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Archive for the ‘autism’ Category

speech leaper

Posted in autism, Uncategorized, tagged on June 19, 2011| 4 Comments »

I have Father’s Day things to say but they’re too fresh in my mind and the writer in me can’t string them all together just yet.  So I’ll go back to yesterday, when D and I took Jonah to the falls and he got to walk around in the water for the first time this year.  He’d said “bye bye D” a few times on the ride there, but we’d thought nothing of it because he’s always saying bye-bye to the passenger…bye-bye daddy…bye-bye-M…

But on the ride home he said, and I quote:  “bye-bye mama…and D, too!”

It was the first time I’d ever heard him use the word “too” like that – or complete a sentence with any kind of qualifier.  D and I looked at each other in shock, laughing and exclaiming over this new speech-leap.  It was pretty cool.  Joy prevailed!

All this over your 9 year old boy speaking something that’s not just a piece of a phrase.  He used the word “too” in a sentence.  He’s learning, my precious little boo — slowly, and in spite of whatever it is that’s making him violent, but he’s learning, damnit.

You never dream this could ever be your life, and then it is, and then you can’t dream it not being your life.

You don’t know what to dream.  Every day is a circle of hope and exhaustion, anxiety and happy surprises…laughter and sudden lapses back to despair.  There is only now, to celebrate or suffer.

Yesterday D and I celebrated together, and Jonah chimed in grinning ear-to-ear from the back seat: Is so funny!  is so funny!

Yes, my boo, it sure is.

Right now, anyway.

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no fun day for you!

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, placement, tagged , , on June 14, 2011| 3 Comments »

Today’s the day the Anderson Center for Autism is coming to Wildwood to evaluate and observe Jonah.  In a few days or so we should know (a) whether they’ll take him and (b) when they’ll take him.  Then, maybe, we’ll have three residential schools from which to choose. 

Today is also “fun day” at Wildwood, but Andy has to pick him up as soon as the Anderson people leave because Jonah’s not allowed to participate in the fun day activites; he’s too violent.

While I understand their decision, it upsets me that my little boo can’t enjoy whatever the other kids get to participate in…plus it makes Andy’s unpredictable day with Jonah that much longer.  The irony is that Jonah had a very good day yesterday at school, with barely an aggression to speak of.

No fun day for you!

The blessing is that Jonah likely won’t care.  A car ride, a bath, grandma, and some peanut butter roll will, perhaps, suit him just fine.  I hope.

But it makes me sad all the same.

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folks, the record’s skipping

Posted in autism, behavior, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 11, 2011| 7 Comments »

So it’s Thursday June 9th and I’m on a next-day deadline to submit my monthly column in the Capital District Parent Pages (though I’ve had a whole month to write it).

I’m sitting there thinking how strange it is that I write a column about a boy with autism who has become so violent we are planning to take him to live in a residential facility, and how the column is smack dab in the middle of a magazine featuring witty anecdotal tales of family life, articles about events, pages filled with fun places to take the kids, seasonal recipes, ideas for birthdays, and other parenting goings-on.  Sometimes I wonder why they even let me write the column.  I’m the bummer of the issue.  Hands-down.

And I’m thinking I don’t want to be the bummer of the issue this time (for the July issue).  So I sit there, and I sit there, but I don’t know what to write.

I haven’t even written here for a week.  How many times, after all, can you say the same thing with only the slightest of variations before you start to sound like a broken record?

It hits me that I could look backward, and so I write about times when he was a baby.

The words come quickly – it doesn’t take me long to finish.  They’re easier words because they are about the short span of time in which I had the same parenting experience everyone else had, more or less.

It’s not that Jonah has autism.   It would be fine, really, if only he didn’t get so enraged so quickly – become so unimaginably angry, so inexplicably aggressive.  Sometimes I feel as if I have done nothing for 41 years except bring a child into the world who is hell-bent on hurting others.  I almost can’t stand it.  I don’t want to stand it.  I want to stamp my feet like a small child and scream.

When I lean in to kiss him, more often then not I get scratched or grabbed by his whole hand on my face.

Einstein supposedly said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.   Some think he himself had some form of autism, but whatever the case, I still will lean in for the kiss.  It’s not that I’m expecting a different result.  It’s that I need a different result – and if I can get his sweet little kiss one time out of five, it is worth the other times.  I just want to be his mommy.

I don’t know my son anymore at all.  I don’t know why he hurts me (or Andy, or his teachers, or anyone).  I don’t know how Andy is staying afloat.  I don’t know how one or both of us is not back in Four Winds.  I’m no good at this.  I’m weak, depressed, and always, always afraid.  And there we go, folks, the record’s skipping – – you’ve heard it all – heard it all – heard it all before.

And so you see there is very little I can say these days.  I apologize if you have tried to reach me and I don’t write/call back, or you invite me somewhere and I say I can’t go.  It’s not like I have a great excuse except I just don’t want to talk about anything to anyone right now.  And I’m sorry for it.

I am not strong enough to leave it all behind me whenever life calls for socially acceptable behavior.  I know so many strong, determined, one-day-at-a-time parents in worse situations who operate on such a higher wavelength than me – who don’t bitch, or complain, or let on to anyone that there is anything amiss at all.

That’s not me.  I never was the sturdy one.  I’m the cry-baby.  I’m the one who crumbles.

And thus concludes today’s whimpering.

—

“Dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes
Right in tune with the dark side of the moon.
Someone, someone could tell me where I belong;
Be calm, be brave, it’ll be okay…”

~Guster, Come Downstairs & Say Hello

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making a liar out of me

Posted in autism, behavior, singing, singing, Uncategorized, tagged , on June 5, 2011| 4 Comments »

My cousin D, her manpiece R, and I all took Jonah for a while late this afternoon – and Jonah was 90% fine.  I mean to tell you he was play-on-the-playground, leave-the-other-children-alone, sing-and-smile, cute-chattery fine.

Jonah’s made a liar out of me, especially since R’s seen Jonah only three or four times now and Jonah’s been pretty calm every time, directly contradicting almost everything I write here.  I’m more than happy to be this kind of liar.

I love happy Jonah.  I adore when he is gleeful and silly and playful, even though it’s rare and impossible to predict.  I’m grateful for today’s glimpse of the boy I know is in there – our sweet, beautiful boy.

Thanks, D & R.  You brought out the best in my day – and Jonah’s too.

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our days in the whale

Posted in autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, The Center for Discovery, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , on June 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

This is the part of the story where Jonah falls overboard and is swallowed by the whale.

There isn’t much to say except that it has gotten worse, and worse again, and worse some more – today sucked blah blah blah and I’m so sad blah blah blah.  I don’t know how anyone can stand to read this blog anymore at all.

Jonah’s almost guaranteed to attempt to seriously hurt his father, me, anyone around him – not once, but several times a day, wreaking a path of destruction behind him – lampshades crumbled, Andy’s now duct-taped fan knocked over, eyeglasses scratched, coffeemaker smashed & broken, dinner swept off the table to spray-bomb the kitchen in one swipe:

`

On the pictured occasion Andy had called me for help.  “I can’t leave him for two seconds,” he told me.

So I came over and cleaned the kitchen (after taking this picture).  I picked up the obviously just-delivered rice, chicken, sauces, and dumplings, wet-swiffered the floor, and vacuumed the landing rug/steps… my heart pounding, my mind processing the scene, adding all these details to the new normal, a new ramped-up constancy of Jonah’s violent aggressing.

After I had cleaned, we sat together on Jonah’s floor for a few minutes while Jonah sat on his bed, having been banished there after the kitchen scene.  I asked Andy if he wanted me to go get him more food.  “No,” he replied flatly. “I ate.”  (which I knew was likely a lie).

“They’ll help him at whatever place he goes to,” I told Andy quietly.  “He’s going to get better.”

“You think so?” he asked wearily.  “I think he’s just broken,” he mumbled, lowering his head into his scratched-up hands, running his scratched-up hands through his rumpled hair.  Andy sits with his head in his hands a lot.   I’m usually in tears.

During some car rides the three of us have taken since then, Jonah’s managed to escape his harness in seconds, throwing himself up into the front seat to grab a handful of hair, scratching, hitting, and kicking whatever body part of ours he can reach.  Luckily we are usually already pulled over waiting for train, or I have been able to pull over quickly so Andy (or M, when he and I are the ones driving him) can climb in the back and hold down a fiercely struggling Jonah who is head-butting hard, kicking hard, hitting hard.  Scratching to wound, to make you bleed.  No holds barred.  No empathy.

It is more frightening than anything I’ve ever encountered because I have no idea how to fix it, how to help him, how to pull us all up and out of this.  No wonder I watch Match Game and bead necklaces when I am not watching Jonah.  I need mindless 70s television, ritualistic bead-stringing, care-package construction, and Guster-blasting.  Andy is writing, which is good.  At least there is a fantastical creative outlet for him too, though I’m sure he squeezes it in in two-minute intervals if Jonah is home.

At school there are days when Jonah aggresses and then, as encore, smears his poop on the safe room wall – and he often aggresses 9-10 a day (each of which consists of an episode of a dozen or so of clustered individual attacks, they tell us).

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating that we are really, really grateful for Wildwood, whose teachers, social workers, and other staff have continued without fail to support our family and somehow manage Jonah day after day, week after month.  I am grateful for Andy, who is somehow handling this thing.  The title of my blog may be normal is a dryer setting, but our dryer’s in serious fucking disrepair. 

We want Jonah to get the help he needs, and as soon as possible.  Later this month we’re taking him to Child’s Hospital in Boston (somehow), and we’re going to once again ask his psychiatrist for a new med to try.  The psychiatrist is retiring this month, so maybe we’ll get a new one who’s fresh out of school and fired up to help us.  If not, I’m going doctor-shopping.

I’m refocusing my thoughts and actions in an unusual but positive way, because it’s all I can do to keep it together.  But most of time I’m tired and bitchy.  I haven’t felt much like writing, or talking to anyone, or going anywhere, or doing anything at all.

I guess these are our days inside the whale.

“Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy table.”
~ Jonah 2:4

That sounds to me like I know I’m completely in the dark, but I’m going to hope anyway.

“Love and blessings
Simple kindness
Fell like rain on thirsty land
Fields and gardens
Long abandoned
Came to life in dust and sand”

~Paul Simon, Love & Blessings from So Beautiful or So What

Okay, then.   Hope anyway.

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empty red wagon

Posted in autism, behavior, grandma, placement, swimming, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 30, 2011| 2 Comments »

This all starts Thursday night and I suppose could make up a very long entry.  I don’t know what’s going to happen yet in the writing of it, but the living of it has stretched out miles in every direction.

This is Jack, M’s 90lb. 2 year-old dog (American Bulldog + maybe some mutt) named after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood dog:

Jack loves to pose, statue straight, like in this picture.  He’s a sweetheart of a dog, curious and full of life, trying to jump up for a chance to lick you.  But he’s also all-muscle strong, and when I took him for a walk Thursday evening and he saw a squirrel, he launched himself forward full-speed; I held tight to his leash and was dragged up and off my feet like a fish on a line, landing with a hard smash on the side of my head, complete with skinned, bloody knees and a stunned shock that left me just lying there.  Jack came running back to lick my face, and I managed to get us both inside so I could lay down to rest.

As the night went on, I just tossed around in bed, my head hurting more and more.  I got up twice to throw up.  By morning there was no question of trying to get to work and by 10am I couldn’t take the pain and puking anymore.  M came and brought me to the ER where I was given an IV-cocktail of anti-nausea meds,  morphine, and whatever they mean when they say “liquids.”   The morphine was magic, whisking the pain away like a cool liquid eraser.  A few hours later they released me with bandaged knees, a negative CAT scan, a prescription for Loritab, a bill for $100, and instructions telling me I had a concussion and should rest for the next couple days.  I didn’t need convincing.  Woozy and weak, I gladly climbed back into bed.

But I knew this would be a long and difficult weekend for Andy, what with Jonah once again aggressing so much that it’s an abnormality when he’s not hitting the window in the car, Houdini-ing himself out of whatever harness he’s in, knocking over the lamp, the fan, the end table, toys, a glass – whatever is in his path – and running at you to kick, bite, scratch, and swat.

His preferred method of getting me is by reaching out lightning-fast (usually when I am putting him in his car seat) to grab my face in one hand, his fingers splayed like a starfish, each nail digging into my skin and scratching hard unless/until I can get away.  Let’s just say my reflexes are growing faster.

I felt well enough by mid-Sunday afternoon to watch Jonah some.  About an hour before I’d arranged to pick him up, Andy called me.  “Can you help me?” he asked, Jonah wailing and screaming in the background.

“Just go get his wagon from the park,”  he told me when I asked what I could do.  So I drove to the house, parked in the driveway, and walked up the street until I got to the little park behind the school.  And there, on the grass next to a green fire hydrant, was the little red metal wagon my mom had gotten him for his first birthday.  I stood for a moment and just stared at it, picturing Jonah flipping out, imagining how Andy managed to get him home, and wondering how many neighbors are witnessing exactly what kind of freakish folk we are.

If I’d had my camera on me I would’ve taken a picture of the empty red wagon.  It felt strange to take its black handle in my hand and drag it back onto the pavement, along to the corner, and down the hill of the street to the driveway with no passenger, a racket of rattling and banging announcing further craziness abounds! – a metaphor for everything I am, and do, and feel lately.

How were the visits yesterday and today with Jonah, M, and me?  I think if you read my blog much, you know.  It was difficult.  Our options are limited.  But we did go to grandma’s twice and he did have some good times too, like here on the slip-and-slide she’d laid out on the lawn…

…but even when happy he asks to go on to the next thing – car ride?  swim pool?  daddy?  train? swim pool?   I’d give a lot to have a pool, our own pool, where we wouldn’t be yelled at if he jumped or ran, where there were no other little kids for him to hurt, where he could swim his little heart out.  But there is no such magic pool.  My friend H even invited us to her pool, but she has a 3-year old so that wouldn’t work.  And we’ve been told that, because of his behaviors, he can’t attend the normal summer camp program; for the first time he has to stay back at school with other kids who, for one reason or another, can’t go to camp.  And guess what they have up at the beautiful Altamont camp?  A big huge pool.  SIGH.

M and I try to devise different things to do with Jonah – an empty park to take him to, a new car ride route, a walk in the woods, the SUNY fountains maybe?  We don’t know.  After 3 and a half hours or so, I am gladly bringing him home to daddy.

Once again I pause to wonder at Andy’s mental and physical fortitude; his courage, determination, and patience.

He is stronger than I – always has been – and I am grateful he is the one caring for our precious, out-of-control, enigmatic puzzle of a son.  Please God get us placement for him somewhere soon – even as it rips at me – I feel like we’re losing him and they can bring him back.  I’m counting on it.

I’ll be not-unhappy to go back to work tomorrow, skinned knees and all.

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hard times

Posted in autism, behavior, tagged on May 26, 2011| 4 Comments »

“When the rains came, the tears burned, windows rattled, locks turned
It’s easy to be generous when you’re on a roll
It’s hard to be grateful when you’re out of control
And love is gone

The light at the edge of the curtain
Is the quiet dawn;
The bedroom breathes
In clicks and clacks
Uneasy heartbeat, can’t relax…”

~ Paul Simon, who says it all for me today.

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something fishy

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, The Center for Discovery, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2011| 6 Comments »

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I decided to order some Fish Oil chewables for Jonah (100mg a day).  I’d read some articles like this one saying most people don’t eat enough omega-3 fatty oils anyway, and there may be some basis to the theory that the Fish Oil supplements may alleviate symptoms of autism: (from http://autism.healingthresholds.com/)

Some scientists have proposed that autism, dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyspraxia are a related group of neurodevelopmental disorders that are caused by problems in the metabolism of EFAs (3, 12, 13). The idea is that, for unknown reasons, the brains and bodies of individuals with autism and related disorders have problems converting the EFAs from foods into the forms that are necessary for many biochemical reactions (7). In addition, omega-3 fatty acids seem to be lower in individuals with autism than in others (9, 14).

Both of the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA have been found to affect many aspects brain function (1, 3). Specifically, changing the amount of DHA and EPA in the diet alters the amounts of certain critical genes in the brain, at least in rats (15). In addition, one study found that giving animals a diet with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 EFAs of about 1:4 improved experimental measures of cognition in the animals (1). Finally, mood and behavior problems in humans have been linked to a lack of omega-3 EFAs in the diet.

So I figured 100mg a day is innocuous enough (esp. since the kids in the studies cited were given 1-3 grams a day) and may even help his growing brain a little, and so he’s been chewing one daily along with the Risperdal ever since.

Then, on Monday and Tuesday, miracle of miracles, Jonah had zero aggressions at school.  This hasn’t happened in months – maybe a year.  I’ve lost count.  Of course I hear the words of doc Reider echoing in my head:

“Correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation,” and I know intellectually that 100mg of Fish Oil chewables for 3 weeks has not caused this two-day no-aggression anomaly, but the mother in me couldn’t help but hope, just a little, that I’d hit on something.

Then, on Wednesday, I went to Jonah’s CSE meeting at Wildwood.  I always hear stories from autism moms online whose CSE meeting experiences play out like horror stories, where parents feel ganged up on and must advocate, fight, hell, even hire an attorney to be present – to ensure their child gets the appropriate supports and services.

Maybe our experience was not like this because Jonah is undoubtedly autistic – it isn’t as if he is on any kind of borderline between autism and neurotypical (NT) – and now he is so obviously in need of residential educational placement.  Maybe we’re lucky to have such an enlightened team of teachers and special education school district administrators.  For whatever the reason, I don’t dread the meetings and have never come out of one feeling like Jonah wasn’t given every possible support, service, and consideration.

One thing I learned is we need to keep Jonah on the waiting lists of all the schools, so I called both Anderson and Tradewinds and asked them to put him back on their lists.  I guess I was wrong about the fact that you can’t keep your child on all the lists.

The thing is, November is a long way off, with 3 weeks of time at the end of August and beginning of September between the summer program and school starting up again.  Tradewinds or Anderson could have a spot before that 3-week hell descends upon Andy and me (especially Andy), and since we liked all 3 schools, we decided to take the first spot that has an opening.

I think.

Once again, my time line is gone.  Shit, I didn’t like having it, anyway.

At any rate, the folks from The Anderson School are thankfully willing to come and observe/evaluate Jonah in his school environment, and it’s going to happen on June 14th which is, among other things,

  • Boy George‘s birthday
  • my Aunt P’s birthday (I call her Tree-Shee)
  • Flag Day
  • and the day I found out I was pregnant with Jonah

Not that any of that necessarily means anything, but I still like that it’s happening on June 14th.  And so far as my Fish Oil theory is concerned, Jonah did only have one aggression both yesterday and today, but they were each “very high intensity” according to the dreaded log book, meaning they are aggressions requiring two or three staff members to remove him from the classroom and into the “safe room.”

The residential schools don’t have safe rooms.  They have the staff and capability to handle whatever is happening right then and there, ostensibly.  I don’t know.  One even toilet trains the kids immediately.  It’s all done with ABA, something I was never really on board with, but now of course I question my original stance.  All the residential schools we’ve toured use it.  It works.  All the kids looked happy, the staff dedicated and engaged.  I’m not looking for Jonah to be Einstein or Temple Grandin;  I just want him to be happy, as independent as possible, and able to learn and grow.

My problem with ABA was formulated in 2006, when Jonah was 4.   I think it was born from the hope/assumption that Jonah was going to end up higher functioning by now than he turned out to be (and certainly not aggressive at all).   I thought, if taught through ABA, he’d just be a robot…trained to act, speak, and look normal.  It seemed horrifying to me.  Something Orwellian.  But I had the confidence of a woman whose child, though autistic, was at the very least not a danger to himself or others.  He’d had every modern advantage a child with autism can get.

After all, doc Reider had noticed something was up with Jonah when he was just 6 or 8 weeks old:  our boy was staring at lights, not faces.   (In our infinite ignorance, Andy and I had already nicknamed him “Moth Boy.”)

So we stayed on top of the situation, got him early intervention before he was 19 months old, and enrolled in Wildwood School full-time just before his third birthday.  We thought we were doing the right thing.  If we had got on board with full-time ABA all along, would he be better than he is today?  I don’t know.  Who knows anything when it comes to autism?

If you’ve met one kid with autism, you’ve met one kid with autism.

It’s a puzzle inside a mystery inside an enigma inside a matrix of love, pain, frustration, guilt, helplessness and anger; amazement and joy.  You take wrong turns and make mistakes.  You come to question everything.

Autism is the agnosticism of impairments;

you have to be okay with “I don’t know.”

And so we sally forth.  Andy’s sick with something…the flu?  Walking pneumonia?  He managed to work today.  And I’m tired.  Lots of meetings today, a ton to do at work.

Time for Match Game.

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please & thank you

Posted in autism, placement, Springbrook, Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| 5 Comments »

My only remaining prayers are please and thank you.

I don’t know what else to pray.  I don’t know what else to say.  I want to stay in a place of gratitude.  Jonah was a good boy for M and me when we took him today; he enjoyed car ride in the rain, and we took a few very cool grey-skied foggy droplet pictures:

a dozen or so goslings with their mom and dad…

we’re not sure why the rooster crossed the road

the woods were like dream visions.

We even risked the wrath of Jonah to turn around and zoom in on the great blue heron.  You don’t see those every day.

The truth is I’m just trying to keep it together.  I’m phone-shy and out-in-public shy.  I don’t much want to talk to anyone, even people I love.  I like silence, and listening to Guster and my new Paul Simon CD.  At work I listen to classical music all day.  I eat sporadically and my sleep is full of dreams.  I’m reading, but slowly, a chapter at a time.  Practically the only thing I can stand to watch on TV is Match Game, with Charles Nelson Riley’s campy 70’s antics.

Oh, and I write some, and make endless bead necklaces.  I used to complain I have ‘no countdown’ with Jonah and the residential schools; I hated that I didn’t know when Jonah would have to go away.   Well now I know, and now I complain about that.  Can I stop fucking complaining?

May, June, July, August, September, October, November…

This time next year I will be, in a lot of ways, no longer playing a mother-role.   It’s not like some of the other families, who turn a great deal more attention to their other kids.  There are no other kids.  I am relieved and aggrieved by this, just as everything I feel or say or think or do feels paradoxical these days.

I will not be bathing my son, helping him put on his shoes & coat, holding him, riding him to see train or red barn or grandma.  Andy will not be putting him on or off the bus, giving him wagon rides, making sure he eats healthily enough, has his teeth brushed, and is kissed goodnight.

Jonah will not be bruising, kicking, scratching, hitting, biting us, or grabbing & mangling our glasses and faces anymore.  He will be in others’ care.  Experts’ care.  He will learn and grow and get better.

I guess I will probably see my son once a week for a few hours.  Will he know I am his mama?

Will he know I will always be his mama?

It’s as much of a mind-trip as it is the only thing left to do.  It’s time to try to begin to attempt to absorb it all.  I don’t want to.  I don’t want to.  I can’t.  I have to.  I’d rather they take him next week, or never.  It’s too long to wait.  It’s not long enough.  Please don’t take him.  Please take him.

Please, please love him.

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this is how it feels to have a broken heart

Posted in Anderson School, autism, Springbrook, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2011| 6 Comments »

Springbrook called the day after we toured The Anderson Center for Autism and told me they were going to accept Jonah, in one of their brand new residences, most likely in November.  We took the placement; you can’t just stay on all the lists until the first placement comes up, so I had to call Tradewinds and The Anderson School and tell them to take Jonah off their lists.

Now it’s real, and I am a wreck.  I have researched and taken notes and gone into a state of mind where it is all objective – it was simply a project – albeit a difficult project – on which to work very hard.

Now the project is over and I am back in the subjective and it is real.

It is real and I have a countdown; it feels like the doomsday clock is ticking and I feel very very dangerously, frighteningly, frustratingly, ridiculously close to the day I admitted myself into Four Winds.

Somehow I have been shocked back into reality, where all this is really happening.  I really did fuck up my marriage and I really will give my son away soon and I really do feel like I do not belong in this world.

I have taken extra meds and I’ve got to be able to keep my shit together and get a lot done today.  I am thankful it is Friday so I can crawl home and cry when this day is over.  Jonah had 8 hard-core aggressions at school yesterday; it is not a matter of whether we are doing the right thing but rather how to actually do it.  My father has not seen Jonah since the day before Thanksgiving and it is because he is afraid of his grandson.

And now, suddenly, I have this near-constant tinny ringing in my ears and vertigo.  When I reach for something I miss it by an inch.  When I try to pour something I spill it.  I am spelling all my words wrong and have to go back and edit this over and over.  

I have a strange sense of not even being in my body. 

“We’ve colored in the lines and followed all the signs;
Fought a war till the war was over…
Said you’d never be the kind with an ordinary life –
Now this how it feels to have a broken heart

Look at the mess we made
Now we stopped and we say what we always say
And then you make the great escape

With every year you’ll come to regret it…“

~Guster

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