thanksgiving

Here I am on Thanksgiving with my two brothers and my two sons. You wouldn't believe how often I start to call Henry (oldest kid) by the older brother's name (Christian) and same with the 2 baby boys. I especially do it a lot when we are all together like this. It's like I'm caught in a time warp: am I the big sister or the mother?

Wilfred is the brother who lives in Australia. He brought those koala bear ears for my kids supposedly, but he and Paul seemed to spend a lot of time wearing them. I think all Australians must actually walk around with koala bear ears. I'll have to visit someday to find out for sure.

We had a wonderful almost-week of holiday stuff. Wilfred and Paul visited us at home for a couple days, and then we all moved on to mom and dad's house. Henry's behavior was much improved over last year. It may be because our visit was shorter, but I like to think it is also because he is growing up.

He and Tommy came to the dinner table a bit early, and were finished eating their crescent rolls and cranberry sauce right about the time the rest of us sat down. But he was overall much more agreeable about getting off of Grandma's computer and complying with other requests. And when the boys and I went to the zoo on the day after Thanksgiving, we had this exchange:

Henry: Can we please stop in the gift shop?

Me: I don't think we'll go to the gift shop today.

Henry: Why will we not go to the gift shop today?

No yelling or running away or bolting into the gift shop in defiance. He just calmly asked me why not? He did proceed to make the same request several more times, but I held my ground, and he held his composure. Yay for us both!

MG was right on about the #&*@!&# water heater. It died a horrible death this weekend and we had to get a new one. Just what you want to spend hundreds of dollars on during the holiday season! Luckily, Lowe's decided to give us some credit, and provided emergency same-day installation, so it had a somewhat happy ending.

medical visits

Tommy's caregiver called Thursday afternoon: "Tommy's had an accident. He and (another boy) were holding hands and running back and forth. Tommy fell and hasn't moved his arm since then-it's been about 45 minutes."

So we were off to the Children's Hospital Emergency Room- almost exactly 6 months after my last visit there, when Henry had pneumonia.

Tommy sat quietly on my lap for about 2 hours in the waiting room. He would whimper and cry briefly at random times, or if we moved. When the nurse examined him, she mentioned something called nursemaid's elbow and called the resident in to check it out. When they asked him where it hurt, though, Thomas kept pointing to his wrist. So we were sent to x-ray.

The x-ray technician lifted Tommy's arm, turned it underside-up, and asked me to hold it firm. This produced some tears from both mother and child. After the x-ray, the tech gave Tommy some stickers. The next thing I know, he's using both hands to peel the stickers and affix them all to the front of his shirt.

So it was nursemaid's elbow after all, and the process of manipulating the arm for the x-ray had remedied it. I was quite relieved. Tommy has had no pain since, but we do need to be careful not to pull him by the hand, as he'll be more susceptible to the injury from now on.


Saturday morning we all visited the dentist. The past few times both boys have observed Bill and I getting our cleanings. Henry has refused to let them clean his teeth, but has allowed the dentist to count them.

This was Tommy's first cleaning, and he behaved just as I expected: perfectly! This child sits so still for haircuts and doctor visits- I think God was trying to balance out my children's personalities in this regard- He must have decided that I've been through enough stress holding Henry still for medicine dosing and doctor appointments, He thought He'd throw me a bone with the kid who insists on wearing a costume every single day of his life, but is very cooperative for teachers, doctors, and other professionals.

But the surprise of the visit was that Henry decided to let the hygienist clean his teeth!!!!!!!!! Everyone shout Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so relieved about this also because I had this nagging guilt at the back of my mind: my child is 7 years old and has never been to the dentist. I intended to make an appointment at an office that specializes in special needs kids, but of course have never gotten around to it.

I am so so so proud of Henry. I think he just needed a few visits with us to get the lay of the land and wrap his mind around the idea- about a year and a half of mulling it over, and he was ready!

He chose a Pirates of the Caribbean pencil as his treat, and told me that he wanted "to use it for teacher and independent" at school.

a day off to catch up

Ha!

My office is closed today for Veteran's Day. The older kids still have school, and I plan on taking Thomas to his sitter today anyway. I've been so excited to have a day to myself, but my list of things to do keeps growing by the minute.

I thought I'd get a start on Christmas shopping, maybe exercise (my resolve in that area has dwindled lately), clean the house, figure out what to do about our leaky water heater, catch up on laundry, write a blog post... all before Henry gets home from school at 4.

I've been wanting to share some entries from our communication notebook with Henry's teacher:

10/16
Henry had a rough day today. Didn't want to do work, but did a great job in APE (Adapted Phys Ed) with one on one help. Lots of touching and kicking. We bumped up rewards for good behavior but weren't too successful. I'm sure tomorrow will be better.

10/17
Better afternoon-worked well with OT and one on one in class. Still not completing independent work. But much better than yesterday.

10/23
Great morning- love the haircut. Did some independent. We are working with clothespins and other fine motor to strengthen fingers. It is not his favorite. OK afternoon very touchy with other students. Will continue to work on that.

10/24
Forgot to tell you we are taking Henry to 1st grade* for snack and read aloud (started yesterday). He did well, working on not talking out, getting used to a big group and taking turns. Henry and a few of the students are becoming a little aggressive during tag (grabbing and pulling instead of tagging) so we are redirecting tag to other things for now.** Trying to keep hands and feet to themselves at school.

*She means the "regular" first grade class. It bugs me that they call it "going to first grade" because he IS a first-grader and is doing first grade work, no matter what room he is in. But it doesn't seem worth quibbling with her over the wording...

**They were all excited when the boys in this class started playing tag together. But it didn't take long for them to get carried away. Typical boys in that regard.

(I wrote back that Henry had told me he did something "with the first graders" so I was glad that he had been excited enough about it to communicate it to me! I was pleasantly surprised that they'd decided to do some inclusion, considering all the trouble it seemed like he'd been having with doing independent work and with using un-gentle hands.)

10/26
... Didn't go to 1st grade today because of tantrum at playground and wouldn't walk into the school. 1st grade time is right after playground in the morning...

10/27
Great morning- better independent work. Has indoor recess did a little better with hands. He has started taking off his glasses when he doesn't want to do his work.

(Maybe this is why the nose pieces of his glasses are always breaking.)

10/30
Good day-did much better letting go of grip on students and teachers today :-) Really good mood!

11/1
Big afternoon, power went out for 45 minutes. Henry did great. Had a little trouble figuring out why computer didn't work but everything else was fine.

11/6
Henry had a really rough morning scratching, kicking peers. Refused to do anything in APE. But the great news is the rest of the day was fantastic! He went to music with 1st grade & calendar time. We were very proud of him! We are going to try adding more 1st grade time and see how he does :-)

11/7
Not the best day today. Lots of grabbing and scratching. He did go to library with 1st grade.

11/8
Much better day. Keeping hands to himself much more. Listening to directions and completing work.

(Yesterday they had a field trip to a local candy factory and a pizza place for lunch)
11/9
Great day- very good at factory, ate lots at (pizza place) and we also got to see some of the Veteran's parade. He loved the bands and waving his new flag.
_______________________________

I often see no rhyme or reason to Henry's good days vs. bad days. He seems to be making good progress, so I will just roll with it.

Time to get everyone ready for school, so I will save our most recent Emergency Room visit for my next post!

By the way, I don't take for granted the reason for my day off today. Thanks to all the vets who've sacrificed so much for all of us. Especially my dad who went to Vietnam when I was a newborn infant. (I'll have to find some pictures to post from that era!)

The busy basketball season is starting at our house. Bill and Kate are gone a lot and it's just me and the boys at home together. I am trying to take this opportunity to consciously BE with my kids. Too many times I try to get them interested in something so that I can do something else. And not usually something fun- usually I'm doing laundry or dishes or paying bills.

The Friday before last, before Halloween, Bill had basketball practice and Kate went to a friend's house. Henry played on the computer for awhile and Tommy and I played with the winter hats and gloves and scarves! We pretended it was snowing, and we were building a snowman and throwing snowballs and making snow angels. (All of this was Thomas' idea, of course. I can't come up with ideas like that!)

I don't know if I can convey how fun Thomas' imagination is. He is obviously more imaginative than Henry, but I think even more so than Kate was. Well, maybe that's not accurate, maybe I just don't remember Kate being 2.5 anymore. But we had fun together. Sometimes his imagination can be exhausting, but still great!

That Friday afternoon my sister-in-law had alerted me that It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown would be on at 8. So the boys and I snuggled up on the couch to watch it. I was a little concerned that they might not "get it"--that these old cartoons wouldn't make sense to my modern kids. But they really loved the program. They laughed a lot at Snoopy and wondered whether the Great Pumpkin would appear. Most of all, for me, it was bliss to be on the couch with an arm around each boy. Was there a happier mom anywhere that night?

Saturday morning we headed out for "Boo at the Zoo". The kids wear their costumes and sponsors set up "treat stations" throughout the zoo. The weather was COLD and WINDY but not so bad as we went in and out of the buildings. The treats were kind of lame- lots of mini tootsie rolls. And I was irritated to find several groups handing out gum and jawbreakers- not really safe for little ones. (I noticed this AFTER Thomas had chewed and swallowed his first piece of gum.)

We went on the boat ride and that was extra fun because we had to snuggle together to keep warm. Me and my sweet little blond Darth Vaders. (They look like innocent young Anakin somehow predicting his dark future.) I'm sure that Henry liked the boat ride most of all. (The picture up at the top is from the boat ride.)

This past Saturday we visited the library, did some shopping, and visited Daddy at work (sometimes he has to work on Saturday mornings). Sunday we went to church and then walked to the playground. The trip to the playground was a little forced- Henry really didn't want to go, and made that painfully clear the whole time. The only part he enjoyed was walking through all the piles of leaves along the way, and I was afraid that some grumpy old man would come out and yell at us for messing up his leaf piles.

I'm struggling a bit right now to find some common ground with Henry. He doesn't seem to like doing puzzles as much anymore- something that was a guaranteed activity together a year ago. He likes playing games on the computer a lot, but that is such an isolated individual activity. Especially in our house, where the computer is shoved down in a basement corner. L's husband is one of those guys who finds deals on e-bay all time, and she said that he could help us get a cheap laptop. I am thinking about doing that, so that Henry could at least sit at the dining room table to play his games. Any thoughts about that or other new activities for us to do together?

a true Halloween horror story

When Thomas and I arrived home at 5 last night, ready for some trick-or-treating, Bill told me "Henry isn't home yet."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
The bus always drops him off at 4 pm. Bill thought that maybe because of the rainy weather and/or Halloween parties at school, the bus was running late. An hour late.
"I'm going to run over to the school," I said. (What I meant was: I'm going to run over to Kate's school to see if Henry's with her. )
"I'll go." Bill said. He headed over to the school complex, stuck his head in to Kate's practice, didn't see Henry in there, and went on to the elementary school. He was able to get in touch with Henry's teacher, and confirm that she had placed Henry on the bus.
Meanwhile, at home, I searched frantically for the school bus driver's phone number. I know she has given it to me, but could not, in the heat of the moment, find it anywhere. In desperation, I called the police.

I told the dispatcher my name, and that my son hadn't come home from school.

She asked me to describe him.

I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy: having to describe your child to the police.

"He has kind of wavy blond hair. And he's wearing a Darth Vader costume."

"Can you tell me anything else about him? Like, does he wear glasses?"

"Yes, yes, he wears glasses." How could I have forgotten to mention the glasses?

She said they had all their officers working that night, and she would have them start looking for Henry. A 3 ft. tall kid wearing a Darth Vader costume on Halloween night. No problem.

I told her that my husband had gone up to the school and was going to see if Henry was with our daughter at basketball practice.

Bill was still in Henry's classroom and had started calling the parents of other kids in Henry's class, to see if their sons got home ok.

A police officer called me back to ask me more questions: what was his bus number?

"I don't know- it's just the one bus." I know I sounded like a complete idiot at this point, but I have never looked at the bus number. The rest of our district is not bussed- the only kids who ride the bus are the special ed kids. Why did the police officer not know that?

While I was talking/blubbering to him, someone interrupted him to say that they had found Henry- in the high school gymnasium with the basketball team!

I was so relieved, but still confused.

Kate's practice was supposed to start at 3:30. Henry's bus doesn't drop him off until 4. So how was it that those two crossed paths?

Bill says that it didn't even occur to him that Henry might be with Kate. It was the only thing that occurred to me. If he wasn't with her, he was with an awful person for horrific reasons that I can't even let my mind put into complete thoughts.

The police dispatcher had asked if Henry might have gone to a friend's house? Or started trick-or-treating early, on his own? No no no no- you don't know my son. He's different than other 1st graders. He wouldn't have done either of those things.

I know all's well that ends well. The boys got to go trick-or-treating and had no ill effects from the 1/2 hour of confusion.

Our busy schedules, combined with some miscommunication, just got the better of us this time.

But I feel like a cold mist of dread has settled over me and I just can't shake it.

This may very well have been the worst experience of my life. It runs neck and neck with the afternoon spent at the emergency room last May. That was awful, but at least I was with Henry and holding on tight to him.

Now I feel like I never want to let him go again.

(Tommy was going to be Darth Vader also, but at the last minute switched to the Human Torch.)