This post is hard to finish because I feel like every day there is something to add.

Lily is truly one of the most specific and spirited people I have ever met. She has so many things that are very important to her, some are so hard to remember or even to understand.

At mealtime she often has a very strong reaction to having multiple things in front of her, she gets noticeably upset. It is not that she doesn’t want to eat, I mean she loves corn on the cob, but tonight when I placed a piece down in front of her along with pasta and hot dogs she got very annoyed and put the corn up on the countertop. As we sat I pointed it out a few times and she just kept saying with grunts and furtive eyes “leave it alone and stop bothering me about it, I will get to it”.

It seems to have a particular resonance for me as I was reading in a book about caring for the elderly entitled Being Mortal about a couple that were so entwined in their rituals and routines that when one of them had to go into an intensive care unit where no one knew exactly how she wanted her blankets spread out over her at rest time or how she wanted her hair brushed, her health deteriorated rapidly. It is all the same as with my little Lily.

This idea is also something that comes up constantly in our RIE class when our teacher talks about her 90 year old father visiting and how the similarities to dealing with the kids in class is unmistakable.

When we lose our abilities to communicate either young or old, we all tend to act in similar ways.

Meanwhile I was once again, calmly, but nonetheless annoyingly, talking to Luke about not using my computer unless he asks me first. I went on and on about how I guess I will have to have a to password protect it and that I can tell when he has been sitting there because of the things that were done. It was all Charlie Brown parental bla, bla, bla for sure. Luke sat there listening very calmly as I went on and on. When my diatribe was complete, without missing a beat Luke sticks his hands on his hips and says in complete earnestness.

“And my bulldozers broken!”

It was the perfect retort.