Little Sneak

One day last year, during the time when I was taking Kimmie to school, I was getting our coats out of the closet and Kimmie was wandering around looking at her toys, or so I thought.

We put our coats on, gathered her backpack and headed to the car. After we arrived at school and were walking to her classroom, Kimmie was messing with her pants pocket. She would stop walking and stick her hand in her pocket. I was trying to figure out what the problem was, why she kept stopping. Suddenly I realized that her pocket was bulging. Yep, while I was getting our coats, she was stuffing her pocket full of shoestrings! About the time I saw that she had a full pocket, she reached in and pulled them all out.

Her teacher was standing in the hall watching us. I took the shoestrings and was showing them to her and laughing. Now the dilema. Do I take them home with me and upset Kimmie? Do I give them back to her? Will that cause issues? The resolution. Her teacher took the shoestrings and kept them as a reward if she did her work. Kimmie seemed to be happy with that. Whew!

The shoestrings came home with her. The next day she had on a sweatshirt with a pocket in the front. The perfect place to store those shoestrings! Day three, she was done with the shoestrings. One of her little pandas went in her sweatshirt pocket and that panda is still going back and forth to school with her every day.

--Mom

School

Kimmie has been having pretty good days at school for the last few weeks. We consider that to be almost miraculous. I guess maybe she knows the end is sight.

Last year, she was having a very difficult time. Pretty much every day was a rough day. In fact, we even considered making it her last year, but once she finishes school we have the rest of her life to try to fill with meaningful activities.

Instead, we decided to try shorter school days. Kimmie has never been a morning person, so we thought that if she didn't have to get up so early, and didn't have to get on a school bus in the dark, maybe she would be happier and more cooperative. I began letting her sleep until 8:00, then I would get her up and ready for school. I drove her to school, arriving about 8:45. She was able to sleep two hours later in the morning but only missed about an hour of school.

We tried that last winter and spring. That did not help. In fact it seemed like she decided she won round 1, so she'd try to win another round. She just wanted to play all day. She didn't want to do any work at school. Such a little stinker.

This year she is back to riding the bus. But, like I said at the beginning of this post, she has been doing pretty well the last few weeks. Hopefully she'll be happy and hang in there for a few more weeks as we finish up high school.

--Mom

Potatoes

Kimmie has this thing about potatoes.

Almost every time I am peeling potatoes she wanders out to the kitchen to investigate. She always reaches for a potato, balances it on the palm of her hand and raises it up and down like she is weighing it.

We usually have a discussion about "what is that?" "Potato." "What color is it?"

Eventually she takes hold of the potato and puts it up to her ear pretending to talk on the telephone. We have no idea why she associates a potato with a telephone.

I was telling Dad about this and he looked at me like I was crazy. A few days later we were at the grocery store with Kimmie. When we entered the produce section she found the potatoes and picked one up. She put it to her ear, looked at Dad and pretended to talk. Proof I wasn't making this up!

In addition to having no idea why she associates the two, we find it incredibly strange because she is petrified of telephones. When we ask her if she wants to talk to someone on the phone, her eyes get big and she moves away signing, "No, no, no." She never ever touches our cell phones.

Just a silly thing she does.

--Mom

Closure

I was not going to write this story, but when I was telling Dad what Kimmie did Thursday afternoon, his response was, "Kimmie Story."

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, we had our semi-annual traumatic trip to the dentist, which turned out to be a bit more traumatic than usual.

Kimmie, of course, is not a very cooperative patient at the dentist. It used to take three people to hold her down and assist the dentist. She has improved immensely over the years and I was able to hold her still by myself for part of the cleaning and exam. To ease things for me one of the assistants helped hold for a while. Kimmie still struggles some and screams some, but not nearly as much as when she was younger.

However, in the midst of trying to pry and prop her mouth open, one of her teeth was popped out. Kimmie's root structure is not very strong and over the years we have had a lot of concerns about her teeth falling out. About 7 years ago she lost one of her permanent teeth. We have been doing what we can over the years to try to keep and strengthen her teeth. We had been very thankful that no others had fallen out. To have one knocked out during a dental exam was disappointing, to say the least.

I was holding Kimmie's hands down, out of the way, when the dentist blurts out, "We've lost a tooth!" I jerked my head up to see and sure enough there was a tooth not attached to anything. The dentist was almost in panic mode . . . "It doesn't have a root." "Is it a primary tooth?"

"No, all her teeth are permanent teeth."

"But there isn't a root. Roots don't dissolve unless there is another tooth coming in behind it."

I asked, "Is there anything we can do?"

"No, nothing!" "She's not a candidate for a retainer or implants!"

The dentist finished her work quickly, apologizing profusely. Kimmie was sobbing pitifully. When she was let up, she slid to the side of the chair and into my arms and sobbed some more. She pointed to the spot where her tooth had been, and I could see her sticking her tongue in the new gap.

Kimmie hugged the dentist, sobbing all over her. Kimmie signed to her, "Cry."

Kimmie signed, "Sorry," which was her way of telling the dentist to say 'sorry.' The dentist signed it back to Kimmie. She said she knew that sign.

Then Kimmie signed 'hurt.' The dentist looked at me and asked what that sign was. I told her.

Then Kimmie signed 'cry' and for emphasis spelled it, c-r-y. The dentist felt very chastised.

I said very little. What was there to say? I was very disappointed, discouraged and depressed that we had lost another tooth, but nothing I said or did would change anything. The dentist was already upset enough, so I herded Kimmie out the door.

At the dentist's office, the routine is for Kimmie to pick a toothbrush on her way into the exam room, and then they use that toothbrush during the exam and send it home with us. For some bizarre reason they also send home the dinosaur shaped floss thing they use during the cleaning. Since Kimmie lost a tooth, they put it in a tooth-shaped holder and sent that home with us. When we arrived home, I put the bag with all this stuff on the kitchen island. I was pretty down and didn't want to deal with it, so I just left it there.

On Thursday afternoon, after school, I heard Kimmie messing with something in the kitchen. When I looked to see what she was doing, she had the tooth box in her hand. I wasn't sure what her reaction was going to be to seeing her tooth, so I walked up beside her. She opened the box and the tooth fell out, bouncing on the counter. I put out my hand and caught it. Kimmie looked at it, turned it over, looked at it some more, picked it up and put it back in the box. She closed the box and set it back on the counter. She looked at the box for a minute, and then she picked it up. As she worked at opening it, I put my hands underneath to catch it if it fell. She opened the box and dumped the tooth into my hands. Then she picked it up, ran around the island, opened the cupboard door, pulled out the trash can and forcefully threw the tooth in the trash.

She looked up and saw the dentist's bag still on the counter. She picked it up, pulled out the floss thing and inspected it. I gently told her that she could throw that away. She didn't need to be told twice; she flung it in the trash.

She reached in the bag again and pulled out the toothbrush. She looked at it for a moment, and then it went in the trash.

She picked up the bag, realized it was empty, wadded it up and threw it away. She pushed the trash can back into the cupboard, closed the cabinet door, and walked away clapping her hands and signing 'finished.' Her face reflected relief. In some way, for Kimmie, this seemed to bring a sense of closure to the episode.

I, on the other hand, was still mourning the loss of that tooth, and wondering if I should dig through the trash to find it.

I tell myself: It's just a tooth. In the big scheme of things this is really minor.

Then I think: But it is permanent. She's 20 years old and these teeth are gone for the rest of her life.

The next dentist appointment will be full of anxiety, for both of us.

--Mom

Toilet Paper

Kimmie has started this new silly thing.

When I take her up for a bath she opens the drawer with the extra toilet paper rolls. She takes one out and puts the tube hole up to her eye like kids do with empty paper towel or toilet paper tubes. Kimmie, however, does this with a full, double roll. She looks really silly with this big roll of toilet paper hiding pretty much her whole face. The first time she did this I laughed and told her she was silly. Now she does this before every bath and then she giggles and laughs. Such a funny girl.

I asked her what she was doing and she signed, "Telescope." I asked her what she sees when she looks through it. She signed, "Stars."

I was trying to remember to save her an empty tube so she could have it to play with. Last night we had one. We gave it to her and she looked through it a couple times. Then she threw it in the trash can. We were surprised. We asked her, don't you want it to play with. "No."

I guess it is a lot more fun to be silly with a big roll at bath time.

--Mom