Monday – She’s a Lady
Nov. 15th, 2010 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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I’ve been away for a week. Not away in general, just away from writing. I don’t have any sick time or paid time off from my new job, so in order to take 3 hours off to get fitted for a crown last week I worked a bit longer to make up for the time. In a few more weeks I’ll need to do the same when I have to go in and have the permanent crown fitted. Turns out I grind my teeth in my sleep, and not just a little. I clench and grind my teeth so hard that I can (and do) break them. This new crown is my trophy for a very stressful year.
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Sweet Pea got written up by the YMCA afterschool program this last week, for throwing a ball repeatedly at one of the caregiver's faces. He said he was only playing, but when he is in a state of agitation his play turns rough. I noticed when she wrote him up that it was the 3rd write up (I can’t remember the 2nd one, maybe Jeff signed that one), and that there was only room for 4 write ups. After that, I suppose the child is kicked out of the program.
I am bracing myself for that. We already figured out that I can take Sweet Pea part-way to work and Jeff can pick him up from me at a meeting point. Jeff says he can wake up early and meet the buss in the afternoon, if need be (this will cut into his sleep by 2 hours). We will cope.
Today he acted up, but Miss Tish was in charge and she did not fill out a report like the other woman did. I like Miss Tish, and she is sympathetic and kind toward Sweet Pea. On one bad day, when Sweet Pea’s issues were first coming to light, she told me about a minor incident and, since I had just had a long conversation with his teacher about some very major incidents in the classroom, I must have looked like I was about to cry.
“Do you need a moment to yourself? Are you okay?” Miss Tish asked.
I told her I was fine.
I'm surprised Miss Tish likes Sweet Pea, since he once told her he was sure she was a boy, and argued with her when she said she was not. She is a mocha-skinned young woman with close cropped hair who does not wear makeup of any kind and favors loose athletic clothes. He addressed her as a “he” one day, and was upset when Miss Tish and I both told him that she was a “she.”
“But you have boy hair,” he told her.
“Women can have short hair,” I told him, laughing and trying to make light of the situation. When a child does something like this, the earth does not open up and swallow you whole, no matter how hard you pray that it will. Trust me; I've tried.
“That’s right: we can have short hair, like you,” she said with a smile, running her hand over his fine blond hair which was, in fact, much longer than her own.
“Then how come your voice sounds like a boy?” he demanded.
She just raised her eyebrowns at him and I told him that her voice doesn’t sound like a boy to me, which made him frown. He didn’t look convinced, but he looked like he was willing to take it on faith if Miss Tish and I were both willing to swear by it. Never mind that the other kids call her Miss Tish; he doesn't use people's names at YMCA, which is why he had pointed to Miss Tish and called her "him" in the first place.
The truth is that she does sound like a guy, but not in a way that most people would notice. Her voice is feminine enough, but her inflection – the way she says her words – is very much like a young man's. She speaks with a cadence and rhythm very close to what my 21-year-old-stepson does, rather than how most other young women do. I had not really thought about this until Sweet Pea mentioned it, and was kind of amazed that he would notice something like her the rhythm of her speech and use to determine her gender, rather than the pitch of her voice like most people would. Perhaps it has something to do with his sensory integration issues; he looks at the separate parts, not the sum of them, to make a determination. In the case of Miss Tish, he noticed the short hair, her clothes and the cadence of her speech, and determined “boy” without looking or thinking about it any further.
The important thing is that she likes him, anyway.
I have noticed that certain people go out of their way to tell me when he had a good day, and when he cooperated or played nicely with other children. Miss Tish is one of them. Another was a middle aged woman, much older than most of the other YMCA workers, who came up and told me how nicely he played with her all afternoon one day. She told me she had raised 4 adopted sons and fostered many others, and she knew how important it was to hear good things about them.
I smiled and thanked her. Sweet Pea was hiding under the table peering up at me because he did not want to go, and I was pretending like this was perfectly normal because for him, it is. I wondered why it was that these strangers could always see that there was something different about my son after meeting him once, when it took me so many years to figure it out. Or rather, to accept it after having a room full of strangers point out the obvious in a “problem solving team meeting.” Mind you, no problems are ever solved in these meetings: they are just laid out on the table, and then some consent forms are signed and the kind strangers make vague reassuring comments and thank you for your time.
It’s was a rough week at school last week, and a rough day today. Sweet Pea is hypersensitive to any change in his schedule, and the ending of daylight savings time seems to have thrown him into overdrive. He was following Miss Tish around today and keeping his distance from the other kids and the other caretaker. Miss Tish had gone to the restroom, and he was waiting in the hallway outside of the restroom waiting for her when I showed up to pick him up. He sees her as a protector, I guess. She is calm and even tempered and can handle him. Still, she is not there every day and I suspect it is a matter of when, not if, he will be thrown out of the after school care program.
And so it goes.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I’ve been away for a week. Not away in general, just away from writing. I don’t have any sick time or paid time off from my new job, so in order to take 3 hours off to get fitted for a crown last week I worked a bit longer to make up for the time. In a few more weeks I’ll need to do the same when I have to go in and have the permanent crown fitted. Turns out I grind my teeth in my sleep, and not just a little. I clench and grind my teeth so hard that I can (and do) break them. This new crown is my trophy for a very stressful year.
Sweet Pea got written up by the YMCA afterschool program this last week, for throwing a ball repeatedly at one of the caregiver's faces. He said he was only playing, but when he is in a state of agitation his play turns rough. I noticed when she wrote him up that it was the 3rd write up (I can’t remember the 2nd one, maybe Jeff signed that one), and that there was only room for 4 write ups. After that, I suppose the child is kicked out of the program.
I am bracing myself for that. We already figured out that I can take Sweet Pea part-way to work and Jeff can pick him up from me at a meeting point. Jeff says he can wake up early and meet the buss in the afternoon, if need be (this will cut into his sleep by 2 hours). We will cope.
Today he acted up, but Miss Tish was in charge and she did not fill out a report like the other woman did. I like Miss Tish, and she is sympathetic and kind toward Sweet Pea. On one bad day, when Sweet Pea’s issues were first coming to light, she told me about a minor incident and, since I had just had a long conversation with his teacher about some very major incidents in the classroom, I must have looked like I was about to cry.
“Do you need a moment to yourself? Are you okay?” Miss Tish asked.
I told her I was fine.
I'm surprised Miss Tish likes Sweet Pea, since he once told her he was sure she was a boy, and argued with her when she said she was not. She is a mocha-skinned young woman with close cropped hair who does not wear makeup of any kind and favors loose athletic clothes. He addressed her as a “he” one day, and was upset when Miss Tish and I both told him that she was a “she.”
“But you have boy hair,” he told her.
“Women can have short hair,” I told him, laughing and trying to make light of the situation. When a child does something like this, the earth does not open up and swallow you whole, no matter how hard you pray that it will. Trust me; I've tried.
“That’s right: we can have short hair, like you,” she said with a smile, running her hand over his fine blond hair which was, in fact, much longer than her own.
“Then how come your voice sounds like a boy?” he demanded.
She just raised her eyebrowns at him and I told him that her voice doesn’t sound like a boy to me, which made him frown. He didn’t look convinced, but he looked like he was willing to take it on faith if Miss Tish and I were both willing to swear by it. Never mind that the other kids call her Miss Tish; he doesn't use people's names at YMCA, which is why he had pointed to Miss Tish and called her "him" in the first place.
The truth is that she does sound like a guy, but not in a way that most people would notice. Her voice is feminine enough, but her inflection – the way she says her words – is very much like a young man's. She speaks with a cadence and rhythm very close to what my 21-year-old-stepson does, rather than how most other young women do. I had not really thought about this until Sweet Pea mentioned it, and was kind of amazed that he would notice something like her the rhythm of her speech and use to determine her gender, rather than the pitch of her voice like most people would. Perhaps it has something to do with his sensory integration issues; he looks at the separate parts, not the sum of them, to make a determination. In the case of Miss Tish, he noticed the short hair, her clothes and the cadence of her speech, and determined “boy” without looking or thinking about it any further.
The important thing is that she likes him, anyway.
I have noticed that certain people go out of their way to tell me when he had a good day, and when he cooperated or played nicely with other children. Miss Tish is one of them. Another was a middle aged woman, much older than most of the other YMCA workers, who came up and told me how nicely he played with her all afternoon one day. She told me she had raised 4 adopted sons and fostered many others, and she knew how important it was to hear good things about them.
I smiled and thanked her. Sweet Pea was hiding under the table peering up at me because he did not want to go, and I was pretending like this was perfectly normal because for him, it is. I wondered why it was that these strangers could always see that there was something different about my son after meeting him once, when it took me so many years to figure it out. Or rather, to accept it after having a room full of strangers point out the obvious in a “problem solving team meeting.” Mind you, no problems are ever solved in these meetings: they are just laid out on the table, and then some consent forms are signed and the kind strangers make vague reassuring comments and thank you for your time.
It’s was a rough week at school last week, and a rough day today. Sweet Pea is hypersensitive to any change in his schedule, and the ending of daylight savings time seems to have thrown him into overdrive. He was following Miss Tish around today and keeping his distance from the other kids and the other caretaker. Miss Tish had gone to the restroom, and he was waiting in the hallway outside of the restroom waiting for her when I showed up to pick him up. He sees her as a protector, I guess. She is calm and even tempered and can handle him. Still, she is not there every day and I suspect it is a matter of when, not if, he will be thrown out of the after school care program.
And so it goes.
