the better blogger’s baby has returned

I picked Ehren up on Saturday afternoon, and he’s been cranking it out ever since.

Either he hates being away from his cattle ranch or he’s so relieved to be within 400 yards of a Starbucks, he is unable to control his emotions. We are both crying ourselves to sleep.

Day 7 of 31DBBB means I’m supposed to write a post linking to another blog in my niche. Can I tell you I hate the word niche? Do we who speak American even pronounce it correctly? Is it “nitch” or “neesh”? I love the words clandestine, ennui, desuetude, cacophony, symphonic. I love the sound of my own name and those of my children. When Q calls me darlin’ or dumplin’, my heart pounds.

Another word I hate? Blog. It’s ridiculous. Blog. Sounds like I was about to throw up, but got lucky with an intervening gag reflex. Blaaaaahg-g-g—oh, okay, never mind, whew.

With the baby reclaiming the world title Cranky McC, and the 31DBBB lesson filled with two of my most hated words, I’m skipping Day 7. I have Angry Birds to conquer, Bookworm levels to reach and maybe an unopened book or two to look at on the night stand. Researching a blaaaaah-g-g-g post doesn’t feel very relaxing to me.

Hey, so Jordan was invited to her school awards ceremony to receive an outstanding student award from her social studies teacher. She was morose for most of the ceremony and nearly in tears by the time we got home. Some of the award recipients shared a personal cheering section that was whooping it up for, it seemed, everybody else but Jordan. It didn’t help that when her name was called, her six family members in the audience were silent except for Ehren cranking it out. Here’s the deal: when you participate in real world activities such as a general student population awards ceremony, you find out not everybody shouts your name for simply zipping your jacket correctly. Special needs kids can be extremely insulated, sometimes to their detriment. We spend so much energy protecting them from evil typical kids, we forget to build relationships with the kids who would be excited for them at public events.

On a weird note, one girl got an achievement award for hardest worker, most improved, something-or-other. Wheelchair-bound with obvious multiple physical and mental impairments. She got a sustained ovation as her certificate was handed to her attendant, and I could feel the audience more than once debating if it should stand. Really, audience? Why? Maybe that is what upset Jordan more than the typical kids, now that I think about it. We all work hard, I’m sure she was thinking, and if you mofos stand up for her, I will shoot somebody. Wait, maybe that was me.

Jordan’s award has a footprint or two on it from its place of honor on the car ride home, and she quietly told me to tack it to the wall of my cubiffice since she wasn’t going to do anything with it. Do you think she thought it would be an exclusively private ceremony like the Nobel prizes? We’d all fly to Stockholm dressed in our Macy’s sale rack finest? Dunno. Something dancing in her head got knocked on its butt. She’s a kid, she’s a teen, she’s adolescent and she has a brain injury. The possibilities of what disappointed her are myriad.

I like the word myriad. I’d like a moratorium on plethora. Prodigal doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Disappointment theories and favorite words in comments…