Good Day/Bad Day

We're sick. Again. We have spent probably 3/4 of this year sick so far. I was REALLY hoping we were past it, here in April. No such luck. But at least it's just a head cold! Could be so much worse.

Well, it's a head cold...and a tummy bug. That tummy bug just caused a pretty icky mess in my living room. And then Berrykin stepped in it - like, whole foot in it - and came down the hall to find me. (In the span of washing my hands after cleaning him up.) I'm actually impressed - I could only find one spot where it got on the carpet. Yay for improved gross motor skills!

So I cleaned that up, cleaned me up from finding that one spot on the carpet with my toes, and declared today a Bad Day.

I got back to my computer to tell my sister why I'd disappeared in the middle of our chat, and started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. The hysterical kind where you can't stop and can't really breathe. While laughing hysterically, I had time in my brain to think, "Oh, good! Stress relief time!"

Because we've been so incredibly stressed. We've been waiting two weeks to hear from Jeremelon's company at a location in Phoenix to see if they're going to hire him (since I guess they don't transfer - they get hired and their *paperwork* transfers with no interruption in employment). I finally decided to just stay in our current apartment and do everything I could to find at least a part-time job so we can pay for rent. (Because after a little searching, I discovered Denver is in the lowest vacancy period in its history - there are, in fact, fewer housing options than there are immigrants from other states. This has caused rental prices to skyrocket - they go up an average of 10% a year. The apartment we left in 2012 the first time we moved to Phoenix? 2.5 years later, it costs almost $300 more. Jeremelon's 30-cent raise each year can't keep up with that rate of increase.) The likelihood we'd find a place as cheaply and actually qualify for it (because they all weed out potential renters by requiring we make 2.7 - 3 times the rent each month - something that only the swankiest pads required five years ago) is slim. So why not stay? Work up from here? Remain independent, keep the Berrykin in his school district where I know they have good services, and not rely on a faceless hiring board in another state to determine our future. Except they rented our apartment the day before I made my decision (coincidentally, the same thing happened last year with the apartment we were going to move into next door, except it was the one that got rented an hour before we decided to take it), and I hadn't checked yet.

So, lots of stress. The laughter was clearly a release of stress.

Berrykin heard me from the other room and ran in, worried about me. When he saw I was laughing, he laughed with me. Which made me laugh more. Then he pulled me toward the living room, and we laughed even MORE. And then, standing in the midst of the storage room disaster that has been our living space for a year and a half, I started crying. The berrykin got really upset and worried. He tried to kiss me, saying, "Happy mama!" to cheer me up, but my face was all wet so he got upset (he doesn't like being wet unless he's in the tub). I didn't want to upset him more, so I went to the bedroom to cry on my own. Except I hear him shriek as he runs down the hall after me.

He brought me a tissue. "Nose," he said. I wiped my nose and thanked him, and picked him up for a grateful hug. "Wet," he said. And he took the tissue from me to wipe my cheeks. "You okay?" he asked. Three times, just to make sure. "Kick-es," he said, and kissed my cheek, which was all wet again. I hugged him some more, told him that I was having a bad day, but he was such a sweet boy. Then he sat back and smiled at me. "Happy mama!" And then, when I smiled for him, he hopped off my lap and took my hand. "Boys and girgles stand up. Stand up, Mama!" Whereupon he took me to the living room to fill up his milk cup and tuck him into the blankets on the couch so he could go back to watching Octonauts and feeling icky.

And now I'm crying out of joy. Because my little boy may not be able to string together more than three words together (that aren't phrases he repeats in their entirety, almost as a single word themselves), but his autistic social qualities aren't hopeless. He showed empathy and concern. He brought me a tissue to solve my problem, totally unprompted. He took care of me, and he communicated while doing it. All of that - or rather, the lack of it - took up a big portion of the IEP meeting I had with his specialists last week.

What was a horrible, awful day became a wonder. A good day that has left me feeling SO grateful...if quite stuffy.
And now it sounds like it's going to rain, which would be a delightful addition. Might even let us open the windows, pollen or no pollen...