Tuesday – A New Job and New Insights
Nov. 2nd, 2010 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
The job isn’t bad. I hate the first few days of a new job, where you feel useless and someone else is not getting their own work done because they are spending all their time training you. I am working for another Entrepreneur, but this one is more focused and less spastic than the last one I worked for. The Last Entrepreneur was 50ish, and he threw money into all kinds of projects at once to see what took root and bloomed and what blew away. The New Entrepreneur looks to be in his 30s or early 40s, and he focuses on insurance. This has allowed him to grow one of the top 100 privately owned insurance agencies in the United States (it just misses being in the top 75) after a dozen years. He’s not as flashy as the Last one. A case in point: the company cars with the logos wrapped all over them are Honda Civics. They don’t even have power locks and windows. He’s not out to impress anyone with glitz. He just want his logos to be seen.
The offices are nice, unlike the Civics, and are adjacent to the food court of a very nice shopping mall, which is full of a sort of retail glitz. When I look out the window to the left, I see a two-story Barnes and Noble bookstore. When I look to the right, I can see the carousel in the mall food court. Today I figured out that if you walk around the food court at just the right time and look like you are reading the menus and trying to decide what to eat, you can collect enough samples on toothpicks so that you are no longer hungry and don’t need to buy anything. I’m not sure how many days in a row I can get away with this, but it worked out nicely on my second day. On my first day, the COO (Chief Operations Officer) bought me lunch. If I’m lucky, I might get fed again on my birthday.
We worked out the logistics of getting my 6 year old to school on the final two days he was suspended from the YMCA before and after school care. Yesterday, Jeff left work early and showed up just as I was ready to walk out the door. Today I took my son ¾ of the way to work, and met Jeff in the parking lot of a bank where we pulled over and moved Sweet Pea from my car to his father’s truck. Sweet Pea thought this was kind of fun, since he likes riding in Jeff’s truck better than he likes riding in my car (he is higher off the ground, and has a better view of the world).
Jeff told me that he walked Sweet Pea into the school, and as he was preparing to leave a woman approached him and asked, “Are you [Sweet Pea’s] dad?” He told her yes. “I’m Jack’s Mom,” she said, “Can I talk to you?”
"I wanted to run away or hide under a table," he told me. He expected her to say something negative, because Sweet Pea has bitten Jack before. Jack is the little boy that Sweet Pea dislikes because he "makes weird noises" and "does weird things he shouldn’t do."
Instead of a lecture, though, Jeff got a conversation with some who knows what we are going through. He said they talked for a good 20 minutes. Jack has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (high-functioning autism). She is further along with him with the school and in the diagnosis process because she has had him in the system longer. Jack was thrown out of multiple daycares; one after the first day he attended it. She put him in Pre-K (which we opted out of), and began the whole team meeting process a year ago. This is the 4th school in the school district Jack has been in.
"She tells me this school is great; they've worked with her far more than the others were willing to," Jeff said. I already picked up on the fact that we had a wonderful team of people at the school. I’ve heard and read enough horror stories from other parents to know that we are blessed to be working with the team we are working with. They are bending over backwards to accommodate and work with Sweet Pea. They have a one-on-one attendant working with him, and they aren’t even required to provide one at this time because we don’t have an IEP yet. It helps, though. God, does it help. Ms. Lucas left last week, but he had a new one in place on Monday morning (he says he doesn’t like her, but we’ll see he just needs to break her in).
Jack, it seems, does a whole lot of the thing that Sweet Pea does. He, too, is fine in small groups of 3 or 4 kids, but loses control in a large classroom of children. He is rigid about schedules and doesn’t handle transactions very well. Because she was more proactive than we were, his mother was able to hand the school a 19-page report from Jack’s psychologist outlining what his needs are. We were slower on the uptake, in large part because Sweet Pea’s behavior didn’t escalate until he was 4. The clues we had before that were mild and subtle. He seemed pretty normal until the point where he should have graduated from parallel play into interactive play, and failed to. Then all hell broke loose.
Jack’s mom is the one of the room mothers, so she is able to be in the room and has watched both boys in action. Jeff apologized that Sweet Pea does not like Jack, which she said is not a problem and that she understands. Jack, however, likes Sweet Pea; unlike my son, Jack seems to know a kindred soul when he meets one.
“But Sweet Pea can’t be Asperger’s,” I said. I still want it to be something else, something milder, something he might outgrow. “He doesn’t stim.”
“What do you think that arm swinging thing he does is? Or when he starts slamming his hand into his fist when he gets stressed?” Jeff asked. I don’t know why he’s handing this so much better than I am. My son does stim, I guess. Instead of an innocuous hand flap, he does two things that people mistake for violence. Hitting his palm makes it look like he is threatening you; swinging his arm in a wide arc has caused some damage to objects and people around him on occasion.
“She was really nice,” Jeff said. “I’m glad I got the chance to talk with her.” She gave him her card, which he has misplaced. I hope it turns up, because I’d love a chance to communicate with her myself. She seems smarter than me; perhaps I could learn a thing or two from her.
This morning when Jeff opened the door to my car, Sweet Pea climbed out of the car and into his daddy’s arms. Jeff knows he will not because to lift and carry Sweet Pea forever, so he takes advantage of holding him as much as he can while he still can. He carried Sweet Pea from my car over to the truck, and our son’s face was so delighted and happy to see his father that it was almost angelic. Sitting in the driver’s seat of my car with the window rolled down so I could kiss my husband before we drove off in different directions, I couldn’t get over how beautiful my son is. Achingly, heartbreakingly, beautiful. He is a jewel cloistered in a shell of chaos; when you get him away from the world that is too much for him and that comes into his senses too loud, too fast, too crazy for him to process it all, and look at him in a peaceful and safe place, he shines.
In fact, he shines so bright that he takes my breath away.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
The job isn’t bad. I hate the first few days of a new job, where you feel useless and someone else is not getting their own work done because they are spending all their time training you. I am working for another Entrepreneur, but this one is more focused and less spastic than the last one I worked for. The Last Entrepreneur was 50ish, and he threw money into all kinds of projects at once to see what took root and bloomed and what blew away. The New Entrepreneur looks to be in his 30s or early 40s, and he focuses on insurance. This has allowed him to grow one of the top 100 privately owned insurance agencies in the United States (it just misses being in the top 75) after a dozen years. He’s not as flashy as the Last one. A case in point: the company cars with the logos wrapped all over them are Honda Civics. They don’t even have power locks and windows. He’s not out to impress anyone with glitz. He just want his logos to be seen.
The offices are nice, unlike the Civics, and are adjacent to the food court of a very nice shopping mall, which is full of a sort of retail glitz. When I look out the window to the left, I see a two-story Barnes and Noble bookstore. When I look to the right, I can see the carousel in the mall food court. Today I figured out that if you walk around the food court at just the right time and look like you are reading the menus and trying to decide what to eat, you can collect enough samples on toothpicks so that you are no longer hungry and don’t need to buy anything. I’m not sure how many days in a row I can get away with this, but it worked out nicely on my second day. On my first day, the COO (Chief Operations Officer) bought me lunch. If I’m lucky, I might get fed again on my birthday.
We worked out the logistics of getting my 6 year old to school on the final two days he was suspended from the YMCA before and after school care. Yesterday, Jeff left work early and showed up just as I was ready to walk out the door. Today I took my son ¾ of the way to work, and met Jeff in the parking lot of a bank where we pulled over and moved Sweet Pea from my car to his father’s truck. Sweet Pea thought this was kind of fun, since he likes riding in Jeff’s truck better than he likes riding in my car (he is higher off the ground, and has a better view of the world).
Jeff told me that he walked Sweet Pea into the school, and as he was preparing to leave a woman approached him and asked, “Are you [Sweet Pea’s] dad?” He told her yes. “I’m Jack’s Mom,” she said, “Can I talk to you?”
"I wanted to run away or hide under a table," he told me. He expected her to say something negative, because Sweet Pea has bitten Jack before. Jack is the little boy that Sweet Pea dislikes because he "makes weird noises" and "does weird things he shouldn’t do."
Instead of a lecture, though, Jeff got a conversation with some who knows what we are going through. He said they talked for a good 20 minutes. Jack has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (high-functioning autism). She is further along with him with the school and in the diagnosis process because she has had him in the system longer. Jack was thrown out of multiple daycares; one after the first day he attended it. She put him in Pre-K (which we opted out of), and began the whole team meeting process a year ago. This is the 4th school in the school district Jack has been in.
"She tells me this school is great; they've worked with her far more than the others were willing to," Jeff said. I already picked up on the fact that we had a wonderful team of people at the school. I’ve heard and read enough horror stories from other parents to know that we are blessed to be working with the team we are working with. They are bending over backwards to accommodate and work with Sweet Pea. They have a one-on-one attendant working with him, and they aren’t even required to provide one at this time because we don’t have an IEP yet. It helps, though. God, does it help. Ms. Lucas left last week, but he had a new one in place on Monday morning (he says he doesn’t like her, but we’ll see he just needs to break her in).
Jack, it seems, does a whole lot of the thing that Sweet Pea does. He, too, is fine in small groups of 3 or 4 kids, but loses control in a large classroom of children. He is rigid about schedules and doesn’t handle transactions very well. Because she was more proactive than we were, his mother was able to hand the school a 19-page report from Jack’s psychologist outlining what his needs are. We were slower on the uptake, in large part because Sweet Pea’s behavior didn’t escalate until he was 4. The clues we had before that were mild and subtle. He seemed pretty normal until the point where he should have graduated from parallel play into interactive play, and failed to. Then all hell broke loose.
Jack’s mom is the one of the room mothers, so she is able to be in the room and has watched both boys in action. Jeff apologized that Sweet Pea does not like Jack, which she said is not a problem and that she understands. Jack, however, likes Sweet Pea; unlike my son, Jack seems to know a kindred soul when he meets one.
“But Sweet Pea can’t be Asperger’s,” I said. I still want it to be something else, something milder, something he might outgrow. “He doesn’t stim.”
“What do you think that arm swinging thing he does is? Or when he starts slamming his hand into his fist when he gets stressed?” Jeff asked. I don’t know why he’s handing this so much better than I am. My son does stim, I guess. Instead of an innocuous hand flap, he does two things that people mistake for violence. Hitting his palm makes it look like he is threatening you; swinging his arm in a wide arc has caused some damage to objects and people around him on occasion.
“She was really nice,” Jeff said. “I’m glad I got the chance to talk with her.” She gave him her card, which he has misplaced. I hope it turns up, because I’d love a chance to communicate with her myself. She seems smarter than me; perhaps I could learn a thing or two from her.
This morning when Jeff opened the door to my car, Sweet Pea climbed out of the car and into his daddy’s arms. Jeff knows he will not because to lift and carry Sweet Pea forever, so he takes advantage of holding him as much as he can while he still can. He carried Sweet Pea from my car over to the truck, and our son’s face was so delighted and happy to see his father that it was almost angelic. Sitting in the driver’s seat of my car with the window rolled down so I could kiss my husband before we drove off in different directions, I couldn’t get over how beautiful my son is. Achingly, heartbreakingly, beautiful. He is a jewel cloistered in a shell of chaos; when you get him away from the world that is too much for him and that comes into his senses too loud, too fast, too crazy for him to process it all, and look at him in a peaceful and safe place, he shines.
In fact, he shines so bright that he takes my breath away.
