Tic Toc

Beth doesn't know how to tell time. They taught it to her in school and we tried to reinforce it at home, but she just never 'got it'.

She can't tell time, but she loves the clock! Beth likes knowing when to leave, when to eat, when to bathe. We have a few analog clocks around the house but most of them are digital. And it's the digital clocks that Beth understands. Well, 'understand' might be too strong of a word. She reads the numbers and that helps.

I write her notes each day to tell her when her bus will pick her up. We tell her what time she needs to be upstairs so we can go shopping. She wants to know what time we'll be home from work, and what time dinner will be ready.

For many years, Beth would eat lunch at 2:30. Every day. Didn't matter if we had all gone out to a restaurant at noon, on the drive home she would announce, "It's 2:30!" We'd tell her that she just had lunch and she'd respond with, "Oh."

I haven't figured this one out yet but some nights we'll all be playing board games and she'll begin to announce the time, "It's 8:45. It's 8:52. It's 9:04." Okay Beth, is something going to happen? Why are you telling us the time? "I dunno." She just loves the clock.

For this reason, I don't know why it took me so long to figure out I should use the clock when it comes to her TV.

Maybe it's just me, but as the night wears on, I feel the TV should get quieter. Everything else winds down at the end of the day, so the TV should as well. But Beth just gets louder. Not only is her TV blaring, but she's yelling and screaming and laughing and whooping, she's really loud!

For years, I've told her to turn her TV down. Night after night. For years. Literally.

Chuck and I lay in bed at 11:30 at night, tossing and turning, trying to sleep over all the noise. (It doesn't help that her living room is directly below our bedroom!) Then I'm out of bed and headed down the stairs, "Please turn your TV down."

She reluctantly picks up her remote and slowly turns it down. Back upstairs I go.

But recently I got the idea to have her turn her TV down at certain times of the night. I checked her TV one evening to see how loud it was and I think the volume level was 50. Then I asked her if she would turn it down to 45 at 9:30. She said okay!

Then I asked her if at 10:00, she would turn it down to 42.

And to quote Elliot from ET, "It's working!"

Why did it take me so long to figure this out? :)

To Answer Your Questions: Lenox and No :)

I've had a couple of you ask questions - my first Q&A post! WooHoo!! It's the simple things that make me happy. :)

The first question came from Leah at The Garden of Eagan. She is thinking about getting an alarm clock for Angela. You can read Angela's blog It's My Life Mom here.

Beth's alarm clock is a Lenox Sound. It's got AM/FM Radio and a CD player. I usually set the time for Beth, but she can set the alarm. Hold the Alarm button, then push another for Hour. Then she stops and shakes out her hands. :) A second time she holds the Alarm button and pushes the Minute button. More shaking of the hands. She occasionally double clicks the Set button so I still go down each morning while she's still asleep to check, but 95% of the time, she does it right. The CD player no longer works so we need to get her a new one. I'm a little nervous about that. I'm going to look for one very similar to the one she has.

This one is pretty old, but she knows how to use it. Familiarity is huge in Beth's life. If she's comfortable with something and knows how to use it without help, we tend to keep it until it dies. Using it by herself makes her feel independant. That's so important to her and to us. 

And I just have to show you, she keeps her clock on her nightstand, right below..... Nick!

The other question came from Becca at The Bates Motel. She asked if I knew many older people with Down Syndrome or if most of the blogs I follow have younger kids. The latter is correct. I wonder if most people, well maybe not most, but some people who have older kids with Ds even have blogs. Computers weren't around when Beth was growing up. We got our first home computer when Beth was in Junior High. And it was one of those big, old, gray monsters with a dot matrix printer. I think dot matrix is right, the paper had the holes down the sides and you had to rip the page.... well anyway. I would love to find some blogs from parents who have adult children with Down Syndrome. I only follow two or three but even they are younger than Beth. I feel like the Grammy of the Ds blog world. :)

So if any of you know of blogs from parents of adults with Ds or the even the adults themselves, please let me know. I'd love to get in touch and find out what life has been like for them.  

Thank you for your questions! Makes me feel needed! :)
Have a good day!

It Has to End Today

Beth missed her bus again today.

Her alarm went off, she got out of bed, turned it off and went back to sleep. I went down to her room at 9:15 and she was still asleep. I took off her covers and turned on the light. Told her she had to get up or she'd miss her bus. Went down again at 9:30... still asleep. This time I shook her and reminded her just how much she loves karaoke and art and how she'd miss seeing all her friends. She had to get up now!

At 9:45 her bus was due to arrive and she was still asleep. So, I called DART and told them not to come. I went back down and turned off her light. She sat straight up, threw the covers off and started getting dressed. I told her it was too late, she had missed her bus so she could just go back to sleep.

Five minutes later she was upstairs, completely ready to go. I told her again that it was too late. Sorry Beth, but there's nothing I could do!

This is my life. Day after day. Week after week, I go downstairs and try to get Beth out of bed. For work, for church. And to be honest I'm tired of doing it.

So this afternoon we had a talk. I explained that she is an adult now. She kind of has her own apartment. She goes to work. She gets a paycheck and has her own debt card. She does a lot of things that adults do. But she still won't get out of bed in the morning. I told her that she has an alarm clock, just like other adults. MY mom doesn't come wake me up in the morning. I don't go to Sharaya's house and wake her up. Because we are adults. Now our alarms wake us up.

I told her that today was the last day I was going to wake her up. Starting tomorrow, if she doesn't wake up when her alarm tells her to wake up, then she will miss her bus. And if she misses her bus, she doesn't go to work. And she doesn't get paid. And she doesn't get to go shopping.

She's an adult now and this is the way it is for adults.