Oh, I have been disconnected from the internet most of the day and last night I could not post pictures on blogger. I don't know what to attribute these glitches to but everything seems back to normal right now.
Julia is back at school today after a bit of a challenge this morning. Would she really want to
do our home work together so much if I kept her home to home school? But she was cute telling me that she wanted to work with me and not with her teachers. When she started telling me that she did not want to see the kids and did not want to do the teacher's work, I took her in my arms and held her. We did not go through her refusing to be held or any negative response at all. She settled right down and was ready to be calmed and give into going to school.
When I picked Julia up from school today, she told me, "I stopped screaming and I am calm now. I did not hit anybody today." This was the most comprehensive recital of her day that Julia has ever done by herself. I talked to Marilyn today about working on reciprocal conversation and how I don't really know how to get Julia to start doing it. Julia answers question or offers her own thoughts but does not ask questions of me or any person that she is with unless she has some direct need. Marilyn talked about where conversation comes from, how even very young babies engage adults in conversation with smiles and coos, and proposed that I play a mimicking game with Julia with her in my lap or arms, and trying to hold her eyes while we play at copying each other's sounds.
It pains me that Julia did not get the attention, the interaction that she needed when she was an infant, but she learns when she is taught and I hope so very much that I can teach her.
This morning I called it quits for our social skills group/play group for kids on the spectrum for this year. I could not get it going in the fall but have a small grant for this semester, but I just don't have the manpower, don't have a collaborator, and just don't have the energy.
I hated doing this -- so much -- but the plate is just too full and I am doing everything else half-assed to try to keep all the balls in the air. Frankly, I would have not taken on the PTO this year if I had known about the heart transplant, but having taken it on, I see the work I am doing as so important to our community.
On the up side, right after I wrote the email letting those who have expressed interest in our group know that I could not get the group going this sprig, I felt immediately energized to do some PTO work which needs to get done.
We are at the 3 months point for the transplant list, a point that the docs assured David he would never see. He has a great blood type and is a smaller man, so they thought he would be matched quickly -- of course, that what those who sent in their dossiers to China in April of 2006 thought as well. We are through our first period of acute stress which exhausted us both -- there must be phases of stress and we are on that part of the path.
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