This is how you know that I love you

I spent my weekend in my pajamas, curled up on my bed with the sixty papers I HAD TO grade before Monday. I graded until my eyes didn’t seem to work anymore late Sunday night, wanting to push through the last fifteen papers but not able to decode a single sentence. I was exhausted; I needed to sleep . . . but my brain was so wired from the grading marathon that sleep was hard to find.

Two hours of sleep and it was time to get Noah up for school. Breakfast ready, lunch packed, child dressed, and finally we were ready to walk out the door to the bus stop. I opened the door, and that’s when Noah said it. “My stomach sorta doesn’t feel so good.” Oh no.

I quickly jumped into triage mode—no fever, no vomit. Noah and I decided that he’ll give school a try.

We blew kisses to each other through the bus window, and then I went back into the house, so torn about how I would spend whatever little bit of time I had before Nick woke up. There are fifteen papers left to grade, and I HAD TO have them finished today. But I also had to drive to Tempe and back and didn’t want the police to find my car in a cotton field after I fell asleep behind the wheel.

I climbed into bed.

An hour later a phone call woke me up. It was Noah’s teacher. He was unusually quiet—believe me, this is notable thing—and had complained about his stomach not feeling well. “He doesn’t have a fever, though. I figured I’d keep him here as long as I could and I’ll call you if it seems he needs to go home. Are you in Phoenix today?”

I told her that I would be up there later and that today was a Dad day—I made sure she had his number in case Noah needed to come home.

Nick woke up and it was time to get medicines and breakfast in him. This is not as easy as it sounds. At some point I found five minutes to jump in and out of the shower. I got dressed, then tried to throw some clothes on moving target Nick. That’s when my cell phone rang.

“The school nurse just called me. Noah’s there and doesn’t feel well. Could you call her and see if he needs to come home? Here’s her number.”

So much for it being a Dad day.

I somehow managed to get clothes on Nick and get him into the car, but it took some creativity. His obsession of the moment is Goldfish crackers—he wanders around the house saying “Goldfeesh!” all the time—and he didn’t want to leave the house and crackers behind. Tupperware, thank you. Nick, the goldfish, and I went to the health office to retrieve Noah. Apparently, that day was the first time the nurse had bothered to read his health card because she peppered me with questions. “He has seizures? Are they grand mal? What do we need to do if he has a seizure at school?”

Back to the house and I got myself ready for school and Nick ready for kindergarten. I put Nick on his bus right as a van pulled up and it became a Dad day after all. I kissed Noah goodbye and jumped in the car for my hour and a half drive to work.

I got to ASU thirty minutes before class started. SO not enough time to finish the fifteen papers I HAD TO have finished today. But at least it’s enough time for me to read the essay I’d assigned to my students for that day.

I taught four classes back to back, stopping at the vending machine to get a bag of Cheetos for lunch at around 3:15. I ate the Cheetos as I taught my 3:30 class about the changing modes of writing in the Web 2.0 world.

7:45 came and I was done teaching. I’m supposed to stay for office hours, but I was so tired. I got some Jack in the Box and drove back to Tucson.

There’s so much to do when I get home. There are still those fifteen papers that I HAVE TO get done before Wednesday. Really. It’s been over a month. I have to finish these papers.

But instead I looked over Noah’s lab results, which had just arrived in the mail. They were awful. Awful awful. I renewed my hate of autism and plotted to figure out how the hell I could reduce the toxic levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic in his bloodstream, how I could increase all the good minerals he was deficient in.

The papers would have to wait—I needed to sleep. I took some melatonin and thanked the universe that I was going to get some rest.

At 1:38 AM Nick came into my room, with that boundless, frenetic energy that autism brings in the middle of the night. I re-renewed my hate of autism.

A little after 6 AM I finally got Nick back to sleep. I drifted off to sleep myself just as my alarm went off—it was time to get Noah ready for school.

The rest of the week will be just as chaotic. An ISP meeting, an IEP meeting, an OT session, a follow-up appointment with Noah’s autism specialist, an MRI that Noah will need to be put under for . . . and all the post-anesthesia vomiting that I’ve learned to expect with my boys. Somewhere mixed in will be teaching and lesson planning, and maybe even perhaps grading. Maybe.

This is how you know I love you: in the midst of all of that, I made time for you. It wasn’t as much time as I wish it could be—the people I love deserve so much more—but I deliberately carved it from the chaos for you because you matter. There was that text message I sent you, the encouraging note I left on your wall, the phone call where I strained as hard as I could to hear you over the squealing children beside me, the beer we grabbed, the lunch we worked to reschedule for the fifth time because our schedules are so nutty.

All of those were deliberate choices I made because you matter so much to me—and I realized I just don’t say that enough.