Monday, September 23, 2002
September 23-27, 2002
SEPTEMBER 23, 2002
We had some excitement here on Saturday in the form of an ambulance, a police car, two paramedics and a policeman. The occasion of their visit was not, thankfully, a problem with my kids but with their grandmother, who lives with us. She was sick enough that her doctor had ordered me to call 911, but not so sick as to be in serious danger. So the whole spectacle of emergency vehicles coming to our home was more thrilling than chilling.
The men who came to our house were friendly, professional and efficient, but what impressed me most was how kind and understanding they were to my son, who was jumping around so excitedly he could easily have just annoyed them. Instead, one of the paramedics asked me for my son's name, and then called to him and asked him to go wait for the police car and show the policeman where to come. When the officer did arrive, he cheerfully answered my boy’s questions about the police car and allowed his keys to be examined. When they left, the ambulance driver gave the siren a blast at the kids’ request, and then they were gone, leaving my son with an exciting story to tell anyone who would listen: "Two Fords came to our house, an ambulance and a police car!"
Odd for a visit from emergency personnel to be, in the end, a good experience. (Not so good for Grandma, of course, but she is doing better now.)
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 24, 2002
I was sorry to hear the news that one of the few magazines I take the time to read regularly, "Rosie," is soon to be no more. Its namesake has apparently tired of fighting with editorial types to see her vision realized -- and having worked for a women's magazine and been an editorial type myself, I don't blame her one bit -- and is bowing out of her publication as she did her TV show. Some will take this as yet another example of the foolishness of depending on celebrities, and they may be right. I think it's yet another example of the impossibility of making real, radical changes in an established magazine format, and I may be right, too.
At any rate, I'm sad to see it go. Although unable to break out of the fashion-makeup-recipes-decorating women's magazine mold, I thought "Rosie" did some interesting new things with those old standbys. The appearance of stars of varying wattages in its pages was similarly unavoidable, but again, the celebs were employed creatively, and if that didn't always work (as it turns out, I don't really want to take parenting advice from actresses), I appreciated the effort. I thought the writing was generally good and refreshingly opinionated, a departure from the even-handedness most women's magazines apply so heavily that no conclusions can ever be drawn.
Most of all, though, I liked "Rosie" because it felt like a parenting magazine for *me* -- for a middle-aged mom with kids adopted well past infancy, who couldn't care less about diapers and breast-feeding and playgroup politics but is very interested in articles about adoption and kids with special needs and social issues affecting children. If the publishers of "Rosie" are going to turn it into yet another magazine (it was originally "McCall's"), I hope they'll keep that slant. Probably about as much chance of that, though, as of the magazine being rechristined "Caroline Rhea."
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 25, 2002
The recent story of a mom who was caught on a parking lot security camera beating her daughter has given me chills, but not for the reasons it should. Of course, on some level, I'm appalled that a mother would treat her child that way, and glad for the child to be brought to safety and the parent to justice. But at the same time -- man, would *you* like your worst parenting moments to be caught on tape and broadcast on the TV news? Without for a moment condoning child-beating in any venue whatsoever, I think I can say that the notion of security people scanning video screens looking not just for car thieves and muggers but for parents behaving badly makes me want very much to never leave the house. Anyone else getting the heebie-jeebies?
I guess it's true these days that security cameras are always with us, in the bank, in the convenience store, in the parking lot, in the dressing room. They're there when we drop embarrassing personal items into our shopping basket, they're there when we try on hideously poor-fitting clothing, they're there when we pause by a shiny piece of reflective metal to check our hair, they're there when we give the car next to us a door ding and then try to pretend we didn't, they're there when we lose our temper with a cashier or a spouse or a child. Most of the time we allow ourselves to forget that we're being watched; but stories like the one about the parking-lot mom make me remember, all too clearly. And personally, I'm not so ready for my close-up.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 27, 2002
Last night was "Back to School" night at my kids' school, and I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. The new superintendant of our district, who happens to have kids at our school, made a speech in which he correctly identified the problems the district is facing, including my pet peeves of poor communication and lack of thoughtful long-range planning. Of course, as many a politician has discovered, there's a large and scary space between identifying problems and actually doing something about them. But identifying is good.
I was happy to see that my son's classroom was arranged appropriately for his particular special needs, and that the teacher was doing things like starting the morning with exercises and giving rewards throughout the day. His textbooks were at the right level and all the adults in the room seem pleased with him (and there are a *lot* of adults in the room -- a teacher, a classroom aide and two one-on-one aides vs. six kids). So far, so good, I guess.
I'd already been to my daughter's classroom and met her teacher, but it was nice to see where her desk was and notice the folder with two A tests on top of it. The year's starting out well. But we'll see. "Cautious" is about as high as my optimism meter goes these days.
Monday, September 16, 2002
September 16-20, 2002
SEPTEMBER 16, 2002
My son is fascinated with the idea that the MRI he had on Thursday took pictures of his brain. He's sure that when we see the doctor today, she's going to give him some snapshots that he can take to school and show around. He's been promising people that they'll be able to take a look at his brain soon.
He'll probably be disappointed when he actually sees what the camera took, if the doctor even has the results there to show. Clearly, he's expecting something along the lines of a nice little brain sitting on a tabletop, posing for Polaroids. His first words to me upon waking up were, "Where's my brain?" Although I tried to explain how the camera takes its pictures of the brain through skin and bone, I think he's still pretty sure we removed it for its screen test.
As for me, I know the MRI results don't look like anything a 9-year-old would consider to be a brain photo op, but my expectations are probably pretty unrealistic, too. In my dreams, those scans will unlock some secrets of my boy's lobes, illuminate his strengths and weaknesses, suggest ways to help or hinder. And of course, I'm hoping that those indications will match the ones I've cooked up in my own personal brain cells. Whether they'll answer any questions at all, much less the way I want, is for us to find out this morning at 10 a.m. I hope useful information isn't as unlikely as 8x10 glossies.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 17, 2002
Well, the bad news is that my son really did have a seizure last week. The abnormal spikes on the EEG backed up with the inability to move his left arm and leg that I reported were enough to convince the doctor that he'd had one, and what I saw was the aftermath. Since this is only the second seizure in the eight years he's been with us, the doctor's advice was not to panic, but just to keep a closer eye on him. Hard to imagine we could watch him any closer than we already do, but I don't mind trying.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that I got a little validation for my observations. I was pretty sure that the EEG would show nothing, and I would be left with no relief for the vague feelings of guilt over making a big fuss over something that might have been nothing. Now I know that it was something after all. It's nice, once in a while, to know you were right.
That small feeling of triumph wasn't quite drowned out by the way my son behaved at the doctor's office, although he sure tried. What is it about doctors that make kids bring out their most extreme behavior? My son is never more wild than when he's being examined, and my daughter is never more shy and inarticulate. It makes me want to place secret cameras all around our home and school and compile videotapes of my kids being their funny, ineractive, wonderful selves. Then maybe I could leave the kids at home for the exams entirely.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 18, 2002
So a new TV season is beginning yet again, and again I'll probably miss most of it. It's hard to watch TV before my daughter and son go to bed, because they've got our two sets locked onto the Disney Channel and the Food Network, respectively; and it's hard to watch it after they go to bed, because I tend to fall asleep the moment I sit down. I have a couple of old favorite shows I make time for, but they're getting fewer and fewer as my stamina decreases and cancellations increase (okay, so I'm still not entirely over the fact that "Once and Again" got the hook). There's not much this year that looks so wondrous as to remake my schedule of kids and sleep.
The one show I did set my clock for was Bonnie Hunt's new sit-com, called "Bonnie" or "Bonnie Hunt" or "The Bonnie Hunt Show" or something original like that. I'm a big enough fan of the actress that I'm putting my self-imposed ABC boycott (see "Once and Again," above) on hold for half an hour on Tuesdays to see if she can survive on the "Now You See It, Now You Don't" network. I was even able to convince my daughter to turn off Disney's other channel long enough to watch it with me, since she's seen "Return to Me" with me a dozen times and was up for watching "that blond lady" in something else.
Turns out a large slice of the cast of "Return to Me" is in the sit-com with her, and it was fun for my daughter to see all those actors in new roles (and confusing, since she hasn't completely grasped the fact that the characters in a show and the actors who play them are two separate entities, and I know she was secretly wondering why Charlie the Veterinarian and the waitress and the "water lady" were all doing different jobs and wearing different hairstyles). She liked it all enough to watch it again next week, and so did I. Any family show that can make my family seem calm and organized by comparison is going to keep me coming back.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 19, 2002
Lovely news this morning from European researchers, who report that the germs in dust actually protect kids from developing hay fever and asthma. Don't you love it? All of us slovenly housekeepers have been magically transformed into health-minded moms, just like that. Put down the feather duster, girls, and have another cup of coffee.
I'd be feeling really good about this news except that, alas, my mother did keep a dust-free house, and now I am beset by horrible hay fever. Clearly, Mom did not pass the Need to Clean down to me, and so I may be able to keep the Need to Sneeze 10 Times in a Row from my own kids. The Need to be Lazy, though ... ah, it may be too late for that.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 20, 2002
My son put himself to bed last night. That's a remarkable occurrence, because we're talking about a boy who usually has to be lassoed, wrestled, and forceably restrained to get him under the covers. But last night, Mama and Papa both fell asleep themselves well before kiddie bedtime -- me, because of an allergy medication that was not kidding when it said it would make you drowsy, and my husband, because, well, because falling asleep in front of the television is what he does -- and the little ones were left to fend for themselves. Our daughter used that freedom to watch a Disney Channel movie all the way to the end, then sit in her room listening to music and combing her hair and waiting for someone to stir. But our son, we found in his bed, all tucked in and sound asleep.
Now, of course, the system's not perfect. He was tucked in with the blanket under his chin on a warm night, and so was covered with sweat. And he hadn't gone to the bathroom pre-tuck-in, so we had to wake him up and go through the whole bedtime routine anyway. And of course, it wouldn't have hurt either of these young people to just GO AHEAD AND WAKE US UP when bedtime came and went. But if we can refine things a little, get the little guy to remember his pre-bed bathroom trip and the big girl to stop combing her hair and go to sleep, maybe we could just go ahead and stop pretending and set the adult bedtime in our house a half-hour or so earlier than the children's bedtime. Goodness knows we're the ones who are really tired at the end of the day.
My son is fascinated with the idea that the MRI he had on Thursday took pictures of his brain. He's sure that when we see the doctor today, she's going to give him some snapshots that he can take to school and show around. He's been promising people that they'll be able to take a look at his brain soon.
He'll probably be disappointed when he actually sees what the camera took, if the doctor even has the results there to show. Clearly, he's expecting something along the lines of a nice little brain sitting on a tabletop, posing for Polaroids. His first words to me upon waking up were, "Where's my brain?" Although I tried to explain how the camera takes its pictures of the brain through skin and bone, I think he's still pretty sure we removed it for its screen test.
As for me, I know the MRI results don't look like anything a 9-year-old would consider to be a brain photo op, but my expectations are probably pretty unrealistic, too. In my dreams, those scans will unlock some secrets of my boy's lobes, illuminate his strengths and weaknesses, suggest ways to help or hinder. And of course, I'm hoping that those indications will match the ones I've cooked up in my own personal brain cells. Whether they'll answer any questions at all, much less the way I want, is for us to find out this morning at 10 a.m. I hope useful information isn't as unlikely as 8x10 glossies.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 17, 2002
Well, the bad news is that my son really did have a seizure last week. The abnormal spikes on the EEG backed up with the inability to move his left arm and leg that I reported were enough to convince the doctor that he'd had one, and what I saw was the aftermath. Since this is only the second seizure in the eight years he's been with us, the doctor's advice was not to panic, but just to keep a closer eye on him. Hard to imagine we could watch him any closer than we already do, but I don't mind trying.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that I got a little validation for my observations. I was pretty sure that the EEG would show nothing, and I would be left with no relief for the vague feelings of guilt over making a big fuss over something that might have been nothing. Now I know that it was something after all. It's nice, once in a while, to know you were right.
That small feeling of triumph wasn't quite drowned out by the way my son behaved at the doctor's office, although he sure tried. What is it about doctors that make kids bring out their most extreme behavior? My son is never more wild than when he's being examined, and my daughter is never more shy and inarticulate. It makes me want to place secret cameras all around our home and school and compile videotapes of my kids being their funny, ineractive, wonderful selves. Then maybe I could leave the kids at home for the exams entirely.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 18, 2002
So a new TV season is beginning yet again, and again I'll probably miss most of it. It's hard to watch TV before my daughter and son go to bed, because they've got our two sets locked onto the Disney Channel and the Food Network, respectively; and it's hard to watch it after they go to bed, because I tend to fall asleep the moment I sit down. I have a couple of old favorite shows I make time for, but they're getting fewer and fewer as my stamina decreases and cancellations increase (okay, so I'm still not entirely over the fact that "Once and Again" got the hook). There's not much this year that looks so wondrous as to remake my schedule of kids and sleep.
The one show I did set my clock for was Bonnie Hunt's new sit-com, called "Bonnie" or "Bonnie Hunt" or "The Bonnie Hunt Show" or something original like that. I'm a big enough fan of the actress that I'm putting my self-imposed ABC boycott (see "Once and Again," above) on hold for half an hour on Tuesdays to see if she can survive on the "Now You See It, Now You Don't" network. I was even able to convince my daughter to turn off Disney's other channel long enough to watch it with me, since she's seen "Return to Me" with me a dozen times and was up for watching "that blond lady" in something else.
Turns out a large slice of the cast of "Return to Me" is in the sit-com with her, and it was fun for my daughter to see all those actors in new roles (and confusing, since she hasn't completely grasped the fact that the characters in a show and the actors who play them are two separate entities, and I know she was secretly wondering why Charlie the Veterinarian and the waitress and the "water lady" were all doing different jobs and wearing different hairstyles). She liked it all enough to watch it again next week, and so did I. Any family show that can make my family seem calm and organized by comparison is going to keep me coming back.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 19, 2002
Lovely news this morning from European researchers, who report that the germs in dust actually protect kids from developing hay fever and asthma. Don't you love it? All of us slovenly housekeepers have been magically transformed into health-minded moms, just like that. Put down the feather duster, girls, and have another cup of coffee.
I'd be feeling really good about this news except that, alas, my mother did keep a dust-free house, and now I am beset by horrible hay fever. Clearly, Mom did not pass the Need to Clean down to me, and so I may be able to keep the Need to Sneeze 10 Times in a Row from my own kids. The Need to be Lazy, though ... ah, it may be too late for that.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 20, 2002
My son put himself to bed last night. That's a remarkable occurrence, because we're talking about a boy who usually has to be lassoed, wrestled, and forceably restrained to get him under the covers. But last night, Mama and Papa both fell asleep themselves well before kiddie bedtime -- me, because of an allergy medication that was not kidding when it said it would make you drowsy, and my husband, because, well, because falling asleep in front of the television is what he does -- and the little ones were left to fend for themselves. Our daughter used that freedom to watch a Disney Channel movie all the way to the end, then sit in her room listening to music and combing her hair and waiting for someone to stir. But our son, we found in his bed, all tucked in and sound asleep.
Now, of course, the system's not perfect. He was tucked in with the blanket under his chin on a warm night, and so was covered with sweat. And he hadn't gone to the bathroom pre-tuck-in, so we had to wake him up and go through the whole bedtime routine anyway. And of course, it wouldn't have hurt either of these young people to just GO AHEAD AND WAKE US UP when bedtime came and went. But if we can refine things a little, get the little guy to remember his pre-bed bathroom trip and the big girl to stop combing her hair and go to sleep, maybe we could just go ahead and stop pretending and set the adult bedtime in our house a half-hour or so earlier than the children's bedtime. Goodness knows we're the ones who are really tired at the end of the day.
Monday, September 09, 2002
September 9-13, 2002
SEPTEMBER 9, 2002
It's beginning to look as though I have enough personalized address labels to last me well into the next century. I didn't buy them, of course; they come daily, unbidden, free but with a catch. I suspect that everybody who has ever donated to so much as one charity is in the same boat, and that that boat is about to sink under the weight of tiny slips of sticky paper. Donate to one charity and you'll hear from ten more, and all will want you to enjoy their lovely gift of return address.
I don't know when address labels became the charity come-on to end all charity come-ons. My parents certainly had to buy their address labels, and there are still catalogs that offer them as though they were something to spend money on. But the idea to give them away for free-ish is sure a good one, for they put the potential donor in a potentially beneficial bind. It seems wasteful -- and maybe dangerous, in this day and information age -- to throw out something useful with your name written all over it; and while it seems coercive to pay for something you didn't ask for, it also seems dishonest to use something provided by a charity without providing something in return.
And so, good-hearted sucker that I am, I usually do send a donation. But it's starting to get out of hand. I have more of these things than I can possibly use, and still they come and come and come. It's about to the point where I'll challenge any charity to send me a come-on without address labels, and I'll double my donation. Wouldn't surprise me if threats of that nature -- "Donate immediately, or we'll send you 500 address labels!" -- start cropping up in dunning letters any day now.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 10, 2002
In honor of the new health guideliness issued by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (see today's Hot Health Headline), I started yesterday morning with a little bit o' fitness in the form of following an early-morning exercise show. I was pretty proud of myself for getting up early, and pretty glad that the workout wasn't hard, until I realized that perhaps this was a workout show in name only; the exercises were few, and the shots of the bikini-clad female instructors shaking their anatomy at the camera were many. I'm thinking that lumpy middle-aged women trying to trim down are not the demographic for this show; I'm thinking it's guys who've been up all night drinking or studying and want to look at jiggly babes before falling into a coma.
Of course, even if the half-hour workout had been vigorous, it wouldn't have been enough to get me off the hook with the National Academies' Institute of Medicine. The new recommendations propose an hour or more a day of moderately intense physical exercise, and ... an hour? a day? are they NUTS? They're saying it will give me good cardiovascular health, but I'm pretty sure it would cause full cardiac arrest. Besides, who has an extra hour lying around, or the energy to fill it with exercise? And what counts as "moderately intense"? Probably not a walk with my son, which involves momentary bursts of speed broken by long minutes of staring at leaves or interacting meaningfully with bits of trash by the side of the road.
So forget those guidelines; if I make it out of bed for thirty minutes of televised calisthenics, I'm going to call that a darn fine fitness commitment. And tomorrow, I'm going to try the TV show that comes on half an hour later. I don't know if the workout's any more intense, but at least there's a muscular guy among the instructors.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 12, 2002
As a mom to kids with special needs, I sometimes feel as though I'm always doing the wrong thing: If I react to everything and try to micromanage their care or their education, I feel like I'm doing too much; but if I sit back and assume that things will be okay and everybody will do their jobs, I feel neglectful and foolishly trusting. I've been having those feelings about the start of the school year -- wondering if things weren't getting done because people resented my overinvolvement, and then noticing that they still didn't get done if I stayed out of it -- and now, in a different way, I'm feeling it about a health issue.
Yesterday morning, when I went to wake my son up, I found him on the floor. I asked if he fell out of bed and he said yes, and shook off my attempts to help him up. But it soon became apparent that he couldn't get up by himself. Every effort found him flopping back down on his left side. He didn't seem to be able to move his left arm and leg, which were if possible looser than their normal loose muscle tone. At first I thought he might have injured them in the fall, but he denied any pain (although, since he doesn't feel pain very well, I couldn't be too sure). With great effort I got him up on the bed, and after about 20 minutes he was able to move the limbs again, and after about an hour any residual weakness was gone, leaving only an extra helping of silliness in his behavior and some extra slurriness in his speech.
I probably could have sent him to school, since he was ambulatory by school time. I probably could have just added this to the list of things to mention to his neurologist when he sees her next Monday. I could have taken a calm, wait-and-see view. But instead, I kept him home and took him to the doctor, who on the basis of my account scheduled an MRI and EEG for today. And there, I think, is the root of the problem: On the basis of my account. Everything I do for my son has to be based only on my observation and articulation. He can't say what's going on, and I can't trust his report if he does, because it's liable to be either fanciful or an echo of what I've said to him. I can't even entirely trust that he couldn't move his limbs because he says he didn't. He seemed scared, and I put weight on that; but the rest is guesswork. And because of my guesswork, my guy has to be sedated and put through tests. What if I'm just making too much out of nothing, turning every little thing into a crisis to manage?
That same problem -- excessive reliance on my own observation and guesswork in the face of communication disabilities -- seems to face me everywhere I turn with my kids. Doctors grill me on my observations but share precious few of their own, and what they do share seems so heavily based on their interpretations of my interpretations that it's hard to put much credit in them. School teachers and officials seem to distribute honest information on a need-to-know basis, and even when you can prove your need to know, there's always spin, even from the very best, most concerned teachers. So I'm left to create scenarios in my head, and act accordingly, without knowing if I'm solving problems or making them. It's enough to make me want to crawl under the blankets and hide ... if I thought anybody would do anything in my absence.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 13, 2002
Three things I learned from my son's visit to the hospital for an MRI and EEG yesterday:
• Never accept an afternoon appointment for a test that requires a child not to eat or drink anything. Because my guy was being sedated, he was on strict orders not to eat anything for six hours before the test. Last time he had an EEG, it was first thing in the morning, and no eat/drink was no problem. This time, the test was at 1 p.m., which meant no eating and drinking through a very long morning of "Mooom, I'm staaaaarving." Never mind that there are many mornings in which I have to force my son to eat breakfast and drink something with it. You always want what you can't have.
• Never accept an appointment that falls around lunchtime. Did I say the test was at 1 p.m.? That might have been true had the entire staff of the hospital not apparently taken their lunch break from 12:30 to 1:30. The woman in admitting didn't really want to find out why nobody could find record of our appointment or the referral our pediatrician's office had faxed; she just wanted us to go away so she could go to the cafeteria with her girlfriends. And once we did get to the MRI front desk, we gave our names to the just-about-to-go-to-lunch receptionist and then saw nobody else for an hour. The anesthesiologist showed up about the same time the receptionist came back. Folks, if you have an appointment with McDonald's at 1 p.m., make your appointments with patients for 2.
• Never forget that one or two competent people can make the difference. I was in a panic by the time the doctor arrived, because if this hospital couldn't even register people competently, how were they going to sedate and test my boy? But in fact, while the little things in our visit were frustrating to the extreme, the big things went fine. The actual medical professionals in charge of his care were confident and competent and ran us through the two procedures smoothly and expertly. Once they showed up, I had no complaints about the process whatsoever. Too bad we had to slog through two hours of bureaucracy to get to them.
It's beginning to look as though I have enough personalized address labels to last me well into the next century. I didn't buy them, of course; they come daily, unbidden, free but with a catch. I suspect that everybody who has ever donated to so much as one charity is in the same boat, and that that boat is about to sink under the weight of tiny slips of sticky paper. Donate to one charity and you'll hear from ten more, and all will want you to enjoy their lovely gift of return address.
I don't know when address labels became the charity come-on to end all charity come-ons. My parents certainly had to buy their address labels, and there are still catalogs that offer them as though they were something to spend money on. But the idea to give them away for free-ish is sure a good one, for they put the potential donor in a potentially beneficial bind. It seems wasteful -- and maybe dangerous, in this day and information age -- to throw out something useful with your name written all over it; and while it seems coercive to pay for something you didn't ask for, it also seems dishonest to use something provided by a charity without providing something in return.
And so, good-hearted sucker that I am, I usually do send a donation. But it's starting to get out of hand. I have more of these things than I can possibly use, and still they come and come and come. It's about to the point where I'll challenge any charity to send me a come-on without address labels, and I'll double my donation. Wouldn't surprise me if threats of that nature -- "Donate immediately, or we'll send you 500 address labels!" -- start cropping up in dunning letters any day now.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 10, 2002
In honor of the new health guideliness issued by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (see today's Hot Health Headline), I started yesterday morning with a little bit o' fitness in the form of following an early-morning exercise show. I was pretty proud of myself for getting up early, and pretty glad that the workout wasn't hard, until I realized that perhaps this was a workout show in name only; the exercises were few, and the shots of the bikini-clad female instructors shaking their anatomy at the camera were many. I'm thinking that lumpy middle-aged women trying to trim down are not the demographic for this show; I'm thinking it's guys who've been up all night drinking or studying and want to look at jiggly babes before falling into a coma.
Of course, even if the half-hour workout had been vigorous, it wouldn't have been enough to get me off the hook with the National Academies' Institute of Medicine. The new recommendations propose an hour or more a day of moderately intense physical exercise, and ... an hour? a day? are they NUTS? They're saying it will give me good cardiovascular health, but I'm pretty sure it would cause full cardiac arrest. Besides, who has an extra hour lying around, or the energy to fill it with exercise? And what counts as "moderately intense"? Probably not a walk with my son, which involves momentary bursts of speed broken by long minutes of staring at leaves or interacting meaningfully with bits of trash by the side of the road.
So forget those guidelines; if I make it out of bed for thirty minutes of televised calisthenics, I'm going to call that a darn fine fitness commitment. And tomorrow, I'm going to try the TV show that comes on half an hour later. I don't know if the workout's any more intense, but at least there's a muscular guy among the instructors.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 12, 2002
As a mom to kids with special needs, I sometimes feel as though I'm always doing the wrong thing: If I react to everything and try to micromanage their care or their education, I feel like I'm doing too much; but if I sit back and assume that things will be okay and everybody will do their jobs, I feel neglectful and foolishly trusting. I've been having those feelings about the start of the school year -- wondering if things weren't getting done because people resented my overinvolvement, and then noticing that they still didn't get done if I stayed out of it -- and now, in a different way, I'm feeling it about a health issue.
Yesterday morning, when I went to wake my son up, I found him on the floor. I asked if he fell out of bed and he said yes, and shook off my attempts to help him up. But it soon became apparent that he couldn't get up by himself. Every effort found him flopping back down on his left side. He didn't seem to be able to move his left arm and leg, which were if possible looser than their normal loose muscle tone. At first I thought he might have injured them in the fall, but he denied any pain (although, since he doesn't feel pain very well, I couldn't be too sure). With great effort I got him up on the bed, and after about 20 minutes he was able to move the limbs again, and after about an hour any residual weakness was gone, leaving only an extra helping of silliness in his behavior and some extra slurriness in his speech.
I probably could have sent him to school, since he was ambulatory by school time. I probably could have just added this to the list of things to mention to his neurologist when he sees her next Monday. I could have taken a calm, wait-and-see view. But instead, I kept him home and took him to the doctor, who on the basis of my account scheduled an MRI and EEG for today. And there, I think, is the root of the problem: On the basis of my account. Everything I do for my son has to be based only on my observation and articulation. He can't say what's going on, and I can't trust his report if he does, because it's liable to be either fanciful or an echo of what I've said to him. I can't even entirely trust that he couldn't move his limbs because he says he didn't. He seemed scared, and I put weight on that; but the rest is guesswork. And because of my guesswork, my guy has to be sedated and put through tests. What if I'm just making too much out of nothing, turning every little thing into a crisis to manage?
That same problem -- excessive reliance on my own observation and guesswork in the face of communication disabilities -- seems to face me everywhere I turn with my kids. Doctors grill me on my observations but share precious few of their own, and what they do share seems so heavily based on their interpretations of my interpretations that it's hard to put much credit in them. School teachers and officials seem to distribute honest information on a need-to-know basis, and even when you can prove your need to know, there's always spin, even from the very best, most concerned teachers. So I'm left to create scenarios in my head, and act accordingly, without knowing if I'm solving problems or making them. It's enough to make me want to crawl under the blankets and hide ... if I thought anybody would do anything in my absence.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 13, 2002
Three things I learned from my son's visit to the hospital for an MRI and EEG yesterday:
• Never accept an afternoon appointment for a test that requires a child not to eat or drink anything. Because my guy was being sedated, he was on strict orders not to eat anything for six hours before the test. Last time he had an EEG, it was first thing in the morning, and no eat/drink was no problem. This time, the test was at 1 p.m., which meant no eating and drinking through a very long morning of "Mooom, I'm staaaaarving." Never mind that there are many mornings in which I have to force my son to eat breakfast and drink something with it. You always want what you can't have.
• Never accept an appointment that falls around lunchtime. Did I say the test was at 1 p.m.? That might have been true had the entire staff of the hospital not apparently taken their lunch break from 12:30 to 1:30. The woman in admitting didn't really want to find out why nobody could find record of our appointment or the referral our pediatrician's office had faxed; she just wanted us to go away so she could go to the cafeteria with her girlfriends. And once we did get to the MRI front desk, we gave our names to the just-about-to-go-to-lunch receptionist and then saw nobody else for an hour. The anesthesiologist showed up about the same time the receptionist came back. Folks, if you have an appointment with McDonald's at 1 p.m., make your appointments with patients for 2.
• Never forget that one or two competent people can make the difference. I was in a panic by the time the doctor arrived, because if this hospital couldn't even register people competently, how were they going to sedate and test my boy? But in fact, while the little things in our visit were frustrating to the extreme, the big things went fine. The actual medical professionals in charge of his care were confident and competent and ran us through the two procedures smoothly and expertly. Once they showed up, I had no complaints about the process whatsoever. Too bad we had to slog through two hours of bureaucracy to get to them.
Tuesday, September 03, 2002
September 3-6, 2002
SEPTEMBER 3, 2002
Today is the last sweet day of summer vacation for my kiddos, who start school tomorrow morning promptly at 8:45 a.m. My daughter has been calling friends to find out who's in her assigned class, my son's been completing the immense packet of worksheets his teacher asked him to bring back in the fall for a prize, and I've been quietly obsessing over whether the proper preparations will have been put into place for my two to have an appropriate academic experience. After two months of almost daily phone calls to the special education office, I finally have something of a satisfactory answer as to whether my daughter's instructional aide will really be qualified to instruct, and whether my son's teacher will be experienced enough to handle him. But I've been misled before, and I won't relax until I've seen, met, and consulted with said personnel. A pursuit which also begins tomorrow.
When my daughter groans about how hard fifth grade is going to be and my son sighs about losing the freedom of summer, I tell them that they should think good thoughts, and expect their experience to be wonderful. I suppose, then, that I should take my own advice. But being a good special-ed advocate can be emotionally wearing; so rarely is the outcome actually anything approaching wonderful, and it's hard to get those hopes back up another time. Whenever I try to micromanage my kids' educational set-up, I regret it; but whenever I take a hands-off approach, I regret it, too. Finding the middle ground between those two is a perilous thing, fraught with offended teachers and appeasing administrators and poor choices hastily made. I'll do it again -- I have to do it, because it's pretty sure that nobody else will -- but I'm looking forward to it about as much as my daughter is fifth-grade swimming.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 4, 2002
Today, after my kids get home from the first day of school, begins the paper chase. Or rather, the notebook chase, the ruler chase, the pencil chase, the folder chase. For today's the day we finally get the list of the school supplies their teachers expect. And, like seemingly every other family in town, we descend upon Staples.
No dancing down the aisles like that man in the ad for me; I'm elbowing down the aisles, pushing aside small children to get to that last glue stick. Why the school doesn't give us these lists at the end of the previous school year -- or at least with the class assignments that come a couple of weeks before the start of the new one -- I'll never know. It seems downright sadistic. I suppose I could get an early start by picking up some basic supplies, but even the basics are often subject to the specifics of teacher preference in ways I could never guess. Not any spiral notebook, but one with a specific number of pages. Not any pen, but ones in specific colors. Not any ruler, but one made of a specific substance. If I tried to shop ahead of time, not only would I still have to shop on the first day of school, I'd have to make exchanges.
So I'm waiting, credit card at the ready. Why is it that all the homework that comes home on the first day is really for the parents?
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 5, 2002
Well. It's never easy, is it?
I spent the summer calling the special education department on a near-daily basis, trying to wrest from them three pieces of information: Would my daughter get a proper instructional aide this time; which class would my son be in; and would my son have the same one-on-one aide he has had for three years now, the aide who knows him and handles him so well and whom he adores. For two months, I was told to call back, call back, call back on the first two -- but on the last one, I was assured that they'd never switch. That was always the thing I could count on.
So you can guess what happened.
It happened fast, and out of my sight. When I called the school on Tuesday to make sure everything was in place, his usual aide was there and waiting for him. When I dropped him at school Wednesday morning, ditto. But some time between 8:45 a.m. and about 2 p.m., when the child study team leader (God bless her) called to warn me that a change had been made, our long-known and trusted aide was spirited away and replaced by somebody else.
I called the special ed department again -- again! -- to complain, but it turned out the change had been made by the school principal, who had been left in the lurch when a classroom aide quit and had poached my son's aide to fill the hole. And I can't blame him. She's wonderful. She'd make a fine classroom aide, and I hope they give her the job for good. She knows the kids in the classroom she's filling in for, which makes her a natural choice. The principal has to put the good of many kids above the good of one, and I understand that. But none of it means I don't want her back, bad.
It's always like this, one way or the other, with special education. Every time I feel like I have my ducks in a row, somebody knocks them over. Sometimes I wonder why I even try. And sometimes I wonder whether somebody's staying up late trying to think of ways to screw things up.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 6, 2002
I'm ending our first half-week of school here with an extreme case of "Mommy remorse," wondering -- anguishing really -- over whether I did the right thing in allowing my son to be skipped up a level to a self-contained class with kids he doesn't know as well and a new teacher who doesn't know him. There were good reasons to go along with the idea -- last year's teacher was pushing it, the kids in his former group were rowdy and rambunctious, he could use a little extra academic stimulation, the teacher he would have had if he hadn't skipped seemed a little stern to me -- and good reasons not to -- those rowdy and rambunctious kids were his buddies, his emotional development is so behind that it makes more sense to hold him back than push him forward, he'd be mainstreamed for art, music and gym with older kids who might give him a hard time -- but in the end I let the special ed department decide, and they did what the teacher suggested.
So now, of course, not only are all of his buddies in the class behind, but so is his longtime aide, having been moved to the position of the classroom aide for that group (see yesterday's dispatch). There's nobody in his new class who knows him at all now. The teacher sent home a rules sheet yesterday and included among the consequences removal of recess time, which I thought everybody knew by now is a really bad choice for hyperactive kids. The rules include things like "listen carefully" and "be polite and respectful" which are infinitely open to teacher interpretation and infinitely difficult for a child with FAE to get a handle on. So right off the bat, I'm worried. And I see his friends from last year running around together and wonder why I ever thought it was an acceptable idea to pull him out of that and put him in a more challenging situation.
I could probably get him put back with his old group. But then, of course, I'd kill myself worrying that *that* decision was wrong. I'll meet with his new teacher next week and see what she has to say for herself. Maybe she can convince me that she understands how to handle my guy -- not just handle him but nurture him, bring him along academically and behaviorally in a way that will make me end the year bursting with "Mommy pride." I'll believe it when I hear it.
Today is the last sweet day of summer vacation for my kiddos, who start school tomorrow morning promptly at 8:45 a.m. My daughter has been calling friends to find out who's in her assigned class, my son's been completing the immense packet of worksheets his teacher asked him to bring back in the fall for a prize, and I've been quietly obsessing over whether the proper preparations will have been put into place for my two to have an appropriate academic experience. After two months of almost daily phone calls to the special education office, I finally have something of a satisfactory answer as to whether my daughter's instructional aide will really be qualified to instruct, and whether my son's teacher will be experienced enough to handle him. But I've been misled before, and I won't relax until I've seen, met, and consulted with said personnel. A pursuit which also begins tomorrow.
When my daughter groans about how hard fifth grade is going to be and my son sighs about losing the freedom of summer, I tell them that they should think good thoughts, and expect their experience to be wonderful. I suppose, then, that I should take my own advice. But being a good special-ed advocate can be emotionally wearing; so rarely is the outcome actually anything approaching wonderful, and it's hard to get those hopes back up another time. Whenever I try to micromanage my kids' educational set-up, I regret it; but whenever I take a hands-off approach, I regret it, too. Finding the middle ground between those two is a perilous thing, fraught with offended teachers and appeasing administrators and poor choices hastily made. I'll do it again -- I have to do it, because it's pretty sure that nobody else will -- but I'm looking forward to it about as much as my daughter is fifth-grade swimming.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 4, 2002
Today, after my kids get home from the first day of school, begins the paper chase. Or rather, the notebook chase, the ruler chase, the pencil chase, the folder chase. For today's the day we finally get the list of the school supplies their teachers expect. And, like seemingly every other family in town, we descend upon Staples.
No dancing down the aisles like that man in the ad for me; I'm elbowing down the aisles, pushing aside small children to get to that last glue stick. Why the school doesn't give us these lists at the end of the previous school year -- or at least with the class assignments that come a couple of weeks before the start of the new one -- I'll never know. It seems downright sadistic. I suppose I could get an early start by picking up some basic supplies, but even the basics are often subject to the specifics of teacher preference in ways I could never guess. Not any spiral notebook, but one with a specific number of pages. Not any pen, but ones in specific colors. Not any ruler, but one made of a specific substance. If I tried to shop ahead of time, not only would I still have to shop on the first day of school, I'd have to make exchanges.
So I'm waiting, credit card at the ready. Why is it that all the homework that comes home on the first day is really for the parents?
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 5, 2002
Well. It's never easy, is it?
I spent the summer calling the special education department on a near-daily basis, trying to wrest from them three pieces of information: Would my daughter get a proper instructional aide this time; which class would my son be in; and would my son have the same one-on-one aide he has had for three years now, the aide who knows him and handles him so well and whom he adores. For two months, I was told to call back, call back, call back on the first two -- but on the last one, I was assured that they'd never switch. That was always the thing I could count on.
So you can guess what happened.
It happened fast, and out of my sight. When I called the school on Tuesday to make sure everything was in place, his usual aide was there and waiting for him. When I dropped him at school Wednesday morning, ditto. But some time between 8:45 a.m. and about 2 p.m., when the child study team leader (God bless her) called to warn me that a change had been made, our long-known and trusted aide was spirited away and replaced by somebody else.
I called the special ed department again -- again! -- to complain, but it turned out the change had been made by the school principal, who had been left in the lurch when a classroom aide quit and had poached my son's aide to fill the hole. And I can't blame him. She's wonderful. She'd make a fine classroom aide, and I hope they give her the job for good. She knows the kids in the classroom she's filling in for, which makes her a natural choice. The principal has to put the good of many kids above the good of one, and I understand that. But none of it means I don't want her back, bad.
It's always like this, one way or the other, with special education. Every time I feel like I have my ducks in a row, somebody knocks them over. Sometimes I wonder why I even try. And sometimes I wonder whether somebody's staying up late trying to think of ways to screw things up.
+ + +
SEPTEMBER 6, 2002
I'm ending our first half-week of school here with an extreme case of "Mommy remorse," wondering -- anguishing really -- over whether I did the right thing in allowing my son to be skipped up a level to a self-contained class with kids he doesn't know as well and a new teacher who doesn't know him. There were good reasons to go along with the idea -- last year's teacher was pushing it, the kids in his former group were rowdy and rambunctious, he could use a little extra academic stimulation, the teacher he would have had if he hadn't skipped seemed a little stern to me -- and good reasons not to -- those rowdy and rambunctious kids were his buddies, his emotional development is so behind that it makes more sense to hold him back than push him forward, he'd be mainstreamed for art, music and gym with older kids who might give him a hard time -- but in the end I let the special ed department decide, and they did what the teacher suggested.
So now, of course, not only are all of his buddies in the class behind, but so is his longtime aide, having been moved to the position of the classroom aide for that group (see yesterday's dispatch). There's nobody in his new class who knows him at all now. The teacher sent home a rules sheet yesterday and included among the consequences removal of recess time, which I thought everybody knew by now is a really bad choice for hyperactive kids. The rules include things like "listen carefully" and "be polite and respectful" which are infinitely open to teacher interpretation and infinitely difficult for a child with FAE to get a handle on. So right off the bat, I'm worried. And I see his friends from last year running around together and wonder why I ever thought it was an acceptable idea to pull him out of that and put him in a more challenging situation.
I could probably get him put back with his old group. But then, of course, I'd kill myself worrying that *that* decision was wrong. I'll meet with his new teacher next week and see what she has to say for herself. Maybe she can convince me that she understands how to handle my guy -- not just handle him but nurture him, bring him along academically and behaviorally in a way that will make me end the year bursting with "Mommy pride." I'll believe it when I hear it.
Monday, August 26, 2002
August 26-30, 2002
AUGUST 26, 2002
Well, we survived another vacation. A few moments from our trip to Williamsburg, Va.:
Trip highlight: My daughter throwing aside a significant amont of fear and learning to drive a Go-Kart.
Trip lowlight: My son throwing up in the Food Lion supermarket.
Disaster narrowly averted: During a screwed-up check-in that involved moving among three different units, I left my son's much-beloved Scooby Doo doll in one of the bedrooms left behind. He was rescued by Maintenance and safetly returned.
Disaster not averted at all: My daughter caught a frisbee with her mouth instead of her hands, causing a split lip.
Least favorite educational attraction: Colonial Williamsburg, which my daughter, being a preteen and constitutionally averse to anything good for her, labeled "boring."
Favorite educational attraction: The Children's Museum in Portsmouth, in whose fake city bus my son would still be playing if we hadn't dragged him away.
Thing we appreciated least about Williamsburg: Humidity you could swim in.
Thing we appreciated most: Possibly the greatest concentration of fast-food joints known to man.
Most commonly heard child's complaint, arrival through Friday evening: "I don't like it here, I wish we were back home."
Most commonly heard child's complaint, Saturday morning departure: "I like it here, I wish we could stay."
How I knew I was really home: Took a look through my son's IEP, which had arrived in our absence, and felt my blood pressure return to pre-vacation highs.
+ + +
AUGUST 27, 2002
I was talking with a friend the other day about my son, and how people seem to respond positively to him even when he's doing something socially unacceptable, like grabbing their keys and asking them nosy questions. I've always thought it's because he looks and acts so much younger than his nine years -- that people were responding to him as a precocious preschooler rather than a peculiar third-grader. But my friend felt that it was my boy's obvious neurological quirks that made people realize that he need to be treated with extra understanding. And though I've never considered that, he surely does present as different than your average child, and anybody who notices his jumping, hand-waving and foot stomping or listens to his high-pitched, sometimes oddly-cadenced voice and slurry words might indeed be inclined to cut him some slack. I've certainly noticed such oddities in other kids, and done the same.
So it's been interesting to read through his IEP and see how determined the good people who work with him are to rid him of all those mannerisms that have been most effective in gaining him understanding from the populace at large. Making him walk upright without bending over; making him speak with tone, speed and pitch befitting his "age and gender"; curtailing his jumpiness; helping him to appear in all ways like a "normal" child -- these are thought-out, strategized goals pervading all facets of his education. And while I understand that these are the sort of things special-ed professionals are trained to go after, I wonder if, in the case of this specific child, they're really doing him any favors. The greatest curse to befall children with FAE is to appear perfectly normal but be perfectly unable to back that up with normal cognitive and behavioral abilities. My son has never suffered from that, probably because two years of Russian orphanage deprivation sent his development out of whack in so many readily observable ways. Why should we take that safeguard from him now, when he's moving into the treacherous waters of upper elementary and middle school?
I say, let him jump, squeak, sway and swing at will. And make it a major goal for him to, I don't know, learn something?
+ + +
AUGUST 28, 2002
There's outrage a-brewin' in cyberspace over a movie called "The United States of Leland," whose subject matter includes the murder of an autistic child. What the film thinks of that event is hard to know at this point; since it's due for release in 2003, possibly at the Sundance festival, there's not much information about it on-line as yet.
From what little I've been able to glean from the few Web sites that mention it -- the production company's site at www.thousand-words.com/pro/leland.html, for example, and williamscenter.fanforum.com/info/films/film_leland.shtml, www.artistsnetwork.org/news3/news137.html, www.filmmakermagazine.com/summer2002/columns/in_focus.html and www.upcomingmovies.com/unitedstatesofleland.html -- it sounds as though the film is a serious study of why an apparently sensitive, intelligent teen-ager would commit a crime so horrific as murdering an autistic child. That the young man claims to have done it out of sadness for the child -- as "emotional euthanasia" -- does not appear, from what I've read, to be the film's point of view, but rather a point of view that the film takes pains to present as puzzling. Also examined are the ramifications of the event on the families of both the murderer and the victim.
In the wake of tragic events like the Columbine shootings and even Sept. 11, an examination of why human beings commit inhuman acts certainly seems appropriate. In a society that increasingly sees lawsuits for wrongful birth from the parents of handicapped children outraged at having lost the right to abort them, an examination of the value of persons with special needs and whether it's ever right to judge that their suffering is greater than their right to life sounds of interest as well. And as somebody whose son has an affliction -- fetal alcohol effect -- whose sufferers have been known to commit crimes of impulse without any sort of reasonable thought behind it, I'm not particularly offended if the movie doesn't immediately and irredeemably scapegoat the teen for his act. It's entirely possible that there will be much in this movie to offend, but at least as equally possible that it may provoke very useful thought.
Of course, the folks who circulate on-line petitions have no time for such subtleties. This one concludes that the film uses the murder of an autistic child solely for entertainment value, and wants us to get up in arms. Myself, I'd like a little more information before I let something like this raise my blood pressure. As anyone who loves a child with special needs knows, it's a bad idea to judge anything by what's most readily visible from the surface.
+ + +
AUGUST 29, 2002
We added a masterpiece of modern technology to our home yesterday. No, not a new computer; not a DVD player or a digital camera or a cooking convenience. We're talking a little something in the toilet line, or maybe at the top of the toilet line: a brand spankin' new, gleaming white Power Flush toilet. And it may not seem like much to you, but the whole silly thing -- with its macho name, inner workings encased in black plastic and explosive WHOOSH that ensures that what comes out must go down -- makes me feel like I'm stuck in a Dave Barry column, or maybe an episode of "Home Improvement." I can only imagine how Tim Taylor would turbo-power his Power Flush.
It's nice, certainly, to finally have a toilet that takes care of business. But already, I'm seeing a downside, which is: that WHOOSH throws my easily overstimulated son into a gleefully hyper tizzy. He couldn't be more thrilled with it! He does a little dance! He has to be present for every gloriously percussive flush! Now it's true, he also used to obsess over what didn't disappear in our old, Weak Flush commode. This is, I suppose, an improvement. But I'll be glad for the day when he doesn't have to scream "BOOM!" every time someone flushes. Simple pleasures are the best, but still.
+ + +
AUGUST 30, 2002
I read a book over my week of vacation called "Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding" (so much for light summer reading). It went over a lot of the same reading comprehension territory as a book I read last year, "Mosaic of Thought," but with some more concrete strategies for implementation. One of the things the book recommended teachers do is ask students what they think it means to read. Their answers should help those teachers understand what sort of problems they may be having.
So I asked my daughter, for whom reading comprehension has always been so frustrating. She gave me that blank stare I so often see when I ask a question out of her depth, and then she managed to dredge up some definitions that all had the word "read" in them. When I challenged her to come up with a definition that did not contain the word "read," she just shrugged. I figured that would be the last of it.
But a few days later, she told me proudly that she knew what the word "read" meant. I was shocked that she still rememembered that I'd asked -- usually my attempts at philosophical conversation are forgotten with extreme prejudice -- and begged to know. And her answer was: "Staring at black marks on paper." Which does, indeed, reinforce for me again what an entirely uninteresting experience reading is for her, and how far we have to go to make reading something that involves meaning and learning and excitement and fun. Maybe the fact that she was able to formulate such a useful answer indicates that she's ready to hit that road.
Well, we survived another vacation. A few moments from our trip to Williamsburg, Va.:
Trip highlight: My daughter throwing aside a significant amont of fear and learning to drive a Go-Kart.
Trip lowlight: My son throwing up in the Food Lion supermarket.
Disaster narrowly averted: During a screwed-up check-in that involved moving among three different units, I left my son's much-beloved Scooby Doo doll in one of the bedrooms left behind. He was rescued by Maintenance and safetly returned.
Disaster not averted at all: My daughter caught a frisbee with her mouth instead of her hands, causing a split lip.
Least favorite educational attraction: Colonial Williamsburg, which my daughter, being a preteen and constitutionally averse to anything good for her, labeled "boring."
Favorite educational attraction: The Children's Museum in Portsmouth, in whose fake city bus my son would still be playing if we hadn't dragged him away.
Thing we appreciated least about Williamsburg: Humidity you could swim in.
Thing we appreciated most: Possibly the greatest concentration of fast-food joints known to man.
Most commonly heard child's complaint, arrival through Friday evening: "I don't like it here, I wish we were back home."
Most commonly heard child's complaint, Saturday morning departure: "I like it here, I wish we could stay."
How I knew I was really home: Took a look through my son's IEP, which had arrived in our absence, and felt my blood pressure return to pre-vacation highs.
+ + +
AUGUST 27, 2002
I was talking with a friend the other day about my son, and how people seem to respond positively to him even when he's doing something socially unacceptable, like grabbing their keys and asking them nosy questions. I've always thought it's because he looks and acts so much younger than his nine years -- that people were responding to him as a precocious preschooler rather than a peculiar third-grader. But my friend felt that it was my boy's obvious neurological quirks that made people realize that he need to be treated with extra understanding. And though I've never considered that, he surely does present as different than your average child, and anybody who notices his jumping, hand-waving and foot stomping or listens to his high-pitched, sometimes oddly-cadenced voice and slurry words might indeed be inclined to cut him some slack. I've certainly noticed such oddities in other kids, and done the same.
So it's been interesting to read through his IEP and see how determined the good people who work with him are to rid him of all those mannerisms that have been most effective in gaining him understanding from the populace at large. Making him walk upright without bending over; making him speak with tone, speed and pitch befitting his "age and gender"; curtailing his jumpiness; helping him to appear in all ways like a "normal" child -- these are thought-out, strategized goals pervading all facets of his education. And while I understand that these are the sort of things special-ed professionals are trained to go after, I wonder if, in the case of this specific child, they're really doing him any favors. The greatest curse to befall children with FAE is to appear perfectly normal but be perfectly unable to back that up with normal cognitive and behavioral abilities. My son has never suffered from that, probably because two years of Russian orphanage deprivation sent his development out of whack in so many readily observable ways. Why should we take that safeguard from him now, when he's moving into the treacherous waters of upper elementary and middle school?
I say, let him jump, squeak, sway and swing at will. And make it a major goal for him to, I don't know, learn something?
+ + +
AUGUST 28, 2002
There's outrage a-brewin' in cyberspace over a movie called "The United States of Leland," whose subject matter includes the murder of an autistic child. What the film thinks of that event is hard to know at this point; since it's due for release in 2003, possibly at the Sundance festival, there's not much information about it on-line as yet.
From what little I've been able to glean from the few Web sites that mention it -- the production company's site at www.thousand-words.com/pro/leland.html, for example, and williamscenter.fanforum.com/info/films/film_leland.shtml, www.artistsnetwork.org/news3/news137.html, www.filmmakermagazine.com/summer2002/columns/in_focus.html and www.upcomingmovies.com/unitedstatesofleland.html -- it sounds as though the film is a serious study of why an apparently sensitive, intelligent teen-ager would commit a crime so horrific as murdering an autistic child. That the young man claims to have done it out of sadness for the child -- as "emotional euthanasia" -- does not appear, from what I've read, to be the film's point of view, but rather a point of view that the film takes pains to present as puzzling. Also examined are the ramifications of the event on the families of both the murderer and the victim.
In the wake of tragic events like the Columbine shootings and even Sept. 11, an examination of why human beings commit inhuman acts certainly seems appropriate. In a society that increasingly sees lawsuits for wrongful birth from the parents of handicapped children outraged at having lost the right to abort them, an examination of the value of persons with special needs and whether it's ever right to judge that their suffering is greater than their right to life sounds of interest as well. And as somebody whose son has an affliction -- fetal alcohol effect -- whose sufferers have been known to commit crimes of impulse without any sort of reasonable thought behind it, I'm not particularly offended if the movie doesn't immediately and irredeemably scapegoat the teen for his act. It's entirely possible that there will be much in this movie to offend, but at least as equally possible that it may provoke very useful thought.
Of course, the folks who circulate on-line petitions have no time for such subtleties. This one concludes that the film uses the murder of an autistic child solely for entertainment value, and wants us to get up in arms. Myself, I'd like a little more information before I let something like this raise my blood pressure. As anyone who loves a child with special needs knows, it's a bad idea to judge anything by what's most readily visible from the surface.
+ + +
AUGUST 29, 2002
We added a masterpiece of modern technology to our home yesterday. No, not a new computer; not a DVD player or a digital camera or a cooking convenience. We're talking a little something in the toilet line, or maybe at the top of the toilet line: a brand spankin' new, gleaming white Power Flush toilet. And it may not seem like much to you, but the whole silly thing -- with its macho name, inner workings encased in black plastic and explosive WHOOSH that ensures that what comes out must go down -- makes me feel like I'm stuck in a Dave Barry column, or maybe an episode of "Home Improvement." I can only imagine how Tim Taylor would turbo-power his Power Flush.
It's nice, certainly, to finally have a toilet that takes care of business. But already, I'm seeing a downside, which is: that WHOOSH throws my easily overstimulated son into a gleefully hyper tizzy. He couldn't be more thrilled with it! He does a little dance! He has to be present for every gloriously percussive flush! Now it's true, he also used to obsess over what didn't disappear in our old, Weak Flush commode. This is, I suppose, an improvement. But I'll be glad for the day when he doesn't have to scream "BOOM!" every time someone flushes. Simple pleasures are the best, but still.
+ + +
AUGUST 30, 2002
I read a book over my week of vacation called "Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding" (so much for light summer reading). It went over a lot of the same reading comprehension territory as a book I read last year, "Mosaic of Thought," but with some more concrete strategies for implementation. One of the things the book recommended teachers do is ask students what they think it means to read. Their answers should help those teachers understand what sort of problems they may be having.
So I asked my daughter, for whom reading comprehension has always been so frustrating. She gave me that blank stare I so often see when I ask a question out of her depth, and then she managed to dredge up some definitions that all had the word "read" in them. When I challenged her to come up with a definition that did not contain the word "read," she just shrugged. I figured that would be the last of it.
But a few days later, she told me proudly that she knew what the word "read" meant. I was shocked that she still rememembered that I'd asked -- usually my attempts at philosophical conversation are forgotten with extreme prejudice -- and begged to know. And her answer was: "Staring at black marks on paper." Which does, indeed, reinforce for me again what an entirely uninteresting experience reading is for her, and how far we have to go to make reading something that involves meaning and learning and excitement and fun. Maybe the fact that she was able to formulate such a useful answer indicates that she's ready to hit that road.
Monday, August 12, 2002
August 12-16, 2002
AUGUST 12, 2002
My friend and I went to see Lyle Lovett and Bonnie Raitt in concert on Saturday at the same venue as the Aaron Carter concert I took my daughter to last year. The two concerts couldn't have been more different, or made me feel older by comparison. The contrasts between then and now:
AUDIENCE
Then: Teenyboppers
Now: Baby Boomers
OVERPRICED DRINK OF CHOICE
Then: $3.50 bottle of water
Now: $6.75 Jumbo Draft Beer
BOOTHS IN THE WAITING AREA PROMOTING ...
Then: Nickelodeon, extreme sports, up-and-coming teen idols
Now: Hybrid cars, alternative energy, green tea
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Then: Aaron Carter, filled with preteen pep, bounced around the stage doing energetic and elaborate dance moves.
Now: Lyle Lovett, recently injured by a bull, sat throughout his performance; while Bonnie Raitt did stand and walk, the greatest activity in her set was the changing of the lights against her gauzy backdrop curtains.
SONG THEMES
Then: Getting to play basketball with Shaq; getting a date
Now: Getting older; getting out of a bad relationship
BACKUP
Then: Lots of scantily clad dancers
Now: Lots of aging studio musicians and Large Band members in shirts and ties
AUDIENCE RESPONSE
Then: Dancing, jumping, screaming
Now: Tapping out of rhythm on knees, hearty applause, the occasional “Whooo”!
HIGHLIGHTS
Then: Big cheers whenever Aaron removed an article of clothing
Now: Big cheers for particularly well-executed cello solos
IF A DRUG COMPANY SPONSORED THIS CONCERT, IT WOULD BE...
Then: Ritalin
Now: Viagra
+ + +
AUGUST 13, 2002
Yesterday I made the mistake of asking my daughter too many questions about what she does during her summer days home with her grandmother. I should have kept my mouth shut, and just imagined her watching wholesome PBS programs and having chats about family history or something. But I had to ask: “What did you watch on TV this morning, sweetie?” And she had to say, “I watched a show about ex-boyfriends and ex-lovers. They killed people, but then the people were on the show. And after that, there were these really fat ladies taking off all their clothes.”
Thank you very much, Maury Povitch.
My daughter didn’t seem particularly shaken up by her peek at the seamy side of life. She reported all the glorious details with a big grin. When I asked her what her grandmother had said about this -- hoping for a pearl of moral wisdom from the older generation -- she reported that “Grandma said those people are jackasses!” Well, it’s wisdom, anyway.
+ + +
AUGUST 14, 2002
I've been keeping an eye on the new detective show "Monk" with some amusement. It's good, I guess, that we've come far enough in mental health awareness that OCD is so familiar it can be used as a TV-show hook. "Obessive Compulsive Detective" is a pretty good pitch line, though I'm not so sure about the other line the ads often use -- "Defective Detective." Would we have used that line to describe, say, "Ironside"?
Monk's mental illness is generally played for laughs, or at least mild wackiness, and while I'm guessing the reality of the disease is not quite so cute, I do like the way in which the thing that is wrong with Monk is often also the thing that helps him do his job well. I've been trying to convince people for years that my son's hyperactivity and hypercuriosity may be keys to his intelligence, not road blocks to it. It's interesting to see some acknowledgment, even in the shallowest of TV terms, that the aberrations of our brains are rarely universally good or bad.
Seeing OCD become such a household term -- the show is moving from the USA Network to ABC, at least for four weeks this summer -- makes me wonder if "Monk" will inspire a wave of new diagnoses. I also wonder if the concept's success will spawn a whole bunch of new shows that use disability as a wacky jumping-off point. Shall we expect, say, "ADHD M.D."? "Bipolar P.I."? "ODD D.A."? Stay tuned for Alphabet Soup TV.
+ + +
AUGUST 15, 2002
I made that mistake again this morning. The one where my son just doesn't seem quite right, but there's nothing I can put my finger on, and so I send him to school, and he throws up. It happened a few months ago at school, and then a couple of weeks ago when he seemed out of sorts, I kept him home, and nothing -- no throwing up, no problems. So this morning, when he seemed off but couldn't quite tell me what if anything might be wrong, I let him go to camp at nine o'clock. And got a call around 10:27.
It's not unusual for any kid to have that "nothing's wrong but nothing's quite right" disease, but I do think there's a particular challenge with kids with fetal alcohol exposure who really don't feel pain the way the rest of us do. My guy is unlikely to come out with something so direct as "My throat hurts" or "My stomach hurts" or "My head hurts." He's gotten to the point where he can act hurt when he can see the problem -- he knows if you fall you're supposed to say "Ow!" But internal things ... I don't know that he can really articulate those aches and pains. When he was little, he went two months with an ear infection without saying a word, and I don't think he's all that advanced from there now.
And so I'm left figuring out possible internal ailments from external behavioral clues. Sadly, in my son's case, it turns out that when he's quiet, calm, obedient and especially well-behaved, that means something's wrong. He was up early this morning, got dressed on his own, ate all his breakfast without quarrel. Man, I should have known.
+ + +
AUGUST 16, 2002
Is it rude to shush somebody else's child in their parents' presence?
I ask because an usher did that to my son and I at church last Sunday, and I still haven't quite forgiven him. He succeeded in making me feel unwelcome in my own church, and I don't honestly think that's part of an usher's job description. Nor is enforcing complete and mandatory silence in the narthex while Mass is in session.
We had retreated to that back area of the church, my son and I, because the cry room was too crowded and there are some benches we can usually sit in at the corner of the narthex so that we are still in the church building, but out of the way of bothering others. This week, though, two ushers were sitting on that bench chatting while the homily droned on, and when they saw us coming, my son babbling as he will, they shushed us with such vehemence that it drove me outside. As I sat on an outdoors bench with my guy, I couldn't help but wonder: Who says you can't make any noise in the narthex during Mass? And why doesn't that rule apply to chattering ushers?
One time when somebody shushed my son in my presence at church, she later admitted that she thought I was another child, and therefore equally due for a lesson on staying quiet in worship spaces. Maybe this usher thought the same thing, I don't know. I do know that, while I may not look my 43 years, anybody who thinks I look like a kid needs to get their eyesight checked. And I did see the same usher shush another family, clapping his hands at them and driving them back in the cry room, and I doubt he thought the father was another child. Maybe he just thought everybody should shut up and let him finish his conversation.
I know I'm overreacting to all of this; the problem is, I think, that I spend so much time worrying that my son migh be bothering somebody and arguing with people in my head that he has special needs and a very hard time being quiet, that when someone actually does make a comment they get the full force of twenty or thirty minutes of internal debate.
But I can't help but feel that the constant shushing of children -- and, for that matter, the relegating of them to a little glass room in the back, where they'd just better stay -- is endemic of a lack of welcome of little ones to the church. Surely our faith is not so thin that a whoop and a holler here and there will tear it in two.
And I also can't help but feel -- the crux of the problem, I know, and one I try to bury under lots of nice rhetoric about welcoming noisy children into worship -- that shushing a child in his or her parent's presence is more a judgment on the parent than on the child. And you know what? I'm trying to keep my kid quiet as hard as I can. If anyone's going to shush him, it will be me. Don't give that look, you. Just pray for us, and for your so judgmental self.
Myself, I maybe need to work a little bit on forgiveness.
My friend and I went to see Lyle Lovett and Bonnie Raitt in concert on Saturday at the same venue as the Aaron Carter concert I took my daughter to last year. The two concerts couldn't have been more different, or made me feel older by comparison. The contrasts between then and now:
AUDIENCE
Then: Teenyboppers
Now: Baby Boomers
OVERPRICED DRINK OF CHOICE
Then: $3.50 bottle of water
Now: $6.75 Jumbo Draft Beer
BOOTHS IN THE WAITING AREA PROMOTING ...
Then: Nickelodeon, extreme sports, up-and-coming teen idols
Now: Hybrid cars, alternative energy, green tea
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Then: Aaron Carter, filled with preteen pep, bounced around the stage doing energetic and elaborate dance moves.
Now: Lyle Lovett, recently injured by a bull, sat throughout his performance; while Bonnie Raitt did stand and walk, the greatest activity in her set was the changing of the lights against her gauzy backdrop curtains.
SONG THEMES
Then: Getting to play basketball with Shaq; getting a date
Now: Getting older; getting out of a bad relationship
BACKUP
Then: Lots of scantily clad dancers
Now: Lots of aging studio musicians and Large Band members in shirts and ties
AUDIENCE RESPONSE
Then: Dancing, jumping, screaming
Now: Tapping out of rhythm on knees, hearty applause, the occasional “Whooo”!
HIGHLIGHTS
Then: Big cheers whenever Aaron removed an article of clothing
Now: Big cheers for particularly well-executed cello solos
IF A DRUG COMPANY SPONSORED THIS CONCERT, IT WOULD BE...
Then: Ritalin
Now: Viagra
+ + +
AUGUST 13, 2002
Yesterday I made the mistake of asking my daughter too many questions about what she does during her summer days home with her grandmother. I should have kept my mouth shut, and just imagined her watching wholesome PBS programs and having chats about family history or something. But I had to ask: “What did you watch on TV this morning, sweetie?” And she had to say, “I watched a show about ex-boyfriends and ex-lovers. They killed people, but then the people were on the show. And after that, there were these really fat ladies taking off all their clothes.”
Thank you very much, Maury Povitch.
My daughter didn’t seem particularly shaken up by her peek at the seamy side of life. She reported all the glorious details with a big grin. When I asked her what her grandmother had said about this -- hoping for a pearl of moral wisdom from the older generation -- she reported that “Grandma said those people are jackasses!” Well, it’s wisdom, anyway.
+ + +
AUGUST 14, 2002
I've been keeping an eye on the new detective show "Monk" with some amusement. It's good, I guess, that we've come far enough in mental health awareness that OCD is so familiar it can be used as a TV-show hook. "Obessive Compulsive Detective" is a pretty good pitch line, though I'm not so sure about the other line the ads often use -- "Defective Detective." Would we have used that line to describe, say, "Ironside"?
Monk's mental illness is generally played for laughs, or at least mild wackiness, and while I'm guessing the reality of the disease is not quite so cute, I do like the way in which the thing that is wrong with Monk is often also the thing that helps him do his job well. I've been trying to convince people for years that my son's hyperactivity and hypercuriosity may be keys to his intelligence, not road blocks to it. It's interesting to see some acknowledgment, even in the shallowest of TV terms, that the aberrations of our brains are rarely universally good or bad.
Seeing OCD become such a household term -- the show is moving from the USA Network to ABC, at least for four weeks this summer -- makes me wonder if "Monk" will inspire a wave of new diagnoses. I also wonder if the concept's success will spawn a whole bunch of new shows that use disability as a wacky jumping-off point. Shall we expect, say, "ADHD M.D."? "Bipolar P.I."? "ODD D.A."? Stay tuned for Alphabet Soup TV.
+ + +
AUGUST 15, 2002
I made that mistake again this morning. The one where my son just doesn't seem quite right, but there's nothing I can put my finger on, and so I send him to school, and he throws up. It happened a few months ago at school, and then a couple of weeks ago when he seemed out of sorts, I kept him home, and nothing -- no throwing up, no problems. So this morning, when he seemed off but couldn't quite tell me what if anything might be wrong, I let him go to camp at nine o'clock. And got a call around 10:27.
It's not unusual for any kid to have that "nothing's wrong but nothing's quite right" disease, but I do think there's a particular challenge with kids with fetal alcohol exposure who really don't feel pain the way the rest of us do. My guy is unlikely to come out with something so direct as "My throat hurts" or "My stomach hurts" or "My head hurts." He's gotten to the point where he can act hurt when he can see the problem -- he knows if you fall you're supposed to say "Ow!" But internal things ... I don't know that he can really articulate those aches and pains. When he was little, he went two months with an ear infection without saying a word, and I don't think he's all that advanced from there now.
And so I'm left figuring out possible internal ailments from external behavioral clues. Sadly, in my son's case, it turns out that when he's quiet, calm, obedient and especially well-behaved, that means something's wrong. He was up early this morning, got dressed on his own, ate all his breakfast without quarrel. Man, I should have known.
+ + +
AUGUST 16, 2002
Is it rude to shush somebody else's child in their parents' presence?
I ask because an usher did that to my son and I at church last Sunday, and I still haven't quite forgiven him. He succeeded in making me feel unwelcome in my own church, and I don't honestly think that's part of an usher's job description. Nor is enforcing complete and mandatory silence in the narthex while Mass is in session.
We had retreated to that back area of the church, my son and I, because the cry room was too crowded and there are some benches we can usually sit in at the corner of the narthex so that we are still in the church building, but out of the way of bothering others. This week, though, two ushers were sitting on that bench chatting while the homily droned on, and when they saw us coming, my son babbling as he will, they shushed us with such vehemence that it drove me outside. As I sat on an outdoors bench with my guy, I couldn't help but wonder: Who says you can't make any noise in the narthex during Mass? And why doesn't that rule apply to chattering ushers?
One time when somebody shushed my son in my presence at church, she later admitted that she thought I was another child, and therefore equally due for a lesson on staying quiet in worship spaces. Maybe this usher thought the same thing, I don't know. I do know that, while I may not look my 43 years, anybody who thinks I look like a kid needs to get their eyesight checked. And I did see the same usher shush another family, clapping his hands at them and driving them back in the cry room, and I doubt he thought the father was another child. Maybe he just thought everybody should shut up and let him finish his conversation.
I know I'm overreacting to all of this; the problem is, I think, that I spend so much time worrying that my son migh be bothering somebody and arguing with people in my head that he has special needs and a very hard time being quiet, that when someone actually does make a comment they get the full force of twenty or thirty minutes of internal debate.
But I can't help but feel that the constant shushing of children -- and, for that matter, the relegating of them to a little glass room in the back, where they'd just better stay -- is endemic of a lack of welcome of little ones to the church. Surely our faith is not so thin that a whoop and a holler here and there will tear it in two.
And I also can't help but feel -- the crux of the problem, I know, and one I try to bury under lots of nice rhetoric about welcoming noisy children into worship -- that shushing a child in his or her parent's presence is more a judgment on the parent than on the child. And you know what? I'm trying to keep my kid quiet as hard as I can. If anyone's going to shush him, it will be me. Don't give that look, you. Just pray for us, and for your so judgmental self.
Myself, I maybe need to work a little bit on forgiveness.
Monday, August 05, 2002
August 5-9, 2002
AUGUST 5, 2002
It's pretty easy to find items in the news these days to make you fret about our increasingly litigious society. I shook my head when I read about all the obstetricians and midwives going out of business because malpractice insurance is too expensive to make their businesses viable. I rolled my eyes when I read about the overweight man who is suing fast-food restaurants for serving him unhealthful fare. But on Sunday, I saw a news item that represents a new low, if it's possible to get any lower: A 9-year-old is suing a 10-year-old, and a judge has ruled that he's allowed.
The incident at isssue was a practice swing at a baseball game in Newark, N.J., during which the older boy accidentally hit the younger one in the face with an aluminum bat, causing a broken bone and the loss of front teeth. And you know, my heart goes out to that injured kid. But to his parents and any lawyer who would pursue a lawsuit in this situation, not so much. What sort of settlement are they expecting to get from a 10-year-old, anyway? The proceeds of his lemonade stand? Are they going to seize his allowance every week? And what about a countersuit -- why was that 9-year-old standing close enough to get hit by the bat in the first place? Surely the 10-year-old experienced some emotional distress after hitting his friend.
If we're going to start letting children sue children, I worry where this will end up. Will every "He touched me!" and "She looked at me!" echoing between siblings in the back seat be accompanied by "You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" Will every playground mishap end up in court? Surely kids who are teased or snubbed or picked last for teams suffer at the hands of their classmates; do they have a case? I see personal injury lawyers hovering around the fences of our elementary schools, looking for work. Talk about just saying no; can't we, now?
+ + +
AUGUST 6, 2002
We've been having lots of thunderstorms out here on the East Coast this hot and hazy summer, and that's bad news for my thunder-fearing daughter. Something about loud low noises sends her in a panic, whether they're coming from celestial bowling or from, say, the overloud bass at a rock concert. She's become slightly less upset by thunder as the summer progresses, probably just because she's heard so darn much of it, but she still wants someone else in the room with her while it's booming.
I remember feeling embarrassed for her a month ago when she whimpered and cried on the tennis court as a thunderstorm approached, cowering behind me (not an easy feat, since she's about five inches taller than I am) and trying to push me to the car. I wasn't worried about being in an open space with lightning flashing around. But that's a case where her fears were warranted. We've read a little about lightning storms recently, and in fact a big open place is a pretty bad place to be. And then, this past Friday, a lightning strike killed a Boy Scout from our church at a campground in Pennsylvania; he was outside during the storm, getting younger campers to safety, when a bolt hit the ground and traveled right into him. My daughter didn't know the boy, and didn't see the news story. I'm pretty sure, if she did, we would never, ever be able to go out in the rain.
+ + +
AUGUST 7, 2002
I've been enjoying the bank advertisements that have been popping up lately touting how friendly and customer-service-oriented their institutions are. Not how much money they'll make you; not how astute they are at money management; not how many nifty options they offer; but how welcome they'll make you feel. I've been enjoying them because they make me realize that I'm not alone in feeling my bank sees me as nothing more than a bag of money to be tossed around, kicked to the back room and left to gather dust. Or stand in line for 45 minutes, whichever comes first.
It's hard to know what's been the worst recent offense of our local banking branch. The time the teller working the drive-through lane sent my husband's cash and driver's license to another car stands out. Then there was the time I waited with my daughter and increasingly noisily impatient son while the teller went from fellow employee to fellow employee, all of us trying to convince her that *YES*, when a person with a passbook savings account makes a transaction, you really do have to enter it in the passbook. I do hold a bit of a grudge, too, at the way the bank president always made a big deal of greeting me when he knew I had some money to invest, and now completely ignores me. Customer service isn't their thing, apparently.
I don't think that sort of impersonal, yeah-we're-inept-so-what approach is particularly new; I remember my father ranting about the same things more than 30 years ago. But advertisments holding out the hope of something better still call to me. I don't actually move my money, mind you, because I know in my cynical heart of hearts that those banks beckoning so friendlily will snub me just as hard once they've got my bucks. I'd rather hold onto the dream of something better than find out it's really worse.
At least until one of those ads says, "And if you have a scoodgy boy with special needs in line with you, we will take you into a special toy-filled waiting room and let him watch Sponge-Bob Square-Pants videos while we personally handle your transaction and give you a nice massage." That might get me.
+ + +
AUGUST 8, 2002
My story from Tuesday about the Boy Scout from our church who was killed by lightning last weekend (and how I hoped to keep that information from my daughter, whose fear of thunderstorms would expand exponentially) brought a thoughtful letter from Stephanie Mullins, a mom of 8 from Dripping Springs, Texas. I thought her comments were worth sharing, especially since the thought of my hyperactive FAE son driving fills me with more terror than my daughter's ever felt from thunder. She wrote:
"Unfortunately, I cannot hide the loss of young people in our small community from my emotionally challenged kiddos. They hear about it before me usually, from their peers. Our young drivers die in car wrecks on the highway that runs swiftly through our town past the schools. A Scout Master has died, teachers, friends, and peers are plucked from class seats. They have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Our own family has two teens who were involved in crashes that miraculously let them walk away from a totaled car with only trauma and glass embedded in their skin.
"I do use these horrific times at funerals and memorials to talk to them about ways they can drive safer and more defensively. Teens love to speed. Unfortunately, the ADHD mine all have denies them the cause and effect lessons they need to drive safely. So my job as their driving coach is to hold off on the license as long as possible. Requiring they pay for their own first car and expensive car insurance delays the inevitable naturally."
+ + +
AUGUST 9, 2002
My son and I went to the park yesterday with a friend from school and his mom. And what a fashion-forward duo these boys were. Just like any respectable teen-ager or a pair of Calvin Klein underwear models, they couldn't keep their pants up. Inches of undie rode above the tops of their slumping shorts. My nephew, now in his 20s, used to wear his pants like that, but that's because he'd buy his trousers about five sizes too big. For my son and his friend, an utter lack of hips and butt did the trick. Two scrawny 9-year-olds airing their underthings on a sunny day and two moms thinking seriously about belts, that was us.
Now of course, as we all know, fashion isn't easy. My son's buddy disdainfully told him that while it's okay to let your underwear show if you're wearing boxers, as he was, it's uncool to do so if you're wearing briefs, my son's undergarment of choice. And indeed, I have to admit, "cool" is not the word that comes to mind when you're showing quite a lot of stretchy "Hot Wheels"-printed fabric to the world. On the other hand, boxer boy was wearing his undies inside out, and letting tags and seams show when your pants droop ain't exactly the coolest either. Clearly, they both need some work. And maybe suspenders.
It's pretty easy to find items in the news these days to make you fret about our increasingly litigious society. I shook my head when I read about all the obstetricians and midwives going out of business because malpractice insurance is too expensive to make their businesses viable. I rolled my eyes when I read about the overweight man who is suing fast-food restaurants for serving him unhealthful fare. But on Sunday, I saw a news item that represents a new low, if it's possible to get any lower: A 9-year-old is suing a 10-year-old, and a judge has ruled that he's allowed.
The incident at isssue was a practice swing at a baseball game in Newark, N.J., during which the older boy accidentally hit the younger one in the face with an aluminum bat, causing a broken bone and the loss of front teeth. And you know, my heart goes out to that injured kid. But to his parents and any lawyer who would pursue a lawsuit in this situation, not so much. What sort of settlement are they expecting to get from a 10-year-old, anyway? The proceeds of his lemonade stand? Are they going to seize his allowance every week? And what about a countersuit -- why was that 9-year-old standing close enough to get hit by the bat in the first place? Surely the 10-year-old experienced some emotional distress after hitting his friend.
If we're going to start letting children sue children, I worry where this will end up. Will every "He touched me!" and "She looked at me!" echoing between siblings in the back seat be accompanied by "You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" Will every playground mishap end up in court? Surely kids who are teased or snubbed or picked last for teams suffer at the hands of their classmates; do they have a case? I see personal injury lawyers hovering around the fences of our elementary schools, looking for work. Talk about just saying no; can't we, now?
+ + +
AUGUST 6, 2002
We've been having lots of thunderstorms out here on the East Coast this hot and hazy summer, and that's bad news for my thunder-fearing daughter. Something about loud low noises sends her in a panic, whether they're coming from celestial bowling or from, say, the overloud bass at a rock concert. She's become slightly less upset by thunder as the summer progresses, probably just because she's heard so darn much of it, but she still wants someone else in the room with her while it's booming.
I remember feeling embarrassed for her a month ago when she whimpered and cried on the tennis court as a thunderstorm approached, cowering behind me (not an easy feat, since she's about five inches taller than I am) and trying to push me to the car. I wasn't worried about being in an open space with lightning flashing around. But that's a case where her fears were warranted. We've read a little about lightning storms recently, and in fact a big open place is a pretty bad place to be. And then, this past Friday, a lightning strike killed a Boy Scout from our church at a campground in Pennsylvania; he was outside during the storm, getting younger campers to safety, when a bolt hit the ground and traveled right into him. My daughter didn't know the boy, and didn't see the news story. I'm pretty sure, if she did, we would never, ever be able to go out in the rain.
+ + +
AUGUST 7, 2002
I've been enjoying the bank advertisements that have been popping up lately touting how friendly and customer-service-oriented their institutions are. Not how much money they'll make you; not how astute they are at money management; not how many nifty options they offer; but how welcome they'll make you feel. I've been enjoying them because they make me realize that I'm not alone in feeling my bank sees me as nothing more than a bag of money to be tossed around, kicked to the back room and left to gather dust. Or stand in line for 45 minutes, whichever comes first.
It's hard to know what's been the worst recent offense of our local banking branch. The time the teller working the drive-through lane sent my husband's cash and driver's license to another car stands out. Then there was the time I waited with my daughter and increasingly noisily impatient son while the teller went from fellow employee to fellow employee, all of us trying to convince her that *YES*, when a person with a passbook savings account makes a transaction, you really do have to enter it in the passbook. I do hold a bit of a grudge, too, at the way the bank president always made a big deal of greeting me when he knew I had some money to invest, and now completely ignores me. Customer service isn't their thing, apparently.
I don't think that sort of impersonal, yeah-we're-inept-so-what approach is particularly new; I remember my father ranting about the same things more than 30 years ago. But advertisments holding out the hope of something better still call to me. I don't actually move my money, mind you, because I know in my cynical heart of hearts that those banks beckoning so friendlily will snub me just as hard once they've got my bucks. I'd rather hold onto the dream of something better than find out it's really worse.
At least until one of those ads says, "And if you have a scoodgy boy with special needs in line with you, we will take you into a special toy-filled waiting room and let him watch Sponge-Bob Square-Pants videos while we personally handle your transaction and give you a nice massage." That might get me.
+ + +
AUGUST 8, 2002
My story from Tuesday about the Boy Scout from our church who was killed by lightning last weekend (and how I hoped to keep that information from my daughter, whose fear of thunderstorms would expand exponentially) brought a thoughtful letter from Stephanie Mullins, a mom of 8 from Dripping Springs, Texas. I thought her comments were worth sharing, especially since the thought of my hyperactive FAE son driving fills me with more terror than my daughter's ever felt from thunder. She wrote:
"Unfortunately, I cannot hide the loss of young people in our small community from my emotionally challenged kiddos. They hear about it before me usually, from their peers. Our young drivers die in car wrecks on the highway that runs swiftly through our town past the schools. A Scout Master has died, teachers, friends, and peers are plucked from class seats. They have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Our own family has two teens who were involved in crashes that miraculously let them walk away from a totaled car with only trauma and glass embedded in their skin.
"I do use these horrific times at funerals and memorials to talk to them about ways they can drive safer and more defensively. Teens love to speed. Unfortunately, the ADHD mine all have denies them the cause and effect lessons they need to drive safely. So my job as their driving coach is to hold off on the license as long as possible. Requiring they pay for their own first car and expensive car insurance delays the inevitable naturally."
+ + +
AUGUST 9, 2002
My son and I went to the park yesterday with a friend from school and his mom. And what a fashion-forward duo these boys were. Just like any respectable teen-ager or a pair of Calvin Klein underwear models, they couldn't keep their pants up. Inches of undie rode above the tops of their slumping shorts. My nephew, now in his 20s, used to wear his pants like that, but that's because he'd buy his trousers about five sizes too big. For my son and his friend, an utter lack of hips and butt did the trick. Two scrawny 9-year-olds airing their underthings on a sunny day and two moms thinking seriously about belts, that was us.
Now of course, as we all know, fashion isn't easy. My son's buddy disdainfully told him that while it's okay to let your underwear show if you're wearing boxers, as he was, it's uncool to do so if you're wearing briefs, my son's undergarment of choice. And indeed, I have to admit, "cool" is not the word that comes to mind when you're showing quite a lot of stretchy "Hot Wheels"-printed fabric to the world. On the other hand, boxer boy was wearing his undies inside out, and letting tags and seams show when your pants droop ain't exactly the coolest either. Clearly, they both need some work. And maybe suspenders.
Monday, July 29, 2002
July 29-August 2
JULY 29, 2002
My daughter was disco dancing in the supermarket yesterday. It was fascinating and terrifying. The way her hips moved! The arm motions! The confidence! The attitude! All it takes is some old '70s tune like "Car Wash" to hit the PA system and my little girl turns into Britney Spears. I think she may have been a little confused when I told her that was wonderful and she should never, ever do it again.
Later that night she watched "Gotta Kick It Up," the new Disney Channel movie (debuted: Friday; watched so far: 3 times) about a high school dance team that goes from inept to inspired in a little under two hours, and sure enough, as she was getting ready for bed, there she was with the moves again, shimmying around her room, shaking those hips, cocking that head, throwing back those shoulders, thrusting out that chest, smiling that smile, all in a way that makes me want to put a padlock on the door and homeschool her until she's 20. How do 12-year-olds learn to move like that? How do you make them stop?
+ + +
JULY 30, 2002
Rarely do I have cause to thank or praise any facet of the fashion industry, but I have to say that the newest trend in athletic shoes is an absolute boon and blessing to parents of kids with special needs, and makes me inclined to forgive all manner of platform sandals and stiletto pumps. The trend I'm talking about is the laceless sneaker; be it velcro-ed, zippered or slip-on, it represents freedom from shoe-tying and a chance at self-reliance for my fine-motor-challenged son. With the current variety and hipness of this fasten-friendly footwear, kids who can't tie aren't stigmatized by having to wear lace-up alternatives -- they're positively happening.
Now, theoretically, my son does know how to tie his shoes. His teacher assures me it's so, and sent home the classroom commendation to prove it. But I've never seen it, and frankly, with the clock ticking and time to leave in the mornings fast approaching, I'm not about to take the patient time needed to walk him through it. If the laceless trend holds, I may never have to. Tying your shoes is, like, so five minutes ago. Lace-free is the future.
+ + +
JULY 31, 2002
Parents of kids with sensory integration problems -- and I'm sure I'm not the only one -- are always searching for that magical tool that will help us connect with our kiddos and bring great therapeutic advantages. Whether it's a surgical scrub brush, a trampoline, a chewy tube, a massager, a pencil grip, a squeeze toy, a seat cushion, a weighted vest ... we know there's something out there that will make all the difference, and we're going to find it, alright. And when we do, it's a complete triumph of parenting perseverence, and all our investigative hours are justified.
But then... has anybody else had the experience of being TOO successful in this area? Finding something the child likes or needs so much that it begins to take over everything? I'm guessing brushing may fall into this category for some; if it helps your child, you can't not do it, but every two hours? Forever? Yeesh. In our case, the Tool of Magical Effect has been a body sock, a purple Lycra bag about the size of my son with a Velcro-sealed slit down the front so that he can crawl in, close up, and have some nice sensory deprivation, some nice pushing his joints against a resistive surface, some nice games with Mama.
Games with Mama... he's great at coming up with purple bag games for Mama to play. Mama is a pirate who sneaks up on him with the purple bag, captures him and threatens to throw him in the brig; Mama is a mama bird leaning some weight on her little egg until it hatches (though Lycra bags, unlike eggshells, allow the little bird to come out and go back in again repeated times, to mama bird's chagrin); Mama is a mama bear using a boy-stuffed purple bag as a pillow; Mama has to find the boy who is completely invisible once he's in his purple bag. And it's wonderful -- wonderful that he's found an interactive activity, wonderful that he understands that the purple bag helps him get his janglies out, wonderful that he is using words to say what he needs, and wonderful that what he needs is me. A little less wonderful that he seems to want and need these things all the livelong day.
You see, the terrible, shameful truth is, I DON'T WANT TO PLAY PURPLE BAG EVERY GOSH-DARN WAKING MINUTE! There it is: I'm the kind of mom who would rather, I don't know, sit and take a breath than help my son with vital therapeutic activities. But sometimes, you know, enough is just enough, therapy or no therapy. Maybe what I really need is my own purple bag to hid in when he comes asking.
+ + +
AUGUST 2, 2002
You know, I try really hard to be patient with the Special Education administrators in my district. I would not want their jobs for any amount of money. Any decision they make is bound to make somebody unhappy. Often the right -- or, to use appropriate lingo, the most appropriate -- thing to do is blocked by budget constraints, or personnel constraints, or political constraints. I have never felt that decisions with which I disagreed were made out of malice, or hidden agendas, or power-tripping (which, I guess, makes our district a particularly good one); I think they have been made out of disorganization, lack of vision, and a desperate attempt to please whoever is complaining the loudest at the moment.
Which means that, if I’m the one complaining the loudest, I generally get what I want. But man, can complaining become a full-time job. I’ve been calling the Special Ed director on almost a daily basis for most of the last six months, trying to get simple questions answered, and mostly what I get is, “Not available, call back tomorrow.” And often, when I call back tomorrow, it’s to find he’s gone on vacation. After a while, even the most patient person starts to lose it.
The particular questions I’m trying to get answered are not my right to know by law, so I’m limited in my ability to go ballistic from here. There’s no reason they shouldn’t tell me, but no reason they have to, either. So maybe they’re just stonewalling in the hope I’ll go away. Maybe, too, they just don’t have the answers yet, and figure if I want to call every day until they do, that’s my time to waste. But it all seems of a piece with the way the department is run in so many respects: Don’t deal with problems head on. Say anything to get people off your back, whether it’s true in the long run or not. Run around like crazy plugging leaks instead of designing a whole new dam. Tell parents you value their input, but make them call 43 times before they get a chance to give some.
On the few occasions I have actually spoken to the new Special Ed director, he seemed to indicate that he saw the same problems I did and was going to do something about them. Perhaps a new person with vision can snap what is in many ways a pretty good department into shape. I’ll be waiting. By the phone.
My daughter was disco dancing in the supermarket yesterday. It was fascinating and terrifying. The way her hips moved! The arm motions! The confidence! The attitude! All it takes is some old '70s tune like "Car Wash" to hit the PA system and my little girl turns into Britney Spears. I think she may have been a little confused when I told her that was wonderful and she should never, ever do it again.
Later that night she watched "Gotta Kick It Up," the new Disney Channel movie (debuted: Friday; watched so far: 3 times) about a high school dance team that goes from inept to inspired in a little under two hours, and sure enough, as she was getting ready for bed, there she was with the moves again, shimmying around her room, shaking those hips, cocking that head, throwing back those shoulders, thrusting out that chest, smiling that smile, all in a way that makes me want to put a padlock on the door and homeschool her until she's 20. How do 12-year-olds learn to move like that? How do you make them stop?
+ + +
JULY 30, 2002
Rarely do I have cause to thank or praise any facet of the fashion industry, but I have to say that the newest trend in athletic shoes is an absolute boon and blessing to parents of kids with special needs, and makes me inclined to forgive all manner of platform sandals and stiletto pumps. The trend I'm talking about is the laceless sneaker; be it velcro-ed, zippered or slip-on, it represents freedom from shoe-tying and a chance at self-reliance for my fine-motor-challenged son. With the current variety and hipness of this fasten-friendly footwear, kids who can't tie aren't stigmatized by having to wear lace-up alternatives -- they're positively happening.
Now, theoretically, my son does know how to tie his shoes. His teacher assures me it's so, and sent home the classroom commendation to prove it. But I've never seen it, and frankly, with the clock ticking and time to leave in the mornings fast approaching, I'm not about to take the patient time needed to walk him through it. If the laceless trend holds, I may never have to. Tying your shoes is, like, so five minutes ago. Lace-free is the future.
+ + +
JULY 31, 2002
Parents of kids with sensory integration problems -- and I'm sure I'm not the only one -- are always searching for that magical tool that will help us connect with our kiddos and bring great therapeutic advantages. Whether it's a surgical scrub brush, a trampoline, a chewy tube, a massager, a pencil grip, a squeeze toy, a seat cushion, a weighted vest ... we know there's something out there that will make all the difference, and we're going to find it, alright. And when we do, it's a complete triumph of parenting perseverence, and all our investigative hours are justified.
But then... has anybody else had the experience of being TOO successful in this area? Finding something the child likes or needs so much that it begins to take over everything? I'm guessing brushing may fall into this category for some; if it helps your child, you can't not do it, but every two hours? Forever? Yeesh. In our case, the Tool of Magical Effect has been a body sock, a purple Lycra bag about the size of my son with a Velcro-sealed slit down the front so that he can crawl in, close up, and have some nice sensory deprivation, some nice pushing his joints against a resistive surface, some nice games with Mama.
Games with Mama... he's great at coming up with purple bag games for Mama to play. Mama is a pirate who sneaks up on him with the purple bag, captures him and threatens to throw him in the brig; Mama is a mama bird leaning some weight on her little egg until it hatches (though Lycra bags, unlike eggshells, allow the little bird to come out and go back in again repeated times, to mama bird's chagrin); Mama is a mama bear using a boy-stuffed purple bag as a pillow; Mama has to find the boy who is completely invisible once he's in his purple bag. And it's wonderful -- wonderful that he's found an interactive activity, wonderful that he understands that the purple bag helps him get his janglies out, wonderful that he is using words to say what he needs, and wonderful that what he needs is me. A little less wonderful that he seems to want and need these things all the livelong day.
You see, the terrible, shameful truth is, I DON'T WANT TO PLAY PURPLE BAG EVERY GOSH-DARN WAKING MINUTE! There it is: I'm the kind of mom who would rather, I don't know, sit and take a breath than help my son with vital therapeutic activities. But sometimes, you know, enough is just enough, therapy or no therapy. Maybe what I really need is my own purple bag to hid in when he comes asking.
+ + +
AUGUST 2, 2002
You know, I try really hard to be patient with the Special Education administrators in my district. I would not want their jobs for any amount of money. Any decision they make is bound to make somebody unhappy. Often the right -- or, to use appropriate lingo, the most appropriate -- thing to do is blocked by budget constraints, or personnel constraints, or political constraints. I have never felt that decisions with which I disagreed were made out of malice, or hidden agendas, or power-tripping (which, I guess, makes our district a particularly good one); I think they have been made out of disorganization, lack of vision, and a desperate attempt to please whoever is complaining the loudest at the moment.
Which means that, if I’m the one complaining the loudest, I generally get what I want. But man, can complaining become a full-time job. I’ve been calling the Special Ed director on almost a daily basis for most of the last six months, trying to get simple questions answered, and mostly what I get is, “Not available, call back tomorrow.” And often, when I call back tomorrow, it’s to find he’s gone on vacation. After a while, even the most patient person starts to lose it.
The particular questions I’m trying to get answered are not my right to know by law, so I’m limited in my ability to go ballistic from here. There’s no reason they shouldn’t tell me, but no reason they have to, either. So maybe they’re just stonewalling in the hope I’ll go away. Maybe, too, they just don’t have the answers yet, and figure if I want to call every day until they do, that’s my time to waste. But it all seems of a piece with the way the department is run in so many respects: Don’t deal with problems head on. Say anything to get people off your back, whether it’s true in the long run or not. Run around like crazy plugging leaks instead of designing a whole new dam. Tell parents you value their input, but make them call 43 times before they get a chance to give some.
On the few occasions I have actually spoken to the new Special Ed director, he seemed to indicate that he saw the same problems I did and was going to do something about them. Perhaps a new person with vision can snap what is in many ways a pretty good department into shape. I’ll be waiting. By the phone.
Monday, July 22, 2002
July 22-26, 2002
JULY 22, 2002
My daughter is becoming a bowling fanatic. She’s been playing fitfully for a few years, in a youth league here, a father-daughter one there, but this summer it’s about all she wants to do with her lazy summer days. Her skills are improving slowly but steadily, and although her dad can always find some glitch in her technique to nag about, I’m pretty impressed by her ability. Then again, I personally have such trouble staying out of the gutter that I’m impressed by anybody who can hit pins on a regular basis.
I’ve always felt that this child could get some important validation from sports, but actually implementing that has been problematic. Specific skills she can pick up fine -- hitting a baseball, putting a basketball in a basket -- but integrating them into a strategy of play that incorporates teamwork and the anticipating of your opponents’ moves? Those are things that have been and may always be beyond her. Severe language delays not only impact every conceivable area of schoolwork, they can also make team sports entirely incomprehensible.
Since she refuses, on the basis of these insecurities, to go out for community softball or basketball teams, I’ve been trying to aim her toward more individual sports. There don’t seem to be a lot of track-and-field opportunities for elementary schoolers, but I did manage to get her set up for tennis lessons, which she enjoys, and swimming lessons, which she doesn’t. And then there’s bowling, which she has self-selected as her current activity of choice. She went to the alleys four times last week for a total of 13 games, in four of which she went over 100. Today, I’m taking her on my lunch break.
If she keeps up this way, she should be getting pretty good by the end of the summer. And that’s great with me -- I’m just happy for her to be excited about something. If it’s something that’s played in air-conditioned rooms, so much the better.
+ + +
JULY 23, 2002
I'll admit I haven't been checking over the fiction shelves a lot lately, but in a little perusal of amazon.com's offerings this weekend I'm finding that international adoption seems to be the mystery/thriller plot-line du jour. And why not? Our visit to Russia seven-and-a-half years ago was filled with mystery and suspense -- what were they talking about? where was our translator? why is this taking so long? when will we ever get out of here? who knew that all bad American TV shows came to Russia to be dubbed? how long until "Santa Barbara" comes on again? -- but while it was thrilling and scary for us personally, I have it on good authority from people who have heard our tale time and again that, really, it's not so thrilling for the populace at large. So I suppose these authors should be forgiven for pumping up the volume on the experience, but I'm not sure I can. Read these amazon descriptions, and see if you're able to. [Comments in brackets are mine.]
China Run: A Novel by David W. Ball
"When the Chinese government, citing 'clerical error,' demands that six American families waiting for the adoption papers they need to take their promised babies back to America surrender their precious charges, Allison Turk refuses. With her young stepson, three other adults and three infants, she defies the powerful forces arrayed against them--including her own husband--to flee halfway across China and make a run for the American consulate in Shanghai. This courageous but foolhardy attempt seems doomed to fail; escape seems impossible, especially in a country whose language, law, and customs they can't begin to comprehend. One by one, all the fugitives except Allison and her little family are picked off, captured, or killed, including their unlikely allies--a tour guide, a fisherman, a gangster, a country doctor--all of whom are as vividly rendered as China itself. Driving this riveting, compelling adventure story to its heart-stopping conclusion, Ball turns in one of the most exciting thrillers of the season!" [This is allegedly based on a true story, but I hope in real life it was less intriguing. Do Americans have a right to break laws and risk death to defend their "precious charges" if those precious charges aren't legally theirs? If this story really happened as told, it's hard to believe China would still be allowing adoptions.]
White Male Infant by Barbara d'Amato
"What began as an uncomplicated adoption of a Russian infant by wealthy American parents, New York surgeon Dooley McSweeney and his lawyer wife, Claudia, turns out to be anything but simple. After a bone marrow biopsy on four-year-old Teddy and some additional medical tests, Dooley realizes that his beautiful red-haired, green-eyed son is not the Russian baby they thought they'd legally adopted three years earlier, but an unknown child, kidnapped from God-knows-where. A man of great integrity, Dooley decides the real parents must be found. He refrains from telling Claudia of his fears, as he's sure she would run away with Teddy, leaving him sans child and wife. Meanwhile, an American journalist, Gabrielle Coulter, and her videographer, Justin Craig, are in Moscow working on a documentary on orphans around the world. The two plots coalesce when Justin is brutally murdered at the Hotel Metropol and 'Go Home!' is spray-painted on a nearby wall. Hooligans wreck all their video equipment, except three tapes that Gabrielle has secreted in her handbag. Keep Kleenex ready as you near novel's end, for Dooley and Gabrielle's search for Teddy's true identity inevitably leads to heartbreak." [I've heard of parents doing bone scans to see if their child is really the age they were told, but gleaning a false identity from a bone marrow biopsy? Parents, just say no.]
Crimson Angels by Susan Turner
"Crimson Angels is a touching story of a small town couple going through the adoption process. However, somewhere along the line something went terribly wrong. Crimson Angels is a must-read for anyone interested in international adoption. The story will take the reader along the process. However, the ending may surprise you. Sometimes, things don't always happen the way they should." [A must-read for anyone interested in international adoption? Would you say a book about a pregnancy that went terribly wrong was a must-read for those who wish to give birth? Doesn't matter, though; anybody who's getting their pre-adoptive information from thrillers should probably think twice about adopting anyway.]
+ + +
JULY 24, 2002
For a brief moment last night, it appeared that my daughter might be a mermaid. Fortunately, she was only a slob.
She had just finished watching the adoption-related tale "The Thirteenth Year" on the Disney channel for about the 47th time. The movie relates the story of an adopted boy who discovers that his birthmother was a mermaid when he hits puberty and starts sprouting scales. When it was over, my daughter went to change into her pajamas, and then screamed for me to come into her room. I did, and she pointed in horror at a green patch on her leg. "What's that?" she asked me, terrified. I examined the spot and had to conclude that it was not mermaid scales, but in fact a drop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, which she had been eating in front of the TV.
She was immensely relieved, since she had assumed that since she was adopted like the boy in the movie, she might turn into a fish like he did. I assured her that her birthmother was a normal land-dwelling woman, and that the story on the TV was just pretend anyway. I was delighted that she understood enough of the plot of the movie to apply it to herself, apprehensive that she had taken the fantasy aspects at such face value. And a little wistful, too ... because if she was really a mer-girl, that would make her swimming lessons so much easier.
+ + +
JULY 25, 2002
Boy, nothing makes you feel older than going to a museum and seeing your childhood playthings preserved under plexiglass.
That's what happened to me yesterday at the Liberty Science Center, a big discovery-minded place within view of the Statue of Liberty that had among its exhibits one on toys from the past fifty years. "Great Toys from Our Childhood," it was called, and were they indeed. Not only did I recognize the toys and remember playing with them, but the packaging and style were the ones I remembered. Yes, I could tell the awe-struck kiddies in my presence, I could recall back in the olden days when you played Mr. Potato Head with an actual potato! Actually, the kiddies weren't awe-struck at all; they were too busy playing with flat magnetic Mr. Potato Head pieces to be very interested in my nostalgic ramblings. But still.
I will say that my childhood playthings have stood the test of time. Most of the items on display were still on the market, though many have lost their gee-whiz charm. My son certainly plays with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars not significantly different than the ones on display; products as diverse as Twister and crayons and Nerf balls are still as close as your local Toys R Us. You can still even buy an Easy Bake Oven (at least at the science center gift shop), although I would have thought that the microwave precluded the need for that toy.
Other pasttimes seem to have passed away. I haven't seen Magic Rocks or Mexican Jumping Beans turning up at birthday parties lately. And I don't know if they still make the Magic 8 Ball, but I did have to show several confused children of the '00s what you do with it. But these modern kids, they catch on quick: After I explained to one little girl that you ask a question, turn the ball over and read the answer, she said "Is my sister a brat?," turned the ball over and, with barely a look at the murky window, declared the answer "Yes!"
+ + +
JULY 26, 2002
Our summer vacation is almost half over (the kiddos go back to school Sept. 4), and so far I'd have to say it's going well. My son made it through two weeks of church CCD camp wtih flying colors, and now seems to be doing just fine at the neighborhood mainstream day camp we picked this year as an alternative to the super-duper special needs camp he'd gone to previously. The camp director mentioned to me that he was doing so well, next year we may not even have to pay for an aide to shadow him. Personally, I'd rather the aide was there and not needed than the opposite, but it was a nice vote of confidence. My daughter is attending "Camp Grandma," staying home and keeping her grandmother company during the day. Still, we've managed to find things for her to do; her dad and I have been taking her bowling on lunch hours and days off, and she has a higher average and a sore arm to show for it. Afternoon tutoring and lessons are going well, although she still hates swimming; my son is being amazingly cooperative at his in-home piano lessons, although not so much during the week when we want him to practice. And those worksheet-a-day books I bought to bridge the summer? Unlike past years, both kids are actually, remarkably, doing a worksheet a day. Bully for us.
On the downside, of course, those books I bought to teach my son cursive over the summer are looking pretty dusty. My hopes that the kids would learn keyboarding have been dashed by the fact that, after an early summer flurry of interest, neither one of them wants to go near the computers right now. I'd hoped to keep my daughter busy with playdates with her schoolfriends, but they're all busy (of course, last summer, when my daughter was in camp, they were all free). And while I'd hoped to have my mind pretty much settled about the upcoming school arrangements for both kids by this time of the summer, I still can't get the special ed director on the phone. But hey -- there's still one more month. The summer's only half over. Miracles can still happen!
My daughter is becoming a bowling fanatic. She’s been playing fitfully for a few years, in a youth league here, a father-daughter one there, but this summer it’s about all she wants to do with her lazy summer days. Her skills are improving slowly but steadily, and although her dad can always find some glitch in her technique to nag about, I’m pretty impressed by her ability. Then again, I personally have such trouble staying out of the gutter that I’m impressed by anybody who can hit pins on a regular basis.
I’ve always felt that this child could get some important validation from sports, but actually implementing that has been problematic. Specific skills she can pick up fine -- hitting a baseball, putting a basketball in a basket -- but integrating them into a strategy of play that incorporates teamwork and the anticipating of your opponents’ moves? Those are things that have been and may always be beyond her. Severe language delays not only impact every conceivable area of schoolwork, they can also make team sports entirely incomprehensible.
Since she refuses, on the basis of these insecurities, to go out for community softball or basketball teams, I’ve been trying to aim her toward more individual sports. There don’t seem to be a lot of track-and-field opportunities for elementary schoolers, but I did manage to get her set up for tennis lessons, which she enjoys, and swimming lessons, which she doesn’t. And then there’s bowling, which she has self-selected as her current activity of choice. She went to the alleys four times last week for a total of 13 games, in four of which she went over 100. Today, I’m taking her on my lunch break.
If she keeps up this way, she should be getting pretty good by the end of the summer. And that’s great with me -- I’m just happy for her to be excited about something. If it’s something that’s played in air-conditioned rooms, so much the better.
+ + +
JULY 23, 2002
I'll admit I haven't been checking over the fiction shelves a lot lately, but in a little perusal of amazon.com's offerings this weekend I'm finding that international adoption seems to be the mystery/thriller plot-line du jour. And why not? Our visit to Russia seven-and-a-half years ago was filled with mystery and suspense -- what were they talking about? where was our translator? why is this taking so long? when will we ever get out of here? who knew that all bad American TV shows came to Russia to be dubbed? how long until "Santa Barbara" comes on again? -- but while it was thrilling and scary for us personally, I have it on good authority from people who have heard our tale time and again that, really, it's not so thrilling for the populace at large. So I suppose these authors should be forgiven for pumping up the volume on the experience, but I'm not sure I can. Read these amazon descriptions, and see if you're able to. [Comments in brackets are mine.]
China Run: A Novel by David W. Ball
"When the Chinese government, citing 'clerical error,' demands that six American families waiting for the adoption papers they need to take their promised babies back to America surrender their precious charges, Allison Turk refuses. With her young stepson, three other adults and three infants, she defies the powerful forces arrayed against them--including her own husband--to flee halfway across China and make a run for the American consulate in Shanghai. This courageous but foolhardy attempt seems doomed to fail; escape seems impossible, especially in a country whose language, law, and customs they can't begin to comprehend. One by one, all the fugitives except Allison and her little family are picked off, captured, or killed, including their unlikely allies--a tour guide, a fisherman, a gangster, a country doctor--all of whom are as vividly rendered as China itself. Driving this riveting, compelling adventure story to its heart-stopping conclusion, Ball turns in one of the most exciting thrillers of the season!" [This is allegedly based on a true story, but I hope in real life it was less intriguing. Do Americans have a right to break laws and risk death to defend their "precious charges" if those precious charges aren't legally theirs? If this story really happened as told, it's hard to believe China would still be allowing adoptions.]
White Male Infant by Barbara d'Amato
"What began as an uncomplicated adoption of a Russian infant by wealthy American parents, New York surgeon Dooley McSweeney and his lawyer wife, Claudia, turns out to be anything but simple. After a bone marrow biopsy on four-year-old Teddy and some additional medical tests, Dooley realizes that his beautiful red-haired, green-eyed son is not the Russian baby they thought they'd legally adopted three years earlier, but an unknown child, kidnapped from God-knows-where. A man of great integrity, Dooley decides the real parents must be found. He refrains from telling Claudia of his fears, as he's sure she would run away with Teddy, leaving him sans child and wife. Meanwhile, an American journalist, Gabrielle Coulter, and her videographer, Justin Craig, are in Moscow working on a documentary on orphans around the world. The two plots coalesce when Justin is brutally murdered at the Hotel Metropol and 'Go Home!' is spray-painted on a nearby wall. Hooligans wreck all their video equipment, except three tapes that Gabrielle has secreted in her handbag. Keep Kleenex ready as you near novel's end, for Dooley and Gabrielle's search for Teddy's true identity inevitably leads to heartbreak." [I've heard of parents doing bone scans to see if their child is really the age they were told, but gleaning a false identity from a bone marrow biopsy? Parents, just say no.]
Crimson Angels by Susan Turner
"Crimson Angels is a touching story of a small town couple going through the adoption process. However, somewhere along the line something went terribly wrong. Crimson Angels is a must-read for anyone interested in international adoption. The story will take the reader along the process. However, the ending may surprise you. Sometimes, things don't always happen the way they should." [A must-read for anyone interested in international adoption? Would you say a book about a pregnancy that went terribly wrong was a must-read for those who wish to give birth? Doesn't matter, though; anybody who's getting their pre-adoptive information from thrillers should probably think twice about adopting anyway.]
+ + +
JULY 24, 2002
For a brief moment last night, it appeared that my daughter might be a mermaid. Fortunately, she was only a slob.
She had just finished watching the adoption-related tale "The Thirteenth Year" on the Disney channel for about the 47th time. The movie relates the story of an adopted boy who discovers that his birthmother was a mermaid when he hits puberty and starts sprouting scales. When it was over, my daughter went to change into her pajamas, and then screamed for me to come into her room. I did, and she pointed in horror at a green patch on her leg. "What's that?" she asked me, terrified. I examined the spot and had to conclude that it was not mermaid scales, but in fact a drop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, which she had been eating in front of the TV.
She was immensely relieved, since she had assumed that since she was adopted like the boy in the movie, she might turn into a fish like he did. I assured her that her birthmother was a normal land-dwelling woman, and that the story on the TV was just pretend anyway. I was delighted that she understood enough of the plot of the movie to apply it to herself, apprehensive that she had taken the fantasy aspects at such face value. And a little wistful, too ... because if she was really a mer-girl, that would make her swimming lessons so much easier.
+ + +
JULY 25, 2002
Boy, nothing makes you feel older than going to a museum and seeing your childhood playthings preserved under plexiglass.
That's what happened to me yesterday at the Liberty Science Center, a big discovery-minded place within view of the Statue of Liberty that had among its exhibits one on toys from the past fifty years. "Great Toys from Our Childhood," it was called, and were they indeed. Not only did I recognize the toys and remember playing with them, but the packaging and style were the ones I remembered. Yes, I could tell the awe-struck kiddies in my presence, I could recall back in the olden days when you played Mr. Potato Head with an actual potato! Actually, the kiddies weren't awe-struck at all; they were too busy playing with flat magnetic Mr. Potato Head pieces to be very interested in my nostalgic ramblings. But still.
I will say that my childhood playthings have stood the test of time. Most of the items on display were still on the market, though many have lost their gee-whiz charm. My son certainly plays with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars not significantly different than the ones on display; products as diverse as Twister and crayons and Nerf balls are still as close as your local Toys R Us. You can still even buy an Easy Bake Oven (at least at the science center gift shop), although I would have thought that the microwave precluded the need for that toy.
Other pasttimes seem to have passed away. I haven't seen Magic Rocks or Mexican Jumping Beans turning up at birthday parties lately. And I don't know if they still make the Magic 8 Ball, but I did have to show several confused children of the '00s what you do with it. But these modern kids, they catch on quick: After I explained to one little girl that you ask a question, turn the ball over and read the answer, she said "Is my sister a brat?," turned the ball over and, with barely a look at the murky window, declared the answer "Yes!"
+ + +
JULY 26, 2002
Our summer vacation is almost half over (the kiddos go back to school Sept. 4), and so far I'd have to say it's going well. My son made it through two weeks of church CCD camp wtih flying colors, and now seems to be doing just fine at the neighborhood mainstream day camp we picked this year as an alternative to the super-duper special needs camp he'd gone to previously. The camp director mentioned to me that he was doing so well, next year we may not even have to pay for an aide to shadow him. Personally, I'd rather the aide was there and not needed than the opposite, but it was a nice vote of confidence. My daughter is attending "Camp Grandma," staying home and keeping her grandmother company during the day. Still, we've managed to find things for her to do; her dad and I have been taking her bowling on lunch hours and days off, and she has a higher average and a sore arm to show for it. Afternoon tutoring and lessons are going well, although she still hates swimming; my son is being amazingly cooperative at his in-home piano lessons, although not so much during the week when we want him to practice. And those worksheet-a-day books I bought to bridge the summer? Unlike past years, both kids are actually, remarkably, doing a worksheet a day. Bully for us.
On the downside, of course, those books I bought to teach my son cursive over the summer are looking pretty dusty. My hopes that the kids would learn keyboarding have been dashed by the fact that, after an early summer flurry of interest, neither one of them wants to go near the computers right now. I'd hoped to keep my daughter busy with playdates with her schoolfriends, but they're all busy (of course, last summer, when my daughter was in camp, they were all free). And while I'd hoped to have my mind pretty much settled about the upcoming school arrangements for both kids by this time of the summer, I still can't get the special ed director on the phone. But hey -- there's still one more month. The summer's only half over. Miracles can still happen!
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
July 16-20, 2002
JULY 16, 2002
My husband and son were taking a walk round a nearby park last week when they came upon two or three boys and their dads. Without hesitation, the kids and one of the men said hello to my son, calling him by name. My boy looked puzzled and said, "Do I know you?" And, cheerfully, they all said no. But they sure enough knew him. So did the woman at the playground, who hadn't seen us in years but remembered my son by name from seeing him in the cry room of the church we used to attend.
Everyone knows my guy, it seems. Kids shout hello, adults reach for their keys as they see him coming, knowing he'll want to examine them and ask about their cars. He's a memorable fellow, well-known in his community, and warmly regarded by most. Different, certainly, but in a friendly, talkative, engaging way.
I don't know if this will last, if he'll be as enchanting when he's not such a little elf, but for now I'm going to enjoy it. Certainly I feel enough mortification when he misbehaves in public and I feel like every condemning eye is on us. It's nice to know that the memories folks are forming of him are generally good ones after all. Apparently, it's me they're not sure about.
+ + +
JULY 17, 2002
My daughter has always been clear with her fears. In this she differs from her brother, who is so wrapped up in his own complex world view that you have to guess from his reactions what he might be feeling; jumpiness, perseveration, silliness, refusal to cooperate, absorption in a different activity, rocking, misbehavior guaranteed to result in time out -- all can be his way of telling us he's afraid of something in the environment or in our demands. You have to be a regular detective to figure out what's at the bottom of his behavior. But my daughter will tell you: I Don't Like That. I'm Afraid. I Don't Want to Do That. Don't Make Me. Please.
And it's hard not to feel all protective. One of the most difficult things to do as a parent is to make your kids face their fears. Sometimes, I suppose, it's not so important. My daughter is terrified of thunder to the point of cowering behind me last week when we were caught outside in an approaching storm, and although I wish she'd outgrow her fear and trembling, it's kind of nice to be needed and able to comfort. She likes me around when it's thundering outside, while at other times she's just as glad for me to leave her alone.
But in other situations, the fear has to be conquered. And the one we're dealing with right now is swimming. I've never thought of her as afraid of the water; she's cavorted in the kiddie pool plenty of times on vacations, and used to go in our above-ground pool as a little girl without much hesitation. But she was young then, and supported by a wide variety of flotation devicess and loving grown-ups. Now, as a very large 12-year-old, she has to learn to go it alone. And she's terrified. She started one-on-one lessons at a local pool a couple of weeks ago, and after one lesson announced that she knew how to swim and didn't need to go anymore. She regularly panics in the pool, even though she can stand with head and shoulders well out of the water in the shallow end, and flat-out refuses to jump in, even holding the teacher's hand. She doesn't like it. She's afraid. She doesn't want to do that. Don't make her. Please.
But learning how to swim is a safety issue, at her age more than ever, and also a social issue, since her class will be getting swimming lessons next year in fifth grade and she doesn't want everyone to see her trembling at the thought of going into the water. So I have to force the issue. She has to learn. It's hard to explain to her without saying things like "You could drown if you don't learn how to swim," which, of course, only makes matters worse. She's afraid to learn to swim, but I'm afraid of what will happen if she doesn't. And I'm not easily turned from my own fears either.
+ + +
JULY 19, 2002
It's sort of ironic, in a stomach-churning way, that during the same week that sees the debut of "Refrigerator Mothers" -- a PBS documentary detailing the effects and the deep wrongness of the long-repudiated theory that autism was caused by cold, unloving mothers -- comes news on a study blaming moms for their children's learning problems. Somehow or other, it's always about mom, isn't it?
The study found that three-year-olds whose mothers went back to work before they were nine months old were less likely to be found school-ready than three-year-olds who had mom hanging around for anything over that. To quote the Intelihealth report: "Children whose mothers worked by the time the babies were 9 months old, and had insensitive mothers and poor-quality child care, had scores in the 37th percentile. The 3-year-olds who did best on the test, scoring at the 56th percentile, were those who had sensitive mothers who were not employed by the ninth month, and good-quality child care."
And there it is: insensitive mothers vs. sensitive mothers. What, one wonders, qualifies someone as an insensitive mother in this case? Does going back to work and dumping your kid in bad day care alone qualify as insensitivity? Did they follow these women around and gauge their sensitivity to their offspring, or calculate it out from a questionnaire? And, come to think of it, exactly how "school ready" does a three-year-old have to be? Maybe it's those kids with oversensitive mothers who've left their high-powered big business careers to stay home and stuff them full of Baby Mozart CDs are the ones who will have the harder time in the long run.
It's hard not to feel sarcastic and defensive about reports like this. Both my kids were in the ultimate day care -- a Russian orphanage -- from birth until well past their ninth month, and I can't deny that group care did nothing for their school readiness skills. Having good, loving, one-on-one parent involvement throughout one's growing up period is obviously the best option for child development in all areas. But unless our society is willing to make changes to deliver that option to all children -- longer maternity leaves, more telecommuting and split shifts, quality child care available to everybody, subsidies for stay-at-home moms -- all studies like this are good for is making moms feel guilty. Well, sensitive moms, anyway.
Monday, July 08, 2002
July 8-12, 2002
JULY 8, 2002
It's high dudgeon time for a lot of adoptive parents these days, with several perceived offenses to the honor of adoption turning up in the media. Specifically causing mouths to foam at the moment are a Disney commercial in which a father asks a mother if their bratty son might actually be adopted; a commercial for the upcoming Disney film "The Country Bears" in which a bear boy looks around at his human family and asks, "Mom, am I adopted?" (Mom replies, "No, of course not!"); and the movie "Lilo and Stitch," which apparently touts the advantages of living in a neglectful home with a birthfamily member over having a (shudder) social worker find you a loving adoptive family. Many are also still rattled by an episode of the sitcom "My Adventures in Television" that depicted the adoptive mother of a Chinese baby as shallow and shady.
Of all these offensive depictions, I've only seen the "Country Bears" ad, and while it certainly pricked up my ears, I didn't find it particularly offensive. Honestly, I felt more bristly about an "It's a Miracle" episode I watched with my daughter that depicted a woman's search for her birthparents while barely mentioning her adoptive ones. I hissed under my breath every time host Richard Thomas referred to the birthfather as "her dad." When my daughter asked questions about who exactly they were talking about at any given time, I carefully supplied the proper terminology. Even so, I can't say I was actively offended. The show was certainly positive about adoption, with emphasis put on the birthparents making a plan for their daughter and everyone being pleased with how things had worked out.
Maybe I just spend so much time being worked up about school issues with my kids that it sucks up all my potential for offendedness, but I really can't see too much reason to seethe in all these allegedly incorrect adoption references. I suppose I'm of the "There's no such thing as bad publicity" school, but my dream is that one day adoption will become so commonplace and unspectacular that we will be allowed to laugh about it. Apparently we're not there yet. But at the very least, depictions that we perceive as unperceptive can open doors to talking with our children and presenting our own more enlightened views, and giving them language to use when they're challenged by uncharitable attitudes off the TV and movie screen. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?
+ + +
JULY 9, 2002
I’ve written here before about what a conversational stopper childbirth stories are for me, and how I wish women with graphic tales of such would stop to consider, when launching, whether infertile or childless women in their company will be entirely happy to listen to how darn hard it is to birth a baby. I’ve learned to tune those out pretty well now, but at a party recently I found another topic I am now unable to gracefully accept: and that is, “Aren’t parents today just awful!”
You’d think that people would hesitate to bring this topic up in front of people who are, as a matter of fact, parents today. You’d be wrong. There’s a “present company accepted” understanding that we’re not talking about parents today who are of our acquaintance, but that big pool of parents today that we do not personally know, but know with certainty are driving the country to hell in a handbasket. Not teaching their kids manners. Not supporting their schools. Standing up for cheaters. Blaming the teacher for misbehavior. Can you believe how misguided some people are?
Well. Ahem. On that misbehaving thing. I’ve, um, sorta done that. I’ve sorta done that a lot. And, you know, standing up for cheaters? I have to wonder, in situations like that, whether the parents might know something we don’t. Most parents I know support their schools, but schools don’t do a heck of a good job supporting parents; one school my kids attended pretty much shoved them out the door if they tried to set foot beyond the threshhold. And about manners, and the general way “kids today” don’t measure up to the glorious specimens of youthful decorum we once were? Check back with me, folks, when you have school-age kids of your own.
I floated some of these opinions during party conversation, and I’m afraid I was a bit of a blowhard about it. But you know, most of the folks with whom I was conversing have no children or very young ones; it will be interesting to check into these same topics eight or nine years down the road, when I’m not the only one with school-system-fighting, behavior-managing, older-child-nagging experience under my belt. It’s interesting how efficiently life changes your perspective.
+ + +
JULY 10, 2002
I'm rushing off to a meeting this morning with the new director of special education in our district. I don't expect anything much to come of it, but it will be a pleasant change to be stonewalled in person instead of over the phone. I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I started asking about my son's aide in March, so answers on any new business would be very unexpected indeed. But my campaign to be a constant, politely nagging presence continues.
I've spoken to this new director on the phone a couple of times, and he's expressed the opinion that the parents are the consumers of special education and so if they're not happy, he's not happy. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that were true -- if special ed was a product and we were the consumers and somebody actually cared very much about what we wanted? Focus groups would beg our opinions and manufacturers would jump to get as many different flavors out there as possible. And, of course, we could always switch to another brand if we didn't like what we had.
Not so easy in the special-ed universe, I'm afraid. Not so easy for us, and not so easy for those in charge, who have to listen not only to the "consumers," but to teachers and principals and local politicians and all manner of discontented opinion-holders. So really, I'll be happy just to get an answer to my five-month-old question. But I'm not counting on it.
+ + +
JULY 11, 2002
Nobody told me that when I became a parent, I'd have to be an impressionist. But that seems to be the case these days, as my ever-imaginative son presses me constantly into roles of cartoon characters and imaginary adversaries as a requisite of play participation and even as a tool of behavior management. I'm not half bad at it, I think, but sometimes I wonder what eavesdroppers must think.
I've been having to be Scooby Doo (Rooby Roo!) for quite some time, both to provide voice for his stuffed-animal versions and to hold conversations as "invisible Scooby." I do a pirate that sounds very much like the crab from "SpongeBob SquarePants," and lately, I have been called upon to be DeeDee to his Stu in "Rugrats" recreations. Best of all has been his demand that I come on like Big Bob Pataki from "Hey Arnold"; ever since we saw the "Hey Arnold" movie a week or so ago, the bossy voice of Big Bob has been able to order him around in the way the voice of mama often can't. I need help getting the small boy to do as he's told, I call in Big Bob. Works like a charm.
That's actually one of the really interesting and fun things about parenting this particular fetal-alcohol-effected boy, and that is: humor almost always works to distract him and change his behavior. Humor as a disciplinary tool! You gotta love it. When I find something funny or imaginative or surprising to grab his attention away from unproductive behavior, I get such a look of admiration from the little guy that it makes all the silly voices and cartoon reenactments worthwhile. But I'll admit: I'm getting tired of having to think up answers when he asks Scooby where the gang's at tonight. He never lets me go with a simple, "Ri ron't row!"
+ + +
JULY 12, 2002
Rushing off again this morning, this time to help set up for and attend the final ceremony for my kids' religious-ed camp, finishing up today after two weeks of half-days. My son made it through just fine -- hiring a grown-up aide for him rather than relying on the program's teen-age volunteers seems to be the ticket for getting him to sit acceptably through hours of lessons. His aide reports that he knows the answers to questions when asked, that his behavior has been fine, and that there are in fact two other boys in the class who have been acting far scoodgier than he.
Of course, they don't have aides gently nudging them into focus; if my son was aide-free, he would be the Scoodge King. But as it is, the only time he displayed his full repertoire of wild, tic-y, out-of-control activities was when his class had a Mass and I made the mistake of sitting next to him. He saves all the good stuff for me, the dear. Today, for that closing ceremony, I'll be hiding out in the hall.
It's high dudgeon time for a lot of adoptive parents these days, with several perceived offenses to the honor of adoption turning up in the media. Specifically causing mouths to foam at the moment are a Disney commercial in which a father asks a mother if their bratty son might actually be adopted; a commercial for the upcoming Disney film "The Country Bears" in which a bear boy looks around at his human family and asks, "Mom, am I adopted?" (Mom replies, "No, of course not!"); and the movie "Lilo and Stitch," which apparently touts the advantages of living in a neglectful home with a birthfamily member over having a (shudder) social worker find you a loving adoptive family. Many are also still rattled by an episode of the sitcom "My Adventures in Television" that depicted the adoptive mother of a Chinese baby as shallow and shady.
Of all these offensive depictions, I've only seen the "Country Bears" ad, and while it certainly pricked up my ears, I didn't find it particularly offensive. Honestly, I felt more bristly about an "It's a Miracle" episode I watched with my daughter that depicted a woman's search for her birthparents while barely mentioning her adoptive ones. I hissed under my breath every time host Richard Thomas referred to the birthfather as "her dad." When my daughter asked questions about who exactly they were talking about at any given time, I carefully supplied the proper terminology. Even so, I can't say I was actively offended. The show was certainly positive about adoption, with emphasis put on the birthparents making a plan for their daughter and everyone being pleased with how things had worked out.
Maybe I just spend so much time being worked up about school issues with my kids that it sucks up all my potential for offendedness, but I really can't see too much reason to seethe in all these allegedly incorrect adoption references. I suppose I'm of the "There's no such thing as bad publicity" school, but my dream is that one day adoption will become so commonplace and unspectacular that we will be allowed to laugh about it. Apparently we're not there yet. But at the very least, depictions that we perceive as unperceptive can open doors to talking with our children and presenting our own more enlightened views, and giving them language to use when they're challenged by uncharitable attitudes off the TV and movie screen. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?
+ + +
JULY 9, 2002
I’ve written here before about what a conversational stopper childbirth stories are for me, and how I wish women with graphic tales of such would stop to consider, when launching, whether infertile or childless women in their company will be entirely happy to listen to how darn hard it is to birth a baby. I’ve learned to tune those out pretty well now, but at a party recently I found another topic I am now unable to gracefully accept: and that is, “Aren’t parents today just awful!”
You’d think that people would hesitate to bring this topic up in front of people who are, as a matter of fact, parents today. You’d be wrong. There’s a “present company accepted” understanding that we’re not talking about parents today who are of our acquaintance, but that big pool of parents today that we do not personally know, but know with certainty are driving the country to hell in a handbasket. Not teaching their kids manners. Not supporting their schools. Standing up for cheaters. Blaming the teacher for misbehavior. Can you believe how misguided some people are?
Well. Ahem. On that misbehaving thing. I’ve, um, sorta done that. I’ve sorta done that a lot. And, you know, standing up for cheaters? I have to wonder, in situations like that, whether the parents might know something we don’t. Most parents I know support their schools, but schools don’t do a heck of a good job supporting parents; one school my kids attended pretty much shoved them out the door if they tried to set foot beyond the threshhold. And about manners, and the general way “kids today” don’t measure up to the glorious specimens of youthful decorum we once were? Check back with me, folks, when you have school-age kids of your own.
I floated some of these opinions during party conversation, and I’m afraid I was a bit of a blowhard about it. But you know, most of the folks with whom I was conversing have no children or very young ones; it will be interesting to check into these same topics eight or nine years down the road, when I’m not the only one with school-system-fighting, behavior-managing, older-child-nagging experience under my belt. It’s interesting how efficiently life changes your perspective.
+ + +
JULY 10, 2002
I'm rushing off to a meeting this morning with the new director of special education in our district. I don't expect anything much to come of it, but it will be a pleasant change to be stonewalled in person instead of over the phone. I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I started asking about my son's aide in March, so answers on any new business would be very unexpected indeed. But my campaign to be a constant, politely nagging presence continues.
I've spoken to this new director on the phone a couple of times, and he's expressed the opinion that the parents are the consumers of special education and so if they're not happy, he's not happy. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that were true -- if special ed was a product and we were the consumers and somebody actually cared very much about what we wanted? Focus groups would beg our opinions and manufacturers would jump to get as many different flavors out there as possible. And, of course, we could always switch to another brand if we didn't like what we had.
Not so easy in the special-ed universe, I'm afraid. Not so easy for us, and not so easy for those in charge, who have to listen not only to the "consumers," but to teachers and principals and local politicians and all manner of discontented opinion-holders. So really, I'll be happy just to get an answer to my five-month-old question. But I'm not counting on it.
+ + +
JULY 11, 2002
Nobody told me that when I became a parent, I'd have to be an impressionist. But that seems to be the case these days, as my ever-imaginative son presses me constantly into roles of cartoon characters and imaginary adversaries as a requisite of play participation and even as a tool of behavior management. I'm not half bad at it, I think, but sometimes I wonder what eavesdroppers must think.
I've been having to be Scooby Doo (Rooby Roo!) for quite some time, both to provide voice for his stuffed-animal versions and to hold conversations as "invisible Scooby." I do a pirate that sounds very much like the crab from "SpongeBob SquarePants," and lately, I have been called upon to be DeeDee to his Stu in "Rugrats" recreations. Best of all has been his demand that I come on like Big Bob Pataki from "Hey Arnold"; ever since we saw the "Hey Arnold" movie a week or so ago, the bossy voice of Big Bob has been able to order him around in the way the voice of mama often can't. I need help getting the small boy to do as he's told, I call in Big Bob. Works like a charm.
That's actually one of the really interesting and fun things about parenting this particular fetal-alcohol-effected boy, and that is: humor almost always works to distract him and change his behavior. Humor as a disciplinary tool! You gotta love it. When I find something funny or imaginative or surprising to grab his attention away from unproductive behavior, I get such a look of admiration from the little guy that it makes all the silly voices and cartoon reenactments worthwhile. But I'll admit: I'm getting tired of having to think up answers when he asks Scooby where the gang's at tonight. He never lets me go with a simple, "Ri ron't row!"
+ + +
JULY 12, 2002
Rushing off again this morning, this time to help set up for and attend the final ceremony for my kids' religious-ed camp, finishing up today after two weeks of half-days. My son made it through just fine -- hiring a grown-up aide for him rather than relying on the program's teen-age volunteers seems to be the ticket for getting him to sit acceptably through hours of lessons. His aide reports that he knows the answers to questions when asked, that his behavior has been fine, and that there are in fact two other boys in the class who have been acting far scoodgier than he.
Of course, they don't have aides gently nudging them into focus; if my son was aide-free, he would be the Scoodge King. But as it is, the only time he displayed his full repertoire of wild, tic-y, out-of-control activities was when his class had a Mass and I made the mistake of sitting next to him. He saves all the good stuff for me, the dear. Today, for that closing ceremony, I'll be hiding out in the hall.
Monday, July 01, 2002
July 1-5, 2002
JULY 1, 2002
I don’t know how many times, while struggling with my son at Mass or at a restaurant, I’ve thought about how hard and endless these things can be with him there, and how peaceful and stress-free they would be if his dad and I were doing them alone. Not for a minute that I’d wish him away -- he’s a charming boy with many wonderful qualities, but calm, patient and controlled behavior during outings isn’t one of them.
So it was appropriately instructional to see, when my husband and I attended a wedding yesterday, how completely bored we were without the constant distraction of the jumpy small boy. Mass dragged now that we didn’t have to be using our wits every moment to keep the kid quiet; every time I stood up -- actually stood up! which I rarely get to do when we attend church as a family, because I’m busy holding my son down -- I reached back as if to quiet the boy who wasn’t there. And I missed him.
And at the reception -- well, I guess I always knew that all those walks we have to take with the little guy to keep him from melting down out of boredom relieved our boredom, too, but again, it’s good to be reminded. Oh, what we wouldn’t have given for some reason to stop just sitting there. My boy never just sits there. I alternated between missing his action and worrying about whether he was giving his babysitter too much of it.
Family outings are looking better and better.
+ + +
JULY 2, 2002
The other night at dinner -- the one time when my language-challenged daughter can be counted on to be chatty, because it keeps her from having to eat her vegetables -- she asked, apropos of nothing, whether her birthmother drank alcohol the way her brother's did, and if that's why she has so much trouble understanding things sometimes. It completely floored me, because it showed that, signs of disinterest at the time notwithstanding, she had absorbed all the adoption language I'd been giving her, and all the information about her brother's fetal alcohol effects. Comprehension of abstractions is her weakest suit, but somehow, over time, she'd come up with this thought. If there's a developmental milestone for "processing serious talks from parents," maybe she's finally made it.
It's pretty gratifying to me, anyway, because most of my "serious talks" are met with probing follow-up questions like "What's for dinner" (from my daughter) and stray snippets of dialog from Sponge-Bob or Scooby-Doo (from my son). I talk because talking's what you're supposed to do, and I want things like adoption and learning challenges and neurological differences of all sorts to be pretty normal and easily explored topics 'round here. And maybe it's paying off now, just a little. Maybe after years of absorbing, they'll finally start having things to say about the major facts of their lives, and maybe they'll be comfortable enough to say them. At least when there's spinach on the menu.
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JULY 3, 2002
A wonderful thing is happening at our house in these early days of summer vacation: We're seeing a temporary cease-fire in the ongoing Sibling Rivalry Wars. Against all odds, my daughter and son are acting downright friendly, playing on the computers together, playing with cars in my daughter's room, agreeing on which cartoons to watch, asking to sleep over in each other's rooms. The last two mornings, my daughter has woken her brother up, made sure he got dressed, made his breakfast, and generally genially run the morning for me. And lest I fear there's been coercion or bossing involved, I've heard him ask her to do it again tomorrow. It's altogether too good to be true.
And it is, I know it is. The peace will pass, as it has in the past. They'll be back to pushing and making faces and calling names and feuding in no time. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the truces whenever they come along. It's a nice way to start the summer, anyway.
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JULY 4, 2002
Can't write much today, because we're having a party at noon, and it's going to be about 100 degress outside so everybody will have to stay in, and I have to figure out what to do with seven kids, at least one of whom enjoys finding things to mess up around the house and messing them up. (No, see, I mess up things around the house all the time, but it's not deliberate.) Do you suppose setting them all up in the laundry room with papers and markers and glue and then locking the door would be a bad thing? They'd probably find a way to get glitter into every nook and cranny of the washing machine.
It will be an appropriately international gathering for Independence Day, anyway. Out of seven kids, we have two from Russia, one from China, one just arrived from Guatemala, and three homegrowns. I never appreciated my country so much as when I came back from adopting abroad, and having all these little adopted Americans around is a good reminder of how very lucky we are to live in our one nation, under God. Happy Fourth of July to all!
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JULY 5, 2002
This is the time of year when most people are piling up fluffy novels for beach readings, but parents of children with special needs -- please, tell me I'm not the only one -- tend to be bogged down with weightier fare. Here's what's on my list of hot summer reading:
* A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine. I'm about halfway through this relatively easy reader now, and the man makes sense. I'll admit, though, that I'm always a little leery about case studies in which every learning-challenged child is Really Brilliant, once you compensate for his or her weaknesses. Isn't anybody just average anymore?
* Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are by Joseph Ledoux. After months and months of dipping into this one I'm only about a third of the way through. What a slog! I started reading it to gain an understanding of brain chemistry, since everybody's always going on about that, but the material activates whatever chemical in my brain is responsible for putting me to sleep. It's engagingly written for hard science, but perhaps Dr. Levine would say that, with all kinds of minds, mine isn't the kind that can easily take in stuff like this.
* Should I Medicate My Child? by Lawrence Diller, author of Running on Ritalin. I haven't started this one yet, but have skimmed a bit. His discipline suggestions (and this seems to be the new tack on ADHD: It's all the parents' fault) aren't really appropriate for my fetal alcohol effected guy, but the listing of psychiatric drugs and their intended and unintended effects should be helpful whenever doctors start telling me that giving these meds to my son is no more dangerous than popping a Tylenol myself.
* Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis. I started this one only to find that it's remarkably similar to another book I recently enjoyed, Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman. It comes well-recommended, so I'll wait a bit until the earlier book is significantly faded in my memory and come to it fresh. I'm reading it for my daughter, but maybe I could use a little extra comprehension work too.