Spring in Alaska is like waking from a dark slumber to someone shining a flashlight in your eyes. The light overwhelms the senses. Confuses the brain. Makes us all jittery with Vitamin D and days that last past 9:00 pm. We gain over five minutes of daylight a day, which adds up to two hours a month and our kids resist bedtime saying, "Why do I have to go night-night in the morning?"
"Its not morning sweetie, the sun just hasn't gone to bed yet."
"Why?"
"Well, the days are getting longer."
"Why are the days getting longer?"
"Its spring." As if that explains everything.
We tend to melt-down as the snow melts, with bio-rhythms still adjusted to darkness, the light electrifies and amplifies our emotions. We feel rich with joy and ripe with sorrow.
Alaska, the land of extremes.
Last week Elias refused to go to school, forcing Nick and I to carry him into the building each morning. He ran away from his classroom and tried to escape out the front door. He fought every transition. Especially going to Room 17, his resource classroom.
On Wednesday night, when he resisted his normal bedtime routine and I sat next to him in bed rubbing his back he said, "Tomorrow's Thursday so I get to stay in my classroom all day. No room 17."
"Elias what is it that you don't like about room 17?" I asked.
He lay on his tummy and thought. I ran my hands across his bony shoulders and waited.
"The loud noise." he said without looking at me.
"What loud noise?" When he didn't respond I tried again. "Loud noise from kids or from the building?"
"They use hammers to build the building."
"Mmhmm." Ok, Let's try this again. "Tell me about the loud noise."
Another long pause. I rubbed his back and waited.
And then finally he said this: "Fire alarms and stuff."
Aha!
An unexpected fire alarm went off Elias's very first time in room 17, back in August, but the boy doesn't forget. His associative memory always amazes me and so of course he hasn't felt safe in there, not if he expects another fire alarm to go off at any moment.
On Thursday, Nick and I met with his team and changed his schedule so he gets pulled out after lunch instead of first thing in the morning, to cut down on his resistance to even walk into the building. After lunch his resource teacher's schedule is flexible enough that she can meet with him in the library first instead of bringing him directly to her room. As we met, I remembered her telling me in the fall that all the other kids refer to their time with her as "Going to see Mrs. Humecky", only Elias calls it "Going to room 17."
It's not her he resisted all these months, its the room.
I can't tell you how relieved I felt after this meeting, to know that Elias wasn't being hurt at school. Yes, he didn't feel safe and his morning tears were real but they were in response to a fear of loud noises not people's actions or words.
We made a plan for me to pick Elias up early before the next three fire drills. Why subject him to the torturous bell if I can whisk him away from the school for now?
And after another hellatious drive home, when I couldn't get Elias to stop squeezing Olive's toe in response to her relentless shrieks, he and I made another plan. After a much needed time-out for both of us, we sat on the therapy mat in his room and talked.
"I don't like the sound of Olive's cries either, and I know the sound really hurts you and its hard to sit next to her... but I cant have you hurting your sister while I'm driving. Its dangerous. We could all get hurt if I'm looking back at you and not at the road. I felt really scared today that's why I got so mad."
"Olive can ride in the way back with Tonsina," Elias said.
(And yes, here I see the benefits of a minivan or a large SUV.)
"No, that's not safe either sweetie but good thinking." I looked towards his toy bins and grabbed a squishy ball. "What if I gave you this and we kept it in the car? And when she cries and you feel frustrated you could squeeze this ball instead of your sister?"
Elias smiled then grabbed the ball, gritted his teeth and squeezed.
Later that night, I packed my hockey gear for a much needed puck-chasing-frustration-release, ready to leave the kids behind with Nick for a couple hours.
Olive cried. Elias cried. "Sorry honey," I said with a half smile, as I closed the door on the impending doom.
"I want to go with Mommy. I don't want to go to sleep. Noooooooo!!!!"
There's nothing quite like the in-stereo wails of a six-year-old and a baby. When I was gone, Elias went after Olive again, trying to squeeze her as her shrieks amplified. Nick grabbed a pair of head phones and put them on Elias and he instantly calmed down.
(I tell ya the man's brilliant under pressure. While I tend to freeze he always acts. His guide training sure comes in handy as a Dad.)
And so now we also have head phones in the car for Elias. And after a week in which I consistently questioned my sanity as a parent, we had a glorious weekend.
The temperature in the sun reached sixty degrees at our house. Elias cooperated with us, even when his fussy sister shortened a walk with his Dad.
"Olive cried a Takishla Park," he told me when they returned home. "Next time we should bring food for her."
And his sister cooperated too, taking a long nap in the middle of the day Saturday, outside in her car seat, so Elias and I could play together in the yard.
And we discovered a garden bed of tulips, rising up beneath the snow, an unexpected Easter gift of spring blooms to come.
Spring the transition between dark and light. A yo-yo time of struggling to regain our equilibrium, as we rejoice in the glimpses of a summer we finally believe will return to us, with it's vibrant flowers, lush greens, and days without end.