That was allI I wrote yesterday. The days fly by and I am very slow. Still thinking, though. I will consider this entry as belonging to yesterday, the 9th. Still writing about Matt.
Fingernails. He didn’t bite them but he picked at them a lot — and they were fine—healthy-looking, well-shaped, no hangnails, I guess. It wasn’t until last week that i realized he didn’t own an emery board—or a pumice, for that matter. He was very pleased when I gave him one of my nice, coloured, curved sticks and I showed him how to do the corners, not too much off the sides.
HIs toenails were something else, and I didn’t discover that until five years ago. We were going to a family wedding in B .C. and had to get a nice outfit. The weather was good so we bought a new bathing suit, too. He came home with me for supper and we decided to have a swim in my apartment pool. I finally saw Matt’s feet after I don’t know how long. He had long, horribly shaped nails growing out from his big toenails. This fungus infection, when it gets so nasty, is called “ram’s horn”. (I looked it up.) Ugh. He’s been going to s podiatrist ever since, every other month. When I spoke to his counsellor about it, she wasn’t surprirsed. She said a number of her clients went to get their feet treated. No one told me. I hadn’t checked Matt. He hadn’t done anything. See, with challenged people, even ”high-functioning” ones, you can’t take anything for granted. They don’t learn anything by osmosis. Someone has to show them. When Matt went int the Group Home he stopped learning these little things. Not true.
A couple of years later I bought him a nail brush and showed him how to use it. Where had I been all those years, taking everything for granted?
I guess was ignoring my children, trying to keep my head above water. At one point, a long time between assignments, I was lucky enough to get some Ontario Lottery brochures to write/edit. Not too much. When I handed in the first ones I was told not to be creative. I was just triyng to correct the grammar.
Anyway, by this time, after he recovered from his breakdown, he was back in the group home and attending a special school for all the impossibles in the Toronto public school system. Every day on their way to classes the students were required to bring a TTC transfer from a specified station or stop, a separate one assigned to each. To this day, Matt knows the subway system better than I do. (I guess that’s not saying much because I have a terrible sense of direction.)
Another time he told me he was learning shapes and forms (triangle, square etc.) That surprised me because I had taught them to him with blocks at home long ago when he was very little. But these shapes sere different:. They were laundry signs, seen on every clothing label as washing instructions. Very practical, very useful.
Now he’s living with me for the duration (Covid-19), he’s learning something every day. So am I.
It’s not easy.