Reading Between the Lines

As a parent, the ability to "read between the lines" is paramount. Let me give you an example. As is the case in most special ed classrooms, there is a journal that goes back and forth via the backpack every day for Andrew's teachers to communicate with us. Go back with me a couple of weeks and enter my mind to read the following from Andrew's journal.

Andrew had a very good morning.........blah, blah.... then at lunchtime, he grabbed a fellow student's thermos and dumped it on his head, then laughed.....then he kept kissing another fellow female student and ignored verbal direction to stop........more generally bad behavior.....brief time out for yelling.....blah, blah, then it was time for cooking group and he got better. (information insertion-the cooking group turn-around is no big surprise since cooking is one of Andrew's favorite activities)

I had a five minute laugh over the fact that they thought couching Andrew's outrageous behavior with two sentences indicating he had a good morning and an OK afternoon would somehow take my focus off the middle. You know, the MEAT of things. I wrote them a note back that night--In other words, my son was a sneaky little devil yesterday. The teacher got a kick out of that and the fact that I knew exactly which student he had been trying to kiss. (The one he thinks is his girlfriend-duh!)

Anyway, I now feel great solidarity with the teachers who also get frustrated by Andrew's antics. My sister's favorite quote to me during one of the times I couldn't get Andrew to stop goofing off is: "Wendy, the only one who thinks it isn't funny is YOU." OK, that's not an exact quote, but to understand the exact quote I'd have to launch into the story of Andrew and the disco lights when we were trying to gather things up from a rented room that Maddie had had a birthday party in. Let's just say, it's hard to gather your things when your son can turn the room into a dim kaleidoscope of swirling colored balls with the flick of a lightswitch. Believe me, Andrew is a champion lightswitch flicker when he wants to be.


Moving on to a Madeline story, for the purposes of me not being accused of favoring one child over the other. For some background, Maddie is really enjoying having a full on cafeteria at her school and always wants the school lunch. It took me a few weeks to figure out one of the reasons is that pizza is always an alternative to the hot lunch menu. Madeline and her friend, ******, always eat lunch together. They always get pizza. EVERY DAY. Maddie is going to turn into a pizza any day now. So, now that we are three months into the school year, Maddie approached me a couple of weeks ago because she is, surprise, surprise, getting sick of eating pizza. She wants to start eating alternatives, but she is afraid ****** will be mad at her. I used the standard, "She's not really your friend if she gets mad at you for your lunch choices," but it's not really registering. Maddie is the girl who came home one day after camp and very excitedly told me how so and so was her best friend now because this girl wanted to trade knick knacks with Maddie and told her she would be her best friend if they traded. Even after my explanations, Maddie did not realize she had been played. She is very concrete in her relationships. So, back to the pizza. Madeline approached me last week to ask how you could not be allergic to something one day and allergic to it the next. I really didn't get this either so I asked for more info. It seems that ****** is starting to develop pizza allergies. A couple of days a week, ******* says she is allergic to pizza and has the hot lunch alternative instead. I said, "Maddie, don't you see? ******** is just as afraid to tell you that she doesn't really want to eat the pizza anymore!!" Maddie was very quick to point out how dumb I am and that most certainly was not what was happening. BUT, guess who has stopped eating pizza every day after this? MADELINE CLAIRE OLSEN, you have been officially caught in a situation that PROVES you thought your mother was right after all!!
(this is where you can insert the Maddie eye roll and long suffering sigh--two of her favorite kiss offs when dealing with yours truly)