don't look at the naked autistic boy

That's it!

The title of my memoir, should such occur.

This morning was frantic beyond frantic. Ed's been gone for what seems like a couple of years but has actually been just 10 days, and, today, C. has a math test. This one snuck up on me, although I had it on my calendar; par for the course seeing as how calendars seem frequently to fail me, or I to fail them.

Did I not enter a "Remind me" date?

Probably.

The point is: I can't have math tests sneaking up on me.

I wasn't involved in C's first test of the year. Result: grade of 60.

I taught and retaught like crazy for the second test. Result: grade of 87.

Sneaking up is bad.

C. seems in much better shape this time around, so there's hope. Nevertheless, because I didn't see this one coming, I had to add test prep to the morning's customary festivities, which meant that as I was trying to get Jimmy and Andrew into school-ready condition ("EAT YOUR TOAST" "TAKE YOUR MEDICINE") I was also printing out edhelper worksheets on rational expressions raised to negative powers, stapling worksheets and answer sheets together, discovering I had no idea which answer sheets went with which worksheets, tossing out the original batch, reprinting worksheets in a neat and orderly sequence....then discovering the problems on the worksheets were far too complicated to give C. any real practice in the fundamentals of simplifying a rational expression raised to a negative power, AND THEN concocting simple problems, on the spot, for C. to practice on while I was also spreading peanut butter on toast for Andrew and then discovering that Andrew's toast was actually Jimmy's toast, which meant that, in fact, after all the EAT YOUR TOAST shrieking, Jimmy had not actually eaten any freaking toast.

Down to the wire on toast and rational expressions raised to negative powers, we all had to scramble into the car to make it to the bus, the only problems being that I didn't have my glasses and Andrew didn't have his clothes.

No time for glasses; no time for clothes; pile into car (JIMMY, GET IN THE CAR); roar down to bus stop.

Miss bus.

Onward to school, sans glasses and clothes.

C., being 13, was concerned. After all, we are driving up to the school with his autistic twin and his autistic big brother, so we're already standing out from the crowd, and his autistic twin is not wearing clothes.

I tried to distract him with talk of PEMDAS.

"Will anyone see that Andrew is naked?" he asked.

"No," I said. "They'll see that he isn't wearing a shirt, but they won't see that he isn't wearing any pants."

C. brightened.

"Don't look at the naked autistic boy!"