May 05, 2010 @ 03:12

Live music and a slight head injury! 

Tonight we went to see Bear’s orchestra concert at the high school auditorium.  While talking to another parent outside on the steps, Puppy decided to see if he could do a hand stand.  Classic parenting moment.  Can’t move fast enough to stop it.  He landed forehead down on the edge of a concrete step.  But he’s tough as nails, and hardly cried at all.  Very much like the shovel incident . . .  It looked like a fairly simple scrape. 

So we went in for the concert.  Which was incredible.  It amazes me every time I see Bear play.  He’s gotten this strange shyness about practicing at home.  He won’t practice in front of anyone.  When he’s practicing in his room with the door shut I’ll mute the television or hover in the hallway to listen, but haven’t gotten to really listen to him much at home in the last year.  So seeing him play is huge treat. 

By the time we came out of the auditorium, however, the scrape had become a lump.  Like this . . . 

By the time we were almost home it had almost doubled in size and was turning a pretty ominous blue around the edges.  Well, ominous to me anyway. So off to the ER we went.  Which was surprisingly full of angry people for a non-full moon night.  Including one person who alternated between yelling across the room at the intake staff and walking into the hall to call her bail bondsman.  No . . .  really . . .  Little man mostly just thought he was having an adventure. We made our own Wheel of Fortune wheel drawn on a notebook and made a spinner out of an ink pen and a hair barrette from the bottom of my purse. Amazing how good at the game he is. Cheaty McCheaterson. We played the rhyme game for which Puppy has declared me the ultimate champion for thinking of a rhyme to Bankrupt.  I’m telling you he’s totally into Wheel of Fortune right now.  

Three hours later we saw the doctor.  Pretty good turn around for an ER visit, I gotta say.  No signs of concussion.  I’m now staying awake for the night to make sure he doesn’t begin to vomit and to wake him every three hours.  Which, thankfully, now feels just like a precaution.  The lump is now back to the size it is in the picture here.  And all is well.  He’s gonna have an exciting story to tell at school tomorrow.  Lord help, I don’t want anymore exciting stories this month.  Pretty please . . . 

February 16, 2010 @ 22:03

Warning, this story is not particularly . . .  G rated?  It’s not too ugly, but . . .  well, you remember Ralphie and the Queen Mother of all swear words in A Christmas Story?  Yeah, it’s like that. 

Early Monday morning, Puppy came running into my room as I was folding laundry to tell me about a new magical creature he had just discovered in his Harry Potter game.  Now, Puppy has become a really great reader.  And frequently he reads a new word by sounding it out and just plows on through, not bothering to ask if he’s right about the new word or not.  That was the case here.  Super excited about his new acquisition he comes running into the room and is telling me, at about nintey words a minute that he has a new creature and it is a “Magical C#^T!”  Are you with me on what that word was that he was nearly shouting at me?  The creature was actually called a knut.  He transposed the N and the U.  Sound it out . . .  uh huh . . .  Now are you with me? 

Yeah. 

So we spent several minutes with me explaining very emphatically that he had read that word wrong and that he must never ever ever EVER say that wrong word again because it was a very bad word.  And that the word he had read was actually pronounced newt!  And we talked about how a K and an N together make the N sound just like in the word “know” and NEVER say that other word again.  And isn’t newt a funny sounding word and NEVER say that other word again.  And what an awesome new magical creature that magical knut was and NEVER say that other word again.  I felt fairly confident that I had made my point. 

Yeah. 

Flash forward several hours to our afternoon haircut appointment.  Puppy is in the chair getting his haircut and our stylist is a very nice mommy and he is talking ninety miles an hour about his DS games and Kirby and Mariokart and Harry Potter and without breaking stride, or even taking a breath I think, he says “And you must never say C#^T because that is a bad word!”

And then as I have an existential experience, become dizzy and learn the full meaning of the word apoplectic, he just keeps on talking.  And meanwhile every other person in the place, and there were at least half a dozen, freeze, look at me, and then die laughing.  I haven’t been that mortified in so long.  Probably not since my Dad “accidentally” taught Bear how to say “S#%T”. 

Yeah. 

All I can say is, thank god I get our hair cut in a place full of women that are moms and that have a good sense of humor. 

February 03, 2010 @ 10:15

Can you believe there is more snow in the forecast for us?  It has been so surreal driving around town with snow on rooftops and lingering snowmen that haven’t completely melted yet.  We just don’t get snow that lingers down South.  It’s beautiful.  Although, I gotta admit I’m getting a little tired of the mushy yard . . . 

The boys had a blast last week with the snowdays.  So I think I could get over mushy yard for more of this . . . 

The ambush . . . 

Doesn’t really look like a fair matchup does it? 

He didn’t seem to mind. 

Until Bear started making Bear-sized snowballs . . . 

And put one down Puppy’s hoodie . . . 

But mom knew just how to make it all better. 

October 08, 2009 @ 05:25

The boys will be spending Halloween away this year, it’s a daddy weekend.  So we did our Halloween fun last night.  Pumpkins all carved, they may collapse before the big night arrives, but so be it.  We’ll carve some more if the weather is uncooperative to our enthusiam.  So have you picked your costume yet?  I’ll be Cleopatra.  Soon as I find the right shoes.  Sounds like a Trixie project . . . 

September 09, 2009 @ 02:15

Puppy has transitioned beautifully to sleeping in his own bed.  The sleep walking and night terrors had lessened over the past year so we gave it a try.  Three weeks later, the only hiccup has been his bout with a fever virus during which snuggling with mom seems totally the right thing.  But here we are in the middle of week three and I’m four nights into a wicked bout of insomnia.  I may have slept all of 4 hours since Friday of last week.  This is not good.  Today at work I lost a bit of patience in a meeting.  I’ve got a couple of pressing deadlines this week and the meeting was for a fluff project and I just didn’t have the patience to nit pick over things that really don’t matter.  I found myself pushing decisions and cutting off banter in favor of let’s get this shit done.  Later in the day a woman who’s on the same committee told me she had never seen that side of me.  She is a simpering little thing in general and I know I was not openly rude or inappropriate, but still, it made me feel bad. 

What I want to do is go climb into bed with Puppy and snuggle under the Thomas comforter with him and not think about how grown up he’s getting.  He’s doing so well.  So well in fact, that I’m a bit at a loss right now as to what to do next.  I have felt like I’ve been on a roller coaster for so long.  A friend told me last week that parents of special needs children, to whatever degree their special needs may be, must put away long term planning the way most parents do.  Life becomes one day at a time.  I agree with that.  About four years ago, at the first stirrings of the thoughts that something was different with him, I began putting away those typical parenting plans.  Tee ball.  Family vacations.  What the first day of school would be like.  What kind of parent I was.  What kind of grown up I would send out to the world someday.  It’s amazing to me that anyone takes on the job of parent.  Surely if any of us really ever thought about it, we’d all say no thanks.  Here’s an entire human being that will be completely and utterly dependent on you.  Everything you say and do will shape them into the person that some day you will send out into the world.  Good luck.  Try not to make them a serial killer, k?  But that is all countered by things as simple and profound as the first time you feel them stir in your belly.  The first time you look into their eyes.  The way you feel when they fall over and give themselves a Klingon sized brow ridge while learning to pull up on the corner of the coffee table that you swore you would put the bumpers on last week.  It simultaneously makes you a god and an ant.  An ant under a boot when you make a mistake but oh, nothing compares to when you get a glimpse into their little heads that knocks you sideways.  Or when they take that first step.  Read their first word.  Develop a sense of humor.  Profound, all of it.  But it is also so easy, and such a mistake, to take those things for granted.  That those are all things that they WILL do.  But it’s really not a given at all. 

So when they tell you in no uncertain terms that for your child, it is NOT a given, just as soon as you’ve finished howling, you put your head down and you do the work.  One day at a time.  Three years ago we realized what was likely the name for Puppy’s differences.  I put my head down and did the work and then finally . . .  Two years ago we got the diagnosis.  I tackled it hard.  Did everything that we could, between the three of us, Bear and Puppy and I.  Although we don’t live in an isolated bubble.  Puppy’s got the best daddy ever, but the three of us, well, we all live on this little boat, every day.  So even though E’s the best, I don’t know if he’s ever felt as shaken by this whole process as I did.  Maybe I should ask . . . 

But as I took to heart the idea that early intervention is the key, I forgot about a lot of other things that we would have been doing.  No time for tee ball.  Head down, do the work.  One year ago he started school with his peers.  This summer he no longer qualified for any therapy, speech or occupational.  We took our first family vacation.  I began to question my choice at keeping him out of tee ball.  And this year, he’s so much like a typical child that I am now standing here wondering what to do with myself.  Suddenly I’ve got to lift my head and look around and regoup.  I know how to parent a typical child.  Bear is proof.  This week he informed me that he’s no longer saving his money to take the school trip to Europe (next summer and he’s nearly to the savings goal).  Instead he’s decided to keep on saving so that he and I can go together after his Senior year.  He thinks that will be more fun.  So I’m, by god, taking that as a big neon sign that I do not suck as a mom.  I swear that boy saves my life every day.  But since I’ve been so focused on learning how to parent an atypical child, to suddenly be standing and looking down at Puppy and seeing typical looking back up at me?  The deck is pitching beneath my feet.  Now I’ve got to figure out a place in the middle.  And I am going to need some time to figure out how to be . . .  normal. 

I know, of all the problems in the world to have.  And I am grateful.  Just for the time being, bewildered.  I’ve turned off my needs for the last three years.  What now?  I really want to think about real changes.  A whole new possibility for our futures. About how things I’d put on the shelf for myself, might be able to be taken down and considered again.  But maybe I’ll start small and just get a pedicure

August 28, 2009 @ 06:05

During my week of did breast cancer win the third time’s a charm game panic, I really did write a letter to Bear.  The last few days as my friends and family have been telling me how happy they are that I’m okay, in between unattractively snort laughing at the idiots that gave us the scare, I’ve been thinking.  Isn’t it a shame that I don’t gush more over my babies?  These are things that maybe should be said, even though I’m just fine.  So this is for Bear.  And the rest of you, as well. 

Swear to me, Bear, that no matter how frustrated you may get, that you will never give up on Puppy.  Things may get hard, sweet Bear.  But I can already see that man that you are going to be and I know that you are more than enough.  Know that I was hard on you because I know you are the kind of man that this world is aching for.  Good to the core and smart and funny and more amazing than I could ever take credit for making you myself.  Although sometimes in my head I do mentally puff up with pride for it.  Remember that Papa will always be your biggest fan.  That Mimi will love you even when she’s furious or even bewildered by you.  That Grandma needs you.  Especially now.  And remember that I love you beyond what I could have ever imagined was possible.  That I would have given up everything for you.  Just to make sure that you got what you needed.  And I’m sorry if it turns out that I cannot stay.  I never wanted to leave you or Puppy.  But you must promise that you won’t be angry, at me or at god or at the universe and whatever reasons made me have to go.  You have to keep going onto become the man that I already see shining through the edges of your very quickly fading boyhood.  When you were tiny, just days and weeks old, I would lay awake at night and watch your little chest rise and fall, terrified and awestruck by the miracle that was lying there in the crib.  You are still that same miracle.  I love you, Bear.  Forever. 

So . . .  What am I thinking right now?  ……….(for those of you who just got lost, Bear is answering Tacos)…………   Yes!!!  Hope they have tacos where I’m going.  Bet if I do, they’re fat free and tasty.  Love you baby.  Don’t forget to laugh at how silly we were.  And tell Rob you don’t wanna know about Barry White.  But that you do wanna know about Big Head Todd and how to be a man when it’s hard and what it means to love unconditionally.  He can tell you all about those important things.  Ask Nonnie to tell you about the importance of singing out loud in the car and how love isn’t always perfect, but that’s what is special about it, that it can survive not perfect.  Ask Sheila to tell you about how to make it work when it won’t.  And how to never give up.  Always go to Janet for good advice, on books and life.  Ask Grandma to tell you what Papa was like before he became a hippie.  Ask Papa to tell you about Grandma when she was a gloriously gorgeous girl with her whole life ahead of her.  Never forget that you’re named for a man who survived the Bataan Death March who loved the sweetest woman who ever lived.  And another man who left us too soon, but marked our lives so that we would never forget.  You’ve got that power too, baby boy.  You will mark the lives of the people you come in contact with, whether it’s for years or for seconds.  Remember this when you want to lose your patience in the drive through.  And when you want to lose your patience with the one who you choose to spend your life with.  And name your babies for people who are special and who mean something to you.  Always remember to put candy canes in the stockings, even if nobody eats them.  And never forget that you were the person who taught me how to love everything that was ever worth loving in this life. 

I could not be prouder of you.  I swear it, if there is such a thing as a ticket to heaven, sweet Bear, you are mine. 

Much love to you all.  Hope your weekend is grand. 

August 23, 2009 @ 21:14

Things just keep changing.  Every day I wake up and it’s like a new day at a new school.  Life school.  The boys are now back in school as well.  Bear to the high school campus, all six feet tall of him, now a freshman.  With a sophomore girlfriend.  Yikes.  I took them on a date a couple weeks ago.  Hadn’t actually seen her since last school year.  She’s adorable.  But over the summer . . .  she blossomed.  She’s now this beautiful young woman.  I was a bit . . .  oh, hell with it, I was blindsided.  I dropped them off at the theater and a couple hours later picked them up and dropped her at home.  As I stopped in her driveway, she opened the door and got out, Bear in the front seat by me made no move to exit and walk her to the door.  Apparently my brain fell out of my head at exactly that moment because I poked him in the leg and mouthed “walk her to the door” at him.  He jumped out.  It hadn’t occured to him and that’s okay, because he took the cue quickly.  But as he walked away down the sidewalk with this beautiful girl it occured to me that I had just become my son’s wingman.  Best. Mom. Ever.  Saint’s preserve us. 

Puppy is now in first grade.  One week down and all is well.  Over the summer he didn’t have any speech or occupational therapy.  Yeah.  None.  I had begun calling in February to get him on the schedule for the summer.  Don’t even ask about how pleasant that process was.  During the school year his therapy takes place at school.  We have a phenomenal school district here.  It’s why I bought the house here, for the schools.  Okay also for the hardwood floors and the fabulous stained glass built in china cabinet, I’ll admit.  Anyway . . .  during summer, it’s up to us to stay on track.  It’s hard to do that.  Not one of the three different groups we work with, the school district, the Dennis Developmental Center (I highly recommend them) or the clinic here in town that provides care and therapies for special needs kids utilize one another’s evals to any great degree.  They will glance over them, yes, if you provide them, but all evaluate for themselves.  This made sense to me, until this summer.  The Developmental Center is where Puppy recieves his primary care from the Autism specialists, the whole team of doctors and therapists who know him inside and out after the two years we’ve been seeing them.  The therapist at his elementary school knows him just as well, if not better, after being in his life every day for his kindergarten year.  The summer program however, has only seen him during the summer before he started kindergarten.  So they don’t really know him like we do.  I think of the staff at school and the Developmental Center and myself to be a team.  I was ready with recommendations for speech and occupational therapy from both.  But when, after several botched attempts to get him back in the door for the summer program, they didn’t even look at his other evals or their recommendations, I was so disappointed.  They took him back and tested him for one hour.  Yes.  ONE.  And a few days later I got a cold clinical letter in the mail telling me that he did not qualify for the therapies.  His skills tested (in that one hour) in the typical range.  Maybe I’m being ridiculous.  Maybe I should be doing a crazy happy dance that he did not qualify.  But I just didn’t think that the one hour they devoted to that decision could possibly be accurate.  So, we had a summer back at our old daycare center.  Thankfully staffed with qualified teachers and with a structured environment only barely relaxed during the summer months.  Relaxed being defined as regular curriculum interspersed with the awesomeness of a weekly super soaker day and other such appropriate activities.  Oh, to be six again, yah?  I think a great deal of my work stress could be absolutely relieved by a weekly super soaker day.  Don’t you? 

So now he’s on to first grade, with no real prep.  We’ve spent so much focus and energy on the prep for the last two years that it has left me feeling pretty at sea.  Maybe it’s time to get over that and get happy.  Relax for a bit and think about something different.  That’s a change I could totally live with.  Just as soon as I figure out how. 

May 22, 2009 @ 16:02

 . . . that it was a miracle I lived past the tween years.  Did you think I was gonna say “there’d be days like these”?  The medication problem with Puppy has had to be pushed back.  I took him to school on Wednesday morning, un-medicated, and dropped him off.  As I walked away, he was perched in his little chair like a bird, hovering over his little feet, ready to fly.  By eleven that morning the teacher had exhausted all efforts.  He was spinning out of control.  I went home and picked up his medicine and went to school.  When I got there he was sitting at a table by himself in the cafeteria, away from his class, eating his lunch alone.  He was rocking from side to side and eating nothing but his popsicle.  I sat with him and made him eat his string cheese and the entire container of yogurt I had brought for the medicine.  Then walked him back to class a few minutes behind the rest of his classmates.  We are now going to wait until school lets out for the summer before taking him completely off and getting him back to baseline.  I don’t have enough vacation time for a mid-day pick up for the rest of the school year. 

Also, today, Bear got in major trouble at school.  He ratted on some girls who were smoking in the bathroom on a fieldtrip.  Those girls in turn riled up their friends until it degenerated into threats, some of ass kickings, some of death.  This is not funny.  This is never funny.  Instead of walking away, Bear mouthed off back at them.  He is now grounded until the end of time. One, because he was way out of line for saying what he said, and two, because you never know when some mouthy kid is actually not just mouthy, but unparented and crazy. 

And, we are not going canoeing for the holiday weekend.  Mother Nature is a hag and has given us a entire week of perfect, blissful, amazing weather, but Friday afternoon arrives and so do the clouds.  The rest of the weekend and all of next week, more thunderstorms.  Seriously?  enough is enough.  And not just for the fun of canoeing.  This weather is crazy.  And a little bit scary. 

And that’s all the whining I’ve got for now.  I have to go give Bear his next punishment chore.  Thinking maybe toothbrush cleaning the showers tile grout . . . 

May 06, 2009 @ 20:43

So our plans for the weekend were to try to get some yard work done if the weather holds out, go visit Grandma for Mother’s Day, get Puppy his first ever haircut in a salon.  Now his Mimi is a stylist, so he’s had real haircuts before, but they live an hour away.  So I figured I really ought to get my self on board with letting a stranger near him with scissors.  I started preparing him for it last week.  Just talking about it casually here and there.  Apparently I did too good a job of it, because he felt so inspired that last night on a routine trip to the potty (I thought), he climbed up on the counter and found a pair of scissors that I keep in a hanging basket in the bathroom and got started on it himself.  Grrr . . .  So his lovely long hair isn’t anymore.  I had to take him for an emergency cut this afternoon.  I had straightened it up as much as I could before school this morning, but he just looked like he ought to be sitting on some rustic porch in overalls and no shoes and no shirt with dirty feet and a dirty face.  I should’ve taken some pics of it to share, but didn’t think of it in time.  I took him out to a quick, walk-ins-welcome place and just got it over with.  He did really well.  Sat somewhat still for it.  Wasn’t too freaked out by the noise.  Although when a nearby stylist broke out the clippers he did get nervous.  But the girl cutting his hair was great and smoothed him right out.  He’s now got a much shorter 70s-ish cut.  Still over his ears, so I’m happy.  I like that long hair.  And I’ve got a new hiding place for the scissors.  I’m just grateful today wasn’t picture day at school and that he didn’t cut more than his hair. 

April 15, 2009 @ 20:10

I walk into my room and this is what I find . . . 

Puppy with the DVD player remote in hand:  TOO UGLY!!!  TOO STINKY!!!  TOO UGLY!!!  TOO STINKY!!!  TOO UGLY!!!  TOO STINKY!!! (punctuated with hysterical laughter) 

It took me a minute to figure it out . . . 

Ah, he’s found the Invader Zim DVD.  This could be bad . . . 

Edit:  And it begins . . .  Tonight at bedtime . . . 

Puppy:  Mommy, I can’t go to sleep, first you have to tell me . . . 

Me:  Yes, tell you what? 

Puppy:  Where is my spleen? 

Me:  Your spleen? 

Puppy:  Yes, my spleen?  What does it do? 

Me: Uh . . . 

Dang it Zim!!!  I forgot about the organ episode!