1. Air travel was awesome. As good as we could have hoped! Though, because our flight left at 7:30 in the morning, we had to get the kids up at 5:30 to go. Which meant that E-Niner got his Ritalin dose two hours early (which means that it wore off two hours early) and which also means that he was overtired when he came off the Ritalin, which spells psychological breakdown at the end of the day. But! We were prepared for it, Clonidine in hand, and we were able to calm him fairly quickly and easily since we were on the ball.

2. The day before we left for vacation, I had called E-Niner’s new therapeutic school to arrange a tour for when we came back into town. Though we were told at the IEP meeting that this school would be his school, now the story was different. Now they didn’t have space for him. My guess? Prior to Friday, the school had not seen E-Niner’s IEP in writing and once they saw all the responsibilities they had with him, the school determined that they couldn’t meet the IEP. Which means that (and this is all guess work on my part), that he’s probably going to get “tuitioned-out” or placed in a private school paid for by the district.

3. We’re renting a vacation house on the Gulf of Mexico, and it is wonderful. After breakfast, E-Niner heads to the backyard, a.k.a. the beach, and gets a wonderful sensory experience of the sound of the ocean waves, the feeling of the water on his body, the sand on his feet, and running up and down the beach in sand. He loves it. Plus, because we’re staying on a small Florida island, there isn’t a ton of beach traffic. People are generally older (no one to take toys), smile and go on their way. Just the kind of non-interaction E-Niner likes.

4. T783 is having a blast. Right now he’s scooping up sand and putting it in buckets and dumping the buckets out. He’s also been finding sea shells and chucking them into the ocean. Yesterday he decided that there was no good reason to nap when he could be on the beach playing, but after a lot of cajoling from me, he managed to clock in two and a half hours. So much for not needing a nap!

We got the first of our feedback from E-Niner’s IEP testing today. The occupational therapist did her report with us on the telephone, since she isn’t able to make the meeting tomorrow.

Long story short, E-Niner got the maximum amount of minutes allowed in a week — 60 minutes. So that is a plus. (Though 60 minutes seems like not enough time considering he gets 240 minutes of private OT a week right now.) But it’s the most they give.

So we’ve started out on the right step. Tomorrow’s the big day.

The other day Joe went to visit the opening of a new Chicago Public School called the Hope Institute.

It’s a charter school that will serve a population of children with special needs and neurotypical children. The goal for the children with IEPs (20 percent of the population) would be to mainstream them with the other kids in the school at some point.

The IEP kids will have classrooms of ten kids, a teacher and two assistants. The school day goes from 8AM until 4PM and includes — in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic — horticulture, PE (which apparently isn’t a given anymore!), music, art, and dance.

They’re building a sensory garden, using reflective lighting (since lots of kids with sensory issues including my own E-Niner get overstimulated by light), creating a family and community resource center that will offer seminars and training, housing a school-based dental clinic, and the school runs all year round!

Can I get a big yah-hey?

How about a bigger yah-hey that this school will cost us, count ‘em, zero dollars. Zilch. Nothing. It’s public!

And how about a big, bad boo-yah that their first priority is enrolling local kids…and we are in the 1.5 mile radius they’re pulling from first!!!!!!! That means that E-Niner is almost guaranteed a placement. Can you believe that?

The other good thing includes that because 80 percent of the population is mainstream, there is actually a good chance that T783 and E-Niner could go to the same school. Who woulda thunk?

So the bad news is that it doesn’t open until the fall. I’m not going to have E-Niner at home with me an additional eight months. These last eight have been the hardest of my life, and not the greatest for him in terms of the growth he needs. So we’re going to have to place him somewhere for the time being.

Speaking of placement, next week is E-Niner’s IEP meeting. It’s the meeting where everyone reads their reports. Not sure what else is slated to happen at that meeting, but we’ll be one step closer.

Also on the subject of hope, I’m totally excited about Hopeful Parents. You should see some of the stories people are writing about what it’s like raising kids with special needs. It’s humbled me more than I expected. It’s absolutely incredible. Of course, I’m biased.

The past 48 hours have included such elements as a lazy old dog, a broken down car, an emergency call to the psychiatrist, a second round of IEP tests for E-Niner, and dinner with a dear friend — not necessarily in that order.

E-Niner has yet a new prescription medication. Clonidine. To be taken when he’s in a complete psychological breakdown, like what happened yesterday when he trashed our foyer.

He had IEP testing in the morning. (“He’s so smart!” said the examiners. I’m getting the idea he is smart.) When we got back to the car (illegally parked in front of our primarily low-income, neighborhood, soon-to-be shut-down Chicago Public School to make way for rich kids to have their own junior high), my tire light was on.

So I did what any driver who has gone to driving school five times in the past eight years (who? moi? oh, shut up. I drive. a lot!) would do — I drove myself to the trusty 50 cent air machine at our nearby gas station and pumped the tires with air.

Problem being that the 50 cent air machine usually has a tire pressure gauge on it. This is why I break out the quarters and actually pay for air. It’s kind of a nifty contraption. You can check tire pressure while you fill, so I’m always sure to keep my treads at a comforting 35 pounds.

As you can probably guess where I’m going with this, the tire pressure gauge was broken. So I winged it. I worked on one side of the car and then I stopped. Too snowy, dirty, icky, gross. Plus, I have a 50 percent shot that I licked the issue.

Fate would have it that I picked the wrong tires to fill. So instead of going back out in the cold, yucky wet, I drove to our local car repair shop.

The guy there checked my tires and said that my front left had over 40 pounds of air in it! (Hey, when I fill, I fill.) So he let air out of that, and put air in the ones that needed it. Nice. Hunky, dory. Right?

Wrong-o. Because then the car wouldn’t start. It just sort of clicked around and wouldn’t vroom. Luckily, I was at a car repair shop. They jumped it, checked the engine, and determined that my alternator was shot.

Remember? E-Niner is in the car with me. Key point.

So I determine that since the garage is only five blocks from home, I’d leave the car with them and walk back.

As E-Niner and I waited in the smokey office, last touched with any type of cleaning product circa 1952 and still smelling heavy with nicotine and gasoline fumes, we spied a very old, very tired Golden Retriever. He was balled-up next to the cinder block wall underneath a staircase, laying on a plaid dog bed, behind a gate. I felt bad for him, wondering if all these years he’s just sat under those stairs inhaling the noxious fumes.

Anyway, E-Niner (dog phobic) spied the pooch and proceeded to get anxious about the situation. He kept imagining the dog jumping out from behind the gate to “get him.” I couldn’t get through my paperwork fast enough with the service guy.

I’m pretty sympathetic to E-Niner’s plight. I’m not that bad, but I’m scared of dogs until I get to know them. Then I’m only just jumpy.

Back to the story at hand and not my own personal psychological trauma, the change of plan (walking home) plus the anxiety about the dog was enough to set E-Niner off. And when I say off, I mean ballistic.

We walked out of the gas station, and no more than five feet off the premises, the kid drops one of his toys in the snow. Toy has snow all over it. E-Niner doesn’t have gloves on. His hands are cold. I wipe off the snow, put on his gloves. E-Niner can’t now feel the toy in his hand…let the games begin!

As we walk home, he yells at the top of his lungs that he hates his gloves. He keeps dropping his toy — on accident or on purpose? I can’t tell. “I hate my gloves! I want to go home! I keep dropping my toy! AGGGGGHGHGHGHG!” Like that. For the first two and a half blocks.

At exactly the mid-point, he chucks one of his toys into a fresh snow bank so that it sinks quickly to the bottom of about three feet of snow. We can’t find the toy. If he hadn’t lost it before, he loses it now. For good. I’m kicking snow around trying to find his toy. He’s hitting me on the arm, hanging on me, telling me to stop burying his toy more.

I wonder to myself if it is worth it even trying to find it or if we should just move on. Finally. Finally! I find it. I think this is good. We have what he wants. We can walk home now.

So we start off. He stays back a few steps, and charges at me from behind, pushing me like I’m one of those big pads football players push down a field at practice. He does it again and again and again.

I don’t know where to turn. Ahead of me is a set of busy commuter train tracks. To my right is a busy street. Behind me is a child that has lost it. I can’t stop and give him a time out. First, he probably was in no shape to comply, second it was cold, and third I would much rather be dealing with this in the safety of my own home.

So I plodded on ahead, either bracing myself for a 50 pound bump every few steps or grabbing him when I thought it was appropriate.

At home — finally, finally! — is when he trashed the foyer. He came straight inside the house and started flinging boots and bags everywhere. I couldn’t stop him and wasn’t always fast enough to catch him. He slammed a clay vase full of dried eucalyptus leaves against our glass door, thankfully breaking the vase and not the door. There were plant leaves everywhere!

I tried doing the therapeutic hold I was taught — wrapping his arms around his torso — like a human-held straight jacket. The kid is too strong for me, though. He kept slamming me against a wall.

I let him go, and he lunged at me — swinging, hitting, screaming. I pinned him to the ground, pleading with him to stop destroying our house and hurting me. He would cry uncle, I would let him go, and the cycle would start again.

Thankfully, our babysitter was there with T783. I love our babysitter. She’s prompt, responsible and also in a combined Masters/Ph.D. program in psychology. I love her, but she loves us too. We’re her reliable term paper for every class.

She tried to talk E-Niner down, and it was working. But he still just couldn’t keep it together to comply with her request of putting what remained of the vase back on the table. While she was with him, I called Joe who rushed home from work and the psychiatrist, who called me back within moments.

I went back downstairs and hauled 50 pounds of fighting boy up three flights of townhome stairs to his bedroom and told him to stay there until Joe got home. I shut the door, only to hear the two hard things in his room — a baby monitor and sound machine — get whipped against his bedroom walls.

Joe only works ten minutes away, so he was there pretty quickly. Our babysitter’s stint for the day was done; she left for class. And within that same moment the psychiatrist called me back. Over the phone, he prescribed Clonidine. He said we are to give it to E-Niner when he’s in an all-out unreachable rage, as he was today. Clonidine and a mini-dose of Seroquel (the anti-psychotic sedative that E-Niner already takes four times a day).

So. When that was all done — only 11:30 AM, with eight more hours before E-Niner’s bedtime — I was beat and beat-up. My sister came over to support me and help. I can’t tell you how blessed I am to have such a wonderful, caring sister. I don’t know what I would do without her.

The rest of the day, I nursed an extraordinary migraine, which is why, when my good friend e-mailed about a spur-of-the-moment dinner, I accepted.

My friend is also raising a child with special needs, so she and I have that bond.

After telling her about the day that kicked my ass to Jupiter and back, and listening to the details of her child’s meltdowns for the week, we made a decision. Truth be told, she came up with the idea.

She said, “Let’s pick one thing we’re going to do this week for ourselves. One thing. We have to say it to each other, and then we have to do it. You first.”

Do you know how hard it was for me to come up with something? I floundered. Flappy floundering. But we both managed to set a goal. I ended the day on a positive, so that was nice.

Want to see how positive? Here’s the picture she took when we left:

endswith8741 ends on a positive

It’s not often that I feel absolutely awesome about E-Niner. It’s not often I feel like the world is his oyster, so I’m going to let every last little bit of my pride for him today creep deep within my bones and let it marinate…and then let it explode!

He did his first round of IEP tests today — an academic exam — and he rocked it.

Even though he was initially scared and wanted to hide behind me, he was able to use his words and tell the psychologist that he was feeling shy. She told him she could understand why, but not to worry. They were going to have fun!

She administered the whole test in one sitting.

Let’s clarify. For E-Niner “sitting” means fidgeting, jumping, falling on the floor, going under the table a few times, kneeling every now and then, sitting with his chair pushed as far back as possible, laying his head on the table and letting some drool hang out (just a bit, until he realized it, sat up and wiped his face), interrupting the test to ask her why her hair is straight or why the sky has clouds. But he did it!!!!!!!!!!! The whole test! YES.

And — I just picked up an e-mail from the psychologist who said, and I quote:

“He did a really great job with me!  I was really impressed with his knowledge base.”

You know what? I am going to “read into” every last word of what she wrote, because damn it, it’s not often I get encouraging news about E-Niner.

She said she was impressed! Impressed! See? He is impressive. He can be impressive. There is a whole nugget of beautiful wonderful behind all his other garbage.

I’m impressed too, because frankly, I haven’t taught him a lick of anything. I haven’t taught him his letters or numbers or how to count. Nothing. I spend all my time teaching him how to act appropriately in social and emotional situations.

So with absolutely no education at all, my boy still tests at an impressive level for his age. Could you imagine how he would do if he actually were able to study and learn?

I am so proud of him. So proud.