We Go With Him

Throwback

Yesterday was blue sky and sunny though not the 80 degrees of last week:

 

Today is yellow jacket weather, windy, rainy, chilly -- a throwback to winter weather. More than enough to make anyone a little confused at least in regard to their wardrobe.

Since Wednesday night, Charlie's OCD-ness has been up -- lots of standing in place and stomping and looking at his feet and making various noises -- a clear signal of lots of internal anxiety. His Spring Break starts next Friday and his teacher noted that Charlie is probably anticipating it.

Last Spring Break Charlie pulled down every single bookshelf in our house. Not sure what the upcoming break will bring. I'm hopeful that Charlie has found a last crash-tastic way of expressing his worries.

By the way, the once-on-the-shelves books are now boxed in the basement and our house feels more spacious, plus we have a nice new blue armchair in the dining room where two bookshelves once were. That change-up proved beneficial and I think we can be hopeful that the upcoming changes will turn out all right, in unexpected ways.

 

From the Home of Our 1 in 49 Jersey Boy to Yours

 

After three nights of post-midnight/more like 2am-ish falling asleep, Charlie's face was tense as he got on the schoolbus; he smiled and cried alternately at school; he shouted for his new long bike ride soon as he got off the bus; he ran his usual circuit on the front lawn looking keenly for Jim; he stomped and turned for minutes before getting on the bike; he was game though very anxious on the 14 miles and handled the unexpected locking of the gate to the bike trail very well (thanks in no small part to Jim the great innovator on the road); he ate dinner and asked me to help him look up videos on YouTube while I started preparing notes on the Persian Wars (only to get lost reading about the Achaemenids and then the birth of Athenian democracy); he showered and cried as he got into bed; he cheered up when I went to check on him and gladly assented to having fingernails and toenails trimmed; he wanted me to remove a Wiggles album from his iPad; he waited as I synced the iPad and packed a bag with materials for teaching on Friday; he asked for one more round of typing and than said 'Mom stairs.'

I think he went to sleep sometime soon after that, before 9.30pm.

Pavement Shots (with Nemesis Dog)

Charlie is apparently on a four-day no-sleep cycle (instead of, as previously, a three-day one) as he is wide awake and up and about past midnight on Wednesday night. On Monday he was up till 2am (I think; I fell asleep before he did) and on Tuesday, past midnight and the same tonight and once again despite a fair amount of exercise.

As Jim was teaching till late in the evening, it was Charlie and me all afternoon and beyond.

We got a coveted burrito (still following the food schedule). On the first of two walks, Charlie didn't go through the field for the 1 mile route, but on the sidewalk for the 2 miler. He took a quick look to the left as we passed the house of Nemesis Dog, who was on the front lawn, and who barked. Charlie started running towards the field in the opposite direction.

I coax him to keep walking and held out my hand. After some hesitation, Charlie walked by me, let me hold his hand, and walked past the house with the now-barking dog.

As we proceeded round a field where high school guys were playing lacrosse, Charlie stopped on the pavement and looked at his feet.

 

 

He stopped after a few more feet and then after a few more, and a few more, always on the cracks or when the pavement was a different color due to repaving having occurred.

 

 

He looked at his feet and was clearly thinking through something. Perhaps counting down as he readied on a starting line, something I think he's learned from school?

 

 

On the second walk, Charlie didn't do nearly as much stopping, standing and thinking. There was much more running and at a fair pace and we got hom with a hour to spare and wait for Jim.

Obvious Anxieties

 

I dreamed last night that we saw Charlie sitting beside a stream in the late morning, when he should have been in school: Had he somehow left? Had he run off the bus when the door was open and another child got on?

He's on one of his couple-of-day out-of-whack sleep cycles. Tuesday's past-midnight sleeptime was preferable to Monday's 2am!

(In the photo, he is biking of course after Jim, at the start of the new 14-mile-local route.)

 

The New Daily 14 Miles?

 

Charlie really likes his new bike route. 14 miles, through 5 or 6 towns, over an old iron bridge and past some industrial areas. He asked for the new route soon as he came off the bus.

As we have learned, serious good exercise sometimes just instills such exuberance in our boy that he is not tired at all. Indeed, at past midnight, Charlie is quite awake so that 8am Latin class could be 'interesting' tomorrow (though I could teach Latin right now if I had to; I've done it so much).

52 Mile Weekend!

 

First there was a ride in Jersey horse country in the morning, from a new starting point.

Well, actually, first there was Charlie waking before 5am, wanting a walk (he did wait till 7am), eating a big breakfast, wanting a bike ride, me getting out the bikes, rain falling, Jim putting the bikes on the porch, Jim suggesting Charlie sit in the brown chair, Charlie conking out, Jim grading and me posting.

The new starting point involved an initial down hill which is not, as Jim told me, to Charlie's liking. He got over it and then proceeded in a speed demonish sort of way for 14 miles.

 

 

Lunch, rest, back on the bikes.

 

 

Jim and Charlie did a neighborhood ride-in-the-other-direction and ended up doing some Jim-provising which took them over an old iron bridge and down a neighboring town's streets that I certainly haven't been to in years. Quite a ride and Charlie came back glowing and a little tentative.

He wolfed down a plate of sushi, wanted to eat more and did, spent a good 40 minutes standing and stomping around and then went up to bed, called me to get him a drink of water (a first, I realized in hindsight), and then -- partially from nerves from a new ride in unfamiliar territory where he didn't know where he was, maybe why he'd woken so early, maybe who-knows-why -- just as I was about to sit down and look up a Harvard archive about Albert Lord, motherly duty was necessary and a roll of paper towels, and hot water and soap.

After which, Charlie fell asleep with his iPad on his chest.

 

Orality and Literacy and the Homeric Question

This is really more of a note to myself. In the midst of routine posting about disablity rights, IDEA, the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests, Charlie's and Jim's bike-capades and running reasonably fast for a 43-year-old mother down the street after our boy (not because, as some people think, he is running away, but because he has a beautiful bow-legged stride and Jim and are sending repeated requests to Special Olympics and Charlie is learning the joy of running as I did at his age) -- I think, after many years and abstracts for panel presentations that never became papers and lesson-planning about Latin declensions and Greek participles and grading papers and quizzes, that I have found a research focus. 

The Homeric Question and orality and literacy, informed by research about the communication and language of individuals with speech disabilities -- who are non- are minimally verbal -- who do not read (in our text-based society) -- and how music and metaphorical language and memory play a part.

I'm refining this focus and also starting to read the mountain of scholarship -- Milman Parry, Albert Lord, Greg Nagy, Adam Parry, Nietsche -- on this huge topic. 

First 26-Mile Day of the Year

 

14 miles out in Jersey horse country at a speed demon pace.

Then a request for a 'local' ride turned into a 12-mile adventure including passing a couple of exits on the Garden State Parkway as Jim got the sense that Charlie didn't just want to retrace their steps but to make a circuit.

Who wants to repeat what you've already done?

A Boy Who Can Handle Things

 

Friday night we heard an unusual noise while the shower water was running; on going upstairs (in a non-rushing kind of of way), we found Charlie standing by the bathroom sink and holding the shower rod and curtain. He was grinning.

Obviously, time for a new one!

Perhaps, Charlie is indeed learning how to handle small catastrophes.

 

More in the Milestone Category

Fingernail-cutting was something I dreaded for years to do with Charlie. After attempting such while he was sleeping (bad idea but, when awake, he fidgeted mightily and pulled his fingers back and issued many other signs of resistance, plus I feared nipping him), I was gradually able to clip one finger at a time.

Thursday night, I suggested to a consternated Charlie -- clearly irked, perhaps by thymic distress; he'd eaten no dinner after repeatedly asking for it and cried at the end of a walk -- that I do 'fingernails.'

'Fingernails!' Charlie said, grinned, and held out his left hand, and his right hand, and each foot too.

Afterwards he was visibly happy and, after a few rounds of YouTube video searching, fell asleep around 10pm.