Monday, June 30, 2008
Words I never expected to hear from Jeff
"I really want to go to the Shakespeare Festival this year. 'Othello' is one of my favorites."
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Shuffle off to Buffalo
Hello everyone.......Sarah finally gave me the password to post on our blog on the condition I identify it's me doing the writing. Something about a certain person being squirrely.
It was a sad night last night as our neighbors for the last five years moved. The husband, after being passed over for one promotion, was offered one in Buffalo. Lose Tim Russert, gain a family of 6 (3 girls and a boy - including a set of twins) for the city by the lake. They will be missed greatly here as their home was truly the center of our neighborhood. Their four children matched up in ages with all the kids at our end of the block, and with their mother Lori they were always playing out front with all the other kids.
Even Elijah, whose social skills with children are at best, guarded, interacted in the same vicinity as all the other kids. It made our end of the block the type of neighborhood I grew up in years ago, where the kids would all end up in somebody's backyard with the parents drinking some wine, talking about the everything from the schools, to politics, to where to buy mulch. (Minus the parents smoking cigarettes-this was pre -label warning days.) For some, this would be the height of boredom, a surburban nightmare. But for me it was heaven, watching my little boy play, not worried because everyone (including the kids) were keeping an eye on him.
I am left with two fears about the now vacant house next door. One, because there are so many houses on the market in our development, it will stay vacant for awhile. (The company is contracted to buy it after a period of time, but at a cost that is way below market which will hurt our old neighbors.) And the second fear? Right-wing Republicans.
It was a sad night last night as our neighbors for the last five years moved. The husband, after being passed over for one promotion, was offered one in Buffalo. Lose Tim Russert, gain a family of 6 (3 girls and a boy - including a set of twins) for the city by the lake. They will be missed greatly here as their home was truly the center of our neighborhood. Their four children matched up in ages with all the kids at our end of the block, and with their mother Lori they were always playing out front with all the other kids.
Even Elijah, whose social skills with children are at best, guarded, interacted in the same vicinity as all the other kids. It made our end of the block the type of neighborhood I grew up in years ago, where the kids would all end up in somebody's backyard with the parents drinking some wine, talking about the everything from the schools, to politics, to where to buy mulch. (Minus the parents smoking cigarettes-this was pre -label warning days.) For some, this would be the height of boredom, a surburban nightmare. But for me it was heaven, watching my little boy play, not worried because everyone (including the kids) were keeping an eye on him.
I am left with two fears about the now vacant house next door. One, because there are so many houses on the market in our development, it will stay vacant for awhile. (The company is contracted to buy it after a period of time, but at a cost that is way below market which will hurt our old neighbors.) And the second fear? Right-wing Republicans.
Lucky town
Jeff is naturally excitable. This is charming in its own way, though it's not a trait I share. I do tend to remember his most enthusiastic moments, though, the way most women remember a first date or the date of the marriage proposal.
I also mentally rank these moments, and we recently had a biggie. In fact, it's second only to the night he unwrapped a box I presented to him for our anniversary in October 2002 and discovered its contents: A positive pregnancy test strip. (Cliche, I know).
Our current Big Thing occurred last night, when my phone rang at work and I picked it up to hear one of the most high-pitched squeals of joy imaginable. At first, I honestly thought Elijah had grabbed Jeff's phone and managed to push a button that dialed Mommy's office number. But as all the grandparents know, Elijah isn't one to talk on the phone, and this little voice was talking a mile a minute. Several rapid-fire phrases had passed by before I was able to decipher the words "Springsteen" and "tickets."
Finally, Jeff's penchant for entering radio station contests has paid off. (We won't count the free-weekend-houseboat-on-the-lake contest in the summer of 1995, which ended up with us paying a couple of hundred dollars for repair of said houseboat after we hit a submerged tree trunk).
So, come Aug. 24, look for us in the rafters, Bruce. The arena seats 16,000, but I guarantee none of them will be more excited than the one with me.
I also mentally rank these moments, and we recently had a biggie. In fact, it's second only to the night he unwrapped a box I presented to him for our anniversary in October 2002 and discovered its contents: A positive pregnancy test strip. (Cliche, I know).
Our current Big Thing occurred last night, when my phone rang at work and I picked it up to hear one of the most high-pitched squeals of joy imaginable. At first, I honestly thought Elijah had grabbed Jeff's phone and managed to push a button that dialed Mommy's office number. But as all the grandparents know, Elijah isn't one to talk on the phone, and this little voice was talking a mile a minute. Several rapid-fire phrases had passed by before I was able to decipher the words "Springsteen" and "tickets."
Finally, Jeff's penchant for entering radio station contests has paid off. (We won't count the free-weekend-houseboat-on-the-lake contest in the summer of 1995, which ended up with us paying a couple of hundred dollars for repair of said houseboat after we hit a submerged tree trunk).
So, come Aug. 24, look for us in the rafters, Bruce. The arena seats 16,000, but I guarantee none of them will be more excited than the one with me.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
One of a kind
We're in the middle of a giggle-fest today.
Elijah is prone to outbursts of enthusiastic laughter, most of which appear to have no trigger and can last, off and on, for a half-hour or more. As anyone who's ever dealt with a therapist might expect, some of his therapists (not the ones described below) have declared this a problem -- something along the lines of "sensory overload response." Further proof of the old adage: To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Yes, I suppose he could have a problem there. Or he could simply be a happy child. I'm going with Option 2.
I was reminded yesterday of how fortunate we are, all things considered. Elijah and I were at a local university teaching hospital, where he gets weekly one-on-one therapy provided by graduate students in speech-language pathology. As I was sitting in the observation room, the professor who oversees the program recounted a conversation she had had recently with the student who worked with Elijah last semester and is now in a classroom with two autistic children. The conversation went something like this ....
Student: "It was a rough day in class today. I got kicked, bitten, punched, sworn at and spit on. I really didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to start working with autistic kids."
Professor: "Well, like I've told other people: They can't all be Elijah."
Elijah is prone to outbursts of enthusiastic laughter, most of which appear to have no trigger and can last, off and on, for a half-hour or more. As anyone who's ever dealt with a therapist might expect, some of his therapists (not the ones described below) have declared this a problem -- something along the lines of "sensory overload response." Further proof of the old adage: To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Yes, I suppose he could have a problem there. Or he could simply be a happy child. I'm going with Option 2.
I was reminded yesterday of how fortunate we are, all things considered. Elijah and I were at a local university teaching hospital, where he gets weekly one-on-one therapy provided by graduate students in speech-language pathology. As I was sitting in the observation room, the professor who oversees the program recounted a conversation she had had recently with the student who worked with Elijah last semester and is now in a classroom with two autistic children. The conversation went something like this ....
Student: "It was a rough day in class today. I got kicked, bitten, punched, sworn at and spit on. I really didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to start working with autistic kids."
Professor: "Well, like I've told other people: They can't all be Elijah."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Exit strategy
I didn't get laid off last week.
For most people, that would be reason to celebrate. And, given our financial situation, it is.
But only to a point.
I'm exhausted, you see. I go to work at 4 or 5 p.m. and arrive home long after midnight. I go to bed as quickly as possible after arriving home and, if I'm lucky, I can get a little more than five hours of sleep before the stirrings of a morning-oriented household, as well as my morning-oriented circadian rhythm, pull me back to consciousness. Then the daily schedule swings into action, and I'm staggering through another day on autopilot, snapping at Elijah for little things, zoning out at 65 mph on the interstate and feeling my health decline in ways big and small.
It's been this way for five years now, ever since I made a vow that the little bundle of joy and demands in my arms would never spend one second in institutional child care while in his infancy or toddlerhood. Hence, the need to work nights so I could be home with him during the day. Over these past five years, I've had several cardiac episodes that ended with an ER doctor, peering at my test results, asking me when I intended to start getting enough sleep and cutting down on the staggering amount of caffeine it takes to get me from 8 a.m. one day through 1 a.m. the next day.
I've even taken heat from a dermatologist when I had the nerve to ask why, after decades of relatively healthy skin, I'm suddenly getting precancerous lesions everywhere. (This is despite my dedicated use of sunscreens so powerful that until recently, they weren't even approved by the FDA -- thanks, online Canadian pharmacies, for your skin-protection assistance!) He looked at me carefully and said something along these lines: "I can tell you're not getting much sleep. Our immune systems are constantly fighting off cancer throughout our bodies, and sleep and exercise are the most important factors in healthy immune system functioning. And remember, not all early stage cancers are as easy to spot as skin cancer."
The lecture went on, but you get the idea.
That brings us to June 16, the day my employer laid off more than 1,400 people across the company, 120 of them at my workplace. Since another lovely facet of my job is that I work weekends, I was home on that dark Monday and thankfully missed a pretty grim scene. We lost some good people, some VERY good people, and those of us remaining are acutely aware of how fortunate we were to escape the ax. But given that our industry is sinking and sinking fast, we know our time is limited.
That's the day I decided to formulate my exit strategy. I must admit that it's not much of a strategy, but here it is: Get all debt except the mortgage paid off. Switch our family health insurance coverage to Jeff's employer. And pounce on the next buyout offer (expected late this year or early next year) with a vengeance.
In case you're wondering exactly what it is that I do, let me refer you to a fellow journalist (at another newspaper) whom I've always admired and who sums it up quite nicely here:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061902920.html
Is it too soon to write the obituary on newspapers? Maybe. But given my current state of exhaustion, I'm ready for my own chance to rest in peace.
For most people, that would be reason to celebrate. And, given our financial situation, it is.
But only to a point.
I'm exhausted, you see. I go to work at 4 or 5 p.m. and arrive home long after midnight. I go to bed as quickly as possible after arriving home and, if I'm lucky, I can get a little more than five hours of sleep before the stirrings of a morning-oriented household, as well as my morning-oriented circadian rhythm, pull me back to consciousness. Then the daily schedule swings into action, and I'm staggering through another day on autopilot, snapping at Elijah for little things, zoning out at 65 mph on the interstate and feeling my health decline in ways big and small.
It's been this way for five years now, ever since I made a vow that the little bundle of joy and demands in my arms would never spend one second in institutional child care while in his infancy or toddlerhood. Hence, the need to work nights so I could be home with him during the day. Over these past five years, I've had several cardiac episodes that ended with an ER doctor, peering at my test results, asking me when I intended to start getting enough sleep and cutting down on the staggering amount of caffeine it takes to get me from 8 a.m. one day through 1 a.m. the next day.
I've even taken heat from a dermatologist when I had the nerve to ask why, after decades of relatively healthy skin, I'm suddenly getting precancerous lesions everywhere. (This is despite my dedicated use of sunscreens so powerful that until recently, they weren't even approved by the FDA -- thanks, online Canadian pharmacies, for your skin-protection assistance!) He looked at me carefully and said something along these lines: "I can tell you're not getting much sleep. Our immune systems are constantly fighting off cancer throughout our bodies, and sleep and exercise are the most important factors in healthy immune system functioning. And remember, not all early stage cancers are as easy to spot as skin cancer."
The lecture went on, but you get the idea.
That brings us to June 16, the day my employer laid off more than 1,400 people across the company, 120 of them at my workplace. Since another lovely facet of my job is that I work weekends, I was home on that dark Monday and thankfully missed a pretty grim scene. We lost some good people, some VERY good people, and those of us remaining are acutely aware of how fortunate we were to escape the ax. But given that our industry is sinking and sinking fast, we know our time is limited.
That's the day I decided to formulate my exit strategy. I must admit that it's not much of a strategy, but here it is: Get all debt except the mortgage paid off. Switch our family health insurance coverage to Jeff's employer. And pounce on the next buyout offer (expected late this year or early next year) with a vengeance.
In case you're wondering exactly what it is that I do, let me refer you to a fellow journalist (at another newspaper) whom I've always admired and who sums it up quite nicely here:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061902920.html
Is it too soon to write the obituary on newspapers? Maybe. But given my current state of exhaustion, I'm ready for my own chance to rest in peace.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Our first post!
Congratulations! If you've read down this far, you've reached the initial post of the JeffSarahElijah blog -- a publication I've been planning to launch for months but which repeatedly has dropped to the bottom of my daily, weekly and monthly priority lists.
In fact, for many months I neglected to mention to Jeff that we were going to do this. This is a bad habit of mine and extends to things as small as our rare "date nights" (which I often have completely planned out before Jeff is even aware that one is coming) to things as large as vacations (I did tell him about the cruise we were going to take, long after I'd already done the research). This little project is no different: My daily schedule, which starts about 8 a.m. and often doesn't end until I return home from work about 1 a.m. the next day, tends to become a bit overwhelming, and the "inform Jeff of plans for family blog" item, which first appeared on my list late last year, inevitably ended up being moved forward to the next day, and the next, and the next. So, here it is: We're doing a family blog, honey!
My hopes are that this will serve not just to keep family and friends informed about how we're doing, but also as sort of a sounding board for me. I'm one of those people who spends way too much time talking to myself (a trait I consider rather charming but one that, when it manifests in Elijah, contributes to his autism spectrum diagnosis -- thank goodness I'm not a little boy!), and this blog is really just one more way for me to do that.
So if at times I seem to be a bit rambling, or pedantic, or just plain dull, please remember -- no one makes you take time out of your day to check these postings. In fact, you probably have far better things to be doing right this very minute. I'm sure Jeff will do his best to add some, uh, lively commentary to this blog, but at its core, it's really just about our family, and we are almost breathtakingly average (we're middle-aged and live in Kansas, for heaven's sake!). So before you add us to your Web brower's "favorites" list, keep that in mind!
And thanks for joining us.
In fact, for many months I neglected to mention to Jeff that we were going to do this. This is a bad habit of mine and extends to things as small as our rare "date nights" (which I often have completely planned out before Jeff is even aware that one is coming) to things as large as vacations (I did tell him about the cruise we were going to take, long after I'd already done the research). This little project is no different: My daily schedule, which starts about 8 a.m. and often doesn't end until I return home from work about 1 a.m. the next day, tends to become a bit overwhelming, and the "inform Jeff of plans for family blog" item, which first appeared on my list late last year, inevitably ended up being moved forward to the next day, and the next, and the next. So, here it is: We're doing a family blog, honey!
My hopes are that this will serve not just to keep family and friends informed about how we're doing, but also as sort of a sounding board for me. I'm one of those people who spends way too much time talking to myself (a trait I consider rather charming but one that, when it manifests in Elijah, contributes to his autism spectrum diagnosis -- thank goodness I'm not a little boy!), and this blog is really just one more way for me to do that.
So if at times I seem to be a bit rambling, or pedantic, or just plain dull, please remember -- no one makes you take time out of your day to check these postings. In fact, you probably have far better things to be doing right this very minute. I'm sure Jeff will do his best to add some, uh, lively commentary to this blog, but at its core, it's really just about our family, and we are almost breathtakingly average (we're middle-aged and live in Kansas, for heaven's sake!). So before you add us to your Web brower's "favorites" list, keep that in mind!
And thanks for joining us.
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