Whatcha want to be when you grow up, Jonah?
I don’t know.
Do you want to be the president?
Nah.
Why not?
Because I couldn’t live with you anymore.
We could live in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House with you.
No, they wouldn’t let you stay with me, because of Ian’s screaming.
We crammed a lot into Saturday, probably too much for any little kid, but especially too much for an almost 4 year old with faulty wiring.
Started off at 11:00am for swim classes at the Y, which despite one earlier incident, has really been a wonderful place for the kids. I love the whole family vibe there. Most of the other parents are fairly normal looking; the handbag patrol with their nails and hair don’t show up there. I’m sucker for the whole strong bodies/strong minds motto. And they are very accepting of kids with disabilities. Loved seeing the kid with CP in the pool, and the kid with Downs in Ian’s swim group.
After that, Jonah needed a haircut, so we drove 40 minutes to the Nanuet mall for the $10 haircut. The Nanuet mall is sort of the Levittown of malls. It was one of the first to go up, but is unable to compete with the newer, bigger mall. Half the stores are empty, and the other half are lame — a Spencers and sports poster shop.
Had lunch there and then went over to the newer, shinier mall in order to go to Target. Spent twenty minutes looking for a parking place. Got a new phone with caller ID and some thingies for the kid’s Easter basket.
Now it’s 4:00. A full 5 hours out. Pulling kids here and there. Telling them to stand there. Walk there. Don’t touch that. My kids need some quiet time after all that stimulation. Especially Ian. All the orders and being grabbed and flashing lights and not being able to talk just fries his wiring. But we had to do to one more thing. We had to buy him his first big boy bike for his birthday.
We wanted it to be a big deal. We wanted the experience of picking out his bike to be part of present. It’s hard to know what he’s really taking in, because he can’t say anything, so you just have to assume that it’s all getting tucked away and when he talks, he’ll be able to tell us what a great time he had.
We should have made that the first chore of the day, instead of the last. We walked into the shop and Ian lost his mind. He started touching all the expensive bikes and playing with the pedals and running around wildly. “Don’t touch, Ian!” Ian screamed “NOOOOOOOT.” The men dropped their wrenches and stopped truing the tires. Ian was scooped up and hauled out of the store. He bawled his eyes out on the curb. We eventually settled him down and bought the bike, but without ceremony or smiles.
Sunday was Palm Sunday, which always makes me smile because it reminds me of my old aunties and grandma who, like all good Italians, loved church days where you got free things, even it was just ashes and palms. Grandma always tried to find ways to score an extra palm from church. These same aunties and grandma would never leave a restaurant without a purse full of dinner rolls.
Just came back from a lovely pasta dinner at my mother’s. The kids were stripped down, so as to not dirty their white clothes. Naked kids at the kiddie table are one of my favorite things. Everyone remarked how well Ian did, because our crazy family dinners always used to send him into screaming fits of stress and frustration.
Ian’s screams haven’t quite left us. Those sharp NOTs still punctuate our lives, and we cringe every time. It’s getting better as his speech slowly improves, and he learns how manage his stress. Still, we won’t be getting invited to the White House anytime soon.
This week on 11D, I wanted to do some venting about the war or talk about 2008 election, but then Steve sent me a link to this and I guess that this same idea is being batted elsewhere in the blogosphere, so I will probably respond. At my mom’s, everyone was talking about this article on men and housecleaning. And some other really important stuff, like my new filing system.
Apt. 11d 