With a full month of remote learning under our belts, we are doing OK. Aleck is eager to complete his assignments and get his work submitted to his teachers. He seems to really enjoy his occupational therapy and physical therapy sessions, provided through the Chicago Public School system, over Google Classroom. Both therapists were with him last year and really understand how to motivate Aleck and enjoy his sense of humor and eagerness to share his stories. There is a lot of happy sounds filling our household during these sessions.
However, sitting and listening to his teacher for long periods of time inevitably draws out complaints of boredom, which also overtake our apartment as they get increasingly louder throughout the day. I have a drawer set up of small toys, putty, slime, etc, in order to give his fingers something else to do while he’s staring at the screen. While he’s using these to keep himself going, he still finds time to switch to other screens on his IPad during his class meetings. And it’s actually pretty hilarious because he uses his nose to select the different screens since his IPad is propped up on a pillow so that it’s harder for him to get to and easier for us to see the screen two rooms away. Therefore, his SECA (special education classroom assistant) knows exactly when Aleck is getting off task because his camera is suddenly an extreme close-up of his nostrils. This isn’t a unique problem, a lot of our friends are having the same issues with their kids, and it seems that no matter what the punishment the behavior continues, they just can’t help themselves, it’s so hard to sit in almost complete silence for long stretches of time just staring at a screen. I know I can’t do it, I am totally working on other projects when I decide to attend a webinar on Zoom. I couldn’t even sit through a board meeting of some of my local photography groups without working on something else simultaneously, I don’t know how we can expect our kids to do it better.
Mentally and emotionally Aleck is doing better than I expected. It took him about a month to start missing seeing his friends in school every day, or at least it took him a month to start verbalizing it. That was a relief. At first, he was so excited to start remote learning, he loves anything he can do on a computer or laptop, I was beginning to wonder if he understood what this all meant, or maybe he had some social problems I wasn’t aware of, should I be worried? Other parents had posted about their kids in tears and our little dude was waking up every morning rather excited to start his day at home and spend his day at home. He’s still not sick of our apartment, but at least he’s started to vocalize that he’s a little sick of us. Phew. Normalcy.
A few weeks ago he finally had a huge meltdown. I was on a Zoom call with my girlfriends, earbuds in when I heard him crying over our baby monitor. Since we have air conditioning units in the windows and he’s been immobile, we’ve had to go back to using the monitor in case he’s needed us in the middle of the night. When I went in I was shocked by my sobbing little dude, he must have been crying for a while before I finally heard him, and now his complaints were unintelligible, I had no idea what he was crying about. Finally, he got some words out, “my life sucks compared to everyone else’s.” I felt a giant chasm run through the length of my body. This is it, I thought. I mean, here he is recovering from his second round of a broken leg this year, we had to cancel a bunch of his summer plans, he is so limited in his activities compared to his friends who have spent the summer riding bikes, backpacking miles to campsites, riding skateboards, climbing trees to pick mulberries, and all the other things that 8-year-olds do to entertain themselves during a pandemic.
Right before school started we had a get together with some of the other kids in his class, we met up at a parking lot behind a local high school in our favorite park. At first, it was Aleck and one of his besties, Aleck in his chair and his friend riding around him on his bike. But after a while, the parking lot started to fill up and I found myself lost in conversation with the other parents who I had really missed during this time. The other families in the school have been my favorite part of Aleck’s education at Edison, they are our people through and through. Suddenly, I looked around and I couldn’t see Aleck. I stood up and asked if anyone else saw him and found him hiding behind our car far away from the other kids. Broken glass through my heart. I grabbed him and asked if he needed a snack and brought him to sit with the rest of the parents while I dug my emergency bag of popcorn and water bottle out of the car. He hung out there with us until it was time to go home.
Aleck’s meltdown, I was able to finally decipher, was brought on by the assignment they had for PE class. Each student was asked to put together five photos about themselves to share with the rest of the class. You see, Seba went to Honduras, and Jane went backpacking, and why can’t we go to Honduras, and why can’t we go backpacking? Then, the meltdown became laser light focused on one issue, and it wasn’t one I saw coming. “How come everyone else in the class has a sibling except for me?” This is not entirely true at all, his other best friend in the class is an only child as well, and we figured out that there are five kids in his class who are only children, which really wasn’t reassuring out of 28. The biggest problem with this narrative is that I’m right there with him. I can’t even pretend that I’m just happy the way things are, the emotions are far too raw and we’ve been trying for the last 4 years, including a miscarriage I had in 2018, days before Aleck’s big surgery. He knows about the loss of what would have been his sister in 2010, that we lost our first baby far along in our pregnancy, we really don’t keep anything from him. And instead of painting a happy face on the situation, I’d rather let him know that not only do I understand his feelings, I feel the same way, we are in this together. And then I started to cry. Which made Aleck stop, turn, and look at me. You could hear the Scoobie Doo style, “huh?” coming from his mouth. Finally, we both got ahold of ourselves, I grabbed Light In the Attic, and we read a few of Shel’s finest to change our mood. I assured Aleck that he would feel better in the morning, that you always feel better in the morning, but inside I wasn’t sure of it myself. I turned on his music, turned off the light, and kissed him goodnight.
The next morning I ran out of bed at 5:45 am, my standard wake-up time, to take Sox for a walk and be there in his room by 6:15 am his wake-up time. I was so nervous to see him, I was so worried about his mental state and if he would wake up feeling better after such a big cry the night before. When I entered the house I could hear him, he was up already and felt terrible that I wasn’t there in his room when he woke up. Quickly, I darted in to see his face. With a huge smile, he greeted me, “Mom, you’re right, I do feel so much better!” He rolled around on his bed, beaming and glowing, and ready for me to get his day going. The relief was overwhelming.
Tomorrow the cast comes off his tibia and fibula, and once again it’ll be the day before his birthday. When he was one day shy of his first birthday, he had the spica cast taken off from his first hip surgery, and then we spent his first birthday checking into inpatient rehab at the former Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, waiting for Craig to get off work and my parents and aunt to come to visit with dinner and cupcakes as we tried to celebrate in a place that felt like I had walked into some special circle of hell. For the icing on the cake, Aleck threw up his first taste of cupcake all over the new Tom’s I had purchased for our hospital stay. A truly excellent first birthday all around. This time it’s going to be completely different. Aleck has been walking around the house with his boot on, with his walker, and sometimes without either. One night he scared the absolute shit out of us when he left his room in the middle of the night to let Sox out of his room and into the apartment, without anyone spotting him, without his walker, and without his walking boot. Craig and I had been way wrapped up in a conversation and just didn’t hear him. When we caught up to him he was like, “what, Sox needed to go out. I was looking for you guys,” super casual, and looking at us like we were crazy to be so panicked. We’ve even started to tackle some assisted stairs during our daily evening walks (or rolls since he’s in the chair) with Sox. And instead of checking into rehab for his birthday, we are doing a video game drop-in birthday party. We are hosting 8 of his favorite gaming buddies, one at a time, in our backyard for snacks and games, and it’s supposed to be a beautiful day. Despite the masks, hand sanitizers, and lack of hugs hello and goodbye, it should feel like a touch of normalcy in this otherwise crazy world. Happy 9th birthday buddy! We are proud of who you are each and every day and love the way you fill us with light. Wishing you a year without any casts or trips to the ER, PLEASE!
