There isn’t really any good news to report. Jonah’s been “on a tear,” as Andy describes.
Andy’s had to hold him and give him rides to and from school randomly this week because Jonah tried to attack him, the bus driver, the bus aide, or went all hysterical crying and wouldn’t get on the bus. The teachers at school write things in the log book that, as always, attempt to underscore things that went right during the day as opposed to focusing on his behaviors, but they of course also tell us about the aggressions and what they’re doing about them. Today they must have battled so many aggressions they lost count because instead of naming a number as usual, they simply wrote “several.”
I’ve got a freelance writing project to complete and just one week to do it, so I only stopped at the house briefly today to drop off some birthday presents my dad got Jonah for his birthday (he’ll be 9 on March 7th) and assemble some birthday goodie bags to send into school on Monday for the little party they’ll have for him. For the few minutes I was there, Jonah walked around agitated, swatting the air with his hand and cocking his arm as if ready to hit, for no apparent reason, anyone who dared cross his path.
At one point Andy, in his dry manner, commented: this is him being good.
So now here I am, trying to do my writing work as fast as possible so I can help Andy care for him this weekend, but the software system I’m using to submit the writing is so slow that I actually have time to create this blog post between the pages that are loading at a snail’s pace. Grrrrrrr.
Yesterday I drove to Syracuse and then Ithaca for my day job to train some newspaper peeps. On the way home I passed a town sign that made me laugh aloud, so I simply had to turn around, pull over, and take a picture of it.
If you don’t have my sense of humor, you’re going to ask why the hell I took this picture.
But if you “get it,” maybe you’ll laugh too.
God knows I needed a laugh.
Ok Amy… I laughed like crazy!!
You made remember a time when my son was doing something off the wall… (I can’t specifically recall what that might have been- but sometimes trying to get him to do something has been like trying to teach Ricochet Rabbit how to crochet!) Anyway, my partner caught me in the hall and with a straight face, and with exaggerated thoughtful earnestness he confessed: “You know… sometimes is almost seems like H has autism…”
We both completely cracked up. This was a new phase of acceptance for us, and also represented a change in our mental tone… (if one can have a mental tone??) Perhaps it was a sometimes lighter heart, or a way to see the funny in what is often disheartening, but we were drawn together as a team that day. The fact that we can still see and find humour lifts us, and whatever lifts us, in turn- lifts our child.
Humour may be the mortal enemy of stress. Irony may be the new prozac!!
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