Time Doesn't Stop, Why Should I?

     

    Today was the first quarter parent-teacher conference for Ryan.  He is off to a great start continuing where he left off at the end of 9th grade.  Everyone said the same things about him.  He is a class leader, shows great empathy for his fellow students, goes above and beyond what is expected of him on his class projects.  One of the instructors has been teaching time management/planning using the Tony Robbins method.  He shared with me a Date With Destiny/Goal Sheet that Ryan created during the first week.  

    As parents we are never quite sure our kids listen to anything that we tell them.  When he gave me a copy of the sheet, right in the middle, was the phrase I used over and over again after Theresa died.  I would tell Ryan as humans we can't go backwards and we can't stay where we are.  Time doesn't stop, it keeps moving forward.  He put down, "Time doesn't stop, why should I".  Along with those phrases he listed some of the things he's driving towards and some of the things that are pushing him forward.

• He had a picture of Theresa with her date of death 4/18/16.
• Next to that picture he had one of Nana with her date of death 6/20/21.
• He put an emblem down for his school, Gateway Academy, which he started after moving to Phoenix
• Next to his school he put up a fiery Phoenix because he is a Phoenecian now
• He put a screen capture of his favorite video game
• He put up a basketball picture as that has become his game of choice during lunch
• He put up a picture of Phoenix Children's Hospital for the time he spent there working through some emotional issues
• He put up the date of his high school graduation, 5/25/24
• He put up a picture and expected start date for Northern Arizona University.

    I have to say that I had quite the lump in my throat looking at all the things he put down that he has pushed through, that motivate him and where he wants to go. As parents we sometimes think we are talking to a brick wall, but those things we say do bear fruit.

    Last week was the 2nd quarter conference (I started writing this a few months ago and never finished it, so now it's quarter 2).  All of his teachers had great things to say about Ryan and the positive changes that he continues to show on his high school journey.  One of my favorites was how all of his teachers said that Ryan has shown tremendous growth in listening to the opinion of others, expressing his different opinion, and accepting that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  While this may not seem like much, for a kid on the autism spectrum, this is an incredible break-through.  

    Every day my boy inspires me with his intellectual and emotional growth.  

Co-Parenting and Covid

     I have written before about the difficulties of being married to a woman who shares custody with an ex-husband who scores off the charts on narcissism.  Several things have cropped up over the years but the pure stupidity and lack of logical reasoning rose up during the past week.  On Sunday, Jennie tested positive for Covid-19 and reached out to Mr. Co-Parent about picking up his girls one night early.  He said he would pick them up if they tested negative for the virus.  I went out and bought more rapid tests, tested each one and they were negative.

    I went off to the store to grab some soups and supplies for Jennie.  When I returned home, I learned that Mr. Co-Parent took two of the three girls to his house leaving the youngest with us.  The original narrative was because she was not vaccinated, she needed to quarantine in our house.  Let that sink in for a moment.  You leave the most vulnerable (theoretically) in the home of the confirmed Covid case. For the first 4 days I was able to take care of the kids in our house while I was home from work.  Fortunately, the kids were able to take care of their breakfast and lunch needs, and I could take care of dinner.

    As Jennie kept pressing for an answer on why he chose to leave the most vulnerable with us, a narrative was finally crafted that he did not have enough room in his home to keep everyone quarantined.  I certainly can understand that difficulty as we have two kids sleeping the in same room.  However, I was again surprised when we learned that the two girls from our house were staying in the same room, leaving two bedrooms available for one step daughter.  So, you had an extra room where you could have placed the youngest daughter, but you chose to leave her in the house with the confirmed positive.  Hmm, okay.

    As bad luck would have it, I started feeling symptomatic on Friday and tested positive on Saturday.  Now we had the situation of having both parents testing positive having to take care of two kids, one of whom was unvaccinated.  I suppose we should have seen this coming as I did not move out of our bedroom until Sunday and was likely exposed before moving out.  And Mr. Co-Parent had the audacity to express concern that we were not properly isolating ourselves and putting the kids (in our house) at risk.  He had the perfect opportunity to minimize the exposure of his child to the virus by taking her to his house, but he chose a different path and now wants to question our ability to properly isolate from the kids.  You really can't make this stuff up.  The lack of forward thinking or logical reasoning that he displayed was utterly amazing.  

    My co-workers make fun of me all the time when I tell them the stupid things that take place in the co-parenting realm and have jokingly taken to calling him my ex-husband.  All I can do is quote Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.