Jack is watching u-tube on the T.V., some monster truck thing. Fiona is watching a unicorn video on my i-phone. This is the second time I have let my kids, Fiona being the only one so far, watch u-tube on my phone. The reason this happened was because yesterday I downloaded Care Bear ASL for Fiona. She loved it until she went on u-tube and found a dress up unicorn thing. Super annoying. She likes it though. Today was difficult in kid land. Jack said he was tired and didn’t want to go to school. I needed to do yoga so I made him go for an hour. The whole time in yoga I thought about Jack. I worried the teachers were calling to tell me he threw up. I imagined him lying on the couch in the office. I tried to breath and stretch during my downward dogs and child’s poses, but felt stressed still. When I picked up Jack after yoga he looked fine. He was playing with friends and the teacher said he acted normal all day. After we picked up Fiona Jack said he didn’t want to go to gymnastics, he was too tired. Fiona cried. She was so upset. I thought it was unfair, that Jack could have just sat quietly by me and waited, while Fiona did gymnastics. I thought, he must be very sick. I parked the car at home and Jack said, “Tricked ya”.
I said, “What?’
“tricked ya, I’m not tired”
It put me in a bad, but withdrawn mood.
I also can’t stop thinking about Fiona and CSD. I got several responses from the paper I wrote from people I shared it with, and I talked to all Fiona’s teachers and my close friends and relatives. Not everyone, I haven’t had an in-depth conversation about it with some people who are very close to me. Some people said absolutely not to the idea of Fiona going to a bilingual school that is an hour and a half bus ride. But some people said do it! I am worrying, spinning, but I acknowledge I do this with big decisions. I never expected to feel this way. I was unhappy with the large class size here when Fiona’s mainstreamed. I was unhappy with the lack of sign language. If she stays here, I have to build in sign language lessons somehow. I still feel like it could be part of her public education because she legitimately needs to learn sign language. The hearing aids are great a percentage of the time. But there is a lot of time they don’t work well. In noise, in water, when her ears are infected, when a word is too hard for the speaker to say verbally so that Fiona can understand it. This is my experience.
I worked so hard on my IEP, and I was feeling free. Now it’s like I’ve been kicked back a hundred feet. I’m going to let Fiona make the final decision though. I have a date for her to spend a whole day at CSD this summer and she can start her neighborhood school in the fall, then Fiona will be able to verbalize what feels best, I hope. She’ll still be young. I wish I had my own expert to do an observation of Fiona in both places. Someone totally experienced but totally unbiased. Education is a trip! I can’t believe it’s hitting me like this.
The first battle was the local school fight. The Great Schools battle. The segregated school surprises. Realizing that some of the liberal democratic people I know and live by are perpetuating systematic racism by following web sites like Great Schools and not doing any research into the systematic racism of American schools. Then driving their kids’ miles away from their home to the whiter public schools, charter schools and private schools. This has all been a shocking, mind altering, depressing, learning period for me.
I stated that the most important thing to me was for my kids to go to our closest neighborhood school. Then I saw a perfect classroom for Fiona a million miles away. A quiet learning space where she will have the best chance at communicating with her peers and learning with a teacher trained to teach kids just like Fiona. Plus, she’d be bilingual. I wish Jack could go to a Spanish bilingual school, or ASL. It would be so cool for Fiona if Jack learned ASL. He said he will. He’ll have to learn with Fiona. Even Fiona’s best friends need to learn because at the pool Fiona and her friends can’t talk. They can’t play how they want to. They want to play imagination or with mermaids and they keep saying stuff to each other, they talk louder and louder, they yell and try to understand each other. Then Jack starts doing it, then me, then everyone’s just talking louder and louder and no one can follow anything that’s being said anymore. And we all go quiet for a moment. The last time I convinced the kids to get out of the pool and put back on their hearing aids, so they could play. It’s the same for the girls in noisy environments. Why am I stressing about this? I gotta stop. Fiona’s best friends will need to learn sign too if they want to communicate in all the places that hearing aids don’t work. But the schools so far away and she might not like it as much as I think she will.
“Fiona, you’re horrid, horrid, horrid” says Jack from the living room. A few minutes ago, he went and tried to grab an electronic stand that Fiona has the iPhone on. Sometimes he can be awful.
And every time I say something to Jack Fiona says, “What?”. I tell her what Jack said and what I said.
I must turn off these u-tubes. I’m going to go crazier. Tomorrow is a studio day. I can not wait to paint.
Category: developement
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Teddy Bear Pajama Picnic Day
With pony tails and barrettes in her hair, Fiona was so happy. She held her pink care bear teddy with a rainbow in her lap as I strapped the seat belt and kissed her goodbye. I watched the bus drive away and still had a sadness deep inside. I thought life’s not going to be a Teddy Bear Pajama Picnic. Not that it ever is or ever could be. Moments are, many moments are like Teddy Bear Picnics. And they still can be and will be. It’s just a difficult time right now. Fiona got her new ear molds yesterday, they fit perfect. The audiologist put them both in. I sat and thought we were in the clear. A difficult thing had been done. We were done with the hearing test, her hearing only decreased a bit, the audiologist said she thought it is a temporary decline from the ear infection. Fiona took the hearing aid out of her not two minutes after it was in. She said she couldn’t hear. I tried to talk her into wearing it, but she wouldn’t. Later, Alan did get her to wear her hearing aid for an hour, but then she took it off and said it hurt. This morning before school I asked Fiona, It’s the Teddy Bear Pajama Day Picnic, don’t you want to wear both your hearing aids for the picnic? Fiona didn’t want to wear both, still. She said again, I can’t hear. I decided not to push it any further. I went to find a case to put the hearing aids in that she won’t wear so the teachers could try at school. I don’t want to bring that to school, Fiona said. I though she meant the eyeglass case I put it in, it wasn’t pink and sparkly. No, the hearing aid. I said O.K. and went upstairs, locked myself in the bathroom and started to cry. I wrote the teachers an e-mail, then I called and left messages, my voice cracking and squeaking as I said I know she’s only a four year old but I don’t want to send the hearing aid to school when she told me she didn’t want it in her backpack and I know I’m her mom and I should make her wear it but I don’t feel right. I don’t know what it’s like to wear hearing aids, maybe it’s really uncomfortable or it sounds too loud or she likes having one ear with nothing in it and she’s gotten used to that feeling of not hearing at all unless it’s a fire truck siren out of that ear. Every time I think of my sweet, innocent, daughter, her face and posture the way she told me each time she didn’t want to wear the hearing aid, I cry. I saw a little girl display big girl emotions, she expressed a deep conviction on this matter. She’s having feelings about herself and her body and I don’t know what they are. I have to respect her. I feel caught between one of the saddest emotions I’ve ever felt and scared of the IEP’s and the Public-School system. I know we are so lucky to have a public-school system and to have disability rights at all. It shouldn’t be something we should have to feel lucky about, we pay taxes to have a public education system. But I know dollars are stretched thin and I feel bad asking for, demanding for the type of education Fiona needs to be on par with the rest of the kids. And if, Fiona would rather not hear as well as she could, for example wearing both hearing aids, then that’s a different life Fiona will lead. She’s going to have to study harder than Jack. She needs to learn two languages, sign language and English. She’s going to have to be super tuned into social situations and learn how to navigate those when people are talking and like the old deaf man told me the other day at the coffee shop, when people find out you can’t hear them they move on, they don’t have patience to make sure I understand what they are saying. Far from a Teddy Bear Pajama Picnic.
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I sit on my bed, Thursday afternoon. The house is quiet, Jack and Fiona are asleep. I went to my studio for an hour, painted everything I worked on the other day white. I worked on my notebook pages. I start to cough and feel depressed. The flu can cause depression, I read this on the internet. I decide to come inside, rest. Yesterday I woke up in the morning, my eyes bulging with pain, behind my ears hurt so bad I almost threw up. I called my husband, he could be home by 4:00pm. I had to make it through the day on my own with Jack and Fiona. My legs weak, I had a hard time walking from one location to another as Jack and Fiona called me, “Play with me mommy”. Jack mostly watched T.V. and Fiona stuck by my side all day. While I was still in the process of trying to beat this monster that crept into my body to wreak havoc, I took my vitamins, ate cantaloupe, drank lots of water, and did a kids Yoga video with Fiona. My back, arms, legs so stiff and sore as I went into Childs Pose. Fiona held my hand when we did Tree Pose and airplane. I knew that I was going to recover, I still was scared. I was scared to be alone with my children when I was so sick. I felt myself going into some strange survival mode. As I ate the cantaloupe I felt the juice run down my throat, it felt so nourishing. Fiona and I made a smoothie, she cut the banana, put in the protein powder, turned on the blender, she was so proud.
Last night, after Alan was home, I came down to bed. Fiona wanted to come with me. At first Alan tried to stop her. She cried the kind of cry that shows true disappointment. I said, it’s O.K., she can come with me. “Can I sleep in your bed with you?” Fiona asked. “Yes” I say. My body aches, I can’t get comfortable. Fiona starts to bring animals, horses, the Glass Pig, she brings me pretend food. She talks to me and asks me questions. She doesn’t have her hearing aids on and I’m too tired to talk loud or repeat what I’ve said or use sign. I just say “yes” and “thank you” and that suffices. My bed is soft and cozy. Jack played upstairs with Alan the whole time. Fiona took care of me. It was comforting. I remembered myself alone with the flu. When Fiona was talking to me so much I thought maybe I should have her go, be alone. But I decided to let her stay. I enjoyed her company. I remembered the times I went home from work and jumped in bed. I don’t remember missing anyone to take care of me or keep me company. I thought about the times before Alan and I had kids and he took care of me. I thought about my mom and how she took care of me. My mom died very young and healthy, (except for the massive heart attack). I never had the experience of taking care of an aging parent, but Jack and Fiona will. I think they know intuitively that I will die before them. How depressing am I? Fevers and sickness always remind me of my mortality, of my limited energy. I always get a little bit sad the next day when my fever is gone but I still feel tired but the laundries pilling up and there’s calls to make and e-mails to respond to but I can’t.
Jack and Fiona will be up soon from their nap. I hope to be a good mom and wife tonight, to cook a nice dinner and not stress. Be fully present and available. Every moment counts.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 