The Notebook

You've heard it a million times...parenting is a thankless job. For those of us who feel words of affirmation are a necessity...those who grapple to find a compliment on a job well done, well, I guess parenting falls a bit flat in this area. No one is going to sit you down to tell you that you've done a good job diapering, meal planning, breastfeeding...but maybe you could use some work in the stain treatment arena and possibly a few pointers in play management...but you deserve a 10% raise. Yay you! Great job, congratulations, high-fives, way-to-goes! Nope. Okay, so certainly, somewhere there is a place I can really excel, maybe get someone to notice what a fine job I do. So I find myself making a notebook for Louie, who with special needs, comes complete with a bunch of paperwork. This is not any notebook. It's one of those 3" three-ring binders, I think they call it Super-Duty or something, anyway, it's nice. I have white dividers, and they have to be white, no colors thank you. And on the dividers, I have created labels on my handy-dandy label maker, "Medical Records", "IEPs", "PT evaluations", and on and on. I've organized the paperwork from earliest to latest by date. It's a beautiful, beautiful notebook. I take it to every meeting. I show it to people who do home visits. In one study we are a part of, I took my notebook so they could make copies of Louie's latest evaluations.
The graduate student responsible for making the copies commented "Wow, this is a really great notebook."
"Really?" I say, hopeful.
"Yes, one of the best I've seen in a while...a few years," she answers.
"A few years?" I ask gleefully. "Thank you, thank you so much!"

So there you have it. That, my friend, is desperation. Maybe it's just me, but I'm looking very, very hard for those small nuggets of positive reinforcement comparable to oxygen, to an overachiever, what-happened-to-my-6-month-review type such as myself.