I got up and got some coffee while the computer booted, then waited for Dave to drop Casey off. It was the first day of school, so I got Casey’s things ready and took him to school. Parents would not be allowed inside, and Casey was really nervous about that because he wasn’t sure where he’d be going. I reassured him that the staff would make sure he got to the right place.
I headed back home and took care of my free book & paid emails before getting ready to do some Census work. I spent a few hours on that, with a slight interruption of a phone call from Casey’s teacher. He’d been under his desk screaming and crying for over an hour, and she just wanted to see if he would be able to talk to me to calm down. I’d missed the call because I’d left my phone in the car when I’d been at a stop for the Census, and tried to call her back but I wasn’t able to reach her. I called the school’s main number and they said Casey was calm and heading down the hall with his speech pathologist there, Miss Jenn. Since all was well, I returned to my Census work for a while longer, then headed back home for a bit before it was time to go pick Casey up from school.
Once I arrived home from the Census work, I received a call from Miss Jenn. She explained what had happened that had made Casey so upset. He’d already washed his hands after recess and thought he was in line to get his lunch from his backpack, but the teacher didn’t realize he’d already washed his hands so tried to get him to do it again. He flipped out because he’d already washed his hands. And it carried on for over an hour. We have got to figure out how we can prevent this from happening! I can’t always drop everything to rush to his aid when he’s at school and there are resources available there for his sensory needs to calm him down in a timely manner when things upset him. I just need them to get the Autism evaluation done sooner, rather than later. Fortunately, Miss Jenn addressed that with me by letting me know that he’s first on the list to be evaluated. It should happen soon, then.
I spent a bit of time looking at Facebook, then went to pick Casey up from school. That was a clusterfuck. They’ve changed the drop-off and pick-up points from the back of the school to the front, and there are different drop-off and pick-up points depending on the grade level. I wasn’t entirely sure where I needed to go, and there were so many cars that just added to the confusion. I parked briefly in a random area to watch and see if I could spot Casey, and some old guy kept motioning to me like I couldn’t park behind him. I ignored him and kept looking to see if I could spot Casey. Finally, I made my way back around into the parking area and found a spot. I got out and made my way to the front doors, where Casey spotted me and started walking toward me. I asked if his teacher was outside, and he pointed to her. I went and spoke with her for a couple minutes, just to make sure the rest of his day had gone well.
Once we got home, we sat down together and talked about his day. I had him start with the morning before he got upset so that he could talk about good things as well. Then we spent some time talking about the incident, and he reminded me about his snug undershirt that I hadn’t left out for him in the morning. His dad had dressed him and I completely forgot about having him put on an undershirt. He seemed to think that would help him at school with his sensory needs, so I’d need to make sure and remember to set one out the next morning.
He got settled in with some videos on his phone, and I was tired so I ended up napping for a while in my recliner. I heard some neighbors outside my window by the door, but they didn’t knock so I guess they were just there chatting for whatever reason.
I got up from my nap and got each of us some dinner, then we headed to Culver’s for some ice cream. We brought it home, and after finishing it I got Casey’s bedtime stuff set out for him.
Dave called around the time I needed to check-in for my shift at Wild Angels on SL. He wanted to talk to Casey to find out how his day had gone. I let Dave know about the situation at school, and he told me Casey had been upset the night before as well, nervous about going back to school. He also told me that he has a very difficult time getting Casey to bed on any given night because Casey wants to take something like 2 hours to do his bedtime stuff that should really not take more than 15 minutes. We came to an agreement that he needs to do his bedtime stuff at 7, without an electronic to distract him. He needs to be done getting ready for bed by 7:15. He then has 30 minutes to do stuff with electronics before we read to him at 7:45. We need to be done reading by 8 so he can get to sleep at a reasonable time. The same routine will be at each of our houses so that there is consistency.
Casey didn’t want to talk to Dave because he was nervous about telling him how his day had gone. So we got off the phone and Casey finished getting ready for bed. It was getting later by then, and I had to start my shift at Wild Angels. So I let Casey get his phone. He was supposed to be watching videos until he fell asleep, but he thought he was just getting extra time on electronics. When I went to get the phone out of his room around 9, he was still awake. He wanted me to read to him, so I did. I could only hope that he slept well enough to get up on time for school in the morning.
I finished my shift at Wild Angels. It went pretty well overall, there was an ongoing conversation and one of the people there was tipping fairly generously.
After the shift was over, I went ahead and got ready for bed. Cyn and I had briefly mentioned playing Saints since it’d been more than 2 weeks since we had played it, but hadn’t firmly said that we would do that after my shift. She’d been under the impression I wanted to play some that night, but I told her maybe Friday would be better since I didn’t have to work and wouldn’t have Casey. She agreed to that and I headed to bed.
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