Minnesota Autism Mom

So something that really hit home last week,  despite not working…the stress of having a special needs child can feel quite stressful even when you are not working. Sure, you might say – that’s obvious. But, it wasn’t to me as this year off has calmed my soul in many ways. But, I thought it was simply from not balancing a FT job (with 100′s of students) and a toddler. But, no. Sometimes the stress for your child is enough and then you just have to deal w/ everything else. It just adds to it, but at the end of the day…it is just the issues revolving around your own kid.

The stress has already passed for now. I am just saying…a lot of stuff came to light in the last 2 weeks. I felt my head filling w/ a 1,000 questions again. A million “what if”s” and “how will we do X, Y, Z”? It gets old. It’s the same stuff over and over. There are no real solid answers.

The good news is that he is doing well. He’s healthy and he has even started say “uh-oh” very intentionally, spotateionsly, appropriately. It’s amazing. I giggle in pure delight every time he says it. A sound that we don’t need to prompt. He has picked this up from me saying in a trillion times.

And lately, teaching has become easier. He picked up “show me your tongue”, “show me your belly button” like he has always known. I am working on hair, toes, nose, eyes, etc. What else does he already know?Sometimes I am amazed. I was questioning his knowledge of colors. He knows so many. Wow…amazing. A healthy reminder to keep your expectations high and assume your non-verbal child knows all rather than little.

While this is exciting, it’s clear not everything, not most things will be or have been so “easy”. I get glimpses of what it must be like to have an NT child when he picks up something easily. I am humbled as I try and teach him something new. He fusses, he physically removes himself from me when he feels my education burdening him. He is overwhelmed. I get it, but it’s frustrating to me too. I could show you so much little one. Please let me. Please.

As I told you on FB, I had a job interview today. It went well. I guess. I tried to crack a joke, but I actually had to say I was kidding for the 8 people in the room to smile. UGH. They were so uptight. I felt like I was interviewing them. If I asked them to repeat themselves (I mean I wasn’t horribly nervous, but I couldn’t always catch the pt of the question because of my internal diaglogue), they didn’t know what they had even asked! They would have to read it back to be verbetium. It was a bit annoying in some aspects. Too much verbage…just say diversity, conflict, etc. That’s what I had to do in my own head to answer the ? some what appropriately. Listen for key words and then address it because the questions were too wordy. I never knew if I was saying enough. They would just move on. That would bring me relief. Shit, I don’t know what 4 cultures we should study this school year. Why do we have to do school like that? This is a mostly caucasian school, we aren’t going to learn about culture well this way…seriously. I am just saying.

I was really annoyed, but of course didn’t show it, that they won’t call us until July 30th. Hm, it’s it’s July 12th. It takes you 3 weeks to make a decision about 2 art ed jobs? Really? OK…?

I think I have another job interview coming up. I hope I get an offer before that, but this is the job I really want. So cross your fingers or whatever. I really would rather teach right now then decide what my new career is going to be. Should I go back to retail? Customer service? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo – I need a teaching job. Please Mr. Universe – find me a teaching job.