March 00
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March 00
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Wednesday March 1, 2000 …Christy is teaching in this morning… Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the rest of the month… I got the kids to school on time, went shopping for car-seat for Autumn, I finally found one at Wal-Mart… I bought her some play clothes too… I got her on the bus and went to lunch… I tried something new at Don Cuco’s wish I hadn’t… I will stick to Zarape’s. The kids and I moved the trampoline so I can start on my shed… I will go get the floor tomorrow. I should have an average of about an hour and a half a day to work on it… maybe. I busted my glasses and took them back to Lens Crafters but they could only patch them… they didn’t have the right size in stock anywhere in the area so they ordered it from their supplier… in Ohio… Thursday March 2, 2000 … Big brou-ha-ha this morning… "B" was upset at Mokie because she tripped on something on the floor and knocked him down, that escalated into a yelling and cussing match between him and Cindy then him and Lumpy then finally him and Mike… I had to leave him home he was so angry he couldn’t think. He even took a swing at me. After I dropped the kids off I met Christy at the 76 Station and she gave me "B" and went to teach. "B" had calmed down considerably. I took him to school then I took Autumn to Therapy West. Autumn is walking all over the place… she is still very teetery, we can’t let her walk outside and have to watch her all the time… as much as we’re thrilled by her new accomplishment it has added a new dimension to her care When I got home Christy was just pulling up with the kids… apparently the antics from this morning were still smoldering because "B" took off after Mike and Christian right off the bat… I intended to let it run it’s course but it was obvious almost immediately that there was something else going on… "B" was absolutely furious. He went after Mike first and Mike just stayed out of his reach, which made "B" even madder. So he went after Christian on the trampoline. He clobbered Christian and jumped on top of him and bit him on the finger hard enough to break the skin, Christian gained the upper hand almost immediately and got on top of "B" and was punching him with everything he had just as Christy got there. She pulled Christian off "B" and "B" went after Christian again so Christy held "B", I got to the scene about then and "B" was screaming at Christy and trying to kick her so I took him and he even took a few swings at me. Christy and I tried for about 20 minutes to get him calmed down but he was still too angry to respond… he was growling like an animal. At one point he broke free of me and went after Mike again. I caught him and held him as well as I could but my shoulder was just barely up to the task so I had to sweep his feet out from under him to get him to the floor so there wouldn’t be so much strain on it. I eventually let him up and held him and rubbed his back and talked softly to him, he quieted down after about 10 or 15 minutes and cried and said he was sorry, he went to Mike and hugged him too and apologized… Christian wouldn’t let "B" near him but they were watching TV together an hour later like nothing had happened. Christy put a call in to Dr. D. and he called back a little while later. He prescribed Benadril and "B" was sound asleep by 2000. Dr. D. was prepared to write the order to admit him to the mental hospital… If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. -Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (1875-1961)- Friday March 3, 2000 … Autumn is “off track” till the 26th of March… "B" was fine this morning, no trouble at school and he has been good all night… Lumpy on the other hand has been a jerk… He has been looking for trouble since he got out of school… I gave him his medicine but he “forgot” to take it, By the time I picked him up he was looking for trouble. He said I never listen to him, I smiled, he said I was laughing at him… he wanted me to buy him a Nintendo game and I didn’t feel like spending $53 on anyone… especially him. Saturday March 4, 2000 …I called Christy’s nephew Wayne,, when Karen came over last week she told me he was interested in buying a computer so I thought I would follow up… I will take him out tomorrow and get one for him. You can get an e-Machine for $145.00 with the rebates, and a $400.00 loan from Prodigy for using it as your ISP connection. Works out to getting the internet for about $8.00 a month, you’re locked in to Prodigy for three years but…ya have to be with somebody. The deal includes the printer and monitor, Christy has Prodigy and it seems OK … now, I wasn’t real pleased with it the first couple of weeks… but we had the wrong access number… it seems like she is having trouble getting access around 07:30 PM but otherwise she likes it OK. The Mom of one of Mikes friends says that she knows who one of the kids is that shot Spot. Her son was at school and one of his classmates was bragging about how they shot a “Wild Dog” up at the end of Crown Valley Road. They said the dog jumped up on the hood of their car and they got scared and shot it… it ran away but they got out of the car and chased it… they had two rifles and a pistol… I am not sure how to handle this yet… I will call the police but I suspect there is nothing they can do. I think I will just end up talking to the kid and his parents… I am a little concerned that three high school kids could put their heads together and come to the conclusion that shooting my dog was a cool thing to do. Spot is 12 years old and she won’t jump on cars, chase ‘em maybe but that’s all. I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter. -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)- http://www.island-of-freedom.com/PASCAL.HTM Sunday March 5, 2000 …Cold, rainy…I went to Palmdale for donuts Mike was at the Landis’s with Austin… Not much happening today… An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. -Anatole France Monday March 6, 2000 …This is embarrassing to have to admit, being born in Maine and raised in Wisconsin but, here goes….it snowed last night, there must have been a whole ¾ of an inch, we got a call from the school that they have declared a snow day. Apparently there was 3 inches in Palmdale though and that’s where most of the teachers have to pass through to get to Acton. The roads, CalTrans, the cars and the drivers are not prepared for snow out here. Driving in California in the snow scares me to death. Not that I will crash, it’s the other drivers, they are clueless. The snow was mostly gone by 09:30, so I went down to the Acton Market… They had run a snowplow on Crown Valley Road… for less than an inch of snow… I guess they need to justify buying the damn thing… I took Autumn to Therapy West at the regular time, Mokie and Cindy went with me. I let Cindy go with Beth, with Beth’s dubious consent. Apparently Cindy did OK. Mokie and I went for a walk, my presence in the room is too distracting for Autumn, Mokie would have been a disaster in there… We got a call from Devereux… there is a vacancy… the Golita school district reviewed "B"’s IEP and accepted him… they said they will educate him… Christy and I are floored… we have been battling for a year, and now we can just take him up there… We will wait for the weekend to tell "B" and the kids… this fell through once before… but this is a momentous day. Tuesday March 7, 2000 …Went to FRY’s and bought another Modem for the laptop, this is the third one… I think they get hot and fail, the vent fan on my laptop isn’t very efficient. I checked out some PC’s for Wayne too… I went IKEA and bought two bookcases, I got them home, put them together and… I don’t like ‘em. They are nice enough I guess but not what I really want. I tried to vote at the polling place I voted last time over in Agua Dolce… I wasn’t on their list, I looked at the pamphlet and noted that I had been moved back to Hedgecock Hall down by the school. I went home because I had to get the van to pick up the kids because I had to get the neighbor kids too, The Goodman’s kids not the other side… I picked up Mokie and forgot to get Sammy, damn, I had to go back and get him after I got the big kids… didn’t phase Sammy a bit but I was pretty upset with myself… I voted, on the way to take Calie to her Hip-Hop dance class. Since I was a registered Democrat I voted for Bradley, wasted vote, he had already conceded, I couldn’t vote Republican in the primary because only Registered Republicans votes are counted, at least a vote for Bradley made me feel good. Wednesday March 8, 2000 …Christy was teaching at AV College, I met her at Kathleen’s office with Autumn, We spent the hour talking about "B" finally going to Devereux… Stopped at Home Depot and the new Lowe’s to get some parts for the Video Cassette storage gizmo I bought yesterday, they didn’t have what I needed so I will have to got back to IKEA… damn. I made it home in time to get the van and pick up the kids, I picked up the neighbor kids again, it was a little eerie, they have a 4th brother Apparently I had taken him to school in the morning and not realized it, I saw him get out of the van out of the corner of my eye and said, who was the third kid? Mokie, Samuel and who?, The kids said there were only two, the other kid was just walking by… missed communication or they were scamming me… Anyway I met the 4th brother when I picked up Sam and Da Moke… his name is Christian… I got the kids home and talked to Christy for a minute and went to the PC and immediately got an alarm in Outlook that said “16:00; Tim to
the Russian” it was 15:45, we got there about 20 minutes late… Bought the boys some video games for their Nintendo and Play-station… 2 games $80… so far my return on the investment is negligible. Thursday March 9, 2000 I took Autumn to Therapy West, Christy taught at AV College again this morning and then took off for 4 days in Irvine at a Hotel with Bonnie, They are attending a seminar… The kids are mine for four days… I got them fed, medicated and to bed without a lot of hassle… I made a deal that if the house was picked up I would take them to a movie on Friday… it’s a mess… I’m pretty pooped… going to bed I tried real hard to shine Christian on but it’s hard, he’s such a smart kid… I have to figure out how to get through to him… Friday March 10, 2000 …Kids were pretty good this morning, we got to school on time, I decided to keep "B" out of school and took him out to buy him clothes, the clothes we bought him last year are way too small. He and Autumn and I went to Karen’s Kitchen for lunch, Autumn at two French fries. I picked up the kids and took Mike and Lumpy to Dance, Lumpy refused to get out of the van. He said he didn’t want to got to dance today, I said he had to at least go to class, he could sit in the lobby but he had to go. He refused… He just said “No!” He is so exasperating… I have been trying to get the house cleaned, it’s tough when you have 7 little people sabotaging every move you make…I have managed to keep the kitchen pretty clean, it’s a real conscious effort for me. My recollection is that my mother’s kitchen was never messed up, even when she was cooking she was also cleaning when she was done the utensils, pots and pans were rinsed and in the sink. … probably one of those “false memories” the shrinks are always talking about… E-Mail quit working tonight… Seems like about once a month something goes ka-flooie with Netport’s E-Mail… this time it says my e-mail couldn’t be sent because it rejected me as the sender “Server response error 451” Sender domain must resolve…” what kind of crap is that… programmers write error messages so that no one can figure out what’s wrong but them… Saturday March 11, 2000 … I got the tractor started and cleaned up the roads a little bit. Mike wanted me to make a “table-top” for his MX bike so I did that, it kept the boys busy for about 2 hours. I had to pick up the medicine I ordered yesterday, the trip to Kaiser was harrowing, I had to stop 3 times to break up fights. It was "B" and Cindy mostly, I had promised the other kids a trip to the park and it wouldn’t be fair for them to miss out just because of those two. After the park we went to Der Wienerschnitzel, and home… Sunday March 12, 2000 … Pretty ho hum day… I got the house done with a little (very little) help from the kids… Christy got home from her seminar about 17:00… wanted to take the kids to the movies, but it was too late… I went out to get the bird and iguana some food… Monday March 13, 2000 Hectic day, Kids to school, Autumn to Therapy, she was a brat. Christy took "B" shopping for the things I forgot on Saturday and she took him to lunch… Tuesday March 14, 2000 …Grandma and Grandpa arrived at about 0740, I took the kids to school and came back to pick up Christy and "B" and we packed up all his stuff and drove to Devereux. We spent about 3 hours there, about 20 minutes filling out papers and the rest of the time was spent saying good-bye, us saying good by to him, he was ready for us to go hours before we left… We had lunch at the cafeteria, it was a long walk, "B" hates to walk… he complained all the way. “How far is it”, “Is he going the right way”, “Isn’t there a shortcut”, “I’m tired”, “My legs hurt”, “Are we almost there?”… a constant litany… Wednesday March 15, 2000 …I got Christian to school an hour and a half early and he went Whale Watching out of Redondo Beach. I went home and helped Christy get the rest of the kids get dressed up for Twin day… I called the Devereux Center (If you check out the link, "B" is in the “Child Residential Program called “Miramar”) "B" made it through the night fine, the “House Parent” said he was “Very Quiet” … "B" likes to maintain a low profile, he will be very assertive when he gets acclimated to the surroundings… "B" will take zero crap from anyone. Also, they must make not of the fact that "B" is the sole definer of “Crap”, his definition may vary drastically from local conventions… this will be interesting. I tried to call Wayne to see about buying a computer for him but got no answer, apparently the early to mid mornings are devoted to his care. I finally got hold of Wayne and confirmed that he wanted me to proceed… I went out to get the PC… I was going to go to Fry’s but decided at the last minute to go to Best Buy instead… there is a Best Buy in Riverside, but no Fry’s. I would only save about $20.00 going to Fry’s… not worth it. I think I got a pretty good deal on the PC, I didn’t get the $400.00 Prodigy loan… I decided that we wouldn’t gain anything and actually loose money on the deal. After about $150.00 in rebates the PC will have cost about $1.1k… PC 500 mhz 64k RAM, Monitor, Printer, Scanner, Cables, MS InteliMouse (With a laser)… not bad… now all I have to do is remember to fill out the rebate slips… Thursday March 16, 2000 …Lumpy pretended to be sick today, he is so obvious when he is lying, he is so dramatic, this time he came of like Macbeth …Mike wasn’t much better, he had too many demerits to go to the skate rink with the rest of his class so he didn’t want to go to school either As I pulled up to the intersection to make the turn into Meadowlark School the car in front of me stopped, it became obvious she was not going to move, I jumped out of the van and went up to the window, she said; “It just died” I said we have to get it out of the street, She said, “Isn’t that dangerous?”, I said “It’s more dangerous to stay here, besides traffic is starting to back up” I got behind and tried to push it, She had it in Park, I said take it out of Park, She said “Oh”… It still wouldn’t move, I said “What’s wrong?”, She said “It’s in First” I said “Put it in Neutral!” I got it moved out of the intersection, gave her my cell phone and took the Mokie to school. She couldn’t figure out my cell phone so I took her home. Hell of a
way to start the day…Christy is teaching today and she has a meeting after class to talk about more teaching. Gassed up the truck… damn… $1.769 a gallon… brutal Autumn to Therapy, she worked hard today, Beth was pleased… Got the truck to the carwash… it was filthy… I took Autumn to lunch at “In-and-Out”… not real good… gotta stop eating that crud… Picked up the kids. Christy took Mike and Cindy to Dr. D. … Went over to Joe’s house to get some software for Wayne’s PC, the software I wanted to put on it was for upgrades only, I needed an original. Went back to Best Buy to check out some more software. We need a program that can do payroll’s…… Peachtree… an Accounting Program… $129.00, it’s about the same as QuickBooks but QuickBooks doesn’t do a very good job of spelling out what it does on the box, Peachtree does… When Christy got back from Dr. D. she said that Cindy and Mike had behaved well… Friday March 17, 2000 …Lumpy wouldn’t get ready for school today, I left him home for Chris to deal with… Went to Cost-Co to get a copy of MSN for Wayne’s PC, $35.95 gets you 3 months of MSN, If you like it then they deduct $35.95 every quarter… pretty good deal, unlimited access for a little over $11.00 a month… well see how good the service is… I loaded the software and tested it out, I had to go through MSN Tech Support to get the E-Mail working, The guy I got, Eric, was talking with an Irish accent, I asked “Are you putting on that accent because it’s St. Patrick’s Day” He said “No, I’m Irish, I am in Dublin…” cool… I had volunteered to be a chaperone at the dance for 6th, 7th & 8th grades at the Community Center. Mike was excited to go but he didn’t know I was going to stay… He said “Aw Dad… Just don’t follow me around, OK.” This is the second time I have done this, the last time it was a little bit of a chore, 9th and 10th graders tried to crash the party, and a couple got a little upset they couldn’t get in… but, after all, this is Acton, there are some pushy, rude kids here but there are no bad kids, we have no “Criminal Element. It was a long two and a half hours of bad music and loud kids but they had fun, there are precious few opportunities for the the kids here in town to “hang out”. They need a place to get together in a supervised environment that is protective and not
restrictive… There is too much paranoia these days, the kids are paying the price. The good old days are gone for ever I guess. I was pretty lucky to have been able to grow up in an era where people trusted their kids and their neighbors kids… no more… the couple who put on this bash are an exceptional duo… Saturday March 18, 2000 …I delivered Wayne’s new PC… everything works… He was thrilled… then intimidated, then discouraged then, when we figured out how to make the keypad work like a mouse, a little encouraged. I blew it on the mouse, it was a waste of money, he can’t use it, imagine trying to bump the mouse into position with your fist and then poking the buttons with a stick… We both had to endure a learning curve on how to use the keyboard. I don’t know if anyone reading this has used the “Accessibility Wizard” and played with “Sticky Keys” or configured the keypad to act like a mouse but it is slick, slow and cumbersome but slick… He was able to maneuver the cursor pretty good by the time I left, I am still confused about which key is doing what but he was zeroing in on it pretty good. Sunday March 19, 2000 Mike wants to join a “skate park” down by Acton Auto, it is a skateboard shop with a half-pipe set up in a vacant area outside. It used to be a hot tub outlet store, I forget what it was before that… It will cost me $25.00, plus the waiver needs to be notarized, I never heard of such a thing… I just hate to see Mike waste his talents on skateboards. Like Picasso painting barn or painting Elvis on black velvet. Christian is still giving me a lot of lip, saying things that would have earned me a month in the basement when I was a kid, I won’t take it from him any more. Christy is even getting fed up with him… never thought I’d see the day… she really bonded with him when he was an infant. It is hard for her to see his flaws; of course I am the same way with Calie. Christy took the girls out to buy clothes… Cindy really needs some… she has grown out of everything she owns… she is going to be a big girl. The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.PlatoMonday, March 20 2000… Christy teaching today It’s Cindy’s Birthday today… that means a little more scurrying for Christy and I… Cindy gets very excited about things like this… she is still a small child in many ways. Cindy has a hard time dealing with the real world, I wish there was something to be done about that but there isn’t, she is just going to mature very slowly… Caught about a dozen mice in the dog’s food, they can jump in the trashcan I store it in but they can’t get out… they muck up the dog food too… I am not fond of mice, fed the ones I could catch to Mikes snakes… I think we are in for a hard time with the critters this year, every few years we (Acton) get infested with the damn things also… lots of mice mean’s lots of snakes… I will have to be on guard for rattlers again this year… I got Autumn to Therapy West on time, barely… she is working hard, Beth is encouraged, I think she was getting a little frustrated with Autumns inability to follow directions but she did well today. Tuesday March 21, 2000 … Worked with the tractor a bit, hauled some trash up the hill to the dumpster… didn’t wear a hat and burned my face a bit… Wednesday March 22, 2000 … Autumn and I went shopping, she is a trooper… we hit about six stores she enjoyed it all… never stopped smiling. Cowboy Poetry Festival is coming to Melody Ranch, Tony invited me to be a volunteer (That word makes me nervous… Navy training I guess…it seems to always means trouble) went to a meeting in Santa Clarita tonight… I met Tony and he introduced me around to a bunch of folks who’s names I forgot instantly, I’m so bad about remembering names… seems like it’s my shyness that causes it, I’m so traumatized by meeting new people I can’t focus on anything but escape. Shyness is a real curse… wish I could deal with it better… Thursday March 23, 2000 … Cindy had her Award Ceremony, she got an Honor Roll certificate for her grades… this is tough for me to take, she believes she is getting good grades… and she is… in a severely modified program… the same thing is happening for Mike, he is getting excellent grades but he on a modified curriculum in a special program that he can cope with … it’s Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all over again… they do not comprehend their situation. Mike is convinced he is SDC for behavior not a learning disability. It bothers me a lot that this is all just an experiment, we have no idea if we are doing the right thing. It’s a case where helping is also disillusioning, I wonder if all this “Special Assistance” is worth all the deceit… (deceit is the wrong word but it’s all that comes to mind now)… I remember a cartoon of a young man with school books under his arm walking up to a door that says “Real World 101” he goes through the door and falls about 6 feet into an alley… What sort of world are we preparing Cindy and Mike for… certainly no world that I am aware of… damn… I took Autumn to therapy, we stopped at CostCo on the way home, and I picked up the kids… .and dropped Mike and Christian off at the Skate Shack. It’s a new place that opened in town, they have a half-pipe for skateboarders… (If you don’t already know what a half-pipe is you don’t care… believe me) Mike is a courageous skateboarder, he will try anything he sees anyone else do… Christian will probably be better at it but he is a little hung up on not being a pro after 45 minutes practice… I gave him some money so he could sign up Friday March 24, 2000 … Christy and I went to Mokie’s Awards Ceremony, Perfect Attendance, as I have said before. That award really belongs to the parents; I have never had one of my kids run breathlessly into my room to beg me to take them to school… not once. I ran out of film so we had to hurry from Mokie’s Ceremony to the Acton Market for film and then to Acton School for Mike’s Award Ceremony… He was near the end so we sat through two more classes. I am glad we did, a teacher named Mr. Roland got up and put on the best awards presentation I have ever heard, he had given all the kids who were getting awards Pokémon nick-names and had placards made up… it was very funny, I wish I had taken my video camera…it was like a cross between a Friars Club Roast and the Academy Awards… He really raised the bar for the rest of the teachers… It was merciful to the others for Mrs. Wegman to let him go last…He really put on a good show… I left the awards presentation and drove to Burbank, which has the nearest Frys Electronics Store. I bought some decent speakers, a microphone, some Voice Recognition Software, a touch pad, some Video’s on how to use MS Office 2000, and a CD on using Excel… I went to check out and there must have been 50 people in line… I guess everyone got their Income Tax check back yesterday… Stormin’ Norman Torr was in line behind me… it’s an Itty Bitty World. Norman and I worked on a couple projects together back in the Fone Phactory… He is working as a technology integrator for Kaiser… It was nice to talk to him, made the time pass quickly. I paid for all that crap and drove to Riverside to install all the stuff I bought in and on Wayne’s PC… We made the VR software work a little bit… If you have ever used it you know it’s easy to install and hard to use, there is a lot of work to do before you begin using it, it’s called training… the software needs to understand the way you speak, it can take a couple of days to get it working properly… No one has called about the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Newhall (Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch actually) to tell me what I will be doing… the Festival is next week… Saturday March 25, 2000 …(Overheard) Mike; “I don’t like Pokémon any more do you Christian? I don’t even know where the Pokémon cards are, Let’s find em and sell em’ maybe we can even get enough money for a really good skate-board”… They have forgotten how much we spent on those damn things, also forgotten how imperative it was for them to have them. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: "Give little, give seldom, and above all, give grudgingly." Otherwise, what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust. - Ruth Smythers, Marriage advice for women, 1894 Sunday March 26, 2000 …Jerry and Joanne Noyes came over today… They brought Joanne’s Mom, Selena, and two infant boys, their new foster children. He also brought jawbreakers… 400 of them, and crayons, about 200 boxes of assorted types…He runs a Thrift Store near Orange. He got tons of this stuff and brought us some… every time they come u they bring the kids bushel baskets full of goodies. The Kids are convinced that Jerry is a rich uncle…Jerry and Joanne brought their cameras to film Autumn walking and she didn’t disappoint them… she walked all over the place. We were worried because she had a seizure recently and that usually causes her to have a setback physically… not this time though. I found Jerry’s G-G-Grandfather on a genealogy site on the net. There are several Noyes’s in my tree; we are cousins, very distant cousins… Monday March 27, 2000 … I went to the Pre-Op conference, the Dr. was a little late…I asked the nurse about it apparently, she said; “His brother died last week.”… when the Dr. got there (his name is Pierre Hendricks incidentally). I mentioned I was sorry to hear about his brother He said “He died quick… there was no pain… car accident…” … Poor guy, what a rough go… Well, it seems that now I do have a torn rotator cuff… and arthritis so he will shave the bottom of my scapula, snip off part of my clavicle and tie down the tendon…I will have a 3 inch incision on the top of my shoulder, it will be immobilized for at least 2 weeks, four weeks of not lifting my arm except with help, I won’t be able to raise my arm except by lifting it with my left hand…then I can start raising my arm and then small weights…. A long process… Autumn will be able to beat me at arm-wrestling when this is over. After the meeting I had to get a blood test and an EKG, we didn’t get out of there till 11:15, we rushed home and I put Autumn in the truck, got gas and tore off to Therapy, I got her there with three minutes to spare. Beth said Autumn worked hard today… she amazes me every day. Christy took the kids down to her church for a “Pathfinders Meeting” a sort of boys and girls cub scout thing. Christy and Bonnie have worked hard to get it started… nobody showed up… the guy who lets them into the church wasn’t even there… so she came home… Tuesday March 28, 2000 I went back to Kaiser and signed my waiver and got my blood work done for the cardiologist. I jumped in the truck and made it back to Acton School for Mike’s IEP with time to spare. Jeff Tooms (One of the School District Therapists, I like him) and Marina Bockner (The Russian) were there along with his teacher Mrs. Conant And the Principal Mrs. Wegman. It was a pretty positive meeting, we were all on pretty much the same wavelength… Mike is doing well on medication, his explosiveness is just under the surface but he is controlling it pretty good for the most part… He needs to be kept busy, he needs SDC, and he needs to accept the reality of his learning disabilities blah blah blah… Junior High will be a real challenge for him… we will phase out his “Aide” the lady that follows him around and “rats on his every move” (Mikes version) “Keeps him thinking about his behavior” (My version)… I think that the “Watcher” program worked pretty well actually… I am a little apprehensive about it ending… Wednesday March 29, 2000 Worked on the Motorhome after I dropped the kids off, I got the batteries charged up but I couldn’t get the engine to turn over… I need some time to work on it, it’s impossible to get anything done when I’m watching Autumn. I think the terminals on the starter or somewhere in that circuit are corroded. I got Autumn on the bus at the appropriate time, I puttered with the MotorMonster some more… what a colossal mistake it was to buy that damn thing… we have had it a year and haven’t even taken it anywhere… damn. I will keep it one more year and see if we can use it a little, if we don’t I will take it down to Sierra Highway and sell it… I will take it out before the end of the month and give it a test run… Still need to get the muffler’s fixed… Christy took Mike to the Russian for the last time. Mike is doing pretty good… he has matured quite a bit in the past year. He’s still a handful and needs to be supervised but he doesn’t need therapy any more…. according to The Russian. She did say that he is quite obviously entering puberty and she suggested that perhaps, if he does need therapy again, we should request a male therapist, or a matronly woman. The Russian is very young and maybe 5’2” tall and cute as can be… Christy thought that was pretty funny… for me it just means there’s one more thing to be wary of. Autumn has a small cut on the back of her head, she got off the bus and I put her in her walker, she ran down the hill but I caught her before she fell. I took her back to the bus and I was jabbering with Dan , the driver, about how hard it is to keep an eye on her when I looked over to see Autumn teetering, about the time I realized she was falling it was too late to catch her and she fell onto the front wheel of the bus, hit the lug nut a glancing blow with the back of her head. It bled quite a bit, without looking at it very close I packed the kids into the truck and I blasted off for Kaiser, about 90 mph, when they cleaned it up there was only a small cut, they wouldn’t even suture it… it bled like crazy when she cut it but when I saw it all cleaned up I couldn’t believe how tiny it was, barely a quarter of an inch… She is going to put me in an early grave… Christy went to church with Sandy Rountree, she goes to a seminar Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings and to church on Saturday and teaches Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thursday March 30, 2000 Christy is teaching, and I got Autumn to therapy. Beth says she is working hard… I need to spend more time working with her. I drove Autumn from therapy to school and then rushed from there to Lancaster for a meeting with Kathleen. She is the therapist for our kid’s, we have been going there to get some assistance in coping and some professional reinforcement from a detached outsider… she has been a big help just by spotting some things that we are just too close to see. I took Christian and Mike shoe shopping, Mike has been wearing E/S Skateboard shoes, hand-me-downs from his friend Scotty, they are size 6… Mike wears size 8 ½, he has blisters and walks John Wayne in spiked heels. He has shoes that fit, nice ones, Van’s and Nike’s but he won’t wear them because they aren’t cool like the itty bitty E/S’s. Mike is under the impression I owe him $89.00 ES’s or $95.00 Sopes … I told him going in that I would buy him shoes but I wasn’t buying him expensive ones. He said OK, then he went in and whined out loud about how I wasn’t going to buy him the shoes he wanted shoes… as though embarrassing me in front of the store clerk was somehow going to motivate me to fork over $180.00 for shoes he will grow out of in 3 months… I just walked out of the store and left him and Christian. They came out about 5 minutes later. I said I was going home…I told him how disappointed I was in his behavior, he apologized. I took them to the mall and bought him and Christian some fancy Van’s, on sale. Christy took the girls shoe shopping at the same time, she didn’t have any cooperation at all. She marched them out of the store and took em home… they were awful… We ordered Pizza, this has been a full day… Christy wants us to buy her folks a Mobilhome; it’s in a park in Long Beach… Friday March 31, 2000 Christian pulled his “I’m sick, I have a stomach ache” routine. So I told Christy to deal with him… she took him with her took to ValCo to get the transmission checked out. ValCo the people running the place are infected with a disease called “We’re the only game in town, take our crap or get out” I told her to go there because that’s where I took it to get the transmission rebuilt last year. I drove over with Autumn to have breakfast, just in case they couldn’t get the job done in an hour like they promised. There was a leaky hose/line and the dipstick wasn’t reading any fluid at all… They admonished her to be sure to check the fluid, Christy said “…you be sure to tighten down the hoses.” The job got done on time so I took Autumn home to get her cleaned up for school and put her on the bus. |