The Perfect Saturday Morning

 

Do you remember when you were in your early twenties . . . maybe in your first apartment. It was Saturday morning, in the fall. The windows are open, because the weather outside is so nice, and the sound of rain seeps in through the curtains that billow ever so slightly overhead. And you can just lay there, quietly, maybe go back to sleep, maybe get a book to read, but just sit there and be still and quiet and enjoy the sound and feel of the air. Even better is when you were in high school, and it was your turn to mow that Saturday and waking up to the sound of rain means that mowing isn’t an option today. At which point, you roll over, burrow down into your covers and head right back to sleep – BECAUSE YOU CAN.

I almost had one of those moments this morning. I woke up, in the wrong bed (I was in Elijah’s room) facing the wrong way – my head was at the foot of the bed, turned the wrong way (facing the wall where the covers from the top bunk come down so I was staring at Dinosaur print) – and I awoke to the pitter patter of for little paws jumping on my back as Elijah, my oldest son, crept into the bed – which then squeaked loudly in protest (which is just something that it does). Radley soon joined the puppy fray, acting as if he was so excited that someone was up and could take him outside. And that’s when I heard it, the soft sound of rain rustling through the trees in the front yard. Yes! Jose would not be able to mow! I would not be stuck inside with the boys all morning while he mowed, and all afternoon as he’d decided to work overtime this evening. My morning was FREE! At which point, I immediately got up to pee, because I’m old and if you don’t hit the bathroom right away, you might pee in your pants – and once in the bathroom, I had to brush my teeth because – it was morning and the funk was too great, at which point I was too awake to go back and lie down to sleep – so I went to get Isaiah out of the bed so that Jose could sleep – since he works 2nd shift it’s only fair to give him a few extra minutes on Saturday. Of course, as soon as I sat down here, the boys immediately went back to the bedroom and crawled back into bed to watch television – creating their own rainy Saturday morning memories – while Jose grumpily got up, shuffled over to Elijah’s room and shut the door. I’m quite certain his blog would be quite different than mine. 

The Worst Feeling

 

The Worst Feeling

Some of you know that I’ve been a bit concerned about Isaiah and his general lack of desire to be a true member of my family. By that I mean that he’s not really interested in chatting. And if you know anyone in my family, you know that talking is second nature to us all. I know what you’re thinking. Jose’s not much of a chatter though. And those of you who mistakenly have that idea let me just say you have never seen Jose sit on the phone for 2 hours talking to his sister or brother about god only knows what. It’s enough to make you jealous if you were the jealous type.

Anyway, we looked around and found out about First Steps a program that provides free evaluations and cheap intervention for kids aged 0 to 3 years. So, I signed Isaiah up. And today, I got a copy of his evaluation report. And let me just say that I don’t much care for reading those reports. Although I wanted Isaiah to qualify for services. And although I feel that he really needs to receive speech/language therapy there is nothing relieving in reading a report that says your child has a moderate to severe delay in anything. I found myself arguing with parts of the report. “Sure Isaiah does that.” And “of course he doesn’t know his body parts, we haven’t even bothered to teach them.” It’s a bad parent moment all written up and presented double-spaced and most likely in triplicate.

Needless to say that Isaiah qualified for services. And my mental conversation is that it’s just as well that they scored him so low (notice that he didn’t score lowly surely it’s the evaluator’s fault that she wasn’t able to see everything that he could do…sigh) because now he’ll just look like a child genius when they reevaluate in 6 months. The bright side of the report is that he is smart – his cognitive abilities were fine. He just apparently doesn’t understand anything you say or feel compelled to let you know what he wants or thinks. And further more, I don’t think the fact that he’s not scared to jump off the table into Jose’s lap (a game we play all the time) means that he doesn’t understand what danger is. The evaluator has never seen him walk very carefully on the wet kitchen floor so that he doesn’t fall down and bust is butt, but good. It’s a lesson that he learned pretty early. Tell me my child doesn’t know what danger is… shoot! Nor has she seen Isaiah physically put your hand on his sippy cup and then do a Lassie impersonation (running to the door and looking back while sticking his hand out toward the kitchen) to get me off my fat butt and get him something to drink. What do they know!

The good news is he qualifies for services at only $20 per month – so hopefully whatever is wrong will be taken care of by the time he gets to kindergarten. I’d sure like to have several proud parent moments with my youngest son as well. 

Proud Parent Moments

  

There are several types of proud parent moments. My favorite proud parent moments are when your child does something, on their own, without knowing that you are looking at them – and it’s the right thing.

If Elijah stops and picks up his toys and puts them away before going outside or doing something else. I am always amazed and happy. It’s not in his nature (or mine which is probably the problem) to do such a thing and if he does. Well I’m just proud.

It’s also the same as watching Isaiah practicing blowing his nose on his shirt (or paper towel; or putting stuff in the trash can (stuff that’s supposed to be there).

And then there are the proud parent recognition moments. I had one of those yesterday. In the morning, I wait with Elijah to catch the bus. I usually start to walk away before the bus gets there. Usually in the morning, I tease Elijah and ask him if he wants me to give him a kiss in front of everyone on the bus – which is a big NO! Though he still likes the hugs – so we settle.

Anyway, as I was walking back to the school, letting Elijah hover on the curb and look cool in his grown up aloneness. All of the sudden, I heard the bus horn. I glanced back and saw the bus driver (a little old lady who looks like she should be making cookies in a kitchen instead of driving a bus) beckoning me.

“I just wanted to tell you what a delightful young man Elijah is.” She said. And per my accepting a compliment for my children training, I said “why thank you.” “He’s just a good boy.”

I was quite pleased. It is so nice to have someone tell you that your son is a good child.

Of course, then I began to ponder my own childhood dilemma. The fact that adults always seemed to like me while I had a hard time making friends my own age. Isn’t it odd how parents worry that children will have the problems that they had growing up. I never had many friends my own age until I became an adult. I wouldn’t wish that middle school or high school experience on anyone. I wouldn’t want Elijah to not have many friends when he is younger. Of course fate doesn’t actually work that way. What will happen is that he’ll have a whole bunch of different problems that don’t have anything to do with my own issues. Although, let me say that if my child comes home and starts talking about other people the way those teenagers on Laguna Beach talk about their classmates, he’s going to have a hard row to hoe at his house – because I just won’t have it. Mostly because I was always the weird person being talked about.