Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

I posted yesterday’s journaling this morning. I thought I would do it last night but I laid down with Julia and she held onto my arms as she fell asleep. I thought I would get up again (although I had shut the house up for the night) but never made it. It was 8:30 and I slept through until the early hours of the morning. Turned over at 4 to catch another hour and a half before getting up this morning.

Julia managed to get through another day at school without being sent home for scratching/picking. I did not get a report from her teacher tonight, but in our world no news is good news and so I am ready to believe that Julia is able to be redirected when her teachers ask her to be. She did tell me that she “made a fuss” because she did not want to go out for recess. It is getting cold and Julia has never liked the cold. She told me that she wanted to stay inside and keep drawing but one of her aides insisted that she go outside. I told her that I wanted her to go outside the first time that she is told. I remind her a lot at home about doing things the first time she is told. Maybe it is time to bring that up at school.

The reinforcement at school not to pick her skin seems to be helping at home during therapy. I’ve noticed that therapist need to remind her less. Again, I want to pray for some respite from the picking for healing. I still do not see her making new sores. If only we can all keep her from the old ones. If only more had the chance to heal.

Tonight, I laid down with Julia to go to sleep and she fell asleep in my arms. As we were doing this I realized that I was back at the bedtime protocol that was in place from the time she came home until shortly after David died. Granted she was not always in our bed for the entire night, and being in my bed might be considered a further step back, but I felt tonight that this is what she needs now, again, and for as long as she needs it, I can give it to her. it is not only her body that is taking so long to heal. I know the work of healing her heart is so much longer a process that it may look like her body is healing quickly. I don’t mean this is any magical thinking sort of way, but I feel as if her body is training the both of us in the patience and perseverance that it is taking to heal her heart. This may be simplistic or too formulaic but then again, body, mind, soul are all one, and there are many lessons to be learned.

Ed brought in base cabinets and started work on the shelves yesterday. He did not work at the house today and I had it to myself. I cleaned, and in the process took back a bit of the house as mine. Right now, there are days and days of having someone in my house almost all of the day. Ed during the school day until dinner time and therapists after school, sometimes until 7. I appreciate them all but I miss the privacy that I am used to. And so, I dusted, vacuumed, and mopped the layers of dust from living and from Ed’s work. I even vacuumed and mopped the kitchen floor and the stairs to the basement. Ed does a really decent job of cleaning up after himself but I put my own mark on the space.

And more on houses. My father-in-laws house is sold and the estate is going through the process of being settled. I am happy for the quick process although it serves to remind me of how long my mother’s estate has lingered. In an almost too incredible to believe happening, the early snow storm on the east coast this past weekend is delaying the restoration work on the jersey house. I have to laugh when I think of it -- laugh or scream like a crazy woman! A snow storm in October in Jersey is pretty rare but should it have been expected two days before concrete and brick work were set to restore the Bloomfield house? I don’t mean to suggest that some evil spirit managed an entire storm system to thwart the process which may free me from work on my mother’s estate, but . . . well, in my most selfish imaginings, I do think it was a personal storm.

Even without the outside being restored, the house will be on the market this week with an open house at the end of the week. There are a number of houses in that neighborhood that are for sale and prices are all over the place. This is a neighborhood that until the current economic times has seen quick sales and inflated prices. The neighborhood is steps away from the New York City buses and about 20 minutes, without traffic, from Port Authority. Even with traffic it is a good commute. None of that matters right now. Gosh, I hope someone can see that the house has good bones. I hope we price it right. I hope there is someone who can qualify for a mortgage who wants it. And wants to spend Christmas in their own home. From your mouth to God’s ear is the Yiddish saying. I will update it -- from my screen to God’s . . . ipad? Oh, universe, bring the person who needs to buy that house to that house and let them fall in love.