How I made my kids miserable yesterday

Thought I'd keep some track here of how my kids are doing on that summer homework I mentioned last week, either as a record of success or lazy failure. Here's what we did yesterday, 8/9/10:

The Spanish workbook I'm using with my son tries to make things interesting by throwing in celebrity names -- as in yesterday's exercise, which required matching famous relatives with the Spanish terms that described their relationship (for example, "Goldie Hawn y Kate Hudson" with "La madre and la hija," "Luke y Owen Wilson" with "los hermanos," and "Darth Vader" with "El padre de Luke Skywalker." Cute idea ... except my son's awareness of popular culture pretty much ends at Nickelodeon and PBS Kids. So I had to explain who everyone was before he could have a good guess. Kind of wished we could skip over "Paris y Nicky Hilton" -- I try so hard to pay no attention to them at all.

Also on the table for my son was a geometry worksheet about identifying angles. This book also tries to make things fun, in this case presenting the angles to be identified as the legs of little cartoon gymnasts. Female gymnasts, with arrows pointing to their crotches so we knew just what angle was being asked for. I don't think it registered with my son, but ... maybe not the most tasteful way of presenting the information, ya know?

My daughter did a worksheet from the remedial math review sheets posted on her college's website, my bid to make her as prepared as possible for her upcoming remedial math class. This particular sheet was about order of operations, or PEMDAS as my kids have been taught to call it, and some of the problems were quite complicated, with exponents and square roots and parentheses and brackets. I had to Google for instructions a few times before I could help her out, and even then we came to the conclusion that one of the solutions on the answer sheet was just wrong. More often, though, it came down to her copying something incorrectly as she moved from step to step. Oops.

Because I am mean and want them to be unhappy, I'm also requiring them to read with me for the rest of their summer. Yesterday they each started books -- Bridge to Terabithia, iBooks for iPad version, for my son, and an old coffee-stained copy of The Color of Water for my daughter, who hates to read but will sometimes agree to nonfiction. She almost read The Color of Water her freshman year in high school, before the resource room teacher came back from maternity leave and supplanted the sub who thought that was a good idea. I saw it was on a list of books that might be used in her college remedial reading class, so we'll give it a try. I may have to do some pretty heavy bribing to keep her going.

What unpleasant academic chores are you forcing your kids to do? Share in the comments.

Keep your blog music to yourself

I'm afraid that this is going to come off sounding cruel, and I don't mean it that way, though it's something that often makes me mumble rude words under my breath. I know it's done with all good intentions, in an effort to create a particular atmosphere and share something precious and important. It's meant to be meaningful, not annoying, certainly, I understand that. But it's annoying nonetheless.

I'm talking about music on blogs.

If you've had a song written for your child, or a playlist of songs that your child enjoys, or an inspirational tune that always puts you in a peaceful frame of mind, it is entirely right and nifty that you should share it with the people who are reading your words. But would it be so bad to make it an opt-in experience? To have a big button up top that says, "Listen to my musical selections as you read?"? People would want to do that, I think, particularly if they're enthralled by the rest of your blog.

But when you make the music ring out every time someone hits your site, here's what happens, at least to me. I read blogs in my RSS reader. If it looks interesting, I hit the link to open the page in another tab. I keep reading, opening, reading, opening, and then suddenly I have unexpected music blending unpleasantly with the music I already have playing on iTunes. Then I either have to hit the mute button and lose the music I want to listen to, or scurry frantically through tabs searching, searching for the site making that noise, then scrolling furiously to find the off button, which is usually hidden in a sidebar somewhere, often with decoy idle music players for extra confusion.

So what was meant as a nice extra touch to website design becomes a reason for me to arrive at a site angry, cursing, and frustrated.

I started web writing in the early days of Geocities, in which adding as many gewgaws to your site as possible was the general idea. I was more Warrior Mom than Holly Hobbie, and the froufrou bothered me then. Maybe that's why the music bothers me now. Maybe I'm just always looking for something to be bugged by. Maybe I've written way more words about this than it deserves. What do you think? Does blog Muzak make you nuts too? Add your thoughts in the comments.

Summer homework blues

My son had the last day of his summer job yesterday, and my daughter's is today. School doesn't start until September 7 and 8, so we've got a loooooooooooooong stretch of boring weeks ahead. One thing that's definitely on the agenda is getting to some of the summer homework I meant to have my son do -- a little geometry and Spanish to prepare him for the more mainstream classes he's going to have on those subjects in the fall. I'm trying to persuade my daughter that it would be a good idea for her to do some of the basic math review on her college's website to prepare for the remedial math classes she's taking. When I mention it, she looks like I'm asking her to spend her last precious days of summer digging coal out of the backyard.

The thing that stinks about these kind of summer projects for kids is that I have to be involved in them, and to do so I have to remember geometry and Spanish and higher math concepts, which I do not. I've been out of school for a while. Those brain cells are gone. So before I can sit down to guide my guy through a geometry worksheet, I have to go online and Google, "Quick! Explain geometry to me!" Feels a little like digging coal from this end, too.

Why we don't yell at teachers in public

The ever-helpful special-needs blog The Wrightslaw Way had a post today entitled Going Ballistic in a Public Forum - NOT Good Form! and I say, Amen to that. It gave me an unpleasant flashback to a Back to School night when my son was in first grade. Other parents in that class had a good gripe in that, due to personnel and space considerations, their kids had been kept in the same classroom for years instead of moving up to another self-contained class; meanwhile, younger kids (most noticeably my very small, very fidgety, just-up-from-pre-K guy) kept being added to the mix. I don't begrudge those parents their extreme pissed-offness ... but it was best directed at the special-education supervisor, in a meeting or a thoughtfully phrased letter. Yelling at the young teacher on Back to School night until you made her cry was just bullying, and the mom who did it damaged that class and my son in ways I've never entirely forgiven.

Yelling, anger, sarcasm, making a scene ... those things feel good, I know they do, and they give parents a feeling of power that is hard to come by. But they're a bad idea. They're never the best way to change the system. They always do damage to our ability to function as our children's advocates, even if they appear effective in the short run. We teach our children not to get down on the level of bullies, and we should take that advice ourselves. Treat those school personnel the way we would want them to treat us -- as partners, as knowledgeable professionals, as grown-ups.

Then, you know, start up a blog where you can pour out that venom in a more appropriate and anonymous venue.

Just to be safe

So apparently there's some bickering going on over the Restraint and Seclusion bill that was supposed to protect students with special needs against abusive behavioral practices in schools. According to a Disability Scoop post, the American Association of School Administrators is against the bill, and wants to change it to allow the specification in an IEP that for this particular student, restraint and seclusion are A-OK. A spokesman for the organization is quoted as saying, "We see it as a discussion to be had in advance with the expectation that you never have to use it. We would hopefully only be using it in emergency situations, but instead of being reactive you would be proactive."

Well, okay. Proactive is good. And in that spirit, how about if we also amend the law to add a provision allowing parents to sue a school district and prosecute a school administrator if restraint and seclusion are done improperly, in a way that injures or traumatizes a child, by personnel without proper training and support, in a classroom that's become a dumping ground for behavior problems, in a placement that does not work for the child in question, and/or when less invasive behavioral interventions like a Functional Behavior Assessment and a Behavior Intervention Plan have never been ordered, provided, or implemented.

You know, with the expectation that we'd never have to use it.

Well, hello! Pay no attention to the five inches of dog hair on every available surface!

Wow, I just noticed that this blog was named as one of "ten blogs for special-needs parents" by SheKnows.com, along with some of my favorite parenting blogs. I'm honored to be in that company, and ... um, a little embarrassed by how infrequently I've been blogging here lately. It's like somebody invited everybody to your place for an open house, and you haven't cleaned in a really, really long time.

So if you've come here from that SheKnows list, hey, welcome! Remove that stack of newspapers from the sofa and have a seat! Pay no attention to the massive cobwebs in the corners! Just give me a few minutes to find my kitchen counter under all the old mail and dirty dishes, and I'll make you some coffee! The mold washes right out of the filter basket, no problem.

Seriously, I've been spending most of my writerly energy these days on my About.com site at http://specialchildren.about.com -- that's the writing that pays my bills, and keeps my kids in iTunes. Please stop by there and click around 20 or 30 times. I'll try to get some work going here again, too.

New Site, Same as the Old Site

Just moved Mothers With Attitude (the main site, not this blog) over to a much cheaper Web host, hooray! You should notice absolutely nothing different, same mishmash of styles from when I ran out of steam in a redesign. So far, looks like everything still works the way it should, or doesn't work same as always. Success!

Unless it's just toying with me, and everything is about to fall apart. Could happen. I know enough about technology to sort of make myself think I know what I'm doing, but not enough to actually know. Anyway, if anybody saw "under construction" signs today and worried, I'm back.

Adoption on "In Plain Sight"

Last week, USA's witness-protection procedural In Plain Sight had a plot about a witness with Asperger syndrome, and this week there was something else within my blogging realm: an adoption plotline. The witness-of-the-week [spoiler alert!] was a homeless man who stopped a bombing. Turned out he was a genius who fled his adoptive home when he was 15 because he didn't feel understood. In exchange for giving testimony, he asks the authorities to find his birthmother, who he's been searching for unsuccessfully for years. She's found, but she's dying, and he gets there too late to meet her. By unlikely chance, though, the man she was married to at the end of her life turns out to be the man she had a baby with decades before, so the witness finds his birthfather. He also finds out that his mama was a rolling stone, just like him. Biology is destiny, ya know.

Of course, all through this, I'm thinking about the guy's adoptive parents, and whether they've missed him over the fifteen-plus years he's been missing, and now will be even less likely to ever see him again as he takes on a new identity. He, of course, doesn't seem to have given them any thought at all. Chopped liver, they are. Not that I'm defensive or anything.

Why We Don't Just Go "Rescue" Random Kids

Geez, you know I'm all for adoption, and I'm sure many of us who've opened our hearts to children in disadvantaged situations have seen the news from Haiti and thought, "I'd like to scoop those babies up and bring them home with me." But we don't, you know, actually do it. Because there are laws, and precautions, and pesky things like paperwork.

The distinction between charitable impulse and really bad idea was apparently lost on a group of Americans who went to the earthquake-ravaged nation and scooped themselves up some kids, without being all that persnickety about whether they were truly orphans or not. For their troubles, they were arrested and have now been charged with kidnaping.

The ugly truth -- something that those of us who've adopted internationally have probably wrestled with in our hearts, and something that has the potential to stop international adoption in any country that has a little pride -- is that it's hard not to feel that, whether they have a birthfamily who wants them or not, children are better off in our comparitively rich and resource-filled American homes and communities. That's an impulse we have to struggle against, and there should be mountains of paperwork to make sure we don't get off too easily. It's hard enough to shake the image of Americans buying kids when we do have proof of need; the Idaho Baptists are finding out now what happens when you don't bother with it. You wind up in trouble, and probably make it harder for kids who are eligible for adoption to get out.

You Already Have a Family

I'm finally catching up with "Find My Family," which we taped when it debuted. My daughter is dying to watch it, but I wanted to watch it first, and it's been waiting for me to get up the nerve. Seeing it now ... wow, it's bad. Interesting that the people involved use terms like "birthmother" and "birthfamily," but the show host keeps driving home "MOTHER" and "FAMILY." Adoptive families are clearly chopped liver in this scenario. I don't know what to tell my daughter about this. I know this is an issue for her ... but she's so sensitive and impressionable, and the the show is such overwhelming Adoptee Wish Fulfillment Fantasy, that I think it could do more harm than good. We'll have a talk about it.

Side of the Road Rage

Why do the people who come to my little cul de sac to wait for their kids after school feel that it's appropriate to park at a stop sign and block my driveway and clog the entrance to my street? Who does that? Where are their manners? This is the kind of thing that makes neighborhoods pull up the welcome mat and get the police to keep people away. I don't mind people turning around in my driveway -- we removed the cement blocks the previous owners had to prevent that -- and I don't mind them sitting in front of my house. But if you're parked in front of my driveway when my daughter's trying to come home for work or my husband's trying to get out after lunch ... honesty, what is the matter with you?

School craze

I make a big deal in my book about getting your child off to school as calm as possible, plenty of time, no stress, no yelling, no rushing. And boy, did I blow that today, on the very first day of school. Everybody was up and ready in plenty of time, but I let my son have a little too much alone time, and then we were rushing, and then we were halfway to school before I realized he didn't have his schedule, and we had to run back home, and there was some yelling and panicking and melting down (mostly me, but still). I hope that's the most out-of-control part of his day, but given the fact that his aide didn't have the right schedule when we met her and has no idea of what classes he's in, I'd think not.

Listen to me ramble

I've done a couple of podcast interviews for my new book, 50 Ways to Support Your Child's Special Education, and they're available on the Web if you're interested in hearing me talk and talk and TALK. The one for Mommy Time Radio is about six minutes, and the one for NEED Project is sufficiently longer that I haven't gotten up the nerve to listen to it; I had the impression at the time that I was blathering on, and I'd hate to confirm it. If you give it a listen, let me know how I do. I so prefer writing, where you can go over things and clean them up before anybody sees.

I'm doing another interview on Tuesday for The Parent's Journal, and then on September 10 I'll be doing a live "meet and greet" at the Barnes and Noble in Clifton, NJ. If you're in the vicinity, stop by and keep me company. Details are here.

Schedules at last

So my kids' school schedules finally came on Saturday (clever to make them arrive on a day when we can't immediately call and complain.) My daughter's looks perfect, and my son's has just one glitch -- the same elective class in two different periods. That's pretty minor compared to problems on his friends' schedules, though. Two of his friends had schedules with periods completely missing, and his friend who's going to be a junior has senior English on his schedule. It will all work out, and it's good to know now exactly what the issues will be. Lunch, I can see, may be a problem, because none of his friends have it the same period. Either he'll make new friends, eat alone (as my daughter usually has to), or pull up a chair beside his paraprofessional.

Movie recommendation: Julie and Julia

I saw Julie and Julia the other night, and found it to be completely adorable. Unlike a lot of critics, I liked the parts with Julie as well as Julia, and thought the two stories benefited from each other as counterpoint. I'm not at all a foodie, and was not seized by an irresistible urge to eat the kind of food shown onscreen (except maybe that bruschetta Julie made early on). What the movie really made me want to do was go home and hug my husband. The movie offers a great depiction of two functional, affectionate marriages, something you don't see that much of in movies and TV these days. I though it was interesting that, although the plot involved the accomplishments of two women, you couldn't imagine either of them doing what they did without the love and support of their spouses.

For those of us who've dealt with infertility, there was a very sweet little scene, very understated, showing Julia's reaction to news that her sister is pregnant, that rang true and familiar. Been there, cried those tears, got that sweet comforting hug from my husband. A nice touch in a very nice, funny, sweet movie.

Something I didn't know about "Sully"

After the big media rush surrounding the plane that landed on the Hudson River in January, it seemed hard to believe that there was anything more to know about the plane's captain, Chesley Sullenberger. He seemed like a nice guy in danger of being so overexposed that the inevitable autobiography would be a big "so what." Reading a review in our local paper today, though, I saw something that I either missed in the coverage around the event or never got reported before: He's an adoptive dad. From the review: "He tells of training as a military pilot, his first kiss with the woman who would become his wife, their struggles to conceive and their joyful adoption of two girls." Gonna have to put that book on my reading list now.

< shameless promotion >

Hey, if any of you live in the vicinity of Clifton, New Jersey, come out and see me at the Barnes & Noble at Clifton Commons on September 10. I'll be doing a "meet and greet," which is what they do if you're a local author who's not likely to bring in the hordes like, say, Kate Gosselin (for whom my daughter and I waited in line for an hour and a half). I'll be available to chat and sign copies of my new book, and I hope folks will come out for me because otherwise, my son's going to accost random strangers and drag them over. You can get more info about the event here -- and if by chance you've already read the book and liked it, please consider reviewing it on Amazon and/or BN.com.

< /shameless promotion >

Worrying off-schedule

While I was on vacation last week, one of the blogs that has been sucking up the time usually reserved for this one -- my Brothers & Sisters blog -- was unceremoniously dumped by 451 Press. I'm hoping that the time I've been spending writing about the fictional Walkers in all their spectacular dysfunction can now be channeled back to keeping this blog current.

And speaking of dysfunction ... why, oh why, oh why can't our school district get schedules out on a timely basis? Come on, people! We usually go on vacation the second week in August, and the kids' schedules have always come reliably during that week when we're not here to obsess with them immediately. This year, though, we came home to nothin'. Nothing in the mail, nothing on the fancy new website the school has for posting schedules and grades. We've usually gotten a preliminary schedule without teachers and classrooms earlier in the summer, too, and that's also gone missing this year.

It seems like every year, things are a little less organized. And that means a little more time wasted at the start of the school year getting everybody in the right place. Maybe they're just trying to minimize the time that parents have to complain before school begins, but I'm afraid that they're just that disorganized. Meanwhile, I'm practically sitting on the mailbox waiting for these pieces of paper that mark the official start of my school worry season. I've got worrying to do, people! Get it together!

My new book is out July 18

Just got a big box of author's copies of my new book this week, and it's so exciting to see it all bound up and pretty. It's called 50 Ways to Support Your Child's Special Education, and offers really practical things you can do every day to help your child. I've talked to a lot of educators who are disheartened by a lack of parental involvement, and unlike so much of what ails special education, that's an easy thing to fix. Please consider keeping an eye out for the book, online and in your bookstore, and help me get the word out.

Last ER tonight

I'm feeling very nostalgic about the last episode of ER on tonight. The show debuted in 1994, just a couple of months before we went to Russia to adopt our kids. I enjoyed the early episodes, then missed a month's worth while we waited out the adoption in a country where our viewing choices were mostly re-runs of U.S. shows long cancelled. (The Hat Squad seemed to get a lot of airtime.)

When we got back, I started watching the show again. I remember talking my mom, who hated watching medical shows because she always thought she had the same symptoms, into watching the show with me one night while she was visiting. Alas, it turned out to be the night of Love's Labors Lost, one of the most harrowing hours of TV I can remember watching. Took her a while to forgive me for that one, and I don't think she ever watched the show again.

I was a regular viewer for a while, finally throwing in the towel when Abby was shaping up to be Mark Greene 2.0, a character for who nothing could ever go right. I watched the George Clooney episode a few weeks ago for old times' sake, and though I have a meeting to go to tonight, I'll be DVRing the whole three hour goodbye extravaganza tonight. Rumor has it that Clooney will be back for this one, too. Don't know about that, but I'll be.