Erika's Blog

You know what stinks about being a hypochondriac?

So, I have my first canker sore. Not really knowing what it is or how to treat it or if I should go to the doctor, I do what we all do and googled.

And even though I try to stick to the webmd's out there, and not the ask.com's...I'm still somewhat convinced my tongue is about to fall off and throat cancer is imminent. Not logically. Not really. But enough that I'm going to go sit on the couch with the back of my hand pressed against my forehead in woe.

A non-hypochondriac truth: canker sores. They hurt.

I *still* got more done today than in any other given day in 2011, including making dinner (and not a frozen pizza, either - rosemary tuscany turkey over linguine with a yogurt-lemon sauce!) even with my health calamity.

Well, firstly, our Kai is walking! Actually...he's been sort of walking for a few weeks now. A few steps here, a few steps there - but he's been missing that drive to walk, that "I'm going to stand up and then launch out into the world on my own two feet" motivation. It's been more like "eh, walk walk, whatever, crawl".
But today. Today he's been practicing like he's in training for the Toddler-walking event in the London Olympics. Pull up, walk, fall, crawl back, pull up, walk, etc. He's gotten up to 10 steps in a row, so I declare this milestone REACHED. Ta-da.

And our Isaac has math homework. He's doing the same math as the rest of his mainstream class, and they have a big 100 days project. For the 100th day of school (Wed, Feb 15th, in case you're wondering), he has to present a display of 100 items, grouped by 10s.
Well. Isaac is certainly capable of understanding groupings of 10s, and counting to 100, and all that. In fact, he's been there for a while (did I mention he's a bit ahead of his class in math? It's strange for us since he's behind in absolutely everything else...).
But he does NOT care about displays and arts and crafts and all that jazz. So guess who's going to be making this on Tuesday evening, Feb 14th?
Except I don't want to. It seems so false and not how I roll. I don't do my kids homework. I help, I support, I buy posterboard, I make sure they stay on task...but I don't do it. Or at least, I don't plan to. This is kind of my first homework experience.
So we'll see how it goes. I'm sure I could plead autism here, but when the goal is for your kid to participate in the mainstream work...well, you shouldn't then try to get special treatment once you get there, I think. Meh.

I taught my last class in Ridgefield yesterday morning, and it feels surprisingly great. I've been very up and productive and relaxed these past few days. Heck with parachutes, losing these classes from my schedule has been like wings for me.
Irony: until tonight, my schedule did not in fact *change*. I always taught Tues AM and then Wed PM - had all that free time in between...but for some reason, these days have felt much nicer.

I woke up this morning feeling like this:



I'd like to end by bragging on Andrew, which he isn't going to like being all shy and introverted, but I can't help it. Yesterday we were chatting by IM while he was at work, and he typed "I'm sad and proud". I asked why, and he said "sad we couldn't make a go of these classes, but am proud of how you are handling it."

We. He said "we couldn't make a go..."
He has never been anything but supportive and amazing with anything I've ever wanted to do, including teaching Jazzercise at times leaving him alone with babies during fussy evening time, or for 16 hours straight while I traveled to Jazzercise events. He's built me stages and never questioned that teaching was important to me and listened to me brainstorm out loud about classes or promotions or the hot yoga teacher who was bugging me next door (hot yoga, not a hot teacher...anyway...).
How lucky am I?

So Kai just looked at some foam blocks we have...

...and stacked three. Just for fun. No prompting. Like it was no big deal.

It's a big deal. I pity parents who don't know what a big deal it is, because they take it all for granted. It's a really big deal.