to help him be his own best person.
His teachers and his support team at school don't have an easy job, I realize that. I don't expect saints and martyrs. And for the most part I believe that his teacher and the people who are supposed to be helping him really do care about his best interests. I just wish it were easier for us to know what those best interests are.
I was notified recently by my ad network that something was wrong with my placement and they were suspending me from the network until I fixed it. Rather than fix the problem I have decided it is more appropriate to go ad-free. If you are kind enough to come here and read my ramblings, I should be kind enough not to bombard you with commercials. Sound fair?
