The Hard Reboot

Around 5am, after Bob left for work, I heard the pitter patter of Jack feet scuttle in my direction.  We snuggled and continued to snooze until 9am.  Jack was content, shoveling french toast and an orange into his mouth and watching "Team Umizoomi" for the umpteenth time.  Our speech therapist, a lovely lady named Alison, arrived around 10:15am.  All hell broke loose.

Alison sat on the floor and asked Jack to play with her, and Jack lost it - screaming, flailing and throwing himself on floor pillows.  Tantrum time a-go-go.  I'm sure after the last few days, the last thing he wanted to do was meet the demands of another outsider.  He climbed into his swing, muttering and looking in any direction except ours, and eventually quieted down.  Alison suggested I put on his favorite music.  So, I headed over to our stereo system and attempted to load a little Justin Roberts on the iPod.

No sound.  That's funny...it worked just fine the last time.  I looked at the screen, and the iPod kept flipping from one song to the next, skipping over the tracks.  Okay, this happened before.  I decided to give it a hard reboot.  Usually, that system restart solves the problem.  Instead, I was faced with a big red X.

A big red X?   C'mon!  What does that mean?  According to Apple, this happens sometimes, and it gives a spiel about going into disk mode and restoring the iPod back to factory settings, thus deleting everything saved on it. 

This got me thinking.  When Bob called and asked for the daily update, I shared this lovely new problem.  His response, "You've got to be kidding me. Awesome.  That's just awesome.  I give up."  I said, "I wish there was a way that we could restore our lives back to factory settings."  Is there a button somewhere hidden on our bodies?  Touch your nose and blink three times maybe?  Even better, could we choose a restore point, saved at a particular point in our lives, and start over from there?  This led to a nice post-dinner discussion between Bob and I.

Bob's System Restore Point:  He wants to return the night before he brought our cat, Sam, home.  That little pisser.  Literally.  I think he feels that Sam triggered our black hole of mad, bad luck.  Then, Bob claims that he wouldn't have let me fall down the steps and break my leg.  We would have picked a different "new" car (long story).  And he wouldn't have burned his ankle with blistering hot coffee today.  Fair enough.

Rebecca's System Restore Point:  We took Jack to a friend's house for a playdate last summer, prior to his diagnosis.  Well, she's a friend of a friend...this was our first time hanging out.  It was a complete disaster.  Jack cried the entire time.  Their little boy, only a few months older than Jack, was precociously verbal and anxious to play with our son.  This was the first day that I knew in my heart that something was going on with Jack developmentally.  Pair that with this couple being a several tax brackets up from us, living in their $200,000 house and debating about which pool to install in their backyard while we exist paycheck to paycheck in our Sharpsburg rental house and spray our son with a hose for fun.  Yeah, that was a great day.  Having that choice to make again, I would never pursue that playdate.  It still resonates with me and makes me feel like crap. 

Okay, here we go...wish me luck!  Let the system restoration commence.
Touch my nose.  Blink three times.
Nothing.
Press my belly button and jump five times.
Do the hokey pokey and spin myself around.
Ugh.  No good.
Maybe a cocktail followed by a good night's rest? 

Well, that stinks.  Doesn't matter...my guess is that we'd make the same damn decisions the second time around or different decisions that lead us to the same damn place.  What matters most, I suppose, is what we do next and how we handle the consequences.  New day, new decisions, new problems to solve.  Until I find the magic system restore button, we'll settle for a daily system restart and see what happens.