When you put it this way, it doesn’t sound very fun.

POSITION :
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION :

Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!

Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES :

  • The rest of your life.
  • Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5.
  • Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
  • Must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
  • Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.
  • Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
  • Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
  • Must be willing to be indispensable one minute and an embarrassment the next.
  • Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
  • Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
  • Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.
  • Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION :
None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :

None required, unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION :

Get this, you pay them!  Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more !

BENEFITS :

While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.

I am likely cursing myself but I’ll knock on wood and hope.

We’ve seen some really nice improvements with Monkey lately.  He’s becoming really vocal and attempting more and more to repeat words when asked.   He has also spontaneously used a couple of new words this week (water and Tigger.)  Typically, we will see the improvements weeks before the teacher and the assistants do but they’re hearing all the same words and sounds from him at school.  It’s nice that he’s comfortable enough to “show off” for them.

Another area of improvement is sleeping.  Out of the last 9 nights he has slept straight through for 6 or 7 of them.  He slept straight through 6 nights in a ROW at one point.  Bliss!  He’s still sleeping on the floor and we have eliminated the melatonin.  He’s getting about 10 hours of sleep each night now which is just so nice.  I’d love more but, after the awful stretches we’ve had, I’ll take what I can get!

I think we may have also turned a corner on the school drop offs but it’s a little soon to know for sure.  I thought that Friday might have been a fluke but he has done really well this week too. 

Monday morning we used a combination of tickles and M&Ms as rewards and he walked to within 6 feet of the classroom door fairly happily.  Once Duhdee removed his coat, Monkey skipped the water play and took Duhdee straight to the swing room where all the other kids were.  Once in the swing room he let go of Duhdee’s hand and ran and jumped into one of the large puffy cushions and promptly forgot all about us.  He was still rolling around on the cushion when we left.

Tuesday we repeated the tickles and M&Ms system and he reached the same location outside the classroom door before he refused to walk further.  He was a bit whiney as Duhdee was removing his coat but nothing too awful.  Duhdee set him up at the sink to do his morning water play and walked away.  The assistant who was going to take over was still engaged in another activity so we stayed to keep an eye on him but from a distance and he never looked for us.  Once she was clear to join him we left and he was still happily filling and emptying his cups and toys.

So, I suppose, if McWhinerpants comes along with all these really cool improvements, maybe he can stay a little while longer.

Whiny McWhinerpants has moved in.

I want my Monkey back!  Is the incessant whining thing a delayed 3 or is it 4 knocking on the door?

Monkey has never been a whiny kid but for the last few weeks he’s been sitting down on the floor and whining a lot and over nothing.  The worst (or best, I can’t decide) part is that when he does the whining it is accompanied by the most serious puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen, lol.  I laughed outright the first couple of times because it was so stinking cute but now I stiffle it.  I don’t want to scar him (or encourage him :))

So is 4 the whiny age or is 3 finally catching up to us?

Solo morning drop off, done!

Duhdee is snowmobiling in Maine this weekend.  Monkey and I dropped him off at the train station last night which means Umma got to do the morning drop-off solo.  To quote Great Grampy, “Ohhh, boy!”

Our morning drop-offs have been improving, it is true, but they’re still not what anyone would call fun.  It takes BOTH of us to get him in the door, down the ramp and to his classroom.  I walk ahead with bribes (M&Ms) and coax him to walk to me.  Duhdee walks with him and peels him off the floor whenever Monkey does his “Look Ma, no bones!” trick.

Once we are within 6 feet of the classroom door, Duhdee has to drag/carry him into the room.  He used to carry him ALL the way into the school but then Monkey started hitting Duhdee in the face trying to get put down (it was a brilliant delay tactic but we saw through it) so now he has to use his OWN feet and walk like a big boy.

You can imagine how excited I was about this morning.  How was I going to both walk ahead to coax him *AND* keep him on his feet?  I improvised.  I would aim him in the right direction and only get a few steps in front.  I promised M’s at all the normal spots.  It worked pretty well too!  He only flopped to the ground 3 times and the last time was when we were right outside the door like every morning.   So not too bad.

Once we were in the classroom one of his lovelies came to see him.  He sat on the floor and let me take his coat off with minimal fuss.  THEN instead of going to the sink for his morning bubble play he signed “Baby Fish” and pointed.  He wanted to show me the fish tank!  After we took a peek he went to the reading nook to visit with the HUGE stuffed bear and his friend joined him again for a bit of tickling.  I said good-bye as he grabbed his friends hand and brought it to his belly to ask for more, lol.

The teacher wanted to share a cute story as I walked out so I lingered just long enough to see his friend bring him by the hand to the “swing room” (the OT room which is connected to the classroom.)  They were redirected by one of the aides because it is NOT swing room day and they took off, hand in hand, to find something else to play.  Just so sweet.  He’s going to miss “his” girls next year.  They will be old enough to move up to Jr. K next fall and Monkey will most likely be staying in the same classroom for another year.  He may catch up to one or more of them again in Kindergarten but we have school choice options so they could end up anywhere in the city.  We’re not yet certain which school we will be requesting for Monkey.

Decluttering for the price of a stamp.

Duhdee and I have been flooded with arts and craft projects since Monkey started pre-school last September. 

He’d never had the interest or the attention span before to really work on anything with us or his therapists but now that he’s in a classroom he’s discovered his inner artiste.  He’s also discovered a muse…or rather muses (what can I say he’s a ladies man.)  The result is that we are now bringing home tons of paintings, drawings and pasting projects. 

We pick our favorites and toss the rest but we still have TONS of art projects.  What to do?  I finally had a brainstorm.  We live over an hour from both sets of Monkey’s grandparents and what better way to share him with them than sharing his creative endeavors?   They certainly seem to appreciate it and I appreciate seeing the top of my dining room table, lol.

We still have a ton of projects, we brought home another 7 or 8 this morning.  I think perhaps I need to expand my mailing list.  Anyone want an original piece by Monkey?  Only the joint project with one of his muses is off limits.  I think her love note to him written across the top makes this one memory box worthy…as soon as I find out which of the lovelies wrote it.  I’ve narrowed it down to 3, lol.

Monkey had a substitute.

After school Duhdee learned that Monkey’s teacher left during the day for an appointment and a substitute was called in.  A man. 

Now, Monkey is very attached to his Duhdee but he has very little use for other men.  In fact, he has very little use for anyone who isn’t female and a brunette.  He knows what he likes and he has a way of letting you, and anyone within earshot, know if he doesn’t like you much.

So here we have an unexpected change in routine (teacher leaving) and a strange man added to the mix and you have a recipe for….

An awesome day?  He didn’t actively try to escape from the classroom and the stranger’s presence, he didn’t just tolerate the poor guy’s existance (which is generally the best case scenario in my experience)…he PLAYED with him.  He sat on the floor with this strange man and engaged him.  Color me thouroughly confused. 

This boy really likes to keep us completely off balance, I guess, because I can’t think of any other man he’s done this with other than Duhdee in almost 4 years of life.  What happened?

We got snow!

Seriously, living in New England I shouldn’t act so surprised but in the Boston metro area we don’t get very many big storms.  I think this is only our 2nd or 3rd this winter.  Usually, we just get a dusting or nasty rain/snow/sleet mixes.

Duhdee (with a little prompting from Umma) built a small hill in the backyard for Monkey to go sledding on.  It was quite a hit.  I know you can’t really see his face very well…call me paranoid…but I think you can see how excited he was, lol.

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Sleeping on the floor update.

It hasn’t been a cure-all but maybe an improvement.

Out of the 6 nights that Monkey has slept on the floor he has slept through the night 3 times. The other 3 nights he woke up 5 times, 3 times and 2 times. The night he woke up 5 times was really the only bad night. He was basically up from 3:30 AM to 6:30 AM when I gave up on putting him back to bed. The other two nights he woke up thirsty and went back to sleep quickly after he found his cup of water and we likely wouldn’t have known he’d woken up if he had been able to find his cup easily.

In the 3 weeks prior to his new sleeping arrangements he slept through 0 times, 3 times, 1 time. He had 6 really bad nights (3+ wake ups). 3 of those really bad nights occured during the week he didn’t sleep through at all. That was an awful week for everyone!

So I guess it looks promising but is not at all conclusive. We’ll just keep on plugging and hopefully good nights start to become habit for him. Please?

Sleeping on the floor…

In anticipation of a visit at the FX clinic in early March, we’ve been keeping a sleep chart for Monkey for the last month. We’ve been experiencing MONTHS of repeated wake ups with him (3-7 times each night) and finally decided we need some help. We’ve done everything all our “experts” can tell us to no avail. He falls asleep easily but cannot stay asleep. Sometimes he will go back to sleep after he wakes up but other times he’s up for HOURS. It’s exhausting.

A couple days ago, however, he seemed to want to sleep on the floor. Now, he’s always been one to slowly slip out of bed at night but we usually put him back in bed and he continues to sleep without waking. This time he actively wanted to sleep on the floor. So I gathered his blankets and pillow and let him. He slept for 7 straight hours!

We’ve been trying to put him in his bed each night since he seems to need to fall asleep there initially but at his first wake up he’s pretty insistent on sleeping on the floor. I have to say, he is sleeping MUCH better (never more than 2 wake ups so far and no staying up) but I do feel a bit guilty about it. A bed seems so much cozier but I guess I just have to let him lead on this. I’ve heard that it’s related to sensory issues but I’m not sure if that’s really true or not. I’d probably feel better if he’d keep his covers on but he usually loses them and this drafty, old house gets a bit chilly at night…especially on the floor.