School's in Session! Updated (spoiler!)

Took the babies to school today, the first day back. A off to fourth grade, M off to kindergarten. Beaming faces, neat outfits, clean shoes. Ran home and got J set up for some preliminary lessons - a little Algebra, a little English. Something to do while I taught my day class. 1:30 and 2:00 came much too soon - time just to catch my breath, to snack, in time to arrive at the school...to a flat tire in 105 degree heat. D to the rescue, with AAA. Took the babies home to corral them while the home teacher spent an hour with J.

Soon? Bass lesson, dinner, baths, bed, preparation for my own class tomorrow night. Trip, stumble, get back up...skip, skip, skip. My it's hot these days.

Update: Since I'm writing a saga about the newly-intensified Tourette's of J, I thought to mention our little...incident this past weekend. We'd been at a party at my brother's place, a little USC football celebration (whooo we won!) that ran until ten o'clock or so with lots of swimming, drinking, eating, and socializing. When we all hobbled in through the door, we played our messages. Lo and behold, some children thought it would be funny to call our machine and leave a message imitating J's vocal tics. A prank call in the truest sense of the word. A very painful prank. We handled it as best as we could, after telling J that his desire to beat up the message-leaver wasn't the best move. We said the kids probably thought it was just something funny to do, that J is so cool with his TS, that they maybe really didn't think he'd mind. It was the best we could do to alleviate such a humiliating and disturbing moment. We finished by saying, "Kids are mean, and dumb. They do things without thinking of the consequences. We're so sorry that happened."

The next night, as I was watching a movie, as J was heading to bed, I overheard him tell D, "I think the noise is going to fade away tonight. I bet you I wake up in the morning and all I'll have is an eye thing, or a bit of a shake. I really think so, dad."

I couldn't sleep after that. All I could think about was how I wanted that, too, when my father had cancer and my mother got ill. "Tomorrow morning, this whole nightmare is going to go away. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and everything will be just like it was before, better."

Tomorrow's his birthday. I bought him an Ipod. I asked the girl at the shop, "Which one do all the kids buy? Which one would a 13 year old boy buy? Black or white? The one with the screen, right?" I didn't want to make a mistake. Didn't want to buy the wrong one. I put it on our credit card. Went into debt because I can't fix anything for him, because every time I put a pill into his mouth, nothing changes. But I can buy him something fun, modern, all the rage. That and telling him a story at night, telling him I love him. Listening to him, watching him skateboard and drum, when he wants me to watch.

Tonight we saw "House" and J emerged from the office right at the end when the doctor sticks a paralyzed guy with one shot and cures him. The guy stands up and voila! The family cries and all is good. J laughed and said, "That doesn't happen in real life, does it?"

"No, honey, it's pure fiction."

"You mean, pure bullshit!"

"Yeah, that's the word."