Stuck

Things are really crazy right now and I'm still finding it hard to write and impossible to draw or create. I'm really in a stuck place in my head and I have been for a few weeks now. I wonder if it's the holiday season. It seems to blow in every year around Thanksgiving time or around the time the in-laws start planning our Christmas with them, which brings up last year and then the fights start. We don't bother engaging in the arguments anymore and Seb bless him and his little hot temper was very calm this year. I was shocked because hearing the yelling on the other end of the line made ME get all hot under the collar. But he was graceful and that just made all hell break loose on their end.

So we won't be dong the in-laws Christmas this year because of the type of cake we brought last year. Don't even ask because the cake in question is just a catalyst and probably a fitting metaphor for the LAYERS of problems my extended family has. It's hard for me because it brings up old issues of me moving here, leaving my family and adjusting, all the adjusting! Why can't they just be all warm and fuzzy? It also makes me upset for the kids, but I think under the circumstances it's best that they don't get too close to the family because honestly they'll eventually pose the same questions I'm posing today, "who are these insane people?" And they'll get hurt because that brand of psychotic doesn't think before they speak and has too many missing filters. I was worried that the kids had overheard us later discussing the problems, and they probably did because the house is small right now, but then I said "yes well at least they'll know early that these people aren't easy and it's not THEM at fault when the branch snaps in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation." Because the branch snaps a lot with them. Seb has been apologizing for them to me since I first met him and it has helped me deal with them, knowing that HE thinks they're nuts.

So we aren't going anywhere for the holidays which is kind of shocking because suddenly we have no obligations. Weird. Sad for the kids and hard to explain. But to be truthful a little refreshing. Very refreshing. We are free.

And Friday was weird. We went to S's school for a meeting to discuss the two months of observation by the pedi-psych at the school who has been interviewing and observing him. I was all set for her to tell us he was "normal, just a little shy" but her conclusion was that we should probably look into further testing for autism (she didn't know he'd had this in his file already from his school in Mexico). We aren't really sure exactly what she was saying because she isn't allowed to actually diagnose him, she isn't trained for that, but she said he had several signs indicating to her that he needed to be tested and observed for the scope of autism. We left the school a little shocked. A little defeated. Everything from our perspective seemed to be that it was going so well for him at this school but evidently he's so non committal in his lack of speech and body language that he's beyond the shy introvert. There's a problem. It makes my stomach churn to even write about it. I really hope she's wrong but my gut instinct tells me she isn't. We have to go for further testing. I'm really frustrated and sad because I'd pretty much let all those worries go and now here they are again staring me in the face. I know he has serious communication issues and he's finding it harder and harder to put his emotion into a proper outlet so maybe this is a way for him to get help. I'm trying to look at it in a positive way.

Seb is away for two weeks so it was especially hard this week to get all this dumped in our laps and then have him hop on a plane again. My head is so full. The house is a wonderful distraction actually. For once I'm glad to have it and all its work.