Foiled Again

Will called his dad over.  Sternly … when he had to call again.  “Dad come.”  Will handed him his iPad.  (Delete, delete, delete.)  Will says, “Moo, Baa, La La La.”  Will’s dad starts to type.  Will grabs the iPad.  (Delete, delete, delete.) 

Brianne helpfully gives her father some advice.  “Add spaces between the words.”

The app comes up.  Will pushes the button to buy it and hands it over.  “I don’t know the password.”  His father tells him ruefully.   Will looks at him in disgust and types in “password.”  It doesn’t work.

I sat on the plane playing Angry Birds with tears dripping down my face

I wasn’t sure exactly the best way to explain death to William but I knew it would wait until we got home.  My friend Cheryl called me while we were on our way to the airport with some awful news.  Will’s therapist Joan had died while we were on vacation.  She had been in a motorcycle accident four weeks earlier but I had talked to Joan twice before we left.  I thought she was going to be fine.  She told me that the doctor said it would take a year for a full recovery and that she wouldn’t be able to work with Will for a while.

It is possible to have a therapist come to your house four hours a week for a year, work with your child and not become friends; but often you do.  And we had.

I took William to the wake, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything inappropriate.  He pinched someone.  But she said it was alright and I decided to take her at her word. He pinched me a lot while I was talking to Joan’s mom and we quickly left.  I didn’t bring him to the funeral.

I don’t know how much he understood.

Punk

Will the Punk changed my Netflix queue.  I was a little annoyed to open my email and see that Wallace and Gromit was coming rather than Life Season 2, disc 2.  Scratch that … seriously annoyed because we own that Wallace and Gromit  DVD!  Will can watch it at any time! 

Sometimes I think he just toys with me.

Of course, I decided it was just wishful thinking that I could send Will to a sleep-away camp

Because really I could not see dropping my son off at camp for five days and, while staying in an inn in the same town, not visiting him every day.  And what would I do if he wanted me to stay?  ... Well, obviously I'd sleep on the floor next to him.  And I can pretty much guarantee he'd want me to stay.  It was a nice idea while it lasted but I don't think Will would be *comfortable with the idea and I certainly wouldn't be **comfortable on the floor even if I brought my own air mattress.  So now I have to decide about whether I think the day camp will be good for him.

*And upon reflection I thought that Will wasn't independent or verbal enough to sleep over.
**Besides, I brought it up to Bri and she wasn't comfortable with the idea.

Accomplishments

How appropriate that today’s Blog Hop topic is accomplishments because today was Will’s IEP meeting. He has done well this year.  He’s now reading at approximately a third grade level, up from first last year.  His spelling is third grade level (but he’s a better speller than Jake and Lizzy!).  He took a year to get the concept of numbers using the Touch Math Curriculum but now has mastered single digit addition and subtraction and has almost mastered double digit addition.  He moved into a higher academic level group and is doing well.  And he did this in a two-to-one!   

Honestly, maybe his greatest accomplishment to date is being able to move from a one-to-one to a two-to-one!  I wanted him in a two-to-one because as I told his teachers – there was no one-to-one fairy that would magically show up at our door when he was 21!  I needed him to function in a group.

We worked really hard on Will being able to handle being a group and not receiving individual instruction.  When he started taking classes at MyGym I had to stand one foot in front of him and say “do this” and show him what to do.  He bolted constantly.  He couldn’t jump, and barely listened to the instructions.  I took him twice a week for a couple of years.  I wanted him to function in a group!  Every week I tried to back away a little more.  I gave him as much independence as I could.  I choose independence over “perfection” of movement.  And now when I see him swinging his arms back and forth rather than in a circle I’m usually watching him from the bench.

Wow, look at me waxing on poetically about my boy.  This might as well be a Christmas Letter bragging about my kids.  I sometimes write those – but in them, usually I just list the places that Will didn’t wear pants.

Will discovered the moon

Yesterday after his MyGym class I hurried Will outside because it was time to pick up Bri from piano.  Unusually slow he dawdled behind me.  “Will, hurry up get in the car.”  I urged him.  He ignored me.  I repeated myself.  I walked back to get him.  He was staring up at the sky.  It was dark.  Very few stars were visible.  The moon was very bright.  “Do you see the moon?”  I asked as I pointed up in the sky.  

“Moon,” Will repeated and pointed.  I paused for a couple of seconds basking in the moment of discovery.  Then I grabbed his hand and pulled him along to the van.  He stared up in the sky the whole way.  And as soon as he buckled himself in he craned his neck to look out the window and into the sky.

A Conversation with the Nurse at Williams’s School

A: “Will has diarrhea. Could you please come pick him up?”

Me: Sighing, “No, he really doesn’t.”

Every time Will gets a new teacher at school or goes to a new school I get the same frantic and disgusted phone call. I talk to them about poop for 5 minutes and usually they deal with it. (I could write a treatise on Will’s poop but I will spare you.)

The conversation continues thus:

A: “It really looks like diarrhea.”

Me: “I know. He’s had it for 7 years.”

A: “He sat on the toilet for 15 minutes.”

Me: “Often he’s in there for a half hour. It’s kind of a special place for him because everyone leaves him alone.”