1.03.2006

It's Not Just the Rain

Although the excessive storming kept us from our Saturday morning cafe routine on New Year's Eve. Which sucked.

Nor is it Sunday morning's lack of child care at church, discovered after Seymour had to stay home during a work fiasco and so I hauled all three children into the sanctuary after having to park a rainy block away--even though there was a free and clear spot in front of the church reserved for handicapped (an issue I think we could probably take advantage of, though I only long to do so during these brief flashes of inconvenience). The kind people who were church Greeters encouraged me to stay; my very favorite fuckwad (the "why don't they just chain them to the ground" parent) chimed in with "Oh, yes, of course you can't stay!" Sage has mentioned that she is more likely clueless than callous, but since when is that an acceptable excuse for making families of special needs kids feel even more excluded?

Nor is it hanging out a dear friend's home later, even though I knew it was and it turned out to be a bad idea. There is no such thing as having a good time in a house that is not ours, not with Leelo along. As much as our friends really did try.

It's none of these, really. More it's the realization that Leelo is now full-blown and obviously different, and people who haven't been conditioned to treat him nicely (as have the sweet lovely Iron Gate classmates at the New Year's Eve party who sought him out and made him say hi to them by name) are uncomfortable around him. Kids his age are old enough to say that they don't want him around, and far from mature enough to communicate that diplomatically. They say so right in front of him, as though he's not there.

Also it's his tailspinning outside of his routine. So we really shouldn't be taking him on trips, and we really shouldn't be taking him to peoples' homes, unless we have calm environments for him to retreat to, and at least 75% coverage of his usual therapy schedule. Which is a coordination nightmare.

He is slipping away. I still don't think he's going to end up like the woman in the Get The Truth Out site (not linked to, though you can Google it if you like; it is a good advocacy site but fucking depressing for parents in my spot). He is still a love, but a remote one, and hard to connect to. The holidays and all the nutiness around them made it hard to focus on him like I should. And it shows. So we're just going to be hanging around here being mellow for now.

Once Iz's birthday party is over, anyhow.

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