Pops B-day

Pops birthday is tomarrow.
And get this - Pops and I are going out. Yep. The 2 of us alone. That NEVER happens. Having Granny here makes using a babysitter very complicated. We use to have the kids stay with her. But there have been episodes of Aj getting out of control with yelling and even once kicking her. Granny, of course doessn't really remember these events, and Aj may recall but doesn't really care. BUT Ki remembers and is appropriately distressed by the mayhem. But hos does one have a babysitter over when Granny thinks she s the babysitter?
Well, we were able to do it the other night! One of the kids I see for speech has a Nanny who is likly about 30. She has been in our home and spent some time with both my Mom and kids and knows the whole wacky family. So I had her come over and stay. And it seems to have gone well and she said she would do it again! I did pay her, but my house is far from a typical babysitting/nanny job.

Soo tomarrow for Pops bday jennyalice and Decartes, her husband, are taking my kids in the early evening...and then ALL NIGHT. They have a daughter Lucy, who is nearly
2. Aj loves her, because she is a toddler. He and Ki also adore jennyalice and Decartes and they are wonderful with both kids.
Thier son Jake is 7 and has autism. The difficulty lies in Aj's fear/dislike of kids who have autism. Yes, you read that correctly. In the past I thought by supplying that label and descriptions of how some of our friend's kids were still learning to play and talk that it would help my kids understand the behaviors of my friend's kids. NOT. For Ki it made her a bit cautious and concerned. I think because in the past most of these boys have expressed thier interest in wanting to play and engage with her by wacking her. Understandable, she is cute.
My attempts to educate backfired with Aj. Of course the irony is that he does not see himself as different. One blessing here is that I have reluctantly shared this issue with a few of my Mama friends that have kids with ASD and they have seen the irony and some have gotten a laugh out of it. Which is good. Better then them wanting to give him a kick in the behind.
I think it might be that the behaviors of my buddies boys who have ASD can seem unpredictable and unexpected in Aj's eyes, which they are (and so are his, but of course he lacks this perspective). So for Aj who has PDD-NOS and wants the world to be structured, predictable and rule bound this is seen as distressing. Or that's my take on it. When I am feeling resonable. Otherwise I sometimes want to grab him and shake sense into him.
So back to date night. I do have serious concerns that Aj will say some horrid things about Jake in front of him and to his parents. Not good.
I'll have to talk with jennyalice more in the am and further remind and prepare her.
On a better note. The date night plans include:
perhaps a nap after dropping kids off-or time to go shopping for house stuff
dinner 7 pm at Il Fornaio in Palo Alto, time to walk around down town and then over to Watercourse Way at 9:50 to enjoy a hot tub and suana for the 2 of us for 1 1/2 hours. For his gift I bought 4 tickets to go see Hairspray for a Sunday matinee at the Orpheum theater in SF. Kids are excited by this gift as we rented the movie previously. Today I had them listen to and watch clips that are on the web page. On a large piece of paper, Ki and I drew a pic of the logo from HAirspray, wrote out hairspray and the date and time of the performance and she drew a pic of the 4 of us. I then cut it up like a puzzle and put the pieces in 2 different envelopes the kids had decorated. So Pops can put the puzzle together to reveal his gift! We also boughrt him strawberry plants at the nursery.
Updates later!