APRIL 29, 2002
When my kids were younger, it was easier to get blood from a stone than to get blood from them. How well I remember the team of nurses that had to be rushed into the examining room when my daughter needed to be stuck. I’d hold down her legs, somebody else would hold down her arms, somebody else would hold down her head, an extra person would be needed to keep her body from wriggling, and the doctor or nurse in charge of the needle would have to dart in and try to find some subdued flesh with a vein in it. I was pretty sure they called in extra personnel to work whenever we were on the schedule. My son, they didn’t even bother with -- he had to go to the lab, and be tied to a papoose board. This was not fun for him, or for me. I felt like both my son and the technicians must consider me the worst mother in the world, although for entirely different reasons.
This past week we went for blood again, and I have to say, it was better. Which does not, of course, necessarily mean that it was good.
Our pediatrician’s office no longer does blood-letting, and although I was pretty sure it was my daughter who had spoiled them for it, the doctor assures it’s just a matter of cutting back and specializing and everybody’s doing it. So we all went to the lab, and we all waited 45 minutes, and then the kids were called to the back. And honestly, I’m amazed, but my daughter did great. I turned her head toward me and we talked about how badly she was going to kick her papa’s butt in one-on-one basketball that afternoon, and before we both knew it, it was over. Easy as pie. No restraints, human or otherwise, required.
But my son ... He had been full of bravery going in, but that’s before he realized that giving blood involved having a needle plunged into your arm, and that realization caused him extremely loud consternation. He started screaming he didn’t want to do it while the nurse was still swabbing his skin, awkwardly pinning down his arm with hers (I coulda told her THAT wasn’t going to hold). I started counting, because counting often calms him, but he kept screaming as the needle went in, yanking his arm and nearly flinging said needle across the room. But the needle stayed in, and since he was crying for his Scooby Doo doll, unwisely left at home, I started counting in a Scooby voice. That got his attention; he looked at me with teary eyes, amazed either that I had come up with such a comforting idea, or that I was willing to make that much of a fool of myself. I don’t know what must have disturbed the people in the waiting room more: The sound of a screaming child, or the sound of a grown woman shouting “Rirty-run! Rirty-roo! Rirty-ree! Rirty-roar!”
But the lab got its blood, and we got out of there. My son has announced that he is never doing that again, so they better have got enough. In truth, I’m not so very eager to ever do that again myself.
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APRIL 30, 2002
My kids are in the throes of the annual standardized testing at our school, and notes have come home recommending lots of sleep and hearty breakfasts. Yeah, thanks, we usually keep them up all night and send them to school on a cup of strong coffee. I take a lot of this stuff with a grain of salt; it would take a lot more than a good night's sleep and a good breakfast to get my daughter successfully through one of these things, and my son's performance is more likely to be disrupted by the hoopla and messed-up routine surrounding the test than by a late bedtime.
So when my son brought his homework notebook home yesterday and one of the assignments read, "Go to bed at 8 p.m.," I had to laugh. And that's all I had to do. In our house, it's unusual if we even get dinner on the table by 8 p.m., much less homework done and baths taken and teeth brushed and sheets tucked in. At our house, going to bed at 8 p.m. would be the equivalent of being sent to bed without supper. I guess I could have heated up a can of Beefaroni for the kid at 7:30 and made sure he kept his curfew, but the fact is, I'm not ready to give him up at 8 p.m. The school gets him for six-and-a-half hours during the day; I want him for at least that many. Usually, we wrestle him into bed around 9:30, and that's about the time he got there last night. Didn't get that one piece of homework done, but had a nice evening nonetheless.
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MAY 1, 2002
My son broke a picture last night. He was goofing off, throwing a plastic inner tube around with great gusto, and wound up knocking a picture to the floor, where the glass shattered. I should have been mad, but here's the great thing: He was mad at himself. Genuinely remorseful. Able to see the connection between his fun and the unintended consequence of the broken picture. Concerned with the feelings of the person who gave us the picture, and whether she would be mad at him. He told his Scooby doll that maybe he would say it was all the doll's fault, but then decided to own up to his transgression. For a 9-year-old with FAE, this is pretty big stuff, and if I have to lose a picture to find out that he can make these connections and take this responsibility, it's a small price to pay.
Now if I can only get him to recognize his fault, feel remorse and sincerely apologize every time he calls his sister "stupid," I'll really be getting somewhere.
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MAY 2, 2002
I was scanning the special-needs parenting section at my local monster-mega-bookstore, as it is my hobby to do, and noticed that ADHD is still far and away the topic of choice for special-parenting self-help writers. For every book on, say, autism or hearing impairment or learning disabilities, there were easily three on attention deficit/hyperactivity. They ranged from pro-medication pep rallies to moderate behavior-’n’-meds solutions to virulent anti-medication screeds. One of the latter posited that the whole problem with ADHD-diagnosed kids was not their brain chemistry or their self control or bad schools or doctors overeager to medicate but thoroughly, solely and without debate their PARENTS, whose selfish lifestyles, neglect and demand for a quick fix are damaging their younguns. And I had to wonder: Who exactly is going to buy this book? Are there parents so self-loathing that they’ll pay $15 to have somebody flagellate them so severely? I scanned it for a few good behavior management tips and then left in on the shelf. Hah!
But if there are differences of opinion in parenting books as to whether Ritalin is a savior or a scourge, there seems to be no such doubt among children’s books. Well-meaning children’s book authors seem to be taking it upon themselves to explain to young people what it feels like to have ADHD, and what a good thing it is that medication can make it stop. One book I found stuck between the parenting tomes featured a turtle that looked very much like Franklin of Nick Jr. fame. This particular young turtle, the story explained, was not slow like other turtles but too, too fast. The story ended with the Mama turtle giving the little hyper turtle a little pill, and everybody lived happily ever after.
I figured that book might just be a one-of-a-kind item, but a few days later I noticed a novel in my kids’ Scholastic Book Club flyer about a boy who is happy to be taking medication for his ADHD -- but then he goes to visit his father and the dad, a medication non-believer and big hyper guy himself, flushes his Ritalin patches down the toilet. The book club blurb explains that the kid has to decide what’s more important -- spending time with his dad, or the nice in-control feeling he gets from the drug. And however we feel about Ritalin, is that really a message we want to give our pre-teens -- kids, if it’s a choice between a parent or feeling good, go with the drugs? I wonder what the parenting books in the Keep-Your-Kids-Off-Drugs section have to say about that.
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MAY 3, 2002
Still feeling in a bookish mood, I surfed over to Amazon.com this morning to see if I might be able to find special-needs books on something other than ADHD at a bookseller with an even greater selection than the monster-mega bookstore down the highway. I clicked my way to the parenting special needs section, and then considered the categories offered: “Hyperactivity” was, of course, full of ADHD books; “Disabilities” was ... full of ADHD books (not to deny that it’s a disability or anything, but if it has its own category, shouldn’t it be out of this one?); and, finally, “General,” which turns out to be the place to find books on special needs that are not ADHD (although a smattering of them crept in here, too).
I’m happy to report that, at least at the moment I checked in this morning, the top best-seller among general special-needs parenting books was The Out-of-Sync Child, supporting my hunch that within the next few years, sensory integration disorder will be the new ADHD. Of course, there’s only one SI book making much of an impact on bookshelves, as opposed to about 7,000 ADHD books, but surely that will change in time. Other books in the top 10 included two on Asperger syndrome, two on autism, one on explosive kids, one on defiant kids, two (natch) on ADHD, and one called The Child Whisperer, which claims to offer “a gentle approach to improving self-esteem and confidence.” If they make it into a movie with Robert Redford, then maybe I’ll give it a look.
Monday, April 29, 2002
Monday, April 22, 2002
April 22-26, 2002
APRIL 22, 2002
Should I be concerned that my daughter -- just turned 12, in the fourth grade at school -- loves "Clifford"?
I was feeling pretty happy about it last week, when on a shopping expedition she chose a "Clifford" video and a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen CD over the far racier fare someone her age might have turned to. But now ... over the weekend, we went on a birthday-gift-certificate shopping spree, and she wound up with another "Clifford" video, a "Clifford" CD-ROM (intended for ages 3-6) and an enormous stuffed "Clifford." Should I have been forcing her to buy Britney Spears CDs and Star Wars figurines instead?
I know that her peers -- even the two-years-younger kids that she shares a classroom with -- would likely tease her if they knew she gave her birthday money to the Big Red Dog. It's better than Barney, who she was teased for liking two years ago, but surely it is still considered little-kid stuff. Should I protect her from their derision of her taste in toys by deriding it myself? Should I tell her that it's stupid to like what she likes, and she should get something she likes less? "Clifford" comes from a perfectly respectable line of children's books, and the TV show plays on good themes of how to be a friend and a responsible citizen. If Emily Elizabeth was wearing halter tops and hiphuggers instead of that darned sweater, dress and kneesocks all the time, preteens might like it fine.
But what is it they like instead? Harry Potter, I guess -- but my daughter hated Harry Potter. Gross-out Nickeldeon shows -- but none of the Nick CD-roms works on our Macintosh. She does like boy bands, and did request a Backstreet Boys CD; she likes basketball, and begged for (and got) a net to play on for her birthday; she likes Mary Kate and Ashley, though probably more because her seven-year-old cousin likes them than anything (and maybe that means they're meant for seven-year-olds). And, she likes "Clifford." So, for that matter, do I. I'm certainly not the only adult who likes to watch things that are beneath my particular level of intelligence (how else to explain "The Bachelor"?) Why shouldn't 12-year-olds?
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APRIL 23, 2002
My kids are on school vacation this week, and my husband has the week off. Which means I get to go to work and leave him with the task of amusing the little ones, tra la, tra la. I did at least take them to Toys 'R' Us and load them up with birthday toys over the weekend, so they've been playing nicely together. But today the sun is shining and the weather is clear and they're going to be clamoring to go outside and ride their bikes all the livelong day. And for a change, the one who has to either go outside and watch them or say no and be whined to death is not me. Hooray for work!
Tomorrow, I have a day off, and my son has a playdate. Also this week, we have to wedge in an occupational therapy appointment, blood tests for both kids, finishing some bathroom improvements and finally putting together the rest of the basketball net my daughter got for her birthday last week. What fun putting those things together is, huh? Whoever writes out the instructions and puts them in those big boxes must just laugh and laugh. Which is what I'm going to do, this morning, as I head for my place of business. Ha, ha! Have fun with the kids, dear.
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APRIL 24, 2002
Has anybody else noticed how out-of-control toy packaging is getting these days? Big toys, little toys, expensive toys, cheapies, it doesn't matter -- they're secured in their boxes as though they were made of gold. My son bought a little tub toy the other day that was moored to its packaging with cardboard tabs, scotch tape and those little plastic wire thingies that look like they should just slide open but in fact require big fat sharp scissors to hack through them. I mean, you wouldn't want a mere child to be able to get to a little plastic tugboat without close parental supervision.
The Barbie Volkswagen Beetle both my kids got recently was even more tightly fastened. It might as well have had its own remote-operated garage, car alarm and electronic combination locks, for all the trouble it took to get it out and play with it. I've seen real Volkswagens with less security. You know, you can buy things for adults that are hugely more breakable, and you're lucky if you even get a box or a lousy piece of tissue paper. But buy a kids' toy more elaborate than a Matchbox car, and you'll need a tool set to get it out. It all must be part of a conspiracy to make us actually participate in our kids' play. Can't just toss a bag of toys at the kids and run -- we have to actually open the dang boxes.
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APRIL 25, 2002
I've been reading about the upcoming series "Frontier House" on PBS, for which three modern-day families struck up homesteads in Montana and tried living the 1883 way for six months. And of course my first reaction to this is: Don't these people have enough challenges in their normal lives? They have to go looking for ways to make their lives harder? "Well, sure, dear, this tub of margarine we can buy from the supermarket is nice, but what I'd really like to do is churn my own butter." My goodness -- please, give these people hobbies.
I mean, it's not like there's any money in it for these families -- they're participating just for the fun of living history. And it's not like there's any fame -- it's on PBS, so the ratings aren't exactly going to be at "Suvivor" levels. There's mostly just bugs and mud and cold and work and dirt. If grown-ups want to try that out for themselves, that's one thing, but to drag your kids along? I'm thinking those parents deserve every ounce of spoiled-brat whining they're going to get throughout that long half-year.
Though I have to say ... If I could ever be persuaded to do such a fool thing -- and I could not -- it might be to see whether my kids could function better in a simpler time. My daughter doesn't do so great in school by today's standards, but out on the frontier she'd probably be great at doing chores and helping out with the other kids. A one-room schoolhouse, with all ages learning together, would suit her fine. And my son -- would he do better with days full of physical labor than he does with days full of sitting in chairs? There might be some value to living on the prairie for six months if we could find that out.
But then we'd have to go back, and what good would it all be? I think I'd rather just muddle through in our material world. Books like "Sarah, Plain and Tall" inspire many things in me, but a desire to go back and live in those times sure ain't one of them.
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APRIL 26, 2002
They have special courses to train kids to take the SAT, and teachers spend a lot of time this time of year priming kids to do well on those horrible grammar school achievement tests (we have the ESPAs coming up in NJ next week). But does anybody pay much attention to training kids to do well on those boring day to day tests, the multiple choices and the fill-in-the-blanks and the short essay questions, the exams that torment them on a daily and weekly basis rather than yearly? I guess those are supposed to be self-explanatory. But I have a daughter for whom nothing is self-explanatory. And she could use some advice.
I guess that's not a normal thing to ask for, because nobody quite knows what I'm talking about when I ask about teaching test-taking skills. Early in the year I wondered if her aide couldn't advise her to, say, do all the easy test questions first, or cross off the multiple choices that were obviously wrong -- as opposed to just straight-out giving her the answers. This request sent everybody into a tizzy, because the aide just wasn't trained for that. Nobody, it seems, is trained for that, least of all the kiddies. So I went out and got me a book called, well, "Teaching Test-Taking Skills." And if it seems to make sense, I'll give it to the tutor I have lined up for the summer. And then maybe we can give my daughter the know-how to show what she knows -- and guess better about the things she doesn't.
Should I be concerned that my daughter -- just turned 12, in the fourth grade at school -- loves "Clifford"?
I was feeling pretty happy about it last week, when on a shopping expedition she chose a "Clifford" video and a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen CD over the far racier fare someone her age might have turned to. But now ... over the weekend, we went on a birthday-gift-certificate shopping spree, and she wound up with another "Clifford" video, a "Clifford" CD-ROM (intended for ages 3-6) and an enormous stuffed "Clifford." Should I have been forcing her to buy Britney Spears CDs and Star Wars figurines instead?
I know that her peers -- even the two-years-younger kids that she shares a classroom with -- would likely tease her if they knew she gave her birthday money to the Big Red Dog. It's better than Barney, who she was teased for liking two years ago, but surely it is still considered little-kid stuff. Should I protect her from their derision of her taste in toys by deriding it myself? Should I tell her that it's stupid to like what she likes, and she should get something she likes less? "Clifford" comes from a perfectly respectable line of children's books, and the TV show plays on good themes of how to be a friend and a responsible citizen. If Emily Elizabeth was wearing halter tops and hiphuggers instead of that darned sweater, dress and kneesocks all the time, preteens might like it fine.
But what is it they like instead? Harry Potter, I guess -- but my daughter hated Harry Potter. Gross-out Nickeldeon shows -- but none of the Nick CD-roms works on our Macintosh. She does like boy bands, and did request a Backstreet Boys CD; she likes basketball, and begged for (and got) a net to play on for her birthday; she likes Mary Kate and Ashley, though probably more because her seven-year-old cousin likes them than anything (and maybe that means they're meant for seven-year-olds). And, she likes "Clifford." So, for that matter, do I. I'm certainly not the only adult who likes to watch things that are beneath my particular level of intelligence (how else to explain "The Bachelor"?) Why shouldn't 12-year-olds?
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APRIL 23, 2002
My kids are on school vacation this week, and my husband has the week off. Which means I get to go to work and leave him with the task of amusing the little ones, tra la, tra la. I did at least take them to Toys 'R' Us and load them up with birthday toys over the weekend, so they've been playing nicely together. But today the sun is shining and the weather is clear and they're going to be clamoring to go outside and ride their bikes all the livelong day. And for a change, the one who has to either go outside and watch them or say no and be whined to death is not me. Hooray for work!
Tomorrow, I have a day off, and my son has a playdate. Also this week, we have to wedge in an occupational therapy appointment, blood tests for both kids, finishing some bathroom improvements and finally putting together the rest of the basketball net my daughter got for her birthday last week. What fun putting those things together is, huh? Whoever writes out the instructions and puts them in those big boxes must just laugh and laugh. Which is what I'm going to do, this morning, as I head for my place of business. Ha, ha! Have fun with the kids, dear.
+ + +
APRIL 24, 2002
Has anybody else noticed how out-of-control toy packaging is getting these days? Big toys, little toys, expensive toys, cheapies, it doesn't matter -- they're secured in their boxes as though they were made of gold. My son bought a little tub toy the other day that was moored to its packaging with cardboard tabs, scotch tape and those little plastic wire thingies that look like they should just slide open but in fact require big fat sharp scissors to hack through them. I mean, you wouldn't want a mere child to be able to get to a little plastic tugboat without close parental supervision.
The Barbie Volkswagen Beetle both my kids got recently was even more tightly fastened. It might as well have had its own remote-operated garage, car alarm and electronic combination locks, for all the trouble it took to get it out and play with it. I've seen real Volkswagens with less security. You know, you can buy things for adults that are hugely more breakable, and you're lucky if you even get a box or a lousy piece of tissue paper. But buy a kids' toy more elaborate than a Matchbox car, and you'll need a tool set to get it out. It all must be part of a conspiracy to make us actually participate in our kids' play. Can't just toss a bag of toys at the kids and run -- we have to actually open the dang boxes.
+ + +
APRIL 25, 2002
I've been reading about the upcoming series "Frontier House" on PBS, for which three modern-day families struck up homesteads in Montana and tried living the 1883 way for six months. And of course my first reaction to this is: Don't these people have enough challenges in their normal lives? They have to go looking for ways to make their lives harder? "Well, sure, dear, this tub of margarine we can buy from the supermarket is nice, but what I'd really like to do is churn my own butter." My goodness -- please, give these people hobbies.
I mean, it's not like there's any money in it for these families -- they're participating just for the fun of living history. And it's not like there's any fame -- it's on PBS, so the ratings aren't exactly going to be at "Suvivor" levels. There's mostly just bugs and mud and cold and work and dirt. If grown-ups want to try that out for themselves, that's one thing, but to drag your kids along? I'm thinking those parents deserve every ounce of spoiled-brat whining they're going to get throughout that long half-year.
Though I have to say ... If I could ever be persuaded to do such a fool thing -- and I could not -- it might be to see whether my kids could function better in a simpler time. My daughter doesn't do so great in school by today's standards, but out on the frontier she'd probably be great at doing chores and helping out with the other kids. A one-room schoolhouse, with all ages learning together, would suit her fine. And my son -- would he do better with days full of physical labor than he does with days full of sitting in chairs? There might be some value to living on the prairie for six months if we could find that out.
But then we'd have to go back, and what good would it all be? I think I'd rather just muddle through in our material world. Books like "Sarah, Plain and Tall" inspire many things in me, but a desire to go back and live in those times sure ain't one of them.
+ + +
APRIL 26, 2002
They have special courses to train kids to take the SAT, and teachers spend a lot of time this time of year priming kids to do well on those horrible grammar school achievement tests (we have the ESPAs coming up in NJ next week). But does anybody pay much attention to training kids to do well on those boring day to day tests, the multiple choices and the fill-in-the-blanks and the short essay questions, the exams that torment them on a daily and weekly basis rather than yearly? I guess those are supposed to be self-explanatory. But I have a daughter for whom nothing is self-explanatory. And she could use some advice.
I guess that's not a normal thing to ask for, because nobody quite knows what I'm talking about when I ask about teaching test-taking skills. Early in the year I wondered if her aide couldn't advise her to, say, do all the easy test questions first, or cross off the multiple choices that were obviously wrong -- as opposed to just straight-out giving her the answers. This request sent everybody into a tizzy, because the aide just wasn't trained for that. Nobody, it seems, is trained for that, least of all the kiddies. So I went out and got me a book called, well, "Teaching Test-Taking Skills." And if it seems to make sense, I'll give it to the tutor I have lined up for the summer. And then maybe we can give my daughter the know-how to show what she knows -- and guess better about the things she doesn't.
Monday, April 15, 2002
April 15-19, 2002
APRIL 15, 2002
Thanks to all who thought of us on Sunday morning. My son's First Communion went -- okay. I had dreamed that he would magically find the self discipline to sit quietly through Mass and stand up at the altar with his peers, respectful and straight of spine, filled with spiritual peace and calmness. That didn't happen. But I had feared that he would appear possessed, jumping and shouting and twitching in his seat, such a bundle of disrespect and wilfull uncontrol that we'd have to drag him out of the sanctuary before his big moment came. And that didn't happen either (though there were a few minutes at the start of Mass that I'd like to try again). He was pretty much as he always is at church, unable to sit normally but able to make it through if he's lying down across a lap or two and allowing himself to be sleepy. That pretty much precluded the standing-at-the-altar part of the morning, but that was okay. He did his thing at communion time just fine, and that's what was important all along.
It's good, I guess, every now and then, to have these little check-ups as to where we're at. There was a time, certainly, where he would not even be able to do as well as he did. And there will be a time, I feel certain, when he will do better. As it was, the lady sitting in front of us told me afterward that she thought my son had done particularly well, and another mother mentioned that she'd had to correct her sixth-grader during the Mass more than I'd had to correct my guy. There may have been a few raised eyebrows amongst congregants who don't know him, wondering why we were letting that communion kid roll around in the pew in his nice suit. But people who knew him saw a difference, and were proud of him, and that's good, too. Maybe, really, better than admiration of behavioral perfection.
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APRIL 16, 2002
So I'm in a bit of a funk this morning because one of my favorite shows, "Once and Again," had its final episode last night, complete with crying and hugging cast members at the end. It's ridiculous to care about a TV show, I know, and hard to get too upset about this cancellation because television is a business first and foremost, and "O&A" is definitely not a show that appeals to everyone. I'd like to think that the little niche of fans to whom I belong could be valuable to a network; hey, I buy stuff. But apparently we're not as valuable as the people who watch "The Bachelor," or the communicating-with-the-dead show that's taking over the time slot. Those are niches that I'm really, really glad not to be part of, so I'll take my grief standing up.
Still ... it's been nice to have a little respite on Monday nights (or Friday nights, or Wednesday nights, or wherever ABC chose to bury the show that week). I think I'm getting late-onset ADD, because there are so few shows anymore that hold my attention. This one did, and now there's one fewer. Maybe this means I'll have more time to read the all those important books about learning disabilities and neurological problems that keep stacking up on me. Maybe it means I'll finally write those notes I've been meaning to, to teachers and child study team folks and special-ed dept. weasels. Maybe it means I'll get a jump on these columns, and not be writing them feverishly in the mornings while the kids eat their breakfasts. Or maybe it means I'll flop on the bed, flip through the channels, find nothing, and fall asleep in my clothes. Aw, you know, it's not the end of the world. Not even close. But I still feel sad.
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APRIL 17, 2002
Today is my daughter's birthday. She's 12. Which means this is the last birthday I can really celebrate, because after this she will be a teenager, and -- whoo boy. Not ready for that. Not with a girl who's already taller than me (in the 90th percentile for height at her check-up this week; I'm probably in about the 5th percentile for 42-year-olds). I need a few more years of pre-teen, and I'm not going to get it.
She's a sweet, healthy, happy girl, though, and maybe she'll be a sweet, healthy, happy teen. It could happen. There have been a few, right? At any rate, I'll enjoy these 12s, and take comfort in the fact that she'd still rather have a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen CD than a rap CD, a Clifford video than a PG-13 movie. And I'll try to forget that the pediatrician said I might want to have her start shaving her armpits. She may be big, well-developed and hairy, but she's still just a little girl. Just ignore those pimples, okay?
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APRIL 18, 2002
Capital One wants to give my son a platinum credit card.
He gets letters every week or two, urging him to call in immediately to claim his large and convenient line of credit. I'm sure the Capital One folks don't know they're offering that line to a developmentally delayed 9-year-old with fetal alcohol effect. I'd tell them, but the mailings offer no phone number or address to get off the list, only an automated call-in line to sign up. And so the come-ons keep on coming.
Now, I know how he got on this mailing list: We have a bank account in his name, and his grandmother set up a college fund for him, and computers don't know from 9-year-olds -- it's just another name in the bank's database. But here's the interesting thing: My daughter has, in her own name, all of those same accounts. Her name is right there next to his on all the same the databases. And yet -- she never receives credit offers. No junk mail for her. And while I'm not the sort that's quick to jump up with charges of sexism, I have to wonder -- why would that be? There is no list that he is on that she is not, and yet only the male name is worthy of a Capital One card. It's enough to make you go hmmm.
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APRIL 19, 2002
My kids' school called no snow days this year, but we did get a heat day this past Wednesday. It was my honor and privilege as a class mom to track people down at their places of business and let them know that, surprise! school was ending at 1 p.m. and they needed to prepare to receive their little hot and sweaty darlings home. While I can certainly sympathize with how difficult it is to learn in an un-air-conditioned classroom on a 90-degree day; and even more with how hard it is to teach; somehow calling school on account of heat seems like an awfully wimpy thing to do. Plus, it's hard to be a parent in an un-air-conditioned house or apartment on a 90-degree day, too, especially when you've had to ditch out of work to do it.
When I was a kid, of course, we went to school when it was 100 degrees and did science experiments involving frying eggs on the sidewalk and never thought a thing of it. Didn't even break a sweat while walking to and from school, uphill both ways. Why, we used to wear our warmest new fall clothes on the first day of school even if it was sweltering out, just because they were our new school clothes, darn it, and school was where we were going. These days, these kids, they wear their summer shorts from May to October. Their mothers drive them to the school entrance in air-conditioned vehicles. They tote water bottles to class and stay inside for recess if it's a little warm (or cold, or wet). Weaklings, the lot of them. And their school board, too.
Thanks to all who thought of us on Sunday morning. My son's First Communion went -- okay. I had dreamed that he would magically find the self discipline to sit quietly through Mass and stand up at the altar with his peers, respectful and straight of spine, filled with spiritual peace and calmness. That didn't happen. But I had feared that he would appear possessed, jumping and shouting and twitching in his seat, such a bundle of disrespect and wilfull uncontrol that we'd have to drag him out of the sanctuary before his big moment came. And that didn't happen either (though there were a few minutes at the start of Mass that I'd like to try again). He was pretty much as he always is at church, unable to sit normally but able to make it through if he's lying down across a lap or two and allowing himself to be sleepy. That pretty much precluded the standing-at-the-altar part of the morning, but that was okay. He did his thing at communion time just fine, and that's what was important all along.
It's good, I guess, every now and then, to have these little check-ups as to where we're at. There was a time, certainly, where he would not even be able to do as well as he did. And there will be a time, I feel certain, when he will do better. As it was, the lady sitting in front of us told me afterward that she thought my son had done particularly well, and another mother mentioned that she'd had to correct her sixth-grader during the Mass more than I'd had to correct my guy. There may have been a few raised eyebrows amongst congregants who don't know him, wondering why we were letting that communion kid roll around in the pew in his nice suit. But people who knew him saw a difference, and were proud of him, and that's good, too. Maybe, really, better than admiration of behavioral perfection.
+ + +
APRIL 16, 2002
So I'm in a bit of a funk this morning because one of my favorite shows, "Once and Again," had its final episode last night, complete with crying and hugging cast members at the end. It's ridiculous to care about a TV show, I know, and hard to get too upset about this cancellation because television is a business first and foremost, and "O&A" is definitely not a show that appeals to everyone. I'd like to think that the little niche of fans to whom I belong could be valuable to a network; hey, I buy stuff. But apparently we're not as valuable as the people who watch "The Bachelor," or the communicating-with-the-dead show that's taking over the time slot. Those are niches that I'm really, really glad not to be part of, so I'll take my grief standing up.
Still ... it's been nice to have a little respite on Monday nights (or Friday nights, or Wednesday nights, or wherever ABC chose to bury the show that week). I think I'm getting late-onset ADD, because there are so few shows anymore that hold my attention. This one did, and now there's one fewer. Maybe this means I'll have more time to read the all those important books about learning disabilities and neurological problems that keep stacking up on me. Maybe it means I'll finally write those notes I've been meaning to, to teachers and child study team folks and special-ed dept. weasels. Maybe it means I'll get a jump on these columns, and not be writing them feverishly in the mornings while the kids eat their breakfasts. Or maybe it means I'll flop on the bed, flip through the channels, find nothing, and fall asleep in my clothes. Aw, you know, it's not the end of the world. Not even close. But I still feel sad.
+ + +
APRIL 17, 2002
Today is my daughter's birthday. She's 12. Which means this is the last birthday I can really celebrate, because after this she will be a teenager, and -- whoo boy. Not ready for that. Not with a girl who's already taller than me (in the 90th percentile for height at her check-up this week; I'm probably in about the 5th percentile for 42-year-olds). I need a few more years of pre-teen, and I'm not going to get it.
She's a sweet, healthy, happy girl, though, and maybe she'll be a sweet, healthy, happy teen. It could happen. There have been a few, right? At any rate, I'll enjoy these 12s, and take comfort in the fact that she'd still rather have a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen CD than a rap CD, a Clifford video than a PG-13 movie. And I'll try to forget that the pediatrician said I might want to have her start shaving her armpits. She may be big, well-developed and hairy, but she's still just a little girl. Just ignore those pimples, okay?
+ + +
APRIL 18, 2002
Capital One wants to give my son a platinum credit card.
He gets letters every week or two, urging him to call in immediately to claim his large and convenient line of credit. I'm sure the Capital One folks don't know they're offering that line to a developmentally delayed 9-year-old with fetal alcohol effect. I'd tell them, but the mailings offer no phone number or address to get off the list, only an automated call-in line to sign up. And so the come-ons keep on coming.
Now, I know how he got on this mailing list: We have a bank account in his name, and his grandmother set up a college fund for him, and computers don't know from 9-year-olds -- it's just another name in the bank's database. But here's the interesting thing: My daughter has, in her own name, all of those same accounts. Her name is right there next to his on all the same the databases. And yet -- she never receives credit offers. No junk mail for her. And while I'm not the sort that's quick to jump up with charges of sexism, I have to wonder -- why would that be? There is no list that he is on that she is not, and yet only the male name is worthy of a Capital One card. It's enough to make you go hmmm.
+ + +
APRIL 19, 2002
My kids' school called no snow days this year, but we did get a heat day this past Wednesday. It was my honor and privilege as a class mom to track people down at their places of business and let them know that, surprise! school was ending at 1 p.m. and they needed to prepare to receive their little hot and sweaty darlings home. While I can certainly sympathize with how difficult it is to learn in an un-air-conditioned classroom on a 90-degree day; and even more with how hard it is to teach; somehow calling school on account of heat seems like an awfully wimpy thing to do. Plus, it's hard to be a parent in an un-air-conditioned house or apartment on a 90-degree day, too, especially when you've had to ditch out of work to do it.
When I was a kid, of course, we went to school when it was 100 degrees and did science experiments involving frying eggs on the sidewalk and never thought a thing of it. Didn't even break a sweat while walking to and from school, uphill both ways. Why, we used to wear our warmest new fall clothes on the first day of school even if it was sweltering out, just because they were our new school clothes, darn it, and school was where we were going. These days, these kids, they wear their summer shorts from May to October. Their mothers drive them to the school entrance in air-conditioned vehicles. They tote water bottles to class and stay inside for recess if it's a little warm (or cold, or wet). Weaklings, the lot of them. And their school board, too.
Monday, April 08, 2002
April 8-12, 2002
APRIL 8, 2002
Watched the Disney Channel's "Tru Confessions" with my daughter on Friday, in the hope that she would see some parallel with her sibling relationship in the story of a girl who struggles with but finally comes to value her bond with her developmentally disabled brother. The family dynamics sure looked familiar to me: mother constantly excusing and protecting her son while expecting more from her daughter; father afraid to acknowledge his son's limitations and yelling too much when things inevitably go wrong; daughter resentful that her brother gets away with everything and she with nothing; son pretty happy in his own world, largely oblivious to the stress he's causing. My husband happened to walk through the room during a scene in which the son again created havoc during dinner (this time by spilling a beverage, which used to be a common occurence at our table), and I know he saw himself in the way the father leapt up and shouted, "Can't we ever just get through a meal?" I know he saw himself, because he laughed and shot me a sheepish look. If we had a dollar for every time he's said those words, it would cover the cost of getting the Disney Channel, for sure. And maybe a DVD player, too. And TV dinners for a year.
Did my daughter see herself in the on-screen sister? Less likely, I guess. The character was hyper-verbal and hyper-aware, and goodness knows my daughter is neither of those. She's never shown much of an ability to apply fictional situations to real-life ones. But she enjoyed the movie, and maybe a little bit of its message of tolerance for, as she describes her own, "crazy brothers" will seep in. And at any rate, it has me feeling all validated -- the mother's practically the hero of the movie; she turns out to be right about everything, and everybody who's picked on her throughout the 83 minutes makes note of that in the end. Now could we just have a little bit of THAT in real life, please?
+ + +
APRIL 9, 2002
I'm running late this morning, overslept again, rushing around with no time to write something funny or even lame, but I just gotta say ... This morning, while I was dashing through my shower, anticipating having to yell at my son who would undoubtedly still be in his pajamas, in bed, when I got out -- while I was worrying about rushing him through dressing and eating -- while I was being so very unorganized and late myself, imagining my daughter lounging on the sofa waiting to be served -- my beautiful girl was calmly microwaving omelets for her sibling and herself, and my son was actually getting himself dressed. I tore out of my room only to find them sitting at the table, peacefully munching away, togged and shod and ready for school. Miracles! If I can get my daughter to do this every morning, I can oversleep a good ten minutes more.
Of course, she's got to start making breakfast for me, too. A pot of coffee, at least. We'll work on that.
+ + +
APRIL 10, 2002
I'm off to an interview with the social worker on my son's child study team in a few minutes, and am trying to get into the appropriate positive, friendly but firm mind-set that comes in so handy during confrontations ... wait, I mean consultations ... conferences? ... meetings like these. I know there's some parents who go into these things breathing fire, and I generally admire them and wish I could do that, too; but catching flies with honey is definitely more my style. It doesn't mean I don't feel like a nervous wreck going in, though, and don't feel the need to gird myself for the job. Hold on a sec while I slip this armor on, okay? (Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.)
Today's get-together is just to give a social history for my son as part of his three-year review. He's had a heck of a good three years, so there should only be positive vibes in that office today. Right? Right? I'm a little more defensive than usual, because the social worker was the one person on the child study team who didn't think we needed to bother with this whole three-year review stuff for my guy. She proposed skipping it, I proposed not, and everybody else -- thank goodness -- agreed with me. I don't know if she's holding a grudge about that. Guess I'll find out in a few minutes. Oh, don'tcha just love IEP season?
+ + +
APRIL 11, 2002
It’s always something. Yesterday I completed my nervously anticipated interview with the social worker on my son’s child study team with flying colors, leaving her the impression of a great kid and a happy family, and when we were done I walked down the hall to drop off some paperwork with the child study team leader. I was surprised but happy to see my daughter’s aide in the office there with her, because I rarely get a chance to speak with the woman and had a couple of things I wanted to mention. But alas, the aide was in that office because she was unhappy with what was going on in the classroom, concerned about the directions the teacher was giving her for working with my daughter and unsure about things she was being asked to do. Plus, now, panicked that it might be perceived that she was taking a secret meeting with me. You know, me, the parent, the one that must by all means NOT be allowed free and open communication with people who work directly with my child. The horror!
We talked for a while, the three of us, with frequent nervous glances at the open door, and I heard things that annoyed me -- requests I thought I had communicated clearly being completely misinterpreted; things that concerned me -- the kind of excess help for my daughter that I had again and again and AGAIN asked that she not receive; and things that made me think that all of this really had more to do with classroom politics, personalities and the mismanaging of inclusion in our district and state than it did with my actual child and self. I’m clinging to that last one, because it’s late in the year and I really don’t want to have to start ticking people off again now. Can’t we just get through fourth grade? Please? I can only handle one set of stressful Child Study Team interactions at a time, and this year it’s my son’s turn. But as we know, in the land of special ed, Nothing Is Ever Easy.
+ + +
APRIL 12, 2002
Send prayers or good thoughts our way Sunday morning, 8:45 a.m., as my son receives his First Communion. The First Communion part -- the actual receiving of the Host -- I'm not worried about. I'm worried about him making it through Mass with people watching. I'm worried about him standing up at the altar with the other children all during the long, long Eucharistic prayer, as we found out at today's rehearsal he's going to have to do. I'm worried about him wearing a suit without dissolving in a mass of tactile hypersensitivity. It's going to be a long morning.
To their credit, nobody at the church, neither the administrator of the First Communion program nor the parents whose children will be sharing the spotlight, has said anything about my son's behavior being inappropriate for a First Communicant. There seems to be a good understanding among the people and priests that my child has a neurological impairment, and that he requires more than the usual amounts of understanding and tolerance. After the horrible rehearsal, during which he was whooping and hollering and jumping and running and proclaiming loudly from the altar that he had to go to the bathroom, at about the time when I imagined all the other moms demanding that my son be pulled from the First Communion line-up so as not to disturb their children's big day, a woman who remembered my son from a long-ago gymnastics class she taught stopped us to say how happy she was that her daughter was having her First Communion during the same Mass as my son, and that it really made the day for her. I wanted to hug her.
It's true, I think, that my husband and I are more mortified by his behavior under these circumstances than other folks are -- even though, under general circumstances, we are extremely understanding and tolerant of his challenges. We know that the thing that works best for him is to keep him from situations where he is going to be unsuccessful, and when such situations are unavoidable -- like making your First Communion in front of God and everybody -- I think we panic a little. Okay, we panic a lot.
I'd like to think that praying on this will lead God to bring a little calmness to my boy's wild spirit and help him to behave. But you never know about God -- He may just feel that having a small boy running up and down the aisles or prattling merrily at the altar in a Scooby Doo voice is a fine way to wake people up. Perhaps what we need to pray for is a little calmness for ourselves. At any rate -- 8:45 a.m., people. Send us a little support.
Watched the Disney Channel's "Tru Confessions" with my daughter on Friday, in the hope that she would see some parallel with her sibling relationship in the story of a girl who struggles with but finally comes to value her bond with her developmentally disabled brother. The family dynamics sure looked familiar to me: mother constantly excusing and protecting her son while expecting more from her daughter; father afraid to acknowledge his son's limitations and yelling too much when things inevitably go wrong; daughter resentful that her brother gets away with everything and she with nothing; son pretty happy in his own world, largely oblivious to the stress he's causing. My husband happened to walk through the room during a scene in which the son again created havoc during dinner (this time by spilling a beverage, which used to be a common occurence at our table), and I know he saw himself in the way the father leapt up and shouted, "Can't we ever just get through a meal?" I know he saw himself, because he laughed and shot me a sheepish look. If we had a dollar for every time he's said those words, it would cover the cost of getting the Disney Channel, for sure. And maybe a DVD player, too. And TV dinners for a year.
Did my daughter see herself in the on-screen sister? Less likely, I guess. The character was hyper-verbal and hyper-aware, and goodness knows my daughter is neither of those. She's never shown much of an ability to apply fictional situations to real-life ones. But she enjoyed the movie, and maybe a little bit of its message of tolerance for, as she describes her own, "crazy brothers" will seep in. And at any rate, it has me feeling all validated -- the mother's practically the hero of the movie; she turns out to be right about everything, and everybody who's picked on her throughout the 83 minutes makes note of that in the end. Now could we just have a little bit of THAT in real life, please?
+ + +
APRIL 9, 2002
I'm running late this morning, overslept again, rushing around with no time to write something funny or even lame, but I just gotta say ... This morning, while I was dashing through my shower, anticipating having to yell at my son who would undoubtedly still be in his pajamas, in bed, when I got out -- while I was worrying about rushing him through dressing and eating -- while I was being so very unorganized and late myself, imagining my daughter lounging on the sofa waiting to be served -- my beautiful girl was calmly microwaving omelets for her sibling and herself, and my son was actually getting himself dressed. I tore out of my room only to find them sitting at the table, peacefully munching away, togged and shod and ready for school. Miracles! If I can get my daughter to do this every morning, I can oversleep a good ten minutes more.
Of course, she's got to start making breakfast for me, too. A pot of coffee, at least. We'll work on that.
+ + +
APRIL 10, 2002
I'm off to an interview with the social worker on my son's child study team in a few minutes, and am trying to get into the appropriate positive, friendly but firm mind-set that comes in so handy during confrontations ... wait, I mean consultations ... conferences? ... meetings like these. I know there's some parents who go into these things breathing fire, and I generally admire them and wish I could do that, too; but catching flies with honey is definitely more my style. It doesn't mean I don't feel like a nervous wreck going in, though, and don't feel the need to gird myself for the job. Hold on a sec while I slip this armor on, okay? (Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.)
Today's get-together is just to give a social history for my son as part of his three-year review. He's had a heck of a good three years, so there should only be positive vibes in that office today. Right? Right? I'm a little more defensive than usual, because the social worker was the one person on the child study team who didn't think we needed to bother with this whole three-year review stuff for my guy. She proposed skipping it, I proposed not, and everybody else -- thank goodness -- agreed with me. I don't know if she's holding a grudge about that. Guess I'll find out in a few minutes. Oh, don'tcha just love IEP season?
+ + +
APRIL 11, 2002
It’s always something. Yesterday I completed my nervously anticipated interview with the social worker on my son’s child study team with flying colors, leaving her the impression of a great kid and a happy family, and when we were done I walked down the hall to drop off some paperwork with the child study team leader. I was surprised but happy to see my daughter’s aide in the office there with her, because I rarely get a chance to speak with the woman and had a couple of things I wanted to mention. But alas, the aide was in that office because she was unhappy with what was going on in the classroom, concerned about the directions the teacher was giving her for working with my daughter and unsure about things she was being asked to do. Plus, now, panicked that it might be perceived that she was taking a secret meeting with me. You know, me, the parent, the one that must by all means NOT be allowed free and open communication with people who work directly with my child. The horror!
We talked for a while, the three of us, with frequent nervous glances at the open door, and I heard things that annoyed me -- requests I thought I had communicated clearly being completely misinterpreted; things that concerned me -- the kind of excess help for my daughter that I had again and again and AGAIN asked that she not receive; and things that made me think that all of this really had more to do with classroom politics, personalities and the mismanaging of inclusion in our district and state than it did with my actual child and self. I’m clinging to that last one, because it’s late in the year and I really don’t want to have to start ticking people off again now. Can’t we just get through fourth grade? Please? I can only handle one set of stressful Child Study Team interactions at a time, and this year it’s my son’s turn. But as we know, in the land of special ed, Nothing Is Ever Easy.
+ + +
APRIL 12, 2002
Send prayers or good thoughts our way Sunday morning, 8:45 a.m., as my son receives his First Communion. The First Communion part -- the actual receiving of the Host -- I'm not worried about. I'm worried about him making it through Mass with people watching. I'm worried about him standing up at the altar with the other children all during the long, long Eucharistic prayer, as we found out at today's rehearsal he's going to have to do. I'm worried about him wearing a suit without dissolving in a mass of tactile hypersensitivity. It's going to be a long morning.
To their credit, nobody at the church, neither the administrator of the First Communion program nor the parents whose children will be sharing the spotlight, has said anything about my son's behavior being inappropriate for a First Communicant. There seems to be a good understanding among the people and priests that my child has a neurological impairment, and that he requires more than the usual amounts of understanding and tolerance. After the horrible rehearsal, during which he was whooping and hollering and jumping and running and proclaiming loudly from the altar that he had to go to the bathroom, at about the time when I imagined all the other moms demanding that my son be pulled from the First Communion line-up so as not to disturb their children's big day, a woman who remembered my son from a long-ago gymnastics class she taught stopped us to say how happy she was that her daughter was having her First Communion during the same Mass as my son, and that it really made the day for her. I wanted to hug her.
It's true, I think, that my husband and I are more mortified by his behavior under these circumstances than other folks are -- even though, under general circumstances, we are extremely understanding and tolerant of his challenges. We know that the thing that works best for him is to keep him from situations where he is going to be unsuccessful, and when such situations are unavoidable -- like making your First Communion in front of God and everybody -- I think we panic a little. Okay, we panic a lot.
I'd like to think that praying on this will lead God to bring a little calmness to my boy's wild spirit and help him to behave. But you never know about God -- He may just feel that having a small boy running up and down the aisles or prattling merrily at the altar in a Scooby Doo voice is a fine way to wake people up. Perhaps what we need to pray for is a little calmness for ourselves. At any rate -- 8:45 a.m., people. Send us a little support.
Monday, April 01, 2002
April 1-5, 2002
APRIL 1, 2002
Good news, I guess: I won't be able to use this space to shill for ABC's "Once and Again" much longer, because the network has finally said, "No more." There are three episodes of this often intriguing, sometimes annoying, usually emotionally honest drama to go, including tonight's, and now no incentive whatsoever for new viewers to take a look at it. But allow me to whine at least one more time, and pretend that anyone even still cares.
Tonight's episode continues and, most likely, resolves a long-simmering storyline about teenage daughter Grace's desperate infatuation with her English teacher (played by Eric Stoltz, for anybody who may have been infatuated with him when they were teenagers). That he returns the infatuation has been suggested but not stated outright; it's still possible that he's merely fond of her and deeply sympathetic to the numerous ways she has humiliated herself on his behalf. Anyone who was capable, at that age, of really mortifying behavior in the pursuit of something that seemed to be the most important thing in the world -- romantic, social, academic or whatever -- will feel a pang as this basically good but often heedlessly passionate girl does things that she will remember later in life with a wince.
One of this show's strengths has always been its ruthless, clear-eyed showing of the ways in which people embarrass themselves -- there have been times that I have had to dive for the mute button to stop characters from saying that desperately ill-advised thing they were obviously just about to. Thought it was sometimes painful viewing, I'll miss it. Too bad that too few of us will.
+ + +
APRIL 2, 2002
Lately, my son seems to be developing good manners. Not the kind of good manners that involve, say, eating with your fork or refraining from burping aloud at will, but some very nice little verbal habits nonetheless. He's always been good with "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," but now his repertoire has expanded. For example, during Easter dinner at a restaurant, he demonstrated his ability to interact politely with the waitress, whether to clearly give his order in turn or to wave her down and request more juice. Quite the fine diner was he.
When he went to the pediatrician last week, he sat down at a table of toys where a little girl was playing and nicely introduced himself, saying his name and asking for hers. And another afternoon, waiting outside for his sister to come out of school, he approached a girl who was piling up sticks, excused himself, and asked if she might like some help. Of course, she ignored him; mainstream-type kids often don't respond to his polite overtures. Children with special needs get a lot of help with and stress on social skills. Maybe some mainstream kids could use that, too.
+ + +
APRIL 3, 2002
I'm feeling all inconsistent about inclusion these days. On the one hand, last week I had to head off yet another attempt to pull my daughter out of her mainstream class and stick her in resource room for a good portion of the day. I had to again explain that that sort of remediation does not work for her, and that being in a classroom with everybody else does. Her teacher was just being concerned; I don't think it was an official child-study-team-mandated request, just an attempt to gently talk me into it. She didn't. My girl needs to be in the regular classroom, and I'll do everything short of crazy glue to keep her there.
So there, I'm the queen of inclusion. And in that spirit, I've also pulled the plug on my son's expensive, exclusive special needs camp and have found an in-town mainstream program that will take him on. We'll pay for him to have a one-on-one aide, but beyond that, he'll be just another kid, albeit a jumpy, noisy, busy, key-obsessed one. I'm feeling good about having him be part of the community this year, with kids he might actually see around town. Mainstream children have generally been kind to him, and I hope that will continue. For summer, anyway, inclusion's the ticket.
But during the school year, I can't work up any enthusiasm for that boy being in a mainstream class. He has a hard enough time staying focused in a small, structured, self-contained special-ed class; put him in a regular classroom with too many kids and too much going on, and he'd be at his hyperkinetic worst. It's even occured to me to wonder, as we approach his latest three-year review, whether he wouldn't be better off in a special school instead of just a special class. That's about as far from inclusion as you can get, and it's going to make some child-study-team heads spin that the mom who won't even allow her daughter to be pulled into resource room wants to send her son out of the home school, out of the community, and way out of the mainstream. But that's okay. It's good to keep them on their toes.
+ + +
APRIL 4, 2002
My kids really really really really really want a dog.
My husband really really really really really doesn't.
Me, I'm in the middle. We always had a dog when I was growing up, and I miss that. I can see where it might be good for my kids to have that sort of companionship and that sort of responsibility. But on the other hand: Mess. Disruption. Dog hair. Dog poop. Do I need that sort of responsibility? There are days we just barely have it together with our current roster of personnel.
At any rate, we would have to find a pretty exceptional dog to be able to survive this household. One energetic enough to play with the small hyperactive boy, but controlled enough to not hurt him in the process. One calm enough for my daughter, who adores dogs in about the same proportion that she is scared to death of them. One who will provide good company for my mother-in-law, who has custody of the downstairs rooms of our house that lead to the backyard, but not move in any way that may interfere with her already unsteady steps. And of course, one who will charm my husband, who really really really doesn't much care for critters.
Maybe one day the perfect dog will just follow us home, and we won't have to think about it. And then maybe somebody will leave a baby on our doorstep, and we'll be able to adopt again without any hassle. It's nice to dream. That's what I tell my kids, anyway.
+ + +
APRIL 5, 2002
Well, since I griped about "ER" last week, I have to acknowledge that this week, they did at least make some mention of FAS, and of drinking while pregnant as being a Bad Thing. Now, they did it in the context of a doctor yelling at a parent, which seems to be the general mode of address of doctors to parents on this show these days -- but it's good to at least have FAS acknowledged as something that causes developmental delays, since so many real-life doctors seem so reluctant to deal with it very much at all.
And although I'm happy for any mention at all, wouldn't it be good to have an older child on some show, demonstrating what FASD looks like once the child gets past alcohol-exposed-preemie stage? Maybe a parent would actually get a chance to yell at a doctor, as I yell at doctors and teachers who insist on overlooking the brain damage my child has suffered and see only the bad behavior. Well, in my head I yell at them. I yell at them when I get home. I yell at them on this Web site. In person I mostly just stew. And I suppose, to be fair, that's not really all that telegenic.
Good news, I guess: I won't be able to use this space to shill for ABC's "Once and Again" much longer, because the network has finally said, "No more." There are three episodes of this often intriguing, sometimes annoying, usually emotionally honest drama to go, including tonight's, and now no incentive whatsoever for new viewers to take a look at it. But allow me to whine at least one more time, and pretend that anyone even still cares.
Tonight's episode continues and, most likely, resolves a long-simmering storyline about teenage daughter Grace's desperate infatuation with her English teacher (played by Eric Stoltz, for anybody who may have been infatuated with him when they were teenagers). That he returns the infatuation has been suggested but not stated outright; it's still possible that he's merely fond of her and deeply sympathetic to the numerous ways she has humiliated herself on his behalf. Anyone who was capable, at that age, of really mortifying behavior in the pursuit of something that seemed to be the most important thing in the world -- romantic, social, academic or whatever -- will feel a pang as this basically good but often heedlessly passionate girl does things that she will remember later in life with a wince.
One of this show's strengths has always been its ruthless, clear-eyed showing of the ways in which people embarrass themselves -- there have been times that I have had to dive for the mute button to stop characters from saying that desperately ill-advised thing they were obviously just about to. Thought it was sometimes painful viewing, I'll miss it. Too bad that too few of us will.
+ + +
APRIL 2, 2002
Lately, my son seems to be developing good manners. Not the kind of good manners that involve, say, eating with your fork or refraining from burping aloud at will, but some very nice little verbal habits nonetheless. He's always been good with "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," but now his repertoire has expanded. For example, during Easter dinner at a restaurant, he demonstrated his ability to interact politely with the waitress, whether to clearly give his order in turn or to wave her down and request more juice. Quite the fine diner was he.
When he went to the pediatrician last week, he sat down at a table of toys where a little girl was playing and nicely introduced himself, saying his name and asking for hers. And another afternoon, waiting outside for his sister to come out of school, he approached a girl who was piling up sticks, excused himself, and asked if she might like some help. Of course, she ignored him; mainstream-type kids often don't respond to his polite overtures. Children with special needs get a lot of help with and stress on social skills. Maybe some mainstream kids could use that, too.
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APRIL 3, 2002
I'm feeling all inconsistent about inclusion these days. On the one hand, last week I had to head off yet another attempt to pull my daughter out of her mainstream class and stick her in resource room for a good portion of the day. I had to again explain that that sort of remediation does not work for her, and that being in a classroom with everybody else does. Her teacher was just being concerned; I don't think it was an official child-study-team-mandated request, just an attempt to gently talk me into it. She didn't. My girl needs to be in the regular classroom, and I'll do everything short of crazy glue to keep her there.
So there, I'm the queen of inclusion. And in that spirit, I've also pulled the plug on my son's expensive, exclusive special needs camp and have found an in-town mainstream program that will take him on. We'll pay for him to have a one-on-one aide, but beyond that, he'll be just another kid, albeit a jumpy, noisy, busy, key-obsessed one. I'm feeling good about having him be part of the community this year, with kids he might actually see around town. Mainstream children have generally been kind to him, and I hope that will continue. For summer, anyway, inclusion's the ticket.
But during the school year, I can't work up any enthusiasm for that boy being in a mainstream class. He has a hard enough time staying focused in a small, structured, self-contained special-ed class; put him in a regular classroom with too many kids and too much going on, and he'd be at his hyperkinetic worst. It's even occured to me to wonder, as we approach his latest three-year review, whether he wouldn't be better off in a special school instead of just a special class. That's about as far from inclusion as you can get, and it's going to make some child-study-team heads spin that the mom who won't even allow her daughter to be pulled into resource room wants to send her son out of the home school, out of the community, and way out of the mainstream. But that's okay. It's good to keep them on their toes.
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APRIL 4, 2002
My kids really really really really really want a dog.
My husband really really really really really doesn't.
Me, I'm in the middle. We always had a dog when I was growing up, and I miss that. I can see where it might be good for my kids to have that sort of companionship and that sort of responsibility. But on the other hand: Mess. Disruption. Dog hair. Dog poop. Do I need that sort of responsibility? There are days we just barely have it together with our current roster of personnel.
At any rate, we would have to find a pretty exceptional dog to be able to survive this household. One energetic enough to play with the small hyperactive boy, but controlled enough to not hurt him in the process. One calm enough for my daughter, who adores dogs in about the same proportion that she is scared to death of them. One who will provide good company for my mother-in-law, who has custody of the downstairs rooms of our house that lead to the backyard, but not move in any way that may interfere with her already unsteady steps. And of course, one who will charm my husband, who really really really doesn't much care for critters.
Maybe one day the perfect dog will just follow us home, and we won't have to think about it. And then maybe somebody will leave a baby on our doorstep, and we'll be able to adopt again without any hassle. It's nice to dream. That's what I tell my kids, anyway.
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APRIL 5, 2002
Well, since I griped about "ER" last week, I have to acknowledge that this week, they did at least make some mention of FAS, and of drinking while pregnant as being a Bad Thing. Now, they did it in the context of a doctor yelling at a parent, which seems to be the general mode of address of doctors to parents on this show these days -- but it's good to at least have FAS acknowledged as something that causes developmental delays, since so many real-life doctors seem so reluctant to deal with it very much at all.
And although I'm happy for any mention at all, wouldn't it be good to have an older child on some show, demonstrating what FASD looks like once the child gets past alcohol-exposed-preemie stage? Maybe a parent would actually get a chance to yell at a doctor, as I yell at doctors and teachers who insist on overlooking the brain damage my child has suffered and see only the bad behavior. Well, in my head I yell at them. I yell at them when I get home. I yell at them on this Web site. In person I mostly just stew. And I suppose, to be fair, that's not really all that telegenic.
Monday, March 25, 2002
March 25-29, 2002
MARCH 25, 2002
Stayed up (yawn) until all hours (yawn) watching the Oscars last night, and feeling a little nostalgic for my younger days -- pre-kids, pre-move to the East Coast -- when Oscar evening was such a big deal for me. Back when I could have a big party because the show didn't last until, well, all hours. Back when I could clear a whole evening to do nothing but watch TV. Back when I still went to the movies. I used to get a bunch of friends together every year, and we'd dress up to dress down the stars and their wardrobes. Ah, those were the days.
This year, I watched the first hour or so of the ceremony with my daughter, doing flashcards with her during the commercials and hitting the "mute" button during boring speeches and reading segments from her literature book. After she went off to sleep, I struggled hard not to do the same. I'd at least seen one movie that was up for an award -- "Kate & Leopold," up for Sting's best song -- but other than that, watching the little scenes that played with each nomination is about as close as I'll get to any of these flicks. And that's okay; normally, my kids are plenty entertaining enough to make me forget that I'm not getting my full ration of theater seats and popcorn. But on nights like last night, I can't help feeling nostalgic anyway. Or falling asleep, either.
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MARCH 26, 2002
My son's teacher made a point of telling me today, when I picked him up, that he is now standing up straight, with his head high, when he walks down the school hallways. This is in contrast to his former hall-walking posture, which was bent over, with his head down. That posture didn't bother me so much because I knew he was getting some sensory integration benefits from it. But it bothered the folks at school. It's bothered them for years. And so they have made a big project out of it, and now they're successful. People have been commenting, she said, as he walks by their classroom, how much better he's walking. Recognition from the community for improving one's behavior is good, surely, even if the improvement is otherwise pretty meaningless.
But that's just me. I would have thought there were more important goals to tackle with such consistency and enthusiasm, but maybe not. When his speech therapist talked proudly about how she kept making him go back to the classroom and do it again until he walked straight and tall for her, all I could think of was, "You're spending your speech therapy time on this?" But I try to keep in mind that I'm not there at the school, and I don't entirely understand what goes on there, and I have to trust educators who I believe are good at what they do and sincere in their desire to help my son. So he's standing up straight now. That's great. It's good for him, to be showing some self-control. It's good for the school, to have him not thumping through the hallways not quite looking where he's going. And it's good for me, because now I can imagine everybody's attention finally turning toward something else.
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MARCH 27, 2002
Any parent who's had plans ruined by a child's illness has to be at least a little heartwarmed by the news reports coming out about Will Smith's mysterious disappearance from the Oscar ceremonies Sunday night. He and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, were there at the start of the ceremony, when Whoopi Goldberg made a joke about them sitting next to Maggie Smith. But by the time his big moment came -- the category for which he was nominated, Best Actor -- Mr. Smith was nowhere to be found.
What happened? Was he in the bathroom? At the bar? Brawling backstage? As it turns out, security had informed the couple that their 1.5-year-old daughter had been taken to the hospital with a high fever and ear infection, and they had rushed off to be with her. Now, I like the idea of celebs being sufficiently wrapped up in their kids that they'd flee the entertainment industry's biggest night to be with their baby. But what I like even more is the image of Jada Pinkett rushing into the ER in that ball gown she was wearing. Surely they didn't stop to change? I've been caught on emergency runs in ratty sweatclothes I didn't expect anybody to see me in, but never formalwear. Will Smith may have lost the Oscar to Denzel Washington, but he was a lock for Best Dressed Dad at the hospital.
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MARCH 28, 2002
Another milestone for my son (this seems to be the season for them) -- as of his pediatrician visit yesterday, and at the ripe old age of 9, he is now, finally, for the first time, officially on the height and weight charts. He's been off the bottom of them for so long, following the curve but not getting any closer to it. But now, big boy that he is, he's at about the fifth percentile for height and the seventh percentile for weight. Woo-hoo! For a little guy with FAE who we thought would always be below the bottom, this is a red-letter day.
I always said that if he ever hit the charts, I'd have a party. Next month, in another milestone event, he's making his first Holy Communion, so maybe we'll make the party for that a dual spiritual/physical growth celebration. Proud accomplishments, both. But what I really want to know about his newfound size is: If he's now taller than five percent of 9-year-olds, and heavier than seven, does this mean I'll now be able to buy pants that fit him? Talk about dreams coming true.
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MARCH 29, 2002
As soon as the couple with the son who had been nearly drowned in the bathtub and the doctor-who's-not-that-kind-of-doctor in tow made it to an examining room on "ER" last night, I knew what was going on. "They were doing some sort of rebirthing exercise with the kid," I told my husband. And then, "And he's going to turn out to have been adopted from eastern Europe." And I could have added, knowing the way parenting storylines have been going on this show lately, "And they're going to do a gloss on RAD that's going to make the parents look like irresponsible twits." I was right on all three counts.
I've complained before about how black and white this show has gotten about medical issues involving children; didn't they used to be more interested in shades of gray? I know George Clooney's Dr. Ross used to get on his high horse with parents quite a lot, but it seems he got knocked off a time or two, too. But no more. The doctor is always right, and the parents are always ridiculous and irresponsible. And since the show is done from the doctors' point of view, I guess that's the way it should be -- I know I'm not the only parent of a child with special needs who's pretty sure the doctors feel they're always right, and I'm ridiculous and irresponsible.
But still, with the audience they have and the interest in telling good stories, couldn't they at least put a responsible argument in the parents' mouths before condeming them? Last night, when Peter Scolari as the dad (and right there, you lose any chance of dramatic gravitas) started twitting about how they adopted Victor in Prague and it was just taking him so darn long to bond and it was affecting their marriage and this therapist had a lot of success, I wanted to scream. Post-institutionalized children have real problems that real families struggle with every day; kids with attatchment disorders show far more severe and frightening and complex behavior than just not bonding fast enough for a parent's taste. And the lack of respect, support and recognition these families receive from more traditional medical professionals has got to be a contributing factor as to why practitioners of extreme therapies -- legitimate or no -- come to weild such power. Physicians, examine yourselves.
Stayed up (yawn) until all hours (yawn) watching the Oscars last night, and feeling a little nostalgic for my younger days -- pre-kids, pre-move to the East Coast -- when Oscar evening was such a big deal for me. Back when I could have a big party because the show didn't last until, well, all hours. Back when I could clear a whole evening to do nothing but watch TV. Back when I still went to the movies. I used to get a bunch of friends together every year, and we'd dress up to dress down the stars and their wardrobes. Ah, those were the days.
This year, I watched the first hour or so of the ceremony with my daughter, doing flashcards with her during the commercials and hitting the "mute" button during boring speeches and reading segments from her literature book. After she went off to sleep, I struggled hard not to do the same. I'd at least seen one movie that was up for an award -- "Kate & Leopold," up for Sting's best song -- but other than that, watching the little scenes that played with each nomination is about as close as I'll get to any of these flicks. And that's okay; normally, my kids are plenty entertaining enough to make me forget that I'm not getting my full ration of theater seats and popcorn. But on nights like last night, I can't help feeling nostalgic anyway. Or falling asleep, either.
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MARCH 26, 2002
My son's teacher made a point of telling me today, when I picked him up, that he is now standing up straight, with his head high, when he walks down the school hallways. This is in contrast to his former hall-walking posture, which was bent over, with his head down. That posture didn't bother me so much because I knew he was getting some sensory integration benefits from it. But it bothered the folks at school. It's bothered them for years. And so they have made a big project out of it, and now they're successful. People have been commenting, she said, as he walks by their classroom, how much better he's walking. Recognition from the community for improving one's behavior is good, surely, even if the improvement is otherwise pretty meaningless.
But that's just me. I would have thought there were more important goals to tackle with such consistency and enthusiasm, but maybe not. When his speech therapist talked proudly about how she kept making him go back to the classroom and do it again until he walked straight and tall for her, all I could think of was, "You're spending your speech therapy time on this?" But I try to keep in mind that I'm not there at the school, and I don't entirely understand what goes on there, and I have to trust educators who I believe are good at what they do and sincere in their desire to help my son. So he's standing up straight now. That's great. It's good for him, to be showing some self-control. It's good for the school, to have him not thumping through the hallways not quite looking where he's going. And it's good for me, because now I can imagine everybody's attention finally turning toward something else.
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MARCH 27, 2002
Any parent who's had plans ruined by a child's illness has to be at least a little heartwarmed by the news reports coming out about Will Smith's mysterious disappearance from the Oscar ceremonies Sunday night. He and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, were there at the start of the ceremony, when Whoopi Goldberg made a joke about them sitting next to Maggie Smith. But by the time his big moment came -- the category for which he was nominated, Best Actor -- Mr. Smith was nowhere to be found.
What happened? Was he in the bathroom? At the bar? Brawling backstage? As it turns out, security had informed the couple that their 1.5-year-old daughter had been taken to the hospital with a high fever and ear infection, and they had rushed off to be with her. Now, I like the idea of celebs being sufficiently wrapped up in their kids that they'd flee the entertainment industry's biggest night to be with their baby. But what I like even more is the image of Jada Pinkett rushing into the ER in that ball gown she was wearing. Surely they didn't stop to change? I've been caught on emergency runs in ratty sweatclothes I didn't expect anybody to see me in, but never formalwear. Will Smith may have lost the Oscar to Denzel Washington, but he was a lock for Best Dressed Dad at the hospital.
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MARCH 28, 2002
Another milestone for my son (this seems to be the season for them) -- as of his pediatrician visit yesterday, and at the ripe old age of 9, he is now, finally, for the first time, officially on the height and weight charts. He's been off the bottom of them for so long, following the curve but not getting any closer to it. But now, big boy that he is, he's at about the fifth percentile for height and the seventh percentile for weight. Woo-hoo! For a little guy with FAE who we thought would always be below the bottom, this is a red-letter day.
I always said that if he ever hit the charts, I'd have a party. Next month, in another milestone event, he's making his first Holy Communion, so maybe we'll make the party for that a dual spiritual/physical growth celebration. Proud accomplishments, both. But what I really want to know about his newfound size is: If he's now taller than five percent of 9-year-olds, and heavier than seven, does this mean I'll now be able to buy pants that fit him? Talk about dreams coming true.
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MARCH 29, 2002
As soon as the couple with the son who had been nearly drowned in the bathtub and the doctor-who's-not-that-kind-of-doctor in tow made it to an examining room on "ER" last night, I knew what was going on. "They were doing some sort of rebirthing exercise with the kid," I told my husband. And then, "And he's going to turn out to have been adopted from eastern Europe." And I could have added, knowing the way parenting storylines have been going on this show lately, "And they're going to do a gloss on RAD that's going to make the parents look like irresponsible twits." I was right on all three counts.
I've complained before about how black and white this show has gotten about medical issues involving children; didn't they used to be more interested in shades of gray? I know George Clooney's Dr. Ross used to get on his high horse with parents quite a lot, but it seems he got knocked off a time or two, too. But no more. The doctor is always right, and the parents are always ridiculous and irresponsible. And since the show is done from the doctors' point of view, I guess that's the way it should be -- I know I'm not the only parent of a child with special needs who's pretty sure the doctors feel they're always right, and I'm ridiculous and irresponsible.
But still, with the audience they have and the interest in telling good stories, couldn't they at least put a responsible argument in the parents' mouths before condeming them? Last night, when Peter Scolari as the dad (and right there, you lose any chance of dramatic gravitas) started twitting about how they adopted Victor in Prague and it was just taking him so darn long to bond and it was affecting their marriage and this therapist had a lot of success, I wanted to scream. Post-institutionalized children have real problems that real families struggle with every day; kids with attatchment disorders show far more severe and frightening and complex behavior than just not bonding fast enough for a parent's taste. And the lack of respect, support and recognition these families receive from more traditional medical professionals has got to be a contributing factor as to why practitioners of extreme therapies -- legitimate or no -- come to weild such power. Physicians, examine yourselves.
Monday, March 18, 2002
March 18-22, 2002
MARCH 18, 2002
It's Monday again, and again I'm going to urge you to watch "Once and Again." The show airs tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC. Last week, it got a good ratings bump and some good publicity from a storyline that involved two teen-age girls kissing. The episode even got pulled by an affiliate in Virginia, and as we all know you can't buy that kind of press. Interesting that the great outrage seemed to center around the teen lesbian storyline and not the other major plot thread of the episode, which involved a teen-age girl's intense relationship with her English teacher, which almost but not quite ended with a kiss between the two. I guess as long as the teacher's a guy, that's okay.
Tonight, as is this show's often frustrating habit, those plots will be on the back burner, if they're mentioned at all, and completely different characters will be in the spotlight. This week, it's Judy, sister of Sela Ward's character; her off-again, on-again boyfriend, Sam; and Sam's son, who has some sort of non-specified neurological/psychological/behavioral impairment. On the only other episode he's been on, his father said only that they'd been to lots of doctors and tried lots of medications, and nothing works. Whether this means that the writers are lazy and haven't researched these problems, or the father is so self-absorbed he's taken in only enough information about his son's challenges to make him feel sorry for himself, remains to be seen. However, these writers have handled storylines on anorexia and schizophrenia with impressive accuracy and verisimilitude, and this character has never shown himself to be anything other than a self-centered lout, so I'm thinking it's the latter. Tune in tonight to see where they're going with this kid.
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MARCH 19, 2002
On Sunday, I did something I've been imagining myself doing for years: I chewed out somebody who shushed my son in church.
All those times people would give us the look -- the "why can't you control that child" look, the "what a bad boy you are" look -- I would dream of them coming over after services to reprimand us and me going into all the reasons my son can't be quiet and all the reasons they should be ashamed to call themselves Christians. Oh, I've run through those delicious conversations in my head again and again. But nobody ever actually said anything. And neither, of course, did I.
But this past Sunday... To start out, I was sick, dragging myself to Mass with about my last ounce of energy. For another, I was on my own; although we almost always attend church as a family, this weekend work schedules and illness schedules had made it most expedient for me to take my son to our church in the morning and my husband to take our daughter to another, less-kid-friendly church in the evening. I figured we'd sit in the back, in the "cry room," so my coughing and his acting up would disturb no one. When we arrived, there was no one in the room but one woman, sans children. We picked a pew, my son said something to me, and the woman turned around and gave him a stern "Shush!"
Blame it on the codein cough syrup, but I gave her what for.
I told her that this room is specifically for children who can't stay quiet. She walked over and said, sternly, "It's for crying babies, not for little boys who want to talk." And I started babbling. I don't remember what I said, but it included stating that we come back here specifically so he could make noise without bothering anybody, and what was she doing there, anyway? She said defiantly that she was sick. And I said that I was sick, too, and that this child (putting my hand on my son's head) had neurological impairments that made it hard for him to stay quiet and that's why we sit back there and just let me shush him and leave us alone and mind your own business and whatever all else. She went back to her seat, and my son, my sweet boy, started stroking my face and smiling because he knew I was upset.
And maybe that tipped this gal off, because she came back over to explain why she had taken it upon herself to shush in the first place and admonish me so: She thought I was a boy, too. She thought we were two boys. And so she was teaching us a lesson about being quiet in church. I admitted to being a mom, and not a boy; and she admitted to being kukoo, and that was that.
I don't know what I feel worse about, here: getting into a quarrel with a fellow churchgoer during Mass, or being mistaken -- a 42-year-old mother of two -- for a boy. At least now I know that, if I ever get those brochures printed up that explain all the reasons why my son behaves the way he does, I'll have to add at the end: "And by the way, the person giving this to you is his MOTHER."
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MARCH 20, 2002
And once again, we have famous adopters in the news. Newlyweds Liza Minelli and David Gest have proclaimed their desire to adopt four children, "of all races." And, well, golly, good for them. Raises the profile of adoption, you know. Nice for kids to get homes. Nice especially for kids "of all races." Good for celebs to share their bounty. Good, good, good.
And yet... ack! I'm trying to be a person of good will unto all prospective adoptive parents, but... geez, have you seen these two? They look like they just escaped from Madame Tussaud's. She's 56, on her fourth marriage; he's 48, and marrying for the first time. How easily do you suppose most regular folks with her particular history would be able to score a homestudy? And hey -- Michael Jackson was their best man. Suppose they'll ask him to write one of their letters of reference?
But really, really, you never know about these things, it will probably be perfectly okay, I'm sure they're upstanding and good-hearted people, and adoption is good, it's good for adoption to be in the news as something fabulous people do, it's good for kids to get homes, it's good, good, good. Good?
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MARCH 21, 2002
Today is my son’s ninth birthday. It’s hard to believe he’s 9 -- partially because he’s still such a little peanut, 45 pounds and 4 feet tall. If you saw him a store, and he asked you for your keys and proceeded to tell you what kind of car you have, you’d take him maybe for a precocious kindergartner. You’d be shocked to hear he’s 9. But 9 he is, and todays’ the day.
It’s also hard to believe he’s 9 because I’m a mom, and “Sunrise, Sunset” automatically plays in my head on my children’s birthdays, and I remember how we brought him home when he was 21 months old, not walking or talking, thinking the metal piece that went back and forth on top of a swing in his orphanage room was the most fascinating thing in the world. To say he’s come a long way is like saying cars have gotten a little fancier since the Model T.
Now, I work at the library at my kids’ school, and I see what 9-year-olds look and act like, and I know my boy’s not there. But when I think about how much he’s learned and grown and shown in the past seven years, and what a delightful fellow he is, I gotta tell you, I think he’s about the most wonderful 9-year-old there is.
Happy birthday to him.
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MARCH 22, 2002
My daughter, as I may have mentioned, is a Disney Channel fanatic. She'd watch it from morning to bedtime, and, come to think of it, has on a couple of vacation occasions. She begs to do her homework in front of "Even Stevens" and reruns of "Boy Meets World" (and speaking of the latter show, who knew there were so very many many many episodes to re-run? I've watched Corey and Topanga go from grade-schoolers to newlyweds back to grade-schoolers again the next day. It's sort of surreal to pass through the TV room and see what age they are on any given afternoon.)
She of course HAS to watch the Disney movies -- HAS to, because the desperate need has been programmed into her brain by the endless commercials the channel runs pumping its product. We've watched the movie where "Malcolm in the Middle" is a sick kid who only wants to race in a soapbox derby. We've watched the movies about the boy who finds out he's a leprechaun and the boy who finds out he's a mermaid and the girl who finds out her stepsister is an alien. We've watched the one about the twin basketball stars played by non-twins and the one that's like a junior-high "Private Benjamin." My desire to not even see these films once is thwarted by the fact that they are on pretty much every five minutes.
Next month, though, there's one I might actually want her to watch. Called "Tru Confessions," it's about the way a young girl comes to terms with having a developmentally disabled brother. Maybe it will give my girl some insight into her own brother and why he does the things he does. At the very least, it stars Mare Winningham as the mom, so there will be at least somebody on screen who I can watch without wincing. At any rate, since I haven't yet seen five million commercials for this one, here's a description from a Disney Channel press release for those who might be interested:
"Tru Confessions tells the story of Trudy "Tru" Walker (Clara Bryant of Disney Channel's "Under Wraps"), a precocious teenager who dreams of becoming an investigative reporter. When a local public access station has a "Win Your Own TV Show" contest, Tru jumps at the chance to show her stuff by putting together a video documentary about her twin brother, Eddie (Shia LaBeouf of Disney Channel's "Even Stevens"). After Eddie was deprived of oxygen in the womb, he was left developmentally disabled. Although she loves her brother dearly, Tru is constantly guilty that she is healthy and growing up normally while Eddie is not. However, she has no one with whom to discuss her feelings; her father has become a workaholic to keep from having to face his son's disabilities, and Tru doesn't feel as though she can open up to her mother (Mare Winningham). The documentary, then, becomes a perfect outlet for Tru to express herself. Through the process of making her film, Tru comes to appreciate Eddie for who he is and to understand that his situation is not her fault. Further, Tru's film helps her father come to terms with his son's disabilities and, ultimately, becomes the instrument that brings the family closer together."
Monday, March 11, 2002
March 11-15, 2002
MARCH 11, 2002
Big news for our family last week: My son, who will be nine next week, learned how to tie his shoes! At least, I think he did. His teacher said so. She came rushing into the library where I was working on Wednesday to tell me that he paid attention for a very long time and tied a bow a bunch of times and what an exciting thing that is. I was excited, too, but could I get him to show me his new skill at home? No way. Not even the promise of Scooby Doo lace-up sneakers could get him to give me a demonstration.
And that's okay. We've been here before. With many of his major milestones -- walking, talking, potty training -- he's refused to perform until he could do it perfectly. So I'll let him practice and practice with the teacher, get all those frustrations out, in the knowledge that eventually, he'll tie me some bows in person. Sometime, I hope, before he turns ten. Or his feet get too big for Scooby shoes.
+ + +
MARCH 12, 2002
I didn't set out to watch the "9/11" documentary on CBS Sunday night, but I was flipping through channels and stopped there for a moment and got hooked. There was something mesmerizing about the "you are there" style of the thing, waiting for the bad stuff you knew was going to happen to happen. It was a striking piece of filmmaking in many ways, but I'm a little ashamed to say that the thing that struck me the most -- more than the depictions of disaster, more than the heroic actions of firefighters -- was the uncensored use of the "F" word on prime-time network TV. The camera was running through scenes of real-life trauma and tragedy and reunion and firefighters talked the way firefighters undoubtedly talk, the way any of us might talk in such an unimaginable situation, and CBS showed it all, bleep-free.
As they should have, certainly. Certainly the death and destruction of that day were far more obscene than any language could be, and there was no bleeping that. It didn't seem exploitive or intentionally boundary-breaking, just entirely incidental to the scenes being filmed. And yet, there was something jarring about it. Intentionally or not, a boundary was broken. You gotta believe TV writers and producers all over Hollywood are going to be eying the phenomenal ratings the documentary garnered and using them as proof that if you're telling a sufficiently dramatic story, people don't mind about bad language. I'd be surprised if that "NYPD Blue" squad room doesn't start sounding like that "9/11" firehouse any old episode now.
What I want to know is, how long until Lizzie McGuire and SpongeBob SquarePants start spouting undeleted expletives? As long as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon hold out, my kids' ears will be safe.
+ + +
MARCH 13, 2002
Well, add two more names to the list of celebrity adoptive parents. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton have made their twosome a threesome with the addition of seven-and-a-half-month-old Maddox, who hails from Cambodia. According to a report on Yahoo News, the couple met their future son while visiting a Cambodian orphanage in November, underwent all that nasty paperwork over the course of four months and officially took custody of him on Sunday in Africa, where the new mom is working on a movie. They plan to raise the child both in the U.S. and in Cambodia, where they are shopping for property.
Now part of me feels all snarky when I read news like this. Celeb couple swoops in, picks a baby, flies through paperwork and has the kid wrapped and delivered to the locale of their choice. And how do people with such carefully cultivated reputations for bizarre behavior pass a homestudy, anyway? But I'm trying to keep a positive outlook in the New Year, and not speak negatively of people, so instead I'll reflect that it's always nice to see a positive adoption story. It's always good when a child finds a home. Even if celeb adoptions raise eyebrows, they do give adoption a certain cachet, and that can't be bad. And you know, if there's ever been a Mother with Attitude, it's going to be Angelina Jolie.
So I'm taking deep breaths, and wishing the new family nothing but happiness in their new homes. But hey, mom and dad? Wait for a while before giving the kid a tattoo, okay?
+ + +
MARCH 14, 2002
I've always been a little concerned about my daughter's taste in TV. And no, I don't mean the Disney channel sit-coms she spaces out in front of in the evenings; those are at least age appropriate. I'm talking about the fact that, at age 11 and in 4th grade, she's perfectly happy watching "Barney" after school, or taking in the entire baby-friendly Nick Jr. line-up on a day off from class. Should she really be able to sit through "Bob the Builder" and "Oswald" at her advanced age? It doesn't seem right, somehow, and sometimes I've felt a little embarrassed for her.
And yet... I have to admit, there are times when I see some value to her regressive viewing habits. Last night, for example, she had to memorize the order of the planets in our solar system for a quiz this morning, and we both broke into the song from "Blue's Clues" in which Steve names them all. (Oh, come on, join in with me, you toddler moms: "The sun's a hot star, and Mercury's hot too, Venus is the brightest planet, Earth's home to me and you, Mars is the red one, and Jupiter's most wide, Saturn's got those icy rings, and Uranus spins on its side, Neptune's really windy, and Pluto's really small, Well, we wanted to name the planets, and now we've named them all. Again!") My sometimes-memory-impaired girl can rattle off those rocks without a hitch now, and it's all thanks to Steve and Blue. Who's to say she won't one day have an assignment that will hinge on some long-lost "Barney" episode? It's pretty scary to think of, but you never know.
+ + +
MARCH 15, 2002
Lately, I've just been the best little mom in the world, serving my kids a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash-browns every morning before carting them off to school. Of course, they're the microwave variety, the kind you usually get served on airplanes, but the kids scarf them down and they're hot, all right. I'm usually dashing around like a crazy person trying to get these columns posted and get myself dressed and get backpacks filled and snacks made; the kids may eat alone, and I may eat a breakfast bar at my desk hours later, but I feel good knowing that they've had something that at least resembles real food.
And for lunch? Who knows what they eat. We pay for "hot lunch," but do they eat it? They say they do. They say they eat both the entree and the miscellaneous fruits and vegetables that go with. They say this, even though my daughter comes home so hungry she could eat a half a bag of cookies. My lunch responsibility is fulfilled by filling out the order form and writing out the check. Getting them to eat it should be someone else's responsibility. I don't know whose. But I've got breakfast covered.
Dinner is my husband's job, and it gets on the table eventually. Definitely before bedtime, sometimes just. My son is a pig at dinner, making up for any lack of appetite he's shown during the day. My daughter is exactly as picky as any other 11-year-old, contemptuous of peas and broccoli and anything not exactly like something she's eaten and enjoyed in the past. It often seems to take her hours to eat, and since I was young once, many centuries ago, I certainly recognize the "maybe if I eat my food one molecule at a time my parents will eventually get tired or bored and let me go away from here" strategy. It doesn't work, but I respect the effort. And I feel a secret satisfaction that however much she fights eating dinner, in the morning, she's always ready for eggs. I have a mean way with a microwave.
Big news for our family last week: My son, who will be nine next week, learned how to tie his shoes! At least, I think he did. His teacher said so. She came rushing into the library where I was working on Wednesday to tell me that he paid attention for a very long time and tied a bow a bunch of times and what an exciting thing that is. I was excited, too, but could I get him to show me his new skill at home? No way. Not even the promise of Scooby Doo lace-up sneakers could get him to give me a demonstration.
And that's okay. We've been here before. With many of his major milestones -- walking, talking, potty training -- he's refused to perform until he could do it perfectly. So I'll let him practice and practice with the teacher, get all those frustrations out, in the knowledge that eventually, he'll tie me some bows in person. Sometime, I hope, before he turns ten. Or his feet get too big for Scooby shoes.
+ + +
MARCH 12, 2002
I didn't set out to watch the "9/11" documentary on CBS Sunday night, but I was flipping through channels and stopped there for a moment and got hooked. There was something mesmerizing about the "you are there" style of the thing, waiting for the bad stuff you knew was going to happen to happen. It was a striking piece of filmmaking in many ways, but I'm a little ashamed to say that the thing that struck me the most -- more than the depictions of disaster, more than the heroic actions of firefighters -- was the uncensored use of the "F" word on prime-time network TV. The camera was running through scenes of real-life trauma and tragedy and reunion and firefighters talked the way firefighters undoubtedly talk, the way any of us might talk in such an unimaginable situation, and CBS showed it all, bleep-free.
As they should have, certainly. Certainly the death and destruction of that day were far more obscene than any language could be, and there was no bleeping that. It didn't seem exploitive or intentionally boundary-breaking, just entirely incidental to the scenes being filmed. And yet, there was something jarring about it. Intentionally or not, a boundary was broken. You gotta believe TV writers and producers all over Hollywood are going to be eying the phenomenal ratings the documentary garnered and using them as proof that if you're telling a sufficiently dramatic story, people don't mind about bad language. I'd be surprised if that "NYPD Blue" squad room doesn't start sounding like that "9/11" firehouse any old episode now.
What I want to know is, how long until Lizzie McGuire and SpongeBob SquarePants start spouting undeleted expletives? As long as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon hold out, my kids' ears will be safe.
+ + +
MARCH 13, 2002
Well, add two more names to the list of celebrity adoptive parents. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton have made their twosome a threesome with the addition of seven-and-a-half-month-old Maddox, who hails from Cambodia. According to a report on Yahoo News, the couple met their future son while visiting a Cambodian orphanage in November, underwent all that nasty paperwork over the course of four months and officially took custody of him on Sunday in Africa, where the new mom is working on a movie. They plan to raise the child both in the U.S. and in Cambodia, where they are shopping for property.
Now part of me feels all snarky when I read news like this. Celeb couple swoops in, picks a baby, flies through paperwork and has the kid wrapped and delivered to the locale of their choice. And how do people with such carefully cultivated reputations for bizarre behavior pass a homestudy, anyway? But I'm trying to keep a positive outlook in the New Year, and not speak negatively of people, so instead I'll reflect that it's always nice to see a positive adoption story. It's always good when a child finds a home. Even if celeb adoptions raise eyebrows, they do give adoption a certain cachet, and that can't be bad. And you know, if there's ever been a Mother with Attitude, it's going to be Angelina Jolie.
So I'm taking deep breaths, and wishing the new family nothing but happiness in their new homes. But hey, mom and dad? Wait for a while before giving the kid a tattoo, okay?
+ + +
MARCH 14, 2002
I've always been a little concerned about my daughter's taste in TV. And no, I don't mean the Disney channel sit-coms she spaces out in front of in the evenings; those are at least age appropriate. I'm talking about the fact that, at age 11 and in 4th grade, she's perfectly happy watching "Barney" after school, or taking in the entire baby-friendly Nick Jr. line-up on a day off from class. Should she really be able to sit through "Bob the Builder" and "Oswald" at her advanced age? It doesn't seem right, somehow, and sometimes I've felt a little embarrassed for her.
And yet... I have to admit, there are times when I see some value to her regressive viewing habits. Last night, for example, she had to memorize the order of the planets in our solar system for a quiz this morning, and we both broke into the song from "Blue's Clues" in which Steve names them all. (Oh, come on, join in with me, you toddler moms: "The sun's a hot star, and Mercury's hot too, Venus is the brightest planet, Earth's home to me and you, Mars is the red one, and Jupiter's most wide, Saturn's got those icy rings, and Uranus spins on its side, Neptune's really windy, and Pluto's really small, Well, we wanted to name the planets, and now we've named them all. Again!") My sometimes-memory-impaired girl can rattle off those rocks without a hitch now, and it's all thanks to Steve and Blue. Who's to say she won't one day have an assignment that will hinge on some long-lost "Barney" episode? It's pretty scary to think of, but you never know.
+ + +
MARCH 15, 2002
Lately, I've just been the best little mom in the world, serving my kids a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash-browns every morning before carting them off to school. Of course, they're the microwave variety, the kind you usually get served on airplanes, but the kids scarf them down and they're hot, all right. I'm usually dashing around like a crazy person trying to get these columns posted and get myself dressed and get backpacks filled and snacks made; the kids may eat alone, and I may eat a breakfast bar at my desk hours later, but I feel good knowing that they've had something that at least resembles real food.
And for lunch? Who knows what they eat. We pay for "hot lunch," but do they eat it? They say they do. They say they eat both the entree and the miscellaneous fruits and vegetables that go with. They say this, even though my daughter comes home so hungry she could eat a half a bag of cookies. My lunch responsibility is fulfilled by filling out the order form and writing out the check. Getting them to eat it should be someone else's responsibility. I don't know whose. But I've got breakfast covered.
Dinner is my husband's job, and it gets on the table eventually. Definitely before bedtime, sometimes just. My son is a pig at dinner, making up for any lack of appetite he's shown during the day. My daughter is exactly as picky as any other 11-year-old, contemptuous of peas and broccoli and anything not exactly like something she's eaten and enjoyed in the past. It often seems to take her hours to eat, and since I was young once, many centuries ago, I certainly recognize the "maybe if I eat my food one molecule at a time my parents will eventually get tired or bored and let me go away from here" strategy. It doesn't work, but I respect the effort. And I feel a secret satisfaction that however much she fights eating dinner, in the morning, she's always ready for eggs. I have a mean way with a microwave.
Monday, March 04, 2002
March 4-8, 2002
MARCH 4, 2002
Tonight, one of the few TV shows I make it a point to watch comes back on the air, finally, after a long seven weeks. That show is "Once and Again," the life-after-divorce drama starring Sela Ward and Billy Campbell, and it's moved from Fridays to Mondays for a last-ditch attempt at finishing its third season, much less starting its fourth. If you're not already watching this show (and judging by the ratings, you're not), here are five reasons why you may want to start:
5. In the last new episode, a major character was hit by a car and ended up with a shattered pelvis. Tonight's episode (and future ones, no doubt) will involve a lot of physical therapy. Something we know about!
4. The show has one of those dream psychiatrists who's smart, funny, perceptive, caring, and not actually existant in real life. He's helping one of the show's central teen-agers deal with her anorexia, and now with her mother's injuries as well. The fact that he's played by one of the show's producers means there's probably some wish-fulfillment going on for them as well.
3. In addition to anorexia, the show features ongoing story lines on schizophrenia, depression and learning disabilities without suggesting that these things can be resolved with warm family hugs all around.
2. There's a blended family, but it ain't exactly the Brady Bunch, with jealousy among stepsisters and romantic attraction between a stepsister and stepbrother. Particularly interesting, for those of us dealing with children with special needs and siblings without, is the way one stepsister feels the other gets special treatment because of her eating disorder.
1. Hey, you have to fall asleep in front of something at 10 p.m. Billy Campbell's not exactly the worst thing to be looking at at the time.
+ + +
MARCH 5, 2002
Do kids with ADHD really just need more sleep? That's the conclusion suggested by a recent study by a University of Michigan neurologist and sleep researcher. Out of 866 children studied, those who snored were significantly more likely to be diagnosed as ADHD. This appears to contribute to theories that sleep disorders can create hyperactive behavior, since (as we all know from years of bad bedtimes) young children often react to tiredness with wiredness. It may also explain why stimulants like Ritalin sooth kids who appear overstimulated -- gives them a nice wake-up call.
It's an interesting thought, anyway. The researcher suggests that the removal of tonsils may improve ADHD behavior in some cases, and I'm always happy to hear of any solution that doesn't involve medication (beyond anesthesia, I suppose.) My son doesn't snore, but his sleep habits are something of a mystery because since he came to us at age 2, he's never cried at night while awake, just laid in his crib or bed rocking and singing and talking to himself. Could be that he doesn't get enough sleep. When he actually does sit still and stay quiet during the day, he often gets sleepy, and I've always thought that his hyperactive behavior was really an attempt to keep himself awake and alert. So it will be interesting to see if anything comes of this latest study. Though, the way research seems to work these days, the next study coming out will undoubtedly refute it.
+ + +
MARCH 6, 2002
My daughter, age almost-12, is making the big step up this cold-and-flu season from liquid medications to those in pill form. No more measuring antibiotics by the teaspoonful; this time, for her ongoing, never-ending, hair-raising cough, she has a neat little vial of blue pills. It's a grown-up thing, and she couldn't be prouder. There's only one problem: Getting them down her.
She's had some success swallowing Advils for menstrual cramps, but those of course have that neat candy coating that make them melt in your mouth a little slower. The antibiotics, on the other hand, are just pure, raw, naked medication, horrible-tasting from the moment it hits your tongue. The first night we tried having her take it with vigorous gulps of water, but it was a disaster. She started gagging as soon as the thing was in her mouth, kept spitting it out and putting it back in in various stages of dissolve and making faces and gagging. Finally she went ahead and threw up the pill and her dinner and that was that.
She was pretty much convinced, understandably enough, that she'd never, ever, ever be able to swallow that awful pill, but moms don't give up that easy. The next morning, we tried again with juice instead of water, in the hope that it would block the taste at least for a moment, and to both of our amazement, she downed the pill on the first swallow. At dinnertime, it took two swallows. I hate to say anything to jinx this, but it appears she's got this pill-swallowing thing down. Which means she really IS growing up. Dang.
+ + +
MARCH 7, 2002
You hear from time to time that antibiotics are becoming less effective, and one of the culprits listed is always the fact that parents demand them for their children, and thus they are overprescribed. There's an image of pediatricians as not being able to bend the will of overbearing parents with mere medical explanations of why antibiotics will not be effective in any particular situation. I gave my opinion of how utterly ridiculous that scenario was in the very first dispatch on this Web site, and I still think it's bunk. Consider three recent doctor visits in our family, two for my daughter and one for me.
The first time my daughter went to the pediatrician, she'd had a cough for about a week. No fever, no congestion, no symptoms of sickness other than a periodic hard, barking cough that left her red-faced and light-headed. The pediatrician checked her ears, her throat, her chest, and said that although there were no obvious signs of anything, there were probably some bacteria involved, and so my girl should take a one-week course of antibiotics. Two weeks later, antibiotics long gone, the girl is still coughing. So back to the pediatrician. Again, not much to find, but another antibiotic prescription. In neither case did I demand meds, unless the simple act of bringing your child to the doctor is considered a demand for drugs. In neither case was there a raging example of bacterial infection (although on visit two the doctor did notice some "white tenacious mucous" when examining my daughter for post-nasal drip; maybe I've been reading too much Dave Barry, but all I could think of was that "White Tenacious Mucous" would be a good name for a rock band). And in both cases, the antibiotics were given freely. They might as well have had a bowl of them out in the waiting room.
Now, I'm not saying the pediatrician was wrong, or prescribing too loosely. I trust my kids' doctor and if she feels they need antibiotics, antibiotics they shall have. But I did find it somewhat curious that when I finally caught my daughter's cough and went to my own physician, I was told it was a viral thing and antibiotics wouldn't help me out. I left with a prescription for cough syrup, a handful of decongestant samples, and get-well wishes. Maybe he missed something, or maybe pediatricians are more cautious with children -- but at any rate, somebody should stop blaming pushy parents for all those pills. I would only have been pushy had I said no.
+ + +
MARCH 8, 2002
I had another one of those "Jekyll-and-Hyde" experiences with my eight-year-old son yesterday, where I see him at his best and worst within a short period of time. The best occurred when we were walking down the sidewalk to the car after school and saw a grandma and mom pushing a baby carriage walking toward us. My son walked right up to them, said "What a cute baby! Hi, baby!" and asked, "What's his name?" He then introduced himself to the baby by name, cood to it for a bit, helped the mom put a hat on the baby's little head, and said a very polite farewell. "What a nice boy!" the grandma said to me. And I thought, she'll probably tell her friends she saw the best-behaved little boy during their walk.
Whereas in fact, behavior is the area in which he's generally considered least likely to succeed.
A little while later, we had a similar meeting with a small dog. Things started out the same; he politely inquired as to the name of the little dog, and then properly introduced himself. He petted gently and talked to the pooch. But it was like one of those movies where you keep cutting to a gauge that's showing something getting hotter and hotter and hotter, until the needle's twitching away in the red zone. By degrees, my boy got more and more excited. First he was petting quietly. Then he was kneeling with his face on the ground so the dog could sniff his hair. That must have made him feel like another dog, because then he started barking a friendly sort of bark. Then he started barking not-so-friendly and lunging at the pup, who must have been completely panicked by that point. Our sweet little dog-petting episode ended up with me holding him in a bear hug from behind and urging him to calm down, calm down, calm down.
He's getting better with modulating his level of excitement, better and better every day, but doggone it, we're not there yet.
Tonight, one of the few TV shows I make it a point to watch comes back on the air, finally, after a long seven weeks. That show is "Once and Again," the life-after-divorce drama starring Sela Ward and Billy Campbell, and it's moved from Fridays to Mondays for a last-ditch attempt at finishing its third season, much less starting its fourth. If you're not already watching this show (and judging by the ratings, you're not), here are five reasons why you may want to start:
5. In the last new episode, a major character was hit by a car and ended up with a shattered pelvis. Tonight's episode (and future ones, no doubt) will involve a lot of physical therapy. Something we know about!
4. The show has one of those dream psychiatrists who's smart, funny, perceptive, caring, and not actually existant in real life. He's helping one of the show's central teen-agers deal with her anorexia, and now with her mother's injuries as well. The fact that he's played by one of the show's producers means there's probably some wish-fulfillment going on for them as well.
3. In addition to anorexia, the show features ongoing story lines on schizophrenia, depression and learning disabilities without suggesting that these things can be resolved with warm family hugs all around.
2. There's a blended family, but it ain't exactly the Brady Bunch, with jealousy among stepsisters and romantic attraction between a stepsister and stepbrother. Particularly interesting, for those of us dealing with children with special needs and siblings without, is the way one stepsister feels the other gets special treatment because of her eating disorder.
1. Hey, you have to fall asleep in front of something at 10 p.m. Billy Campbell's not exactly the worst thing to be looking at at the time.
+ + +
MARCH 5, 2002
Do kids with ADHD really just need more sleep? That's the conclusion suggested by a recent study by a University of Michigan neurologist and sleep researcher. Out of 866 children studied, those who snored were significantly more likely to be diagnosed as ADHD. This appears to contribute to theories that sleep disorders can create hyperactive behavior, since (as we all know from years of bad bedtimes) young children often react to tiredness with wiredness. It may also explain why stimulants like Ritalin sooth kids who appear overstimulated -- gives them a nice wake-up call.
It's an interesting thought, anyway. The researcher suggests that the removal of tonsils may improve ADHD behavior in some cases, and I'm always happy to hear of any solution that doesn't involve medication (beyond anesthesia, I suppose.) My son doesn't snore, but his sleep habits are something of a mystery because since he came to us at age 2, he's never cried at night while awake, just laid in his crib or bed rocking and singing and talking to himself. Could be that he doesn't get enough sleep. When he actually does sit still and stay quiet during the day, he often gets sleepy, and I've always thought that his hyperactive behavior was really an attempt to keep himself awake and alert. So it will be interesting to see if anything comes of this latest study. Though, the way research seems to work these days, the next study coming out will undoubtedly refute it.
+ + +
MARCH 6, 2002
My daughter, age almost-12, is making the big step up this cold-and-flu season from liquid medications to those in pill form. No more measuring antibiotics by the teaspoonful; this time, for her ongoing, never-ending, hair-raising cough, she has a neat little vial of blue pills. It's a grown-up thing, and she couldn't be prouder. There's only one problem: Getting them down her.
She's had some success swallowing Advils for menstrual cramps, but those of course have that neat candy coating that make them melt in your mouth a little slower. The antibiotics, on the other hand, are just pure, raw, naked medication, horrible-tasting from the moment it hits your tongue. The first night we tried having her take it with vigorous gulps of water, but it was a disaster. She started gagging as soon as the thing was in her mouth, kept spitting it out and putting it back in in various stages of dissolve and making faces and gagging. Finally she went ahead and threw up the pill and her dinner and that was that.
She was pretty much convinced, understandably enough, that she'd never, ever, ever be able to swallow that awful pill, but moms don't give up that easy. The next morning, we tried again with juice instead of water, in the hope that it would block the taste at least for a moment, and to both of our amazement, she downed the pill on the first swallow. At dinnertime, it took two swallows. I hate to say anything to jinx this, but it appears she's got this pill-swallowing thing down. Which means she really IS growing up. Dang.
+ + +
MARCH 7, 2002
You hear from time to time that antibiotics are becoming less effective, and one of the culprits listed is always the fact that parents demand them for their children, and thus they are overprescribed. There's an image of pediatricians as not being able to bend the will of overbearing parents with mere medical explanations of why antibiotics will not be effective in any particular situation. I gave my opinion of how utterly ridiculous that scenario was in the very first dispatch on this Web site, and I still think it's bunk. Consider three recent doctor visits in our family, two for my daughter and one for me.
The first time my daughter went to the pediatrician, she'd had a cough for about a week. No fever, no congestion, no symptoms of sickness other than a periodic hard, barking cough that left her red-faced and light-headed. The pediatrician checked her ears, her throat, her chest, and said that although there were no obvious signs of anything, there were probably some bacteria involved, and so my girl should take a one-week course of antibiotics. Two weeks later, antibiotics long gone, the girl is still coughing. So back to the pediatrician. Again, not much to find, but another antibiotic prescription. In neither case did I demand meds, unless the simple act of bringing your child to the doctor is considered a demand for drugs. In neither case was there a raging example of bacterial infection (although on visit two the doctor did notice some "white tenacious mucous" when examining my daughter for post-nasal drip; maybe I've been reading too much Dave Barry, but all I could think of was that "White Tenacious Mucous" would be a good name for a rock band). And in both cases, the antibiotics were given freely. They might as well have had a bowl of them out in the waiting room.
Now, I'm not saying the pediatrician was wrong, or prescribing too loosely. I trust my kids' doctor and if she feels they need antibiotics, antibiotics they shall have. But I did find it somewhat curious that when I finally caught my daughter's cough and went to my own physician, I was told it was a viral thing and antibiotics wouldn't help me out. I left with a prescription for cough syrup, a handful of decongestant samples, and get-well wishes. Maybe he missed something, or maybe pediatricians are more cautious with children -- but at any rate, somebody should stop blaming pushy parents for all those pills. I would only have been pushy had I said no.
+ + +
MARCH 8, 2002
I had another one of those "Jekyll-and-Hyde" experiences with my eight-year-old son yesterday, where I see him at his best and worst within a short period of time. The best occurred when we were walking down the sidewalk to the car after school and saw a grandma and mom pushing a baby carriage walking toward us. My son walked right up to them, said "What a cute baby! Hi, baby!" and asked, "What's his name?" He then introduced himself to the baby by name, cood to it for a bit, helped the mom put a hat on the baby's little head, and said a very polite farewell. "What a nice boy!" the grandma said to me. And I thought, she'll probably tell her friends she saw the best-behaved little boy during their walk.
Whereas in fact, behavior is the area in which he's generally considered least likely to succeed.
A little while later, we had a similar meeting with a small dog. Things started out the same; he politely inquired as to the name of the little dog, and then properly introduced himself. He petted gently and talked to the pooch. But it was like one of those movies where you keep cutting to a gauge that's showing something getting hotter and hotter and hotter, until the needle's twitching away in the red zone. By degrees, my boy got more and more excited. First he was petting quietly. Then he was kneeling with his face on the ground so the dog could sniff his hair. That must have made him feel like another dog, because then he started barking a friendly sort of bark. Then he started barking not-so-friendly and lunging at the pup, who must have been completely panicked by that point. Our sweet little dog-petting episode ended up with me holding him in a bear hug from behind and urging him to calm down, calm down, calm down.
He's getting better with modulating his level of excitement, better and better every day, but doggone it, we're not there yet.
Monday, February 25, 2002
February 25-March 1, 2002
FEBRUARY 25, 2002
Things I meant to do with my kids this past week while they were off for Winter Vacation: Read books. Play games. Go to a museum. Do art projects. Get ahead on schoolwork. Write stories. Practice book reports. Take walks. Read magazines. Go to a movie. Do puzzles. Invite friends over. Investigate some child-friendly Web sites. Clean rooms. Memorize chorus music. Take pictures. Celebrate bountiful together-time.
Things I did: Read a couple of books with my son. Read two chapters of a school-assigned novel with my daughter. Played one game of Trouble.
School vacations always seem like such vast fields of opportunity, endless days to be filled with enriching experiences and familial bonding. Yet in our house, they usually wind up being endless days filled with the Disney channel. This week, at least, my kids played on the computer a lot, and if I work hard I can probably paint that as an enrichment activity. My daughter and I did bond over the Olympics, falling asleep within minutes of each other on the sofa. And I did get them both started with an auditory training program that involves listening to classical music for 15 minutes twice a day, and that's gotta be enriching, right? (My pop-music-loving daughter begs to differ, that's for sure.) Still, if the beginning of vacation feels like a vast opportunity, the end always feels like opportunity wasted. But hey, there's another vacation in a couple of months. Spring Break! That's the ticket. Think of all the wonderful things I'll do with my kids that week!
+ + +
FEBRUARY 26, 2002
My daughter has now had a cough for over two weeks. It's not a constant cough; it's not a cough accompanied by fever or obvious sickness; it's not a cough that hurts, or brings up disgusting goop from the lower depths. It's a cough that comes and goes, in multiple-minute-long fits, and never quite goes away. We've been to the pediatrician, who couldn't find much of anything wrong but prescribed an antibiotic anyway. The antibiotic's gone now; the cough, not so much.
This kind of ongoing, disruptive but not serious illness presents a real quandary in terms of sending a child to school. When I was a kid, the rule was always: If you have a fever, you stay home; if you don't, get your butt out of bed. I've always accepted a fever as the certifiable seal of sickness, and have carried over this philosophy in my own parenting. But there are plenty of times when a child may not be feverish, but may still be a biohazard. I remember a couple of winters when my son had a sneezy, runny nose pretty much from November through February. The teacher suggested keeping him home, but for how long? I'm not looking to homeschool. With my daughter, I'm not so concerned with her being infectious as being distracting. Woe to the teacher who has to talk over ten minutes of hacking from my darling girl.
Sometimes I wonder what they must think of me, sending a kid with such a nasty sounding cough into the classroom each day. But I've felt a lot better since talking to another mom while we were volunteering in the library a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing the fact that there had been a lot of sickness in the school, and she mentioned that her boy, too, had been unwell for a while. Why, the very night before, he had thrown up three times between 3 and 5 a.m. But when it came time to go to school, he didn't have a fever, so he was in his seat. It's our rule, and we're sticking to it.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 27, 2002
Over the years, I've wondered what kind of job my son might find his way into as a grown-up. He likes to jump, always, all the time, so maybe he'll be a track star, or a circus performer. He can look at a key and tell which kind of car it goes to, so maybe he'll be a valet parking attendant, or a car thief. He can talk like Scooby Doo, so maybe he'll be an animation voice-over artist, or an entertainer at children's parties. In all my pondering, I've never thought about the legal profession for my definitely-not-desk-job-material guy. But after the story his teacher told me at a conference last night, I'm thinking again.
Apparently one of my son's classmates -- we'll call him Sam -- was trying the teacher's patience something fierce. She sent him to the time-out chair once and told him to come back when he had calmed down. She sent him there another time and told him to sit there for two minutes. Finally, a third time, she sent him there to sit indefinitely. Apparently, my son was watching the time, because at about three minutes he went up to the teacher and said, "Do you know that my friend Sam is still sitting in the time-out chair? He's my friend, and it hurts my heart to see him sitting there." At this point, the teacher felt about two inches tall, and gave Sam a reprieve. I don't know what kind of fee my boy charged for his services, but I'm told the plaintiff and his council did hug after the verdict.
If he can talk a kid out of time-out, maybe there's hope for him in the field of litigation. As long as the judge doesn't mind attorneys who jump all the time and suck their fingers.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 28, 2002
I saw half of a child-abuse-prevention program at my kids' school the other morning. I meant to see all of it, but it overlapped with my husband's tooth-extraction appointment and I needed to give him a ride. Felt bad sneaking out -- would people think that something the speaker said had caused me to bolt? I wound up missing the part in which they showed videotapes of the kind of workshop my kids will be taking part in sometime in the coming weeks. But the description I did hear was interesting, and I hope the information will sink in enough with my kiddos to keep them at least a little safer than they were before.
One of the interesting things that the speaker advocated was teaching kids that it's okay to say "no" to adults. And boy, isn't that just something from which parents instinctively recoil? From the time our kids learn to talk, we spend multiple developmental stages trying to get them to stop saying the "n" word. We teach them to respect grown-ups, be polite, do what you're told, don't talk back. We tell them to do what the teacher or the priest or the scoutmaster or the baby-sitter says or they'll be in big trouble. We let them know that adults know better than they do what's right, and that just because they don't feel like doing something is no excuse for not doing it. And this speaker suggested that in convincing them of all this, we're making our kids sitting ducks for pedophiles.
So in a week or two, she will be teaching my kids to say "no" to things that make them feel uncomfortable, things that seem wrong. Not peas for dinner or making their beds or doing their homework, but things that take away their right to be "safe, strong and free." That's a heck of a distinction for kids to make, though, isn't it? The sad thing is, in most situations, they are better off listening to adults. Most adults do want to keep them safe. But now we need to put them on their guard, question grown-ups' judgments, defend themselves verbally and physically. I wish we didn't live in a world where that was necessary. You only have to pick up a paper these days, though, to see how far we are from there.
+ + +
MARCH 1, 2002
Yesterday we added another activity to the list of things my almost-9-year-old son's still not ready for: Karate. He's been bugging me for months about wanting to try it, and I finally found a place that would take on kids with special needs. The teacher and I discussed his hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention problems, low muscle tone. I explained that he had FAE and that I didn't know if he would be able to follow along. The teacher had had one student with fetal alcohol exposure in the past and admitted that it was tough. But he said we were welcome to give it a try.
And so, last night, we did. And he didn't. Out of the hour class, he tried on and off for the first 20 minutes -- not getting the movements right, but at least moving -- then just laid on the floor for about ten minutes, then started going over to the door and playing with the wind chime, coming to where I was sitting and complaining about being hungry, and finally flat-out asking to go home. He liked the parts where the kids yell as they count their jumping jacks or karate chops or kicks. He did the yelling part really, really well. He liked when the class took turns running laps around the room. But the actual karate part? Not so much.
Still, he did better than he would have done a year ago. He didn't melt down or freak out. He followed along for a while, and that's big. And at the end, he made me laugh, which always earns consolation points. As his class concluded, the next class -- a group of older students -- filed into the room and lined up against the back wall, right behind my guy. They stood solemnly, seriously, as the little kids bowed to them and then to their teacher in the ritualistic ending to the earlier class. But my guy's not into ritual. He saw all those solemn, serious older kids and decided they needed a warm-up. "So," he said, "Who wants to kick? Who wants to hit? Who wants to chop? Who wants to scratch their butts?" By the end, at least half of the big kids were cracking up. A little blonde haired girl from the younger class wasn't impressed; she walked by my son on the way out and said, "You're not funny."
"Yes, I am," was my boy's reply. And frankly, I'd have to agree. But definitely not martial arts material.
Things I meant to do with my kids this past week while they were off for Winter Vacation: Read books. Play games. Go to a museum. Do art projects. Get ahead on schoolwork. Write stories. Practice book reports. Take walks. Read magazines. Go to a movie. Do puzzles. Invite friends over. Investigate some child-friendly Web sites. Clean rooms. Memorize chorus music. Take pictures. Celebrate bountiful together-time.
Things I did: Read a couple of books with my son. Read two chapters of a school-assigned novel with my daughter. Played one game of Trouble.
School vacations always seem like such vast fields of opportunity, endless days to be filled with enriching experiences and familial bonding. Yet in our house, they usually wind up being endless days filled with the Disney channel. This week, at least, my kids played on the computer a lot, and if I work hard I can probably paint that as an enrichment activity. My daughter and I did bond over the Olympics, falling asleep within minutes of each other on the sofa. And I did get them both started with an auditory training program that involves listening to classical music for 15 minutes twice a day, and that's gotta be enriching, right? (My pop-music-loving daughter begs to differ, that's for sure.) Still, if the beginning of vacation feels like a vast opportunity, the end always feels like opportunity wasted. But hey, there's another vacation in a couple of months. Spring Break! That's the ticket. Think of all the wonderful things I'll do with my kids that week!
+ + +
FEBRUARY 26, 2002
My daughter has now had a cough for over two weeks. It's not a constant cough; it's not a cough accompanied by fever or obvious sickness; it's not a cough that hurts, or brings up disgusting goop from the lower depths. It's a cough that comes and goes, in multiple-minute-long fits, and never quite goes away. We've been to the pediatrician, who couldn't find much of anything wrong but prescribed an antibiotic anyway. The antibiotic's gone now; the cough, not so much.
This kind of ongoing, disruptive but not serious illness presents a real quandary in terms of sending a child to school. When I was a kid, the rule was always: If you have a fever, you stay home; if you don't, get your butt out of bed. I've always accepted a fever as the certifiable seal of sickness, and have carried over this philosophy in my own parenting. But there are plenty of times when a child may not be feverish, but may still be a biohazard. I remember a couple of winters when my son had a sneezy, runny nose pretty much from November through February. The teacher suggested keeping him home, but for how long? I'm not looking to homeschool. With my daughter, I'm not so concerned with her being infectious as being distracting. Woe to the teacher who has to talk over ten minutes of hacking from my darling girl.
Sometimes I wonder what they must think of me, sending a kid with such a nasty sounding cough into the classroom each day. But I've felt a lot better since talking to another mom while we were volunteering in the library a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing the fact that there had been a lot of sickness in the school, and she mentioned that her boy, too, had been unwell for a while. Why, the very night before, he had thrown up three times between 3 and 5 a.m. But when it came time to go to school, he didn't have a fever, so he was in his seat. It's our rule, and we're sticking to it.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 27, 2002
Over the years, I've wondered what kind of job my son might find his way into as a grown-up. He likes to jump, always, all the time, so maybe he'll be a track star, or a circus performer. He can look at a key and tell which kind of car it goes to, so maybe he'll be a valet parking attendant, or a car thief. He can talk like Scooby Doo, so maybe he'll be an animation voice-over artist, or an entertainer at children's parties. In all my pondering, I've never thought about the legal profession for my definitely-not-desk-job-material guy. But after the story his teacher told me at a conference last night, I'm thinking again.
Apparently one of my son's classmates -- we'll call him Sam -- was trying the teacher's patience something fierce. She sent him to the time-out chair once and told him to come back when he had calmed down. She sent him there another time and told him to sit there for two minutes. Finally, a third time, she sent him there to sit indefinitely. Apparently, my son was watching the time, because at about three minutes he went up to the teacher and said, "Do you know that my friend Sam is still sitting in the time-out chair? He's my friend, and it hurts my heart to see him sitting there." At this point, the teacher felt about two inches tall, and gave Sam a reprieve. I don't know what kind of fee my boy charged for his services, but I'm told the plaintiff and his council did hug after the verdict.
If he can talk a kid out of time-out, maybe there's hope for him in the field of litigation. As long as the judge doesn't mind attorneys who jump all the time and suck their fingers.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 28, 2002
I saw half of a child-abuse-prevention program at my kids' school the other morning. I meant to see all of it, but it overlapped with my husband's tooth-extraction appointment and I needed to give him a ride. Felt bad sneaking out -- would people think that something the speaker said had caused me to bolt? I wound up missing the part in which they showed videotapes of the kind of workshop my kids will be taking part in sometime in the coming weeks. But the description I did hear was interesting, and I hope the information will sink in enough with my kiddos to keep them at least a little safer than they were before.
One of the interesting things that the speaker advocated was teaching kids that it's okay to say "no" to adults. And boy, isn't that just something from which parents instinctively recoil? From the time our kids learn to talk, we spend multiple developmental stages trying to get them to stop saying the "n" word. We teach them to respect grown-ups, be polite, do what you're told, don't talk back. We tell them to do what the teacher or the priest or the scoutmaster or the baby-sitter says or they'll be in big trouble. We let them know that adults know better than they do what's right, and that just because they don't feel like doing something is no excuse for not doing it. And this speaker suggested that in convincing them of all this, we're making our kids sitting ducks for pedophiles.
So in a week or two, she will be teaching my kids to say "no" to things that make them feel uncomfortable, things that seem wrong. Not peas for dinner or making their beds or doing their homework, but things that take away their right to be "safe, strong and free." That's a heck of a distinction for kids to make, though, isn't it? The sad thing is, in most situations, they are better off listening to adults. Most adults do want to keep them safe. But now we need to put them on their guard, question grown-ups' judgments, defend themselves verbally and physically. I wish we didn't live in a world where that was necessary. You only have to pick up a paper these days, though, to see how far we are from there.
+ + +
MARCH 1, 2002
Yesterday we added another activity to the list of things my almost-9-year-old son's still not ready for: Karate. He's been bugging me for months about wanting to try it, and I finally found a place that would take on kids with special needs. The teacher and I discussed his hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention problems, low muscle tone. I explained that he had FAE and that I didn't know if he would be able to follow along. The teacher had had one student with fetal alcohol exposure in the past and admitted that it was tough. But he said we were welcome to give it a try.
And so, last night, we did. And he didn't. Out of the hour class, he tried on and off for the first 20 minutes -- not getting the movements right, but at least moving -- then just laid on the floor for about ten minutes, then started going over to the door and playing with the wind chime, coming to where I was sitting and complaining about being hungry, and finally flat-out asking to go home. He liked the parts where the kids yell as they count their jumping jacks or karate chops or kicks. He did the yelling part really, really well. He liked when the class took turns running laps around the room. But the actual karate part? Not so much.
Still, he did better than he would have done a year ago. He didn't melt down or freak out. He followed along for a while, and that's big. And at the end, he made me laugh, which always earns consolation points. As his class concluded, the next class -- a group of older students -- filed into the room and lined up against the back wall, right behind my guy. They stood solemnly, seriously, as the little kids bowed to them and then to their teacher in the ritualistic ending to the earlier class. But my guy's not into ritual. He saw all those solemn, serious older kids and decided they needed a warm-up. "So," he said, "Who wants to kick? Who wants to hit? Who wants to chop? Who wants to scratch their butts?" By the end, at least half of the big kids were cracking up. A little blonde haired girl from the younger class wasn't impressed; she walked by my son on the way out and said, "You're not funny."
"Yes, I am," was my boy's reply. And frankly, I'd have to agree. But definitely not martial arts material.
Tuesday, February 19, 2002
February 19-23, 2002
FEBRUARY 19, 2002
Tomorrow, I'm taking my son to a therapist to investigate the possibility of starting auditory integration training. I'm excited at the possibility of doing something to help my boy with his hyperactive behavior. I've heard good stories about this therapy helping kids just like him. It always feels good to be doing something positive, finding therapies and pursuing them.
And yet... I also felt excited about therapeutic horseback riding. And sensory integration therapy. And nutritional supplements. And FastForward for my daughter. And various other helpful strategies that I researched and pursued and pushed for but never quite got the full fruits of. FastForward may have helped my daughter a little, but not a lot. The therapeutic riding was great for my son, but the stable decided to limit each student to 16 weeks and then we had to hit the dusty trail. Sensory integration therapy is, I think, vital to my son's neurological well-being, but therapists seem to run out of steam with him. And the nutritional supplements? Despite guarantees by the manufacturers and happy users that the cod liver oil inside those gel caps tasted just like strawberries, my son bit down once, declared the contents disgusting, and wouldn't go near them again.
I can't complain, really; both my kids are making steady forward progress, steady, steady, slow and steady. Not for us the magical forward surges. I've run out of steam a bit myself lately, content to float along with the slow current and stop trying to ride the rapids. But tomorrow, I'll get it together for another attempt at dramatic improvement. And after that, maybe I'll start a Therapies Anonymous group for parents who can't stop looking for that magic key.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 20, 2002
Of all the commercials that play constantly during the Olympics, I'm really loving the one for Allstate featuring the parents of Olympian Eric Bergoust. Through old home movies, it tells the story of a little boy who loved to jump off things, and a mom and dad who thought that was just fine. There are pictures of him jumping off chairs through the years with increasingly fine form. There's a shot of him jumping off the chimney of his house with his parents waiting happily below with a stack of mattresses. There's mention of the fact that the boy grew up to be a freestyle aerial skier -- the kind who launch off ski jumps flipping and twisting -- and won an Olympic gold medal four years ago in Nagano. And finally, a giggling acknowledgment by his parents that they were the only ones who didn't think the kid was absolutely nuts.
I'll bet there were more than a few people who thought the parents were absolutely nuts, too. I mean, jumping off the chimney? But what I love about this ad is the depiction of parents who, with love, enthusiasm and unjudgmental support, help their child accomplish his dream. And I wonder: Would I be able to offer that kind of support? If my kid was jumping off chairs, would I ever try to find a way to help him do it better? If he was laying on his back on a skateboard and rocketing down the steep streets of our cul de sac, would I think to find a way to help him learn to luge? I think I've done a pretty good job about finding something positive in parts of my son's behavior that others have felt was wild or unproductive or absolutely nuts. Will I be justified one day when he finds a way to turn that "bad behavior" into something good? Better start taking home movies.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 21, 2002
My daughter is finally showing some interest in watching the Olympics, I'm happy to say. Every night we're sitting together, watching together, falling asleep over figure skating together. It's a mother-daughter thing. As nice as it is to have company, I will say that watching some of these sports with the Queen of the Literal can sometimes be a challenge. After each competitor finishes his or her ski run or ski jump or bobsled slide or speed-skating pairing, she'll say, "Did he win?" "Did she win?" And I'll try to explain, again and again, that we have to wait until everybody gets a turn to know who won. And sometimes we have to wait for everybody to get a turn twice. And sometimes they have to take turns again on a different day. You'd have thought NBC had already cut out all extraneous races to the point of ludicrousness, but my girl would be happy if they'd just show the winners winning and be done with it. Let's hope she never becomes a network exec.
One of the sports we watched last night was Skeleton, and why exactly don't they slap a parental advisory on this thing anyway? Luge was bad enough, but do you really want your child to get the idea that hurtling down an icy slope with his or her chin an inch off the ice would be a good way to go for Olympic glory? I felt like putting my hand over my daughter's eyes. In the end, though, I don't know what was more scary about that sport: the fact that, as one commentator commented, it's like leaning out of a car, face thisclose to the pavement, while it's going 80 miles an hour on the highway; or the fact that the silver medalist, that guy with the funny-colored spiky hair and extreme-sports demeanor, makes a living as an air traffic controller. Yeah, that's the guy I want landing my plane.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 22, 2002
So there are all these stinkin' teenagers on the TV winning gold medals, making me feel about 106. And there are their parents in the stands, looking all thrilled and basking in their offspring's accomplishments. Part of me feels a little sad, because it doesn't look like my kiddos will ever be doing anything to make sports commentators gush over them; my daughter at 11 is pretty much over-the-hill for beginning a sport, apparently, and my son ... well, if they ever come up with a sport that requires no motor planning ability, muscle tone or impulse control, he's there. But you know, it doesn't really matter, because we parents of children with special needs don't need the big things to be proud as all get-out. Little things are big. The first word at age 3, the potty training at age 5, the belated but welcome onset of pretend play or ball catching or even simple whining -- it's all gold medal material.
Sometimes it's something as simple as telling a riddle right. At dinner the other night, my deeply language delayed daughter upped the degree of difficulty on her dinner table conversation with this sentence-sentence combination: "Dad, I have a challenge for you. Do you see a pattern in the glasses on the table?" Her dad picked up pretty quickly that the boys had grape juice and the girls had apple juice, but I was too busy doing my victory dance to notice. I mean, she used the words "challenge" and "pattern" in a sentence absolutely correctly. That's hard for her. She understood the concept of "pattern" enough to actually pick one out on her own. That's harder. And she used language to turn her observation into a riddle. That's a 6.0, ladies and gentleman. The family looked at me a little funny when I started humming the national anthem, but hey, I'll take victory where I can find it.
Tomorrow, I'm taking my son to a therapist to investigate the possibility of starting auditory integration training. I'm excited at the possibility of doing something to help my boy with his hyperactive behavior. I've heard good stories about this therapy helping kids just like him. It always feels good to be doing something positive, finding therapies and pursuing them.
And yet... I also felt excited about therapeutic horseback riding. And sensory integration therapy. And nutritional supplements. And FastForward for my daughter. And various other helpful strategies that I researched and pursued and pushed for but never quite got the full fruits of. FastForward may have helped my daughter a little, but not a lot. The therapeutic riding was great for my son, but the stable decided to limit each student to 16 weeks and then we had to hit the dusty trail. Sensory integration therapy is, I think, vital to my son's neurological well-being, but therapists seem to run out of steam with him. And the nutritional supplements? Despite guarantees by the manufacturers and happy users that the cod liver oil inside those gel caps tasted just like strawberries, my son bit down once, declared the contents disgusting, and wouldn't go near them again.
I can't complain, really; both my kids are making steady forward progress, steady, steady, slow and steady. Not for us the magical forward surges. I've run out of steam a bit myself lately, content to float along with the slow current and stop trying to ride the rapids. But tomorrow, I'll get it together for another attempt at dramatic improvement. And after that, maybe I'll start a Therapies Anonymous group for parents who can't stop looking for that magic key.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 20, 2002
Of all the commercials that play constantly during the Olympics, I'm really loving the one for Allstate featuring the parents of Olympian Eric Bergoust. Through old home movies, it tells the story of a little boy who loved to jump off things, and a mom and dad who thought that was just fine. There are pictures of him jumping off chairs through the years with increasingly fine form. There's a shot of him jumping off the chimney of his house with his parents waiting happily below with a stack of mattresses. There's mention of the fact that the boy grew up to be a freestyle aerial skier -- the kind who launch off ski jumps flipping and twisting -- and won an Olympic gold medal four years ago in Nagano. And finally, a giggling acknowledgment by his parents that they were the only ones who didn't think the kid was absolutely nuts.
I'll bet there were more than a few people who thought the parents were absolutely nuts, too. I mean, jumping off the chimney? But what I love about this ad is the depiction of parents who, with love, enthusiasm and unjudgmental support, help their child accomplish his dream. And I wonder: Would I be able to offer that kind of support? If my kid was jumping off chairs, would I ever try to find a way to help him do it better? If he was laying on his back on a skateboard and rocketing down the steep streets of our cul de sac, would I think to find a way to help him learn to luge? I think I've done a pretty good job about finding something positive in parts of my son's behavior that others have felt was wild or unproductive or absolutely nuts. Will I be justified one day when he finds a way to turn that "bad behavior" into something good? Better start taking home movies.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 21, 2002
My daughter is finally showing some interest in watching the Olympics, I'm happy to say. Every night we're sitting together, watching together, falling asleep over figure skating together. It's a mother-daughter thing. As nice as it is to have company, I will say that watching some of these sports with the Queen of the Literal can sometimes be a challenge. After each competitor finishes his or her ski run or ski jump or bobsled slide or speed-skating pairing, she'll say, "Did he win?" "Did she win?" And I'll try to explain, again and again, that we have to wait until everybody gets a turn to know who won. And sometimes we have to wait for everybody to get a turn twice. And sometimes they have to take turns again on a different day. You'd have thought NBC had already cut out all extraneous races to the point of ludicrousness, but my girl would be happy if they'd just show the winners winning and be done with it. Let's hope she never becomes a network exec.
One of the sports we watched last night was Skeleton, and why exactly don't they slap a parental advisory on this thing anyway? Luge was bad enough, but do you really want your child to get the idea that hurtling down an icy slope with his or her chin an inch off the ice would be a good way to go for Olympic glory? I felt like putting my hand over my daughter's eyes. In the end, though, I don't know what was more scary about that sport: the fact that, as one commentator commented, it's like leaning out of a car, face thisclose to the pavement, while it's going 80 miles an hour on the highway; or the fact that the silver medalist, that guy with the funny-colored spiky hair and extreme-sports demeanor, makes a living as an air traffic controller. Yeah, that's the guy I want landing my plane.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 22, 2002
So there are all these stinkin' teenagers on the TV winning gold medals, making me feel about 106. And there are their parents in the stands, looking all thrilled and basking in their offspring's accomplishments. Part of me feels a little sad, because it doesn't look like my kiddos will ever be doing anything to make sports commentators gush over them; my daughter at 11 is pretty much over-the-hill for beginning a sport, apparently, and my son ... well, if they ever come up with a sport that requires no motor planning ability, muscle tone or impulse control, he's there. But you know, it doesn't really matter, because we parents of children with special needs don't need the big things to be proud as all get-out. Little things are big. The first word at age 3, the potty training at age 5, the belated but welcome onset of pretend play or ball catching or even simple whining -- it's all gold medal material.
Sometimes it's something as simple as telling a riddle right. At dinner the other night, my deeply language delayed daughter upped the degree of difficulty on her dinner table conversation with this sentence-sentence combination: "Dad, I have a challenge for you. Do you see a pattern in the glasses on the table?" Her dad picked up pretty quickly that the boys had grape juice and the girls had apple juice, but I was too busy doing my victory dance to notice. I mean, she used the words "challenge" and "pattern" in a sentence absolutely correctly. That's hard for her. She understood the concept of "pattern" enough to actually pick one out on her own. That's harder. And she used language to turn her observation into a riddle. That's a 6.0, ladies and gentleman. The family looked at me a little funny when I started humming the national anthem, but hey, I'll take victory where I can find it.
Monday, February 11, 2002
February 11-15, 2002
FEBRUARY 11, 2002
I thought watching the Winter Olympics would be something my kids and I could do together. I have nice memories of watching them with my mom when I was growing up, and now my kids have the added incentive of seeing athletes from their native land competing with those from their adopted one. I thought my daughter would love watching the graceful figure skaters and my son would love all the speed-demon skiing and we'd all love having something on TV that didn't bore one of us to tears. But no: Bored is exactly what they are. Never mind the Russian competitors with the same name as my daughter or the folks hurtling down hills faster than we'd hurtle down the highway or the snowboarding that's just like the skateboarding on "Rocket Power." Unless Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and SpongeBob SquarePants turn up to do commentary soon, my kids could not be less interested in these games.
Which means I'm viewing on my own, since my husband thinks the events are either monotonous (anything that involves athletes going down the same slope or around the same course over and over) or silly (anything that involves men wearing spandex and sequins). But me, I could have that stuff on morning, noon and night. I'm ticked off at NBC for not having the games playing constantly somewhere on one of their cable networks, at least. If they're going to preempt my favorite prime time shows, the least they could do is give me something to watch at 10:30 on a Saturday morning in return. Let the kids squabble about who gets to watch the Disney channel and who gets to watch Nick; for the next two weeks, anyway, one of these TVs is mine. Loser gets to watch curling with mom.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 12, 2002
Watching the Winter Olympics this year, I am once again struck by what a bad example these athletes are setting for our young people. I'm not talking about steroids or bad sportsmanship here; I'm talking about how flat-out unsafe most of this stuff is. Maybe it's a good thing that my kids don't want to watch the games with me -- they might get the idea that, say, laying on your back on a small piece of metal and flying down an icy, slippery track is something they'd like to try. Which would have to in some way involve my dead body, Olympic glory or no Olympic glory.
The Olympics didn't need snowboarding to say they're into extreme sports; you can't get much more extreme than what some of those downhill skiers are doing, careening down nearly perpendicular slopes at speeds that would get you pulled over on the turnpike. Even so delicate a sport as figure skating now involves so many elaborate and risky jumps and throws that I have a hard time watching. I guess they're trying to make it more athletic and that's after all the point of this whole endeavor, but I liked it better when it was just pretty.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 13, 2002
I don't think I've ever been so happy to have children who have no prodigious talents yet apparent as when I heard Jim McKay's "Up Close and Personal" profile of figure skater Todd Eldridge last night. The story revealed how Eldridge had left home at the age of 10 to pursue his skating dreams. The age of 10! Do kids get to leave home at the age of 10? I mean, I know he wasn't standing at the side of the road with a sign reading "Olympics or Bust" or anything, but that seems such a tender age to devote one's life so completely to something. At age 10, my daughter devoted her life to watching the Disney Channel, but at least she didn't need to leave home to do it.
I suppose if your child does have an overwhelming talent and ability at something, be it ice skating or gymnastics or whatever other practice-intensive discipline comes to mind, it would be hard to deny them the absolute best shot at excellence, even if it meant moving away to train. I suppose it would be hard to say no; but how on earth could you say yes, knowing what sort of insane pressure these activities put on young people, knowing that any semblance of a real life is out of the question, knowing that your son might devote 20 years of his life to a sport and still fall down at every blasted Olympics. Knowing all that, wouldn't you just want to tell that 10-year-old to take the skates off, sit his butt down and watch some TV already? Come to think of it, maybe it's not a coincidence that my children are showing no prodigious talents...
+ + +
FEBRUARY 14, 2002
Between helping my daughter do a science report on dingos, helping my son make Valentine cupcakes for his class, watching a little "Star Trek" just to have some contact with my husband, and falling asleep where I sat, I didn't get to watch any of the Olympics last night. My only peek at the games was in the early evening when my daughter and I watched a little curling. Yes, it was curling that brought her to the TV at last. To ask, "What are they doing?" And, "Why?" If this were prime time on NBC, we'd get a detailed little documentary on the sport complete with bios of its main players and stirring theme music. But since it's 5:30 on MSNBC, we just got guys pushing rocks and sweeping. Do those guys sweep up around the house as part of their training? Just wondering.
Don't know if I missed any figure skating, but I'm not sure if I can handle the stress of that sport anyhow. The judging factor has become a problem, hasn't it? It's hard enough, as the sport has added so many complicated jumps and twists and throws, to watch the routines through parted fingers, silently willing the skaters to please, please stay upright; to then have them receive a figurative crow bar to the kneecaps in the scoring is too much. Were the judges wrong? How the heck do I know? I believe what Scott Hamilton tells me. I do have a pretty good idea, though, that if the Canadians had bobbled and won based on funny numbers and the Russians complained, we would not be still be hearing about it. There's something to be said, and to be taught to children, about being a good loser, even in the face of perceived injustice. Otherwise, parents across the land are going to be hearing about kids' grades being low because the teacher has a fix in.
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FEBRUARY 15, 2002
It seems like the news is full of cheaters these days, from duplicitous Enron execs to influenced Olympics judges to Web-surfing high school students. The first two I have no use for, but those high school kids ... the story goes that about a fifth of the sophomores in biology class in Piper, Kansas, copied material from the Web and used it in a leaf-describing project that formed half of their course grade. When the teacher failed them for plagiarizing, their parents protested, and the school board eventually ordered the teacher to change the grades. The teacher resigned, the town is up in arms, and pundits everywhere are using it as an example of the decline of American schools and American character. Cheating is cheating, plagiarism is theft, and condoning it in any way is saying that no one needs to do honest work anymore. There's always an excuse, a loophole, an irrational parent to get you out of it.
And I wonder: Did none of these people foaming at the mouth about the awfulness of copying work off the internet and getting away with it ever use something in their school days without rewriting it? I mean, I was a good writer in high school, and mostly did my own work, but there were more than a few times when a careful comparison between my research and the World Book Encyclopedia would have resulted in a mighty embarrassing similarity. It's hard, for a kid, to see something written clearly and then find a way to rewrite it, especially if it says pretty much exactly what they want to say. Goodness knows, it's hard for adults sometimes.
Parents of the offenders have been quoted as saying that their children worked hard on their projects -- which involved gathering leaves over a long period, studying them and making a nice presentation of them, in addition to looking up material on the Web and writing about them -- and don't deserve zeroes. They say their children did not understand to what degree they were expected to rewrite their research. The teacher counters that she made everybody sign a contract at the beginning of the project that there would be no plagiarism. But I wonder how many kids connect plagiarism -- the deliberate stealing of another's work and passing it off as your own, as in copying someone's report or downloading a term paper off the internet -- with putting research found on the Web word for word in one's own report. Did the teacher give them lessons in rewriting research? Did she explain that you're supposed to find several sources, distill them in your head, and mix them into a new presentation of thought? Are her students able to do that? Or were they just pointed toward the Web and expected to know what to do with it?
I think it's too bad that the teacher took the hard line she did here, rather than conferring with the students and families before giving the zeroes. And once she did give them, I think it's too bad that the school board didn't back her 100 percent. As in Olympic competitions, sometimes the decision of the judges just has to be final, like it or not; otherwise the whole system, and any respect for it, falls apart. That's what appeared to have happened in Piper, where students stopped listening to the teacher because they knew they could appeal any decision she made to the school board. I blame the kids for that attitude, and their parents if they condone it, but the cheating? Man, I've had my fourth-grade daughter copy sentences out of her textbook to answer social studies questions; is that plagiarism? She brought home research printed off the internet for a report on dingos the other day, with the parts she needed helpfully highlighted by her aide, and let me tell you, just getting her to understand what fit where was a big chore. Did I have her rewrite sufficiently? There are only so many ways you can describe the coat of a dingo. And, I'll bet, a leaf.
I thought watching the Winter Olympics would be something my kids and I could do together. I have nice memories of watching them with my mom when I was growing up, and now my kids have the added incentive of seeing athletes from their native land competing with those from their adopted one. I thought my daughter would love watching the graceful figure skaters and my son would love all the speed-demon skiing and we'd all love having something on TV that didn't bore one of us to tears. But no: Bored is exactly what they are. Never mind the Russian competitors with the same name as my daughter or the folks hurtling down hills faster than we'd hurtle down the highway or the snowboarding that's just like the skateboarding on "Rocket Power." Unless Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and SpongeBob SquarePants turn up to do commentary soon, my kids could not be less interested in these games.
Which means I'm viewing on my own, since my husband thinks the events are either monotonous (anything that involves athletes going down the same slope or around the same course over and over) or silly (anything that involves men wearing spandex and sequins). But me, I could have that stuff on morning, noon and night. I'm ticked off at NBC for not having the games playing constantly somewhere on one of their cable networks, at least. If they're going to preempt my favorite prime time shows, the least they could do is give me something to watch at 10:30 on a Saturday morning in return. Let the kids squabble about who gets to watch the Disney channel and who gets to watch Nick; for the next two weeks, anyway, one of these TVs is mine. Loser gets to watch curling with mom.
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FEBRUARY 12, 2002
Watching the Winter Olympics this year, I am once again struck by what a bad example these athletes are setting for our young people. I'm not talking about steroids or bad sportsmanship here; I'm talking about how flat-out unsafe most of this stuff is. Maybe it's a good thing that my kids don't want to watch the games with me -- they might get the idea that, say, laying on your back on a small piece of metal and flying down an icy, slippery track is something they'd like to try. Which would have to in some way involve my dead body, Olympic glory or no Olympic glory.
The Olympics didn't need snowboarding to say they're into extreme sports; you can't get much more extreme than what some of those downhill skiers are doing, careening down nearly perpendicular slopes at speeds that would get you pulled over on the turnpike. Even so delicate a sport as figure skating now involves so many elaborate and risky jumps and throws that I have a hard time watching. I guess they're trying to make it more athletic and that's after all the point of this whole endeavor, but I liked it better when it was just pretty.
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FEBRUARY 13, 2002
I don't think I've ever been so happy to have children who have no prodigious talents yet apparent as when I heard Jim McKay's "Up Close and Personal" profile of figure skater Todd Eldridge last night. The story revealed how Eldridge had left home at the age of 10 to pursue his skating dreams. The age of 10! Do kids get to leave home at the age of 10? I mean, I know he wasn't standing at the side of the road with a sign reading "Olympics or Bust" or anything, but that seems such a tender age to devote one's life so completely to something. At age 10, my daughter devoted her life to watching the Disney Channel, but at least she didn't need to leave home to do it.
I suppose if your child does have an overwhelming talent and ability at something, be it ice skating or gymnastics or whatever other practice-intensive discipline comes to mind, it would be hard to deny them the absolute best shot at excellence, even if it meant moving away to train. I suppose it would be hard to say no; but how on earth could you say yes, knowing what sort of insane pressure these activities put on young people, knowing that any semblance of a real life is out of the question, knowing that your son might devote 20 years of his life to a sport and still fall down at every blasted Olympics. Knowing all that, wouldn't you just want to tell that 10-year-old to take the skates off, sit his butt down and watch some TV already? Come to think of it, maybe it's not a coincidence that my children are showing no prodigious talents...
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FEBRUARY 14, 2002
Between helping my daughter do a science report on dingos, helping my son make Valentine cupcakes for his class, watching a little "Star Trek" just to have some contact with my husband, and falling asleep where I sat, I didn't get to watch any of the Olympics last night. My only peek at the games was in the early evening when my daughter and I watched a little curling. Yes, it was curling that brought her to the TV at last. To ask, "What are they doing?" And, "Why?" If this were prime time on NBC, we'd get a detailed little documentary on the sport complete with bios of its main players and stirring theme music. But since it's 5:30 on MSNBC, we just got guys pushing rocks and sweeping. Do those guys sweep up around the house as part of their training? Just wondering.
Don't know if I missed any figure skating, but I'm not sure if I can handle the stress of that sport anyhow. The judging factor has become a problem, hasn't it? It's hard enough, as the sport has added so many complicated jumps and twists and throws, to watch the routines through parted fingers, silently willing the skaters to please, please stay upright; to then have them receive a figurative crow bar to the kneecaps in the scoring is too much. Were the judges wrong? How the heck do I know? I believe what Scott Hamilton tells me. I do have a pretty good idea, though, that if the Canadians had bobbled and won based on funny numbers and the Russians complained, we would not be still be hearing about it. There's something to be said, and to be taught to children, about being a good loser, even in the face of perceived injustice. Otherwise, parents across the land are going to be hearing about kids' grades being low because the teacher has a fix in.
+ + +
FEBRUARY 15, 2002
It seems like the news is full of cheaters these days, from duplicitous Enron execs to influenced Olympics judges to Web-surfing high school students. The first two I have no use for, but those high school kids ... the story goes that about a fifth of the sophomores in biology class in Piper, Kansas, copied material from the Web and used it in a leaf-describing project that formed half of their course grade. When the teacher failed them for plagiarizing, their parents protested, and the school board eventually ordered the teacher to change the grades. The teacher resigned, the town is up in arms, and pundits everywhere are using it as an example of the decline of American schools and American character. Cheating is cheating, plagiarism is theft, and condoning it in any way is saying that no one needs to do honest work anymore. There's always an excuse, a loophole, an irrational parent to get you out of it.
And I wonder: Did none of these people foaming at the mouth about the awfulness of copying work off the internet and getting away with it ever use something in their school days without rewriting it? I mean, I was a good writer in high school, and mostly did my own work, but there were more than a few times when a careful comparison between my research and the World Book Encyclopedia would have resulted in a mighty embarrassing similarity. It's hard, for a kid, to see something written clearly and then find a way to rewrite it, especially if it says pretty much exactly what they want to say. Goodness knows, it's hard for adults sometimes.
Parents of the offenders have been quoted as saying that their children worked hard on their projects -- which involved gathering leaves over a long period, studying them and making a nice presentation of them, in addition to looking up material on the Web and writing about them -- and don't deserve zeroes. They say their children did not understand to what degree they were expected to rewrite their research. The teacher counters that she made everybody sign a contract at the beginning of the project that there would be no plagiarism. But I wonder how many kids connect plagiarism -- the deliberate stealing of another's work and passing it off as your own, as in copying someone's report or downloading a term paper off the internet -- with putting research found on the Web word for word in one's own report. Did the teacher give them lessons in rewriting research? Did she explain that you're supposed to find several sources, distill them in your head, and mix them into a new presentation of thought? Are her students able to do that? Or were they just pointed toward the Web and expected to know what to do with it?
I think it's too bad that the teacher took the hard line she did here, rather than conferring with the students and families before giving the zeroes. And once she did give them, I think it's too bad that the school board didn't back her 100 percent. As in Olympic competitions, sometimes the decision of the judges just has to be final, like it or not; otherwise the whole system, and any respect for it, falls apart. That's what appeared to have happened in Piper, where students stopped listening to the teacher because they knew they could appeal any decision she made to the school board. I blame the kids for that attitude, and their parents if they condone it, but the cheating? Man, I've had my fourth-grade daughter copy sentences out of her textbook to answer social studies questions; is that plagiarism? She brought home research printed off the internet for a report on dingos the other day, with the parts she needed helpfully highlighted by her aide, and let me tell you, just getting her to understand what fit where was a big chore. Did I have her rewrite sufficiently? There are only so many ways you can describe the coat of a dingo. And, I'll bet, a leaf.