School

Oldest Son is once again having major problems with homework.  He has IEP accommodations  and I don't think they are all being met.  The special ed teacher doesn't seem very concerned.  I've formally requested an IEP team meeting.  Either his goals need to be changed, or the supports for achieving them need to be changed, because he's not meeting them.

Love

I was talking to MomC last night.  We were discussing all the issues we're running into the Middle Son and the bathroom.  If you leave toilet paper out, he flushes the entire roll down the toilet.  If you don't leave it out, he wipes his rear end with towels.  If there are no towels, he just uses his fingers.  I have a fingernail brush that I use on him several times a day to get poop out from under his nails.

As we were talking, MomC said "wow, your fiancee must REALLY love you if she's willing to come live in the midst of all this."

Taxes

I met with my accountant this morning.  In addition to my 2012 taxes, we had to go over 2011 materials again.  The IRS has asked me to "provide verification" of my medical and alimony expenses in 2011.  I spent a big chunk of my weekend getting all the papers together.

I had a stack about 5 inches tall that weighed 4.3 pounds.  Most of it was Explanation of Benefits forms.  I had itemized deductions in 2011 of about half my salary.  The bulk was medical expenses for Middle Son.  Most of the rest was alimony.

Catching My Breath

I was listening to the new Kelly Clarkson song "Catching My Breath", and was struck by the chorus:

Catching my breath, letting it go,
Turning my cheek for the sake of the show
Now that you know, this is my life,
I won't be told what's supposed to be right

It reminds me a bit of my relationship with MomC.  I spending a lot of time letting it go when I deal with her.

And I turn my cheek a lot, although for the sake of the boys rather than the sake of the show.

 

 

Doctor

I took Middle Son to the doctor this afternoon.  He's going to an Easter Seals weekend respite camp in a couple of weeks, and I needed to have a doctor fill out the medical form.  The examination wasn't too bad.  We didn't get a blood pressure, but we didn't try too hard.

He needed a tetanus booster.  That was hard.  The doctor went out, and came back with four nurses to help.  I managed to get Middle to lie down on the exam table.  But he rolled away from us, and with the struggle we couldn't get a clear line-up for the needle.  Then he got up.  We almost got him pinned up against the door.  Then we all took a break.  He sat down in a chair up against the wall.  I sat down on top of him and pinned him into the chair.  Then I got him in a headlock.  Two people held his arm, and the third nurse was able to give him the injection.

After that was all done, I asked for a prescription for Valium for the next time I cut his hair.  Last time, Middle, my helper, and I all had bruises and there was a hole in the wall by the time we were done.

When I asked the neurologist for that a couple of months ago, he refused.  The pediatrician gave me the prescription.

Metropolis

Youngest Son told me that he wants to move to Metropolis so that he might have a chance to meet a real Superhero.

Stories

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned something about Middle Son in an email thread at work.  The thread revolved around a problem that had come up and taken longer to resolve than seemed appropriate/reasonable.  One of my colleagues come up with a timeline showing that we had multiple pieces of information pointing to the problem, but no one was actively monitoring them.  Someone responded with a Russian folk saying--"seven babysitters have a child with one eye."

I responded by telling them about a trip I took with Middle a couple of years ago.  He and I went to visit my relatives in Austin over Thanksgiving.  I was worried about him wandering off when the adults were talking among themselves.  I made up a badge that said "I'm watching Middle" in big black letters.  The entire time we were in Austin, someone was wearing that badge.  That way there was never any question about who was keeping track of him.

Several days latter, I was talking with my colleague again about the problem.  We had made some tweaks to the notification system so that these kinds of failures would be called out specifically to the people running the project.  My colleague said that he wanted to make sure that he was watching Middle.  I startled a bit.  He said that my story had really hit home for him.

I got a kick out of that.  I told him about the talk that I'd been to, and the woman who had said sharing our stories is an important part of coping with the demands of parenting special-needs children.  And now he was sharing my story.