This last week, Valley View Elementary school celebrated "Rainbow Ribbon" week. I don't know why it's called "Rainbow" week, because the only two celebrated ribbon colors were red ("Say no to drugs"), and white ("Internet safety"). Red and white don't seem like much of a rainbow to me. I thought a nice green ribbon might at least be included, but I've recently discovered that green ribbons represent the movement to legalize cannabis. I guess that might be confusing to the kids, especially if they had just embraced red ribbons the day before.
Anyway, as part of Rainbow Week, the PTA held a big assembly on Friday which included guest speakers, fire trucks, and even a life-flight helicopter that landed on the playground. After school, Joey approached me with a big grin on his face. "Mom, guess what?" he asked with a giggle. "You had a helicopter land on the grass?" I said, thinking he'd be surprised that I already knew. Joey said, "Well, yeah, but that's not it. Guess what the name of the first speaker today was? MISS UTAH! Can you believe her name is Miss Utah? Who would name their kid Miss Utah?!" I couldn't stop laughing as I explained that "Miss Utah" was a title--not a name.
I love Joey so much! It's partly my explanation for why I haven't taken him to an endocrinologist yet, to follow-up on his last blood work results. I have such mixed feelings about dragging him up to Salt Lake for a battery of tests that may or may not reveal any significant problems. On the one hand, Joey struggles as it is to cope with all his allergies, asthma, and eczema. His self-esteem is already pretty low, since he considers himself to be inferior to all his peers who don't have to take medications and avoid certain foods and situations at all times. I don't know if his self-image can handle another blow. And he has a serious phobia about needles and tests, so I really have to be sure that he needs them if I'm going to inflict them upon him. On the other hand, if there is something wrong that, if treated, could help him gain some weight and feel more physically attractive, then I should find out what it is. I'm in limbo--trying to weigh the chances that something is wrong with him against the possibility that he's just a scrawny kid who needs more time to grow up.
Izzy made a big decision last week: she quit ballet. I'm surprised, but only a little. The truth is, she has wanted to quit for years. I pushed her to stick with it, hoping that once she moved onto pointe, she'd embrace the art and want to go as far as she could with it. But she's been en pointe for a year now, and still she has tantrumed and cried before every rehearsal, complaining that she doesn't want to go and hates ballet. I finally decided that if ballet isn't her passion, it's time to let her choose another path. She is still dancing jazz, which she loves, but she wants to get involved in drama and take viola lessons. I know that she loves those things, and if I'm paying for her to develop talents, they may as well be talents that she'll use for the rest of her life. After all, as much as I love watching her dance, I don't see her pursuing a dance career. On the other hand, she can play the viola in church and at community events, and act throughout her whole life.
As for Zach, he's pursuing a talent of his own: drums. The problem is, he wants a new drum set for his birthday in November and can't understand why we think $750 is just too much for a birthday present. Seriously, this is hard to understand? We are going to start him up with some drum lessons (the band teacher at the junior high teaches private percussion), and he can practice on the drum sets at school if he's willing to stay after school (he promises that he will). He's been assigned the drum set part on a percussion piece that the band is playing this year, and he loves it. So we want to give him every opportunity to develop his talents. But I'm having trouble stomaching the drum set investment. How do parents do this?
Ben had an amazingly great week--he earned every single possible sticker that he could on his "good behavior" chart. And he said a few funny things, as usual... you can read his updates on the blog I've dedicated to him: http://adventureswithautism.blogspot.com/.
The snow threatened to fall this week, too. One day it was 90 degrees, and the next day the temperature plummeted into the 30s and snow fell on the mountains above us. I guess it's just been a strange, crazy, rainbow-ribbon kind of week. I wonder what comes next?
