Finding Her Way

Jessie has a pretty straight-forward relationship with the GPS.

She hates it.

Apparently it makes me yell and swear.

“Don’t bring that GPS!” she insists if she sees me grab it as we go out the door.

“I won’t go if you bring the GPS!”

This has something to do with the trip to Boston we took last year. How I made her call Dan on the cell phone (he flew into Boston while we drove down from Maine) and say we were going to be hours late because the %^&*$ GPS had me going in the %^&* wrong direction, and now we were somewhere near *&^%(#$ Woburn and &*&^%$@ hours away from ^&*^%$ Boston. ^&*#!!! With another ^&^+#$ for good measure—just in case the cows in the field hadn’t heard me the first time. Jessie didn’t really have to relay this to Dan over the phone, as he was able to hear me perfectly clearly.

However, as I have learned to restrain myself (or how to read the GPS so I don’t end up in a river), Jessie is beginning to see its benefits.

Take, for example, the other morning—the first morning she was traveling to the Y's Owl Summer program completely solo, with no coaching or what I call “invisible support.”

“Invisible support” usually involves me hiding in bushes or sitting in the car around a corner making sure she is getting where she needs to go, but there to intervene or guide if she calls. This is not a strange lurking disease or a bad case of helicopter parenting, but a very well-known tool (at least among some of my acquaintances, which might tell you a bit about who I hang out with)—used by parents of children with disabilities to provide experiences of independence without full frontal pain (such getting hit by a car, for example). I.e., mom’s there if you need her— she appears magically and reinforces your sense of her omniscience, but is not there at all if you don’t need her and you can feel proud that you did it all by yourself!

While we had practiced and rehearsed the trip (me with her; me with her, but distant; me following behind in a car etc…) in all its variations, the trip to Y's Owl is, in all honesty, a challenge. A long bus ride and a long walk down a street with only one sidewalk (and that one under construction). All complicated by the return trip home—which requires the same long walk along the same street with the sidewalk under construction, PLUS crossing (with lights) a six-lane major road. Given that sequencing (not to mention directionality) is not Jessie’s strong suit, there were bound to be some random street crossings leading to unplanned explorations of the city’s nether regions.

So I wasn’t surprised when I got a call from Jessie just at the time that she was supposed to be arriving at the YsOwl site. But I was surprised by her request:

“Mom . . . I think you better bring the GPS!”

And she was right! She was so lost I couldn’t, at first, find her on google maps. (You are WHERE? Okay. Find a street sign and read me BOTH names. Watson Creek? But the only Watson Creek I can find is a greening reclamation project outside the city?!?!)

It turned out she had, as predicted, crossed roads when she shouldn’t have and turned the wrong way down streets. I finally did locate her and told her to stay put until I rescued her. I was no longer interested in teaching, just in getting her to her program on time so I could get back to work (hmmmm, and I wonder WHY I work from home!).

As we drove up to YsOwl Jessie noticed Drummer Boy (also doing the same summer program) at the bus stop, waiting for the others to join him.

“What’s up DB?” she yelled out the window.

“I got lost,” he replied, “I walked the wrong way.”

“Then how did you get here?” I asked, since there was no mother/rescuer/maker of miracles accompanying him.

“Oh, I just know that if I get lost, I re-trace my steps.”

Brilliant boy. And while my daughter may need a GPS to find her way around the city, it looks like she doesn't need one to find a good guy. She's already got one.

Dance with Alana, Part 1: The GPS [hijacked]

In which Nan starts to write about a single day, reads it to Jess, gets reprimanded for the use of the word “schmooze,” and Jess takes over the blog.

Another day, another performance, another good-bye! That’s June. That’s Jessie’s life. The only thing that makes it easier is the GPS Dan bought me as a present. I just plug in all the addresses (dress rehearsal here, year-end party there, quick meal on the road here, performance over there) and my true life’s calling as a chauffeur is actualized.

Yesterday presented a bit of a challenge, as Jessie had to go from the Dandelion year end/good-bye pool party (staying only an hour when the party was continuing on past dinner and into the evening) to the rehearsal and performance for a dance studio--Dance with Alana--where she has taken up hip hop. I had tried to talk her out of this performance, knowing that the year-end Dandelion party would be a highlight (it was beside a pool and they were doing spa stuff in addition to eating a delicious dinner with cake!). But her genes (the performing ones, not the Down syndrome ones) dictated that ‘the show must go on.’

Of course, I sent Dan in to pull her out of the pool party—I made the excuse that I had to program the GPS. It’s just way too hard to do ALL the things you want to do without some activities conflicting with others, and its just way too easy to blame Mom (moi) for the conflict or the necessity of leaving. So when I have the chance to put Dan in the line of fire, I do.

We did get her out of the idyllic oasis—believe me, I would have loved for her to stay and maybe even find a way to invite myself in—and headed downtown to drop her off at the university for the rehearsal. Unfortunately, my GPS wasn’t able to account for the Franco-Ontarian Festival, the Fringe Festival, a large group of unruly children wielding drums and banners, and the closed parking lot, which precipitated me yelling at it (notice the “it” and not my family, yet) as it intoned “Recalculating….. recalculating … recalculating….” and I drove around in circles trying to figure out where to park. Jessie added her own refrain of “But I’m going to be late!!!!” while Dan grumbled, “You know, I can take the GPS back if you don’t like it.” At which point I stopped the car in the middle of the street, turned the GPS off, and told them to get out. Nicely. Really. “But …,” starts Jessie. Dan looks at me and just whooshes her and her dance bag out of the car saying, “We’ll meet you inside.”

I did find a parking space after only 3 more times around the campus. It was far enough away for me to have composed myself by the time I got to the theatre. Jessie was in the dressing room, dressing and schmoozing
. . socializing with other people. Jessie was having a great time rehearsing and keeping the vibe going. Her attitude-stricken dance moves were amazing. As I saw the performance I thought to myself, “Wow, these people are amazing dancers and performers.” When I saw Jessie’s hip-hop piece I thought that Jessie did an amazing job with the dance. She has some serious attitude in the dance.

Okay. So that last part is Jessie as she decided to take over the computer and the blog, even the “attitude-stricken dance moves.” Which is why I am trying to convince her to do her own blog. There’s my “Life with Jessie” and then there's “Life BY Jessie.” I know which I would prefer to read!

When I decided to start this blog, I did promise Jessie that she would be able to vet what I wrote, and that I wouldn’t write about anything she didn’t want me to write about, as this is, after all her life! At first she wasn’t very interested, except to know that I was writing about her (which she thought was pretty cool). Then I loaded Google Analytics and brought her in to see how many people were reading the blog (okay, it was less than 5, mostly friends, but still bordering on fame to her). Hmmm. She liked this part, especially where she got to click on the map and see where the people lived.

Then she decided that she wanted to read what I was writing (because I leave it up on the family computer) and she took great exception to me using the word “schmooze.” (Too close to “booze”; she thought I was saying that she was drinking back stage, which, she informed me, she definitely was Not. Phew, glad we got that cleared up). Then I went to help with dinner and when I returned she had taken over the computer, erased the last paragraph I had written, and put in what she thought I should have written. I like her version better. Maybe she’ll get her blog up and running yet!!!