As one of my former students, Jesse, used to say "long day Harrison, long day"! I just got home a few minutes ago from parent/teacher interviews so yes indeedy Jesse, it was a long day. Jesse had a developmental disability along with Tourettes - if you know anything about Tourettes one of the characteristics is the tendency to yell out obscenities at inappropriate times, which is pretty much all of the time. Fortunately Jesse had led a rather sheltered life and the worst she could come out with was "piss, poo, pee"! Another characteristic is to say the same things over and over again along with sometimes quite violent vocal and physical tics. So suffice it to say that when Jesse started saying "long day Harrison" at 8am I knew it was going to be a veeeeeeerrrry long day. As it is with every developmental student I've ever had the privilege to teach Jesse had many redeeming qualities: she was friendly, sociable, curious, sensitive to others, loved babies and dogs and never forgot a face or a name - she remembered every person she ever met - including our country's prime minister - Stephen Harper.
Tonight I had only one parent show up so she and I had a good ol' chat for almost two hours. As she was going to leave (for about the 100th time) she said - "I like talking to you!" That made my day. She really struggles with having an 18 year old son with autism. He's a bright boy but crippled with anxiety. She says she tries not to think about it too much or she'd have a breakdown. A couple of years ago after a long interview with her I decided I would always try to give her at least an hour to talk instead of the usual 10 minutes as she always seemed to need to unload. It's like therapy for her and she knows she's talking to someone who knows her son extremely well and cares about him. And I do, I just love that boy.
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| Jesse at track and field |
A few months ago I was at their home to help fill out an assessment for adult services. She served us some homemade blueberry cake that was to die for! (She's polish and makes
EVERYTHING from scratch, including pierogies) and tomorrow she's going to send in the recipe for me and if you're really good I'll share it with you! That woman can
COOK!
So now I'm going to go crawl into bed with my glass of wine and watch a movie with Michael - it's that one about Drs. Freud and Jung - "A Dangerous Method" I think it's called. I'll likely fall asleep and miss the ending like I usually do! Tomorrow is casual day to raise money for Autism AND it's multicultural day so I'm putting the diet aside for a day so I can enjoy some ethnic food.
YAY for Friday!!
Did you notice I never mentioned money once???
