The Crew - Miss Fabulous, Lil Bro, Big Sis and Mr. Man

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Talking about Loss

Sunday we sat the younger kids down and explained about Lil' Bob passing away. They woke up Sunday morning asking where he was. Mr. C explained that "he must be in his bed" and then he said "well he must be outside."

I explained that Lil' Bob was a really old dog and that he was sick and that Daddy took him to the vet and while he was at the vet he died. Mr. C said "you must be trying to tell me a joke right Mom?" I explained that no I was not joking about anything that we were talking about. Jokes are difficult to understand when you have Asperger's Disorder and so he pretty much puts anything that he doesn't understand in the joke category.

I explained that Lil' Bob was really peaceful and that he wasn't hurt or upset at all and that Daddy was with him and so he wasn't scared. Mr. C crawled into my lap and cried. He just buried his face in my chest and cried. I explained that our other dogs were young and healthy and they would be with us for a long time. He seemed comforted by that and went and loved on Jasmine.
Miss M seemed totally not bothered and uninterested in the discussion. She didn't ask questions or make comments she just seemed interested in other things. She understands loss too well and moved right on to the moving on phase of things.

Yesterday on one of her school papers the activity was to write about a picture of a smiling girl holding a black cat. Miss M's writing is all over the page and hard to discern sometimes but in the scribble was clearly written "Milo I love cat." We have a black cat that lives outside named Milo and the cat in the picture was a black and white cat. It was nice to see her express affection for the cat.

Last week was week of unpleasants. Nan had to have some oral surgery which was none too fun. I made her chicken soup and she kind of lived off that for the weekend. She is doing much better now btw.

Miss M raged Friday morning before school. The whole I don't want to get up I don't want to get dressed I don't want to go to school I don't want to ride with Daddy to school, stuff. The deal is Nan takes the kids to school on her way to work. Miss M has a nasty habit of treating Nan badly in the mornings. So if she treats Nan badly then she doesn't get the privilege of riding with Nan, instead Dad will take her to school on his way to work. This applies to all the kids but for the most part the other two do okay in the mornings. That wasn't always the case.

Part of the whole Bipolar thing is that mornings are often really difficult for them. She literally wakes up and goes into these rages. Or the mind set that triggers the rage. So for the second time in 2 weeks she was tardy to school because she refused to go. Her teacher is a nice lady but doesn't seem to get what we have shared. She gobs on the sugar with Miss M which leads Miss M to feel that she can charm this teacher, cause she can. And in turn we believe has triggered some of this backsliding. Some teachers who have taught for a long time, have their own children who are nearly grown and doing excellent in school and the community tend to think they know it all regarding "their" students. And a lot of the time that is probably completely true. But with Miss M this is a whole different ball game and we need this teacher to get on board.

I e-mail the teacher whenever Miss M is late because of refusal to go to school. Those e-mails are public record ya know. Mrs. Teacher e-mailed me back around noon to say "She is having a wonderful day. Have a great weekend!" I e-mailed back and explained that it would be helpful if Mrs. Teacher would speak to Miss M about getting to school on time since she had been tardy twice in the last two weeks because of her refusal to go to school. I further explained that this has been helpful in the past at communicating to Miss M that was are all on the same team and worker toward the greater good, one united front. She did e-mail back that she had spoken with Miss M.

So we shall see how this progresses. Here are some pics from the week.

Nan in recovery with nurse Chico by her side.


Mr. C and his lovey Henry the Hippo.



Lil' Bro looking cute as ever.


The "twins" with their glasses. They were playing nicely together at this moment, that's why I took the picture.



Big Sis took this picture of Miss M in a happy moment. Cute!

1 comment:

jessica bear said...

Cute pictures! I can't beleive how fast the kids are growing!