Stupid snow day

My kids had a snow day yesterday, the third in four weeks. And I'm all for public safety and everything, but really, at least two of those days could just as well have been a delayed opening -- and if this particular weather had been occuring in the midwest instead of the northeast, it wouldn't have been cause for closure at all. A fat lot of weather wimps we are out here. And I've got kids just sittin' around because of it.

But really, I've made my peace with that. Disruptions in routine aren't as big a deal to my son as they once were, and days off from the middle-school shuffle are sort of a relief to my daughter, and I honestly don't mind missing our morning commute. Yesterday, though -- yesterday was a disappointing day to miss. Among the things that didn't happen because school didn't happen:

* Report card delivery. I've been checking the calendar for weeks, waiting for February 6, February 6, February 6 so I could see how my kiddos were doing in school, and now I have to wait three more days. Yeah, so okay, I have no life. What's your point?

* Announcement of who made All-City Band. I'm hoping my daughter's name is on that list, and she's hoping it's not, but that's a different story.

* Delivery of notes-to-the-teacher that I'd stayed up late Thursday night to write. I'd been putting them off for days, and was so proud to have gotten them done in time to get a response before the weekend. Ha! Foiled again.

* Library duty. Those afternoons working in my son's school library are prime spy time for me. I hate missing an opportunity to infiltrate.

* Bowling league. My daughter might not mind missing school, but what do you mean I can't go bowling? Not only did I have to listen to an evening's worth of whining, but now I have to spend my Saturday morning taking her out for consolation bowling. So why isn't it snowing today?

* First sixth-grade dance. My daughter had already decided not to go, but now with the event being rescheduled, I'll have two things to worry about: that she'll stick with her "I'm too scared of new things to try this" decision -- or that she won't, and she'll actually go to a dance with boys.

So alright, it's not as bad as the year when Valentine's Day was on a Friday before a week of vacation, and Friday was a snow day, and I was stuck with two dozen pink cupcakes and a bag-full of kiddie cards; and it's not as inconvenient as the snow day a few weeks ago that took a long-awaited IEP meeting with it; but it's frustrating. And really, why should my daughter be the only one who gets to whine?

Too good to be true?

There must be some kind of disturbance in the universe lately, some fundamental disruption in the ordinary order of things. I say this not because of the nasty winter we've been having in the Northeast, or because of wanton nudity at the Super Bowl -- but because this year, the seemingly impossible happened: I had two excellent IEP meetings for my kids. In a row! A week apart! I'm feeling pretty flabbergasted about it. Delighted, but flabbergasted.

Honestly, it was unreal. For once, all the team members seemed to be on the same wavelength, and it was my wavelength. The questions I asked were answered the way I hoped. The support I needed for my kids was freely offered. My ideas were listened to. I was told that my kids were doing great, and after years of hearing "great" throughout the year and "not so great" at IEP meetings, that alone made me pretty happy. Things are going well. Too well? Maybe, but I'm going to hold off worrying for a week or two and just bathe in all these good vibes.

Maybe it's just my turn for good news. I know several other families in our district that are having mighty IEP struggles just now, and it makes me feel a little guilty to listen to them go through the same sort of trials we have in the past and think, "Me? This year? Oh, no trouble at all." I'd like to believe we've finally got everything figured out, and school from here on in will be smooth sailing. I'd like to believe it for a little while longer, anyway.

IEPs and IDEA and NCLB are among the educational acronyms under discussion on the Child.com board right now -- stop in and vent a little. I also see where Yahoo! Health has a little item on IEPs today, too. Which reminds me, I haven't seen any actual written documents for my kids yet. Maybe I should hold off on my feelings of extreme relief until I see all that gleeful agreement in black and white on something legally binding.

Half-dressed at half-time

We missed the Super Bowl on Sunday -- I only ever watch it for the commercials, anyway -- and therefore my kids were spared the sight of Janet Jackson's overexposure. I've only seen replays of it with the bared body part blurred by computer, but she can't have showed very much more than half the actresses at the Golden Globes were in their chest-baring frocks. It's the Year of the Breast, apparently, and it's a good thing I'm not a famous person because I would either have to get some major implants or sit the year out.

I'm sure all the people who think TV is evil will use this as an excuse to bemoan the perversion of a beloved family tradition into an MTV freak show. And I'll agree that if the folks at CBS arranged for MTV to do the halftime show and didn't expect it to be provocative and risque, they really haven't been watching enough music videos. But I guess I have trouble seeing an event in which men plow into each other with injury-causing force, interspersed with ads for alcohol, as wholesome family viewing in and of itself. Of the three things that disturb me there -- the violence of sports, the marketing of alcohol when kids will be watching, and the fleeting nudity of a pop star -- the latter bothers me the least. But I'm sure the youth of our nation will learn an important lesson from all this outrage, and that is: If you want to get your name in the paper, take your clothes off.

And more new stuff

Columns, we got columns. New on Mothers with Attitude today are entries from our three regular columnists:

1. Ken Swarner reflects on the relative impossibility of forming a coherent thought when children are around in his latest Family Man entry.

2. Julie Donner Andersen regrets the relative impossibility of getting an appropriate gift from her husband in her new Therapeutic Laughing installment.

3. And April Cain reacts to the relative impossibility of keeping her son from being teased by insensitive peers by remembering a long-ago friend whose kindness helped her survive schoolyard taunting in this month's Thinking It Over.

How Sick Is Too Sick for School?

That's the question asked by a HealthDay article in this morning's Yahoo!News, and one that's being asked by lots of parents this flu-riddled, cold-friendly, bone-chilling season. And it's on my mind after two days of having my sick niece at our house because the school nurse said she was too sick for school, but her parents had to work. If a kid's too sick to stay in school, is she too sick to hang out with my kids? With her elderly grandmother? To tell you the truth, I'm not feeling that good myself.

When I was a kid, back in the Stone Age, determining whether a kid was too sick for school was mostly a matter of telling the aching from the faking. In my family, the rule was: If you have a fever, you're sick. If you don't, get your butt to the breakfast table. Since I was a little overacheiver who wanted to go to school, it never occurred to me to try to rig a thermometer to reflect feverishness, though if sitcoms and mischievous-kiddy movies are to be believed, a lot of children did. These days, of course, the question is not so much, "Is she really sick?" but "Is she really that sick?" Two-career families and single parents juggling snow days and school vacations and teacher in-service days and half days and holidays may find a sniffly sneezy sore-throat day just too much to handle.

So when is a sickish child okay to suffer through a school day, and when do they absolutely, positively, have to stay in bed? Fever's still a reliable indicator, although to what degree is up for debate. I'd say if a kid's not running a fever in the morning, he or she is good to go, but our school nurse wants 24 hours of fever-freedom before kids come back to the classroom. If that means keeping a seemingly healthy child home, I'd say she's probably dreaming. Vomiting has always been a pretty quick ticket home -- I've had to pick up kids who have thrown up numerous times, even though their at-home demeanor indicates that whatever was sickening them got thrown-out with the throw-up -- but the HealthDay article claims that it's perfectly okay to send a kid with diarrhea to school, as long as they wash their hands. HealthDay also says head lice are no reason to deny a kid the right to learn, and although I personally agree, I don't think the school nurses of America have jumped on that particular bandwagon.

Most of the "keep them home?" quandaries I've had center on those long-term, season-spanning cough-and-cold combos that never involve fever or serious illness but turn kids into biohazards, spewing spit and snot, hacking and honking and generally appearing way sicker than they are. You can keep a kid home a day or two for that, but there have been school years where my two would have had to sit home a whole quarter, so tenacious was the upper respiratory nastiness. My niece, on the other hand, clearly had herself a little fever and some coughing and some listlessness going on Thursday, and her mom hoped she wasn't really that sick, and the school nurse begged to differ. What I wonder is: What happens when the school nurse's kids get sick?

New on Mothers with Attitude

Three new websites grace our links pages:

1. Adoption Adventure Network: Sponsors 'American culture camps' at which children from Russian orphanages can meet prospective families; also offers translation services, seminars and the inspiring story of the Avilla family.

2. Special Needs Nurse: "... a place for professionals and parents to find?links on various developmental disabilities and continuing education ... a place to chat and exchange information regarding nursing problems of children and adults with special needs."

3. Multiple Sclerosis Sucks: MS with attitude.

Straight As, straight to your home

I started seeing ads today for a new service from Sylvan Learning Centers: eTutors. Instead of schlepping your kids across town to get learning assistance, you can just plop him or her in front of the computer and go on with your life, while a live person somewhere or other works online to get those grades going. It makes a lot of sense from a convenience standpoint, and maybe, for some kids, from an educational one, too -- say, if your child is more comfortable with a computer than a live person, or can concentrate better in your living room than in a room full of people, both of which are probably causes for concern all by their ownselves. For sure this additional Sylvan feature indicates that people are demanding that the kind of services we once went out for be brought in. Hey, we order books online, we go to Weight Watchers meetings online, we rent videos online, why should we drive somewhere just to help our kids learn better? The fact that the Sylvan office was right next door to a Dunkin' Donuts store was always reason enough for me, but maybe they'll find a way to deliver virtual donuts, too.

Special Needs in the News

1. A story in yesterday's New York Times ponders whether the seeming increase in the number of cases of autism is real, or just reflects increased awareness and diagnosis. Does it matter? Find a cure already!

2. The Times also has an editorial criticizing educators who think the new high standards of "No Child Left Behind" shouldn't apply to kids in special education. The editorialist's view is that kids with special needs need teachers who know how to teach them, not to be exempted from testing, and, well, who can argue with that? Yet somehow, I think it's not that simple. There's more discussion of No Child Left Behind and special-ed on Child.com's Education and Reading message board, and of the IDEA reauthorization on the Special Needs Children board. Come vent with us.

3. This Health Day news roundup includes a story on treating childhood phobias, and one on why parents with ADHD should also be treated (and no, not because your kid drives you crazy).

Make your virtual voice heard

Sometimes, when you've sat through enough doctor visits in which the specialist seems annoyed that you have a viewpoint, and enough school meetings in which parents with ideas are seen as troublemakers, and enough family dinners where everybody thinks they know how to raise your child better than you, and enough child behavioral struggles in which your child wants you to take "No!" for an answer, it may seem that nobody, but nobody wants your opinion. So take a little empowerment break this weekend, and let the following folks have your say:

1. A parent organization has posted a petition asking Disney to consider reinstating its special passes for kids with "invisible disabilities" like ADHD, DSI and Bipolar. For a wonderful while, the parks would allow these kids to skip the wait in line, but they've since rescinded the privilege, and moms facing a long wait with a short attention span are beseeching them to give it back. Click here to add your name to the list.

2. If that leaves you feeling all enfranchised, you can scan this list of special-education petitions on PetitionOnline and register your concern about the IDEA reauthorization, Due Process regulations, recording IEP meetings and other hot topics.

3. And if you really want to make a difference for the next generation, or just one particular member of it, take this quick survey posted by the daughter of a friend of mine for her civics assignment. There are two demographic questions, which you can opt out of, and three opinion questions, and she'll have to interpret the results for her homework. A bigger sampling's always better than a smaller one, so click here and help the kid out. Then you can call up your mother-in-law, and she'll get you back to feeling like your opinion counts for squat in a hurry.

New on Mothers with Attitude

Ken Swarner's latest Family Man column deals with the impossibility of getting kids out the door in any sort of timely fashion, and boy, do I hear that. Mornings here have just gotten more hectic since my daughter moved up to middle school while my son stayed in elementary. The girl's not the problem. She's a morning person. She's early to rise. She showers, dresses, makes her own breakfast, puts her things in the car, then wakes me up. She's a gem. Her brother, though ... well, her brother is a slugabed like his mom. We're a bad combination. He doesn't want to get moving in the morning, and I'm moving too slowly to make him.

When both kids went to the same school, my daughter's nagging usually got all of us into the car and to the schoolhouse on time. But now, her nagging only extends to the point at which we drop her off at the middle school. My son's dressed at that point -- his sister sees to it -- but unbreakfasted, and it's still too early to drop him at his school. So we go home ... where there's a TV. And a comfy couch. And a computer. And beds to make. And food to eat. And juice to drink. And shirts to change after the food and the drink get spilled. And toys to play with for just one more minute, Mom. And we just get tardier and tardier and tardier.

So this morning, as I told my guy again and again that we really need to move now, please, no, not one more minute, right now, NOW, really, I dozed off and now it's really really time to GO, I thought: "Yep, the Family Man's got it right, kids have no motivation to move it." But I know that if my daughter read that column, she'd say: "Kids? What about MOMS?"

The doctor is in

If you've ever wandered into the maze of pediatric subspecialties, you may wonder: What do all these people do? And are they just making up job titles now to get extra referral money? The American Academy of Pediatrics wants you to know that each and every one of those pediatric variations is absolutely necessary to your child's health, and in the interest of sorting out the pediatric endocrinologists from the pediatric gastroenterologists, the organization has made a nifty bunch of fact sheets available on its website. Get the lowdown on everything from pediatric allergists to pediatric urologists. The AAP site has some other nice information for families, including a reading checkup guide and a medical library. Best of all, you don't even need a copay to get it.

Clean and serene

My kids had a great visit with the dentist on Monday, and what are the odds of that? It was teeth-cleaning day, and there would have been a time when I'd have bet money we'd be escorted out of the place and told never to return. My daughter, the one who used to react with drama to every little pain, sitting quietly while her teeth were scraped and sprayed until her gums bled? My son, who used to flee from every touch, letting the dentist hang over him and put things in his mouth? My kids, who required the pediatrician to call in extra staff to hold them down when they needed shots, tolerating sharp objects? Nope, not likely. But there they were, both behaving like there was nothing to it and calmly emerging with their toothbrushes and their bright shiny smiles and everybody's nerves intact. Heck, I whined more about having my teeth cleaned than they did.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Dentist visits have always been a pretty low-stress experience for them, and I've been at a loss to figure out why. I'd decided it involved some sort of magical powers by our old dental practice, some sort of snake-charming ability of the dental hygeinist there to entrance my skittish little ones. When we switched to a practice closer to our home, I though -- well, this is it. The magic will be gone. The dentist won't know the tricks. The kids will react differently in a different office. The screams will be heard 'cross town. But again, no fuss, no muss, no stress, no worries. How lucky can you get?

Questions of the week

A couple of people have followed me from this weblog or its companion mailing list to the message boards I'm moderating at Child.com, and to those people I say, "Thanks!" And to the rest of you, I say, "Get moving! My boards are dead! Nobody's responding to my questions! Heeeeeeelp meeeeeee!" Pathetic enough for you? Good. This week's questions, for your posting pleasure, are, on the Education and Reading board, "Should all kids start kindergarten at age 5?" and on the Special Needs Children board, "Do you feel sad about your child? Just sad?" The latter springs off from a depressing seminar I attended a year or so ago, about which you can read more in the Parenting Isn't Pretty archives. Now move it! Go! Express an opinion! Please?

Thank heaven for little girls

Do adopting parents prefer girls? A Slate story presents statistics to prove that they do -- by a lot -- and suggests some reasons for it. Maybe girls are perceived to be less troubled than boys? More unfortunate and in need of care? Easier to raise? Or maybe it's just that wives are more likely to be the ones directing the adoption project in a family, and they dream of having a little girl? Maybe. It's hard for me to believe that these statistics are right-on, because most of the adoptive families I know have adopted one of each, and the ones that don't have a boy and a girl have one or more boys. Something I'd like to know from the statistics that the Slate story doesn't mention is how many of those families who adopted girls already had boys -- maybe it's not so much that mom only wants a girl, but that mom's got enough sons already and would like a little female company.

Snow Day

My kids had a snow day off from school today. I'd like to say we did all sorts of sweet family things with our surprise day of togetherness -- made a snowman, designed art projects, baked cookies, watched a movie all snuggled under a blanket -- but mostly my daughter watched TV, my son played in his room, and I messed around on the computer. It was relaxing enough, and the day off didn't interfere with my work schedule in a significant way, so I really didn't mind it; the worst part of school being cancelled was that my child study team meeting for my daughter was cancelled, too. I'd been looking forward to that meeting for over a month, and was all ready with questions and suggestions and bees in my bonnet, and now I'll have to wait some more. It couldn't have snowed on Friday instead?

Some of what I did while I was tooling around the internet today was get started on my second moderating job at the Child.com Web site: In addition to the Education and Reading board, I'm now overseeing the board for Special Needs Children. Thanks to anyone who's stopped by to help me get the reading board going, and please join me in this new space, too. Don't wait for the next snow day -- waste more time on the Net now!

Good grief

It's not every day that a fit of tears and upset is the cause for parental pride. But I have to say I was quite impressed today by my son's display of emotion when a leap-frog accident resulted in an injury to his little cousin. A heel came down a little too closely to an eye, and there was a little blood and a lot of tears as the little guy started wailing. That's not a surprise -- this particular child has always been pretty free with the waterworks, legitimate injury or no. But what did surprise me was how remorseful my son was. He hovered over his cousin with tears flowing down his own face, saying "I'm sorry" over and over. And I couldn't help but remember how he never cried when he was this cousin's age, and how hard it has been for him to acknowledge cause and effect, especially when the effect is bad. There have been times when he would have ignored such an incident, or ran from it, or blamed it on his invisible dog. And there have been times when he has obviously been near tears but shrank from it, refusing to let the tears flow. Taking full responsibility and expressing it in such an emotional way is fairly new territory, and I was impressed by his reaction even as I felt bad that he felt so bad. For some kids, crying is the same old, same old; for others, a revelation.

Learning my lesson

It's a good thing, every now and then, for a parent -- particularly a parent who has had a somewhat, shall we say, demanding attitude toward school personnel -- to stand for a time in a teacher's shoes and say, "Yowch! Somebody get me outta these things! They pinch!" That's the experience I had the other night as I filled in as an emergency subsitute for a sixth-grade religious education class at our church. I'd assured the religious-ed director that I would be very bad at the job, but could serve as a warm body in the front of the room if that's what they needed. It was.

Sixth-graders, let me tell you, are a tough audience. They alternated between stony silence -- this would be when I asked a question and waited for a response -- and fits of uncontrollable giggles -- this would be anytime else. I suddenly had sympathy for teachers who yell and threaten and withdraw priveleges from even the students who are behaving; it's unfair, sure, but you get to a point where you really would like to feel you're in control of something. In this case, though, I had, on the one hand, no particular priveleges to withdraw, and on the other, no particular responsibility to do anything other than survive the evening and deliver the children to their parents in one piece. That, I could do. And so I made them read the boring passages from their booklets and do the boring exercises therein, and if at the end of the evening I wasn't responsible for them growing more deeply in their faith, I also wasn't responsible for the fact that one girl didn't know how to spell the word "dinner," and one boy didn't know whether Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were Old Testament books or New. I'm just passing through, folks. These aren't my students. And I'm not really their teacher.

Thank God for that. And thank God for teachers who really do have a talent and a passion for their work. Standing in their place, bathed in flop sweat, made me want to kneel down and kiss the feet of anyone who can do this sort of thing for a living. I probably should snap out of that before daughter's IEP meeting on Thursday. I may still have to be unreasonably demanding, but out of respect, I will try very hard not to giggle.

New on (and around) Mothers with Attitude

I've been a busy bee this weekend, prepping and posting articles on the site and buzzing around the Child.com message boards, moderating the Education and Reading board and shooting my mouth ... er, my keyboard off elsewhere. Here's what's new:

1. A new Family Man column from Ken Swarner, this one on the danger, the drama, the sheer white-knuckle adventure of entering an untidy child's room. As the parent of a boy who hoards shopping bags, freebie car-shopper magazines, and receipts, I can relate.

2. Three new entries in our Parent's Portfolio: perspectives on kindergarten readiness from a teacher and a pediatric nurse practitioner, and some tips on surviving the nightly ordeal that is homework.

3. And speaking of homework, the new question for this week on Child's Education and Reading board is: Homework — Love it or loathe it? I've expressed my opinion on the subject. What's yours?

Atkins and epilepsy

Saw this article on Yahoo! News yesterday about how food companies are jumping aboard the Atkins diet bandwagon and pushing the low-carb nature of their offerings. Suddenly everything from fried chicken to beer is being repositioned as health food, and you don't need anymore evidence that this diet has caught the nation's imagination than that. Sure beats the endless supply of grapefruit and carefully planned out veggies I had to down during the Scarsdale diet craze (have I dated myself? does anybody else remember the Scarsdale diet? Really, it was a book, not etched on stone tablets or anything.)

But while it's amusing to read about how the food industry has figured out ways to make a buck from people's desire to get healthier, the most interesting thing I've read about the Atkins diet has been some preliminary research indicating that it might be useful in controlling epilepsy -- an easier, more socially do-able and less involved alternative to the ketogenic diet. My son's had enough seizures to get a diagnosis of epilepsy but not so many that we've needed to medicate him for it. Every time I research epilepsy medication, I think -- hmmm, maybe we could do the ketogenic diet instead. And every time I research the ketogenic diet, I think -- hmmm, maybe we could medicate instead. But if the Atkins diet does indeed fulfill this early promise of being effective for seizure control -- and especially if it keeps being America's no. 1 diet obsession, with restaurants coming up with approved offerings and food manufacturers marketing Atkins goodies galore -- it'll be a pretty darn exciting alternative. If nothing else, it's a diet I can join him on and maybe lose a little weight.

Get kids hooked on health

If you're raising a little hypochondriac, or just a kid with a healthy curiosity, a site called HealthyNJ offers lots of health-related links just for them. There's a section on sickness, a section on "wellness," and a section on New Jersey, which is apparently somewhere between sickness and wellness. Among the child-friendly sites listed are a virtual hospital where kids can learn about tests they may have to take; Infection Detection Protection, with fun info about the flu and other microbe-related nastiness; sites on feelings and fillings; and pages on bike safety, boat safety, farm safety, fire safety, skate safety, internet safety, water safety, even mine safety. Sure to give your kids something to think about, or something to obsess about, one way or the other.

Did Starbucks fund this?

One of the things you gotta love about medical research is that if you wait long enough, you'll find that just about anything is good for you, as long as you look at it the right way. For example, this week we learned that two excellent ways to stay healthy are to catch a common cold and drink enough coffee to give a horse the jitters: According to Australian researchers, that cold bug that drives you crazy can also cure you of skin cancer; meanwhile, some very wired scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health want us to know that drinking six or more cups of coffee a day will lower our risk of acquiring Type 2 diabetes.

Six or more cups? I can't help thinking that maybe those people drinking six or more cups are dying of something else before they get a chance at Type 2 diabetes. But hey, the scientists have spoken, and at least until the research study saying the exact opposite comes out in a week or two, it's double espressos all around. Now, let's have a study recommending some Krispy Kreme donuts to go with our java. And please, researchers, please -- can't you show that letting kids watch TV all day innoculates them against something nasty?

New for the new year

New on Mothers with Attitude: April Cain's Thinking It Over column reflects on those events that make a house a home; and Ken Swarner's Family Man column examines how a young man's first date turns his dad into an old man.

And new for me: I started yesterday as a moderator for one of the message boards at the Child magazine Web site. Come visit me in "Education and Reading." I've posted a question inviting surfers to share their worst school meeting ever, and I know a lot of you out there have PLENTY to add to that.

Soda-free zone

I remember earlier this school year, when my daughter was still having her new-to-middle-school jitters, we ran into an acquaintance from her old school at the supermarket. I asked him how he was liking life at middle school, and he responded with a huge smile that he LOVED it, just loved it. And why? "They have Snapple in the lunchroom!" he replied. His mom confirmed that the ability to down a couple of Snapples at midday was enough to make her boy a happy student.

I thought of that conversation when I read about the latest proclamation from the American Academy of Pediatrics (motto: "Fun? Not on our watch!") that schools should banish sodas from their lunchtime offerings, allowing only milk, water, and 100% fruit juice. Since Snapple's closer to 100% sugar water than 100% juice, it probably wouldn't make the cut, and I doubt my daughter's acquaintance is the only one who'd be seriously bummed. And you know, I realize that America's youth are getting fatter, and their teeth are rotting, and their nutrition stinks, and good food needs to be a high priority. But I also know how hard school is getting, and how much work these kids have to do, and how infrequently fun creeps into their day, and if they want to grab themselves a little sugar high to go with their institutional grub, I think it's kind of heartless to say no. Who knows for how many kids that's the highlight of the day?

Not quite back yet

Okay, so I said I'd be back on Monday, but, um, maybe I meant Monday, January 5. That's Back to Normal day for me -- the day the kids go back to school, and I go back to a full week of work, and apparently start adding to this Weblog on a regular basis, too. I hadn't taken into account the degree of slothfulness that sets in when you're under house arrest with kids ... I mean, home spending tons of quality time with kids on vacation. We've successfully negotiated Christmas now, but in the days ahead we have a bowling party, a New Year's party, a birthday, a science report, a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen marathon, and lots and lots of "Mom, I'm BORED"s to get through. So it may well be Monday before I'm able to think clearly enough to write again. In the meantime, if you need a laugh, check out these New Year's Resolutions that the American Academy of Pediatrics thinks we can get our kids to agree to. Fruits and vegetables! Neat rooms! Twice-daily tooth-brushing! It's a scream.

Escape Claus

It's December the 24th, my office is closed until Monday, the kids are home from school until January 5, even the presents I bought over the internet at the last minute have arrived and been wrapped, the cards I never addressed have been blown off until after the holiday, the plans for the big day are set, and I'm finally feeling ready for Christmas. In an effort to spend more time with my kids over the next few days and less time with my nose pressed to a computer screen, I'm going to take a little break from this Weblog, probably only until Monday. Just need a little time to play and recharge my creative batteries ... BATTERIES! Oh, man, I've got all these electronics under the tree and I forgot to buy BATTERIES! Gotta run...

Pediatricians on adoption

Maybe somebody was looking for a nice project during National Adoption Month, or maybe doctors are starting to notice an increase in the number of adoptive kids in their practice, but the American Academy of Pediatrics delivers a nice Christmas gift to adoptive families with a clinical report called Families and Adoption: The Pediatrician's Role in Supporting Communication. It's about as nice an overview as you could find of the medical and psychological issues surrounding adoption, and since it's written in plain English and not doctor-ese it's suitable reading for parents and prospective adopters as well as their pediatricians. This paragraph, for example, tidily touches on an array of hot-button issues:

"During preschool and elementary school years, peer and school problems may or may not be the manifestation for underlying adoption issues. Behaviors commonly identified as characteristic of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may actually be signs of posttraumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, bipolar disorder, or sensory integration disorder. Some school assignments may be problematic for children who have joined their family through adoption. Children who have lived in foster care or in another country may not have pictures of themselves from birth or at an early age. Family tree assignments may be difficult, because children may be unsure of how to demonstrate their relationship to their biological family, adoptive family, and foster families. Information about biological ancestors also may be unavailable to the child for such a project. Tracing genetic traits through generations may be difficult even for children who have an ongoing relationship with their biological families. For children adopted by an extended family member, these simple learning assignments may create anxiety by highlighting family differences.1,13 Communication with educators about adoption issues at this age, as at other ages, may be necessary to help children deal with some of these difficult school assignments and insensitive comments about adoption, family circumstances, culture, race, and ethnicity."

I don't know that I'd want my kids' doctor to be tracing their every problem to the fact of their adoption, but it would be nice if I wasn't the only person considering that at all.

A good hair day

My son's school had its big Christmas program on Wednesday, and I was a little worried when my son said he had to wear "his holiday best" for the show. He was to bring something less than the best to change into afterward, and I didn't know how to tell him that his "holiday best" was pretty much the same thing he wore to school every day. So I put him in a heavy red sweater and tossed a thinner sweatshirt in his backpack to give him something to change into if everybody else was changing, and worried whether he would stand out as a slob amongst much schoolchild finery.

I needn't have worried. His schoolmates' attire ranged from shirts-and-ties to baggy sports-team t-shirts for the boys, velvet dresses to sweatsuits for the girls. He was somewhere in between, and that's good enough for me. The highest concentration of true "holiday best" was found amongst the kindergartners, who are still at an age when parents place a high priority on buying special Christmas clothes to show them off in. But what struck me more than the sartorial splendor was the degree of thought that had gone into the hairdos — of the boys. The kindergarten moms were hitting the gel pretty hard, I'll tell you.

I volunteered in the library that afternoon, after the show, and got to see the kindergarteners close up. Many had changed into casual clothes, but the hair was still splendid. One young fellow had his thick wavy hair coaxed up so high he looked like a little Lyle Lovett. On the other end of the spectrum was a tiny kid with wispy black hair gelled up into spikes. Man, he was proud of those spikes. He came up to me with a gleam in his eye and patted his springy head, just to make sure I noticed those sharp little points. It was like "Queer Eye for the Kindergarten Guy" had come through and gotten everybody styling. The only thing more impressive was the way the class's two identical twin girls in their identical dresses and identical hairstyles managed to get their hair mussed in identical ways. I marvel at this week after week, but if anything's going to distract me from it, it's going to be a five-year-old boy with mousse in his hair and a Mickey Mouse tie.

Making a list, checking it twice

Think you've got your holiday shopping done? If you're planning on placing a Toy Story doll, Little People farm, drumsticks or scooters under the tree, better check the list made by the Consumer Product Safety Commission of recalled holiday toys. Nothing spoils holiday cheer, after all, like a collapsing playpen or poisonous sidewalk chalk. To make obsessing over the safety of your purchases even easier, the government has now set up a whole new Web site at www.recalls.gov where you can search out hazardous merchandise by product name, product description, or company name; subscribe to a recall e-mail alert; or report unsafe products yourself. I'd personally like to find a place to report all those manufacturers who attach toys to packaging with so many fasteners that it takes half-an-hour of cutting and twisting and tearing and pulling and impatient child whining to set the playthings free. Is there a Consumer Product Packaging Commission? 'Cause I'd like their hotline, for sure.

New on Mothers with Attitude

1. A new Family Man column, this one on the indignity of having to hunt down the latest hard-to-find toy.

2. In addition to notes to share with teachers, our Parent's Porfolio has a new parent-to-parent section for sharing the things we've figured out about our kids. For starters, there are new essays on impulse control, lying and counting to three.

You better watch out

Nothing sucks the ho-ho-ho out of the holidays like a list of all the potential safety hazards lurking in a time of eating, drinking and being merry. But KidsHealth has gone right ahead and posted one anyway. There are poisoning dangers from the holly and the ivy, the spray-on snow, the bad eggnog, the liquor-laced punch. There are choking hazards amid the ornaments, popcorn garlands, tree needles and angel hair. There are fire hazards from tree lights, menorah candles, fireplaces all aglow. And accident hazards abounding in the cooking, the sledding, the driving home after drinking the liquor-laced punch. It's good to be alert to the unsafeness of the season, I guess, but I can't help but think this is how Scrooge got started.

Besides, hazard-hunting round-ups like this never get to the real holiday health risks. Like panic attacks from the long lists of things to do, to buy, to plan, to execute. Stress-related heart palpitations at the prospect of spending an entire day with extended family members. Dangerously high blood-pressure levels when the same cranky relatives pick the same fights year after year. Migraines induced by toy instructions written in very very tiny print. Orthopedic problems precipitated by stepping on pieces of unassembled toys. Sleep deprivation from all-night wrapping sessions. None of these ailments are likely to strike children, which is probably why they don't make the "Look out!" lists. But most of them make eating a little poisonous poinsettia look like a mighty good trade-off.

Ready for the holiday, kinda sorta

Ten days 'til Christmas, and I'm miraculously close to being done with my holiday shopping. This may be a new record for me ... although, of course, I did say close. There are still mail-ordered items that may decide not to arrive in time, sending me into a last-minute shopping spree. Then, too, my husband's family perversely scheduled all their birthdays within a month-and-a-half of December 25th -- starting, as a matter of fact, with December 26th -- so the fact that the birthday presents are yet unbought is about as bad as the Christmas presents being so. But that doesn't phase me ... I'M SINGING CHRISTMAS CAROLS VERY LOUDLY SO THAT I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF TALK ABOUT BIRTHDAY PRESENTS, FA LA LA LA LA ... because my days of fighting mall traffic and searching endlessly online to do Santa's work for him are so very nearly done.

Of course, that brings us to the subject of Christmas cards, and ... well, maybe it's time to start CAROLING AGAIN.

Totalling toys for fun and profit

Do you have a kid who always seems to find a way to break even the most solidly made toy? Does he or she play so hard that the day after Christmas finds brand-new playthings cruelly dismembered, their parts and pieces scattered about? Have you wondered how your little sensory-seeking bull in a china shop will ever find a useful occupation when all he seems to be able to do is break things in a spectacular fashion? Well, cheer up -- HealthDay has an article that may make your terminator's future look less bleak. It's the story of a man whose job is, quite simply, to break toys. If he can do it, the toy's not safe, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission tells the toymaker to try again. I don't know about you, but I can see my son making a living trashing toys. It's something he's been training for all his life.

Little landmarks mean a lot

It's not the sort of milestone you'll find in a child development guide, but it feels like a landmark nonetheless: Today, for the first time, my son carried his own umbrella. He's 10, and no doubt long overdue for such a responsibility, but given his tendency toward impulsiveness and immature judgment, I've just never felt that giving him an item with which he could put someone's eye out, or at least get someone very wet, was a necessary risk. For years I walked him into the school building each morning and held the umbrella for the both of us on precipitative days; and when I started dropping him at the curb for the short walk down the driveway and through the school door, I'd just encourage him to move quickly during wet weather.

But this morning., I dug his sister's old Pokemon umbrella out of the closet, took him in the garage and showed him how to open and close it, and dropped him off for a sheltered walk beneath the raindrops. It may be a small thing, but it obviously made a big impression, judging by the look of jaunty pride he wore as he strode schoolward under the bright yellow face of Pikachu. And he managed not to maim anybody, or dawdle, or do a "Singing In the Rain" impression of any sort. Of course, one time he became so thrilled at carrying the thing that he had to hold it in front of him to get a better look, as rain doused his head. But then he put it back over himself, and as he disappeared through the school door I could see him closing it up. Such responsibility! The only drawback now is going to be getting him to leave his nifty new accessory home when the days are dry.

Be safe, stay home and watch TV

Since researchers often engage in studies to prove that TV is the root of all health evil in children -- causing obesity, mental illness, poor nutritional habits (see Monday's entry, for example) -- it seems only fair to find a report revealing the dark side of going out to play. Sure, being a couch potato at an early age may lead to health problems eventually, but a new study indicates that engaging in athletics makes a teen twice as likely to drop dead. Underlying heart conditions worsened by the stress of exercise and competition are the real culprits in the sudden deaths of young athletes, not that good healthy physical activity itself, but I'm guessing the rate of children suddenly dying while watching snack food commercials is astoundingly low. The study was performed on Italian athletes, and researchers warn that it may not apply to Americans, but no matter; I'm taking it to personally validate my own childhood decision to refrain from organized sports. Of course, in my case there was an underlying clutziness condition that made idleness well-advised, but better safe than sorry.

New on Mothers with Attitude

1. In our Contributor's Corner, an excerpt from Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes by Dan Kennedy, in which the dad of a dwarf tries to find some meaning in his little girl's differentness. Read it, and the book is likely to jump to the top of your Christmas "gimme!" list.

2. We may spend most of our time talking about special-needs and adoption issues, but there are always plenty of run-of-the-mill parenting challenges nipping at our heels as well. To the rescue comes "Mother Knows Best," a new section featuring parenting wisdom from ClubMom. Tell me I'm not the only one who goes right for the one called "When Mom Has a Temper Tantrum."

More bad news about TV

Ever wonder why kids hate eating fruits and vegetables? From observing my personal healthy food hater -- and from dim memories of hating healthy food in my own distant youth -- I'd guess the reasons might include something along the lines of ... they don't like the way the stuff tastes? But I'd be wrong, of course. The real reason children shun delicious fruits and vegetables is: They watch too much TV. Yes, indeed, TV is once again to blame for every bad habit of childhood.

According to a study appearing in this month's Pediatrics, kids who watch three hours of TV get a whopping .75 fewer servings of fruits and vegetables than is recommended by the FDA. Add another hour, and they're down a full two servings out of five. And why is that? The researchers suppose it's because you never see healthy food advertised on children's television. Or maybe because unhealthy food's easier to eat in front of the tube. But one way or another, watching TV affects our young ones' eating behavior, and not for the better.

The researchers are pretty clear on what should be done about it, and of course it all comes down to parents making hard choices. Among the appealing options suggested: "Parents might limit TV viewing, or ask their kids not to watch food commercials. Or, they could watch food commercials, with some parental input that the food advertised might not be the best snack choice." And you know, as much fun as it sounds to be stepping in front of the TV whenever potato chip commercials pop up, or preempting programming to explain why potato chips are ever so much less good for you than a plate of steamed broccoli, I'd personally much rather spend that time hiding in the kitchen, scarfing Pringles.

So here's my idea: Make those quiet produce manufacturers kick in for some lively, kid-friendly advertising. Talking cauliflower! Rapping apples! Cool celebs crunching carrots! If they can advertise Jello on PBS, why not kiwis? Start pushing those five-a-days with the proper zing, and we'll see if kids don't sit up and shout, "Peas, please!" And then they'll be lots more junk food left for me!

Special needs books break through

Well, I guess this means something: I was looking over amazon.com's listing of the Top 10 Customers' Favorites: Parenting & Families, and low and behold, a sensory integration book is #3: The Out-Of-Sync Child Has Fun: Activities for Kids With Sensory Integration Dysfunction by Carol Stock Kranowitz. I always thought sensory integration had what it takes to be a hot kiddie-help trend, and it looks like maybe it's on its way. This year, the family Top 10; next year, the overall Hot 50!

Another special-needs-type topic making the Top 10 was dyslexia, with Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Overcoming Reading Problems at Any Level by Sally Shaywitz, M.D., holding the #9 spot in Top 10 Customers' Favorites: Health, Mind & Body. Of course, the first six books on the health Top 10 were diet books, and the top two parenting books were about raisin' babies, so there's no chance that the nation's reading list will start to look like my reading list any time soon. But it's still nice to see books I might actually read creeping into the mainstream. Makes me feel less self-contained.

Taking Their Business Elsewhere

I stole away on my lunch hour today to do a little Christmas shopping, and was surprised to see that the stores I stopped at were something close to crowded. Usually, this far before the holiday, I'd been able to shop at midday without fear of lines, but these establishments appeared to be doing a healthy business. Good for them? Not good enough, apparently, because the two outfits I made purchases from -- Kids 'R Us and Zany Brainy -- are closing their locations near me. What does it mean when the stores I frequent are the stores that are going under? That I'm hopelessly out of step with the general direction of retail? Or that I haven't personally done enough shopping to keep them afloat? See, this is where being fiscally responsible gets me.

I'll be sorry to see Kids 'R Us go because it's one of the few places that had pants to fit my too-tall-for-one-size, too-skinny-for-the-next son. Zany Brainy always seemed a little pricier than it needed to be, but they did have the Playmobil grocery store my son wanted and all the little side items that go with it, while Toys 'R Us's Playmobil supply was skimpy. Perhaps Toys 'R Us will eventually absorb every single brand in the universe and spread out into ever larger-sized stores until no one will ever need to shop anywhere else. But if they're not going to sell pants anymore, who needs 'em?

Flu report

Flu season has officially started at our house, with my son home the past three days with a fever and general upper respiratory yuckiness. He's probably been under the weather for about a week, which explains why he was so calm and subdued over the Thanksgiving break -- what looked to me like some newfound control and maturity was apparently only a pre-flu low-grade fever and head cold. There've been a fair amount of scary stories about this year's flu -- newspaper stories about children dying of the flu in Colorado, and word-of-mouth stories about the coughing and nasal nastiness stretching on for endless weeks. In some way, it's nice to have the suspense over and know we've survived at least the initial feverish burst of it, although I'm wondering if the rest of the family is in line for illness now that flu boy has sneezed and coughed and breathed all over us. If you're wondering if the flu's headed your way, too, check the map at flustar.com or plug in your zip code to get the good or bad news.

Is it Christmas yet?

My daughter's already starting every day by saying, "I wish it was Christmas. I want it to be Christmas right now." Since she's 13 and not exactly brimming with ideas for what she wants to see under the tree, I'm guessing she's looking more forward to the week-and-a-half off from school than the day itself, but whatever, she's ready for it right now. And I'm ready for it to be months and months away. I'm certainly not ready for the 24-hour, round-the-clock Christmas music playing on a couple of local radio stations. It's bad enough that Christmas shopping season has to start before Thanksgiving -- why does Chrismas carol season have to start then, too? And Christmas front-yard decorating season? I saw a house the other day that was covered with enough lights to land an airplane by. Our across-the-street neighbors usually favor that mode of overkill, but this year they're going for the giant inflatable holiday figures, many of whom are already assembling on their lawn. And here it is the first week of December, and there's already a Christmas column on Mothers with Attitude -- Ken Swarner's admission that he'll never stop at 500 Christmas tree lights when 600 will do. Really, I couldn't care less how many lights he's got blazing; what gets to me is -- he's got his tree up already? Is he trying to make me look bad? We're lucky if we can get our puny little artificial tree with its strand or two of pathetic little lights propped up in time for our annual New Year's Day party.

There is one Christmas creation that has put a smile on my face today, though, and that's the clever interactive Advent calendar from Q Creative. Click on "Find today," then on today's date to reveal a picture, then on the picture to watch a funny little animation. As of now, you can view yesterday's gumdrop serenade or today's variation on "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" If I have to count the days until the Big Day anyway, might as well have a little fun with it. For something more spiritual, CatholicMom.com has a listing of religious online Advent calendars, most with reflections and bible verses for each day. But none, I'll wager, with a chicken laying Christmas ornaments instead of eggs.

Hang Two

Apparently, there is no game so simple that you can't do it better on a computer. My daughter has been enjoying the Hangman game on the Learning Vocabulary Can Be Fun site, which offers words in a wide variety of categories, from animals to world capitals. I mean, really -- why waste paper and wrack your brain to come up with words, and spend your time drawing little hanging guys, when a computer can do it for you? There's still vocab benefit to be gained from guessing the words, I suppose, and also from playing the word search, math and quiz games on this cute site. But back to Hangman -- if you're looking for a bigger challenge, or just a fun way to study science, a site called Characteristics Of Matter features a Hangman game entirely devoted to those characteristics, with hints provided for each set of blanks. It's like a really cerebral episode of "Wheel of Fortune." But make no mistake: If you guess wrong, that stick figure's gonna swing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is finally here, which means in 24 hours it will finally be over and I will have my house back. I'll be spending the day serving as kitchen help for my 10-year-old son, the Food Network addict, who is ostensibly cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the second year. He looks awfully cute in his Emerial "Bam!" apron. If your kids are less involved with preparing the meal and more involved with getting in the way, park them in front of the computer and have them interact with Scholastic's The First Thanksgiving, which if nothing else should make them thankful they live in an era with computers and, like, ovens. CatholicMom.com also has some nice Thanksgiving links, craft, and gratitude ideas for kids, along with some suggestions for putting a little spirituality in the day. I'm sure a lot of us need prayer to get through a long large dinner with family. Good luck getting through yours.

New on "Mothers with Attitude"

What's worse than one big overstuffed button-busting have-another-helping-dear dinner with family? Two in a row! That's the hard-won wisdom Ken Swarner shares in this week's Family Man entry. Dividing the holiday between two families isn't a problem my husband and I have had to deal with, but honestly, one family and one dinner is usually enough to put us seriously over capacity, both food-wise and stress-wise. So I'm looking pretty mightily forward to Friday -- that day when all you have to do is heat stuff up, and you can have a nice turkey sandwich on a paper plate in the kitchen instead of a big Turkey feast on china in the living room. And you can do it without in-laws.

Then again, Friday starts the Christmas shopping season, so when your sandwich is done there's a nice new shipment of stress waiting on your front doorstep. I've actually gotten a start on my gift gathering, thanks mostly to finding a really cute gift shop on our summer vacation, but there are still many impossible-to-shop-for relatives to deal with (including the elderly cousin who made a point of telling me last year that she didn't like our gift and hadn't liked them for several years previous, but wouldn't give a clue as to what she would prefer; I'm thinking a lump of coal). My kids usually have a long list of stuff they want, most of it things I know will end up sitting idly in their rooms or on their floors, waiting to be stepped on. If you're looking for good gifts for a child with special needs (or, more likely, looking for ideas to give out to the relatives who will start demanding lists about this time of year), the Parenting Special Needs guide at about.com has some interesting suggestions.

Blessings and balderdash

Today was one of those days where you know you should stop and count your blessings, but you're too busy grumbling over all your petty little annoyances. My son's school is on one of our town's main streets, right across from a funeral parlor. This isn't usually a problem, but on a day like today -- when a local police officer killed in the line of duty was being laid to rest -- it becomes a logistical nightmare. Our first hint of trouble came last night, when the school activated its snow-day phone chain to warn parents to get their kids to school early, because the street would be closed at 8:45, right when school starts (and rush-rush parents like me come ripping up the street with their tardy offspring). My son and I drove up at 8:35 -- heroically early for us two sleepyheads -- and the street was already closed, with angry officers motioning us to keep it moving, keep it moving, keep it moving. I'd made a big point of telling my son that it's important to honor police officers, who put their lives on the line every day to protect our community, even if it means we have to change our routine a little to accommodate it, but -- MAN! Did they have to close the *&!%#@ street so early! Don't they know kids have school! How can they just inconvenience everybody like this! Mumble mumble grumble.

I finally found a parking place on a sidestreet and walked my guy to his building along with all the other mumbling, grumbling parents who'd thought they were promised another 10 minutes of right of way. We had it better than the driver and aide of the special-ed schoolbus that couldn't get through either, and had to herd their load of kiddos a lot farther than the usual up-the-steps-and-through-the-door. Didn't stop us from grumbling, though, especially when the crossing guard mentioned that there was a major accident on a nearby highway, and we noticed all the helicopters hovering and disaster-bound emergency vehicles adding their sirens to the funeral-bound ones.

It soon became apparent that getting into the neighborhood around my son's school, blocked streets and all, was going to be a lot easier than getting out. I work just up the street from the school, but of course that street was closed. And all the streets surrounding it led to streets that were clogged with funeral traffic or clogged with traffic avoiding the highway accident. Quiet residential streets were suddenly on full gridlock alert. One escape route after the other led to long lines of stopped cars. My less-than-five-minute ride to the office turned into 45 minutes of traffic jams. Plenty of time to grumble about the traffic and the lack of planning and the likelihood that my son would be unable to concentrate with several hundred flashing-lighted vehicles outside the window of his classroom. I did try to keep things in perspective: While waiting for the cars ahead of me to poke along, I took out a little rosary I keep in my purse and tried to say prayers for the soul and the family of the police officer and for anybody hurt in the accident, and to thank God that my own family was, after all, safe and healthy and intact. But then some side-street speedster would cut in front of me, and I'd get to grumbling again.

I wondered all day, with much righteous indignation, whether my son had managed to hold himself together with so much powerful distraction in his immediate environment, but his school behavior chart came home with its usual satisfactory mark just like any normal uneventful day. He told me how his class and a few others had stood on the front steps of the school to watch as the procession of official vehicles left the funeral home and headed toward a church across town. He told me that he had counted 303 motorcycles. And he showed me the way he and his classmates had held their hands over their hearts in honor of the fallen officer.

Maybe he's got this perspective thing down a little better than I do.

Me? A Bully?

Next time your children jump on your last nerve and you feel they're in need of aggressive correction, here's a new idea for disciplining them: Don't yell, don't scream, don't shout, just pick up a phone and call Murray Straus and Carolyn Field. They're the co-authors of a study in November's Journal of Marriage and Family that claims that most parents bully their kids, citing screaming, shouting and yelling as unacceptable forms of psychological aggression. No distinction is made in their censure for harshness of language or frequency of outbursts; raising your voice at all, ever, is just wrong, they conclude. HealthDay News quotes Straus as saying, "There is no empirical evidence to indicate occasional psychological abuse, such as the frustrated parent 'blowing off steam,' is harmless," though he doesn't explain how a frustrated parent holding in all that steam and eventually busting a blood vessel is preferable.

I'm convinced, though: No more yelling at kids for me. No more screaming when they're sibling rivalring, no more shouting when they start across the street before checking for cars. Nope; I'm no bully. The next time I feel like my kids need a good, loud scolding, I'm going to call ol' Murray Straus and have him come over and deal with them for a while. And then I'm going to go out, buy myself an expensive cup of coffee, browse through a bookstore or read a magazine, and allow my blood pressure slowly and delicately return to normal. My kiddos may not end up being better behaved, but I sure will be.

Minor Leagues

So apparently it's not enough now for exceptional young atheletes to drop out of college to play professional sports, or even to go pro right out of high school. Now, they're coming for the 14-year-olds. That's the ripe old age of soccer prodigy Freddy Adu, who recently signed a six-year contract to play professionally for Major League Soccer. And it would be nice to think that this is some sort of exception, that this young man is just freakishly talented or that soccer is just different from other sports. But I wouldn't be surprised to see underclass sportspersons of all types suddenly catching more limelight, and Major League scouts frequenting Little League games. This way, the kids can become big stars, burn out, and still have time for a second career as something else.

My daughter, the reader

As part of my mission to share books that my daughter likes in order to throw a life-preserver to other parents of highly reluctant readers, I'd like to announce that in one weekend, she read an entire 27-chapter mystery book -- a feat that included reading 12 chapters on Saturday and 11 on Sunday. The book was The Light on Hogback Hill by Cynthia DeFelice. It ain't exactly Agatha Christie, and it ain't exactly PC -- one character is a single mom so caught up in her anger and bitterness that she throws herself into work and leaves her 11-year-old daughter home alone for days, and another is the brother of a disabled woman who hides her away in a hilltop cabin rather than deal with her disability -- but man, you give me something that my daughter will agree to read, much less read in a rush, and I'll forgive a lot. If you're seeking something that will look like a proper book for a middle-schooler but be accessible to kids with much lower reading levels, you might want to give this one a try. My personal reading-hater gives it a thumbs up.

The timelines of our lives

The other day, my daughter came home from middle school worried about her latest assignment: to draw a timeline of her life, from birth to present, complete with photographs and major milestones. What would she do about baby pictures, she wondered? She was adopted at age 4.5, and we've got plenty of pictures past that point, but nothing prior. Should she put her adoption on the timeline? Her coming to America from Russia? The details of how she slipped two years behind her age peers in school? There are some milestones that just don't look so great on posterboard.

And for a minute, I got angry. I'd just had a meeting with her teachers and told them she was adopted, giving them some information about her difficult early years precisely to avoid situations like this. Yet here we were, confronting with tears and consternation the fact that her timeline was liable to look very different from anyone else's.

But then, as happens so often with language impaired kiddos, she started to remember other things the teacher had said, in little blips and bloops that eventually painted a bigger picture. The teacher had specified that they could use any milestones, important ones or minor ones. If they didn't have photos from early childhood, they could use symbols. There should be something for each year, but it could be anything. And so, my daughter and I sat down and had a talk. Do you want to put your adoption milestones? I asked her. Or do you want us to find things that are just the same as everybody else? She opted for bland normalcy, and I was happy to oblige. We were lucky to have info on her first word and step from her orphanage paperwork. The birth of her brother was a milestone; no need to mention that they were both in Russia at the time, and didn't know each other or us. Our great adoption journey got boiled down to "First train ride," with a photo of a train cut from a catalog. We used school photos from age 5 on, so she could say that the reason there were no earlier photos is because her mom wouldn't let her cut them up. And a very nice timeline it was, indistinguishable from her peers except for the fact that it started two years earlier.

And I guess I could have made a fuss about that. If timelines are bad for adopted kids, they're doubly bad for adopted kids who aren't in the proper grade for their age. But in the end, I wasn't sorry she had to do it. It was interesting to her to think about how far she's come, to look back at her old pictures and see the yearly progress, to go through news stories and pick out things that happened during the years she's been alive. It was, in many ways, a good assignment -- and more unfair, possibly, to kids whose parents aren't available to help them with big complicated projects than to anyone else.

New on Mothers with Attitude

Ken Swarner's latest entry in his Family Man column muses on the futility of trying to settle sibling rivalries. I'll admit that animosity between siblings has been a challenging part of parenting for me. Although I have a half-sister, she left for college shortly after I was born and so I was essentially an only child growing up. I longed to have close-in-age playmates under my roof and imagined how wonderful it would be to have sisters and brothers to bond with. And there certainly are times when my two bond nicely, playing with video games or Barbie minivans together as peaceful as you please. And then there are times when my daughter is so disgusted by the sight of her male sibling that she's forced to put her hand in front of her eyes, and times said sibling teases and taunts his sis in ways that, if he were a random schoolchild and not my own personal son, I would have to haul him in front of the principal and scream "Zero tolerance! Zero tolerance!"

And so I try to enact truces. I talk a lot about peace, love and understanding. I make the girl put down her hand and the boy watch his mouth. But as the Family Man knows, resistance is futile. I was reminded of that again this morning when my kids were getting ready for school. My daughter was mumbling something derogatory about her slowpoke bro, and he responded by getting right in her face and yelling "Loser, loser, loser!" I sent him straight to time-out with admonishments about not using mean words, and when he was done he went right back to her and, with the same aggressive attitude and vocal volume, yelled, "You're a winner!" She stalked off, still mumbling. Siblings will be siblings.

Push a Pringle, go to jail

You know those really annoying ads during children's television? No, not the ones designed to make your kid crave the latest toy. Not the ones designed to make your kid desperate to see the latest flick. Not the ones designed to make your kid beg you to take him to a theme park. Not the ones designed to make her want to watch the same Disney Channel TV movie for the 555,226th time. No, no, no -- the ones designed to make your kids hungry for junk food. The one where the kid gets his room cleaned up by peers entranced by the notion of pizza rolls. The one where a cool Tiger talks to you when you eat Cheetos, or your head turns into a watermelon when you down fruit chews. Those are the ones the kind folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest want to wipe off the air. And we say, "Great! And when you're done with the Cheetos, could you do something about 'The Cheetah Girls'?"

Seriously, the CSPI (not to be confused with CSI, which is who you end up with when you put your mortal body between children and Doritos) believes that the marketing of junk food to children is responsible for the terrible state of child health -- the obesity, the incipient diabetes and heart disease, the healthy green-veggie-filled dinners left unfinished -- and wants advertisers to cut it the heck out. And while we think that's a fine idea, we also think that the CSPI is kidding itself if it thinks that just cutting the commercials is going to make kids stop desiring all things greasy, salty, sweet and cheesy. Some other suggestions they may want to put into practice if they're really serious about this:

* All colorful, fun, cartoon character-bedecked packaging for junk food to be replaced by brown paper wrappers labeled "Liver and Onions."

* Supermarkets to hide junk food in small pockets of shelf space in aisles otherwise devoted to such non-kid-friendly items as mouthwash, laxatives, and Depends undergarments.

* All vending machines legally required to carry nothing but carrot sticks, broccoli florets, and rice cakes.

* All children's movies and videos to be edited to alter or remove scenes of junk food consumption. Instead of Reese's Pieces, Eliot to now lure E.T. with Brussels sprouts.

It won't be easy to make kids renounce junk food, but that's not the hardest job. Nope -- the hardest job will be to get adults to stop buying the stuff "for their kids" because they really want to eat it themselves. What, you think kids are eating all that Halloween candy?

Mothers with Attitude, and Opinions

Authors Amy Baskin and Heather Fawcett are once again seeking the opinions of moms of children with special needs -- and hey, when's the last time somebody actually wanted to hear your opinion? The two, both mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, are writing a book on mothering kids with special needs, and have surveys posted at Baskin's Web site, www.amybaskin.com. In addition to an earlier questionnaire on personal and professional supports, there's now one on family and relationships. Stop by and chip in your personal two cents. Who knows when somebody might be all that happy to hear you whine again?

Cute Adoption Column

There's a funny column by Betty Cuniberti in yesterday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch on adoption -- and, in particular, the dumb things people say about it. Like:

"Medal of Honor Dumb Thing. It is so nice of you to adopt children.

Logical response: And it is even nicer of YOU to raise those kids of YOURS. I don't know how you do it! Or why you do it. You're just a saint."

I've heard most of the dumb things Cuniberti mentions in her column, and her responses are very nearly the ones I've thought of about an hour later when it was too late for the appropriate zinger. Let's all read and study, then, so we'll be ready the next time.

A Good Read

On Wednesday, I started leading a reading group for the sixth-grade book club at my daughter's school, even though my own personal daughter wouldn't touch a reading group with a 10-foot volume of "Harry Potter." The first book the kids are reading is "Because of Winn-Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo, and I thought I'd mention it here because, while it is in no way specifically about adoption, it does deal with a child who knows nothing about one of her birthparents, and feels a sense of loss and loneliness over that, and as such might lead to some interesting discussions for adoptive parents and kids. The story is told by India Opal Buloni, a preacher's daughter newly settled into a Florida trailer park and feeling a bit alone in the world. She doesn't remember her mama, who left when she was little, and her daddy tends to withdraw like a turtle into its shell when conversations involving difficult emotions threaten. What makes the difference for this family is not a good therapist, but a great dog -- one who knows how to smile, freaks out during thunderstorms, and has an uncanny way of bringing people who need people together. It's one of those "children's" novels, like "Sarah, Plain and Tall," that I know I'll pick up every year or so and read again, just because it tells so much truth so simply. If you've got a late-elementary or middle-school reader, check it out.

Laughing in the Face of Death

My daughter and I watched the return of the new, post-John Ritter "8 Simple Rules..." tonight, and although I had a certain amount of trepidation going in about the laff riot potential of tragic death, I thought the writers mostly managed to mix grief and gentle humor with sufficient, but not excessive, dignity. Whether they'll be able to do it on a regular basis, of course, remains to be seen. Untimely demise isn't particularly savory sit-com fare, but single-parent families are sit-com bread-and-butter, so it seems possible that the Hennesseys might have a future. My daughter's certainly determined to keep watching; she's been eager for the program's return, and cried for a good five minutes when the episode was over. My husband, in standard women-overreact-to-art mode, sought to comfort her by saying, "It's not like anybody really died" ... then had to rethink his strategy. John Ritter may be gone, but at least in our household, his show's not dead yet.

Oh, Dear

Here I was worrying about the sex-ed video they were showing at my daughter's school, and it turns out that kids are really getting their contraceptive information from Friends. A recent survey concluded that teens who watched the episode in which a condom didn't keep Rachel from getting pregnant were more likely to be well-informed about that source of birth control, and many talked to their parents about it afterward just to be sure. And, well, good for them. The oversexed nature of sitcoms these days might as well be good for something, and if kids get the message that sex is only for fantastically adorable people with great teeth and muss-free hair, so much the better. But I'll tell you, I'm not altogether sorry that my daughter is more interested in watching our cable company's new 24-hour PBS kiddie show channel than anything else these days. I think I've got a while before Arthur and Francine have to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, or Emmy has to take a trip to Dragontales' Birth Control Forest. Then again, these days, you can't be too sure.

Happy Days

Four things that gave me a smile this weekend:

1. A catalog that came unbidden through the mail from Despair, Inc., featuring the sort of motivational posters you might expect to see in a Dilbert cartoon. Like, "MEETINGS: None of us is as dumb as all of us." Or, "GET TO WORK: You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams." You've got to see the whole package -- classy inspirational photo and all -- so if you've ever worked in a soulless bureaucracy, check out the Despair, Inc. Web site and imagine which waste-of-oxygen co-worker you'd give one of these gems to.

2. Do you remember your first computer? Mine was a Kaypro, purchased in the mid-'80s after I'd sworn for years that I would not compute. I saw a fellow writer at a writer's conference toting around one of those blocky metal things with the keyboard that snapped over the screen and the cute little carrying handle, and suddenly the future didn't look so scary. This little walk down memory lane comes courtesy of Old-Computers.com, where you can visit your first digital love -- or, if you're a computer newbie, browse the museum and be amazed that anybody ever processed words without a giant screen and superfast chips and gigabytes of memory.

3. A nice story in our local paper this morning told of a teenage girl with autism who runs cross-country for her town's high school. I tend to look a bit skeptically at stories that try to wring inspiration from neurologically impaired people making like normal folks, but this story had enough little quirks in it -- like the fact that the girl needs a "shadow" running with her to keep her safe and directed, and that the faster and better she runs, the harder it is to find somebody to keep up with her -- that it hit me just right. You go, girl.

4. Our whole family attends a Sunday-night bowling league, my husband playing with our son, and me bowling with our high-scoring daughter. You'll understand my general skill level here when I tell you that my average is 84, and last week I didn't even make that. Sunday night bowling, for me, falls under the category of "Things you do for your kids." But tonight -- ah, tonight -- I bowled an astounding 112 in the first game. My daughter had a good game too, 148, including a turkey (three strikes in a row, for you non-bowlers). But then came the second game, in which three miraculous things happened:

a. I bowled a turkey! Me! And the fact that I followed it up with a gutter ball only momentarily dampened the excitement;

b. I bowled a 139, certainly the highest I ever bowled in my life and probably the highest I ever will; and

c. I beat my daughter, who merely made her average of 124.

And may I say, at the risk of being tagged a bad sport: WOO-HOO! Cyber-high-five me, y'all!

In the News

An IEP List of health stories that make you go "Hmmmm....":

1. Reading may be good for kids, but apparently, there are limits: Doctors are blaming the enormous new Harry Potter for causing headaches in children who've read it too voraciously.

2. Scientists say that it looks like it's probably perfectly okay to eat cloned animals. Okay, but you first.

3. Researchers are shocked and dismayed to find that children's bad eating habits sometimes start before the age of two, with even infants downing candy and soda and getting their vegetable allowance from french fries. I guess I shouldn't have such fond memories of driving my son home from early intervention while passing french fries over my shoulder to where he sat in his car seat. I thought I was just driving badly, not contributing to nutritional delinquency. He's my healthy eater now, though, while his sister, who was in a Russian orphanage until age 4.5 and presumably did not make a lot of McDonald's runs, never met a green vegetable she didn't loathe. Go figure.

4. There's a new ailment in town: Hurried Woman Syndrome. Among the symptoms of this syndrome are being tired, moody, and having problems controlling your weight. And here, I thought those things were just symptoms of being a woman with kids and, you know, a pulse.

5. A study shows that women who take care of their grandchildren at least nine hours a week have a 55 percent greater chance of having a heart attack. And also, presumably, of being tired, moody, and having problems controlling their weight. If there really is such a thing as "Hurried Woman Syndrome," you just know kids are carriers.

National Adoption Day

Thanks to reader Christine S. for alerting me to the fact that November 22 is National Adoption Day, and sending me information on the Web site of the National Adoption Coalition, which is promoting events across the country, including the finalizing of the adoptions of more than 1,000 foster children on that day. November's a big adoption month in my house, since my husband and I spent that entire calendar month in 1994 rolling around Russia, waiting for our own adoption to be finalized. We left on Halloween, and returned home on December 1, and in between we met, wooed, and became parents of the two most important little people in our lives. Sometimes it's hard to imagine, looking at them now, at age 13 and 10, strong and healthy and settled in, that they ever lived anywhere else but with us. At other times, dealing with deep language delays and lingering anxiety and emotional immaturity and fetal alcohol effects, it's all too apparent that their difficult pasts will always be a part of them.

Nevertheless, it's impossible to overstate the value that being part of a family has for children, and so I thank God that He brought our family together, and that a whole lot of new families will be brought together on November 22. If you're planning any events for National Adoption Day, or just want to take the occasion to remember your children's adoption day, write and let me know, and I'll post your responses either in this blog or on the Mothers with Attitude site. Let's all celebrate thanksgiving a little early this year.

Too Cool for Ghoul

I guess it's some sort of milestone, the first year your child doesn't want to go trick or treating -- like when she figures out there's no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, or starts requesting personal electronics instead of toys for Christmas. At any rate, my daughter seems to have hit the "Too Grown Up to Dress Up" mark this year, at the ripe old age of 13. I'm not sure whether she really is too grown up for Halloween, or whether she just can't think of a costume, but at least as of today she's planning a pleasant evening at home watching the Disney channel. And it's a little ironic, because according to Ken Swarner's latest Family Man column on Mothers with Attitude, she's already got the perfect costume, just by being her layabout teenage self. So maybe what I'll be seeing on Friday night isn't really newfound maturity, or old-fashioned sloth, or social insecurity, but a sophisticated piece of Halloween performance art. Spoooooky.

Rules of the Game

I've always wondered how it is that kids just seem to know how to play playground games. The same games and rhymes seem to get passed down from generation to generation without anybody particularly sitting down to teach them. There's some sort of cultural osmosis going on here, as if the need to hopscotch were part of our genetic code. Then again, it may just be that kids are quietly checking out Web sites like this one to get all those rules of the game down pat.

The site's called "Games Kids Play," and it made me wish that there were a site that gave the rules of all those other games kids get so good at -- games like, "Today you're my best friend, but tomorrow I won't talk to you, and then the day after that you can be my best friend again," or "We think you're funny sometimes, but sometimes you make us feel mad, and sometimes you make us feel mean, and it doesn't matter that you're always doing exactly the same thing." Because those games must be in a lot of kids' genetic codes, too, but my kiddos' special needs seem to include an inability to play them, or to understand why they must be played.

It would be nice to be able to make some flashcards to help my daughter survive in sixth-grade-girl society, or help my son -- he of the arrested emotional development and imperviousness to physical pain -- understand why people do the things they do. On that latter question, we might get some help from the do2learn site, which has a truly nifty interactive section called "The Feelings Game," complete with faces and scenarios designed to explain emotions to the emotion-impaired. When they develop "The Hurt Your Feelings Game" for explaining middle-school social politics, I'll be all set.

Type A Mom

So I took my kids to the neurologist last week, and for a change she didn't give me a hard time about my son. He wasn't spectacularly well-behaved, but he was a lot better than last year, when he spent the entire visit banging a toy truck against the wall, so good for him. This time, the doctor seemed to take my word for the fact that he doesn't act up as much at home or at school as he does at her office, and expressed satisfaction with his progress. She also mentioned how impressed she was by how nicely and quietly my daughter had sat through her brother's exam.

So far, so good.

I started my daughter's visit by asking her to tell the doctor about the headaches she's been having. I haven't been too worried about the headaches from a health point of view, since they're not strong enough for her to demand pain relief, but they've been great from a self-awareness and -expression point of view. I can speak for her in a lot of things, but not to describe personal discomfort, and so she had to try to describe her headaches to her pediatrician, and then keep a journal with an entry for each headache. And now again, she had to try to describe the headaches verbally, and it was about as good an illustration of how much her expressive language has improved and how much it still lags as you would want to give a pediatric neurologist. She struggled to find the right descriptive words, even cried a little out of frustration, and finally decided that the headaches felt squishy. The doctor and I agreed they were probably stress-related, and we moved on.

The doctor asked how her patient was doing in school, and I told about her starting middle school this year, in a mainstream class with inclusion teachers and an aide. The doctor asked what level she had been tested at, and I related that at her last evaluation she'd been found to have about a third-grade reading level, but that she was doing pretty much the same work as the other sixth-graders. And the doctor said, "Oh. So she's overacheiving."

You can guess where this is going to go.

I rattled on about her seeing a tutor once a week, and playing the trombone so well she made the all-city band, and bowling twice a week and getting good at it, and how hard she works on her homework, and how much she's been reading. I dug myself a pretty good hole. And when I was done, the doctor thought she had a pretty good picture of a quiet, inarticulate girl whose mother pushed her to work beyond her potential to the point of crippling headaches. She told me she would refer us to a psychologist if not for the fact that psychologists don't do too well with kids as inarticulate as mine, and that anti-anxiety meds might be able to help her a lot. And that she wanted to see my girl again in six months (instead of the usual year) to monitor the situation.

So in one hour, I'd gone from an overly permissive mom who would rather let her son run amok than medicate him, to an overly pushy mom who drives her daughter so hard she needs medication to make it through the day. I'll tell you, I was feeling a little whiplash on my way out.

The fact is, though, that I do push my daughter. I can't deny that I do. She needs pushing. She was happy as a clam in her self-contained special-ed class, and would have been exceedingly comfortable drifting along, learning little. I pushed her into the mainstream, and I push her to do extra work so that she can keep afloat. I've strived to be realistic about her abilities -- I always tell her that I don't care about what grade she gets as long as she tries her best -- but I've also always looked for ways to strengthen those abilities. I've certainly pushed her to play an instrument and pursue that through music camp and school band, feeling it was both good for her brain and good for her social life to be involved with music. I've pushed her to do plenty of activities that she was afraid of or worried about, and she's usually been glad after.

Does that make me a driven, overacheivement-demanding, childhood-destroying Type A mom? Or just a hardworking, involved, dedicated mom who wants her child to reach her full potential? Is there a line someplace? Have I crossed it?

Maybe. Sometimes. Maybe it's impossible not to. Maybe that's one of the biggest challenges of parenting a child with special needs -- knowing when to push, knowing when to stop. I've certainly tsked at other parents who expect too much of children who obviously have different gifts than the ones their parents push for. I've never felt a great need to push my son, who obviously will always need a lot of help and supervision throughout his life. I've been happy for him to take it slow, and follow his own developmental path. Maybe because his sister is not so obviously impaired, I've felt the need to strengthen her and give her skills she'll need for a "normal life," whatever that is. Is it giving her headaches? Why not? Goodness knows it's giving them to me.

That night, though, I had a brainstorm. During the exam, when my daughter was describing her headaches, she'd mentioned that sometimes her vision was a little blurry during them, and she had to squint. And later, when the doctor asked about her eyes, I'd mentioned that the opthalmologist had said that she didn't have to wear glasses if she didn't want to, but as she progressed in school and the work got harder, she might find she needs them. She'd had crossed eyes when we adopted her at age 4.5, and though surgery had straightened them, glasses could help relieve the strain of focusing them. I asked my daughter that evening whether she thought wearing her glasses might help her headaches, and to my surprise, she said, "Yes!" So we're going to see the eye doctor on Monday, and get new glasses, and see if that makes a difference.

Of course, I'll have to push her to wear them.