Saying Thank You
Last night, my little man was in a play. In front of all his classmates. In front of all their parents. And then he read his poetry. And stole the show by hamming up the telling. His impish grin spread through the crowd as everyone felt his delight in being on stage.
My boy. My Alec, who, not so long ago would not have wanted to sit in that room much less be center stage. How did we get here? I'm not entirely sure. He has worked so very, very hard. Every day he works at doing all the little things we take for granted, like sitting next to someone, saying hello to the people greeting him in the hallway, and settling his body to do the task before him. Each step of the way, Alec has had the most amazing team by his side. This morning, the magnitude of just how far he has come hit me and I had to let his teacher know .
I had to say thank you.
Dear Alec's teacher:
I am still doing a happy dance over last night!! Wow! He has grown SOOOOO much these past 2 years. The difference takes my breath away.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for EVERYTHING.
For the way you care for him.
For the way you connect with him.
For the way you get his jokes and tease him with your own.
For the way you approach his quirks in that no-big-deal-so-what way.
For the way you make his accommodations part of the norm, not something that sets him apart.
For the way you push him to reach his potential and never hide behind excuses.
For the way you give him a bear hug when it's clear he needs it, and make him stand on his own when you know he can.
For the way you've helped me see when I need to stand back and let him fly.
I will be forever grateful for these past two years. I'm not really sure how to tell you just what a difference you've made in our life. If you're lucky, you get a great teacher at some point in your school career that makes an impact on the rest of your life. For me, that person came in high school. Alec got his in first and second grade. I hope he lucks out and gets more, but at least you've started him on the right path and we know what is possible.
Chesley
This journey of ours isn't easy, but sometimes it is incredibly beautiful because of the people we meet and help us on our way. I am filled with gratitude. I wish I could show it by stopping the school budget cuts, or seeing that the staff has the salaries they deserve, but I can say thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
Brunswick Needs to Step Up
(Editorial note: After further study of the proposed budget, it became clear that the total debt service is actually a shocking $3,040,923, of which the $560,397 represents only the amount previously subsidized by the State. Appropriate edits have been made below to reflect this data. A version of this post is being submitted to the Brunswick Times Record as a letter to the editor.)
If you live in Brunswick, you are likely aware of the passionate debate swirling around the 2011-2012 proposed school budget. Facing a $3 million shortfall and tasked with developing a budget that includes no tax increase, the superintendent's office has proposed closing the gap by "mothballing" Jordan Acres Elementary School and eliminating over 32 employee positions. While I have strong opinions on the effects of such drastic programming and staffing cuts, my focus is on one of the most glaring line items in the proposed budget found on page 2: $3,040,923 in debt service, an increase of $1,287,291 from the previous year.
From my understanding, the debt service primarily reflects payment due on the loans incurred by the Town to build the High School and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School. State aid in the amount of $560,397 towards the debt service paid in previous years is over, and it is now up to the town to pay its bills. However, rather than directly paying our debt, we are taking the $3,040,923 due from the operating budget of the school. As a result, a difficult budget year has been made tragic. As a town we are contemplating closing an entire school, opening Stowe at or above capacity, laying off talented teachers and staff, and eliminating vital educational programs, all rather than face our responsibility of paying for what we, as a town, agreed to buy.
As a town, the adults of voting age collectively agreed to assume a significant amount of debt in order to build these two new schools. Whether you agree with those decisions, is no longer the question. The schools are here; the debt is on the books. Now that the debt has come due, we, those same adults that decided to buy the schools, are balking at paying for them ourselves through our taxes and instead are laying it squarely on the backs of the town's children. And not in some far-off, hypothetical, 20-years-from-now-when-they-have-incomes-of-their-own, way, but immediately. Starting in September, if the grown-ups in the town chose to not pay for what they decided to buy, the children will pay every single day.
I don't want to pay higher taxes anymore than the next citizen. Our family will certainly feel the pinch of higher taxes. This past year, we transitioned from a two income household to one income so that one parent could focus on caring for our child with special needs. However painful the extra tax may be, I still recognize that, as the adults, it is our responsibility to pay the bill for the new schools. I see the situation akin to my considering paying for the costly repairs our family is now facing to our roof due to ice and snow damage by hawking my 11 year old's trumpet, chemistry set, and sports equipment, and my 8 year old's physical therapy aides and his beloved set of Harry Potter books. Such an action would most surely call into question my parenting judgement, and yet, as a town, this is exactly what we are contemplating doing.
The Town of Brunswick is about to teach its children a very important lesson. The question is, which lesson will we choose? Will we show that you must take responsibility for your decisions and pay for the debts you incur? Or will we teach them that you do what is most comfortable for you at that moment without regard to the impact your actions will have on others? The adults of the town must take the debt burden off the shoulders of our children and pay our bills - yes, through increased taxes - because it is the right thing to do.
The Simple Things Can Be Hard Too
I have a cold. One of those monsters that makes your teeth hurt, eyes burn, and sinuses take on a life of their own. It also makes for a tired and cranky mommy, who since Peter, the master of nighttime ceremonies around here, is out of town, must nonetheless must dig deep, put on a smile and get the boys to sleep.
Alec, as youngest, is first. While he settles into bed, and I help arrange the covers, I explain that I shouldn't get too close because I have a cold and don't want to get him sick too.
"I want to be sick!" he declares.
Why would you want to be sick? Being sick is no fun.
"I. DON'T. WANT. TO. GO. TO. SCHOOL!!" he yells into the dark.
This is a common refrain at bedtime. Prepping for sleep is the signal that a new day is on the horizon. A new day to handle all the demands of the outside world. Nighttime brings on worries of managing that day. He struggles. His mind spins. Each night we sit with him. Lately, we sit until he is asleep. That seems to be the only way to quiet the worries enough to allow sleep to come. Tonight a simple thing like my cold took the anxiety of the whole process up 10 notches.
I crawl into bed next to him and try to keep a small, germ-free zone between us. He drapes a blanket across my back. The plan, he says, is to charge it up with germs so he can get sick too. Ok, I'm not breathing on the blanket, I think, he should be fine. I'll let him think he's getting my germs. Maybe that will help him settle.
He quiets down a bit. My nose is running like crazy, so I risk leaving before he's asleep. I tell him I need to go now, but I will check on him later. "Ok," he says.
Relief. Maybe it will work this time. Maybe he will fall asleep on his own!
No such luck. I hear mumbles from his room. More declarations that he will never go to school again. That he WILL get sick too.
*Sigh*
I go to sit at the computer in the area outside his room, hoping for that silence that means he's finally asleep. I'm surfing the web, sniffling, and impatiently tapping my foot, when Connor comes up to me, "Mommy, I think that can wait till tomorrow." (I'm scanning FB) What? I say, distractedly. "That doesn't look crucial to me and you need to go to bed. It can wait." All this he says with the calm wisdom of someone much, much, older.
Wow. Here's my 11year old seeing it all and trying to take care of me. I want to cry for my little one whose brain won't let him relax and sleep, and my big one who has grown up so fast and sees so much because of this autism that entered our world.
I thank Connor for being so sweet and send him off to bed, assuring him that as soon as Alec is asleep, I will head to bed myself.
That's when I hear crying from Alec's room. He's gone from wanting my germs, to panic that maybe he actually got them and is sick.
"I don't want to be sick!"
Oh, honey, you aren't sick. And if you get sick, I'll take such good care of you. It's only a simple cold. It will be gone in a day or two. It's ok.
He starts drilling me on symptoms. Do you have a fever? Does your tummy hurt?
No, no, I assure him. It's just a simple cold. It will go away soon. It's ok.
But, I know it isn't simple for him. A little thing like my cold has gotten twisted up in his anxiety over sleeping and the coming of a new day. I want to help. I want to make it all go away. But, I'm tired and cranky. I'm not on top of my game tonight. Now, 2 hours into the bedtime ordeal, I'm desperate. "Alec, please go to sleep, " I plead.
"I'm trying. It's hard." he whispers.
"I know, baby."
I know.
Homeschooling - Ready, set, um... how do I do this?
(Note on recent blog neglect: Yeah. I kinda let that cancer story stop. In all honesty, the retelling brought up too much stuff that I wasn't ready to relive. Perhaps another day.)
In the months since my last post, The Life has shifted yet again and another adventure has started. We are now homeschooling Connor! This is honestly something I never imagined I would tackle, but that's life, isn't it? New directions you'd never thought you'd take, but the situation leaves you little choice.
We've been struggling with Connor's education for awhile. He is a smart little bugger and has been desperately bored by the traditional offerings at school. Heck, I've been desperately bored by the stuff I've seen coming home with him every day. That isn't to say that he hasn't had amazing teachers and lessons here and there, but those flashes of brilliance haven't been enough to keep him going. So, we jumped, and now I'm a homeschooling mama. The only trouble is, I've never done this before, and it quickly became apparent that I have a lot to learn.
Monday was the start date and I spent the weekend drawing up lesson plans, pouring over the school district's curriculum, and his textbooks, trying to puzzle out what we needed to cover and how I would present the material. Little did I know that Connor would be teaching me!
Monday was a crazy since the roof sprung a very dramatic leak and literally buckets of water came pouring through the ceiling.
Tuesday then became the first real day of homeschooling. I came up with the idea that we would do current events in the morning and focus on the uprisings in the Middle East. What better way to work on Geography, Politics, Economics, etc... , right? Exactly.
I printed off maps of the region and had him start by getting out his school atlas and labeling all the countries and their capitals.
HUGE EYE ROLL.
MAJOR SIGH.
And I hear him mutter...
"This is just like school. Only worse, because my friends aren't here."
I sat there a moment just staring at him, stunned. Stunned, not because he was being rude or negative, but stunned because he was so completely right. Who of us can honestly say that we would try to learn about a region by pulling out a blank map and making ourselves fill in all the missing place names? It's absurd. Not only would you not remember any of it, you too would curse the pointlessness of the busywork.
I grabbed the map out of his hands and told him to follow me to the computer. We pulled up the Aljazerra English website to see what was happening right then. First article to attract Connor's interest? One with a map detailing who currently controlled the major cities in Libya and which ones were the focus of battles between the rebels and Gaddafi's forces.
Connor's reaction? "Now, that's an interesting map!"
New plan. I got my blank maps back out and suggested we track the action in a similar way. Connor decided to color code the cities with push pins. Every couple of days we'll update our map based on events in Libya.
While we were at it, Connor thought we should track the uprisings in the rest of the region. Now we had a REAL reason to label that map. Another coding system - yellow for rumblings of unrest, red for outright rebellion, and green for Egypt where the president was ousted.
For now, the textbooks, worksheets, and lesson plans have been packed away. As Connor said to me, this whole homeschooling thing is supposed to "be different." I can't take the same formula used in school and expect a different result just because we're at home. Instead, I have to focus on this amazing kid who loves learning but hates school. I have to help him dive right in and explore without sucking the life out of it.
I'm learning.
Biopsy and the Phone Call No One Wants to Get
Before I get back to my story, I want to let everyone know that I will be at the Brunswick Making Strides event, this Sunday, October 17, on the town mall with the Knitted Knockers Program! A million thanks to the American Cancer Society for welcoming our program to this event. I'll have a table with lots of knitted boobies available for survivors. We'll also have information for those who want to pass the word along to someone they know who has lost a breast to this disease.
(What is the Knitted Knockers Program, you ask? Information and patterns are here.)
Ok, back to our story.
Memory tells me that my biopsy was on a Tuesday morning. I took the day off from work and headed over to the hospital. Since my lump was so small -less than a centimeter - and very close to the surface, the surgeon decided to remove the whole thing rather than just a sample. Honestly, I don't think it took more than 15 minutes. I was only a little sore, nothing that Advil couldn't handle and I worked the remainder of the day from home.
Wednesday, May 15th, I also worked from home, which turned out to be a very good thing. At that time, Peter was telecommuting for a company based in Virginia. He was the one to answer the phone that day.
By this time, we both had convinced ourselves that everything was completely fine and the surgeon would tell us everything checked out and we could get back to normal. That's why Peter handed me the phone when he discovered it was the doctor and then disappeared upstairs to work rather than waiting around to hear the results.
I actually don't remember much of that phone call beyond, "I'm very sorry," and "invasive ductal carcinoma."
It all didn't process right away. Sort of like it stayed at the front of my brain, alerting me to the right questions to ask, motions to perform, but not allowing the rest of me in on what was taking place. I grabbed the closest piece of paper and started frantically writing down what he was saying. "Invasive ductal carcinoma." "Appt. tomorrow am."
This was when Peter came down the stairs to find out why I was still on the phone. After all, it doesn't take that long to hear that you are fine.
He kinda motioned to me the universal, 'hey, what's going on?"
I couldn't talk to him as the surgeon was still saying things about cancer and appointments in my ear. Instead, I took that random paper - which was actually one of those huge white envelopes that bring mail I never read - and I scrawled across the back "CANCER." I flashed it to Peter and turned away. I couldn't look at him. ( I still have that envelope somewhere.)
After hanging up with the surgeon, Peter started asking questions. Of course he was asking questions. He wanted to know what the hell was happening. But, I couldn't, just couldn't talk to him. If I talked to Peter, it would all become real. So, instead, I gave him my notes from the surgeon and started frantically calling people with the news. For some reason it felt like as long as I was on the phone, telling other people the news, I didn't have to face it myself.
I called my mom first, and it was the most bizarre call of them all. She literally couldn't hear or understand what I was saying. Just like mine, her brain was refusing to process the big C word. Repeatedly I had to say, "Mom, I have cancer. It is cancer."
"What?" she would say. "No, you don't."
Back and forth we went until it sunk in that I was not pulling her leg. That this was for real.
Next up was my dad, and he was at work. It really sucked to call him at work with news like that, especially since he wasn't at his desk and I had to leave a message saying call me. He ended up calling mom first to ask what was up, and she couldn't tell him. He called me. We talked, and his coworkers sent him home.
Ok - that really sucked, telling my parents. As a mom myself, I can't imagine hearing that one of my children has cancer. I would rather have it a million times over than to watch one of my babies deal with it.
Of course, I was a mom at that time, too. How do you tell your child that their mommy has cancer? How do you tell them when they are only 2 about to turn 3?
(Enough for today. To be continued ... )
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