the blog of a disabled mother who likes to game, and "get in the pit"
He loves this plush so much — it was a gift from a friend — that he takes it everywhere with him, and sometimes he does things like this. And yes, he gave consent for me to take this picture. He doesn’t mind that it is on my blog. If he had his way, I would be mentioning him a lot more on my blog… maybe I should…
In theory, I have one child who could have and manage his own Facebook account or Twitter account. He’s fourteen, so he’s old enough to. But I don’t feel comfortable allowing him to use a website that requires the use of his full name, and I don’t feel like he’s at a point where he could use any of these sites, would want to, or would get the same meaning out of them that we do. I mean, I could help him manage something… but I’m not sure about that, because if he weren’t enjoying it and wanting to do it, what would the point be? And in a way, it’s kind of ironic. Kids that he has grown up with have their own social networking accounts and enjoyably use them. And here I am, not even using his real name when I make public posts about him. I could if I wanted, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so given real-life (real life? how do you parse that?) circumstances, so here we are. Also, ironically the child in the picture isn’t the child that I’m writing about. He is too young to have social networking accounts of his own. I’m content to allow him to explore on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Plus, I wouldn’t want to deal with the idea of having to help him navigate online conversations. Not yet.
So here we are. I feel old writing this entry out and I’m only thirty-five years old (my oldest son is fourteen).
We do this every year (instead of every six months now that we are in a pandemic, and still in one at that). We get up earlier than we normally do, get ready to leave the house, and then leave the house to commute for approximately twenty minutes before arriving at our destination. Then we take an elevator several stories up to the child development — and other things — floor of the building, check in and wait to be seen by the kids’ developmental pediatrician, who has been seeing Monster since he was five years old and Bub like… since he was two, maybe two and a half. He’s glad that I am homeschooling, as apparently a lot of parents and guardians made that decision when our governor took away the state funding for virtual schooling that had previously been there… to find out that the percentage of homeschooled kids jumped from between 6% and 8% to like 11%, prompting the state legislature to advance a bill funding virtual schooling until 2023 that has a lot of risky, undesirable caveats. He made some suggestions that I might like to have Monster engage in.
We also discussed how Bub, being on the highest dose of melatonin that a child can or is supposed to take (10mg)… is continuing to have a difficult time going to sleep, staying asleep, and having restful sleep, even if I do what I was previously told to do and top him up with a dose of Benadryl on these occasions at like two or three in the morning if he wakes up, can’t wind himself back down to sleep, and becomes distressed as a result. So now Bub is on the maximal dose of 0.2mg clonidine at night to see if that helps with any, or all, of these things. If it doesn’t, I can call his developmental pediatrician right back and see if the dose of that can be adjusted or he can be put on something a little bit stronger. It’s become increasingly clear that Bub needs the full 0.2mg dose, and he needs to continue to be on melatonin — I was told that I could also top his clonidine dose up with this if it was clear that he needed it, so we’re seeing how that goes for a little while here, heh…
Mmanwhile, I’m continuing to homeschool with the appropriate books for each child. Monster is working out of a language arts book while Bub works on Hooked on Phonics (and let me tell you, he does not like his +at words), I’m giving Monster problems from a Common Core second-grade math workbook allowing him to answer them however he best comes to the answer and having Bub pattern out n+2 and n+3… that sort of thing. I will say that I miss taking Bub to the nearby neighborhood park for physical education and fun time, though. We can’t exactly do that in the midst of a pandemic, especially when I am as susceptible to complications as I am. If there were any safe way to do that I would be down, but that’s exactly the point — we’ve had to make changes to our life as a result of the pandemic, and we can’t stop making these changes until it’s all over.
And also, thanks Subway for the food. It’s the one fast food item that my kids and I can agree on.
So Bub had to get tested for COVID this week, and I would have had to get tested if he came back positive (as would have his older brother, Monster), which would have been an experience. Fortunately, he tested negative, which meant that we didn’t have to get tested! But the fact of the matter is that we live in a state where mask mandates are prohibited by executive order, we’ve sometimes had 25,000 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in a twenty-four hour period, and to be frank, our governor just does not care. At all.
Achievement unlocked during pandemic: Have to schedule, and then go to, COVID testing… due to COVID
Almost all fandoms have their “dark ships”, which are characters paired together in a romantic context that… aren’t really spoken about. Fans of these ships relegate themselves to the various corners of the Internet where they can more freely talk about them with like-minded fans, but they’re not something that is brazenly waved around like a flag. You don’t trip and fall into them. It takes sometimes significant effort to find them.
However… in the Supernatural fandom, people actually ship Sam and Dean Winchester — brothers — and they are brazen about it. This represents a significant difference in how dark ships are normally treated. People put it in their biographies on Twitter (calling it w*ncest, and for personal reasons I refuse to write that any other way), in some other social media biographies or about pages as well, and they are proud of it.
Without getting into the genetic and moral implications of that (“ship and let ship”, even if you grit your teeth doing it), a lot of the respect that Hellers — people who ship Castiel and Dean Winchester — attempt to give w*ncest shippers is completely lost on them. It’s flouted. Sometimes it’s shoved in people’s faces. Hellers are sometimes repeatedly, loudly told that they are “shipping necrophilia” because Castiel originally, consensually inhabits the vessel of Jimmy Novak before Lucifer makes his vessel explode and Chuck just plain resurrects him as that vessel. (But what about Dean, who Castiel literally raised from the dead at the start of season four? This is almost never brought up in the context of shipping Dean with… well, anyone else.) We’re also sometimes repeatedly, loudly reminded that there is a significant age gap between Dean and Castiel — suspending some belief here, because this is a supernatural television show that we’re talking about, Castiel is an angel who has been around since nearly the dawn of time, that is to be expected, and both of them are adults. I always failed to understand that attack on the Heller ship, though, to be honest…
One of the things that I also dislike about dealing with those who ship w*ncest are their proclivities to drag people’s personal lives into it. During a debate, I mentioned that I had sent my autistic son (Bub) to his room because he was beginning to melt down. This is literally part of his care plan. I was accused of “sending my child away so (that) I could talk on Twitter”, which was literally the furthest thing from the truth. Not too long ago, because I was not physically able to distance myself from him in time, he bit the top of my right breast so hard that he took out a small chunk of skin and it began to bleed through my shirt. Within forty-eight hours, it turned into severe cellulitis because I am immunocompromised, which prompted a visit to urgent care to eventually find out that my bite wound had been infected with MRSA. Yes, human bites can do that.
Given the… injury as it was, the doctor that treated me at urgent care was surprised that I didn’t pass out.
I’ve been working with Bub’s occupational therapist on ethical restraints to prevent injury during meltdowns.
But seriously, I do the things I do — especially with my children — for reasons, instructed by their care teams.
On another “but seriously”, though, if you want us to respect your ship… please actually respect our ship.