Face Plants, GodTube and Teachers

Today's Tourette's Tidbit - Oh it's been broughten!
When your kid is a genius, you have to measure everything that you casually toss out of your mouth. I don't know why I haven't learned this in the 7+ years I've been a mom. But the point was very calmly made by The Boy at dinner tonight.

I was at Luby's with my parents and kids tonight (kids eat free on Wednesdays - I am officially a dorky mom). A fun dinner out after a long day of unpacking (just chipping the tip of the unpacking iceberg...gack!). I was telling my mom about a long phone conversation I had earlier with The Boy's teacher. I was trying to tell my mom that I had mentioned to the teacher that The Boy had Tourette's. I was trying to tell my mom in a way that didn't insult The Boy since he believes that he doesn't have Tourette's any more. And I'm more than happy to let him believe that because, hey, it's hardly there. Why worry? I think I said something like, "...so I told her that The Boy used to have Tourette's," (insert knowing sly smile which mom understood). I went on to tell mom that the teacher had mentioned that she saw no signs of Tourette's and I was happy about that.

Well, I was all pleased and smug with how clever I had been in telling my mom in such an unoffensive way. Yah. Well, I keep forgetting that The Boy is not ordinary like me. He very calmly informed my mother and me that he would like us to not discuss Tourette's in front of him any more. Because, when we do, it makes him think about it and he feels like his tics want to start.

Doh! So I said, ok...good to know. It's a deal, ok? He was fine with that and went on eating his multi-colored Jello. I felt like a dork. But I also found that some very interesting bit of information. If I just stop mentioning it or pointing it out, would that help? I mean, if the tics are hardly noticeable, am I keeping the symptoms alive by talking about it? I've always wanted to just talk about it like it was no big deal so he would see that it's nothing to be ashamed of and it was just a normal thing to discuss, etc. Best of intentions. Well, we'll see. I will honor his request. And I will continue to ask God to control and eliminate the Tourette's. Here's to praying big!

Face Plants
So when we returned from Luby's, the boys were surprised to find a new kitchen table in our house. It's actually very old. I believe it predates me. And I'm old. But in the fun divorce game I like to call, "who gets what", future ex has gotten our nice (but small) kitchen set. So I got the kitchen table I grew up with. Man, that table has had LOTS of kids lovin' on it. I have colored my fingernails and who knows what else with markers on that table. I have dyed Easter eggs on that table. I have deep fried donuts on that table. I have blown out myriads of birthday candles on that table. But enough of the table. This is about face plants.

Well, The Boy was very excited about the new table. And since I had moved the chairs out of the way for a while, there was lots of extra room in the kitchen. Well, what else is an open space for than to spin? So The Boy was spinning around, on tile, with socks. I turned just in time to see his feet go out from under him and his face take the brunt of the fall. Oh man, it was awful. For one second, I thought, ok, maybe it's not that bad. But then the crying started. And it's that cry where you KNOW it's not fake. His mouth was very bloody. His upper inner lip was shredded and bloody. I still can't tell if any teeth will be casualties. He told me his bite feels off. I'm hoping it's just from the pain and swelling. But it feels an awful lot like a repeat performance of spring 2005 - when he face planted on asphalt at our Boston church and ended up losing his two top front teeth. And it took surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston to fully extract them.

I dosed him with ibuprofen, iced it and sent him to bed. We'll see if his bite is still off in the morning. If so, we'll be visiting the doctor in stead of helping my parents unpack more. Good times. Good times.

GodTube - Who Knew?
Ok, am I the only one who had no idea GodTube existed? I'm not addicted to YouTube but I've been sent enough links to understand it's general workings. Well, Kristen sent me a link to some one's blog that had this GodTube video embedded. I have to tell you, if almost anyone else had sent it to me, I would have deleted it and kept working. But Kristen rarely sends stuff like that (for which I'm immensely thankful). So I figured I better check it out.

First off, it was a video on GodTube. Yes, I'm a God-person. But I still have a huge cynical streak in me that smirks at God-ish knock offs of anything. So I initially thought, "GodTube? Are you kidding me? Bunch of dorks." Yes, I'm a sweet girl. Secondly, when the video started, it was a movement-oriented skit. No spoken words. Interpretive dance-ish type things done to a cool Christian song. So the second set of rolling eyes. But wait, it came from Kristen so there's got to be something to this. Oh and there IS. The blog said, if you can just make it to the end, they thought I'd think it was worthwhile. Holy freakin' guacamole! It is very worthwhile. Trish said the same thing - if it had been sent by anyone else, she would have trashed it. And she dislikes interpretive dance even more than me! So here is a link (I hate embedding stuff in my blog). And it has rave reviews from Kristen, Trish and ME. I have watched it like 10 times so far. You may all come back and ask me what I'm smoking. But let me tell you, the images keep replaying in my head.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

More God-Sent Teachers
I mentioned above that I had a long talk with The Boy's teacher today. She called because he had a loose tooth that was bothering him - this is pre-face-plant. It was bothering him to the point of him being upset and he insisted that his mom could probably do something about it. Other than tell him it will be fine, I could not.

After calming The Boy down on the phone, I got back on with his wonderful teacher. She raved about his reading, spelling, logic, math, etc. I tried to explain to her that all of that has very little to do with anything his father or I have done with him at home. It really is just one of his gifts God doled out to him. He is a lazy parent's dream! I don't have to hound him to read his 20 minutes a night. He's usually devouring some book or other anyway. In kindergarten, he used to just read his children's dictionary for fun. If he's into a subject, he'll read any book or anything that even mentions the subject. Currently, it's dinosaurs. But he has read multiple books on Saturn, space, weather, birds, I can't even think of what else. So it's not like I'm can take much more credit than taking him to Barnes & Noble when he begs me to.

Anyway, when she mentioned how upset he was about his loose tooth, I said, well, I never know when something is really bothering him or when it's just a manifestation of his Tourette's. She hasn't had a chance to read through all of the forms on each kid yet so she hadn't known about his TS. She asked me if there was anything special she needed to know or do. I filled her in about how he can fixate on things. I gave her a quick rundown of his diagnosis - Tourette's with co morbid anxiety issues and obsessive compulsive tendencies. We discussed what she might see and how she might handle it. Then, when discussing his off-the-charts smarts, she said, "I'm going to start finding things to challenge [The Boy]." I didn't even have to ask. I love her. Did I mention that?

I have to tell you, I have been so busy with things lately, I hadn't even taken the time to obsessively pray for the perfect teacher for The Boy. Last Thursday, when we were heading to the school to meet The Boy's teachers, I realized this and thought, "Oh no! I didn't pray for the perfect teacher! He'll have some horribly unengaged teacher who doesn't give a crap about kids!" So I quickly asked God to somehow set things straight and please please please give The Boy the perfect teacher for him. See, this is just one of many reasons why I love God. He just totally rocks. I'm sure he hand picked her before I realized I had forgotten to pester him about it in the first place! He knew I'd be asking. I had probably thought about it in one of my half-asleep kind-of-prayer times. And boom! He delivers. Yet again.

She finished our conversation by telling me how she couldn't wait to see how this year went because he's in her class. Could any mother ask for anything more?