Summer Report

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.  I guess.  I am not a summer person, as people who have read this blog probably know, but this summer hasn't been bad, as summers go.  There was the non-sleep period, which I will never, ever say is over, because I fear a jinx more than anything, but, well, it's better.  Janey has still been often getting up extremely early, but lately, she is into Netflix on her iPad, and watching longer movies, even ones she's never watched before, and it's allowing us to drowse a bit while she's awake.

The big difference this summer, of course, has been having Tony home.  It's wonderful.  I said just before the summer started that it was the first summer I haven't dreaded, and I was right not to.  Parenting Janey is really a two person job, and Tony and I are both more rested, even with the non-sleeping issues, than we were in past summers.  

Another very nice thing has been summer school.  Two years ago, I took Janey out of summer school in the middle.  She was miserably unhappy.  It was the only real time I'd ever seen her crying because she didn't want to get on the bus, and she would come home crying, and I was getting emails from the teacher a lot of the type that say "Do you have any ideas about keeping Janey happy?  Is there something different at home?" to which I always have an urge to reply something like "Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that we moved because the old house exploded---it just slipped my mind!"  I'm just being sarcastic here, but I do tell teachers if something big is happening at home, and to be fair, I don't get that question often.  So we cut our losses that year, and I was gun-shy last year and decided to just keep Janey home from summer school.  But this year, I thought we'd give it a try again, and she's been VERY happy there.  Her (different than two summers ago) teacher seems great and he stays in touch about positive and less positive things, and he sent me a happy picture of her from Friday, which is something I very much love to get.

Janey is continuing to seem more like a teenager all the time.  Her most used phrase with me is "Want to go away?"  She says this any time I'm in her space, and her space is often much of the house.  I take it with a laugh, though.  It's cool to see her wanting space, and I want to give her as much as I can.  It makes me sad, a lot of times, how little true independence her life is going to have, and I feel like it's important to give her any agency I can about how she spends her time.  It can sometimes get a little severe, though, like when her brother Freddy came home from work and said hi to her, and she replied "NO! Want to go away?" and pushed him.  But I remind myself her vocabulary is limited, and she's getting her point across.

One interesting development is how Janey has been using the TouchChat AAC app on her iPad.  I started with it a couple years ago with great hopes.  Janey has never really used it to talk, though.  She likes it, and she says, many hundreds of times "I don't want to listen to CD" which might sound like it's saying something, but it's what you get if you hit the exact middle of each screen in a row.  I think she likes the way it makes a sentence, and she doesn't ever listen to CDs anyway.  But for a while, when Janey is very upset, I have been pulling up the feelings screen on the app and asking her to tell me how she's feeling.  She usually picks happy first, even when she's very obviously not happy, but then she picks something else, sad or frustrated or angry or tired.  And she calms down.  Like a miracle sometimes, she calms down.  It's like being able to label the feeling helps tremendously.  Today, for the first time ever, when she was upset, she went to the iPad and went to that screen herself, and 

calmed herself down.  I was very, very happy.  I wish she'd use the app more, though.  I use it often around her, and she easily remembers how to get to various screens, and it's always available for her, but she has made plain that's as far as she wants to go with it for now.  And if I pushed her more, I'm 

quite sure she wouldn't be as eager to use it in the limited way she does as she is now---that's my Janey.

Of course, what comes next is high school, and I am nervous day and night about that.  I feel confident we picked the right program for Janey, and I am very happy she can go where we wanted her to go.  But still...it's a new school, and it's a LONG bus ride.  It's on the opposite side of Boston, and if you know Boston traffic, you know it might well take an hour for her to get to school and an hour to get home, on tougher days, and some days, probably more than that.  She loves the bus and she loves rides, or we wouldn't even consider that, but I worry about her needing to use the bathroom while she's on the bus, I worry how she will react if the traffic completely stops the bus for long periods, I worry about other kids on the bus...I worry about everything.  I keep telling myself to wait and see how things go before all the worrying, but that's not my way of doing things, usually.

I was helped more than you know during Janey's no sleep nights by posting on the Facebook companion page to this blog, and reaching out to the other mothers in no sleep land, the ones, as Claire so incredibly well put it, awake at silly o'clock, as those hours in the middle of the night should be officially named.  Thank you, as always, for getting it, all of you wonderful people.  I hope you are having summers that are better than you'd worried they might be!

Janey's 11th first day of school

Janey started 7th grade today.  When I sat down to count, it surprised me a bit that it was first day of school number 11 for her.  She started 3 year old kindergarten just after she turned 3, and she went to 5 year old kindergarten twice...it all adds up to 11 first days of school.

I'll have to say, of all those first days, today might be the one I felt the most anxious about.  That seems counter-intuitive, but it's true.  Mostly, this is because of how summer school went.  Janey seemed truly unhappy for the first extended time at school.  She resisted the bus, she came home seeming upset every day, and eventually, when her teacher told me she was having a very hard time getting through the days, I took her out for the last week or so.  I think I should have done so sooner.  After about a week to decompress, we saw the happy Janey again.  We went on our long trip to take William to Chicago and to see my dear friend Michelle and her family in Ohio, and Janey was amazing.  The only really rough times were when we cruelly tried to get her to use the bathroom at rest stops before eating.  Once we stopped doing that, she was happy almost the whole time.  She slept well in the hotels, traveled, made herself at home at Michelle's house, listened to a ton of music, all that.  We reflected that we didn't think a trip with a more typical 13 year old would have been as tear-free!

I spent a lot of time the last few days thinking about the contrast between the time Janey was in summer school and the trip.  It can sometimes feel, in the midst of Janey being unhappy, that that is just her default state, that what we do makes no difference.  But that's not true.  Of course, we can't go on trips every day, but the things the trip featured---novelty within a familiar framework, tons of music, exercise she enjoyed (playing in hotel pools), much one on one attention---those are proven ingredients for a happy Janey.  And as Janey gets older, it seems like school gives her less and less of what makes her happy.

Of course, the standard response to that would be "school is meant for learning, not entertainment".  And my response back---well, it's been 11 years now.  And Janey hasn't shown she wants or is able to learn what the schools have to teach.  It's not for lack of good teachers or lack of trying.  Most kids in her program DO learn.  They learn to read and write and do math.  They do amazingly well.  I think Janey has spoken.  She's not interested in that kind of learning.  And as she gets older and diverges more from even the standard autism path, it might be getting harder for her to find the level of comfort at school she needs to be relaxed enough to learn at all.

So---what can I do?  I don't think the school I imagine for Janey exists.  I'm not even sure myself what I picture the school being.  Or if what I picture even is a school.  But I can picture what she'd love---a place where she could be outside as much as possible, where she could have access to music at all times, where she would go on excursions to parks, take rides on buses and trains, play in water, rest when she was tired, be read to and look at books, work on basic cooking, be taken to stores and helped to purchase items, be encouraged gently to talk more...that's my dream.

And you might have had the thought I've had.  That sounds like home schooling.  And that has crossed my mind.  But, to a person, everyone who has spent time with Janey has emphatically said to me what I know to be the truth---I couldn't do it.  Not just I don't want to do it---I couldn't, physically or mentally.  Healthwise, I could not make it without the respite that school provides.  Mentally and physically, doing it all alone, I would very quickly be too tired to provide the atmosphere Janey would thrive in.  I know that.  During the weeks this summer we were at home and she was not at school, I was drained beyond what I can explain.  We wound up staying home with Janey watching videos, with a daily walk to get ice cream.  That's all I could do.  That is not what Janey needs.

What happens when No Child Left Behind leaves your child behind?  I know that the schools are required to try to teach Janey, and I know for so many kids, that is a good thing, that there are kids that in the past would not have been offered the chance to learn to read or write that are thriving with that chance.  But in our quest to give each child a chance, can the vision of success be expanded?  Can we give Janey and the other Janeys out there the chance to be the best they can be, even if that best requires a very different kind of school environment?  That is what I am going to be trying to figure out.

Little Things Add Up To Big Stress

The last few weeks have been stressful.  Actually, based on how I've felt the last few days, they have felt extremely stressful.  There is nothing "big bad" going on, but lots of small stress causers, and they pile up until I feel like I do now.

I think that's the case with a lot of parents like myself.  We live with a base level of stress, most all the time.  When small things get added on, and on and on, it doesn't take much to put us over the top.  The funny thing is, when things are REALLY bad, something kicks in---adrenaline or a hidden reserve or something.  It's still very hard, but more a sadness or anger or worried hard.  Stress, for me anyway, is like the workaday version of those.  It can be just as tough to deal with, or tougher, without being as headline worthy.

What is stressing me, you ask?  Or even if you don't, I'll tell you.  Let's start with the last 10 minutes, after Janey got off the bus but before she started watching a Christmas Madagascar special and kicked me out of the room....

 I sit out in the 95 degree heat, waiting for the afternoon bus home from summer school.  It comes at highly various times, due to highly various Boston traffic, so I wind up often waiting for it a while.  When it does come, Janey gets off the bus and within a minute, turns off both air conditioners.  She hates AC.  It is sticky hot in a way that Boston sometimes gets, an unbearable way.  I suggest she uses the potty instead of the bed.  This displeases her, and she starts screaming.  I take a deep breath and try to calm down, and offer her some chips if she will try the potty.  She calls my bluff by going to where I've hidden the chips, easily finding them and opening both bags.  And then rejecting them.  As I go to clip one bag shut, she somehow hides the other open bag.  As I search for it, she screams hysterically as I have not instantly put on the TV show she asked for at least 10 seconds before.  I stop the hunt, find the show, clip the chips and sit down to write this.

Now an update, 15 minutes later.  After I wrote what comes before this point, Janey changed her mind about a show.  I went over to put on the new show she asked for.  But that was not really the show she wanted.  I was supposed to know that, somehow.  So she screamed a while longer.  I figured out the right show, and she pushed me out of the room again.  I sat down to write and have some of my coffee.  Janey came over to turn off the AC I'd turned back on.  I turned to talk to her, and knocked over all my coffee.  Naturally, it didn't just go on the floor, but instead on Janey's special pillowcase, the one non-human object in the world she cares for, which she obsessively takes off the pillow and puts down various places.  I tried to sneak the pillowcase into the hamper, but she noticed and got extremely upset.  Somehow it having coffee on it made it necessary in her eyes for me to make more coffee.  She pushed me over to the coffeemaker and screamed until I started some.  I started it, and then snuck back over here.

None of this is huge stuff, but in the half hour since she's been home, it's a lot.  And that has been this week.  Getting on the bus in the morning is the worst.  The bus comes to get her any time in a 30 minute range.  Today it was there at the earliest time, yesterday at the latest time.  If we aren't out there when it comes, they do honk, but they have a lot of kids to pick up and can't wait long.  So...we have to go out to wait for it at the earliest time.  Janey tolerates 5 minutes or so of waiting, but then she wants back in the house.  And screams because she can't go back in.  If the boys are available, I have them stay inside with her, but even then, if they look away for a minute, she takes off her shoes, and otherwise makes herself unpresentable for school.  Generally, they aren't available (Freddy works until late and William is currently visiting my parents), so that isn't even an option.  I just have to figure out how to keep Janey from freaking out in the heat while we wait.  Again, not a huge thing, but it's making me a little crazy.

Oh, shut up, Perfect Woman!

Sometimes, I am up to dealing with stress.  Lately, I'm not.  It's the heat, partly, and my health partly.  I don't get into health details much here, not to be mysterious, just not to overshare, but there are currently four different diagnoses I carry, each of which has among the top 2 symptoms "extreme fatigue"  And I am feeling that extreme fatigue lately.  I am feeling every second of my 51 years.  Having a child that needs full time care, who is not capable of self-care and will not ever be, most likely...it's tiring.  And stressful.

The woman in the picture is how I feel like I'm supposed to be.  It's my ideal, one that reality doesn't modify much.  I should be calm always, working on solutions instead of complaining, feeling grateful Janey goes to summer school instead of wishing it was for longer, cheerfully doing the housework while she is there instead of grudgingly doing it and wishing I was just sleeping instead...yeah.  I should be making up a nice chocolate cake instead of writing right now.

This is mainly just a rant. There aren't solutions.  And I'm certainly not alone.  I know you, out there in the wider autism nation, are right here with me in Stress Village.  And most importantly, I know Janey is stressed too.  And like me, she is doing the best she can.  So, we'll keep on keeping on.  55 minutes until Tony gets home.  Not that I'm counting.

Guilt and Bus Aides

This year, it seems Janey has a one-on-one aide on the school bus, both ways.  This isn't something we requested, or something in her IEP, or that we were told was going to happen, but we don't have a problem with it.  The aide in the morning gets on the bus when Janey does, and the aide in the afternoon gets off when Janey gets off.  There's another aide on each bus, for the rest of the kids.

I am not sure why Janey got a bus aide.  I don't think she's had real problems on the bus, not that we've ever been told about.  I'm sure she has screamed on the bus at least a few times, and bitten herself, because it would be pretty surprising if she never had, but usually she seems pretty calm on there.  My guess is that once she even once showed that she could potentially be very distracting to the driver, they insisted on aides.  And that is fine.

When Janey gets off the bus, it's usually about two in the afternoon.  Tony gets home about five.  Those aren't easy hours.  I've been trying to figure out ways to make them better, and I've over and over thought about trying to find a class or program during that time.  However, something always stops me.  I woke in the night last night thinking about it, and I realized I just plain don't feel able to take Janey anyplace in the car by myself any more.  I do take her for short rides, once in a while, but the thought of driving any distance with her, just the two of us, scares me very much.

Janey is rapidly getting bigger.  She's going through a growth spurt.  Along with that, she seems to be far more prone lately to sudden rages.  They come out of no-where.  Things can seem fine, calm, and then suddenly, Janey lashes out.  She lunges at whoever is nearby, she smashes things with her fist, she bites herself, she pulls our hair, she screams her incredibly loud scream.  If this happened while I was driving, it could be a catastrophe.  If you've ever driven the streets of Boston, you know that it's crazy out there.  I am not a confident driver.  I need to concentrate while I drive.  I hadn't realized it consciously, but the fear of driving alone with Janey is the reason I haven't been able to move forward with afternoon programs.

When I woke in the night last night and realized this, my default emotion was guilt.  That's no surprise.  That's my default emotion for any situation.  But then I thought about the bus aides.  Professional drivers, with already one adult on a bus, decided it wasn't safe to drive with Janey unless a second adult was assigned to her.  I had a moment I rarely have when I thought about that---a moment of realizing I shouldn't feel guilty.

I read a statistic lately in an article about autism and aggression.  It was one of those articles which highlighted very high functioning people with autism, and emphasized how rare it is for autistic people to be aggressive.  That's an important notion to get out there, I agree.  The article had a statistic I hadn't heard before---that only 7% of autistic people are low-functioning with aggressive behaviors.  I wish I didn't have to admit to myself that Janey seems to be falling into that 7 percent.  I hope against hope she someone gets over the lashing out.  But for now, I have to live in the reality of the present.  And I have to keep her safe, and myself safe.  Until I can be sure that I can, I need to accept that I'm not going to be driving her around on my own very much.  And I am glad the Boston Public Schools transportation department helped me see that.

Randomly selected moments with Janey

Of course I probably can't really be random with my selections, but I thought I'd write about some everyday moments in life with Janey, just to try to capture who she is right now.

1.  We are all taking a ride to get Freddy things he needs for school.  There's a black car coming out of the parking lot near the police station.  We are trying to figure out if it's a police car or a limo.  Janey pipes in "It is a police car!"  We are all surprised and pleased, as it's quite rare for her to join in a conversation like that.

2.  Janey wakes me up in the middle of the night.  She lies down next to me, and I try to go back to sleep.  She says "You want to take a shower?"  I say no, not right now.  She asks a few more times, with the same answer.  Then she says "You want to see the shower curtain?"  I put up a new curtain, the day before, with owls on it.  Pleased that she noticed, I do get up so we can go see it.  She immediately takes over the whole bed.  I've been fooled again by her sneaky nighttime tricks.  I go to sleep in her bed, until she decided to switch beds again.

3.  Janey is watching "The Little Mermaid".  She's been asking for it all weekend, and we've been telling her she can't watch it because she pulled out the tape.  Finally, Tony decides to try to fix it, and is successful.  She is thrilled to see it, until the scene where Ariel's father yells at her.  When that comes on, Janey smashes against the TV with her fist, a recent behavior that she knows will result in the TV being unplugged.  I am watching her as she does it, and I can see in her face she realizes her mistake a second after punching, and she screams in frustration.  The TV is unplugged anyway.

4.  I wake up Saturday morning after having a nice night's sleep.  Janey has been up a while already, having her favorite type of weekend breakfast with Daddy, various greens with olive oil and hot sauce.  When she sees me, she dashes over and gives me a big hug and smile.

5.  We are coming back in the car from being out visiting William.  It's later than Janey usually stays up, about 9 pm.  She has been fairly cheerful, but suddenly and without warning, she lunges at Freddy, who is sitting next to her in the back seat.  She tries to pull his hair.  He grabs her hands to keep her from doing so, and she bites at them.  Freddy manages to keep her from hurting him much, but it's a struggle for the 10 minutes until we get home, completely with her screaming.  We offer to stop, to have me sit in back with her, but Freddy declines.  He's gotten used to such scenes over the years.  I cry in the front seat.

6.  I put on "Olivia", which we have in streaming video from our Amazon account.  Janey hasn't seen it for years, but she is instantly taken with it.  She watches the whole episode, and then deftly navigates the user-unfriendly interface to put on the next episode.  Over the weekend, she watches eight episodes---eight different ones, not the same one obsessively eight times.

7.  I am dressing Janey for school.  She is tired and annoyed, and kicks me in the stomach.  I am too tired, bone tired, to get upset.  I just say "You can't do that.  We have to get dressed".  She becomes instantly cooperative.  She keeps looking at me with a worried look, as if she expects to hear more about the kick.  When I am done dressing her, she kisses me, which she almost never does.

8.  Another morning getting ready for school.  Janey is in another bad mood.  We managed to get dressed, but she is crying and screaming.  She goes over and gets the hairbrush and hands it to me, while saying "Don't brush your own hair!  Don't brush your own hair!", which is what she says when she's upset I'm brushing.  I brush quickly, to get it over with, without counting out twenty brushes, as I usually do.  When I stop, Janey screams and hands me back the brush, yelling "Thirteen!  Fourteen!"  That is right where I left off in my silent counting.  I brush up to twenty, as she screams.

9.  Another middle of the night.  Janey wakes me up and saying "Chinese rice!"  I tell her we don't get takeout in the night.  She considers that a moment, and then says "Pizza!"  I repeat myself.  She is undaunted..."Happy Meal!  Chicken nuggets!  Fries!  Chocolate Milk!  Toy!"

10.  Janey gets off the bus and her Auntie Rose is just arriving at our house.  She hugs her aunt, thrilled to see her.  Auntie Rose goes upstairs to help my brother-in-law in his apartment.  Janey has her snack downstairs with me, and then says "Go see Nana and Grandpa!"  I tell her they are far away right now, although I suspect what she really means.  She thinks a minute and says "Go see Auntie Carrie!"  I tell her Auntie Carrie is even further away, in Colorado.  I ask her "Do you mean Auntie Rose?" and she smiles a huge smile and says "GO SEE AUNTIE ROSE!"  So we do.

Everyday life with Janey is hundreds and thousands of moments like these.

School Starts, My Anxiety Rises

Janey started school yesterday.  Although her classrooms are sort of ungraded, she is starting 4th grade.

As always, although I'd been feeling a bit eager for school to start, the first day seemed to come suddenly.  However, we got out to wait for the bus on time.  It was supposed to pick up Janey at 6:29 am.  At 8:30, we finally gave up and drove her to school.  No bus showed up.  Not at all.  Now, if you have a child with autism, or, as a matter of fact, if you have any child at all, you can imagine that waiting outside your house for 2 hours for a bus that never shows up is not easy.  And of course, you can't go back in the house, because the minute you do that, the bus will show up.  Or you will think it might have.  It was a long 2 hours. The picture show the start of it, as Freddy was leaving for his first day of his senior year (he takes the commuter rail to school)

When we got to the school, we were told there were all kinds of bus problems, and that "you need to call the hotline".  Well, I had.  I'd called the transportation hotline twice at that point, each time was on hold for over half an hour and then was cut off.  I called twice more during the day, figuring that around noon there would be less volume.  One of the times, I stayed on hold for 45 minutes.  I never got through once.  When we were at the school, one of the school employees said something that is one of my least favorite things to hear "The only way to get this fixed is for you to stay on it as a parent".  NO.  I looked up and saw the staff directory for transportation for the Boston Public Schools runs twenty people.  That isn't the bus drivers or aides, that is the transportation ADMINISTRATION.  It is THEIR job to make sure kids are picked up by buses.  It is THEIR job to provide a hotline that actually works.  I am sure most of those 20 people make more than my husband does.  I emailed 3 of them yesterday, letting them know the bus never came.  No answer.  No surprise there.

I am ranting a bit here.  But it's this kind of thing that I find lacking in the schools.  There are wonderful teachers, principals, staff---I've barely ever met anyone that I would not trust my child to happily.  But it's a broken system in so many ways, and that affects the education.  For example, for summer school, the bus almost never actually reached our house before school was supposed to START.  It had more places to go before it got to the school, which is a 20 minute drive from our house even if you go straight there.  So the 5 hours of summer school was never 5 hours.  Janey's school this year runs from 7:30 to 1:30.  The bus showed up today at 7, with lots of other kids still to pick up.  They aren't going to get to the school. by 7:30.  And school seems to actually end at 1, not 1:30, to start getting kids on the buses, which is a huge job, I am sure.  So every day, there is teaching time lost, lots of teaching time.

These issues affect all kids, not just kids with autism, but like so many issues, autism makes it tougher to deal with them.  Janey needs consistency.  I considered just keeping her home yesterday, because if we drive her one day, she wants to be driven every day.  She needs the routine of the morning, not to get them when it's over.  She needs every hour of instruction she can get.

I realized yesterday part of what was upsetting me was that it was my first day in many years not taking a child to the Henderson School, Janey's old school.  I know she is doing well at her new school, and that there are great teachers and therapists there.  But I've never met her teacher in person.  She has a new ABA specialist this year, who I have also never met.  I don't feel like part of her new school.  I didn't know a soul in the office yesterday.  I felt the sting of having to change schools all over again.  I wanted the day to be like other first days, a happy reunion of friends I've known for years, with so many people greeting Janey and being excited to see her.  I have to remember that is MY issue, not Janey's.  I think she's happy where she is.

Rant over.  I feel better having written about it.  I hope everyone who reads this is having a great start to the new school year.  Sit back and have an extra coffee.  That is what I am about to do.

What I fear most

This news piece illustrates what I fear most. A non-verbal autistic little girl, abused on the school bus by a sadistic aide. I want to be sure to say I am not saying anything against bus drivers or aides. My bus driver growing up was one of the finest men I've ever known. The aides at Janey's school---I can't say enough about them. They are wonderful people. What was done to this child was done by someone who, scarily, could be anyone. There are sadistic people out there. And there are people who might not be at all sadistic, but for whatever reason are in jobs they should not be in, people who are not able to deal with disabled children. It's not a job for everyone. Autistic kids (like all kids, but to extremes) can be incredibly frustrating. I would hope anyone caring for such a child would have that trait that would make them not able to hurt the child, no matter how frustrated they are---the love of the child. The love that makes you stop and take a breath and not do something that will hurt the child. I am blessed to have people like that caring for Janey. But I fear the future. I don't think my fear is unreasonable. Janey most likely will not be able to say if someone is hurting her. She can be hard to deal with. I can see her being this girl on the bus. Or the boy at the school Janey is slated to go to some day that was abused. It just takes one person, one moment of losing it, or giving in to horrible impulses, or taking advantage when you think you can, to hurt a child.

I have to have faith to let Janey leave the house. I have to trust that those around her love her and care for her, and will know if they need a break, and will be watching her always, and noticing who else is near here. I do have that trust of her school. But she will be in other schools, some day, or other situations. It's enough to make me want to keep her with me always, but I know that doesn't serve either one of us best.

It's probably harder to do anything about the sadists, as the woman charged here sounds like. I will say I wish she'd gotten a hundred year prison sentence, instead of the slap on the wrist it sounds like. I hope she burns in hell. That's not my usual kind of talk. But it's what I feel. However, what I think something CAN be done about is people that for whatever reason find themselves in over their heads. There are people that are not going into it all planning on hurting children, but they might find themselves handling a child who has cried for hours, or is not toilet trained and has yet another accident, or who might be very tired on a certain day. If that internal guard is not on, the one that I think can only come from truly loving the child and empathizing with them, a person that might never see themselves as an abuser could become one. I hope that all who care for autistic children are treated decently, and are trained well,and paid well, and screened well. If they are overwhelmed, I hope they will speak up, and get a break. If they find they no longer think they can do the job, I hope they will do the right thing and find another job.

This is a raw post, because of the raw feelings reading that article brought up in me. I'll close by saying a million, trillion thank yous to those who are so wonderful to Janey. I am more grateful to you than I can ever say.