Today was a very rainy day. Upon approaching the school where Hnat had his prep lessons (if that’s the correct name for that), I thought we might see my new local friend with the kids.
And we’ve seen him with the kids in there, the very neighbouring class next door to Hnat’s! They were happy to see us, me and Nadia, and we were happy to see them too! Their middle son pointed finger at me, fiddling the father’s hand.
We chatted for a while, grabbed kids, and agreed we’d go with them by their car. They had empty seats in their 7 seats car (Mitsubishi Outlander), and my friend is happy to have us in his new car, finally! And we’re happy to join them. Plus, avoiding the rain as a bonus.
We were trying to get seated, and their elder girl was irritated by some minuscle things, like someone sitting here, or there. That was a drama out of a thin air, over the thing that won’t happen: she did not want for anyone else to sit in her seat, but that wasn’t even planned. Everyone had their seat, without any issues. It all was quite noisy and impulsive (for the lack of the better word), and my friend told me smilingly that I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable over this seating process, and he enjoys it. He meant us, me and my kids, aren’t creating any discomfort for them, and him especially. As in ‘there’s no problem, it’s all OK.’ I did not complain, it was.
Then, there was this situation, I was willing to have noted down. We chatted, and the eldest girl was interrupting us here and there — I’m OK with this, kids do that all the time. It’s in their nature, and they want the attention, and not to be ignored. Then, there was this moment: he shared that he had Polish tourists in his car today, and the conversation he had with them.
That happens amidst some diplomatic conflict over Lviv declaring the next 2027 year as the year of UPA, and Poles are irritated by this, because they associate that with the genocide, or something like that. The only sane position here is to probably politely apologise with ‘not your fucking business,’ but Ukraine is in this position when we’re genocided in the real time, and these fuckers push us that a century ago, there was some kind of conflict in which some civilians were slaughtered. I’m not belitelling the event, it’s horrible. But there are many things to contribute to this context: this topic arises when Russia needs Poles and Ukrainians to fight, and some of the details aren’t super clear and obvious, as far as I know this history. One side has one point of view, the other has another or even opposite point of view. My point is, the independent country can have their own heroes, and the Ukrainian Army is obviously very important to Ukraine amidst the fucking genocidal war that’s happening right now, while Poles, and especially their fucker current president are kissing russian arses at the very same time.
Also, they don’t talk shit of Deutch people, do they? Because they go to Germany to work. Yet, Germans performed a much worse genocide right on their territory. Also, they don’t talk shit about fucking Russians, as they were doing genocide with Germans back then, and do genocide today.
So, we discussed this, but the kid overcried us with her ‘what?! Somebody was sitting in my seat?! WHY?!’ ‘Well, you know…’ the dad hesitates, ‘I’ve been paid for that, you know’
‘I don’t want anyone to sit in my seat!’ yells the non-autistic perfectly normo-typical kid, and the dad’s reaction is ‘OK, sorry.’
I mean, I understand, he rather means ‘oh, shut up already, we want to talk for a while, we want to chat here, at least fifteen fucking minutes,’ even if he’s not really aware of that. He’s polite and loving dad, so he may even supress the thought like that (which is not really healthy, I think).
I don’t think exactly like that, by the way, but it’s close.
I don’t mind being interrupted, as our chat isn’t something very important. I’m rather somewhat irritated by the conversation. It’s impossible in our family, and even when our autistic kid wants for things to be the certain way, due to her autistic nature, we behave differently. We’d tell the kid that there’s no place of her/his own, that it’s the place she/he usually sits on, but that does not make it automatically theirs, and does not mean, in any possible situation that anyone else is forbidden to sit there. Especially when the father uses that car for work, and is getting paid to drive people in there.
It’s very easy to fall into the usual behaviour and do the things the only way, again and again, and again, and again. That’s why, even with Nadia, we’d not allow a thing like that. Yes, it may be uncomfortable to sit differently, but it’s needed to be done than, to break that stress at the early stages.
When we started going to school with Nadia, one year ago, we had one route home, via tram. The tram stop is nearby the school, and so it’s natural place to jump into the transport. Then, we go through the forest, about 20 minutes, up the hill. But there’s an alternative way: go 15 minutes to the trolleybus or bus, and it’s 5 minutes home, just a regular landscape, through the buildings. All-in-all, it’s a similar way. It’s less comfortable, due to all of us preferring calm forest over the noisy street with lots of people being int the bus or trolleybus, but they’re very similar. Also, the 2nd route is through the Hnat’s kindergarten. So, at some point we started taking the 2nd route. And Nadia, being used to the 1st route (and the only one as she apparently thought) went hysterical each and every time we went there. First weeks, it was very difficult and heartbreaking to go with her through there. I had no other choice, but force her to go, ignoring her weeps. I tried to calm her down, but nothing helped. Over time, she understood that this way is also home, and wasn’t panicking.
Why this triggers me is that our child truly needs that comfort, yet for her to grow, and understand more, and understand things better, we have to ‘break’ her, in a way. Here, the girl just bitching about whatever she wants, and the parents (the exhausted parents with three little kids) are just ‘do what you want, just don’t touch us.’