Hurry Up and Wait

We were supposed to spend this morning meeting with the neuropsychologist, giving her D's history and background and preparing for her evaluation of him, scheduled for a week and a hlaf from now.

I have been psyching myself up for this appointment. It is the first step towards getting a real assessment of D's potential. The first step to having someone say with moderate certainty, This is what he can be.

I know that it shouldn't make a difference. I get that, I do. I know that he is my son, and of course I love him now, always, and forever, no matter what. But still, uncertainty sucks. Do I maintain a college fund for him? Or do I put that money in some sort of trust so as not to burden his siblings with his care one day? Will he be in regular classes at some point? Or should I start looking for schools that can meet his needs through adolescence and beyond?

And yes, I realize the irony of placing great weight on comments made with moderate certainty. But still.

So it should come as no surprise that just as we were about to leave, the good doctor called to apologize -- her car won't start.

We've rescheduled for Friday. My heart continues to race.

Shameless Self-Promotion

So, the lovely and talented Yana nominated me for a Blogger's Choice Award. I'm not expecting to win anything, but if I could at least see my votes make it past, you know, single digits, I'd consider the game well-played.

Do you think I can take the whole bottle of Zoloft?

Well.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. WG took D. for his first of two visiting days at The School. Mr. WG dropped him off at 8:45 and called me from the car to tell me that D. was screaming and that the staff had to physically hold him to keep him from racing after his daddy. What a fun start to the morning!

Ten minutes later, Mr. WG called back. “So you gave them my cell phone number?” he says.

“What?”

“They just called me to come back.”

Shocker, I know. Anyway, Mr. WG instead came home and I then raced over to the school. I arrived to find D. somewhat calmed (not really) in the director’s office. I walked him back to the classroom while he clung to me, sobbing. I told him that I would stay with him, and I did.

The director told me that I should try to be a piece of furniture –don’t interfere, even if D. isn’t following directions. Let the teacher do her job. So I did that, to the best of my ability, and then I did it again today, and let me tell you that it is FREAKING EXHAUSTING, and these teachers – all teachers really – must have the patience of a frigging SAINT because HOLY CRAP.

A typical five seconds in the classroom might go like this:

“Let’s sit in the circle and – OK, sweetheart, why don’t you let go of your friend and – what? Oh, good words. I like that you asked if you could take the toy from my box. Not just now. A little bit later. I like the way some of my friends are sitting so nicely in the circle. I’m going to call your name if you’re sitting nicely and you’ll have a chance to – no, no, we don’t throw things at our friends. Is there anything you want to say to your friend? Right, good words.”

My absolute favorite moment, hands down, was when we were coming in from outside time. Sweetpea had a garden hose, and Smallerboy wanted it, so he tried to take it, and Sweetpea whacked him with the hose. So Smallerboy comes in crying, and the teacher says to Sweetpea, “Is there something you want to say to Smallerboy?” And Sweetpea says, “Don’t take the garden hose away from me when I’m playing with it.”

YES! Awesome answer.

On Thursday, when D. realized where we were, he started trembling and crying quietly. Nothing makes you feel like a great parent as much as the sight of your child TREMBLING WITH TERROR. I told him that I would stay with him, that I would NOT LEAVE, that MOMMY IS STAYING WITH D. I might as well have been speaking trigonometry.

Once in the classroom, though, he calmed slightly. The teacher suggested that I try to leave at outside time, and I declined. Inside, at circle time, I sat behind D., and he took my arms and made them into a seatbelt around himself. If I moved a hand to, say, scratch my nose, or restart my circulation, D. immediately grabbed my arms and put them back into seatbelt position.

I have to assume that this separation thing will gradually ease. What I can tell you is that even now, in April, even though his teacher is a close friend, if D. sees me at school, he immediately wants to go home with me and becomes hysterical if he realizes that I am not taking him with me.

As part of D’s application process, we still need to go through a neuropsych evaluation. The first step of that is at the end of the month, when Mr. WG and I will meet with the doctor. Then, about two weeks later, she’ll meet with us and with D. And then she’ll write up a big report and people will read it and stroke their chins thoughtfully or something.

It is fascinating to see a classroom full of delayed children. Some of them are social and interact with each other. Each day that I was there, one little boy gave me a kiss. Some of the kids are loners and go to great lengths to avoid eye contact and make a real effort to play alone.

The School is very into good choices. After spending two days there, I have fallen into this speech pattern as well, and I spent about two hours of my day telling D. that he made a good choice. (Of course, I spent about three hours of my day telling D. that that was NOT a good choice, but you know. Details.)

I think The School could be amazing for D., and I can only hope that the application process goes smoothly. I can only hope that I’m doing the best thing for him overall.

My Passover Vacation, By WG

Apparently, my parents hate kids. More specifically, they hate my kids, who do things like touch couches without first washing their hands. They also want to be entertained regularly, with games and books and television shows. My parents think that these things are clear signs that my kids and my parenting suck.

“When you were children,” my parents said repeatedly over the course of the visit, “you sat quietly and you never caused any trouble. You never got the couches dirty. You sat through the entire seder. You didn’t complain about the food being served. You didn’t watch this much television. You didn’t ask that we play games with you.”

Funny, if we were such perfect children, why do I remember getting into so much trouble?

I think my favorite part was when D. got up from the lunch table Friday afternoon and headed for the couch. “D! D! D!” shrieked my mother.

“That’s totally ineffective,” I said, loudly. Which was, I suppose, the wrong thing to say, because it unleashed a torrent of vitriol that went something like this:

“You may not care about furniture, but I have had this furniture longer than I have had you. When you were small, we took you to our parents’ homes, which were a lot smaller, and we managed to keep you entertained and you never destroyed furniture. You just want us to provide full time childcare.”

“No one asked you for full time childcare,” I corrected. “But we gave you VERY SPECIFIC instructions for how we speak to D., and THAT’S NOT THE WAY.”

There was more yelling that I don’t remember, and then I said something like, “Fine, then this is the last time we’ll do this.”

Whereupon S. went to find Mr. WG – who hadn’t bothered to join us for lunch – and told him, “We’re never coming back here again.” And then, on the last day we were there, I was packing up stuff and I announced that the crappy gifts given to my kids by random people would stay, to be enjoyed on our next visit.

“But you said we’re never coming back here again!” protested Z.

Yes, yes I did.

And it is true that we have spent our last Pesach there. In the future, I’m thinking Thanksgiving. Like, fly in on Thursday, leave on Sunday. That’s about the amount of time we can handle.

Or maybe my favorite part of the trip was Sunday morning, when Mr. WG got up with the kids and went to put on a little Dora. He couldn't find the remote. My father said, "That's right. I hid it. I think that your children watch too much TV."

Now, this was just after Shabbat, when my kids had watched exactly NO TV. And Sunday night would start another two-day yomtov, when my kids would watch exactly... NO TV.

I also really enjoyed the part where my parents kept telling my kids they could go swimming. And then when my kids asked, "Can we go swimming?" my parents said, "Of course. Just tell your parents to take you."

Oh, it was fun. Almost as much fun as banging my head into the wall repeatedly. Almost.

And then guess what happened? We were almost home. Literally, five minutes from our house. And BABY J. THREW UP. All over himself. And then, from Wednesday through Sunday, he screamed constantly and slept a total of maybe one hour.

I can't actually remember the last time I've had such a good time.

Ignore me, I'm cranky

So, I'm visiting with my parents for Passover, and what fun it is! We got here on Sunday. To get here, we were forced to use a commercial airline (what with the private jet being in the shop and all), and wasn't that a joy. We got settled in our seats, and about ten minutes into the flight, the woman in front of D. turns around and very politely asks Mr. WG, "Could you please get your son to stop kicking me?" Mr. WG tells her, "No." She is clearly stunned, so he keeps going. "Well, I mean, I wish I could, but I can't get him to understand me. He's only three. If you have kids, you know that he's really big for a three year old." So she VERY politely says, "OK, I understand. I have two children. No problem."

Mr. WG irritates me sometimes. This lady made a perfectly legitimate request in a polite, respectful way, and I would have handled it differently. I was seated across the aisle with Z., though, so I tried to breathe deeply and ignore it all.

We landed and deplaned and had lunch and got to my parents' Museum of Fine Arts and Highly Breakable Objects house. And the kids are going somewhat nuts, and I say to my mom, "Those wine bottles are kind of low, ain't?" (That's a real Pennsylvania Dutch expression. I use those when I'm around my family.) She says, "Yeah, we were thinking of moving them, but we didn't."

How long do you think it took before Baby J. broke a bottle?

And D., my poor D. Whatever he does, my dad tells him no, and he gets really sad and scared and just stands there really quietly for a while. This morning, he went into the garage and took my dad's tape measure. From on top of the fridge. My dad saw it and yelled at him. He says, "How did he get it?" I said, "He can smell them. At home we just gave him his own since they cost, like, $5." My father says, "But how did he get it FROM ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE?" I said, "He's a great climber." My father says, "So was your cousin."

Dude. What the hell? Are you trying to say something about my kid?

It's been kind of like that the whole time.

I miss my house and my stuff. And bread.