If you missed the start of this series, you can find it here. A lot of things will be the same or very similar.
Dinner, bath, bedtime. He was awake and laughing and roaring an hour later but he was in his room. Good enough.
I took a few pictures for my Science Project. The sky looked like it was cloudy, but it wasn’t clouds. Not rain clouds anyway…
The Sun was a gross orange color when it was higher, then it was a neon ruby red. I tried to capture the color, but the pink I got is a pale imitation. It makes me think of the Stephen King book Under The Dome.
I ate some food, did the Things and at 9:40 I took my pill. I planned to go to sleep early. Real, actual SLEEP…
I was out pretty quickly and except for a brief wakeup around 3:30am, I slept all night. It was ear sniffing that woke me up. Ben doesn’t Bounce or even yell as he runs by anymore. That is both good and scary.
It’s good because he’s more independent, doesn’t need me right next to him every minute. The scary is what he might get into when he’s unsupervised. Thank goodness for the Big Dumb back up alarm!
I dragged myself out of bed and went to see what Ben was doing. He was sitting on the couch watching his tablet. Nice! I got his stuff, got my stuff and started the Morning Stuff.
No pretty sunrise today. The sky was completely overcast. I couldn’t see any sign of the Sun. It still smelled smokey, but either I’m getting used to it, or it’s somewhat dissipated. We do get what’s called the Marine Layer, clouds coming in off the ocean overnight, so the overcast could be Marine Layer clouds. If so, it’s good news temperature wise. It takes a while for the clouds to burn off and it’s cooler.
I uncovered Sven and turned his lights on, got him some food, petted him, talked to him and paparazzi’d him.
Daughter got up around 7:45 and took over Couch Sittin. Ben was back and forth between my room and the living room until around 8:15, then he went outside. I got up to see what he was getting into out there, and found him in his dirt hole, busting the side of the concrete walkway. Since it wasn’t 104°F and the sky wasnt icky brown, orange and yellow, I let him be. It wasn’t too early, too hot, or too destructive. There was a mess of old chalk out there that I tried to get him to bust instead, but I guess that isn’t as much fun.
He came back inside around 9:00am. The air quality is bad, so I was glad. He wasn’t running around, but inside we have the AC units running to help filter the air.
He had a Group Zoom on the schedule for 9:30, but we decided to skip it. There was another Group scheduled for 11:00, that would work better for an attempt. He was restless this morning… Ants In His Pants. When he’s restless like that, he’s like dry tinder, a spark will set him on fire and melting down. Zoom School isn’t worth it.
Daughter got all excited over a letter from Transportation for our school district. It was a bus route, containing bus number, driver, pick up and drop off times. She immediately fired off an email to her boss at work, advising she would need to leave fifteen minutes earlier to be able to be home for the bus pickup time.
I walked over to market while she was doing this. I found out after I got back, ten minutes later. I told her that just because he has been assigned to a route does NOT mean his school will be opening. (DUH!) By then it was almost time to try Zooming, so she got it set up and got Ben to sit down.
They expected Ben to listen to the Teacher’s Aide read a story, show slides and talk about germs and hand washing for thirty minutes. They set a timer for him and he did really well for Ben. I don’t think he learned anything, but he sat in the chair for the whole time. I gave him a new box of chalk for doing so well. He took it, but was bummed it wasn’t the $100 Batman costume that he Has To Have. I tried to order it for him when he first showed it to me, I have a gift card to cover part of the cost, but the bank beat me to my available credit with interest charges, so he has to wait a little longer until Mom gets paid. I think he’ll live.
Anyway, after Ben was released from the Zoom chair, Daughter asked his teacher about the transportation notice. His school, which in a different city’s district, is NOT opening. I didn’t say “I told you so.” but I wanted to. Her desire overrode her logic for a bit there.
It took Ben nearly an hour to calm down and stop the Angry Words after Zooming. SOOO not worth it! But, we’re scheduled to try again tomorrow. Ugh! Meanwhile, Daughter decided she wanted to make fries. She heated up the oil and cut up the taters.
Then she decided she’d hold Sven while she was cooking… Unsurprisingly Sven didn’t like that idea. She yelled to me to come get him and put him in the shower. Sheesh! She was definitely on a Brain Fart roll today. I put Sven in the shower. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. The weather is probably affecting him too. His… umm… lizard brain is probably not liking the smoky air.
Ben ate his homemade fries and I explained to Daughter about the bus. I guess what seemed completely obvious to me wasn’t obvious to her. Ben’s teacher had emailed her with a tentative hybrid on campus start date of September 28, with Ben attending on Monday and Tuesday. Daughter still didn’t understand how that would work with his bus, since the notice from Transportation shows Monday through Friday. I told her that he has a spot reserved on that bus number, that route with those times. Whether he uses the spot or not, it’s there. She wondered if she’d have to call him off for the days he doesn’t go. (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) I told her that I hoped the different District Personnel were in communication, but if not, we should only have to advise them once. And bottom line, we could always drive him. We weren’t sure we were going to have a bus available anyway.
Around 2:15 Ben came into my room, got under the blankets, and watched his tablet. About ten minutes later he asked for Oreo cookies. I told him to get them. He said (say it with me now) “I need help.” I told him he was a lazypants, he should just say that. The med alarm had just gone off, so I got up to fetch Oreos for HRH and get his meds too. By 3pm he’d run off, back to the living room and his dominoes.
Ben was back and forth a lot. It’s that magical time of day when he’s most restless, late afternoon. The Sun is going down in an hour or so, dinner, bath and bedtime are approaching, it’s time to get ready for the schedule. No Driving Miss Daisy, but we keep to the schedule anyway.
I’m glad you stopped by Casa Cuckoo today. Except for the post-Zoom hour, it was a fabulously relaxed day. The temperature was bearable and the vibe was groovy. If the air hadn’t been so toxic and stinky we could’ve finally opened up doors and windows. Aw well… something to look forward to… an adventure for another day. We’ve got a lot of nothing planned for tomorrow, but I hope you’ll stop by and hang out anyway. We’ll find some way to entertain ourselves… we always do. ¡Hasta mañana!
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HUGS!
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King Ben's Grandma 
I can relate to the “I need help” you hear all the time (which makes me laugh how you present it). I get the plain old, “Can you do it?” I am seeing I need to work on this! 🙂 Zoom is not a friendly time for us, at all. It doesn’t hold Declan’s interest, no matter how many aids I throw at him. I am looking at the flip side – just doing all the work online by ourselves, without the instruction, and I know that is going to go the same way asynchronous learning goes. Whining and crying. So I guess it is better to let all of his workers, who are apparently online watching the classes but not saying anything, see while I try to handle the situation for D. Ugggghhhhh. Sorry to vent. Online schooling sucks for him and no one is listening to my concerns or, not offering any suggestions or support. Or really, responding to any email I have sent. It is just frustrating. If I got a bus notice I might even believe it was real. Although I probably would not have held Sven next to a stove while I was using it, even if I was just trying to give some bearded dragon love 🙂 Well, all we can do is try again tomorrow. Good luck to you! I hope it goes well and the air is cooler and cleaner for you!
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Honestly, you’re probably going to have to request a new IEP once school is back on campus. K-2 and 3-5 or 6 are two completely different things. You remember with Cate I’m sure. D is in 3rd now, right? He’s gonna need TONS more support to readjust to classroom. And the Zoom thing is ridiculous! Regular non IEP kids are having a hard time with it, how is D supposed to keep up? It’s like with Ben, they don’t require that he focus on anything longer than 5 or 10 minutes, it’s in his IEP, but they want him to sit for 30 minutes in front of a Zoom lesson?🤦🏼♀️🤬
I feel ya! Yes, we have to live with what happens after. That 30 minutes in the chair resulted in over an hour if Angry Words, and him barely keeping from tipping over the edge.
I’ve pretty come to the conclusion that Ben has lost a year or school. He’s SO far behind his peers education wise, it doesn’t even really matter. He surprises me sometimes by reading something out loud. He’s smart, but he has zero interest in tests, worksheets or any other “school” type thing.
We got a tentative hybrid return date of Sept 28. Hopefully your kids will be able to safely return soon too. Zoom School is SOOOO not applicable to special needs. Not the way they’re doing it.
Good luck to us and our guys tomorrow as we battle the Zoom💕
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Jet 🎶 has a vibe as groovy as you day, so happy to hear everything went mostly good. I can’t even imagine trying to zoom the way you all are being asked to. Hugs! 🤗💫. See ya for morning coffee ☕️🔆🎉
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I know the song, but didn’t know the name of the band. I was just looking for a song and came across this one. I miss old MTV😂😂 I almost never hear the band names on the radio. I’m glad you liked it, it IS a good song.
Hot Coffee and Cold Sweet Tea. Making a new batch tonight😉💕💃🏼🎶✨🌊🦄🦜💫🧸💌
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Great for to get some good sleep. Maybe when zoom is a regular feature, Ben will get used to it too.
Good night and sweet dreams my friend
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We’re trying with the Zoom, but although he’s sitting in the chair, he’s not paying attention, he’s NOT learning and he’s just getting upset. He may be able to go back on campus 2 days a week at the end of the month. Fingers Crossed 🤞
I hope your Wednesday is Wonderful!
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I hope that works, going two days a week. Over here the schools will be opening at the end of September. Hope all goes well.
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These vids are always unavailable to me. Oh well. Glad the day went okay… hope you get another good sleep 💤
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It was Jet – Are You Gonna Be My Girl. How bizarre that it’s unavailable to you. Another reader in Texas was able to watch it. I know sometimes I have to click on a video a 2nd time & it takes me to YT directly🤷🏼♀️
Thank you for telling me. I’ll have to see if anyone else is having trouble. If people cant play the songs, why put them out there? I like new music, I thought others might too🤷🏼♀️
Watch out for the Santa Ana. Hopefully it will be mild and not super hot and NOT start any more fires.🤞And NOT give you a “M”.💕
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I love the song, no worries. I’ve heard some of mine don’t play for everyone too. Yeah, probably will be a bad day with those winds 🙁
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First, just a bit of intel for you to process as you choose, the video worked fine for me, and I’m also in Texas.Then again, WordPress is not known for its consistency.
Second, what’s this with a hundred-dollar Batman costume? Did I miss a post somewhere? (Probably.)
Third…. dang it, I had another thought to share but now I no longer remember it, mere seconds later. This is what happens when I have too much roughage with dinner… 😉
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Bizzaro that it plays fine in TX, but not for a fellow SoCal gal.
Hmmm… probably not. I forget what I write about sometimes. Ben wants an old style, grey and blue Batman costume. (I think it’s mostly the gloves he wants) He/we found it on amazon and I tried to order it last week. I thought $100 was a lot of money but he’s got expensive taste, and the costume IS a men’s size and comes with all the pieces (cape, cowl, etc). He looks at the picture of the costume every day. He REALLY wants it, but he’s gotta wait cuz the credit card I was going to use got hit with charges and fees (and a few charges by Younger Daughter) before I could make the purchase. I DO have a gift card credit that was given for his Birthday to cover part of the cost. Ben is very expensive! But, we HAVE saved on not having to buy “juice” (fruit punch Capri Sun) sooo…
Ummm… yeah… samesies.🤷🏼♀️💕
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Pleased you got some sleep. That’s some angry sky. Another new song for me. Zoom. One day I might share the Yorkshire definition for that lovely piece of modern life. From what I’ve seen they spend time teaching the staff about the tech side but not on the pupil dynamic. Each child is different with different needs. Shame Zoom can’t zoom in on those needs. xxxx
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Yay! New music🎶💃🏼 Yeah, the sky is gross. We’re in a valley and it seems like the bad air is stuck here. It smells horrible and burns my nose. I havent read about the fire today but the winds we were expecting never turned up… not here anyway, so that’s good. Those 50mph winds are BAD for wild fires.
We haven’t Zoomed today… I think Daughter decided to skip it. Its ridiculous anyway. In his IEP (Independent Education Plan – what every special ed student gets) it is in writing that he cannot sit and focus on an activity for more than like 10 minutes. I cant remember the exact number, but I know it’s not 30.
I dont blame his school or his teachers… they’re doing what they can. The whole thing is just a mess.
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My neighbor who is a teacher told me they are asking the school district if the kids with special needs can have one on one care. I hope for the sake of the parents and the kids this will happen. We moved into this house because of the San Ramon Valley School District. We think Andrew got a great education. We were lucky.
I’m so happy you got a good night’s rest. It’s sooo important.
The Batman costume sounds cool. I’d be happy to Venmo you the money for it.
Take care. Stay cool.
Teri
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Thank you Teri, that’s a very sweet offer, but he can wait. He has so much stuff. We buy him just about everything he asks for. And he’ll get the costume… in a week or so. Learning to wait for stuff is good for him. He already has a Mr Incredible costume and gloves.
Ben’s school is a non-public autism school and all his therapists are on staff. They integrate everything and tailor to each student. They’re awesome! I know they’re doing what they can and I don’t blame them. They’re probably as fed up with Zoom as we are. They have to show they’ve done “teaching” to get funding I’m sure. It’s just a mess! We skipped it today. Daughter emailed the teacher that he woke up super early and was sleeping 🙊 then she cried cuz she lied.🙄😂 Goodness, what a year!🤪
💕💕
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Your daughter shouldn’t feel guilty about lying if it revolves around the safety of you and your family.
I know the schools need money, but come on.
Take care dear friend
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