The week in photos.  Jack and Charlie.

Bowling with Jack.

Pond on the walk yesterday.  No wind, it was lovely.

Dog walk at the Beaver Hills Biosphere.  Park of the trail was closed due to downed trees from the windstorm a few weeks ago.

Busy beavers at Beaver Hills Biosphere.  It always amazes me that they can do that just with their teeth.

The week is almost over and we survived:)  This morning I have an appeal hearing for Katie's AISH payments.  I hope the decision to reduce her funding is reversed.

Update.  I the hearing is next Friday.  Doh!

Me before Jack.  I'm not sad we have him at all, but life does change.

This week is fall break, something that did not exist when my children were little.  I had signed Jack up for a wilderness day camp for the week, and last week it was cancelled due to not enough children.  Of course it was too late to get into any other camps because they filled up in September.  Sigh.

Yesterday was pottery so I took him with me but that didn't work out great.  He was upset because he couldn't do what he wanted to do on his tablet, he was close to tears, so we left after an hour.  When we got home I took his temp and he had a low grade fever which would explain him getting upset so easily.  He spent most of the day quietly playing with his Lego while I cooked.  I made him caramel popcorn as a treat.  He wouldn't even try it. Sigh.  On the upside the caramel corn was very good, thanks Kate.

I tried to get him out for a walk with the dogs, but he didn't feel great still so I gave him tylenol and his fever went up.  WTF.  I let him play on the computer for an hour and I went outside and puttered in the garden.

Supper was a most delicious stew and after supper he perked right up and wanted me to play soccer with him in the backyard.  At this point I was exhausted and told him no so he was pissy but he went outside, set up his soccer nets and practiced his soccer skills.  He enjoyed himself out there and I watched him from the window as I sat in my chair, giving him thumbs up when he scored on empty nets:)

Today he's feeling better and I have a list of things we need to do, including an oil change.  It won't be an exciting day, but it will be an interesting day which will include dog walks.  Finger crossed.

 

 Miss Katie in 2015, before the permanent scars and the antipsychotics. 

Miss Katie from 2026, with permanent scars on her forehead and hands from self injury.

She's had a hard time of it.  We only got an autism diagnosis about seven years ago, I think Jack was a baby because I had to bring him to the appointment with me and he was still in his rear facing seating.  The doctor watched Katie and said to me, she's autistic.  Things have slowly clicked into place and I have a much better understanding of why she is the way she is.  Autism was not very well known thirty plus years ago.  

When she was little, 5-12ish, she loved tearing strips of paper.  I just got a printed out sheet of things to do to calm yourself from Jack's backpack yesterday and tearing strips of paper was one of the ways to calm yourself (kids learn about emotions and how to calm themselves in school now, it's wonderful).  It must have helped Katie and so we kept doing it.  She also loved me turning the pages of magazines.

Now I realize how often she was overstimulated and ended up having meltdowns.  The world was too much.  Too much noise, too many people, too much everything.  She was always better at home.  Even good things were too much.  She loved going to Special Olympics bowling and had a crush on one of the volunteers, which was okay, but she would get over excited and then tip over into crying, screaming, and trying to tip her wheelchair.  We had to stop going.

So much has happened over the years but at one point we ended up in emergency (I've been to emergency many, many times with her) and a wonderful psych. resident suggested we try valproic acid which is normally used for seizures, but it can also reduce anxiety, aggression, and behavioral outbursts.  It worked.  It was a turning point for Katie and things got better.

Then, about seven years ago, we ended up with her present psychiatrist and things got better again.  It's a balancing act but it mostly works.

I was on instagram yesterday morning and a young woman and her autistic brother came up on my feed.  She had written a poem about him and it reminded me so much of Katie.  He had scars on his face from self injury.  He was non verbal.  He also hurt those around him when he was stressed out (we all do that, don't we, just in different forms).  Anyway, I watched the video and listened to the poem and then cried hard.  I saw my daughter in this young man, Ewen is his name.  Katie wasn't the only one.  I know that intellectually but it's different to see it and to feel it.

For those of you with instagram, this is the young woman and her brother Ewen.

Ewen and Me

This is our coffee table.  There is a lot of demolition going on, taking things apart, and naming them.  I close my eyes and leave it there.

Jack woke me up at 3:43 yesterday morning when he crawled into bed with me.  He's sleeping in his own bed again now but sometimes he still crawls into bed with me.  At bedtime, one of us always lies down with him while he falls asleep.  I remember the first time I saw this, I was at my brother's house and he would  lay down with his son while the son fell asleep.  I thought it was ridiculous.  I no longer think this.

When did this become a thing?  I don't know but I wish to god that I had done it with my children.  I remember one of my children not being able to sleep and I locked myself in the bathroom while they pounded on the door.  Another time it was the bedroom door.  What they needed was me but I had nothing to give and I didn't know that laying down with them would help both of us.  

When my kids were little, co-sleeping was frowned upon.  Even dragging my babies into bed with me while I breastfed them made me feel guilty, but I still did it.  On Saturday mornings, all the kids would crawl into bed with us and I loved it.  A king sized bed would have been perfect, allowing, kids, babies, and parents more than enough room to rest and feel safe.  Nobody told me that.

I'm older now and I really don't give a fuck what people think about us.  Jack sleeps with us when he needs us.  I'm okay with that.

Halloween tableau courtesy of Jack.  There was a missing severed finger, but I found it under the table, as one does.

I miss taking photos, correction, I miss spending a day wandering around to take photos and I wonder if I'll ever have that again.  My husband plans on retiring in the next year.  Our plan was to buy a trailer and travel around the country with dogs and cameras.  It might not have happened, but now it can't happen and I feel sad about that.  It's one of the things I'm grieving right now.  I am tied once again to the school year for eleven more years.

I'm also grieving aging and the many losses that come with aging.  I have fallen so many times in the past year, it's become a joke, to myself at least.  My knees are now very unhappy, as opposed to being only somewhat unhappy.  Sitting down and standing up has become increasingly painful since I last landed on my knees.  Stairs hurt now.

My high blood pressure requires medication which leaves me exhausted by 3pm, when I need to pick up Jack.  I've started laying down sometimes for half an hour.  The only other time in my life that I ever did that was when I was pregnant with my girls.  I don't even fall asleep but I do find that laying still for 30 minutes does help and gives me the energy required to make it through to bedtime.

I don't like medications, ironic considering I was a nurse.  It makes me feel bad for all of the pills I gave to elderly patients, believing I was helping, or at least not harming them.

Enough moaning.  Things I'm thankful for.

-ADHD medications for Jack.  They make his days so much better.  He can concentrate and he gets in much less trouble.
-Friends to walk with, talk with, and make pottery with.
-Having frozen spaghetti sauce in the freezer for supper tonight.

-Dogs, for which I'm thankful for about two thirds of the time.  Charlie can still be a dick when I take him for a walk.

-Having a young child as a senior.  I'm much more involved in my community than I would have been without Jack.

-Zero fucks left for Jack's other family.  I'm done sugar coating things for them.

-The word fuck:)

-The smell of banana bread baking in the oven.

-The stew I made last night for supper was delicious.

-It's supposed to get up to 10C today and the ice has melted off the roads and sidewalks.

-Listening to Jack laugh.

-Hugs.

The black dog continues to shadow me but I know it will leave sooner or later.  How about sooner?

 

I went for a walk yesterday morning with Heidi, a friend, and her corgis Levi and Dougie.  It was good to get some fresh air, walk amongst the trees and visit with a friend.

The snow has stayed but I'm hoping it will melt next week.  I still have leaves that need to be relocated.  I'm still feeling down but husband and I had a long talk yesterday and it was good.

It's Halloween today, so yesterday after school Jack and I carved a pumpkin.  We both got irritated with each other at one point ( I wasn't fast enough and he wouldn't stop interrupting) but ended up with a decent Jack O'Lantern to be put on the steps later today when it warms up.  The snow persists.

Yesterday I met up with Kate from Stubblejumpers Cafe and we had lunch and then wandered the Enjoy Centre.  The Enjoy Centre is a cavernous space that was quite underwhelming as a greenhouse.  It's too bad because the old Hole's Greenhouse was so wonderful.  Oh well.

Kate and me, with a little help:)

I went to pottery yesterday morning and this was waiting for me.  It's a wonky gravy boat I decided.  It's the first thing I threw on a wheel and it's the only thing that turned out over two days of throwing.  I was trimming a bowl yesterday and the teacher came along and said, "The foot is too small."  It wasn't a criticism, it was an observation, but I started crying and couldn't stop crying.  I realized I was depressed which makes sense of why I started crying.  Strangely enough, I hate crying in public, even though I do it a fair bit.  I quietly cleaned up my stuff and left only half way into the class.  

I've been having a hard time getting things done.  Everything is too much.  It snowed last week and I started dreading winter already.  I'm dragging my ass through every single day.  Why am I depressed?  That took some thinking but there are a few reasons why I'm feeling depressed which I'm not going to get into right now.  Usually for me, it's enough to know why I'm feeling depressed and that helps to lift the depression, usually.  I'm hoping that does the trick again.

I'm off for a walk with a friend this morning and a couple of dogs, so that will help too.  Winter doesn't stop outdoor stuff, it just means I have to wrap up more.  Things will sort themselves out, as they always do.  This feeling, this crap, will pass.  It always does.