Two hours of morning

I wake at 6 am, or rather Janey wakes me up.  That's nice and late compared to her standard waking time, and I am full of energy.  I'm determined this day is going to be different than the rest of the vacation days.  This day, I'm going to get a lot done---lots of dishes, laundry, and also lots of creative and educational activities with Janey.  I look at my yesterday self with scorn---why do I get so lazy?

Now it's two hours later.  Janey is watching PBS, for the moment, and I'm sitting here with my 3rd coffee trying hard to summon up the energy to do anything.  As is often the case when I am overwhelmed like this, I turn to here, to this blog.  Thank you, my dear readers, for listening!

What wore me out?  Well, lots of things.  A lot of it is just doing the standard morning things with Janey----getting her dressed, fed, her hair and teeth brushed.  None of it is easy.  She doesn't cooperate with the dressing---passively---she walks away in the middle or acts like she doesn't have any idea how to put legs in pant legs.  She demands foods we don't have for breakfast, and settles for a half loaf of stale French bread, which she crumbles into thousands of pieces while eating it.  She is eager to have her teeth brushed, one of her favorite things, but I somehow do it wrong, and she starts slapping me repeatedly, resulting in the useless time out on the couch.  And hair brushing is always hell, as she screams like I am trying to kill her, but when I stop, she demands more brushing.

A few random times other than those, Janey is angry at me.  She does her new behavior---suddenly and out of the blue attacking me, hitting me and looking furious.  I hold her at arm's length, and she moves in with her head to headbutt my cheeks.  It's truly a bit scary.

Finally, a little break.  There is no cream for coffee, and William wants cream, so he offers to watch Janey while I walk to the convenience store.  I tell you, that walk feels like a huge treat.  I don't realize some days how isolated I get with Janey.  Just being in a brightly lit store full of assorted foods feels strangely thrilling.  I get the cream and some cat food, and wish the line was longer, as I listen with interest to the cashiers talking about how they don't get paid enough to train new employees.  The conversations seems fascinating to me---an exotic piece of the world outside our House of Autism.

And now it's just past eight, and I'm about done for the day.  Any energy I had is spent.  I have 9 hours to go until Tony is home, so of course I'm going to have to keep going, but it's not the energetic, creative keep on going I wanted to have.  It's the get-through-the-day-with-all-of-us-alive type energy.  Once again.