Wednesday, November 5, 2014

I rarely, if ever, post again so soon, but I thought today warranted it.

I got home from work as usual about half an hour before Anthony was scheduled to return from school.  No one else was home due to outside time commitments.  I was really tired and knew that I wouldn't get the chance to rest later, so I lay down with the anticipation that I would be getting up within 20 minutes at the sound of Anthony's approaching bus.

Instead, I had barely started to relax when I heard the bus, fully fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.  I hurried to the door to assure the driver that I was here so that he wouldn't honk the horn; I can't imagine the neighbors care for that.  Instead of waving at me, however, he motioned for me to come out to the bus instead of letting Anthony off to come in on his own as usual.  Now it was making sense, I thought; Anthony must be upset so they detoured to bring him home first.

Since I didn't have my shoes on, I closed the door briefly to put on them on, but, alas, I was too slow--the driver honked his horn thinking (I imagined) that I hadn't gotten the message.

I got out to the bus and, as I climbed on, said, "Anthony's not doing well today, I guess?" But the driver surprised me by motioning to Anthony and responding, "He's ripping off his pants!"  He and the bus aide had not seen Anthony do that, I surmised, so while they were consternated over him exposing most of his underwear, I simply said, "Yeah, he's doing that a lot these days."  I got him off the bus and hoped that no neighbors were watching, but, if they were, I imagine they would understand.

I keep planning to schedule a trip to the thrift shop, and my wife had actually intended to buy him a couple of things as well recently but forgot while addressing the rest of her shopping list.  We'll just have to bump it up the priority list a couple of spots; I doubt there are any nudist colonies nearby.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Anthony is getting even worse with ripping fabric.  A couple of days ago, he ripped apart two pairs of shorts.  Today, he came home from school having ripped the shirt he had worn to school, plus an additional one in his backpack as a replacement, and his undershirt.  And, to seal the horror... he got off the bus wearing a sweatshirt supporting my alma mater's bitter rival (cue "Psycho" theme music).  Well, beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

And we could well end up beggars at the rate we're going.  As I have written in the past, we frequent a thrift shop for much of Anthony's clothing because of his relative indifference to what he wears, combined with his propensity to stain or damage things quickly.  But even then, if we're looking at $20, $30, or more every month, that will certainly start to add up.  Even more than the money involved, though--since ultimately we can divert from other expenditures to cover if that becomes necessary--is the added stress of having to replace clothing constantly.  We face the real possibility, for instance, of Anthony temporarily being without pants to wear if he keeps ripping things and the last remaining articles are in the wash.  The thrift stores we go to are not particularly close, and trips to them require planning to fit in with already very busy schedules.  And while closer big box discount stores may be on the inexpensive end for a new clothing item or two, they will often be twice or more the cost of what we would pay secondhand.

We're in one of those stretches with Anthony that seriously challenge us with regard to coming up with solutions or sufficient patience.  But maybe we need to think "outside the box".  Instead of always worrying about clothes for Anthony, perhaps there is a nudist colony that would take him off our hands....