Working on respite time with Ned. It’s been a few years since we went anywhere away from the boys overnight. These days, we have to pay for respite and it is tough to find people. I am trying to get the young woman who was Nat’s aide at camp this summer. I want three nights at least. I am feeling so in need of escape, that I have even had some rough times with Ned, and that’s rare. <\/p>\n
The mornings yesterday and today were hellish, because neighbors’ lights are all off kilter, at least in Nat’s mind. I had to call another neighbor today and ask her to turn an outdoor light off. She was happy to, but I wont’ always be so lucky. Plus, Nat insisted on wearing shorts today — with snow on the ground — and I gave in. I warned him, “Tomorrow, pants.” <\/p>\n
Yesterday he smacked Ben on the head in all of his anxiety. He also bit his own arm, and I forgot to tell the teacher so she wrote up an incident report. Ben was so mad at Nat, he was spitting nails. I couldn’t blame him. I felt so horrible for him, for both of them; but especially Ben. Sometimes it feels like Ben has no peace anywhere. School is hard, home is hard. I don’t want to hear about how kids are resilient. I’m not so sure. I am so concerned about his happiness.<\/p>\n
This feeling led me, strangely, to the Apple Store, where I impulsively splurged on a gift for Max, who also seems to deal with a lot of tough stuff on his own. He is such a darling. He always lets Nat come in and lie on his bed and sillytalk while he is doing homework. He never complains about Nat using\/abusing his pillow; he just quietly tells me and asks for a new one or a clean pillowcase. <\/p>\n
So with my heart soaked in sadness and love, I bought Max an iPod Touch, a very cool piece of technology. And the saleswoman asked me if I wanted to get my other son (whom I’d mentioned) his own Nano. I knew B would hate that; he hates music. But suddenly I felt like I just had to find something really, really great for Ben. I had to, I just had to get Ben exactly what he wanted for Chanukah. No matter what it cost. Why would I get expensive trifles for Max, and anything at all Nat wants, and not get Ben a Wii? What the hell is that all about? Afraid he is spoiled? But he is not; he is troubled. And if I can buy him a little peace of mind, it is well worth braving the prices on Amazon.com.<\/p>\n
I went on line and found one. Oh, they’re there, if you want to pay through the _ _ _. I checked with Ned if he minded the price. He was surprised at first, but actually he saw how I felt and agreed. I bought it and felt really, really good, albeit also like a jackass. Hee Haw. What’s money for, if we can’t try to buy a little peace, love and understanding once in a while?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Working on respite time with Ned. It’s been a few years since we went anywhere away from the boys overnight. These days, we have to pay for respite and it is tough to find people. I am trying to get the young woman who was Nat’s aide at camp this summer. I want three nights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-bj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}