long days

Lucy had a meltdown this morning because I wouldn't let her put her boogers in my nose. "I just want to put them in your nose," she sobbed. "To keep them safe."

The behaviorist lady told me to pick my battles. I felt this was a battle worth fighting. However, I still lost.

After much hemming and hawing and back and forth with our school district and long household debates about whether it was the right choice, L started a program for at our local public school for autistic kids. It's four days a week, for two hours a day. Not knowing what to tell her about it, I ended up telling her she was starting a new Afternoon School. She had gone to Afternoon School at her old preschool, so the concept was familiar.

On the first day, she marched in the door, looked around, and announced: "Hi, I'm L and this is my New Afternoon School." All the teachers swooned at her cuteness, which made me feel better about the place (appealing to my vanity about my children is always extremely effective.) I stuck around for a while to make sure she felt comfortable, and to make sure she didn't get lost in the shuffle of such a big program.

She was friendly and conversed with all the teachers. When each kid was introduced to her she would say, "Good name." The teachers kept asking me what she knew and didn't know, and I heard them murmering to each other about how smart she seemed. It wasn't clear to me that she belonged there at all.

L has sensory issues -- among other things, she is extremely sensitive to some noises, and will immediately plug her ears when she hears a baby or child crying near her. Obviously, this can present some problems in places like preschool. At her old school, sometimes the teachers would have to gently, but physically pry her fingers from her ears to get her attention.

When I arrived to pick her up from New Afternoon School one day this week, the teacher told me that one of the other children in the class had started crying near L and she reacted by immediately plugging her ears. The teacher took L and a little boy named Danny who also has sensory issues outside to get a break from the crying.

After she calmed down, L noticed that Danny had also been plugging his ears. "He's like me!" L told the teacher. I think this story was the best piece of news I had ever been delivered at preschool pickup time. I could only imagine what the moment felt like for her -- I imagine her thinking, "Finally! Someone who understands how fucking annoying a bunch of screaming kids is!"

Maybe she belongs there more than I had thought.

You little stinker.

I think we finally learned how to vacation.

Our last family trip was so exhausting and emotionally draining, it took weeks to recover and was ultimately the catalyst we needed to get L professionally evaluated. It was that bad. It wasn't all her fault, it just turns out that back to back to back theme parks and a condo next to train tracks not only don't make for a relaxing trip, they can actually make you certifiably nuts (I have the paperwork to prove it.)

This time, we aimed a bit lower. No Shamu, no Legoland. Just beach and pool. We either ate at our condo or at the pool side restaurant that served shave ice and grilled cheese sandwiches. Not that we didn't learn the hard way. After two days of no napping and one disasterous road trip to the North Shore of Oahu, it finally penetrated our thick skulls that it would be better for the mental and physical welfare of our family if we didn't step back into out rented minivan unless it was for the drive back to the airport. So we didn't. We walked to and from the beach, and across the driveway to the pool. The little disasters, like back to back poop-in-pool incidents, seemed somehow manageable. Maybe because we weren't expending all our spare energy wrestling with a preschooler delirious from no napping and giddy with the newfound freedom that is a non-five-point harness booster seat. Or maybe it's because we were often drunk on mai tais.

TJ turned one on the flight home, and celebrated by pooping twice on the flight and kicking the (obnoxious New Yorker in the) seat in front of her the whole way home. After five hours of flying, an hour of waiting for our luggage, and another half an hour waiting for the tow truck to jumpstart our dead battery in the long term parking lot, she got In-N-Out french fries for her birthday dinner at midnight in her own high chair. Welcome to single digit-hood, and welcome home.