Following Elias

Finally...

...settling into the school year.

Elias's beloved Ms. Julia, his T.A. from 1st through 3rd grade retired last year. She still works with us as a Respite provider, but is no longer part of Elias's school day.

The T. A. who started the year with him gave her notice back in September, opting for a job with more pay. I supported her decision but, unfortunately, due to the glacial pace of bureaucracy, it meant Elias had six weeks with ever-changing subs. I lost count at ten.

I'd say he almost lost a quarter in academic growth, not to mention his increasing resistance to attending school as a constantly changing routine doesn't bode well for my boy.

Obviously, I struggled keeping my "Mom Hat" at home as I watched him walk down the hall with a different person each day. To make matters more frustrating, I knew that a super qualified Teacher's Assistant, just a few doors down, wanted to work with my son. We just had to wait for the slowly receding ice of H.R. and Special Ed. to approve the change.

But the good news is, it was well worth the wait.

As we sat around the table giving thanks last week, Elias said, "I'm glad I have a full-time T.A. again. I really like working with Karen."

"You mean Ms. Karen?"

"Yeah, Ms. Karen."

Thank goodness.

And now I can go back to being Counselor at school and not a stressed-out Mama wandering who is changing my son's diaper on this day? Is the person sitting next to him like a place holder checking her phone or actually interacting with my son?  Will he make it through the day without a melt-down?

Now I know he's safe, engaged, involved, directed, and even entertained.

Thank you Karen, um, I mean Ms. Karen, for stepping more deeply into our lives.

We are honored by your presence.

Flashback Friday

Someday they'll look like this again. 

At ease in arms.

In love like only a brother and sister can be.

Maybe someday...

Happy Friday All!

And Death Still Far From Kown

"Mommy, how do people die?"

I look away from my phone and lock eyes with my three-year-old, her face twisted in a question.

"How do people dice?" I try, not ready to go there. Not ready to talk about death with my daughter--even though the subject-we-don't-discuss has been in my thoughts lately.

Life and death and the breath between, such a slight inhale, a hair's width really.

Heart pumping one minute, quiet the next.

Every parent worries, I know this, but I don't know if everyone imagines the death of a child.

My mind goes there, more often than I care to admit.

Maybe because the first words I heard about my son, now nine, were: "He's alive, but I can't tell you if he'll survive."

My amygdala's been in overdrive ever since.

"No die." Olive says. "How do we die?"

From gunshots and cancer and car accidents and pressure cooker bombs. From freak accidents to strange weather events. From abuse and neglect and poverty and war and sickness and old age. From murder to suicide. 

How don't we die?

"Well... we all do... eventually." But I can't leave it there. Not yet ready for Olive to leave the garden. "Our bodies just kinda stop working, like when we're a hundred or something."

Olive's mouth twists. "Are you a hundred Mommy?"

"No. I'm only 40." I reach my hand to hers.  "I got a long ways to go."

And I want this to be true. For us all to live into triple-hood. Die of natural causes. After a long life rich with the salt of laughter and the knowledge we were loved. I want this for everyone.

But I know too much about this world.

Olive puts her small hands on my face, where lines begin to trace back over time, like an emotional map, charting the years. I love her soft touch.

"Is Daddy a hundred?"

"No Sweetie, he's even younger than me. He's gonna live for a long long time."

Please.

"Is he five?"

Oh to be three...

...when five is old and death still far from known.

 Please.

Happy Alaska Day

The other night after the kids went to bed, Nick and I were smoking salmon bellies and smashing rose hips.

How's that for Alaskan?

Happy Friday all!

Happy Friday

During our inservice meetings this morning I could feel the collective stress of our staff as more is asked of us with fewer supports to accomplish the tasks. Budget cuts target support staff, which means teachers are left isolated with a To-Do-List miles long.

As a Counselor, I feel it too. Overwhelmed by the bureaucratic processes that often interfere with the time devoted to kids. To listening. To responding. To loving these myriad souls.

One benefit of the in-service day is that instead of our normal half an hour duty free lunch we had an hour.  I opted to walk home and take my dog Tonsina for a quick run. I needed to move more than I needed to eat. I wanted to immerse myself in the woods for a half-hour before returning to my windowless office to work on data collection of Social and Emotional Learning opportunities at our school.

It's hard to quantify relationships into numbers and graphs.

So I spent all of three minutes walking home, changed into my running gear, found Tonz's leash, and took off for the Chester Creek trail.

As I ran down Logan street, I passed a house with kids faces in the window that lit up when they recognized me. Two first grade students and a kindergarten-er ran to the door. "Hi Ms. Christy!"

"Hi!" I waved, slowing my pace to smile back.

The first grade girl who moved out of her Grandpa's home to her own house and no longer goes to our school said, "You're a good Counselor, Ms. Christy."

Her male cousins parroted her words.

And I remembered why I do what I do.

Its for the children. Its always been for the children. Not for the numbers or the reformers or the bureaucratic processes or the results or the accolades.

For the love of children.

Always.

Happy Friday All!

This Beautiful Challenging Life of Ours

 

You're not sure whether to smile or cry when your daughter's version of house involves a brother who keeps hitting the sister and ends up in time-out.

 

You smile when Olive mimics her big brother, by bouncing up and down to greet a visitor, her arms waving just like his.

 

You cry, alone in your room, when, for a moment, you see your son as a stranger might, disabled, strange, handicapped, retarded.

 

You're not sure whether to smile or cry when your three-year-old tells your nine-year-old not to eat with his hands, "Only baby's eat like that."

 

You smile when Olive insists her brother attend her Open House too: "Brothers and sisters can be there. I want Elias to come."

 

You cry when you see a big brother put his arm around his little sister at school and you think about how it could be different, easier, if only...

 

You're not sure whether to smile or cry when Elias announces in the crowded hallway after recess, "I have a poop Mom!"

 

You smile when you see the former first grade "bully" helping Elias with his canes in class.

And then, of course, you cry, tears light as sunbeams.

 

Life is like that, I guess

Glass Half Full

After days of hearing, "I don't want to go to school," as Elias pulled his six blankets over his bony frame, after his tears and wild arm swings as we yanked those back blankets down, we decided to try setting an alarm for 6:45 a.m.

And a second one for 7:15. "Is the second one when I need to be dressed by?"

"That would be great." I was just thinking out of bed, but dressed, by himself, without me asking a hundred times, that would make my mornings closer to tolerable.

And so yesterday, as I stood in the kitchen, clutching my coffee cup like a prayer, I looked at the clock, "Elias's alarm should be going off any moment."

Before Nick could respond, we heard his door open, as Elias emerged from the darkness in his post-bath hair: "My alarm just went off."

"Well good morning, so glad to see you awake..."

And again this morning, as I sat at the kitchen table writing the first daft of this post, his door opened and he stumble-ran my way.

"My alarm just went off."

"Good morning Bud!"

**********

On most days, Elias's lunch comes home uneaten.

We met with his team this week to address a variety of concerns, one of which was getting him to eat lunch. For our part, we said we'd make a checklist for him, like a visual schedule, to remind Elias to eat more than the fruit snacks but the meat of the meal.  

The past three days, when we unzip his lunchbox in the evening, the lightness of the load lifts the curve of my lips.  

My boy ate!

When you still have to fork feed your nine-year-old to remind him to eat, to do what most of us do all too well, chew and swallow food, well, an empty container is like a gold medal.

A reprieve.

A long last exhale.

***********

The Teacher's Assistant assigned to Elias gave her notice a month ago, her last day fell two weeks from today, and the position remains unfilled.

I wrote and chose not to publish a frustrated vent about the bureaucratic processes that interfere with my son's education.

It's been a rough first quarter.

I have too often encountered Elias in the hallway, walking out of the boy's bathroom, with his pants undone, pull-up exposed. I imagine the worst when I picture Elias unsupervised in the bathroom with other boys.  My Mom hat and Counselor hat merge and turn Christy into a mess of a woman in tears on her way home.

And yet Elias wants to "try" and I don't want him in diapers forever if there's a chance he can train.

But he's incontinent. He can't feel it. He doesn't have control.

I don' t know.

I only know this.

Last night, as I sat on the kid's toilet, Elias walked in and said, "I have to go potty."

"Wait till I'm finished, but get ready."

He just wants my attention. Wants to take over. Wants to pretend.

Wants to "try"...

But Elias stood, his back swayed, his balance precarious, and sprayed a stream of possibilities into the great white abyss.

 

Cheers!


Happy Friday!