A long day with Janey

It's vacation week, and overall, Janey has been cheerful. I'm very grateful for that, but I have to admit, today was a day I was mostly alone with her all day, and I did not enjoy the day. That sounds awful to admit, but it's true. It's hard being alone all day with Janey. It's hard in a couple ways, but the biggest one is the trapped feeling. As Janey gets bigger, it's harder and harder for me to attempt taking her any place alone. She is too big for me to easily pick up, and big enough to escape my hand holding. She can and has been known to just run away, regardless of where we are. It's my nightmare. And even if that doesn't happen, she might suddenly have a tantrum. She's a two person job. Right now, Tony can still pick her up, and so he does take her alone places at times. But I do increasingly rarely. And even when we stay home, I'm trapped. If I decide to do something decadent like using the bathroom or going the few feet out to get the mail, Janey will take that opportunity to do something fun, like dump all the Lucky Charms on the floor to look for marshmellows, or pour herself soda, or take off her diaper and play with the contents of it, or something else. So she comes with me wherever I go, and she doesn't like that.

Keeping her entertained is also hard. She has limited interests, and lately, TV doesn't hold her attention all the time, which I am glad of, but it makes it harder. We do iPad, I read to her as much as she'll let me, I try to get her to draw---and all that takes about 15 minutes, it seems, and she's restless. I threw caution to the wind today and walked to the post office with her, about a half mile round trip. She stayed with me, but the sidewalk was under repair and we had to walk in the street, and I was terrified she'd bolt. She also likes to touch lovely things on the ground---old bottles left around by winos, assorted interesting trash. She was happy, though, yelling loudly and jumping about, and echoing with her trademark echolalia some comments people in the crosswalk made (nothing bad, but they were startled and stared at her like she was in a zoo)

The truth is, no matter how much progress Janey is making, it's still pretty hard. I am trying to be positive lately, but today I felt just tired. I was wishing she was a "regular" 7 year old, someone with friends, someone that could go to a vacation week camp, or enjoy a trip to the library, or the mall, or be starting to read to herself, or even just entertain herself for a second while I went to the bathroom. I was really, really wishing it. She's tired now, and crying for Tony, and that is the other part---I'm never confident she'll stay happy, and when she's not happy, everything is that much harder.

Tony has the rest of vacation week off, thankfully. I'll make it.