The New Normal

Today Jonah had a ‘3-incident’ day but it’s still less than usual and it was at school, thank God and thank Wildwood and thank his teachers, who are equipped with safe rooms and hold techniques and lots of trained, caring folk to cope with my boy.  (I’d be such a poor special ed teacher, crying like a little girl pushed by a bully every time some kid bit me).

And I never thought I’d love a Monday so much.

Today Jonah was very good at after-school program — and hallelujah the 5-point car harness thing I’d ordered for him came in, so I picked it up at lunchtime.  It looked like kind of a complicated contraption; when I got back to the office, I handed it to co-worker/handyman/mechanically inclined S and asked him to put it together for me.  “Did you even try to do it yourself?”  he asked me.  “Well, no,” I responded sheepishly.  “Then go try first, like a big person!” he half-mocked.

So I did.  I installed that hundred-and-fifty-dollar contraption in the car my own self, and walked upstairs all proud, and S asked me “now don’t you feel empowered?”  and yeah, I had to admit, I did feel empowered.  As if some kind of Superwoman emerged from the ashes of a broken, busted-up, scared little girl.  (If you count installing a car harness to be a superpower).

And Jonah acquiesced nicely to being secured in the thing, so we proceeded to go see his beloved train.  He laughed and giggled the whole way — I kept catching my breath and holding it, forgetting to breathe, almost, thinking:  really?  he’s really happy? and it made me so glad to have my boy back – my sweet, humor-filled, loving, fun, precious little kid.

When the train came he clapped and shouted with joy:

…and then we were rewarded with another train, and when we got home Andy’s mom had dropped off a yummy casserole and m m m for Jonah, and my lovely friend K delivered me a delicious apple sage pork chop dinner with mashed potatoes and stuffing, with amazing desert and candy treats besides – even golden chocolate moneycoin (especially for Jonah).  Sometimes I can see how life works, once I decide I am determined to love it again, come hell or high water…how, as Sara Crewe said in A Little Princess, “The worst never quite comes…”

Jonah was good all night.   Another co-worker, B, had kindly given me a little moneycoin bank for Jonah, and the kid played happily on the floor with it, letting out big shrieks of joy (that maybe would have annoyed the crap out of me two months ago but today sounded perfectly awesome).  Then he ate some of his grandma’s casserole, and took a bath, let me help him brush his teeth, and went to bed, all like a very good little angel of a boy.  Whew.  Hooray!  I am grinning ear to ear, almost crying from the amazing wonder of it all.

I ask for help and am getting it.  I push through and am rewarded with days like today.  Thank you, thank you, thank you I tell God in the same mantra of the help me help me help me from the other day.  I appreciate this day.  I appreciate it even if it is only one day of respite.  I appreciate that others are also dealing with awful things and hellish days and long, empty nights.  That I am not alone.

That we are all in this together.