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Mister Bubby makes his game plan
Mister Bubby: Mama, I found the perfect shirt for getting a girlfriend.
Giraffemom: Oh?
MB: Yeah. You have to have cool clothes to get a girlfriend, you know.
GM: So I’ve heard.
Princess Zurg faces her mortality
Princess Zurg: I can’t believe I’m almost in the fifth grade.
GM: Yeah. Crazy, huh?
PZ: I can’t believe I’m already ten years old!
GM: Me either.
PZ: Is time speeding up, or am I slowing down?
It’s not enough that you stole my youth? Now you must steal my eggs?
My two youngest children eat fried eggs for breakfast every day. They will probably get heart disease and die before they’re twelve. It will be on my head. But that’s what they like to have for breakfast. Girlfriend might eat something different, but not if Elvis is having an egg, and Elvis always has an egg for breakfast. That’s his thing. Unless I get up before everyone else and start making pancakes, eggs must be fried and consumed first thing in the morning.
Usually I like to have cereal for breakfast. Sometimes, though, I’m in the mood for eggs. I prefer mine scrambled. Unfortunately, I must prepare my eggs secretly if I am to eat them myself. If Elvis and Girlfriend discover that I am making eggs, they will immediately descend like vultures and demand to have my eggs. Mind you, they have already had their own eggs and moved on to other, non-breakfast activities. Also, if I tried to make scrambled eggs specifically for them, they would act like I was trying to poison them. But it’s as if they can’t stand for eggs to be eaten by other people, namely me, and they will stop at nothing to prevent it, including eating scrambled eggs.
So this morning I had a hankering for eggs. It was almost ten-thirty, and the kids were all in different rooms, doing their own things. I made perfect scrambled eggs. Like, the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever made in my life. They were the perfect consistency. I was really looking forward to eating them–even if I did have to do it standing at the sink so as to avoid the appearance of enjoying breakfast. As soon as said eggs were out of the pan, Elvis and Girlfriend ran in from the other room and started circling my plate. “Need eggs! Need eggs!” they cried. “No, these are Mommy’s eggs,” I said. “You’ve already had your eggs. I’m eating these eggs. Go and play.” “Mommy’s eggs! Want some!” And then one of them kicked me in the shins while the other one ripped the eggs right out of my hands, and they just started shoveling them in their mouths. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly like that–it’s all sort of a blur now, but suffice it to say that they ate my toast, too. Little fiends.
That’s why I’m currently locked in the master bedroom, eating some different scrambled eggs I prepared whilst they were devouring my original eggs. These eggs were not as good as the first ones. And the incessant pounding at the door is getting to me. But I ate them all by myself.
Why does the victory seem so hollow?
Somebody tell me I’m being ridiculous
My kids’ babysitter is a very nice woman. She doesn’t have any children of her own, except for her foster son, who is Princess Zurg’s age. She’s very good with my kids. She loves them, and I suspect that they love her, in their way. She offered to take Elvis and Girlfriend to see the real-life Thomas the Tank Engine at the end of the month–well, not THE real-life one, as he doesn’t exist, but A real-life one who comes into town and takes kids on a ride and lets them eat a picnic lunch in his vicinity, or something equally awesome. With PZ in summer school and MB easy enough to farm out to a friend’s house, I could have a few hours to myself. Only one problem: I don’t think I could stand to miss the looks on Elvis’s and Girlfriend’s faces when they saw a real-life Thomas the Tank Engine. So, no, that’s not going to work for me. I must come along for the Thomas the Tank Engine ride. It just wouldn’t do otherwise.
Then there’s the other thing. She’s also offered to take the younger two to Mommy & Me/You & Your Pre-schooler swimming classes–because she knows that they like to swim, and that I do not. That would afford me a little break a couple days a week, and they would get to swim, and I wouldn’t have to. Doesn’t that sound just jim-dandy? So why don’t I like this idea? As near as I can figure, I feel guilty for not wanting to take them swimming. I really do enjoy spending time with my kids. I even enjoy playing in the water with them on occasion. It’s just the thought of having to take them swimming on a regular basis that fills me with dread. Schedules, obligations–it’s so complicated. Can’t we just set up a cheap wading pool in the back yard and call it good? They would never know the difference.
So I was hoping that the classes would already be full, and this would become a moot point. Well, the baby swim classes are already full. (All 25 slots. Yeah, 25! Crazy, huh?) There’s one pre-school class left that is not full. I could easily register for that. I could send my babysitter–who should really be given a name, for simplicity’s sake…let’s call her Gertrude. (What? I like Gertrude.) So I could send Gertrude, and I’m sure Elvis would have a great time with her–he likes Gertrude, and he likes swimming, and he’s not apt to be having conflicting emotions and wondering why Mommy doesn’t love him enough to take him swimming herself. But for some reason I don’t want to. For some reason I feel like I ought to take him swimming myself, but there’s two problems with that: 1) I really don’t relish the prospect of having to get up and go swimming three mornings a week–not that I hate swimming, mind you, it’s just the having to swim that I hate. 2) I really think that Gertrude wants to take him, and I will somehow hurt her feelings if I say I’d rather she stay and watch Girlfriend while I go, and it really doesn’t make sense to do it that way when you re-read Problem #1.
Am I mentally ill, or just a woman who doesn’t want to be happy? You decide.
This morning I was driving to the grocery store and watched a school bus pass in front of me. I saw one of the students through the windows; she looked unhappy. Not suicidal-unhappy, just bummed out to be going to school. Monday morning, you know. Or maybe she was suicidal, who knows. I was just thinking back to when I used to take the school bus, when I used to go to school. I lived in Oregon and went to school on many a morning just like this one–damp and non-commital. You look eastward and you see fluffy white clouds against a bright blue sky. You look westward and there’s a storm happening or about to happen. You’ll see the sun today, but it’s impossible to tell how much of it or how often.
Often the weather triggers memories of my childhood. I don’t know why that would be. I’ve intentionally suppressed most of my childhood, for no particular reason, but little things bring it back to me against my will. This morning I was thinking how glad I was not to be on a bus headed for school. Sometimes when I visit my children’s schools, I put myself in that place again, behind the little desk next to all the other little desks, alphabet marching the perimeter of the ceiling, walls smothered in pertinent information. Education is very colorful in elementary school. It looks delightful from the outside, but when I imagine myself inside, remembering those days as a young child at school, I can’t help getting a little bit sick. I realize you couldn’t pay me to do these years over again.
Princess Zurg asks me from time to time whether it’s harder to be a kid or an adult. I tell her adults have more responsibilities, because to her that’s what “hard” means. I also tell her that adults have more freedoms–because they have more responsibilities. She doesn’t really process any of this. She’s convinced that kids have it worse, and frankly, I’m not sure that she’s wrong.
I didn’t have some horrific childhood. I recall some very pleasant experiences, even in school, which I really liked for the first few years I went. I wonder if part of the reason I don’t like to remember those aspects of my childhood is that my children’s experience is and will continue to be so different. They don’t get to spend their afternoons exploring the vacant lot, randomly meeting kids in the neighborhood streets, riding their bikes to the local store, generally enjoying the lack of adult supervision and consequent interference. But mostly I think I just don’t like remembering that general sense of helplessness, being at the mercy of adults and their plans for me. Was this really the way I felt at the time, or is it just my perspective as an adult? I treasure my adult perspective; maybe this is my problem. I don’t want to trade experience for innocence because innocence doesn’t last. That’s why the prospect of reliving childhood fills me with dread. Fortunately, you only have to do childhood once. Unless you become a parent, that is.
Next Tuesday Princess Zurg starts at the School for Incorrigible Girls. Initially I was disheartened to learn that they’d accepted her to their program. Deep inside I was really hoping that they would tell us PZ wasn’t bad off enough to benefit from their services. I thought, This is not what I want for my child. But in the last week it’s become clear to me that this is the correct course of action, and the fact that I don’t want it is basically irrelevant. I don’t want a lot of things, but to a large extent they are out of my control. Where I was once at the mercy of adults and their plans for me, I’m now at the mercy of my kids and their plans for themselves.
So yesterday’s visit to the School for Incorrigible Girls went very well. We visited. I don’t know if its official description is a “clinical program in an educational setting” or an “educational program in a clinical setting,” but either way, it is what it is. When you walk in, it just looks like a regular doctor’s office. That’s because the school is downstairs. In the basement. MWAHAHAHAHAHA! No, it’s not that bad. There are windows and natural light coming in. No bars on the windows.
There is a long corridor with lots of therapists’ offices. There are two classrooms and there is a common area for full-group activities and a half-gym for PE-type stuff. The gym looks like a converted chapel, what with its vaulted ceilings and high windows letting in the light from heaven. The acoustics are…amazing. I do not want to be there for dodgeball without ear plugs. They have an art room with a kiln. A freaking kiln! No iron maiden, as my husband noted.
Actually, the creepiest thing we saw was the “quiet room,” which, actually, when I think on it, is exactly what a quiet room should be: a totally blank space where kids can go to de-escalate, without any external stimulation. There’s no door–and by this, I mean there’s no door, the thing that goes open and shut. When I mentioned this to a friend of mine, she wondered how the kids got in and out, if they were supposed to climb through a window or something. No. There is a doorway, but no door. So the children are free to come and go; it’s not a check-out-any-time-you-like-but-you-can-never-leave situation. The walls are totally bare, the carpet an indescript gray, and there’s no furniture. The walls aren’t padded, but they are reinforced, to keep the kids from kicking holes in them. (Oh, you look horrified, but that’s exactly what I’d recommend for any quiet room that was housing my child.) Plexiglass on the windows. Yes, again, there are windows. It’s perfectly serene. No reason it should have given me the willies. Maybe I just long for a room like that in my own house. Maybe someday, when we put the addition over the garage. Ah, dreams.
So the program currently has ten kids total, ages 8-12. Most of the kids are in the 11-12 range. Princess Zurg would be one of two nine-year-olds; everyone else is older, including the two girls presently in the program, who are both 12. (Quoth the director, “One of them is nice.” Awesome.) Two or maybe three students have Asperger’s or something similar. They have a “Rainbow” group for kids on the spectrum. (PZ likes rainbows–and who doesn’t?) They have a ridiculously huge staff. There are more adults than children. Which I guess isn’t hard to do when you have two teachers, a staff psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, the program director, and seven interns. And that’s just for starters. The academics are very basic–three R’s, not much else. Maybe an occasional science lesson. Sugar Daddy asked if they had art, and the director laughed. They actually have three art therapists on staff, so some kids have art twice a day. Yes, they have art. They have a freaking kiln!
So they have to do an intake evaluation, to see if PZ qualifies for the program. They have to see just how crazy she is. Not that these children are crazy, mind you. Hey, I have a mental illness myself. I’m being insensitive and tacky, but in that self-consciously ironic way, so don’t judge me, people. I’m ready to put my child in a psychiatric facility. I’m just trying to keep it real.
Or maybe I’m trying to keep it unreal. This is a program for children with “serious psychiatric problems,” which means something different in the educational system than it does in the vernacular. Apparently. For the most part this feels like just another alternative placement. On the other hand, it’s a 45-minute bus ride and we have to account for her whereabouts and goings-on 24/7 and attend family therapy once a week (in freaking Tigard–gaaaah!–am I even capable of saying “Tigard” without the “freaking” prefix?) and the average stay is 18 months. In 18 months PZ will be in middle school. I could cry. That’s what I feel like doing.
But my mind is not closed. If anything, after yesterday’s visit, my mind is more open. Assuming she qualifies, this program is the equivalent of literally tens of thousands of dollars of therapy, all paid for by the school district. Your tax dollars at work, fellow citizens. My husband thanks you. My daughter thanks you. Her siblings thank you. And I thank you.
So yeah, that’s where it stands. We started the paperwork. We’ll see. We’ll see.
Q. What’s awesome about your kid being suspended from school?
A. You don’t have to dread that inevitable phone call from the principal, asking you to pick her up again. Yes!
Princess Zurg continues to struggle in school, and we in turn continue to struggle with Princess Zurg. I am beginning to fear that PZ’s first grade teacher was right when she said there was a narrow window of opportunity for children to learn the skills necessary for school success. Honestly, I want to puke as I type that. Well, not “puke” so much as “punch someone in the face,” but you know, tomayto, tomahto. Anyway, I have never liked the idea of people having expiration dates stamped on them. Undoubtedly, in general there is such a thing as a “Best Before” date, as the brain develops and eventually starts pruning away those parts that aren’t used (neuroscience, schmeuroscience). That’s why early intervention is so critical. On the other hand, when you’re talking about a person’s temperament, how late is too late? And when you’re talking about Princess Zurg, how much is temperament to blame, and how much can be laid at the feet of her disability? If we may speak of disability as having feet. You see the stress I’m under, how it affects the language arts. You must be patient with me, or read no further.
It was easier when she was in kindergarten, in first grade, and even second grade, to keep things in perspective. There’s always hope that a five-year-old can get her act together eventually. What happens in the primary grades usually stays in the primary grades–except when it doesn’t. When you carry it with you to third grade and fourth grade and beyond, that’s when the future starts looking grim. Yes, she’s only nine years old now. But in less than eight months she’ll be in fifth grade, and a year later she’ll be in middle school. We are hurtling toward the apocalypse, we have not been saved, and we can’t seem to find a church that suits us. I will drop that metaphor before it herniates, but you get the idea. I’m scared.
In September things seemed so promising. Her medication was making a real difference–and I still think it is. It just isn’t a big enough difference, not where it counts. The number of aggressive behavior incidents has not dwindled to “zero”–not by a long shot. And it’s been almost six months, give or take a couple weeks’ vacation. It’s time for another IEP meeting, time to advocate for my daughter’s interests again, and I’ve got nothing. No brilliant ideas. No half-baked ideas. No gut instincts. Just nothing.
What’s going to happen is that our “team” is going to recommend the day-treatment program they first brought up in September. (You know, the one in freaking Tigard? You might remember.) I’ve been trying to find the paperwork on it. I’m afraid I may have recycled it in a fit of maternal protectiveness–or rather, a fit of self-protectiveness. I didn’t want to believe I’d ever have use for it. So I’m trying to do some research about it on the internet. The web site says it’s a “constructive all-day outpatient alternative to residential care, providing education for children (ages 7-11) experiencing serious psychiatric difficulties.” Wow, that’s hard-core, isn’t it? But then, so is hitting and kicking people and making endless rationalizations for your bad behavior. That’s not autism. It’s sociopathy.
My husband and I have joked about having her committed, but the sad thing is, a generation ago that’s exactly what would have happened to people with Asperger’s Syndrome. They’re too functional to be disabled, so they must be sociopaths. What do you do with children who won’t respond to discipline, besides give them more discipline (which they continue not to respond to)? It’s all well and good for me, an adult, to experiment with psychotropic drug therapies (you know, the legal ones), but when you’re dealing with a pre-adolescent child whose brain is still developing (rapidly), said experimentation is decidedly unappealing. In other words, I’m willing to medicate my daughter if medication is what she requires, but this repeated trial-and-error stuff makes me nervous. On the other hand, we can’t really wait for puberty to run its course, either. Or maybe we can. The point is, I don’t know.
I’m anxious to take action, but at the same time, I hate to be rushed.
So this weekend I took part in a discussion on the Brain, Child website about this essay in the Winter 2008 issue, “Relieving Myself,” by Heather Caliri. Caliri is a writer in San Diego (she also has a blog, which as of this moment I have not yet perused, but here’s the link for your pleasure). Caliri wrote about her experiences with Elimination Communication (EC), or diaper-free parenting. The philosophy, in a nutshell, is this: parents don’t need to depend on diapers, but they can learn to read and respond to their babies’ subtle cues and thus teach their children to have a sense of their own elimination needs and never endure conventional toilet-training hell.
I’ll be honest with you, kids: the first time I heard about EC, around the time my last baby was born, my reaction was, “You have got to be effing kidding me.” (Truly spoken like the woman who personally kicked Kimberly-Clark’s stock through the roof.) My second thought was that it must be awesome for the people who have the patience for such things, but I would never be one of those parents. And you, dear readers, know from careful study of this blog that I am still not one of those parents (and never will be). (I once mentioned something to my step-mother about diaper-free parenting; her response was, “And what are you supposed to do with your other 20 minutes a day?” Haha. Good one, step-mom. I thought she was being generous!) However, I was intrigued by Caliri’s essay because she was clearly not out to persuade anyone else to use EC, merely documenting her own experience, and I thought it was a very insightful, often humorous piece about the nutty stuff we do in the name of good parenting. (Not that EC is inherently nutty, but one can drive oneself nuts with any aspect of parenting.)
I wasn’t entirely surprised, though, that one of the first comments on the discussion page was a slam on Caliri’s hygiene standards and etiquette. Not to give anything away (Sugar Daddy, avert your eyes because there’s a plot spoiler ahead!), but in the final scene Caliri is in a restaurant bathroom with her baby, Lucy, who proceeds to pee in the restroom sink. This has some stylistic resonance, if you’ve invested in the preceding narrative, but some people evidently thought it was just really gross.
Myself, I would be lying if I claimed not to have my own thoughts along the line of, “That’s not something you expect to see in a public restroom (if you’re lucky).” However, my reaction was mitigated by the following:
1. It was a baby.
2. There was running water, not to mention a nearby soap dispenser.
3. After nearly ten years of up-close-and-personal interaction with human waste, not to mention the three years I spent in the People’s Republic of Eugene, there is little that actually shocks me anymore.
4. It’s not like it was my sink.
Just kidding on that last one. Actually, if Caliri were visiting my home and wanted permission to let her baby relieve herself in my bathroom sink, I could hardly refuse her on grounds that my bathroom sink is a holy shrine to cleanliness. But seriously, the fact that I was physically removed from the situation certainly allowed me the emotional distance to take the episode in stride. After all, I’d already survived an earlier scene where Caliri let Lucy do her business by the outside wall of a neighborhood apartment building, sans smelling salts. I actually thought that lifestyle choice a tad more gauche, maybe because I’ve lived in apartment buildings in neighborhoods where people had issues with personal boundaries. But also because I couldn’t envision Caliri hosing the stucco off after the fact. (Certainly not without a handy soap dispenser.) However, no one else on the discussion board mentioned the wall-peeing, only the sink-peeing and how beyond-the-pale it was.
Ordinarily I don’t enjoy being a de facto defender of public urination–not any more than the ACLU enjoys defending those awful neo-Nazis, I’m sure–but my sympathies were with Caliri because she’d written a really interesting essay about an issue much larger than toileting, and her point was getting lost in the collective condemnation of her bathroom manners. Sure, maybe a baby peeing in a public sink is uncool. I won’t try to argue otherwise, because, you know, it’s not a choice I would make. (Then again, trying to save the world one less diaper at a time is obviously not a choice I’ve ever made either.) But I didn’t think it was fair to make that one part of the essay the centerpiece of the conversation, when the article was not about the relative merits of EC, but about Caliri’s own parental hangups and how she got over them. I thought that, as a writer, Caliri would appreciate some feedback on something other than her choice to let the baby pee in the sink.
Alas, ’twas not to be, because people were really, very put-off by the sink-peeing, and also by BC editor Jennifer Niesslein tsk-tsking them for harping on it and making it personal. That led to some people wondering if they were supposed to all pretend they agreed with someone instead of giving their honest opinion(s), and whether tolerance only went one way at Brain, Child–also, whether we were all privileged, self-absorbed white women and whether we were going to silence women’s voices for the sake of niceness. Valid questions, all of them, but in the meantime, poor Caliri’s article was not really being discussed; it was her personal character that was on trial. It made me very grateful that my essay for Brain, Child never made it into the online content. (Not that there was any sink-peeing in that one. Maybe a little nose-picking, but that might not have been in the final edit.)
I’m pretty much done with that discussion, edifying as it was, but some lingering questions remain (for me), so I will put them to you, gentle readers:
1. Am I “out of the mainstream” because my objections to public sink-peeing have more to do with decorum than public health? (I dunno, baby pee + running water + soap = ?) In other words, am I just gross?
2. Do women, as one BC commenter said, equate hard-hitting commentary with rudeness? Do we wish to “make sure everybody ‘feels comfortable’ at the expense of dialogue”?
And for the sake of science,
3. Do you prefer your dialogue hard-hitting, or comfortable? Are you by any chance a woman?
Most days I love Elvis (my four-year-old, not the dead guy). Today I would like to send him to boarding school.
He was sick this weekend–woke up Saturday morning sick and stayed sick through most of Sunday, did a lot of sleeping–and that’s where my troubles began. He took a long nap Sunday afternoon–the good news is, so did I; the bad news is, he woke up at 4 p.m. feeling well again and was thus awake for the next many hours. I think I coaxed him back into bed at 1:15 a.m. by lying down with him. I think he actually fell asleep sometime after 2 a.m. He woke up again at 8 a.m.
All things considered, I was actually feeling pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I got up today. The long Sunday nap really did some reparative work, subsequent 2 a.m. bedtime notwithstanding. However, all things are relative. What I was not in the mood for at 8:30 a.m. was to chase him and the baby around the front yard in my pajamas. I was happy to do it in the back yard, but the front yard is connected to the street, and the street is connected to trouble. The problem is that my children all share an intense dislike of the back yard. The intensity of the dislike is directly disproportionate to their competence in the area of personal safety. Thus it is that Elvis and the baby are the children who dislike the back yard the most. Don’t fence them in. Sugar Daddy is planning to build a fancy play structure back there this summer, but I have the sneaking suspicion that Disneyland could spring up back there overnight and my two youngest would still prefer to chase balls in front of moving cars. Once again I have revealed myself to be a pathological pessimist, and if the fancy play structure fails to satisfy, my lack of faith will be to blame. At least I’m self-aware. That’s all I can say.
So back to the issue at hand–the lure of the front yard and my vain attempts to increase the attractiveness of alternative venues. I had no choice but to put the padlock back on the front door. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the padlock to save my life (never mind the children’s lives). I knew Mister Bubby had had it just the night before, and I’d instructed him to put it on the phone desk in the kitchen, where he insisted it still was, only it was not. I told everyone that they had two options: a) help me look for the missing padlock or b) get dressed and get in the car so I could drive to Home Depot and buy a new one. I realize that choice (b) seems a little extreme, but believe it or not, that is what they chose, so that is what we did.
Elvis was not happy with any of the decisions I made this morning. He was most unenthusiastic about visiting the Home Depot, if screaming continuously at the top of one’s lungs for 30 minutes can be characterized as “unenthusiastic.” I’m sure everyone in that cavernous warehouse store was glad to see, or rather hear, us go.
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
Anyway, I came home with a new padlock, and once again I was able to restrict my children’s mobility to a level I was comfortable with. I also came home with a pin lock for the back patio door, in anticipation of our second visit with Department of Human Services in three months. (Hm. Really more like three and a half, to be fair.) This is somewhat embarrassing to admit, but Elvis did have another run-in with the sheriffs a week ago last Saturday. It’s kind of a funny story, provided you were there and have a sick sense of humor. SD was still in California, I’d had kind of a rough night vis a vis the sleep issue, and Elvis woke up around 6 a.m. I wasn’t ready to be awake at 6 a.m. For a while I just lay there in bed and let him kick me in the head. It seemed like I let him do that for a really long time, but I really have no way of knowing how long it was because at 8:30 I was jolted awake by the realization that there were cops in my house. Apparently Elvis unlocked the back patio door, went out into the back yard and drove his dump truck around the side of the house, boosted himself up on the garbage cans and unlatched the side gate, and drove the truck up to the front porch only to find the front door locked. Upset that he couldn’t complete his dump truck-riding circuit as planned, he started screaming, which woke up the neighbors, who came knocking on the door and were unable to get an answer. (If I couldn’t hear Elvis screaming, I’m not surprised that I couldn’t hear an adult knocking. I was obviously enjoying a dreamless slumber. If only I could remember this beautiful experience.) Hence the summoning of the sheriffs, who arrived to find that they also could not get the attention of the lady of the house by knocking or yelling, and finally gained access to the house by following Elvis into the back yard and through the still-open patio door. And the rest is my personal rap-sheet history.
I know you’re waiting for the punchline. See, it’s funny because if I’d simply left the front door unlocked, like a totally irresponsible adult, no one would have been the wiser. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, as I can tell you from sad, repetitive experience.
The good news is that these officers were much nicer than the ones who found Elvis after his last unauthorized outing. The bad news is that even nice officers have to report incidents of child neglect to the state. Ah, well. Someday I will live in a more corrupt society, but by then my children will probably all be safely out of my custody and it won’t really matter.
If I seem a tad too flippant about this affair, it’s because I know I have no excuse for my failure to keep my son in those quarters of our property where his screaming would not disturb the public peace. I didn’t realize he could get the side gate unlatched yet–I thought he’d have to grow a couple more inches and refine a few problem-solving skills before I had to worry about that scenario, but naturally I see in retrospect how short-sighted that was. I should have installed a different lock on the patio door back in March, when my parental fitness first came into question. It was totally our intention to do so, but the lock my husband bought turned out to be inappropriate for our particular door, and oh, who cares, it doesn’t matter. My priorities were clearly screwy. It’s painfully obvious now. I can’t help but be reminded of Lady Bracknell’s scolding of the orphaned Mr. Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” Of course, I had lost one child twice as opposed to two parents once, and it’s really not the same thing at all, but I swear that is the exact line that came into my brain as I was sitting there with those officers with nothing at all to say in my own defense. I simply felt ridiculous.
The frustrating thing is that while it is true that my own carelessness was to blame for this and the last incident, I realize that there is simply no substitute for constant vigilance. If the back patio door had had a proper lock, there was still the matter of the door to the garage, which Elvis figured out how to unlock within 48 hours of our installing the thing. Once in the garage, there was nothing to prevent him from opening the outside garage door and winding up in the same place, i.e. on the front patio with no way of opening the door he wished to use for reentry. I suppose we need to get a new garage door-opener, one that operates with a keypad both inside an out, or something. There’s really no way to keep him from unlocking the inside door unless we install a lock that requires keyed entry on both sides. I suppose we should do that, too. The point is, there is always going to be something that I haven’t yet thought of. I don’t believe I will ever feel safe inside the house again.
The really ironic thing is that for seven years I lived in apartments, abodes which I could never have child-proofed to anyone’s satisfaction because I was not allowed to install child locks or make any permanent alterations to the front or back doors. I had to make do with putting things on high shelves and old-fashioned constant vigilance–which was never actually constant, but in seven years I was never once accused of depraved indifference to my children’s welfare. It wasn’t that I was a better parent then, but that I had different children. Elvis wasn’t mobile until we moved into our house and he started climbing on stoves and eating batteries out of the Speak’n'Spell. It makes me wonder what would have happened if I’d had Elvis when we lived in university housing–specifically designed for families–where all the doors, in compliance with state fire codes and ADA regulations, automatically unlocked from the inside. It was hard enough keeping the less-than-thoroughly-curious Princess Zurg from escaping every time I went to take a shower. I imagine that if Elvis had lived with us then, I probably wouldn’t have showered at all for nine months. That might have brought me to the attention of the state, too, but for different reasons.
Anyway, I am less torn up about this visit from DHS than I was about the last one. It’s not as though they’re going to take my children away or press criminal charges. It simply isn’t the purpose of the investigation. The purpose is to shame me into being more hypervigilant than I have heretofore been. Unfortunately, I have suffered so many failures over the course of my parenting career that I now have an impossibly high threshhold for guilt and shame. I’m largely immune to scolding. A visit with me is not likely to be reassuring to anyone.
NOTE: We now have a padlock on the side gate as well, so Elvis should be safe until he learns how to scale it.
Dear Princess Zurg,
I wonder why the relationship between mother and daughter is so complicated. Nine years ago I was so happy to learn that I’d just given birth to a baby girl, and it might have been that having lost my own mother a mere sixteen months earlier, I was subconsciously hoping to recreate a mother-daughter relationship. I read that in a book once. There might be something to it. I don’t know. I suspect that in my case, I was hoping to recreate myself–and that this time I’d do a better job.
I think sometimes that genetics burdened you with my worst traits and gave you the shaft when it came to my best ones. It’s frustrating to be so alike and yet so different. But then I remember that I’m not recreating myself. I’m getting to know you. Your flaws are your own, and your virtues are yours, too. I’m not the same as I was before we met, and I’m not through changing. Neither are you. We’ll shape each other’s souls as long as we live.
Happy birthday, my first girl.
Love, Mother
My worst nightmare is that I will lose one of my children, permanently. My second worst nightmare is the thing that happened to me yesterday, which is that I lost one of my children and the police found him before I did. In case you were wondering, there is no satisfactory explanation for why an almost-four-year-old autistic boy would be riding a push-trike near a busy street sans shoes and wearing a dirty diaper. No, there is just no good spin for that one.
The worst part was when one of the (three!) officers questioning me asked whether I understood the meaning of “child neglect.”
Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch.
The good news is that we are now the proud owners of a chain-and-padlock on our front door. The bad news is that I’m going to be depressed for the next several days. Don’t expect much from me.
Yesterday I took all four of my children to a birthday party for one of Mister Bubby’s friends. That is a long story. It is not an interesting story, so I won’t tell it. Suffice it to say, we were all at the Pizza Parlor with the Malodorous Indoor Playground, and since there was a surplus of pizza, we found our-uninvited-selves participating in much of the festivities. When the birthday girl’s mother started lighting candles on the cupcakes, I turned to my friend (who was there with all four of her children under similar circumstances) and said, “This is Elvis’s favorite part of birthdays.”
“Oh, the cake and ice cream?” she said.
“No,” I said. “Fire.”
I count it a sign of Elvis’s (emerging) maturity that he was able to put up with only one lighting of said candles. While my younger son alternated taking bites of his second slice of pizza and his second cupcake, my friend and I talked about the progress Elvis is making with his new therapies.
“So–is Elvis autistic?” she asked.
“Yes. We don’t know yet where he fits on the spectrum, though. His flavor of autism isn’t like Princess Zurg’s. When PZ was his age, she functioned at a much higher level. I mean, she could talk. And we knew she registered at least half of what we said to her.”
“That’s important.”
“With Elvis it’s like talking to a brick wall most of the time.”
She nodded. “I know how that is.”
“A brick wall that kicks you and screams really loud.”
“Yes.”
“And can set your house on fire.”
Lately I have more fear of Elvis setting himself on fire, as his new hobby is to walk the perimeter of our kitchen–up on the counters, including the stovetop. Regardless of whether or not the stove is on. He really doesn’t mind. To his credit, he will let me get him down from there. He won’t come down by himself, though, because he’d rather jump into my arms than onto the floor. Climbing down by aid of a chair or stool is out of the question. That just isn’t any fun at all. I try to minimize the thrill of free-falling into Mommy’s arms, so long as I can pull him down before he actually stage-dives–but it’s still just a big game to him. And yes, for any of you taking a page from my step-mother’s playbook, we do tell him NO COUNTERS and STOVE=DANGER. We weren’t born yesterday. I’m just telling you, it’s like talking to a brick wall. A brick wall that fears nothing, except dogs. Perhaps we should get a dog and make it live on the stove. You think I’m joking, but I actually paused and analyzed the logistics of that option for a minute there.
Right now the brick wall is pounding on my back and demanding to escorted out of the house, so you all will have to wait ’til the next episode to see what happens.
Now that I’ve had a whole weekend to calm down, I’d like to bring some clarity to the moral outrage of my previous post.First of all, thanks for all the supportive comments. You all give me more sympathy than is probably deserved, but I know you only spoil me because you love me.
I do not think that Princess Zurg’s teacher is an idiot. I have met very few idiots in the public school system. I’ve met people who are rigid, condescending, dishonest, and ineffectual–and a few who could use a seventh grade English refresher–but not idiots. For the record, I don’t feel that PZ’s current teacher–or any of her former teachers (well, except maybe one…)–were any of those pejorative terms I just used, either. I am inclined to give individuals the benefit of the doubt–not by nature, but because experience has too often found me on the receiving end of no such benefit. I feel more frustrated by the culture of school and the institutionalized stupidity therein than I do with the well-intentioned professionals who work with children, especially those who work with special-needs children.
PZ’s teacher has many years of experience working with autistic children. She seems like a very nice lady. I don’t wish to assign her a host of demerits based on my limited interaction with her. But there are limits to my tolerance, especially after those limits have been tested ad nauseum over three years and I get the distinct impression that I won’t be taken seriously until my child’s behavior proves me worthy of respect.
I understand that these people have hard jobs. I myself have a hard job, so I think I can relate. I also appreciate that they’ve been trained and have experience with up to hundreds of students. This understanding, coupled with my natural tendency toward self-flagellation, has historically prevented me from advocating my daughter’s interests as vigorously as I should. If my daughter was having problems in school, it couldn’t be the fault of all these nice, well-trained individuals who have made careers of helping children. It had to be my fault. If I had done my job properly, she would be succeeding. Since she was not succeeding, I had obviously failed.
Neither attitude–blame the teachers or blame the parents–is terribly healthy or productive. We all ought to be cooperating for the common goal of my child’s success in school. After almost four years, I’m very familiar with the concept. It’s a beautiful theory, but in practice this is just not how things work. In practice, the teachers are almost always cast as the reasonable experts, and parents are hysterics in denial. We have to be dealt with patiently. Our parenting is only as good as our daughter’s performance. Of course there are lousy parents out there, and teachers have to work with such parents all the time. Blah blah. I understand. But I am tired of not getting the benefit of the doubt, when I (and my husband) have obviously put forth so much effort toward the Common Goal.
These people are not strangers to my daughter’s case file. Before she started attending this new school, my husband and I sat down with these people and wrote a behavior plan–a behavior plan which was pretty much ignored in this instance, incidentally. I was about to say that was a separate issue, but it’s really not. Unfortunately we are used to having our input ignored or discounted. Our opinions seem to be valid only insofar as they reflect what the well-intentioned professionals have been trying to ram through our thick skulls all this time.
I admit that I was in a highly irritated state as soon as I realized that I’d have to drive down to the school just so my daughter could be suspended for ten whole minutes that day. (I found out later that the behavior-that-shall-not-be-tolerated-even-for-ten-more-minutes-of-school actually started two and a half hours before I received the fateful phone call. Riddle me that, Batman.) That probably made me less in the mood to listen to a lecture on my least favorite topic: how I, the parent, am sabotaging my child’s success in school and life.
Believe me, kids, I have been fielding unsolicited advice long enough to know the difference between just-trying-to-help and just-trying-to-compensate-for-your-parental-shortcomings. I don’t believe for a minute that the insults are intentional, or that the advice doesn’t come from a well-meaning place. I no longer speak to my step-mother about my children’s difficulties because every conversation would become a well-intentioned referendum on me and what I was not doing to help the child in question. “Problem X [Y, Z, or Q] is a very serious problem. It’s so important that you solve this problem. I know it’s hard for you, but you have to do it for her [or his] own good.” And the pièce de résistance: “You’ve got to be the parent.”
Here’s a news flash for you, lady: I’m not the one confused about who the parent is.
My step-mother loves my children. She’s emotionally invested in their welfare. (And mine, too, for that matter.) Her concern comes from a good, sincere place–but what comes out of her mouth belies her protests that she only wants to help. What comes out of her mouth is the implicit message that I care less about my children than she does, and the reason I care less is that I’m too lazy to do the hard work of parenting. And that was the implicit message coming out of the teacher’s mouth last week. No, I’m sure it wasn’t what she “meant.” The thing is, though, that if you don’t mean it, you’ve really got to stop saying it. And if you’re not going to stop saying it, don’t be offended if I stop humbly taking it.
Just a couple of addendums–or is that addenda? addendi? eh, whatever–PZ did not hit another student. She hit an instructional aide. NOT that hitting an instructional aide–or anyone–is okay, but I think it’s important to differentiate between aggression toward peers and aggression toward authority figures (whichever you happen to think is more serious). PZ never hits other students. (Why would she? What did they ever do to her?) There’s always a first time, of course, but it hasn’t happened yet.I’ve already forgotten what the other addendum was, so I’ll have to get back to you on that. I’m sure it will come to me eventually. UPDATE: It just came to me. I was going to say that overall PZ’s new placement has been very good for her and we remain optimistic about her future there. I’m trying very hard not to overreact, which is why I blogged my frustrations rather than taking them out (fully–heh heh) on the teacher. I feel that I am entitled to a little hysteria in private. I figure that’s what you all read me for, anyway.
This is going to be one of those “Dear Diary, Today I organized my sock drawer” blogs. I’m just not feeling very witty today.
For those of you who asked, Elvis’s evaluation last week went fine. I mean, I’m not sure how it could have not gone fine, unless there were a natural disaster or they decided to perform some weird experiments on him. It went just as I expected–they did their little tests, asked their little questions, and Elvis turned the lights on and off and open and shut the doors repeatedly. They found him eligible for services and referred him for further testing regarding the autism question, though autism spectrum disorder was their unofficial diagnosis. It’s interesting to me how one can go into these meetings knowing exactly what’s going to happen, expecting only to receive confirmation of the obvious, and then come out realizing that one was actually hoping all this time for a different outcome. That never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, the ball is in someone else’s court at the moment. I don’t anticipate being contacted about services or IFSP meetings until well after school starts.
Speaking of which, I think I’m the only non-homeschooling parent on earth who dreads the start of school. I’m not at all prepared for it. On the plus side, Princess Zurg’s counselor informed us that she supports keeping PZ in the mainstream classroom. Nice to know we’re not the only ones who think she belongs there. She also suggested that we consider drug therapy. We didn’t want to go there, but then, who does? No one does. But I’m at the point where I’m willing to consider it. Perhaps even seriously consider it. But then, I’m also at the point where I’m seriously considering the gluten-free/casein-free diet. I can’t believe I just typed that. One should not confuse “seriously considering” with “enthusiastically considering.” Frankly, I’m not at all sure I can stick it out past the first day and a half, let alone the three to nine months it takes to figure out if the diet is helping or not. Theoretically, anything that results in a substantial amelioration of autistic behaviors should be worth trying, and if I were any kind of parent I would consider a severely restricted diet a small price to pay. It’s just not the same as, say, a food allergy. If my kid were allergic to peanuts, I would find out pretty darn quickly, and the next course of action would be obvious: stop feeding your child peanuts or he’ll go into anaphylactic shock. QED. This business of removing 3/4 of the recognizable food objects from my kid’s diet on the off-chance that it might result in a less-autistic child–well, it sounds like a pretty miserable and time-consuming experiment. Totally worth it if it works, but painful either way and especially so if it does not work. Six months from now I don’t want to be screaming, “We gave up cheese for this???”
It’s telling that half of the web sites devoted to this diet opt to list the foods one is actually permitted to eat when going GF/CF, rather than attempt to list every food that is forbidden. I’m not the sure the internet is big enough for that.
I can appreciate other people’s success stories, but a parent from the Asperger’s support group in Eugene described the diet this way: the take-home message is, essentially, “Here’s one more thing you’re not doing to help your child.” I love my step-mother, but I’ve deliberately avoided talking with her this week because I can’t handle her earnest speeches about how we need to do something with my kids before it is too late. She isn’t trying to make me feel bad; she’s trying to be helpful. She does this because she cares. I understand that she cares, but when she keeps asking me about what I’m doing and what I’m going to do now, I can’t help but infer that she thinks she cares more than I do. She doesn’t. I’m tired of feeling like I need to apologize for the fact that I haven’t solved the problem. I’ve also been informed by one source or another that I’m not doing enough to help myself–that I should be finding people to help with childcare and housekeeping, etc.–and that I should be researching therapies and educational alternatives. “It’s on my list,” I say. It’s all on my list, along with the laundry, the forty-seven cups of juice, the shower stalls, and the bill-paying. It’s not that there isn’t enough time in the day to do all these things. It’s that there’s not currently enough room in my brain to think all these thoughts.
Tomorrow is Elvis’s appointment with the Early Intervention folks. I’ve been looking forward to this appointment because something deep inside me believes it will be the beginning of the end of my struggle with this child. I know, since common sense and my experience with Princess Zurg tell me, that this is only true in the most technical sense. All personal struggles come to an end eventually, but not usually on my time-table. It is the largely-suppressed-but-still-kicking optimist inside that keeps thinking the light at the end of the tunnel must be coming up any second now. I want to see the light very, very badly. I almost don’t care if I never actually get there. Just to glimpse it from a distance is enough. I can easily use my imagination for the rest.
I got my first scare when he was six months old and still wasn’t reaching for objects. After a few months of physical therapy, he and I seemed to be enjoying the life of a perfectly typical child and his formerly over-paranoid mother. Good times, good times. He was saying words by 12 months, using simple sentences by 18 months, looking me in the eye and engaging me in all manner of social play. I don’t remember when it changed. One day my husband was expressing concern about Elvis being so single-minded and obsessive and I was telling him he was paranoid–hey, I know paranoid, I was there, remember?–and one of those days after that we had switched places. I know when my husband starts talking about how worried he’s not, it’s time for me to start worrying. We complement each other well that way.
I don’t remember when it started or how fast it went. All I know is that he used to play games and sing songs and answer questions and say “I love you.” I can’t stand the thought that I’ve lost that little boy. I can’t think it because I can’t stand it.
When I was about six years old, I had an older friend named Tori, who was eight. I don’t know how we came to be friends. I reckon our mothers knew each other, though I have no recollection of our mothers spending time together. I used to go to Tori’s house after school, and we listened to 45’s on her record player. She had “One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People-Eater” and “Itsy Witsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini.” Sometimes Tori and I would go play cards with her neighbor, whose name I don’t remember, but I think of him as “Roy” because to me he looked a lot like Roy on Emergency!, only with a mustache. I don’t know how old he was–being only six years old myself, my judgment of age was not to be trusted–but he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He had a roommate whose name I can’t remember either because he wasn’t home very often. At the moment I’m picturing him as Rupert Everett because I will enjoy the story better that way.
Anyway, Tori and I would play cards with Roy, usually Crazy 8’s. He tried to teach us how to play Hearts, but it ended up being a lot like Crazy 8’s, and in retrospect I’m not sure if Roy himself knew what Hearts was. He also showed us some card tricks. He referred to the suit of clubs as “puppyfeet,” which at the time I thought was very clever. I told my mom about that one. She thought it was cute. In our family we called clubs “puppyfeet” for many years after that. Anyway, one day I was over at Tori’s, and she said that a) Rupert Everett had moved out of Roy’s house, and Roy had a new roommate, and b) she was not allowed to play at Roy’s house anymore. And that was that.
When I was much older–probably a young adult–I was remembering this situation with Roy, and I realized the full implications of Tori not being allowed to play at his house anymore. Of course, I have no way of knowing what really happened, but I was still astonished, in retrospect, that at six I was playing cards with a grown man in his house with no other adult present and my mom was apparently cool with it. So I asked her, “Mom, do you remember when I used to play cards with that man who called clubs ‘puppyfeet’?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “The young gay man.”
Well, despite all the sudden realizations I was having, it had never occurred to me until that moment that Roy must have been gay. Of course he was gay. And that may have been why my mother and Tori’s mother saw no harm in me being at his house. It’s statistically improbable that a gay man would molest little girls–but statistical improbability in no way removes risk, and I can’t imagine any parent in this day and age allowing their little girls to play cards alone with a grown man, gay or otherwise, in his house. Because parents in this day and age don’t let their little kids do much of anything by themselves. The specter of kidnappers and child molesters is everywhere.
Several years ago Ann Landers ran a letter from someone who was distressed about woman bringing her 8-year-old son in the ladies’ room with her. I thought to myself, “That poor boy. Probably no one wants him in the ladies’ room less than he does.” Other people, however, wrote in and said only an idiot would allow an eight-year-old boy to use the men’s room by himself. Child molesters love hanging out in men’s rooms, and didn’t that woman know that? At the time I was childless and thought chaperoning your eight-year-old in the bathroom was overprotective to the point of mental illness. Recently I just started letting my five-year-old use the men’s room by himself, and I can’t help wondering what other people must think of me. I really don’t worry about child molesters. I worry about people thinking I’m a negligent parent.
We have a park just a few feet away from our house. There’s our house, the street corner, the street, the next street corner, and there’s the park. I feel like Princess Zurg should be able to go to that park by herself now. I know that thirty years ago, my mother let me go to playgrounds at least that far away. I walked to kindergarten by myself. My younger sister and I walked to the neighborhood convenience store with our friends on a regular basis. Everyone’s mother would let them do that much. But I can’t think of any mother I know who would allow their younger-than-ten (or twelve) child that much personal autonomy. It just seems too risky, when you consider what is possible. Probability counts for nothing in the world of What Is Possible.
About twelve years ago, my sister’s oldest child was molested by a teenage girl who lived in their apartment complex. My niece was two or three at the time. When my sister confronted the girl about what she’d done, her response was, “Where were you? Where were you when she was asking for her mommy?” In other words, it was my sister’s fault for letting her daughter out of her sight. I don’t know how it came to pass that my niece was out of my sister’s supervision and in the company of this girl, but talk about your statistical improbability. It’s possible that my sister should have been more careful. But stuff happens. I think if you, as a parent, do not have any close calls, you are either extremely lucky or you are keeping your child in a rubber room. Unfortunately, sometimes we miss the close call and fall into the territory of What Is Possible. And when that happens, you can’t help blaming yourself. And we can’t help blaming other parents when it happens to their children because as long as it’s the parent’s fault, we still have some measure of control over what happens to our children. There is no Possible in that safe, imaginary world.
It’s such a fine line between protecting your kids and protecting them too much. My kids know which parts of their bodies are private and which strangers are safe–or rather, safer–to approach for help. They know there are bad people out there who hurt other people, even kids. I want them to be safe, but I also want to keep them innocent for as long as I can. I’m sad knowing that they won’t experience the freedom that I had as a child. That freedom came with a lot of risks, though. I was lucky. Most of my generation was lucky. How much paranoia is healthy? I don’t know. But when you put paranoia up against risk, paranoia usually wins. Except when chance trumps them all.
To talk science education and see the sweet banner Scott designed for my husband’s site, click here. For duller graphic design and no mention of algebra, stay on the current page.
Yesterday was Princess Zurg’s annual IEP review, and it went about the same as it always does. Sugar Daddy and I sit at a table with about half a dozen educators and spend roughly 65 minutes going over crap we already know regarding our daughter’s behavior and academic progress at school; then we spend the next 15 minutes wringing our hands over what to do with her next year. Total number of useful minutes in this meeting: 2Part of the problem is that none of the other members of the team will say what they mean. The occupational therapist spent about seven minutes trying to say that she didn’t think PZ needed occupational therapy without actually having to say that. She didn’t want to say it. I could tell she didn’t want to say it. She was trying to get someone else to say it without actually saying it, until everyone finally understood what was being said without it actually being said. Several times during this back-and-forth exchange with the other educators in the room, I just wanted to jump up and say, “Enough! She doesn’t need occupational therapy! Just cut the occupational therapy already! I can’t stand it anymore! Aughhhhhhh!”Of course I didn’t do that, because I have my dignity. Actually, I don’t have my dignity. I was just really sleepy. (Too much Veronica Mars again.) And I know from sad experience that overly direct communication with these people can backfire. If you call them on what they’re trying-to-say-without-actually-saying-it too early or in too straightforward a manner, they will immediately start backpedaling and try to deny that they were in fact saying the thing they were trying to say without saying it. That’s their way of saying, “You may have gotten my point, but you didn’t phrase it in the proper form, so it doesn’t count. Let’s start over.”
Part of this is cultural. Generally, I don’t like to say things like this, but I’ll say it anyway because it’s what I mean even if it isn’t the way I’d like to say it. All of these educators are women, and women are notorious for beating around the bush in misguided attempts to spare other people’s feelings. During these meetings I frankly feel sorry for my husband, who in addition to being male is also used to working in an environment where people don’t have time to be considerate of other people’s feelings because time is money and so they just say what they mean and say it in the most efficient way possible, even if it’s rude and/or cruel. If it’s torture for me to sit there listening to people trying not to offend me with facts that are patently non-offensive, I can only imagine how nuts it must drive him. Actually, I think SD is so un-used to this form of conversing that he spends more time being confused than frustrated. The school principal wasn’t at yesterday’s meeting, but when he does come he tends to just sit there and not say anything. I think he figures that someone in the room has to be quiet and it may as well be him.
I expressed my frustration over this inefficient meeting style to SD last night, and he pointed out that the two of us are, technically, in the driver’s seat, and if we walked into the meeting and said we wanted PZ’s instructional aide to show up to work everyday with pasties, they would still not be able to come right out and say no. (Sorry, but that is what he said. Just be grateful you don’t know PZ’s instructional aide and are thus spared the specific mental image I shall be forever burdened with.) I wish there were some sort of waiver I could sign, swearing that I would not get offended or sue them because of something they said in a meeting. I don’t appreciate being treated like the neurotic parent. I am the neurotic parent, but that’s none of their business. I don’t appreciate being treated like the neurotic parent who’s going to throw a tantrum or call my lawyer the minute one of these ladies says something undiplomatic. I’m like Tom Cruise cross-examining Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. I can handle the truth, people. Honestly, I can.
I was hoping that after all the leaps forward PZ has made this year, this might be the first IEP meeting where we didn’t have to talk about “alternative placement.” Unfortunately, PZ decided to regress back into her psychostudent role a couple weeks ago, and that reminded everybody that although she is doing twice as well this year as last, she’s still only doing half as well as they’d like her to. Alternative placement was very much back on the table yesterday, although it didn’t come up until the very end. I knew it was coming. I was in denial before the meeting started, but when you sit through 55 minutes of people rehashing your child’s shortcomings, you know what they’re gearing up for. That’s how you prepare a parent to hear the words, “Your child doesn’t belong here,” even though you’re not planning to say those words.
I have naught against the folks at my daughter’s school (other than their infernal tip-toeing). I think they’re doing the best they know how to do. They’re between a rock and a hard place, trying to accommodate my child’s needs without compromising the other children’s educations. I’m between a rock and a hard place, too. I know my daughter doesn’t belong where she is. But I know equally well that she doesn’t belong where they want to send her. I don’t know where she belongs.
My husband likes to take the “wait and see” approach because he’s an optimist. Maybe because he’s a scientist, he has a higher tolerance for failed experiments. I take the wait-and-see approach by default because I am out of ideas. Maybe because I’m a pessimist, I can’t see my way forward. That’s probably why, even though I appreciate the school’s dilemma, I can’t be too sensitive to it. I’ve been looking for a way to make this work for the last eight years.
Stolen from DiniHJ:
Your type is: INFJ —The “Know Thyself” Mother
“I believe the joy of motherhood is self-discovery—for them and for me.”
- Sensitive and family-focused, the INFJ mother looks for and encourages the unique potential of each child. Self-knowledge may be her byword. Her aim is to help each child develop a sense of identity and cultivate personal growth. In fact, she may value the mothering experience as a catalyst to her own personal growth and self-knowledge.
- The INFJ mother spends time observing and understanding each child. She is drawn to intimate conversations and seeks a free exchange of feelings and thoughts.
- Sympathetic and accommodating, the INFJ mother strives to meet the important yet sometimes conflicting needs of each family member in harmonious and creative ways
- She is conscientious and intense as well. Probably no one takes life and child-raising more seriously than the INFJ. She approaches mothering as a profession requiring her best self.
If you want to have children someday, do not say, "When I have children, I will never [fill in the blank]." Do not say, "I will never," because as soon as you say, "I will never," you all but guarantee that
you will
you will
you will.
So I'm in church today listening to the Mother's Day talks. Two teenagers gave lovely tributes to their mothers. The non-teenage children got up in front of the congregation and sang lovely songs for their mothers. Well, my Princess Zurg declined; she doesn't care for mother songs. Mister Bubby went up and stuck his fingers in his mouth for the duration of the performance; he looked cute, anyway. After the music, Brother M began his Mother's Day discourse. After opening with an ill-considered joke about Adam and Eve, he went on to give the usual Mother's Day spiel about how righteous and awesome mothers are, and he ended by telling all us ladies how much we're appreciated and that the men are all striving to be our equals. That's when Sugar Daddy leaned over to me and said:
"I've always considered myself to be the better half of this relationship. Actually, more like the better two-thirds."
And then:
"Aren't you glad you married a jerk?"
Yes, darling. Every day.
And then it was time to receive our Mother's Day gifts. I'm happy to report that this year it was not a flower or a plant of some kind. I have never understood the practice of giving mothers plants for Mother's Day. Yes, exactly what I wanted: responsibility for yet another living thing. I've long tried to decline this type of gift because I produce enough garbage around my house without adding a dead plant to the list, but I guess that's rude, so I always end up taking the stupid thing home and killing it anyway. Then a couple weeks later it's Father's Day and all the dads at church get cookies.
"Now you be sure to water that cookie and give it plenty of sunlight," I tell the brethren. "Try talking to it. I hear that helps, too." None of them ever understands what I'm talking about.
Well, it doesn't matter because this year we got brownies. They were good.
Q. Why do Mormon women stop having children after 35?
A. Because 36 is just too many.
At your six-week post-partum checkup, they always ask you what form of birth control you're going to use. When I tell my practitioner that I plan on using the same non-hormonal contraception I've used since the birth of my first child, I sense a marked lack of confidence on her part. She reminds me that I must be sure to use this form of contraception every single time I have sex. Yes, I assure her, I know how this particular form of contraception works. I do not play Russian Roulette with my ovaries.
"Oh, Mad, I know you don't, but you know, accidents do happen."
"I don't have those kinds of accidents."
"Well, people make mistakes."
"I don't make those kinds of mistakes."
Indeed, when I hear about a woman having children less than a year apart, I can only ask someone to please explain how this is done–because, my dears, I do not know. A few months ago I was talking on this subject with, of all people, my dental hygienist, and she mentioned a former colleague of hers who'd had children nine-and-a-half months apart.
"I don't understand how that's accomplished," I said.
"Well, she'd had her tubes tied," my hygienist explained, "only she didn't have it done right after the birth. She had it done two weeks later. And by the time she went to her six-week checkup, she was already pregnant."
"I still don't know how that's accomplished," I said.
My hygienist paused, turned to see if anyone was within hearing distance and said, "To tell you the truth, neither do I."
Really, ladies, if you're crazy enough to be engaging in procreative activities less than two weeks after pushing a human being out down there, I don't know how to begin to lecture you on contraception. Nothing, apparently, will teach you.
When I had the six-week contraception talk with my midwife in January, she told me she'd see me in a year for my next Pap test–and maybe again for my next pregnancy? I told her, no offense, but I hope not.
"I feel comfortable closing the door on this chapter of my life," I said. "I'm not going to lock the door. But I am going to shut it. Firmly."
A few weeks later I was feeling crappy, for some reason, and I said to my husband, "If I didn't know better, I'd think I was pregnant."
"Maybe you are pregnant. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"It would be horrifying."
"Why would it be horrifying? Don't you like cute little babies?"
"I already have a cute little baby. I don't need another cute little baby. If I had another cute little baby, of course I would love it, because it would already be here, but since it's not here, I don't love it, and it is horrifying."
After that conversation, I entertained for the briefest of moments the possibility that I was, somehow, pregnant. (Though I didn't know how that would have been accomplished because I don't have those kinds of accidents.) In that briefest of moments I thought that shutting the door firmly, slamming it even, was not enough for me. I was ready to shut it, lock it, bolt it, and move some heavy furniture in front of it. Before I started hyperventilating, though, I reminded myself that I don't know how to have babies less than a year apart. God bless me, I do not know.
After I had Elvis, my midwife wanted to write me a prescription for emergency contraception, as backup just in case I had one of those accidents I don't know how to have. I don't have a big ethical problem with emergency contraception, but I've never thought it would be necessary in the normal course of my life. If I should accidentally get pregnant, what's the worst that would happen? I'd have another baby. Sure, I'd be upset at first, but I'm married, I'm financially secure (not that financial insecurity has ever stopped me before), and I like babies, so I'd get over it relatively quickly, I think.
But now that I'm officially not going to have another baby, I've decided to use a backup contraceptive–one so powerful it can't possibly fail. I'm holding on to my maternity and baby clothes, because I figure as long as they're taking up unwarranted space in my garage, I will never need to use them. On the other hand, the minute I get rid of them, I am bound to get pregnant, regardless of what other precautions I have taken. Call it Murphy's Miracle. I don't intend to let it happen to me.
The other day I was hanging up the children's coats in the hall closet and noticing how small Girlfriend's jacket looked next to the other kids', and I thought with great poignancy that someday there would be no jacket that size hanging in my hall closet. But that small moment of mourning was followed by the realization that soon I would be entering a different phase of life, one that was exciting and as potentially joy-filled as the Land of Little Coats. I resolved to cherish the pages that are left in this chapter of my life, even as I closed the door. Gently. (But with firmness.)
Girlfriend will not take her nap today. Girlfriend did not take her nap yesterday. It had better be because Girlfriend has a stuffy nose and not because she's decided to turn into Evil Baby Who's Too Good For Naps.
Speaking of evil babies, I took Mister Bubby to a birthday party on Saturday. I'm not sure why I do this because the kid will not engage socially in these settings. He ends up clinging to my leg the entire time. He wouldn't even go hit the pinata with a stick. Come on, Mister Bubby! It's a pinata in the shape of a freaking car! You get to beat it up! With a stick! What kind of man are you turning out to be? No, no pinata. Stay by Mommy's leg. Safer here.
He did agree to eat some cake and ice cream, as long as I stood by the table he was at. (Not enough chairs. Did I mention I was nursing the baby at the time? On the plus side, the cake was pretty good. Had a car on it.)
A question for all of you all: It has been my general observation and experience that at birthday parties for Mormon kids, the parents drop their kids off, go do some shopping or whatever, and pick the kids up when the party is over. (Unless it's a 2-year-old birthday party, in which case we all probably ought to leave our 2-year-olds there, just to punish the crazy person who throws a birthday party for a 2-year-old–but we don't.) At the No-Mo parties I've been to, the parents always stay. It seems the parents are expected to stay. (It's hard to say for sure, because I've never seen a parent try to leave.)
When I took Mister Bubby to his last birthday party, the (Mormon) mother throwing the party coaxed my reluctant son into the room o' festivities and said I could pick him up at 1. Which I did. When MB had his own birthday party, one of the attendees was reluctant to leave his mommy–like he ran after her as she was pulling out of the driveway–but I coaxed him back into the house and we went on our merry birthday party way. I think if all the parents of these children had stayed, it would have seriously cramped my party style. That's so many people! So many big people. It would make me nervous. Go shopping, grown-ups! There's not enough cake for all of you.
But we had a relatively small party. I think there were only six children or so. At this party we went to on Saturday, there were at least a dozen friends o' the birthday boy–plus parents, plus siblings. There were so many people! As annoying as it was at times, I understood why Mister Bubby preferred to stay near me. I'm uncomfortable mixing in large groups, too.
What do you think is appropriate party etiquette, as it regards dropping your child off or staying (and bringing along all your other kids while you're at it)?
In other news, Elvis saw me eating peanut butter with a spoon the other day, and now that's what he wants to do, too. That kid can put away the peanut butter. We must be related.
All day, every day, this is what I say:
"Elvis, cut it out."
"Elvis, stop doing that."
"Elvis, don't touch that."
"No touching!"
"Get back here!"
"Don't scream at me."
"Don't make me chase you!"
"No touching!"
"That's Mommy's. Not for boys."
"This belongs to Mommy. No touching."
"That's my face, Elvis. Stop it."
"Leave that alone."
"Stop it. You're hurting me."
"Not for boys."
"No touching!"
"I can't understand you. Use words. Words!"
"What's your damage?"
"No touching!"
"No touching!"
"No touching!"
If you think I'm the one with the problem, you're right.
We are so beyond the point of child-proofing in this house. Child-proofing is for keeping children safe. I need something to protect the rest of us, namely myself.
This is all to be expected, as my mother-in-law so helpfully reminded me every five minutes while she was here. Elvis has been displaced as the baby of the family, and he's out for vengeance. Or something. So whatever. He's two. He's also going to kill me. Don't get me wrong. It'll probably be an accident. And he'll probably look cute while he's doing it. But I'll be dead, and then what?
His new thing is to run up to me and, regardless of what I happen to be doing at the time, grab my face, yank it toward him, and force me to kiss him very, very hard. Which would be more endearing if I weren't afraid that he's going to break my nose. If I couldn't actually feel the bones in my nose starting to snap, I mean. And if he didn't have a really bad cold. Yeech.
You always hurt the ones you love.
In other news, my oldest child has informed me that she will stop wetting the bed when she is ten. No, I misspeak. She told me she will start trying to stop wetting the bed when she is ten. I wouldn't want to misrepresent her intentions.
Excuse me, I have to kiss my son now. Ouch.
You know what irritates the living snot out of me? (As opposed to the dead snot, which has irritants of its own.) When I go places alone, and people ask, "Where's your baby?" I think I can honestly say that I have never asked a woman this question. I've been guilty of a lot of irritating practices in my time–asking a pregnant woman when she's due or how she's feeling, for example–but I have never asked a mother where her baby was. Never, not one time. You see, when I notice a mother sans her baby, my first assumption is that said baby is with his or her father–or, alternatively, some other responsible adult. Certainly I have never been confused as to where the baby might possibly be if he is not with his mommy. I probably have never even been curious.
Yet everywhere I go, people keep asking where my baby is. It happens when my husband and I go out alone, too. "Where are your kids?" everyone asks. We usually say something along the lines of "Oh, we just left them at home in front of the TV," or "Crap! I knew we were forgetting something, honey!" Because really, people, where do you think my kids are? In the kennel? They're with a babysitter. Yes, a
ba·by·sit·ter also ba·by-sit·ter (b  b -s t  r)n.
|
You see, they're common enough that they have their own dictionary entry. But if you want to know where I found mine, you can forget it. She's mine, you hear me? Mine!
More stuff I never said before I had kids
"We don't play in the oven."
"Don't shred your skin with the cheese grater."
Stuff I didn't say before having four kids
"This is a car of peace. We don't fight in the car. Fight when you get home."
On the topic of religion and people's wacko beliefs, I was reading in the Newsweek a while back that HBO or somebody is going to have a new series about a polygamist family in Utah. To which I say, it's about freaking time somebody thought of this. Heck, I'd watch that show. If, you know, it was done tastefully, of course. Heh. But I digress. No, really, the show is about this cat with three wives (all of whom are super-hot, of course) and all the interpersonal drama such relationships necessarily entail.
And no, the family isn't Mormon–SINCE WE ALL KNOW MORMONS AREN'T POLYGAMISTS ANYMORE (wink wink)–but an "unspecified offshoot" thereof. Which is all well and good, except that our polygamous protagonist is supposedly the owner of a chain of home-improvement stores. I guess the producers were thinking, hey, he needs a lot of cash if he's going to keep three wives (and the ensuing children). The problem is that polygamists in Utah don't generally own things like stores. They don't generally have jobs. They mostly live off the state. And they do not look like Bill Paxton or Jeanne Tripplehorn. REAL Mormons look like that, though. I actually am a dead ringer for Jeanne Tripplehorn. But you knew that already.
I highly recommend the movie Sugar Daddy and I saw this weekend, End of the Spear. If any of you have seen this movie, I'd like to know what you thought of it.
In other news, I've made two discoveries this week:
1) My waist has returned. In a sense, anyway. I mean, you can discern a waist on me again, though it's not the waist I had pre-baby. Actually, what I think has happened is that the fat that was filling out my waist before has simply migrated to my hips. Gone south for the winter, as it were. Still, I'm glad to have a waist again, even if it isn't the one I know and love. Since I am still in the early weeks of nursing, this means I have an hourglass figure for perhaps the first time in my life. Bad news is it's kind of a funky-looking hourglass, but hey, these are the days of our lives.
2) I can wear my old jeans again. I just don't want to. And I suspect no one else wants me to either. When even my husband is encouraging me to put my maternity pants back on, I know I'm going to have to actually do my Denise Austin Bounce Back After Baby Workout instead of just, you know, thinking about it.
Which brings me to my current dilemma: Do I buy SD a Playstation so I can get back in shape via Dance Dance Revolution? Hmmmm. (SD kicks my butt at this, by the way. When it comes to video games, he is nothing if not a Renaissance Man.)
SD: I was serious when I said if I get a raise this year, I'm buying myself an iPod.
Mad: That's fine.
SD: You can have two or three hundred dollars to buy something equally frivolous for yourself.
Mad: I'll just save mine and invest it.
SD: Invest this, chump.
When Sugar Daddy and I stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel last August and had dinner at its Tables of Content, we and three other couples played the game "Two Truths and a Lie." Each person tells two truths and one lie about himself and everyone else has to guess which is the lie. (Obviously spouses don't get to guess each other's lie.) Other people get to ask questions about your three statements to determine where you are lying; the rule is that you can lie all you want about the lie, but about the truths you must be completely truthful.
Since one of my truths was "I am pregnant with my fourth child," somebody asked me, "Why did you have children?"
"Um…gosh, I don't know. … Um…it seemed like the thing to do?"
Yes, that's what I said. For the record, nobody guessed what my lie was ("I am an English teacher"), and most guessed incorrectly that there was no way I could be on my fourth kid (though they did believe I was pregnant–hmph) because I "seemed too relaxed." (What's not to be relaxed about? The kids were with a sitter and not with me!) It made me wonder, though, how many of them (all older couples, all with children of their own) would have had a ready answer for why they had children. It seems to me there are a lot of reasons why people don't have children–they don't feel ready to have children, they don't like children, they think they'll be bad parents, whatever–but the reasons for having children are pretty vague, especially when you consider the lengths to which some people go to have their own biological, DNA-sharing offspring. If you really just wanted someone to nurture and care for, you wouldn't, technically, have to spend tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars on infertility treatments, not to mention the time and the emotional energy on those procedures. I doubt that's an option I would have chosen myself, if I'd been faced with such a decision, but I understand why people do it. I just can't articulate it.
I myself can list a few compelling reasons why I should not have had children, or certainly should not have had four. For the first several years of our marriage, we didn't have enough money. We had kids anyway. (On purpose.) I had a severe, ongoing case of clinical depression. We had kids anyway. Our oldest daughter turned out to have special needs and required a great deal of our time and energy. We had more kids anyway. On paper we look like narcissistic fools. Having children is, to some extent, self-serving. It provides you with adorable little people who will love you despite your flaws and will hopefully grow up to care for you in your old age. There's a sense of satisfaction from raising good, happy human beings (though some parents take far too much credit for that than they personally deserve). But raising children is a lot of hard work. Just bringing them into the world is hard work. Taking care of their basic needs is hard work. Teaching them to be good, happy human beings is perhaps the hardest work of all. It certainly has the greatest potential for disappointment and heartache. Not to mention failure.
Just as I don't believe parents can take all the credit for their children turning out well, I don't believe parents should take all the blame for when their children turn out poorly. There's too much human free will floating around out here to lay the blame entirely at their feet (or the adulation entirely on their heads). But not deserving all the blame doesn't keep you from feeling that crushing sense of defeat, inadequacy and regret. You can't help but think that if you'd only made different decisions, things could have turned out better. Maybe you made bad decisions. Maybe your individual decisions had little to do with the eventual outcome. The thing is, you don't know. Usually, you can't know. But you take responsibility anyway because that's what parents do.
We don't want to see our children fail. We don't like seeing them struggle. We don't want to see them suffer. We're sorely tempted to smoothe the way for them, cushion their falls, and make everything all better somehow. Knowing that's impossible hurts. But knowing that even where it is possible, you must suppress that instinct for the child's own sake–that can be the most painful thing of all.
I've come to realize that the rearing of my older daughter has largely been an exercise in denial. Perhaps it's healthy denial. I keep hoping that eventually I will come upon some magical strategy for shaping her behavior or worldview so that I can stop worrying about what she's going to do in any given situation or how people are going to react to her. I think I can honestly say that I gave up being embarrassed by her failure to comply to social norms a long time ago. Not because I'm such an enlightened human being, but frankly, I got embarrassment fatigue. But along with embarrassment fatigue, I got all other kinds of fatigue. Mostly I have gotten tired of watching her struggle. It wears me out. And she's only seven. That scares me.
I have gotten better at not consciously worrying about the future, at taking things as they come. Better, but not good.
When Elvis was six months old he had some significant delays in motor development. He wouldn't reach for things and he wouldn't grasp things. After a few months of physical therapy, he was fine. Actually, he was climbing on top of the stove and tearing apart all our electronic equipment, but I've been over that already. But when I first discovered the problem, I got scared. Motor dyspraxia is common in children on the autism spectrum. I did not want another autistic child, even a high-functioning one. I could not watch that struggle more than once. So I was relieved when he made so much progress so quickly, and when he hit other developmental marks on time or early–especially ones that Princess Zurg had hit late or missed entirely during her early childhood.
Recently SD told me that he sometimes thinks Elvis might be on the autism spectrum, too, because he's so single-minded and he doesn't socially engage the same way Mister Bubby did at his age. "But Elvis does things PZ never did," I said. "He does that joint-attention thing. He makes eye contact. He can communicate wants." The fact is, it's too early to tell about Elvis, one way or the other. All children are different, and all autistic children are different. So I tell myself not to worry so much about the future, take things as they come. I try not to attach significance to the emerging characteristics and tendencies Elvis shares with his older sister. He's his own child. He'll have his own struggles. Each of them will. And I have to watch them all.
There's a friend I haven't spoken to in almost two years because I decided at a certain point that our relationship wasn't worth the effort I was putting into it. She lives across the river, but it may as well be another country. She called this morning because she needed to tell me that a mutual friend of ours has lost her three-year-old daughter. I just talked to the mutual friend on Monday, and I knew they were expecting this to happen. It was one of those situations where you just don't know what to hope for. The little girl was so sick, had always been sick, would always be sick, and release from her suffering would only be found in death, and that's not something I know how to pray for. I suppose that what small part of me dared to hope was hoping for a miracle. I remember hoping that way when my mother was dying–I hoped, but I knew it wasn't forthcoming. I had to make do with the peace of knowing that she was in a better place, as the cliche goes. It's one thing to lose a parent, but another thing entirely, I think, to lose a child. As a daughter and a mother, I wouldn't begin to compare the two.
The mother in this case was not in a position psychologically or emotionally to make this phone call, so she asked my other friend to do it–the one I haven't spoken to in two years because I decided I just didn't like her that much anymore. It was sort of an awkward conversation, initially, if only because there isn't a whole lot to say when someone dies. At one point she said, "I think I was out of sorts the last time I saw you. I'm sorry about that."
"Well," I said lamely, "we're all out of sorts sometimes."
"But I think I wasn't very nice. Actually, I know I was not nice. So I apologize."
I've forgotten how I responded because I can only remember having absolutely no idea how to respond. What could I say? The fact was, she hadn't been nice. That was why I never called her after that. But I was also thinking, how small and petty I have been, and it's only just now that I can see it. Would she ever have realized where she was in the wrong, if I hadn't given her the silent treatment