Dodging a Snow Bullet

The Roc and I are getting up really early tomorrow morning to catch a flight to Tucson, Arizona.  The snow isn’t supposed to start falling until the afternoon.  The weather people are saying 24+ inches between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.  Whew!  Goodbye winter, hello sun!

This will be the Roc’s third trip to Arizona and he is already listing the activities he would like to do while there.  Picnics in the park, Sabino Caynon, lunch in that restaurant with the fountain – and he doesn’t want to eat inside this year, trips to the neighborhood playground, the desert museum, Saguaro National Park.  All of that sounds good to me, I really just want to visit with my parents, relax, and feel the sun’s warmth on my face.

Not only have we been talking about the different activities we will do while we are in Arizona, we’ve been discussing a big change in the way we travel.  No more stroller.  The Roc will have to walk in the airport, and not just one airport, we have to switch planes in Denver.  We’ve discussed waiting in line at check-in (already check-in online, that should save some time), waiting in line at security, waiting in line to get on the plane, walking through the different areas of the airport, what kinds of things we will see, sounds we will hear, that there will be many people all around, all moving!  The chaos!  The Roc has a handy picture schedule to help him along, he’s already got the pictures in order and has been looking at them and talking through the sequence.  I hope it’s enough.  I hope everything goes okay.

The other hurdle will be the bathroom.  Those scary flushing toilets.  The Roc has already said he doesn’t want to go to the bathroom because it’s too loud and so he devised a plan.  We will each use the restroom before walking the gauntlet otherwise known as Security, where Daddy can help him before we have to say good bye, because, you know – urinals are not as scary as toilets.  From there on out I’d better not drink anything because I’m only allowed to use the restroom on the plane so he can stay in his seat.  I don’t know if this is really the best plan.  He hasn’t allowed himself any bathroom breaks saying he will hold it until we get to Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Hmmm…we’ll see how that goes!

If you would have told me…

a year ago, even 6 months ago, that the Roc would one day sit down on the floor and let a 3 month old puppy crawl all over him, sniff his face and ears, and lick him.  I wouldn’t have believed you.  But,

It’s true.

Surfer Dude

A little story that has stuck with me since Christmas.

On Christmas Eve GC, the Roc, and I traversed the neighborhood on foot to deliver Christmas cards to our friends and neighbors.  Our last stop was right next door where my neighbor’s daughter was inside with her new boyfriend (I cannot remember his name, so he is Boyfriend in this memory) wrapping presents for her kids who were napping.  Of course Heather invited us inside, we rarely see each other anymore, though I see her kids every weekend next door at their Grandma and Grandpa’s playing in the back yard.  We started to catch up on the last few months and the Roc immediately started asking to leave.  The more I talked the more he yanked on my arm, my coat, my leg, pounded on the door and whined to leave.  I brought him back home and left him with GC, then I scooted next door and took Heather up on the offer of a stiff drink.

I apologized for the Roc’s behavior and answered the obligatory “How’s he doing?” question with my usual “Really good!”  Then Heather told me that the new Boyfriend has been a special ed teacher for many years and he works with Autistic kids.  Upon hearing of the Roc’s Autism diagnosis he asked the question I’ve been asked countless times before.

“So what is his special skill or interest?  Does he have something he loves or excels at?”

I hate being asked that question.  I never know how to answer it.  The Roc is smart and special (and not because of his Autism) but he doesn’t have a splinter skill.  Not all children with Autism do.  He didn’t teach himself to read at an early age, he cannot do advanced math, and he doesn’t play an instrument by ear.  So I answered with my standard answer.  He is smart and funny, and he’s making progress everyday.  We are very proud of how hard he works.  As far as an intense interest goes, he is obsessed with water.  Waterfalls, rivers, streams, fountains, any kind of moving water.  He loves to play in the bath, he is taking swimming lessons, and he enjoys the beach, especially watching the waves.

Boyfriend went on to say that not all children with Autism show their special skills at an early age.  The Roc may still be developing a skill.  Or his interests will develop into a skill in the future.  Then he told me that my description of the Roc reminded him of a boy with Autism he had in his class ten years ago, he too was completely water obsessed.  He wanted to do something with this boy’s love of water, and so with the parents permission, he took the boy to his beach house and taught him to surf.  Now, ten years later, this 19 year old kid is an amazingly good surfer, so good that Boyfriend thinks he has a shot at going pro.  His love of water has also led him to develop an affinity for photography, specifically photographing waves.  Whenever Boyfriend and friends travel south to surf this kid comes along and he pays him to photograph their surfing adventures.  He ended by telling me that you just never know where things will lead, how these kids will develop their skills, and to keep an open mind about the future.

I relayed this story to GC when I got back home and I could see him turning it over in his mind.

After the Roc’s Autism diagnosis we found it hard to think about the future.  I struggled with it terribly.  I felt that his future was stolen, or at least my dreams for his future were ripped out from under me.  Doom and gloom psychologists charting his supposed intelligence on a bell curve furthered my feelings that the future looked bleak.  But time has a way of changing your perspective.  The Roc is definitely on his own time table, but I see his potential is starting to bloom.  Now we think a bit more about the future.  We often say that the Roc will have some sort of job that allows him access to water.  We’ve joked that he will become a landscape architect, specializing in water gardens, or that he will design his own line of fountains.  But surfer/wave photographer has never crossed our minds.

I’ve added it to the list and now I smile inside imagining the Roc as a surfer dude, traveling the world with a camera slung around his neck.

I’ve carried that conversation with me since Christmas Eve.  I felt like I had been given a little unexpected gift that afternoon.  It was a wonderful conversation.  A reminder to keep dreaming of the future for the Roc.

He will find his way.

We will help him get there.

We’ll even buy him a surf board if he requests one.

Screaming = Hugs + Kisses

GC and I had ideas about how we would parent our children before we actually became parents.  You know, we’d use time outs, the 1-2-3 method, lots of talking, no screaming or yelling, and I was pretty firm on my NO hitting rule.  GC maintained that there were certain things that would be cause for a good smack on the tush like lighting fires in the woods, throwing rocks at cars and/or people, and torturing siblings (not that GC did any of those things mind you…ah hem.)  He stood by his “boys are different than girls” and really, how would I know?  I have a sister and he has two brothers.  Mainly we agreed to work together as a united front and our children, or course, were going to be pretty well behaved…

and then came the Roc.

He was an angel from about two months to two years of age.  And then the screaming started.  I understand now that he was intensely frustrated without a way to communicate and most definitely dealing with sensory issues he could not articulate.  In any case this is what I dealt with on a daily basis:

(proof that he isn’t always smiling!  I still see that face at least once a day!)

We started putting him in time out every time he screamed and man did he scream a lot.  So he spent a lot of time in the corner.  Then it was suggested to me that I try dabbing a little bit of Tabasco sauce on my finger and sticking that on his tongue.  We called it “screaming sauce” and it didn’t seem to have any impact on the screaming.  Looking back I feel pretty bad about doing that to him, but he likes salsa now, so maybe I helped him get used to spicy foods?

In any case time outs have never worked for this child.  Not in the way I see them work for other parents.

While we were in South Carolina over New Years I witnessed something I have never, ever experienced in my own home.  My sister in law, mother in law, and I were sitting in the family room together while my niece and nephew played nearby (the Roc was already in bed, I don’t mess with bed time, even on vacation).  It was late and my nephew Aiden was a little tired, his sister on the other hand can go on and on and she was niggling him, getting under his skin, as siblings sometimes do.  She stepped on something of his and he retaliated by bumping her in the leg with his head.  I wouldn’t even call it “headbutting” because it wasn’t a hard hit.  My sister in law is an awesome mother, she is on top of her kids, and they are not allowed to tease or be disrespectful.  So when this happened right in front of her she gasped, raised her arm, pointed to the front door across the room, and said in a low quiet voice:  “Get in time out right now.”  No dramatic screaming from her.  With a protruding lower lip Aiden quietly (OMG!  quietly!) went to the corner, sat on the floor, and didn’t say a peep…

OMG.  Seriously!  Oh. My.  God.  Never has the Roc ever behaved that way while getting disciplined.  Now I know that I shouldn’t compare, Aiden is a typically developing boy, and he is 10 months older than the Roc, but still I was flabbergasted.  That’s how it happens in (some) people’s houses?  What am I doing wrong?  The Roc couldn’t care less about time out or any kind of punishment we’ve tried for that matter.  There is nothing I can take away that matters to him.  Being separated from the group isn’t really a punishment to him.  And lately I’ve been losing my mind and have resorted to screaming.

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I screamed at the Roc to get upstairs to his room and I was frightened.  It was just like when Sully the monster on Monsters Inc. sees the still images of himself when he scared the cr@p out of little Boo.  He was surprised to see his grotesquely distorted face and so sorry to have scared the little one.  I was mortified to see the monster I became, and was instantly sorry to have screamed my head off at the Roc.  So, so sorry to have made him cry and to hear him say:  “Mommy, you scared me!” with a single tear tracing a path down his chubby pink cheek.

Broke. my. heart.

I felt that I would surely be awarded Worst Mother of the Year.

I vowed to try harder today.  I knew I would have ample opportunity.  You see, the Roc is still a screamer and it is hard to hear so much screeching, many times for the simplest, most ridiculous reasons.  Every day.  And I’ve been having a hard time with it lately.  He screams about food falling on the floor, the table, or heaven forbid – his pants.  He screams when the dog gets to rough (which isn’t the dogs fault, the Roc is crazy wild and the dog gets revved up.)  He screeches at his inability to get the cap off a jar, to throw a ball exactly where he wants it to go, to zip a zipper, or get his shoe on.  And on and on.  He is so easily frustrated.

And I won’t even get started on the defiance we have been experiencing lately.  That’s a whole other post.  Let’s just say that if he doesn’t want to do something, he’s not going to do it.  He won’t do it because he’s supposed to or because you want him to.  And the devilish smile when he’s realized he’s gotten under your skin?  Maddening.  But I won’t go there.

So this morning when the screaming started and I felt the anger well up inside and my annoyance meter hit the red zone I shouted,  “Screaming means you get a HUG and a KISS!  Yay!!” and then I chased him around the kitchen until I was able to capture him and hug, hug, hug away!  He reacted just like I thought he would, he laughed and tried to wiggle out of my loving embrace.  I continued with this scream = hugs and kisses mantra until the bus came.

It felt good to find a way to redirect his attention and keep my cool.  We had a much better morning together.  We had fun.  There was less screaming, or at least it turned to giggles pretty quickly.  I felt like I outsmarted him for once.

Until he got home from school and screamed so I would chase him around the kitchen and hug him.  The boy loves to be chased!  Oh, my poor, poor ears.

Now I have to figure something else out.  Or I’ll just go back to what I was doing last week:

Those noise canceling headphones may look really dorky, but they do the trick!

(The Roc HATES when I wear them.  He screams, which seems a bit counter productive, but what’s a girl to do?)

Roc-isms, Part I

I just love reading C-isms over at Darcy’s blog and the Roc’s been saying some funny stuff lately so I thought I would start my own little file of Roc-isms:

Said while watching Planet Earth Forests scene where a young owl is learning to fly, it was falling and catching the tree branches by it’s feet, with accompanying music.

“Uh-Oh Mommy, what’s going to happen?  That music scared the bird!  Turn the music off!  Quick!”

*

Me:  “How old are you Roc?”

The Roc: “Five”

Me:  “If you are five, how old is Mommy?”

The Roc looking at me for a beat before answering:  “Six?”

Me:  “Then how old is Daddy?”

The Roc with no hesitation:  “Four.”

*

“Mommy, I’ll try to be nice, but it will be a little harder for me.  I’m losing all my teeth.  I won’t be able to talk when my teeth fall out but the tooth fairy will leave toys under my pillow.”

*

“Mommy, I heard a special song just now. (The bus driver has the radio playing on the bus.) It was piano music.  I want to go upstairs and hear that while I look at books…  I think Aunt Sandy was on the bus.” (Aunt Sandy is an amazing piano player and we listen to her CD in the car sometimes and she played her piano for him when we visited CO in the summer!)

*

Sometimes we ask this question.  This time we got some funny results!

GC:  “Roc, should we have a baby?  Do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?”

Roc:  “Yes, I want a baby brother.” (Sometimes he says sister.)

GC:  “If we have a baby, it will grow in Mommy’s tummy.”

The Roc looks at me and pokes my belly.

Roc:  “No baby.”

Me:  “Nope, no baby in there.”

The Roc looks up at GC, pokes him in the belly, looks back at me and says: “There’s a baby in here, in Daddy’s tummy!”

GC looks at me and says:  “OMG.  I guess I really need to start working out.”

*

Last night on the way back from picking up GC from the airport (he was in CO snowboarding with his brother last week) we stopped at the grocery store and GC went in while the Roc and I stayed in the car.

“Mommy, ladies take a long time.  Daddies are quick but ladies take a long time.  That’s why daddy went to the store.”

You Will Be Missed

Right now as I type I can hardly see the computer screen through my tears.  GC’s Grammy passed away on Thursday.  My mother-in-law’s Mommy.  The Roc’s Great-Grammy.  I hurt for my mother-in-law and Aunt Sandy, my father-in-law (who would cut the seeds off strawberries for Grammy so she could still enjoy the best of summers sweetness), Uncle Allen, G, Chelch, Ange, the kids, my husband….me.  Words cannot do justice to the kind of woman she was, and I only knew her 9 short years.

My first memory of Grammy will forever be ingrained upon my mind.  I had just moved from Nebraska to New Jersey to shack up with GC after spending 1 week with him and only having known him 1 month.  I was pretty certain his whole family thought I was a complete loon.  I felt that a lot was riding on the first impression I presented and so I was quite nervous on the drive to Grammy’s house for the first family dinner, that included me.  I clenched my hands together and peppered GC for information about his family during the twisty turning drive to her yellow house.  I was worried he was going to throw me under the bus for the Midwestern way I pronounced Italian, not to mention my Minnesota accent.  (He did.)  I don’t remember conversation from the evening, what GC wore, or what we ate (other than I KNOW there was pie on the table after the meal), but I do remember that I wore a little cotton light blue t-shirt dress and hoped against hope I would meet the family’s approval, my stomach sick with nerves.

The reason I remember the dress I was wearing is because it is tied up in my first memory of Grammy.  She was aghast to see a few cat hairs clinging to my cotton dress and insisted on rolling me with a lint brush.  I tried to wave her off but she was persistent and so I stood stock still while she rolled the brush over my body including my rear!  I joked with GC on the car ride home that I didn’t know what the rest of his family thought, but I was pretty sure his Grammy liked me, heck, she practically felt me up!  It was classic Grammy, taking care, from the first moment we met.

I do not have nearly enough pictures of Grammy, but here are my favorites.  From Feburary 2004.

Grammy with baby Roc when he was only 10 days old.

Feeding the Roc on Christmas Eve 2004.

April 2005.

She put together train tracks and the Roc instantly took them apart in August 2006.

December 2008.

May 2009.

And finally a picture I am so glad we captured.  Grammy with all four of her great-grandchildren.  She was so proud of them.

Words escape me Grammy.

I wish I could tell you in person.

I love you.

You will be missed.

Lucy vs. Guinness

I get a lot of questions about how Guinness is getting along with our four (yes, I really did say FOUR) cats.

Well, three of the four run away from him.  They jump the gates and flee upstairs or to the basement. Scaredy cats.

Our fourth cat?

Lucy is still out and about and Guinness is very interested in her.

He’s slowly catching on to the fact Lucy doesn’t take crap from anyone.  Especially a dog.

There’s really only one man for her.

January Funk + Labeling Update

So I wrote last Monday (gosh, almost 2 weeks ago!) about leaving a message for the special ed person at the Roc’s school regarding his current (inappropriate) educational label, emotionally disturbed.

Then I fell off the planet.

I got into a funk.  A huge terrible natural disaster happened on the day I entered another year on this planet.  My funk got deeper.  It happens to me every year.  The January funk.

It was funkier this time.  Or so it seemed to me.

I won’t go into the sordid details of my pity party funk.  How I cried myself to sleep one night thinking I may have alienated the one person I feel close to in this tiny state, missing the couple MN girls who know me from way back when.  How badly I wished that I could pop over to my sister’s house so she could make me laugh.  (Your phone calls have helped Kath, thanks!)  Nope, not gonna talk about it.  Other than to say that the friend I thought I had offended wrote me an amazing email that completely lifted the solid block of weight off my chest.  I chuckled to myself when GC said to me:  “That’s why I didn’t pay any attention to your craziness last night.  I knew every thing was okay, you just do this sometimes.”

Yup, I do.  It’s winter and I’m officially done with it.

Anyway, not much to report on the changing the label process.  I got a call back from the special ed person last week and an email this week.  She was very nice on the phone.  I explained the Roc’s situation and my thoughts on the matter.  I requested more information and she sent home a copy of the state’s Administrative Code in the Roc’s backpack and requested permission to observe him in the classroom.  Permission granted, she should definitely know more about my child.  Thumbing through the material that was sent home I came across the eligibility criteria for Autism and highlighted all the areas within the broad definition that apply to the Roc.  According to my calculations, he fits the criteria.  This week I was told via email that the school psychologist needs to agree that the current label isn’t appropriate before we can proceed…uh huh.

No Way.  I know without a doubt that I have the right to request an IEP meeting whenever I want.  I am a full member of the IEP team.  They may be experts in their chosen fields, but I am the expert on the Roc (and I am probably the only Autism expert on the current team).  No one knows him (and Autism) like I do.

Meanwhile through another Autism mommy friend I got in touch with a woman named Kathy who apparently has fought the system in my district.  I don’t know her whole story yet, but she was hoping mad to hear mine.  She requested information on the Roc and so I spent some quality time at the UPS store photocopying all of the Roc’s evaluations, both medical and through the school.   Then I dropped them off at her house this morning while she was at an IEP meeting, how fitting.  Kathy told me via email today that she finally won her battle for her son to have an appropriate Autism label…and he’s graduating this year!  She told me her passion is helping our kids and she wants to help me and the Roc.  She wants to see kids get what they need/deserve a whole lot younger.

I like her.

She got a new job recently, in addition to her current job as a nurse, she is now a paralegal for her special education attorney.  She has a special education attorney!

I really like her.

Inappropriate Labels

My son, who has Autism, was given the educational label of “Emotionally Disturbed” to receive services at school.  This happened back in the spring after he was evaluated by the Delaware Autism Program (DAP.)  Basically, to make a long story short, he wasn’t “Autistic enough” to go to their program so he cannot have the educational label of Autism.  Never mind that he has a diagnosis from a neurologist, a developmental pediatrician, and the psychologist at the Children’s hospital.  Oh no, those medical people don’t know squat, do they?  And forget about the MOTHER who has read, educated herself, and happens to be living with the boy who has Autism.  She doesn’t know diddly either.

Apparently.

Definitely disturbing.  So much that I haven’t really been able to let it go.

Can you tell?

I did add an addendum to his file stating that he has a medical diagnosis of Autism and added copies of his latest reports from said neurologist, developmental pediatrician, and psychologist.  I figured his new teacher would read his file before he started school.  Back in November I was disturbed to find out that she hadn’t read the whole thing (the addendum was most likely at the end.)  She didn’t know he had Autism until I mentioned it (and I mentioned it over the summer, thinking she’d read his file.)  She didn’t know that DAP holds the key to the educational label of Autism in our tiny state.  I filled her in.

Something else that has been niggling at the back of my mind is that the special ed teacher told me she read his Functional Behavior Analysis (which we wrote when the psychologist gave him the emotionally disturbed label) over the summer but has not had to implement ANY of it and hasn’t looked at it since.  He isn’t a behavior problem in the class.

Emotionally disturbed my ass.

Oh yes, I find this disturbing.

Recently I reached out to a couple Moms I know with boys on the spectrum to ask what labels their children have, and what I found out disturbed me even further.  In one case a boy with Aspergers has the educational label of Autism and the other has the label of Learning disabled.  All it took to for the child with Aspergers to get the educational label of Autism was a letter from his regular pediatrician stating that he is on the spectrum and how it could affect his schooling.  The other with the educational label of learning disabled was given that label because his biggest struggle was with adaptive behavior.  This is a child who taught himself to read at 4 years old!  He is not learning disabled!!  The school psychologist told me that the Roc didn’t qualify for the learning disabled label because he wasn’t showing any academic issues.  Well, he certainly cannot read!  And he definitely has issues with adaptive behavior!!

So now I’m seriously disturbed by all of this.  What an injustice to him to have the label “Emotionally Disturbed” following him around, tacked on behind his name at the top of his file.

So today I put on my advocate hat and called the school’s special education director.  Of course, I got her voice mail.  I took a deep breath, retracted my mama bear claws, spewed out a little introduction, and requested more information on how the district determines the educational labels they give their special needs students, as I have not been able to locate it on the state’s website, as well as a time to meet to go over a more appropriate label for the Roc.

We will see how quickly she gets back to me.  I always end my messages with a cheery:  “I very much look forward to speaking with you regarding this matter, talk to you soon!”

Oh yes, I look forward to stating the Roc’s case on this matter.

ROAR!

How He Sees Me

I have wondered for some time how the Roc views me.  What does he think “Mommy” means?  What does it mean to him?  I’ve been told many times that he is a “mama’s boy” and it’s true.

If you give him the choice between me and anyone else on this planet, 99% of the time he’ll pick me.  He follows me through the house, from the kitchen to the bedroom, upstairs, downstairs, to the back door while I take Guinness out to potty, and he even follows me to the bathroom.  (I am working diligently to put a stop to that.  Now that the Roc has begun to ask questions – there are certain things I don’t have the desire to explain just yet.  This mama deserves a little bit of privacy!)  He wants me to play trains or pretend picnic, the same way every time, it is just so hard to get him to deviate from the scripts I made up long ago.  There really is no spontaneous imaginative play at our house, unless I am present, prodding and coaxing him along.  Recently we’ve started playing board games, and they are definitely breaking the monotony as well as helping to develop some great new skills for the Roc.  But it’s exhausting.  At the end of a full day with him I am wiped out.  Forget about winter break where he was out of school for 16 days…16 days of entertaining him.

Oy.

This mom gig is hard.  Many say it’s the hardest job they’ve ever had.  And all special-needs moms know that our job is often harder than most.  Every mom wears many hats: chef, chauffeur, teacher, maid, homework helper, boo-boo kisser, etc.  The special-needs mom wears those hats and even more: occupational therapist, play therapist, speech therapist, physical therapist, researcher, IEP team member, activist, advocate, administrator of special diets and supplements, cheerleader, and the list goes on and on.

We do all of this because we love them, we want what is best for them, we try our hardest to do this job right.  We wouldn’t trade it for not having them.  I know I wouldn’t.  Most kids do not consider all of their mother’s hard work, and very few say thank you, at least not until they are older and have kids of their own.

(Thanks Mom!)

And of course, we are not looking for thank yous.  That wasn’t in the job description and we signed up anyway.  But most kids show their love, in their own ways.

The Roc’s smile has always been my proof of his love.  He may not have cuddled with me, laid his head on my shoulder and snuggled in the way I physically ached for him to, (and sometimes still do, every mother wants to hold her child), but I know he loves me.  Now that he is much more verbal more of his love is being exposed, when I least expect it.

While we were down south we visited both the state park beach and our favorite beach, Pawleys Island.  The Roc likes Pawleys because the beach huge and has an inlet side where there are no loud waves to scare him, and he can get close to the water.  He was busy throwing sand into the inlet when I decided to walk across the beach to the ocean side for a breather.  These vacations exhaust me and I just needed 5 minutes of space.  If the Roc is attached to me at home just imagine what he’s like when we go stay with family.  I stated my intentions and started across the beach.  Immediately the Roc started screaming.  Guttural screaming and screeching.  I glanced over my shoulder at his stiff form and kept moving knowing GC could handle it, mama needed some air.  I could hear him screaming most of the way until I got down to the water.

I stood in front of the waves and stared across the ocean searching for some peace.  I cherish the time we spend with family, but it opens me up to things I tend to shove in the background.  Differences I know exist, but do not focus on in my home life, become so apparent they choke off my air at times.  I flounder with myself as I try to balance disciplining the Roc in front of family and keeping in check all the sensory issues he is dealing with in an unfamiliar house.  I struggled with envy again on this trip, and I felt myself splintering apart while watching GC really connect with his nephew…and seeing the Roc watch from the sidelines.  All of this swirled through my mind as the wind whipped my hair and the waves crashed at my feet.  I looked over my shoulder to see that the Roc had gone back to throwing sand in the water.  I took a deep breath and turned to rejoin my family.

As we were leaving the beach GC asked me if I knew the Roc had been hysterical when I went down to the ocean.  Oh yeah, I knew.  Apparently after he had screamed for a bit, all the while GC telling him I would be coming back, he turned his blotchy, tear streaked face up to GC and said:

“But I don’t want Mommy to go away…She’s my best friend.”

He may never understand how hard I try, how much work we have done together, but I don’t doubt that he loves me or how he sees me.