Thank you Miss Tania!

How do you thank someone who has made such a difference in your child's life that there are literally no words to describe it?

I'll give it my best shot.

My family was blessed last school year to have a teacher's aide assigned to Noah who is truly passionate about children, most particularly preschoolers with special needs.

When Noah started preschool almost two years ago he was a completely different person.  He would throw himself on the floor and scream every day when I dropped him off, and every day again when I picked him up.  I would often have to carry him to the car and hold him down into his carseat so I could get him belted in.  I had to put his shoes and coat on for him at school because he couldn't do it himself.  (He turned 3 right after he started preschool last year.)  He wouldn't even acknowledge if someone said his name.  When I looked through our family pictures, I could only find two images of him smiling.

Tania was always patient with Noah, whether he was having a meltdown, disturbing group time in class, or just not sitting still.  She was the first person to tell me that Noah was autistic.  We knew that something was off with him, and suspected he may be autistic, but she was the first to confirm that whenever we managed to get him diagnosed, we already knew what we were dealing with.  She helped me to adjust to that reality, showing me that the key to dealing with my autistic child was in accepting him for who he was, and helping him to be everything he is capable of being.

Miss Tania stayed by Noah's side throughout the school year, helping him to do things that come naturally to most of us, but were so very difficult for him.  At the end of the year she gave him a big hug and gave me dozens of pictures she had taken of him throughout the school year.  They're all in a preschool photo album, a record of his progress last year.

And this school year we were doubly blessed to have Miss Tania back as Noah's full-time in-school teacher's aide once again.  We were sooooo happy when we heard that news!  And once again Miss Tania was patient and loving and wonderful through Noah's obsessions with his backpack, his boots, puzzles.  Through his bouts of frustration and aggression with her and his fellow students.  She helped administer his new look and learn therapy as well as his music therapy program.  (And by helped, I mean she did all the work with some advice and supervision of Noah's Occupational Therapist and Speech Therapists.)

And now, at the end of Noah's second year in preschool, his second and likely last year with the amazing and wonderful Miss Tania, these are the things that Noah now does on a regular basis:

-He puts on and takes off his shoes and coat all by himself.  (Even his coat zipper!)

-He arrives at and leaves the school calmly, just like any other kid.

-He smiles!  All the time!

-He makes eye contact, even seeks it out when he wants something.  (This is absolutely huge for an autistic individual.  Eye contact is a very basic and integral part of human social interaction, which most autists find difficult or even impossible.)

-He can follow simple directions and will respond when you say his name. 

Most of this amazing progress can be attributed directly to Miss Tania, and her care and dedication.  She saw the potential in my child, and helped him to reach it.  And I will always remember her as the very first person (even before me!) to do so.

Miss Tania, you were like our Mary Poppins, swooping in and transforming our child, our family.  And I would honestly love to keep you forever, but I know I can't.  There are other children who need you as much as we did two years ago.  We still need you, and we will all miss you so very much, but I think there are little boys and girls out there who need you more. 

On behalf of myself, Derek, Noah and Sean, we love you and wish you the very best, and we will all miss you very very much.  (And I am crying as I write this.)

Thank you. 

Love,
     -Nan

Reflection: The Boxer

Gonna try something a little different for this post.

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

from the song "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon

I love this song.  Always have.  I feel like it speaks to me, most particularly the verse I quoted above.

Have you ever felt like that boxer?  I have.  All the time, really.  Or I used to.  The song is more nostalgic to me now; a reminder of how I felt for a few years of my life, and how I finally walked away from the things that made me feel that way.

When I was in my early twenties, I partied a lot.  I met a lot of men.  And I allowed many of those men to get far closer to me than most of them had any right to be, physically and emotionally.  This is not about having someone force their affections on me.  This is about my allowing them access to myself that they did not deserve.  I am not proud of this part of my past, but neither am I ashamed anymore.  It happened, and all the shame and recrimination cannot remove these experiences from my own past.  They have helped shape who I am now, and I am reconciled with those feelings.  But the worst, the absolute worst part of these years, these men, these experiences was the fact that I lied to myself the entire time.  Each time I was with someone new, I told myself that this would be different, that this would be the last time.  And it never was.  Until I finally allowed myself to give when I chose to, not expecting anything in return, and to withhold when I chose to, walking away when the relationship was no longer beneficial to me.

To me, the song is about lying to yourself. Being in a situation that you find intolerable and telling yourself that you're going to just walk away and leave it all behind. But you don't. You stay, and you survive. And it kills something inside you as long as you stay. But in the same way, when you finally find the strength to go, the experience makes you stronger.

I see myself standing in that clearing, with all my scars out there for all the world to see.  The scars of my self-deceit and the emotional abuse that I inflicted upon myself.  The scars are there long after the pain has faded.  And in retrospect, I am proud of those scars.  They are concrete proof that I felt, and I hurt and that I lived.  And I am still here.  And I am stronger for having survived those things.

And that is why I love "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel.  Give it a listen sometime.

Love,
    -Nan

Sean-Monster

Three years ago today at approximately 11:30am, I gave birth to a 10 lb monstrosity.  (Monstrosity referring to the size of the child, not the child himself.)

I named him Sean.  Actually I had been calling the unborn baby "him" and "Sean" since about five months along, when I woke up at 3 am, woke Derek up and asked, "What about Sean for a boy?".  Derek had grunted something akin to assent and Sean has been "Sean" ever since.  I didn't have a dream or anything, I just woke up with the idea, his name should be Sean.  And ran with it.

I had been concerned that I wouldn't bond with the baby right away.  I was so stressed out and overwhelmed when Noah was born that I didn't really bond with him until about a month after he was born.  I needn't have worried.  It was love at first sight.

*Note: This does not mean that I love one of my children any more than the other.  It is perfectly normal to not bond with a new baby immediately, and I fully understood such at the time with Noah.  I just hoped it wouldn't happen to me twice.

Sean has always been very stubborn and very aware of how cute he is.  He's an insufferable flirt.  He loves to play outside, climb on furniture, and say 'Hi' to everyone he passes.  He is the bane of his brother's existence, as he takes his role of 'little brother' very seriously.

He is my little monster-child and I love him very much. 

Happy Birthday, Sean-Monster!

Love,
    -Mommy