My journey of 30d of change started September 1, a Wednesday, and I’m blogging about the three things per day for 30 days that I’m doing for the month. My intent is to blog the day afterwards, so here is the short update for Thursday September 2nd.

Item 2.1 was a bit larger — we went to Jacob’s new school for a tour. This is a good example of the type of thing I want to do more of in my life.

We didn’t really need to do the tour, Jacob is 12yo, all good. But he does have anxiety issues, and it’s a good idea for him to see things in advance, know what to expect, even if he doesn’t absolutely need it. A simple safety valve that ensures a good start to his new school, particularly after 18m of virtual school from home. It’s going to be a big deal for him to be around other people all day again, AND to have to wear a mask, AND to be at a new school, AND in a portable, AND taking city buses to / from the school. It’s a lot of change for a single day.

When we talked to him about it, I offered him a ride for the first day, and he was like, “Nah, I’ve got it.” Mom and he had already done a dry run. Great. Except he doesn’t have his Presto card yet for the bus. And it isn’t clear where he’s going when he gets to the school. So we did a quick one-on-one visit to ensure he’s all good, met a learning support teacher, saw the likely portable he’ll be in. Just a little quick “look ahead”, and we found out too that even on the morning of the first day, parents are generally not welcome because they don’t want us taking up important social distancing space.

The reason I say that I want to do more of this type of thing is not related to Jacob. What I mean is that I want to do more of these simple top-ups, activities that aren’t necessarily required, but which can make everyone’s life a little easier, and ensures we have success for J on his big first day. J’s decided he would like a ride on Day 1, since he doesn’t yet have the bus pass from the school.

Would he be fine without a ride? Sure. Without having had the tour? Sure. But now we all know what he’s doing, where he’s going, and we’ve already dealt with a couple of minor stress points for him so he won’t have to figure it out while he’s dealing with all the other stuff going by him on Day 1. I’ll call that a win.

Item 2.2 was follow-up to yesterday’s item on my website. The host is doing the recovery and repair, I only had to upload some files, and redirect some links. The good news is they seem to have found a backup of a backup of a backup that is reasonably intact, so they may just restore the original server. In the interim, they’re trying to get my new lifeboat account going. I’ve done all my stuff, just waiting for them to fix the last bit. A little annoying, but not stressful. I haven’t lost anything.

Item 2.3 is related to the first one about Jacob, at least sort of, I guess. As I mentioned, he has had some anxiety about a couple of issues, and because of some likely upcoming surgery, we set him up with a social worker through CHEO that talks to him about some of the issues as well as coping mechanisms, calming techniques, etc. Stuff he can talk to us about, but a different voice helps. Oddly enough, while it was primarily for him, Andrea and I usually talk to her for 20-30m too, tell her what’s going on, what we’re doing, things we’ve seen, etc. I love the fact that Jacob is able to do this, in part because it reinforces to him that talking about emotions and mental health issues is normal. It’s not hidden, or secret, or scary. It also reinforces his own sense of empathy. He’s better at explaining his thoughts to us, and to others. He talked to the support teacher at the school, rather than shutting down, he asked questions of her, etc. He’s still shy, and he’ll always be an introvert, but he knows how to self-advocate better than he used to do. And so, again, it’s not 100% required but it makes his life better. I like those kind of top-ups.

Onward…