Learning as we go.

Let's get right to the point: Z's behavior has dropped off precipitously in the last few weeks. We've gotten numerous "think sheets" from the school, and yesterday I got a call that she was in in-school suspension.

I drove over there thinking about what I could do to just ease the stress for myself. Take up alcoholism as a hobby? Marijuana? Smoking -- I don't even like cigarettes, but there was a long moment where having an excuse to leave the house for periodic ten-minute breaks sounded fairly appealing. I mean, I'd love to just go soak in a hot tub and get a massage or something, but that means leaving Sweetie alone with both kids, which is basically cruel and unusual punishment. If I so much as go to the grocery store without the girl, generally she freaks out, runs into the driveway, and then is threatened with losing everything she ever loved. So my punishment for leaving is having to deal with her when she can't have TV, her Kindle, etc.

ANYWAY... I went into this meeting, and mainly because I joke when I am upset, I said, "I just want to say to begin with, that I breastfed her. I followed the recommendations on screen time. I took prenatal vitamins."

And it was a joke, but also sort of not. I mean, Sweetie and I really have done everything we thought was right as parents after careful consideration and lots of reading. I sometimes feel like if there had been some switched-at-birth scenario, 9 out of 10 of the stranger babies we might have raised would now be pretty awesome contributing members of society.

Conversely, in the stranger family, Z would have about a 4 in 5 chance of having been forced to drink a bleach milkshake to exorcise her demons. (Well, more likely, of having the everloving shit beaten out of her on a regular basis.)

So we are in this sort of limbo state right now, where the behavioral therapy people haven't gotten us on their schedule yet, and the school is still evaluating her for her IEP, and we know what's wrong but not how to address it, and in the meantime she's been pinching and grabbing people in class.

I had an informal meeting with the principal and the special ed teacher (and I have more official one that will include the classroom teacher on Friday) and we all agreed on one thing: Zadie is an unusual case. She's stubborn. She's ambivalent about rewards and punishments. She's NOT high-functioning, but she's highly verbal and so smart that it's easy to forget that. As the special ed teacher said, we're used to kids like my cousin (who also attends her school). To look at or talk to them is to be reminded of their disability. But that's not so with Zadie, so we're all on a learning curve together. How do we help a kid who according to the teacher probably ought to be in 12th grade English (flattering, but not exactly true) but who can't choose which bathroom stall to use, panics, and pees herself?
How do you help a kid who can explain sound waves in understandable layman's terms, but can't tell by her classmates' expressions that they don't like it when she dances around them, swinging her backpack?

It's hard to reconcile the fact that she can narrate a story, play with her brother, draw a portrait, make bad puns, sing along with Queen, and also not be neurotypical.

I'm not some anti-Western medicine hippie, but it's rare that I take medicines myself. I've met my general practitioner about three times. Once as a follow up to my appendectomy and I think twice for hives. I never thought I'd have a kid that takes medicine twice a day to help her focus, medicine at night to help her sleep, medicine in the afternoon to help her poop... It just strikes me as strange sometimes how much help she needs just to function in ways that I never have to give a second thought to.

And yet, if you've met her, if you know her, you know she can be funny, sweet, charming, athletic, loving, and creative.

Today, she didn't pinch anybody. There was no think sheet. I didn't get a call from the principal. And so, you know, fuck it -- I went to Toys R Us and bought her a Shopkin (all the rage plastic shit from China). I don't know what tomorrow will bring. But she's asleep, and we snuggled, and it's quiet, and I haven't yet taken up smoking. It's good right now.