Starving the Albatross

Don’t feed the problems.

Plan for today:

1. Attend 9am Zoom meeting with Childcare Director and her flock of squawking sea birds to hear outcome of the 2 week behaviour management plan they put our son on to determine whether or not he can stay there. Let husband and Psychologist S do all the talking due to their higher idiocy pain threshold and concentrate on manufacturing a concerned and interested expression while taking notes and doodling obscenities. If I MUST speak, I will channel my inner Dr K, smile sweetly and drop a tiny friendly crumb “Thank you for telling us this, it’s so helpful.”

2. Shed a tear for my son’s future knowing that some educators still demand neurotypical behaviour from autistic children and are unwilling to learn how to relate to young minds. Wipe away tear and commence 30 minutes of ranting to husband about all the ignorant things Childcare Albatross said then realise I’m running late for my next appointment. Eat morning tea in the car.

3. Attend appointment with Psychologist J. Curse at the rain and giant umbrella that makes obtaining parking ticket even more cumbersome than usual. Assume feelings will be as per below.

4. Undermined. Will depend on outcome of above appointments but will definitely NOT include sending an email to Childcare. I must not feed the problem.

5. Attend Zoom meeting with Psychologist S and husband and enjoy hearing Psychologist’s take on the 9am meeting. Especially enjoy him pointing out all the ways in which Childcare Albatross is burdensome.

6. Blog about the above.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.”

– Thomas Sowell

Outcome of today:

1. Husband and I join Zoom meeting with Psychologist S before Childcare logs on and Psychologist S gives us his predictions for how he thinks Childcare staff will react depending on what we talk about or avoid. The Albatross logs on and has only brought one seagull with her. I cringe at their voices but my soul does a triple summersault for joy when they announce their camera isn’t working so I won’t have to see their stupid faces. Husband and Psychologist S start talking. Husband, being a Senior Manager is able to neatly steer the conversation in a positive direction at almost the precise moment Psychologist S adopts the same strategy. I smile and nod as planned.

I take 3 pages of notes I never plan to read unless I sue them one day. Albatross concedes that perhaps our child is not the devil after all and she is willing to allow him to stay so long as there can be more meetings. Internal eye roll. Albatross and Psychologist S discuss “teachable moments” for her staff. Meeting ends and I’m impressed that Psychologist S’s predictions were spot on. I suppose having two Psychology Masters degrees gives your predictions near crystal ball accuracy.

2. No tears are shed. Rant with husband is cancelled. We give each other a pat on the back and he says me scribbling note to him to mention to that son had a flawless orientation at the Local Primary School where he impressed the Vice Principle was a genius strategy. We both chuckle at how they told us 2 meetings ago that our child definitely would not be able to attend a mainstream school due to his demonic behaviour. Meeting ended early so morning tea is eaten at home with a “shit eating grin” as my husband would say.

3. Attend appointment with Psychologist J but not before a surprise phone call from Excellent Long Term Friend. It’s a decent length call with many topics discussed and much laughter. She mentions being a fence sitter when blogging about controversial topics although I secretly always picture her in overalls sitting on the fence but leaning to one side holding a stick in which she draws pictures in the dirt on the same side of the fence every time even if the pictures are sometimes a touch abstract or open to slight interpretation. Other topics discussed include teaching our children when not to swear, how her poetry is “pithy” and how I hate social media influencers who blog about drinking a glass of water with a spritz of lemon in the morning as they “set my intentions for the day.” I hang up feeling energised and satisfied.

There’s no rain but there’s also no parking spots. I park a country mile from Psychologist J’s office but feel awake and present, confident that today will be a good session.

At 12:01pm Psychologist J pokes his head around and says let’s go slowly into the room so I don’t lose the plot as always. Those weren’t his exact words and about 10 minutes in I lose the plot anyway. Later in the session I tell J I wish he wasn’t human and just had his face but on an animal’s body. He says he would like to be a red panda. I say I would make him a sloth because they’re harmless and the slowest animals on earth. It gets a laugh out of him. I don’t tell him that the real reason I said it is because I know he’s terrified of sloths. The session probably deserves a whole blog post. Will link it here later when I write it.

4. Arrive home from appointment with massive urge to go to sleep. Lie in bed for an unsatisfactory 20 minutes then meet husband downstairs for Zoom meeting with Psychologist S.

5. Collective sigh of relief that the Albatross no longer hangs around our neck. Psychologist S and husband agree that son 4 will be fine to finish the year at Childcare. Psychologist S is also professional actor (he has 2 jobs) and so I thoroughly enjoy when he imitates the exact way Albatros said “this is a teachable moment” when she really meant “oh we really fucked up there”. Psychologist S bemoans how frustrating it is that staff are unable to leave Victorian England and join him in 2020 where people relate to children correctly. I leave the meeting early to go collect son from Childcare. Albatross has gone for the day but her flock of angry seagulls are strangely very friendly towards me. Collect Preschool photos and am thrilled that son has a massive shit eating grin in his.

6. Publish blog.