14

 The night was taken up by a massive thunderstorm.  Aaron kept me up watching the radar for sneaky tornadoes.  

In the wee hours of the morning, during a lull in the rain, he asked for a bathroom trip, so off we went.

We made a couple new friends.

Meet Lumps.

This guy needed emergency relocation to avoid getting caught underwheel and then in the door frame of a closing door.

We finally slept, and I woke up at dawn, against my will.  At least I had coffee.

We decided to have ramen for lunch.  Both kids like it prepared differently so I usually just nuke it, but I don't have my nuker here.  So I boiled water in my kettle, then poured it over their noodles in bowls, then covered the bowls to let the noodles cook.  One kid needs smashed noodles to accommodate his swallow dysfunction, the other needs long for his sensory issues.

Burn!

I call myself the household short order cook sometimes, because between the kids' conflicting sensory issues and Aaron's bulbar dysfunction, they often eat different things.  Aaron eats very little meat; roasted meat is almost always a texture Joey's ARFID does not object to, for instance.

Aaron supervises.

After lunch an email came in.  A beloved friend who had offered to store our things until we were housed put a time limit on it, and we'll need to do a little (a lot) of juggling if we don't get housed in time.

They haven't spoken to me since notifying me that they were going to be reporting our plan to camp to Aaron's social worker, since then ignoring any messages I send.  Aaron's social worker was unfazed, understanding it was the best of terrible options.  (Joey's social worker cried a little.)  My suspicion, in the absence of any communication, is that my old friend finds an insurmountable difference in ethics between us.

Their plan was for us to separate into shelters and institutionalized care, and they find our tent living completely insupportable of me.  I do not have enough trust in a system that has so repeatedly and catastrophically failed us for the last 4 years to go with their wish that we separate rather than camp.

A genuinely shocking percentage of people in care experience abuse.  The trauma the kids have already faced caused serious mental illness for both of them.

I couldn't do it.

I had myself a little cry over what is probably the end of a 20 year friendship with a person I considered my family.  I avoid crying in front of the kids because it's so hard for them, but there really isn't private cry space in a tent.  

Then I napped a bit.

Then Aaron wanted to go to the pool, since it was still hot out!

Unfortunately after we did our whole getting ready routine - wheelchair out of the tent, to the VIP bathroom, showering, changing to swimsuits, rolling him .16 a mile to the pool - we realized I'd forgotten his life vest.

He is very disappointed in me right now.

By the time we got back up the hill into the actual campground, it was evening, and we tucked into the tent for the night.