On Friday we had our second family therapy appointment. Given the impending school closures I didn't really want to pull Carter out of school for it, but Jacob already had off so I figured maybe the therapist could use it as a chance to dig into some of Jacob's issues with Carter, without Carter there to refute things. And sure enough, it went shockingly well. Despite Jacob indicating that he didn't remember Carter's birth or how he felt at the time, the therapist painted a pretty clear picture to him of what might have happened: this new kid shows up, everyone is fawning over him, and Jacob's getting a lot less attention. As time goes on, Carter is a sweet, fun baby and toddler, and people are still making a fuss. All the while, Jacob's behavior is still rough so we're still having to discipline him while his brother is the "perfect" child. Jacob still thinks we see him that way, even though it's quite clear to us that Carter is not perfect--and in fact we yell at him and punish him a lot for some of the crap he pulls on his brother or the stubbornness he exhibits at bedtime or when screen time is over. As the therapist explains it, though, that narrative of Carter being "perfect" and us liking him better is already written into Jacob's head, so he almost can't see that our treatment of them is more even than he thinks. So our challenge will be rewriting that narrative for him. When it's Carter's turn next time, my guess is that it will come out that his mindset is one of a bullied kid--he takes offense to the extreme because he's so triggered by Jacob's ongoing criticism of him. So my guess is that we will need to rewrite that narrative as well, so Carter can learn to trust his brother and not assume he's making fun of him. But this revelation felt pretty huge. It hasn't really changed anything in our current life, mind you, because we haven't really figured out how to rewrite the narrative, but it's a step. So we celebrated with lunch at Bill Gray's!
In the meantime, Carter had a really lose tooth. He lost his bottom middle teeth a while ago, and they grew in fine and are barely noticeable. I've been dreading the loss of the top teeth for a while, since I know it's really the end of the little kid smile and the beginning of the big kid face. They've been loose for a long time, but recently they got really loose. The one was really bad, and he was messing around doing this gross thing with it:
His teeth were so wonky with it flopping around in there, and I could barely get a "normal" picture of his real smile--a last souvenir--because there's a lot of space in his mouth now and the teeth are looking a bit disheveled! Still cute, though!
I was a bit worried to even let him sleep with it, because I thought he might swallow it. By Saturday morning, it was literally hanging on by a thread. Only one side was attached and I didn't want him to eat or brush his teeth because it was so bad. I encouraged him to pull it, and he grabbed a tissue and started working on it. After a few minutes, out it came!
So now we have half a hole (and wonky spacing around it) and another loose tooth that moves askew once in a while. Ewww. I think it'll be out within a week. That's a bit more space than Jacob's top teeth had--he lost them both within a day of each other!
After not having time or energy most of the week to work on my diamond painting, I finally took enough time to finish off the bottom quarter! I did a couple inches on the next section up tonight. God knows I needed it after day 1 of home life. More on that soon.
On Sunday we were supposed to see our niece and nephew in their senior musical, but since that was canceled we instead spent the day with Craig's family for his mom's birthday. It was good to get some family time since we hadn't seen most of them in months. It felt a little weird going out, but since we only went from house to house, it felt less concerning. Of course, it was right on the heels of Erie County getting their first three positives. Mind you, back home we jumped to 10 (now 11) thanks in part to a middle school lunch lady who exposed a bunch of people. It's scary to watch it grow, and clearly it will only get worse. So, home it is. For a long time.
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