Singing a Different Tune (written Friday July 17)

Back when Nic was dx'ed, nearly 7 years ago, my younger sister bought me a card that was signed by all my family members and generous donations to de-fray the cost of the specialist we took Nic to. It was a bear walking and playing a fish, and the note said to take a different look at the situation, looking for the best sides of it.

It's clear my last few notes upset a few people. That was not the intent, although if it got people thinking about how they treat people outside the mold, then I'm not worried about ticking people off. After all, this is my life, and I am not in the business of sanitizing it to make it palatable for the masses.

Anyway, back to playing a musical fish. I needed to spend today with my kids, and that's what I did. G helped me make chocolate chip banana bread, practicing breaking eggs (his method is effective, but I need to pick the whole shell out of the batter), measuring ingredients, and doing the hard work of mixing the batter (I helped with the last). His satisfaction at having helped make it was palpable.

I straightened out Gs NOREP with the SPED director--she called me to sign off on it, and I asked if she could wait until Nic comes back from summer school "because he'll let me have it if I come over without him and he misses an elevator ride."

We had lunch together when Nic came in, and he spent an hour or so decompressing before we headed out. We stopped at the barn, Nic had his elevator ride, and everyone made a fuss of both boys.

Then we headed into the city via train, something we haven't done in quite a while. We go in, and basically ride elevators from The Gallery to 30th Street. Or that's what we did when G was in a stroller.

Things are different, now. Nic and G take turns deciding where we go and what we do. We spent time reading in several bookstores. Nic stood side by side with me going through used DVDs at FYE to see if we could find a used copy of O Brother Where Art Thou (and as an aside, I never thought it would be possible to stand shoulder to shoulder with my older son looking through ANYTHING--this is huge).

We finished up at B&N on Ritenhouse Square and I announced that if we were going to make it home to dinner at a reasonable hour, we needed to skip 30th St and head straight for Suburban. And Nic was flexible. The last elevator took us to our platform as our train pulled into the station.

I instructed Nic what to say to the conductor to buy his return trip ticket (we used an old ticket I had from the last time we were in the city--and I had my own for the way in and out), and he bought his own ticket. He also learned how to read a train schedule AND cut his chicken cutlet at dinner tonight.

And Andy reported that the grandson came over and apologized when he pulled up this evening.

It's going to be a good weekend.