This is scary. . .

     It is scary when you look at this and say to youself:       

                                                 "Oh, I get this."

 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/139611657178490776/?nic_v2=1aNZM9Hwv

writing again...

    Once upon a time, I wrote a lot.  Weekly.  I wrote to put some order inside my head that was just . . . full.  I wrote to empty myself of the thoughts.  Funny, I told my husband this morning that I was empty.  I am.  I am drained but my head is so full.  

    One should always start at the beginning.  

    Fall 2019.  

    J and I have settled into our new house.  We love it.  We are getting settled in.  I have returned to working at the library.  J's leg has finally closed over.  

    Ah, there is so much that you have missed. So when I say the beginning, I mean the beginning of the current crisis.  

    We have sat down to discuss what is next for us.  We needed to think about our future.  For now, I would continue to work at the library but perhaps I should continue to think about a full time job.  For now, we came up with a plan to reduce our debt and consider some long term goals.  We came up with a plan. 

    The kids were getting ready to start another year at school.  Open house was that night.  I took the kids to school and saw an former coworker.  She was the Director of EC services.  I knew that the school was down an EC teacher so I asked her how she was.  I have to admit that I was a little concerned since it was my son's teacher position that needed to be filled.  She laughed and asked me if I knew anyone who wanted to teach EC and would I want to teach EC - because she would hire me!  

    I had had a bad day at the library.  I had been yelled at twice.  IN THE LIBRARY!  One time by a a patron that I told to use headphones while pointing at the sign over his head that specifically said to use headphones!  So I asked her what the salary was.  I asked her what she wanted me to do - she said, "I want you to teach them to read . . .  and math. . .  that last part was very quiet.

    From there, it spiraled.  One thing led to another.  It was ridiculously easy to get my license reinstated.   The interview went well; I think it helped that we had worked together and that I had subbed there.  It was not a desperate hire though since almost immediately after my interview she received a resume for an teacher with EC experience.  

    And they still hired me. 

    Within a month, I was an upper elementary EC teacher at the school that my kids went to.  I never thought that I would ever want to enter a classroom again.  This position that I took seemed ideal.  I was starting to contribute to a retirement plan, I was working at the school my kids attended so that made it convenient.  I never thought that I would like my coworkers.  I never thought I would love working with the kids.  I never thought I would like my job!  

    Don't get me wrong.  Special Education is a hard job.  I really dislike writing IEP's.  It is hard work that you could be sued over.  You get crappy rooms because why would you need to have a classroom?  You get forgotten by general education and administrators.  Your battle self confidence issues in children who feel frustration and stupid. 

    In my interview, I was asked how I would handle writing IEP's and meetings.  I was honest.  I told them that I knew I was jumping into the deep end of the pool.  I knew that I was going to be in over my head but that I would hit bottom, push off and start to swim.  

   Spring 2020 - Covid.  Quarantine.   Remote learning.  Plan A.  Plan B.  Plan C.  You aren't going to have your closet to teach in (it really is a closet - no window).  You are going to have to teach in a room with 2 other people.  Wait, you get to keep your room.  Now, do your best to address IEP goals. Plan B - nope Plan A and Plan C.   Wait what?  And you don't get to stay in your closet that you have made into your space where you have all of your stuff.  The place that you go when you need a minute to sit and be quiet.  The place you go to turn off the lights when you have born the brunt of a parent's or co workers frustration.  Or when your own child is the one that causes you frustration.  A place where you can take a deep breath.  

    Oh and you have to teach smaller groups and you have to find time to teach remotely and you have to do it a borrowed room but we don't know where and we don't know when and we don't know how.  

Why I dislike school...

     One week in.  We have accomplished one week of school.  One week.  While most moms and dads are excited at the prospect of free childcare education, I am not. I won't use the word "hate".  That is a little strong.  No, I dislike school because I dislike the struggle.
    Every day - even with the little to no homework policy for elementary school- it is a struggle.  I pull the papers that were thrown in his bag out, remind him that is what his folder is for.  I make him put it in the folder.  Then we go over the unfinished classwork.  We fix his letters, we review the rules, we go over the math problems.  Then we start the homework.  How many sentences in a paragraph?  What do you start and end a sentence with?  What are our clues for remembering how letters are formed?  Try to write in cursive  - remember that it is easier? You forgot?  Ok, tomorrow, ok buddy?  Spelling words?  Ok, pick 7 words.  Those are the ones we will focus on.  If you get these 7 right, it is a 100 for mom and dad and you get a marble.  What clues can we use to remember how to spell this word?  Now we need to read.  Set the timer.  All done?  Don't forget to write the title and the author and check the genre.
    Or
    Why is the paper here if your teacher didn't want you to do this?  Ok, I am texting X mom.  X says that it needs to be done.  I am not going to fight you on this.  Do you want to fail?  If so, tell me now and we will stop.  You don't?  Ok.  Then this is work and you need to do it.
   Or
    Hey buddy, you should have been done by now.  It has been 30 minutes and you wrote 2 sentences.  Do you need a break?  Go ride your bike/scooter for 5 minutes.  30 minutes after the 5 minutes, we have written 2 more sentences of the 5 sentence paragraph.  
     School is a struggle.  He loves it.  He loves learning.  He loves recess.  He loves his teachers.   he is so smart.  But it is a struggle. 
     I never was so relieved as when I learned that he had a learning disability. 
     As LD's go, it isn't so bad.  There are tried and true methods that help.  You just have to use  those methods - which we do NOT but will admit that it is easier when we do.  (Insert mom banging head on hard surface). 
     Still. 
     I don't enjoy the daily routine.  There is a pit in my stomach every time we get grades or report cards.  I hate that those numbers and letters define my child.  That piece of paper is supposed to show what he can do; what he knows but that piece of paper knows nothing about him. 
     It doesn't know that he is kind and outgoing.  It doesn't show that we think he can play by ear (No, Mommy, I don't need the book to practice.  And I already know the song).  It doesn't show that he can figure out how things work or that he can take something apart and put it back together. 
     I dislike IEP meetings and meeting new teachers.  They don't know me.  They don't know what we do every night.   They don't know that we read and play classical music and have family dinners or sometimes, family breakfast. They don't know that we do review during the summer to try to keep that 20% education loss from happening.  They don't know that when I say we work on it home that I mean it.  They don't know that I will be their partner instead of a moocher.   
     No, I don't want to homeschool.  I know myself, I know my child (note - singular) and I know how hard it is to do it right.
    School is work.  I always told my students and my own kids that this is your job.  Jobs are work and how fun it is is up to you.  Teachers aren't there to entertain you but you can enjoy something, even if it is hard.  But I have to say, I don't enjoy our evening routine.  Even the one who is "good" at school has issues.  She won't ask a teacher for help because she doesn't want to be seen as "arguing" with the teacher.  (Insert  head banging - again - on desk by her parent who wonders what she did wrong that her child thinks that asking a question is arguing...)
     So, yeah.  I am not looking forward to this school year.

  

are moving

    A big aspect of this year has been looking for a house.  It has consumed so much of our time and energy and been such an up and down adventure that I forgot that not everyone has been a part of it. That has lead to some surprise from people I love and care about. Although, they should all be glad to have not been a part of the journey that was fraught with tears, hope, disappointment, fights and just so.
much.
fun. 

But finally, FINALLY, I will share with everyone:
     

WE ARE BUILDING A HOUSE!!!

     We are moving because our current house is getting too small.  Jarrad has a job that allows him to work from home.  That is great - he can literally work from home in the middle of the house.  Which is not always the best thing when kids are home for the summer and Daddy needs to get on a conference call- so we want an office for him.  We found that we also needed another toilet - when you have SCI, you basically get a whole bathroom to yourself every other evening and no one else can use it.  We would  like for folks to be able to visit more and that means we need a place for them to stay.  And we wanted someplace that would be easier for both of us as we got older. 
     Is it perfect?  No.  We can't afford perfection.  But we can tweak it as we go.  This is going to be our house, God willing, for the rest of our lives. 
     We are very excited.  We are counting down the days (84) until we close on our new house.  We are praying and crossing our fingers and toes that the current house will sell and for asking price too.
     Come on, wouldn't you want to buy our current house?  You just can't have it till December!

 

 

Current House

New House

  

I don't want to move!

    I spent the past 2 weeks going through stuff under the house.  To my shame, I just bought plastic totes and threw stuff - like smaller plastic totes - into them and shoved the bigger totes under the house.  Cleaning that stuff out left we with 25 (!) empty plastic totes.  They are in the back yard.  Now, all that is under the house is Christmas and fall decorations which I will not get out until we move.  Not sure if I will have the energy to put up a tree but I kind of don't have a choice.
     Everything I pulled out, I asked myself, do I want to move this?  For most of it, it was no.  It is was still very hard to get rid of.  I have a friend who just started teaching art and she took a lot of the fabric and yarn and scrapbook paper.   And the many, many smaller containers that were in the bigger containers!  I am glad that they helped her and it helped me to not feel so bad about getting rid of all the stuff.
      Today, the same friend and her teenagers come over and went in the attics.  Yep.  2 attics.  They are not too big, but boy were they crammed with STUFF!  Boxes of books and memories.  They spent the afternoon going through some of it with us. It was fun to read how in my first years of teaching, I wrote that I was insane and should have gotten a job in a morgue as that would have been so much easier.  Found some old high school photos and looked at Jarrad's high school photos - so cute!
     While we got rid of half the books and a bunch of other things, there is still a lot left.  The idea of moving it and finding a place for it in my clean, empty house is overwhelming.
    I just want to wave my magic wand and make it all disappear.

8 months...

     1 patient realtor
     8 months. 
     4 builders
     a bazillion houses looked at either online or in person
     and much discouragement leads to this:
              WE ARE UNDER CONTRACT FOR A HOUSE!!!
     We had become very discouraged.  We had found countless houses that would have been perfect but, oh, wait - how many steps are on the front porch?  Crap.  Who else do you know that counts the steps of the front porch or looks at the grade of the lawn or the bricks to try to determine how many steps from the garage to the house?  And if we make it to "might be feasible", who else do you know that looks at the tiles in the bathroom trying to calculate if there is enough turn around space for a wheelchair? 
      Me.  I do that.  I did that a lot. Like, a LOT, A lot.
       Oh, and if it did look good, don't think about it too long because within 24 hours, it would be contingent or sometimes SOLD!
      One beautiful day, I turned to Realtor - that bastion of hope and lies- and happened to see a drawing for a house in a neighborhood we liked.  Hmmm.  It was a ranch.  It was in our (new) price range and it was being built. The floor plan looked good . . .  perhaps if we got in now, we could make some changes and it would work? 
     Contact patient realtor. 
     House is a presale- boo. 
     Builder says - but hey, what do you think about this lot and plan?  And tell me what you need.
     Can you hear the angels singing?  'Cause it was a 4th of July Boston concert!
    And yet, we were very apprehensive because of the previous 8 months.
     The previous 8 months consisted of looking at houses that might work but all had remodeling work we needed to do.  One had a sunken floor in the living room that was the center of the house - and the bathrooms were way too small.  Another that really looked promising  - bathroom looked great, we had a solution for entry, there were 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, acre, well, internet but the door to the bathroom was 24 inches.  And the hallways were tight.  Sigh. 
      Then there were the builders we met - OH. MY. WORD.  One told us that he "didn't do these houses" and he "knew what we wanted and would give us what we wanted".  It was odd.  Very odd.  And we decided not to waste Jarrad's time with first visits anymore.  The 2nd was way over the budget that we said we had.  He also didn't give us any of the things that we asked for.  Which was odd because this was a neighborhood that boasted "granite counter tops", "wood flooring",  "custom cabinets" so why were we getting builder grade, linoleum, builder grade cabinets? At a much higher price per square foot then other houses?   They knew what we wanted and how much we had before we ever met too. Yeah, still annoyed by that waste of time.  The 3rd was nice.  He just didn't have anything for us.
    And we became discouraged.  We did some soul searching, some yelling, some crying.   We reconsidered our budget.  We made some compromises in what we wanted (read - cut things out) for what we needed.   We talked about what we were afraid of and made a "prayer" board.  A vision board, if you will, of things to pray for. 
     Which brings us to builder #4.
     With any luck, we will close in December, our current house will sell in a timely fashion. Fingers crossed and prayers said. 

   

The Year of The House

        I always liked going to Chinese restaurants and reading the zodiac.  It was fun.  According to the zodiac, I am a dragon.  I like that.  It seems fierce and strong and don't mess with me. Jarrad is a tiger and, fortunately, we are a good match.  Emma is a dog - we are not good matches so when she hits puberty and we really start to butt heads, I can blame it on her year. Sam is an ox and they aren't compatible with either the dragon or tiger. Hmm, our future seems very ... frustrating! 
       But I always like the idea of the year cycles.  Not only do you have a different animal every 12 years but there is a different element too.  This year is that of the fire rooster.  Not sure what that means, but it is interesting. 
     A whole year of something.  Not like the Greek and Roman horoscopes that only give you 30 ish days but a whole year.  It makes you think that time is precious and should be savored. I know, that seems . . . odd.  To savor a year.  But maybe it is because we get everything so quickly that the idea of a whole year seems different. 
     We do get things quickly.  That is why it is hard to wait.  And hard when the waiting is over. 
     4 years ago, we decided we needed a new house.  We tried to make this one work and it does.  It works.  But not forever.  The ramp is long and when Jarrad is tired, he has a hard time pushing up and we only have the one exit for him.  I suppose I could try to throw him out a window in case of emergency but I really don't see that happening.  He can get in and out of the house by himself but it requires some effort.  He can't really cook and he can't get the mail.  He can't really get into the kids rooms and he has no place to work.  As we look at getting older too, we are going to need a lift and where on earth would I put it?  Right now, we are making this house work but for how long? 
      But 4 years ago, we weren't ready.  There were too many unknowns.  Too many uncertainties.  We found a great realtor and she knew a builder who we were confident knew his stuff.  We thought we had found the perfect place but when it came down to the details, we were scared that we couldn't make it work and decided to wait.  We put together a plan and worked on it.  And now, we are ready.
     And now, we are scared again and just a little discouraged.
     Jarrad said to me the other day that it would be so much easier if he wasn't paralyzed.  And he is right.  It would be.  We wouldn't have to worry about stairs, flat lots, bathrooms.  We would have found the perfect house about now.  We wouldn't have to worry about floor plans and finding a 1 story house or finding a lot where we aren't on top of our neighbors.  But we might not be looking for a house.  The whole reason why we painted was to make this house more ours.  I had accepted that we would stay here forever.  It is March.  We are 3 months into The Year of The House and I don't know how much we have accomplished.  I was kind of hoping it would only be one year.  I was excited for it to be only one year but the reality of it is that it might be 2 or 3 years. 
      A year seems like a long time when you are ready to begin.