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May update

It is interesting that I am home everyday (and would be regardless of pandemic) sitting in front my computer but rarely need to write or have the brain to write this blog.

Since my last entry, over a month ago, Spring has come to the Western part of Canada. I still suck at gardening and have hired landscapers to come fix my yard. They will come tomorrow.

We have also started our children on meds for ADHD. It has been a challenge as they both have different issues with swallowing the pill. The teeny, tiny pill. So we are learning what works for each kid and how to manage this issue.

And it dawned on me from a team meeting yesterday, that my twins will soon be 10. I will soon have to deal with the pre-teen angst and then the teen angst. I’m not looking forward to this as they are hard to manage at times now, so it will be a bit more challenging as time goes on.

I have continued to read books. This past month of April, I have read 6 books, Dad is Fat was a did not finish.

Bridgerton Collection Volume 2: Books Four-Six in the Bridgerton Series was an enjoyable but frantic read as it was a skip the line read through the Libby app of my library, so I had 7 days to read it.

The Second Chance Boutique was an enjoyable but fluff read.

A Stitch in Time was also an enjoyable read and I look forward to the next installation of this series. I am annoyed that it will not be until October of this year.

Unofficial Guide to FamilySearch.org: How to Find Your Family History on the World’s Largest Free Genealogy Website did not really teach me anything new but was a good review of the basics of using this site. I did try to peruse the catalog feature as a result of reading this guide.

The Chanel Sisters was an interesting read even though I only gave it 2 stars on Goodreads. I think that I had expected more as I had watched a movie about Coco and was hoping for more insight, I guess.

Today I finished the 8th and final book of the Bridgerton series. I look forward to the resumption of the nextflix series to see who they cast in the newer characters.

Murder in the Family: a Book review from my geneological wanderings

Over the the past month, I have been working on a large clan of prominent families in my geneology research. I saw that my local church in BC had posted the 2019 annual report. In it are the names of deceased for that year. I started to enter them into Wikitree and research their families. One family, the Horans, married into the Blackstock family in Ontario. This particular branch of Blackstock also married another prominent pioneer family, the Gooderhams. William Gooderham Sr. was known as a distiller and miller. One of his granddaughters, Harriet Victoria Gooderham, married Thomas Gibbs Blackstock. Harriet and Thomas had 2 children, Katherine and George Edwin.

In researching this family, and George in particular, I came across a reference to a Macleans article called “Father. Diplomat. Murderer?” August 2020 issue of Maclean’s magazine. The article talk about a book written by George’s son, Jeff, and his belief that his father, George, killed his mother, Carol. I have just finished reading the book, Murder in the Family: How the Search for my Mother’s Killer Led to My Father.

The Blackstock family were prominent in business and politics. Lieutenant-Colonel George Gooderham Blackstock was an Officer Order of the British Empire recipient and senior executive of numerous companies including Steep Rock Mines. George had been appointed as deputy Premier of Ontario from June 1945 until his death in November 1945.

His son, George Edwin Bell Blackstock, was trained in law and became a Canadian career diplomat. He lived with his family in many places around the world including Argentina, Switzerland, England, Sweden, Germany and the United States. (from the Obituary in the Globe and Mail).

According to the book, Jeff pieced the story together from documents and interviews with family members and friends. He tells the story of how his father was 17 and dated his 15 year old mother, and married her when she became pregnant. Carol Gray became a dynamic wife in the social circles and had 3 children. Jeff tells the story that his family lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and paints a picture of a young, vibrant wife through her letters to her parents, and stories from her house staff. At the age of 24, Carol became very ill and the local medical staff were unable to determine the cause. She was taken to Montreal, Quebec where she died at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. It was determined after autopsy that she had large amounts of arsenic in her system. She left 3 children, 12, 10 and 3, to mourn her loss.

When the 3 children were older, they began to question their mother’s death. According to the book, they were not told until 6 months after the fact that their mother was dead. Their father denied knowing the cause of her death, stating that he was never informed. The children had gained a new ‘mum’, a woman of high social standing from Germany within a year of their mother’s death. Things looked suspicious, but because of diplomatic immunity and the era (1959) there were certain social mores and complications.

Jeff details that he and his sister, Julia, investigated their mother’s death for many years but were met with little information and much denial from their father. In the end, they concluded that their father likely murdered their mother with the arsenic and due to his diplomatic status hoped that it would never come to light as it would kill his career.

*********

I was fascinated by this book for a number of reasons. First, I had learned about the prominence of the family and their extensive involvement in the various areas of Ontario and Canadian society. Second, it was a well written book; chronologically telling the story with some level of objectivity. I imagine that this book was drafted numerous times, but it is still amazing to me that the son was able to tell this story so well without it spirally into an incoherent rant.

I’m sure that the accusation of murder by a parent, as well as the suppositions of the actions of various members of the Canadian government are concerning to some readers. I wonder about the fallout and reaction to this book by the public.

February Update

Since my last post at the beginning of January, things has careened on down the roller coaster that is life.

I continue to have a text relationship with my neighbor to schedule our cats outings. Apparently, his cat spends the time indoors staring out the window at our house or he is at the door trying to defend his territory from our cats. When they do meet, (my 2 and his 1) there are usually fights. But then there are fights with my own cats, likely due to hormones, or cabin fever, as H is pissed with me that I don’t let him out and fights with S. *sigh

My 47th birthday came and went. Um… my birthday present was…. oh yes, us taking the kids out to see the final week of GLOW Langley. Due to COVID-19, they turned it into a drive thru experience. We took many pictures and listened to Christmas music. It was nice to do something with the family. We got mini donuts and my son discovered that he likes these donuts as well.

Last week, I took him to the Tim Horton’s drive thru for timbits. All chocolate of course, as they are his favorite. He saw a picture of the chocolate dip donut and asked for one. I asked if he has had one before. He had not. I explained that the cake part would be different than Timbits or the mini donuts. “Why do you think you want one?”

His answer was ” I like chocolate and I like donuts… so….”

We got one. I asked for some and he refused to let me have any!! He liked it that much! so WIN…. he tried and liked a new food.

So back to my update; after my birthday came the first week of February. I had been at my wits end about the online school thing. My daughter was not doing well. I was struggling as I bounced back and forth between rooms and my kids’ screens where they take the same class. I said to my husband. “I need help. But I don’t know who I’m supposed to ask. Is it the school? the principal? the teacher? the BI on my home team? the EA? who?”

I attended the online sessions that were offered by BCEdAccess. The sessions were part of a grant that they were given to facilitate online social groups and support for parents. I signed up and hubby attended with me from time to time. There were various topics for their COVID-19 Outreach Conversations and in advising a parent about his struggle to get appropriate support for his child, it clicked for me that I needed to go back to basics of advocating for my child. There is a tier system of who and when to contact.

I started with the teacher. Specifically, writing a note in my child’s communication book. The incident was that they were to create and draw a character and then write a detailed description of the character. The purpose of this exercise was that they would then read their description to a partner in their class who would draw the character based on what they heard and then compare to the original drawing. I set the kids up with the WORD program to type it out and my son shooed me away, so I went to help his sister. When I returned, I discovered that even though the teacher had clearly explained what to do, 3!! times, that my son had written a story instead.

I lost it! I may have grabbed the tablet to verify what he had done, while loudly telling him that it was wrong. He then melted down (a rare thing) and it took 10 minutes to calm him down, thus missing the exercise experience totally.

I wrote a note in the communication binder to the teacher about his lack of ability to process and follow the instructions in this incident. She replied on the phone that she was shocked to read this note. Obviously the experience of school online as seen by me and kids is quite different from what the EA and teacher see. In my daughter’s case, the EA knows that my daughter is screaming and under the table refusing to work.

Long story short, I couldn’t do this anymore. After a meeting with our home team, hubby and I decided to go with the suggestion that we pull our daughter from this online learning and do home schooling with our home team. We did consider the full time school route, but as they already had 2 teacher changes this year due to online/COVID issues, I didn’t think that making them have to adjust to a third would be a good route.

It has been 2 weeks since we have pulled her from the public school and I am less stressed as I am able to focus on the efforts of the one twin, rather than both. In these COVID times, everything is not normal. Shopping, working, school. Nothing is normal. I hardly hear from my friends. I only see people in person when I go to the store.

We have learned how to do online meetings via Teams, Zoom or other means. I have had conversations with my mother and more with my sister on the phone and video. Video calls with either of them are rare so I’m glad that we have tried. I have learned how to use the public Library online books. I have also purged the house more. The clutter also stressed me out.

It took me a while to get back to reading. After the stress of Christmas, and the stress of children doing school, my brain could only binge Netflix (Bridgerton) or work on geneaology stuff on WikiTree.

So on the day that we pulled my daughter from school, I was also very stressed as my “birthday” present was to be delivered that day and I was terrified that we would have to send it back. I had bought a new French Door refrigerator in December. I had never liked the fridge that came with the house. It was likely as old as the house (2002) and we never seemed to use it well. Food was wasted, etc. What finally prompted me to look for a new one was the fact that the freezer decided to thaw spontaneously.

So I was fielding a call from the principal while the delivery men brought in the new fridge in pieces through the back door. (Hubby had to remove the entire door and screen so that it would fit.) I was so happy and elated that it worked and the old one was gone, as the refrigeration part decided to die the day before the scheduled delivery.

I had also been told that due to the COVID that the manufacturers were not in full force, so there were back orders everywhere. If I didn’t get it this “cycle”, the next delivery slots wouldn’t be until APRIL!!! So, I was a little stressed to say the least.

Things are better these days but autism still rears its head even today. Or is it that we have 9 year olds. My son was on the floor hollering that he was NOT going out with the BI for session. It’s a PRO-D day. I had to call hubby for reinforcement as there was no way I could wrestle my tall son into shoes and jacket.

So I have a few hours to myself. I may go out with hubby on a rare lunch date to an ACTUAL restaurant. Of course, I will have to clean the kitchen, and do laundry as I have put off doing both for a few days.

Genealogy “Wars”

In my “spare” time, I dabble in researching genealogy with a particular interest in Mennonites from Prussia. I use various online platforms for this; FamilySearch, FindaGrave, Wikitree. All of these platforms have a different goal.

FamilySearch is run by the LDS (Mormon) Church and has a lot of records. I prefer this free service as they have a lot and I don’t have to pay for it like I would to use Ancestry.

Find a Grave was started “in 1995 when founder Jim Tipton built a website to share his hobby of visiting the graves of famous people. He found that many people shared his interest and quickly opened the site for all individuals (famous and non-famous) with a mission for finding, recording and presenting burial and final disposition information worldwide.” This site is now owned by Ancestry. Users create memorials from local cemeteries and you can contribute photos of tombstones, personal photos etc.

WikiTree was started with the idea that we create a universal tree, and it is free. “As the creators and hosts of the WikiTree website, we pledge that our mission is the same as that of the community: to create an accurate, single family tree that will make genealogy free and accessible for everyone.” Wikitree requires/prefers that profiles are sourced with records (other than because they are my family member).

I started on Findagrave as I discovered in my family research that a lot of the relatives were buried in nearby cemeteries. From there, my “hobby” morphed into me taking thousands of photos to post on FG and helping others to find the resting place and history of their loved ones. I have been on FG for 6 years, but recently do more on Wikitree. FG has the ability to link family members but not all are listed on FG, due to cremation or lack of records, whereas you can list whole families on Wikitree.

There are policies for usage of all of these sites and users are required to adhere to these rules of conduct, as they are all meant to be collaborative. There are problems with some of these rules as they are interpreted differently by various users and some users are not exactly helpful or friendly. I have had issues with some fellow Findagravers for this reason. For some, the purpose of memorials is to “collect” them. For others, it is to honor and remember their family members. There have been complaints about the “obituary” hunter — people who post memorials based on obituaries, thus robbing family members the privilege of creating a memorial for the deceased.

Other users have issue about style or format, or pickiness about genealogical information. While I have now been “doing genealogy” for that past decade, I will admit that there are still things to learn. There are also ways to communicate with others when correcting them, helping them, etc. A few years ago, I met a fellow graver that I will call Mary, in person and we went to a Mennonite cemetery where she grew up and photographed it all. She helped me navigate the site and learn about how to use it, create memorials, where to research information, etc.

Last week, I waded into a war with a fellow user, that I had never heard of before. This person, J, had sent a few edits to me and M, which we both declined and A disagreed with our rationale, stating that we were wrong to list a Mennonite with a certain birth location because the country in question hadn’t been founded until long after that person was born.

So to explain, on Findagrave, there is only the option to list a location by what it is called now, whereas FamilySearch and Wikitree will give you the options for what that place was called in the years that you are listing…. ie. if a person was born in 1841 in Ontario, the options are… Canada West, British Colonial America from 1841-1867, or Upper Canada, British Colonial America from 1791-1841, but Ontario, Canada from 1867 -onwards. If I wanted to put this location on Findagrave, it would be listed as Ontario, Canada but I could either a) leave it blank and write in the biography section about location, or b) list as Ontario wit the explanation in the bio.

So… this is sort of what happened with J and M. Mary responded to the repeated edit request and the interchange was heated and J’s responses were rude. Mary informed me of this exchange and asked if I had any edits from J yet. I did but had not done anything with them. So when I did find one, I consulted a college friend who is now an archivist at a Mennonite Heritage Centre to determine what I should do. Was I right in my assumption to use what it “is currently understood to be” or was the birth location actually somewhere else (Russia vs. Ukraine). I declined and politely explained similar to what I wrote above and noted that I had consulted an archivist about this.

Inside of communicating through the site, J sent me email to my personal email (that I use for genealogy) a long, rude letter correcting my understanding of birth locations, filled with FULL CAPS and even insulted the archivist, saying that I should tell them who it was so that they could “straighten [the archivist] was”.

I was shocked, upset and offended. Mostly upset. I got 2 of these type of emails and so I refused to touch any more of the edits. They then sent me another edit for the 2 that I had declined, as well as 8 more. I told Mary. She told me that she had reported J and that I should do the same. After sitting on it for a week, I finally reported this “harassment” to the site.

This is one the reasons that I prefer Wikitree. People can PM you or post on the wall of the profile but I have never gotten this type of message from Wikitreers so far. I also like Wikitree because you can join projects that range in theme. I am currently a member of the “Global Cemetery project”, “Notables”, and regional team. I have taken part in a few of their weekend challenges. They have a “clean up” challenge where you fix profiles that are linked to wrong people, have the wrong dates, parent is too old/young, etc. There are “source a thons” where you clean up unsourced profiles, that were likely added by someone importing a GEDCOM or tree, or just someone writing “personal knowledge of….” but not adding any records.

Living people are blocked. This can be problematic when a notable person dies as only the creator or moderators have access and then have to make it public, otherwise duplicates are created.

So this is what I do for “fun” when I have a minute (or hour) to myself. My extended family (mine and his) all think it is an odd hobby. “Why are you doing research on people that you don’t know? or aren’t related to?”

As I have researched a lot of my family and hit a brick wall (paternal), I have turned my attention to helping others. In the course of doing this, I have learned a lot about people that I would otherwise not know or read about, and it helps me to understand history about places where I live or the tradition behind somethings.

Good news and rant – genealogy

so my profile mentions that I “dabble in geneology”. What this means is that when I was too pregnant to move, I decided to find something to do that didn’t require me to move too much and I renewed my research on my family tree. This was needed as I had married into a very large family and wanted to understand who all the people were that I met at family reunions.

Part of that hobby has taken me to cemeteries were extended family members are buried, and now I have exhausted a lot of my tree research due to brick walls, so I take photos of tombstones and post them on websites for other family members/”cousins” to find.

I have now been doing this for 9 years or so, and on occasion, I get an email from someone far away, asking for permission to use my photos that I posted (on Findagrave.com) in something that they are planning to publish about a certain person. I got such an email last week asking for permission and citation information (meaning what name to use to credit the photo usage).

This is kind of cool as I retired from healthcare 10 years ago and took photography courses to determine if that would be my second or third career (depending on how you look at things) but ended up being a mom instead. When I was in photography class, one assignment was that we create a mock up webpage of our work, with a “business” name and everything. I have kept that “business logo” and figured out how to watermark my cemetery pics.

I watermark my photos with my name and the date that I took the photo. This has been helpful for 2 reasons; I sometimes duplicate my work on later dates (and don’t realize that I have been there before) and I have had my work taken from websites and reposted as their own on findagrave. I have had to report people for doing this as it is against policy of FG. I have seen this done on other memorials (not my pics) and have informed the other photographer who replies that they don’t care. I do as I spend a lot of my time taking the photo and also doing the research, and the fact that someone else gets credit for the work, is just wrong.

Ok rant over. Didn’t realize that I would do a rant today but … it happens. 🙂

Halloween

It has been almost a month since our return home from surgery. We have resumed online school, the yelling, the protests about “doing work”, the stress.

Over the past month, we have been to various follow up appointments. Hubby had a choice; drive an hour into town with her for a follow up appointment or stay home with the boy and do online school. He chose to do the medical stuff. I found this funny because a) hubby is a techie and hates the online school thing, b) hubby hates hospitals and would barely stay in my office when I worked at a hospital

In the end, I stayed home and did online school that day, and he went to the medical stuff. I liked that I didn’t have to leave home and fight for parking.

In the end, the kids are tired of staying home. “Tired of the virus”. This past weekend was a bit hard because I had to explain repeatedly to my daughter (and both) that we were not going out trick or treating. She was not happy about that. I find this ironic also as daughter loves to get the candy, but doesn’t eat any of it.

I organized a mini scavenger hunt of treats in their rooms. They got Kinder Eggs. She gave the chocolate part to her father and played with the toy. While in hospital, she saw a hexbug and so we got some for Prime day. Recently she said that she wanted to make a track and race them. So, on Halloween day, I drove around and found the NanoZone track and included this as part of their treats.

Hospital adventure – Part 2

I was actually relieved to be home instead of the hospital last week. Even though the surgery was something that I had been anticipating, dreading, hoping for, I considered Tuesday’s drive to the hospital as a practice run. I was relieved because we had a cat wearing a cone of shame who needed eye drops for his scratched eye, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to saddle my inlaws with that task. I also wasn’t sure that we were really prepared and needed to reassess what to pack for that day.

Sunday night rolls around. Inlaws show up to look after twin B while twin A is in hospital. One asks if it has been confirmed. I frantically call the hospital to verify that there will not be a repeat of the previous week, and was told that as of that minute, there are no impediments, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t get bumped again.

We go through the motions again; bathe girl, pick clothes to wear, pack a bag for the day, pack a suitcase for the week, pile into the car and off we go. We check in again to the same floor, and get the same nurse. “We’re giving it another try this week eh?” she says.

In the end, daughter is wheeled off to the OR and we are told that we have 4 or 5 hours to kill. I figure that I will go crazy hanging around and we take off in our car and end up at a McDonalds, where I have pancakes and rediscover the hot chocolate. Hubby had told me a few years ago that Tim Horton’s and McDonalds switched suppliers and so the hot chocolate that I loved from Timmies in now at McD. But when you are a Timmies’ girl at heart, old habits are hard to break even when the service is slow and the food is so-so. McDonalds, you have a new convert for your hot chocolate.

After 3 hours, we end up in Richmond, looking for a book store that is no longer there. In between trouble shooting/coaching Grandpa about how TEAMS works for my son to do school online, we end up getting a call telling us to come back. Surgery was shorter than we thought, but that’s a good thing, right? Off we go back to Vancouver to find our daughter and hear from the surgeon about how it went. Things were fine; no complications. Baby girl (who is now 9, I know, not a baby) will be in ICU over night and then on a ward. She is sedated for the first day, so we both go home and I sleep in my own bed dreading the week to come.

The hospital has a “new” building and the rooms are separate so that each patient has their own rooms. There is also a pull out couch that essentially becomes a single bed for the parent to stay overnight. The plan was that I would stay over night and hubby would stay most of the day. In the end, she was in the hospital for 4 days, so I slept there 2 nights only. The first night post -ICU, she did not sleep much at night as she said that the area where the drainage tubes and pacing wire were.

Perhaps it is the fact that she is 9, perhaps it is the fact that she has autism, but it is hard to figure out when/where she is in pain. She referred to pain in her elbow but meant her shoulder. A nurse suggested that because they are kept spread eagle, arms spread out during surgery, that perhaps it pulled a muscle that she didn’t know she had. Her textural sensitivities were also a concern, what/if she would eat, that were a challenge. In the end, she did not want to eat much and when she did, we had to mix in meds after which, she did not want to finish the item as it tasted funny or was gritty.

We brought her home yesterday and managed to get her first med into her after quite a fight. I needed the reinforcement of my husband to help me with dressing change as she “didn’t want anyone to see her scar” nor did she want to look at it. I am required to do 1 dressing change a day and the pharmacist managed to get the doctor to agree to 1 med a day. I managed to get the pill into her by crushing it and mixing with sugar.

We will see how the rest of the day goes. She is dressed and is playing on her iPad for the afternoon.

Hospital adventure – part 1

This past 2 weeks have been hard. Last Tuesday, September 29th, my daughter was scheduled for her second open heart surgery. We were told that an emergency case, a baby, had come in and we may be bumped. Please be on standby tonight and tomorrow morning as we don’t know if your operation is a go. We will call by 10 pm.

10 pm comes. Phone call says that doctor wants blood work and they will call us at 6am. We prepare. Give daughter a bath with a special sponge. Give her meds. Go to bed early. Wake up with an alarm at 5:45 and wait for a call/

At 6:10 am, I started phoning the hospital. The OR confirms that yes she is still on the slate. Shit! We were supposed to BE there at 6:30, but that is the time that we pull out the driveway after cramming a backpack with lunch, and dressing a sleepy girl.

We get caught in traffic to get onto the highway. The phone rings. It is the nurse from the night before apologizing and explaining that the bloodwork was delayed and they STILL don’t know what they are doing. Are you still coming? The doctors will know by 8 am. Well GPS says that we will be there in 32 minutes. Ok, we will let them know.

Still driving. Panicked and stressed that this surgery will not happen. We are 10 minutes from the hospital in downtown Vancouver. I notice that I have missed a call from the hospital. I had gotten a new phone 4 days prior and still didn’t know all the settings, plus I’m “deaf”. It is a message from a nurse berating us for being late as “don’t we know that she is supposed to be in the OR in 30 minutes? I suppose you are driving or in the parking lot.” I didn’t bother to figure out who or where to call. We use the hospital valet service for the first time ever and discover to our delight the province of BC has mandated that hospital parking is free! One less thing to stress about.

Rush in to the correct floor, after an annoying encounter with security checks on COVID issues. Get checked in. Vitals are done. Daughter is in a hospital gown and is playing a game on her tablet. I remember that I was supposed to give her meds (ointment up her nose) and she fights us on this. Finally, a doctor comes and tells us that it likely isn’t going to happen today. The surgeon comes and apologies and says that the bloodwork was delayed and he just got results 10 minutes ago and needs to operate on the baby. We are frustrated but I respond with “we get it. 9 years ago, she WAS that baby.”

We get a starbucks gift card for our troubles. We muse on this. The nurse tells us that sadly they give these out more than you would think. I tell baby girl that I’m sorry that we came for nothing and we will be going home. She is not happy with that, as she likes her hospital gown and bracelet. I promise her McDonald’s pancakes.

In the end, we got home just in time for her to attend her online (chaotic) class, and we have to wait to see if the surgery will happen on the following Monday.

online learning agony

So we have been doing “blended learning” which is online school in morning and supposed to attend in person a certain number of afternoons a week. We have opted not to send our children at all.

Online learning is a gong show. We have 20 9/10 year old children using Microsoft Teams. So far, we have had issues with class members (not us because daddy and I are tech saavy) not being able to get online, not finding the right meeting, creating numerous meetings and so NO one knows where to go, kids not muting self, leaving video on which clogs up the feed, a lot of “I don’t know what to do” or “I can’t find that”, and in the end, I have 2 very bored children. One likes to tell me repeatedly and loudly.

My daughter is frustrated that her EA is not physically with her and mommy has a different method of helping her learn. Today, my daughter refused to even try to do the assignment. In the end, we had to separate our children. Dad apparently gave them a talking to about putting in the same amount of effort for their school work as they do for their video games. They both did the assignment on their own. I assume it had to do with leaving them alone to do it.

Anxiety and the future

My son has anxiety. This has been heightened due to “the virus” and the quarantine process. He can’t go to play with his cousin and his cousin is not able to come here. We are not sending our twins to school, but have opted for the “blended version” of online/in person attendance. I have received an exemption from sending either twin to school until November 1st as our daughter is scheduled for her second open heart procedure, her first being at 8 months. So to be safe, I refuse to send either to school until after it is over and even then I worry because after 2 days of “orientation” at local schools, there are already 2 reports of 2 schools having COVID cases. *sigh

Every night, we put our children to bed. We get them snack, they whine and prolong the going to bed part. I send up a cup of water with them. Lately with the heat, they both protest putting on pajamas and sleep in their underwear only. They pick a book. Hubby and I take turns putting them to bed (alternate which kid we put to bed unless only 1 parent is home). Read to them, kiss them good night.. figure out if/where a cat is, is it staying there or coming with me. Turn the lights down, sometimes listen to protests of “stay with me, I’m scared”, go down stairs… wait about 2 to 10 minutes and some nights, we hear from the top of the stairs “I’m scared”.

Last night, “I’m scared” came from the top of the stairs after 10 minutes.

What are you scared of? we ask.

I want to come down and tell you. He comes down and straight to me, even though both of us are in same room. (Mommy is a softie.)

Ok, what are you scared of?

I need a hug, he says.

I’m scared of life. That I will change my mind when I’m older and want to leave here.

This conversation is one of many ongoing ones. M is scared of change. I assume that is part of his OCD and/or autism. He doesn’t want us to sell the house. He doesn’t want to move out. Last week, he was upset that his twin said she would move out of the house (but buy the vacant lot next door and build a house of stilts, like in Diego, so that it would be safe when the floods (?!) come. So at night, he worries about things as this is when he isn’t distracted by activities, going outside, TV, books, or his iPad. This is when the thoughts come.

They range from a video he saw today, last week, or even a year ago; (He has a long memory.), to worries about tomorrow, next week, eons in the future; his tutor’s cat that went missing last year; the list goes on.

Even though I reassure him that this is not something to worry about (moving out) because a) we aren’t planning to move anytime soon. (We haven’t told him that we might move when we “retire” in 20 some years time. b) we aren’t asking him to leave. He is welcome to stay as long as he wants. c) he is not required to stay here either, he may change his mind and that is ok d) this is not something to worry about at age 8, almost 9, and he has 10 more years to think about this.

Of course, this is replied to with “I would feel better if I had M I L K”. (spelling it out)

Not all evenings go like this, some times he is up until 10ish with his thoughts. Other nights, we hear nothing from either of them.

I don’t want to have to medicate either of them, as so far we have been lucky that they don’t even need meds for their heart issues, but I will worry about that should the day come.