One day off from summer school which just began for the fourth of July on Wednesday. My parents due to arrive on Saturday. Summer heat and a touch of rising humidity. A full moon. That bane of the teenager, acne. Fireworks for the above-noted holiday. Life as a teenager who spends all of his non-school time with his parents.
It is all giving Charlie a bellyful of cares or rather curas. The latter is from the Latin word cura which means not 'cure' (not in classical Latin at any rate) but 'care, worry, woe, trouble, anxiety, pains.'
I was hoping to do some writing about various scintillating topics like the Facebook email foul-up or the big mess of a merger being made of certain New Jersey institutions of higher learning. But that would mean my mind and fingers would be active in a certain way and Charlie just seems to sense these.
It does makes me think, for nine months I carried this child inside of me and then for thirteen months more I nursed him, making the best eye contact every time, we've still got the buzz from a psychic-ish connection going.
Jim does the best intuiting and interpreting of Charlie's moods. I decipher (or try to) Charlie's sparsely worded, seemingly non-contextual pronouncements (I start from the premise, it all has meaning, just as every piece of a poem fits together into the proverbial well-wrought urn).
This night bridging Monday to Tuesday feels like it will be an insomnia night. So typing can wait and I am reading a text of strange and potent familiarity, a reissue of Richmond Lattimore's 1951 translation of Homer's Iliad, the first translation I ever read of the epic, and with a very fine introduction by the professor who advised my Junior Paper on food in the plays of Aristophanes in 1989.
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus...
It's been a rough period for our household as well -
ESY was supposed to start on Monday, but the storm and first day chaos meant it wasn't to be, and today was called off as well, and tomorrow is the 4th
The behavioralist who works with Rufus lost power so they couldn't hang at his house
All regular activities (swimming, skating, movies, out to eat) were unavailable due to power outages
Favorite websites (YouTube, Toon Town etc) weren't available since our internet was out
Tough times for a teen who just came back from a first ever week away to camp and is trying to figure out independence and interdependence.
Posted by: Cfer | 03 July 2012 at 09:21
Ah, free time is not necessarily free. I think Caroline has said Mommy no less than 100 times, literally, a day since school got out. Most of the time, she doesn't have anything to say, she is just venting her boredom in the only way she knows how. - Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy..........
Posted by: Eileen Riley-Hall | 03 July 2012 at 11:36
Every parent should read this post. Your ability to use words supersedes all I know.
Posted by: Barbara @therextras | 03 July 2012 at 11:40
@Cfer, It was sleepaway camp, wow! Wish the homecoming had been smoother. I'm reminded of that string of snow days you had a few years ago...
@Eileen, I owe you an email! Charlie was using 'yes' like that for awhile; we, of course, were supposed to guess the latest meaning.
@Barbara, as ever you are _way_ too kind! He fell asleep at 4am, after getting up about ten times -- I think he wants to sleep but something gets the trip of him. Still up for the bus.
Posted by: autismvox | 03 July 2012 at 12:49
Sleepaway was a big step. The pictures show a smiling kid, so I guess it's all good. I'll never know the details of what happened, but I know he was a happy independent kid.
Transitions are always hard, but I think it it works out okay. We'll see what happens with ESY tomorrow.
Posted by: Cfer | 04 July 2012 at 18:08