Typical ups and downs

This week has continued to be the typical week of ups and downs with Liam. One minute he is doing fine, the next he is screaming and having a tantrum. Tuesday at school was an interesting day for Liam. Jill went to Liam’s class since they were having a “Thanksgiving celebration”. There is a new child in Liam’s class that is apparently quite a handful. Liam has stated the new child has at times pinched his face, twist his arm, or hit him. Jill has also heard similar stories from other parents in the class. Jill noticed right away this child is quite a handful for even one teacher. The child is extremely impulsive and often physical with other kids in the class. The problem oter parents are having with this situation is that this child us disrupting a classroom environment was very conducive to learning. Jill said she can see the frustration on Liam’s teacher’s face. The kids went to a function in the school auditorium. Upon returning, this new child ran into the room, knocked over a little girl who wears braces to walk, and caused her to bump her head on a desk. Instead of the parent talking to the child about was done they sat him down for a snack instead. This was like rewarding him for what he did. The other parents in the room were angry right away. Following class Jill and few of the other parents got together and were each going to call to complain about this child being added to their class. The problem the parents have is that this classroom is the smallest in size, and has more kids than the other special ed class has. This other child should have been added to this other classroom with an additional teacher to meet his needs. The only reason we can see this child was added to Liam’s class was because of the job his teacher does. She is phenomenal with all the kids. The other teacher is not well liked by other parents. Instead of the school addressing the problem with the other teacher, they just stick the child in Liam’s class without additional supervision. Jill and the other parents that were concerned have left messages with the superintendent. We will see how this goes. We have compassion for what this other family is going through. The parents concerned here do not have anything against the child, but how the school board has handled the situation.

Wednesday I was home with the boys as Jill attended our friend Renee’s memorial mass. When Jill returned home in the evening she looked emotionally drained. After we talked about the memorial, everyone that was there, and how the mass ended, I can see why it was draining. The mass ended with the priest asking everyone to sing Renee’s favorite Christmas song, Silent Night. There was not a dry eye to be had in the church. The last 2 lines of the song will always remind us of Renee now: “Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace”. Renee is now in heavenly peace after her courageous battle with leukemia.

Liam’s day wasn’t too bad Wednesday. He was quite playful in the morning with his brothers, Eli, and Kelly who came over for quite a few hours. They all played together so well, it was nice to not have to listen to Liam screech and whine. One thing Liam kept doing was while in the middle of playing, he would run up to me and ask me about grandma and grandpa coming over for turkey tomorrow, and if the parades will be on. Liam was merely having these thoughts go through his head as we told him what was going to happen Thursday.

As always seems to happen, after a good day Wednesday, it is followed up with a bad one. Thursday Liam’s anxiety seemed to extremely high. We couldn’t exactly figure out if it was any one thing. He would screech, cry, and whine over anything. It was quite exasperating as Jill was trying to get cooking done. I tried to help as much as I could with my knee still tender after surgery Monday. When the Macy’s parade came on Liam seemed to settle down a bit. He and his brothers watched the parade and got excited when their favorite character balloons would go by. They would all lose interest when the parade paused for some lip-synced performance by different plays or singers. I even lost interest. I would holler for them when the parade would resume. Throughout the rest of the day Liam was quite anxious. When everyone left you could see Liam was exhausted from the day. He may have been over tired as he was quite difficult to get to sleep. Liam finally went to sleep around 9:30. We will see how the next few days go.