All of Friday was centered on Charlie's neurologist visit, which meant the whole day really came down to a 15 minute conversation in south Jersey. Aside from the altercation with the shiny tan car, Charlie has been navigating bus rides, school with his now-not-new teacher and aides, a 3:1 teacher:student ratio, and even his thymic distress without fireworks. The doctor noted that it seems Charlie's current medication regimen (he takes four different ones daily and a fifth for PRN emergencies) seems to be working, though noting that one of the meds could be contributing the the thymic distress. Charlie has been much more amenable to our efforts to get him to drink lots of fluids throughout the day and eating fiber-richer foods (apples and grapes; I'm going to attempt vegetable reintroduction too).
Of course there was a lot more to Friday than those 15 minutes. Mine started with a 6.53 am train (after giving Charlie his morning meds and finding Jim's cell phone so I could call him to make sure he was up to get Charlie on the 7.30am bus); three classes and a great deal of chalk dust (due to water damage on the roofs of some buildings at my college, we have had to vacate our usual classrooms where there are dry erase boards which I personally prefer because I write on the board lots in 5 different colors -- bringing Latin and ancient Greek grammar to life requires efforts somewhat on a par with coaxing a littler Charlie to learn his receptive language targets); last-minute instructions to an advanced Latin student for a quiz with an eye on the clock so I could make it to the Journal Square PATH station; rushing to said station in pouring rain because I brought my fold-up umbrella Thursday but not Friday when it actually rained; saying to myself that the brown thing running at my bag couldn't be a mouse only to hear someone else waiting for the PATH yell "there's a mouse running at your foot!" and making an appropriate screech (plus I was wearing sandals); waiting with other soggy, bag-laden passengers for a late NJ Transit train; waiting for Jim who had picked up Charlie only to be caught in traffic.
Then "caught" in traffic is pretty much how we spent the next several hours. Cars lined the NJ Turnpike on the way down (so we were almost an hour late) and lines of cars clogged all the local routes Jim tried on the way home, on hearing that the NJ Turnpike had 90 minute or some such delays. We passed by both where I went to college (road completely at a standstill) and where Jim had (roads moving a little better but but this time Charlie was saying 'I need to use the bathroom' -- which is remarkable as he never used to tell us verbally so we usually found out post factum when the fait, c'est accompli -- and it was also remarkably hard to find a place to run in due to New Jersey's jug handles and continued streams of cars every which way).
Apologies for getting into private matters but parents of kids like Charlie know that bathroom business can rule your life. But not only can Charlie now tell us, in words, when the moment approacheth, but, at long last, he can wait and it holdeth. It was just a few years ago that I was still keeping extra clothes in my bag and the car.
Charlie also sat through all but the last few minutes of our visit with the neurologist. We have gotten in the habit of only having him sit through the very start of the visit and then going to the car: Neurologists' visits inevitably mean discussing behavior storms and the like and who wants to hear their worst moments discussed in front of them? Friday seemed at ease enough so that Jim, after letting Charlie know he was going to talk about 'what happened,' quickly explained the altercation with the shiny tan car.
Then he and Charlie headed to WaWa while I went over med refills and Charlie's stomach issues with the doctor.
Then we headed home, except we didn't get there till about 4 hours later due to massive amounts of cars on the Turnpike, on state and local highways. 'Still plenty of people living in New Jersey,' quoth Jim who had to summon every last bit of local Jersey road knowledge to keep us moving, if not necessarily closer to our destination.
We spent Saturday doing the usual including, of course, some bike riding on the trail in (traffic-less) Jersey horse country -- very good to stretch out our legs after the previous day's extended sit in our faithful white car.
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