Perspective

I haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately. For me, that comes and goes. Figured I’d better sit down and try to write something, though, before the inertia becomes to strong for me to get going again.

I woke up in a bad mood yesterday. Just generally feeling really off, and the way the morning proceeded did nothing to convince me that it was going to get any better. Simon is always out of sorts in the middle of the winter, and it becomes a struggle for both of us just to manage the normal requirements of the day. On this particular morning he had also lost track of his school ID and a couple of assignments, and his binder for one class had come completely undone and out of order. He had also been up late working on some of the homework that he couldn’t find, and he hadn’t had much free time after putting off things that should have been handled on the weekend, so he was in a pretty foul mood. It was not a good start to his day, and I was too tired and frustrated to be particularly patient. I really hate sending him off to school like that, and I spent the whole day wondering when a phone call would come telling me that his school day had fallen apart, too.

After Simon leaves, I get Alvin up. He’s usually runs pretty much on automatic, so I was able to squeeze in a quick shower before getting him out the door. Theodore requires more attention, and there was some arguing involved in convincing him that this was not the best day to tell Mommy that morning chores were done when they actually weren’t. I got him to school, too, then headed home to regroup before starting on some errands.

When I arrived home I found my friend from a few doors down and her two youngest children at the foot of my driveway. She informed me that she’d misplaced her car keys and needed a ride to the school. She figured being so late she’d need to sign her daughter in, but I said my Theodore had gotten in OK and asked if she wanted for me to just take her daughter and give it a shot. At this point my friend disappeared from view at the side of my car, and I discovered she had fallen on the one patch of ice remaining at the foot of my driveway. She was sore, but nothing was broken. I offered to take her and her son to his doctor’s appointment, but she insisted it was within walking distance and that she wanted to walk. I got the daughter to school, then headed back to check and make sure she was still doing OK before going on with my day.

My own day started looking better to me right around this time. My friend has two of her four kids on the spectrum, and a third has an auditory processing disorder. Her husband had recently broken his wrist very badly falling on some ice on their own driveway and has had the first of two surgeries. She works weekends as a nurse to help support her family. And then she went and lost her car keys and fell in front of my house on her way to walk to an appointment. Yeah, my day wasn’t really all that bad. She called me later to say she found her car keys – in the ignition of her car and turned, so the car battery was dead. I couldn’t even offer her a jumpstart, because my own car has had to be jumpstarted almost every day in the past week – but at least the rest of the time mine was running. She had an AAA membership and got someone out to get her car going, so it all turned out fine.

I had another perspective-changing moment later in the day when Simon’s teacher consultant called. This woman is just about the most useful individual in my world right now and provides just the right official and unofficial support for my son in his school day. She actually listens to what I have to say and trusts my judgment, and she does a lot of the interacting with the parapro and teachers when things become difficult. She really seems to understand my kid and what he needs, and she’s always very positive and notices progress he’s making even in the midst of problems. Besides officially meeting with her twice a week, he eats lunch in her office every day and has a chance to decompress and and mentally sort through his day, which makes a huge difference for him.

The teacher consultant primarily called to address a question I had raised with regard to scheduling classes for next year, but we ended up discussing how much Simon seems to be struggling right now and how on top of things he had been for a little while previously. His pet dying really hasn’t helped, and neither have the snow days and school breaks and sick days that inadvertently took away his momentum. The good thing about the conversation was that I found myself pointing out just how much better Simon is doing that in previous years and how his off days now look better than his best days used to look not so long ago. She hasn’t had the opportunity to see this for herself, since she’s only known him for a few months, so I really appreciate her taking my views and my experience so seriously. We ended on a very positive note about hanging in there and appreciating all the positives and all helping where we can, and I became determined to be a force for good and optimism and appreciation for all my kids’ good qualities and accomplishments by the time they got home.

My whole attitude turned around. Truth be told, I haven’t been all that much fun for the past several days. I put a colorful welcome home sign on my door and a smile on my face and greeted each of my family members with genuine joy at their being with me. Nothing in the evening went much differently than usual in outward terms. We still had activities and homework to manage and conflicts arising, but I didn’t take it all so personally. I handled each thing as it came up, even including a 20-minute phone call (I hate the phone) discussing a potentially stressful situation at our elementary school . I made sure people’s needs were met, I was flexible and adapted where needed, and I even infused a little playfulness and humor into the evening despite some initial eye-rolling from my older children. It didn’t fix everything, but it really did help to keep things from spiralling out of control. And these days, for us, that’s about the best I hope to get.

It’s carried over into this morning. I got up late. Simon was moving in slow motion all through his morning, and the out of order binder from yesterday that will be graded soon is still out of order. Alvin was upset with me for making him do five-minutes-worth of morning chores after I woke him and he fell back asleep. I was out of Theodore’s favorite school snack and forgot to buy more the last time I was at the store. And I didn’t panic or get upset over any of it. And because I didn’t panic, neither did anybody else – at least not for more than a minute. I have to say, though, that I have real concerns about any group in which I am expected to be the calming influence. 🙂 I wonder how long this will last. For now, I intend to enjoy it while I can.