No School Today

Today is Monday and there was no school.
I had decided to take five of my six children to the park in Medora and enlisted my friend, Blondies help.
I called and asked if Peggy could take Eric as I couldn't see him being able to do too much at the park and I thought he might get bored.
Then I asked Blondie if she thought Serena and Jenny might like to go as we had extra room in the car and they were happy to come.
I suggested to the kids an outing and Rachel always quick to agree said "Come on John, let's go get dressed".
And with no further ado, bounded down to the laundry room to obtain clothes closely followed by Sarah.
They came up with clothes and were hurriedly putting them on when I told them that they would need to eat breakfast first so there really was no rush.
John and Nathan opted for pancakes, Sarah and Rachel for cereal and Katy had a little bit of everything.
Wow!
There was shock number one.
In the past if you had told them that we were going out there would have been all kinds of wailing and gnashing of teeth until we were finally on the road.
John laughed because he had brought Nathan's pants upstairs and they were way too big for him and fell down when he pulled them up.
No frustration. What the heck was going on here.
The reason I had wanted Blondie to come was twofold. I only have a Taurus and there is no way that I can transport all the kids at one time.
Bit inconvenient but, my old van gave up the ghost and went to the car graveyard.
And also, due to their Autistic natures, sometimes the kids wander off so I needed the extra adult in case of any problems. Better to be safe than sorry.
I told the kids that Blondie wouldn't be there till about 1015 and showed them the numbers on the clock.
After they finished breakfast it was getting closer to 10 so I started putting on their snowsuits.
As I was doing it I marvelled.
They came to me when it was there turn. If they didn't need help they did it themselves. Those that could aided the others.
There was no stress involved in getting 6 little children ready to go out.
No one was in tears.
I wasn't upset.
There was no one standing over me screaming and swearing at me.
There was a great difference.
In the past, if I had wanted us to take the kids anywhere. I would have had to go to Paul and ask humbly if he would help me take the kids out.
I might have had to grovel a little and basically demean myself to get him to agree.
He would have hemmed and hawwed and mostly said no.
Or he would have agreed at the time then when the time came, he would have bemoaned his status in life, then started in on me.
I would have had to get the kids ready under duress, the tension in the house so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I would have got all the kids ready by myself and they sensitive to the tension would have been acting up.
He would be yelling at me and belittling me in front of the kids telling me what a moron and a useless piece of shit I was.
Then he would have made himself ready, then waited impatiently for me to finish with the children.
A lot of times, I left the house in the middle of winter without a coat or sweater because there simply wasn't time to grab one.
Once the kids were dressed they wanted to leave immediately and would act up if made to wait.
Then he would start in on them, so to avoid that, as soon as they were dressed we basically left, if of course, Paul was ready.
Then he would be nasty all the way there and I would be upset and wish that I had never suggested it. Then before we arrived at the destination, he would slap my leg and say "Come on, why are you in such a bad mood, I'm happy".
Then he would get out of the van and play to the public.
I am so grateful those days are over.
It still makes me cry just writing this and thinking about it.
The kids were wonderful.
They were all ready to leave when Carol arrived to drop off Jenny and Serena and so she took Eric to daycare for me.
We split into two cars and heading off towards Medora.
We stopped at the coffee shop to pick up Blondie's sister.
The kids waited patiently while she ran into get her.
When we got to the park, it was everything a kid like me could want.
We ran and climbed and swung and explored.
We drove the train, we were princesses trapped in the tower waiting to be rescued by a knight in shining armour, we rode the stage coach attacked by indians.
It was a big WOW!
We played follow the leader and I was doing pretty good, hampered a little by the fact that Sarah was my shadow, but it wasn't too bad until I decided to go down one of those curly slides.
I am not that agile and I had to help Sarah get into it too which is where they caught us.
As I hit the bottom of the slide, I was hit from behind by four little bodies who not content to catch me, proceeded to climb over my injured body as I lay trapped beneath Sarah.
No small wonder now my back is aching.
Would I do it again?
Hell yeah!
Except, maybe I wouldn't have stopped at that particular slide.
John ran and played with everyone. He encouraged Nathan to join them on multiple occasions.
Katy took off into the street once but returned quickly when I yelled down to Blondie that we had an escapee.
I don't think she was doing a runner as watching her later, she was actually trying to catch leaves that were being blown along in the wind.
We had one injury, apart from me, and this led to a monumental achievement.
John came down the slide backwards and consequently landed on his head. It was the birchbark covering but he still donked it and cried.
So I stood there rubbing his head and hugging him.
Nathan watched for a second then he came over and stood close to his brother, after another half a minute he put his hand on his back and gently rubbed it, then he put his hand to his brother's cheek and looked at him sympathetically.
I looked at Blondie and we were both amazed.
According to studies Autistic children can't read expressions or body language as we do.
Nathan had done both and responded to them. He had come out of his world and joined ours long enough to understand that something was wrong with John and that he cared enough about him to want to help.
I could have screamed. I was so excited.
Later when we got home I was in the kitchen attending to the meal and Nathan came up behind me, put his arms around me and hugged me. Then he laid his head against my back.
If that is not testimony that we are winning the battle against Autism, I don't know what is.
Blondie said that her sister had asked her what was meant to be wrong with the kids while we were at the park and Blondie told her that they were labelled Autistic.
To which her sister replied "I don't see nothing wrong with them, they're playing like regular kids."
Katy got upset a couple of times when she had to wait for the swing but she could be led off to try something new and we at one stage had 6 kids go down the slide together.
We were at the bottom to untangle the limbs and they all were laughing so hard when they hit the bottom cause they got stuck in the curve and all 6 of them found it extremely amusing.
Jenny mastered walking across a latice kind of rope with beads on it by the end of our time there.
It was just brilliant and I was very proud of her.
She and Katy ran together and laughed, gosh they all laughed.
Blondie rustled up a meal of french fries, tomato sauce and buns and Rachel declared "It was the best meal I ever had".
That about sums up the whole day.
It was one of the best times I ever had.
Later.