A day in the life.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

Alarm chirps off at 6:20am. I promise Peter I will only press snooze once (but actually end up pushing it three times), I squirm blindly through our sheets to find him, and wrap my arms and legs around him like I'm a koala and he is my hobbit shaped eucalyptus tree. Yum. I smother his forehead in dry kisses before promptly falling asleep again, most likely drooling across his face as I do so.

When I finally do tear myself out of bed, it is 6:40 and Peter is in the living room. I find a bowl of cereal on the kitchen counter next to my daily pills which are lined up like ducks in a row. I munch my breakfast, swallow my pills, and chew my gummy vitamins. I am an ADULT.

Beyond the feeding, watering, and bladder emptying necessities, my morning routine in its entirety is wash face, brush teeth, get dressed, and walk out the door. Today I select a yellow skirt and white blouse which Peter says make me look professional and "purdy." He lays on his stomach, chin in his hands and legs kicking the air each morning as I dress, and I feel comforted that I have someone available to help select an item if ever a need arises. We talk in baby voices complimenting each other and making puns about my bra, ("hehehehe Boobstrap Bill") because we are socially talented and mature individuals.

For my 50 minute commute to work I listen to a book on audio that I borrowed from the library. I do not threaten any of the slow drivers I slug behind even though they are all RUINING MY LIFE by their inability to read the speed limit. I do not pick up any hitchhikers. I arrive to work on time and unmurdered.

My client Stevie (a name I lovingly give him because he is blind and loves his toy piano) is being a champ today, and happily works through both OT and PT services. Six trips to the bathroom, one uneaten lunch, two shi-shi accidents, and three tantrums later it is now the final hour of school and we are to join the rest of the students in Art. This is always the most strange and difficult tasks to attempt to engage a blind 4 year old in. At the request of my classroom teacher I have wrestled Stevie into holding crayons, markers, and pencils and dragging them across pieces of paper so that he can colour with the other kids. If you ever feel that you are performing useless or futile tasks at your place of employment, just remember that 5 times a week I attempt to get a blind boy to colour in the lines.

Today for Art we are given play-doh to squeeze while the other kids colour, and while I am grateful for the activity which can actually be enjoyed by someone devoid of visual capability, Stevie does everything he can to lay down on the desk and sleep. Tough patootie, doody pants. We JUST had nap time, you know? That hour and a half period where you wriggled like a recently shed gecko's tail and tried to bite me when I held your hands to sign and say STOP? Now you will squeeze the doh and like it.
He doesn't like it.
The little boy who I watch M/W/F after school just got the Play-doh Cupcake Factory set and it is the most glorious and beloved of any Play-doh set I have ever encountered. I want my own. It's been officially added to my Rich List. This doh that I force into Stevie's unwilling fingers is not cupcake doh, but it is scented, and I resist the urge to taste it, an urge that I think it best I keep to myself, yet ironically I confess later to the internet regardless.

When I get home I crawl into bed and let Peter do the grocery shopping on his own because I'm selfish. I am grateful I have him now, because in the years after my voluntary exodus from my parents' I have had many panic attacks within the aisles of Foodland, because I evidently do not know what I have spent the last 18 years of my life eating.

Peter wakes me eagerly at 4:30 because it is time for us to watch Bachelor in Paradise. Together we sprawl across our bed eating white bread and Nutella whilst we enjoy and judge the life decisions of a group of adults acting like 13 year olds. It is brilliant, and we ritualistically criticize and pause and rewind so we can fully maximize our viewing experience. The contestants of lurrrve spew meaningless words like "connection" "right reasons" and give us such beautiful quotes as "You are literally killing me right now" and "you know that feeling you get when you get that feeling?" Majesty. I cannot believe Peter and I have a functional marriage even when we DIDN'T meet on national television.

Feeling greatly nourished by our feasting and laughing we venture on campus to attend a workshop of the Jesters Comedy Troupe, a club I cofounded with my friend Dax and forced Peter to be a part of because we were engaged and I needed a treasurer. Even though I have barely anything holding me to this group - hardly anyone knows us really, and usually the workshops function as giant inside jokes  which are loudly yelled while Peter and I sit and awkwardly watch, I am determined to not be wrenched from my baby (which I conceived with a man other than my husband. DRAMA!) thus I am here. Playing Fruit Ninja with my husband, but totally here in every other way. As I've been asked to perform this coming Friday (yay!) I go with the cast for an additional hour and play so hard I'm dripping in sweat, which, I assure you, is even sexier than it sounds.

The rest of the night doesn't exist to Peter or me, because we are now elderly married and asleep by 10:30 every night. YOLO. Our night ends almost exactly the same as it began; I snuggle into my husband, slobber on his face for a moment or two, until I feel his forehead is appropriately dampened by my saliva, and then we each turn away from the other and search for sleep to come take us.

I love all the children, because none of them came out of me.

I get pretty anxious around small children. "That can't be true!" You may be saying right now, chuckling to yourself, "you silly goose! You work in elementary schools. I bet you're quite the Maria Von Trapp, singing melodies and enchanting children like mice."
First of all, I must thank you, I dream to sing like Julie Andrews as well as be British and elegant as she, so your compliment is not lost on me, but you are, in fact, terribly misled. Children and I mix dismally.
Their tiny feet and sticky fingers are adorable to look at from far away and/or through strong sound proof glass, but up close and personal I get all sorts of anxious that I'm going to break their teeth or seriously scar their lil' bodies.
For church each Sunday Peter and I sit next to our BFFs Dan and Sarah who sit next to a couple with a year and a half old toddler. Every sacrament meeting this little girl wanders down the row interacting with all the adults in turn. Yesterday, it being Mother's Day and all, I decided I was going to have a solid interaction with this girl. The week before my attempt had been a feeble pat on the back as she passed. I accidentally tapped her harder than I expected and she wobbled a bit, but no casualties thus far. So, today I was ready. As she meandered down the row, she stopped to play with Sarah, then Dan, then surpassed me and Peter entirely to babble at the couple to our left. After she had waved and smiled at them nicely, I caught her attention by poking her lightly. In response she waddled over, grabbed the hem of my skirt, and lifted it up to look at my underwear. I swiftly pressed my skirt down into my lap to try and save some modesty, but she determinedly pulled and squatted lower on the floor to find a better viewpoint. All in all, another successful interaction with a child.
Children and underwear seem to be a running theme for scenarios in my life. This morning at work, while I sat on my Fisher-Price chair in the boy's bathroom, I heard I familiar voice say, "Hi!" and feel a tap on my back. As I turn to say, "Hello, Lucas," I'm met with my smiling friend standing with his little boy underwear up, but his pants down around his ankles. I wonder if we have an exhibitionist in the making.
Along with an exhibitionist we have quite the up and coming actor. My client, who I affectionally call Pinocchio due to the boneless way he seems to move his body, took a nap today. This is actually a pretty rare occurrence, but an exciting one. However, as most people are, he was grumpy when it came time for his nap to be over, and even more grumpy to start his after-nap sensory activity. This afternoon's activity was finger painting a paper bag that will, over the course of this week, turn into an octopus. The colour selected for him was red. I can't tell you how uncomfortable it is to try to encourage a screaming blind child to finger paint in red. While this task is normally an easy one, and one we do frequently, today he was crying like I had impaled him and doing anything he could to make sure that paint ended up everywhere but on his paper.

Thick, red liquid smeared and dripping across a crying, pathetic looking blind child, and a frustrated adult doesn't look so good, and I'm pretty sure the janitor we encountered in the bathroom afterwards was close to calling 911 over an assault case and/or attempted murder. Of course, it probably didn't help that my way of explaining the situation was, "he didn't want to do the sensory activity today."

I am grateful for all you mothers in the world. However, I am also truly grateful that I have not joined your ranks yet.   

Lucas, lover of butts.

I work in the Special Education section of an Elementary school.
Other schools I have worked in have terrible Sped departments, but this one is delightful. The staff are more than qualified, there's enough staff, and an abounding amount of resources for every child.

In a classroom that I do not work in there is a little boy with Downs Syndrome. His name is not Lucas, but I am going to call him Lucas.

Lucas is adorable. Seriously, the cutest little boy I have ever seen. All the kids in the school wear name tags and even if they didn't, I've seen Lucas around campus so many times that I know him pretty well. One day in passing he stopped in the hallway and said hello to me.

"Hello, Lucas!" I responded cheerfully.
Lucas stops in his tracks, staring at me, "You know my name." it isn't a question.
"Yup."
"What's your name?"
"Miss. Melly."

At this point the adult accompanying him in the hall reminds Lucas he has somewhere to be. Although he continues along on his journey, he keeps his eyes set on me as he walks past, somewhat like a very confused, but determined vulture.

Since this initial interaction, my meetings with Lucas have become more frequent and flavourful.

My client has a specific cubicle he uses in the bathroom. Partly this is due to the fact that my client is blind and we're working on routine and familiarity with surroundings. It has a little cubby which we keep spare clothes in as he's working on being potty trained. I sit on a Fisher Price sized chair at the door of the stall while he works on deciding whether or not he wants to go into the toilet, or just hold on long enough to get as far from the toilet as possible to mess his pants and then fuss as I try to change him. Now that we were friends, Lucas has made it a point to visit me at this chair anytime he enters the bathroom himself.

"Hello." he'll say, invariably, staring at me and my client.
"Hi, Lucas."
"Is he using the toilet?" he asks, pointing at my client on the toilet.
"Yup. Do you need to use the toilet?"
"No." At this point usually an adult calls into the bathroom to remind Lucas that he does indeed need to use the toilet and that he better hurry up and do it.

One day as I guided my client to his stall, I was surprised to find Lucas squatted on the toilet.

"Hi." he greets us.
"Oh, hi, Lucas" I say, surprised, because as far as I'm aware no other child uses this specific toilet, as it has been set aside for my client. This is not a difficult situation, however. I grab the cubby, and continue on to another stall.

That's when the sermon began.

Some of you may say that a four-year-old boy with Downs Syndrome giving a Born-Again Christian sermon from the toilet is an everyday occurrence, and if that's the case, I'm truly glad for you, because this was my first time hearing such a thing, and it was fantastic. Lucas, in his sweet little mildly lisped voice praised Jesus and harkened the world of sinners to repentance. I listened while trying to keep from chuckling, because I'm sure that would be considered unprofessional. According to my teacher, sermons and hymns are a pretty regular happening anytime sweet little Pastor Lucas has a BM. I almost want to feed him laxatives to hear more, but I'm sure that one is considered even more unprofessional than chuckling to some people. Some people, clearly, need to reconsider their priorities.

Today Lucas decided that our relationship had developed further and it was time for me to receive hugs. Specifically, butt hugs. To be fair, my butt is the highest part of my body that he can reach, however, why he wanted to attempt the hugs from behind, I'm not entirely sure. Regardless of my flawed logic, however, I was blessed to receive three butt hugs today, much to the amusement of my teacher who liked to say, "ooooh, better tell your husband!" after each one.

Just as I suspected, Peter had very little to say about a four year old getting frisky with my butt. For shame, I need to get a more actively jealous husband.