The Summer Countdown

The summer is on. Only one week in, and I'm already a screeching mess. It's almost, pretty nearly, impossible to take both of my children anywhere together, when I'm alone. On rare occassions, I can take them both to the grocery store. I can stuff my boy in the cart, with a snack and a cup, and hold my daughter's hand on the cart handle under my hand. I have to keep an iron grip on her, because she'll take off down the aisles to dance, spin, and flap to the muzak, and sometimes feel up the other customers. One poor man got his butt patted lovingly by my daughter. I had to grab her, apologize, and move on. Luckily, he was amused and didn't seem to care. I figured he must have kids of his own and gets that they're a little freer with their affections. These trips mean I can only buy what fits in the "seat" area of the cart, or my son will start tossing things out. Other than this, we're stranded here at home and my shifts are about 17 to 18 hours at a time. My husband leaves for work, and I'm here, holding on for dear life. I do get my respite caregivers coming once or twice a week. And instead of just holing up in my room, and getting away, I try to clean the HIDEOUSNESS of the house. It's all just getting so...well, a hamster cage comes to mind.

We did go to the beach on Friday night. It's been hot and humid in San Diego, for us anyway, and we didn't get there until 6:30 pm. And it was still busy. My husband and I stood guard as the kids just kept walking deeper and deeper into the ocean. The nice thing about this beach is there's rarely any rip currents, and the tide was coming in, so no matter how hard they tried to go in, the waves would just pick them up and push them back up to the shallows. They've learned to jump over the waves, and hold their breath, and bob up when they get bowled over. It's a relief.. We used to have to keep an iron grip on their arms while the waves pummeled us. The only downside is they scream and cry when it's time to leave. And they usually fall asleep on the way home. I hope to repeat the trip this week. It was lovely, and it was fun for them. And they slept really well...

Abandonment Issues

I haven't wanted to blog for the last few weeks, because all of my regular routines have been off. I travelled to Walla Walla, Washington to see my father who was diagnosed with cancer and who has recently had surgery. I'll blog on this some time later.

Yesterday was my children's last day of summer school. I'm trying to figure out how to embed a countdown clock on my blog til the first day of school. It's not that I don't want to be with my children or be with them during the summer. I do. I just don't want to be with them the way they're going to be all summer long. I just don't want the endless streams of screeching and flailing of arms and frustration and crying. And their behaviour isn't so good, either. (Ha ha.) It's so frustrating, because for months out of the year, I'll gather videos, games, toys, crafts, and hoard them until this lull between school years. Then, bit by bit, out they'll come, and I anticipate the fun we'll have in making our own T-shirts, and creating a "circus tent" out of old sheets, and finger painting, and planting sunflower seeds, and making Flubber (find the recipe here http://www.recipezaar.com/129414). But instead, I end up playing referee between my two kids, keeping them from eating nothing but snack foods all day, and struggling to keep the house in any kind of order, and by the end of the given week day, I'm a mess, and prepared to lynch my husband upon arrival home, duct-taping him to the recliner in the family room, put those eyelid openers on him from A Clockwork Orange, and force him to watch hours of Blue's Clues or Teletubbies while I escape, my diabolical laughter echoing behind me...

It doesn't help that I'm emotionally fragile just now. I'm worrying about my dad endlessly, but forced to admit and deal with the fact that I can't do anything to change or alter what he's going through. I'm frustrated that I don't have wads of cash to throw at his situation and alleviate the family who live up there near him from all they're going to have to do to help him. And on top of all this, I'm losing people who've been in our lives for a long time, people who just have to move on.

Our son's teacher in his SEEC (Special Education Early Childhood) class for the last two years won't be his teacher any longer. I have a hard time with separations from people I care about. It is a great struggle for me. It is one of the reasons why I don't work very hard to make new friends. I'll hurt so badly when they have to leave me, or I leave them. I have valued the input and the enormous effort made by his teacher these past two years in ways I just can't begin to put into words. I have felt peace and calm and have been comforted by the assurances she was able to give me in regards to his progress and abilities. She had been willing to tolerate my absolute indifference (nay, deliberate flouting) of the bureaucracy of school district policy. Any time it meant she wouldn't be directly in trouble for my actions, she really didn't give me any hassle. But when her butt would be on the line, she let me know, and I gladly backed off when I could. When I couldn't, I let her know but made sure the powers that be knew it was my own actions, not hers, that were responsible. And instead of trying to change my attitude, she understood it and tried to be a liaison between my raging independence and the school's need to do paperwork. I had wanted to go to school for the last day of summer school, to take pictures, to participate in the last day festivities. But I knew if I did, I'd end up bawling. I'd end up needing pity and solace and comfort. That's not what I wanted. I wanted to be brave, cavalier, generous, and fun. I simply didn't have it in me. I'd been bottling it up for weeks, and was fortunate enough to have my dad's cancer to deflect me from curling up in the black corner of reality that I won't see this woman and have her humor and caring as a part of my daily arsenal against the deep well of autism in my family's life. Plus, the wonderful aides in the classroom who have also been our respite caregivers. I won't see them every day, though I'll see them on occasion because they're graciously allowing time in their schedules to keep doing respite for me so I don't have to try to find someone. I almost said "score" someone. It kind of feels that way--the desperation in trying to just get one or two hours, just a little taste of freedom....

So I was doing okay, until the one aide I have on Fridays brought my son home from school, for what I imagine is the last time. THEN I burst into tears. While I recovered from this emotional moment, the phone rang. It was my social worker from the Regional Center. I've had her with my family for almost 4 years. Since my daughter turned 3, and they put me from the Early Childhood worker to the whatever they're called division. She called to tell me that Friday (yesterday) was her last day. That she's moving back to Texas, and to give me the name of her replacement. She only had the first name... I had to ask a few times for the last name.

Why does everyone leave me at once?? I have issues already with this, and now with my kids' loving care givers, teachers, and social workers involved, it becomes an even larger, more emotional undertow. I emote for my kids, I think, at times. I'm just expressing what I imagine they would, if they could understand. Which they can't, exactly. And I think this is what makes me even sadder.