Not that bad is the new good

No, it's... it's fine, more or less.

As Zadie's behavioral therapy becomes a normal part of life, I have figured out the stuck-at-home thing, and it's not so bad. She has gotten more used to her normal technician, and it went pretty well on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

We even had a nice weekend together, going used-book shopping, vintage store browsing (I fell in love with a dresser set and later had Dad take me back there to pick it up for the very-nearly-ready Lochlan's room), ramen-devouring, train-game-playing...

School's been up and down. She's had some good days, but I got an email today that she was threatening another kid.

And today also, the technician's supervisor came. Remember how I said that since the technician (I don't remember if I've given her a fake name yet, so let's call her Nellie) was new and young, that I was afraid Z was going to walk all over her? Well, that's sort of been true. She really pushes the limits. It's been sort of friendly, but still a lot on Z's terms, and Nellie has been easing into it to build rapport.

Amber, on the other hand, is an old pro, so she comes in insisting on compliance. Z doesn't like that, so she pushes back, and today was a shitshow. She was throwing things at them, trying to hit them, telling them what not to do "if you value your lives." Which, where the fuck does she even get the mafia talk?

Anyway, that's over now and she's in bed and we don't see Nellie again until Monday, so we have a bit of a break.

The boy is good! He's doing more signs and animal noises and some more words (yesterday he said "bad cat" when the cat scared him).

He's snuggly and sweet and affectionate, which is so awesome. And he loves his stuffed animals almost as much as his trucks. He's very mechanical, in some ways. He loves to put shapes in the shape sorter thingie. He likes to find things that fit into or onto one another and put them together (a pencil in a jar! A lid on a bowl!). He is funny -- he loves to play peekaboo and then laugh hysterically. He looks at us so slyly during practically every meal, puts a piece of bread or something on his head, then says "hat." Then he nerd-laughs like that's the funniest damn thing.

The other day, Sweetie was playing air-guitar and humming Jimi Hendrix, and the Lochlan started enthusiastically rocking side to side. We decided it was dance party time! We put on Dee-Lite's Groove is in the Heart and all danced, and then we put on the B-52s' Rock Lobster. He seemed to really like that, so we were singing it and humming it off and on. Part of it goes "Lots of trouble, OOOO-AAH! Lots of bubbles, OOOO-AAH!" About the third time I did it, Lochlan repeated "OOOOH-AAH." He looked really proud of himself, too. Since then I've gotten him to do it five or six more times, but never on video, damnit.

She's been experimenting -- badly -- with makeup. 

Sweet big sister. 

Lochlan loves books. 

Stuffed animals. Truck. What more could a guy want? 

Perhaps a pith helmet? 

I think I was trying to distract her from something, but selfies are fun. 

Baby attack!

More stuffed buddies. He calls the pig "cat." 

Z and the neighbor girl being models.

Peanut butter face. Who can resist? 

Aw hell, I want to go snatch him up out of his crib and hug him right now! 

Still doing well in karate. Starting her black belt project. 

Tomorrow I turn 40

And last night I was crying. And when my Sweetie asked why, the first thing I blurted out was "David Bowie's dead."

There's a lot going on.

Like... we're trying to rearrange the house to give the boy a bedroom, and in the process, I'm losing my little office. Now, the truth is that I don't really use it: it got sort of immediately cluttered with stuff and was never exactly inviting. But I had the idea that it was mine, and now there is no place in the house that's really just mine. It's not that bad, because I'm getting a small desk for the corner of the kitchen. And frankly, Sweetie has it way worse than I do -- he's losing an entire big room for what is essentially a glorified closet. But, change is hard.

And Z has started her behavioral therapy, and she's having an "extinction burst" like whoa. What this means is that as they teach her stuff, her resistance to it will cause her to be worse than usual. So it's for a good purpose, and I'm happy they're here, and in the long-term it'll be good for Z, but in the short term it means I am being asked to stand back while my child throws forks at people's heads, and that's a bit stressful.

Also, they are here from 2:30 (pretty much the second we get home) to 5:30, which means all my old cushion time for errand running and stuff? Gone. I'm semi-trapped here at the house, which means that I have to be flexible and figure out how to get stuff done at other times. And unfortunately the first casualty of that is that I resigned from the poetry board I belonged to. It's not a big deal: I wasn't one of the reading hosts or journal editors or workshop givers. I was just the secretary. But being able to help out, even in that small way, made me feel good and connected, and I was sorry to say goodbye.

And although I'm not 100% sure yet, I think I am going to quit the band I'm in. Long story short, they're really amped to play at clubs and bars all the time, and I'm really not. You know, I have two kids. I work in the morning. I always enjoyed playing with my old band, but it's just impractical now. I don't want to hold them back if that's what they really want, so there's a good chance I'm going to quit before the end of the month. And playing in a band is fun for me.

And the baby has been refusing to nurse lately, and that's fine. He can do what he wants, and he doesn't need it anymore. But for Z, it was a comfort for both of us for a long time, and a way to cuddle and be close. I had hoped we would have that for longer.

So, you know... nothing really bad, right? Nobody's sick, nobody's hurt, we have a house and jobs and beautiful kids and stuff. But in a way, it does feel like I am losing space, control, safety, freedom, a sense of connection and contribution, and fun and creative expression and closeness all at once.

And David Bowie DID die, and that's part of it. David Bowie has been part of my life, like, forever. He's one of my favorite artists. I can remember seeing him on Saturday Night Live when I was a little kid, staying up past bedtime. I stayed up late when they played the documentary "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" on PBS one night in about junior high. I remember reflecting on the "Changes" lyric that opens up the movie "The Breakfast Club" (which for some reason I was obsessed with and watched hundreds of times). I remember repeatedly watching Labyrinth (mostly because I consistently talked my babysittees into it) and The Hunger (sometimes in the hopes of luring someone into bed). I remember talking about our Bowie crushes with the "alternative" girls in 9th grade (also called "mods" back then). I saw him in concert and was sort of aghast at his beauty, his stage presence. I can play the bass part for Suffragette City. I bought the Cool World and Lost Highway soundtracks because Bowie was on them. In short, Bowie and his music were woven into the fabric of my life about as much as the Beatles are, but the Beatles were over before I was born, and Bowie has been a living, breathing, unpredictable artist for all of my 39 years and 363 days. It's ridiculous to think that there would always be Bowie. But I did think that.

So it's not really about turning 40, but I am having to sort of "turn and face the strange."

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
And every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace
I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID BOWIE AND ★ “That’s the message that I sent...” Why is this man so happy? Is it because it‘s his 69th birthday or that he has released his 28th studio album today and it’s a corker? Who knows, but we’re sure you’ll want to join us in congratulating him on both. Many happy returns of the day to David Bowie and ★ (Fashion fans may like to note that our man is wearing Thom Browne) #Blackstar #imablackstar #BlackstarAlbum #BowieBirthday #BowieBrowne

A photo posted by David Bowie (@davidbowie) on Jan 7, 2016 at 10:20pm PST

Our first "technician" visit, and some thoughts.

So we had our first actual visit from the ABA provider yesterday. They've come a few times to talk, get a plan/paperwork started, etc. But yesterday was three hours of working with Zadie. For the record, two people came yesterday, but it will usually be only one.

It went sort of like this. They talked to her and played with her. Then they made a schedule of things to do, which Zadie helped with. And they sort of negotiated which chores she would do, as completing some chores when asked is one of her goals. And then they started with homework. She was squirrelly and fidgety and kept making excuses to get up, exactly as she usually does. And they just would remind her to come and sit down, exactly as I usually do. The difference is that I am often distracted -- with baby, with my own chores, whatever. Which means she gets away with it more often. They weren't letting her, and it was going okay.

Then they asked her to brush her hair (doing independent self-grooming kind of stuff is one of our goals). She did, even putting it in a ponytail, and got a lot of praise.

While Lochlan was down for his nap, she was telling them about his favorite stuffed toy. She saw it and wanted to give it to him. I said no, because he was already asleep. She went on and on about how she could sneak, how she was going to do it without my permission, how it would be FINE, don't worry, she won't wake him up! Finally, she just took off for the bedroom, ran in (the tech tried to stop her but didn't get there in time) and dropped the toy on Lochlan's face, waking him up).

Then her little friend came over for a while. (I asked if it was okay.) They all played together for a while, and that went fine. Then it was time for the friend to go home (after about 20 minutes), and stuff started going to hell. Z never wants her friend to go. I said I would walk the girl home, but Z insisted. We all said no, but she ran out the door. We knew they were both holding the end of a long ribbon, but we didn't know Z had actually tied it to the girl's wrist.  So there was arguing, and there was yanking, and the knot was getting tighter and the technician was trying to untie it and Z sort of broke away to run across the street to take the girl home, and she didn't look to see whether a car was coming. It was -- it was going at a safe speed and had time to stop, but it was uncool. It was a whole bad scene.

Anyway, we finally got her back home and it was time for a chore. She wanted to do window-washing, which I am really ambivalent about her doing (she can't reach half of them, and we have to move furniture to clean many of them, so it's kind of a lot of work for a half-assed job). But she did that okay (even though she was sort of trampling on Lochlan at the time. They asked her to stop spraying and dry the windows, and she kept spraying (she really, really loves spraying). But they got her to stop and clean up the fluid.

Then they played some more. I think they looked at her bike, and they made a fort in her room. I was in the kitchen (though I peeked in occasionally). When that allotted time was up and they started to take down the fort, she screamed. Thinking she'd been hurt, I rushed in, but she was just upset. Several times already, the tech had assured me that it was okay and I could back off, so I did. It was hard, though, man! Your kid is wailing and you're like "welp, back to the organizing, I guess!" She seemed to get over it, but then they informed her it was time to do the other chore, wiping off the table.

She refused. She wanted to build more forts. They said it was time to clean the table first. She grabbed a toy. They gently took it from her. She grabbed a weird piece of cardboard she's bene playing with. They took it. Repeat the she-grabbed-they-took sequence several times until she's livid. She finally comes out of her room with her horse-on-a-stick (the operative part there being the big fucking stick) and comes after the tech with it. I had been trying to butt out, but I jumped up and yelled her name. The tech turned and assured me it was okay. She got it from her as well.

Then they decided to make the fort (I will explain this more later, since I know it seems weird). They made a fort, they had some fun, they talked and played and had a good time. Then they asked her to clean the table and she did.

Then she ran across the street without asking to the neighbor girl's house, so they had me walk her back home, ask, and then walk her over again.

And that was mostly it.

You can probably guess that I have a LOT of thoughts and feelings and reflections about this experience.

In no particular order: I hardly ever tell anyone about all the yelling and refusing and hitting and baby-waking and screaming and messes and I-hate-you and whatnot. It feels a little disloyal, for one. For another thing, most people don't hear that and think, "how difficult dealing with this brain must be for Zadie," but rather "you guys must be really shitty parents. She needs an ass-whooping." And I just don't really want to invite that all the time. So it feels weird even to detail it here.

Second, I actually talked with them about the fort/table issue. I mean, parenting advice would vary, but would mostly be along the lines of "follow through -- if you said no fort until after table, then stick to it or you're teaching her she can get what she wants by being naughty." And let me be very real here: that kind of bullshit would have pissed me off, she'd have earned herself a time-out in her room, and I'd have been in NO GODDAMN MOOD to play with her in a fort right about then anyway. But the tech explained that a lot of kids aren't as strong-willed as Z, and she could see she had hit a wall of non-compliance and needed to get Z back on her side. Playing for a little while brought her around. And I mean... the table got clean, you know? What I'm struggling with a little is the idea that just playing with the fort for a while really wouldn't have been instinctual or seemed like common sense for me. And that's kind of hard for me, because I've always wanted kids, always thought that my maternal instincts would be good, always assumed I'd be naturally a good mom. And I'm not saying this makes me not a good mom, but I am saying we've spent like six years arguing about cleaning the fucking table, having big fights, sending her off to isolation, and then fighting about isolation, when I could have draped a goddamn blanket over the edge of the couch.

Also, it is so, so hard to stand back when your kid is attacking a friendly near-stranger in your home. I hope you never have to do that. It was fucking awful.

Okay, also, one of the things they're working on is getting her to not interrupt adult conversation. And we have really, really failed at that. But the tech -- for her privacy, let's call her Amber -- is like a ROCK STAR at it. But it also looks super hard. What she does is first, completely ignores her when she interrupts. 100% of the time. So typically it might sound like, "So after lunch I went to the-" "MOM. MOM. MOM. MOOOOOOM! MOOOM LISTEN!" "Hang on a sec. I went to the Starb-" "MOM I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!" "Okay, but I'm talking to Daddy right now. I know you want to talk. You're next, you just have to wait about thirty more seconds.""MOM I HAVE TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW!" "GOSH, ALRIGHT, just spit it out!" "Cows are weird."

But Amber went right on chatting as if Zadie was just silent movie ghost-Zadie, even as she grew frustrated, yelled, jumped up and down and stomped. She had showed her before that if she wanted to interrupt, she needed to tap Amber on the arm. After this hissyfit got ignored (dude, I am telling you, the expression on her face didn't even change), finally Z remembered. She tapped Amber, who immediately responded, "Yes, Azadeh?"

Our long-term goal is that she learns when and how to enter a conversation appropriately, and if she feels like interrupting, how to get our attention and wait for an appropriate time. But they kind of need to work her up to that, so for now, the tap gets an immediate response. I'm going to try this too (and I hope my primary co-caregivers will attempt it as well), but it also does not come naturally.

They are doing something similar with speaking in polite tones and using "please."
Z: "Mom, I want some tea!"
Amber: "Mom, may I have tea please?"
Z: (Exasperated) "May I have tea?"
Amber: "May I have tea, please?"
Z: "May I have tea, please?"
Amber gives me the nod, so...
Me: "Sure, let me go make some."

It makes our conversations a LOT longer. But I like that they're holding her to it. I really feel hopeful that this will make some positive headway in terms of getting spoken to more kindly. Honestly, sometimes it's like being verbally abused around here.

And now, on that topic-ish. The therapy she's getting is called ABA. Like any concerned mom, probably, I looked it up to learn what it was about before agreeing to start the therapy. And although most of what's available is positive, there are some horror stories, mostly about kids getting sort of corporal punishments for "acting out" in kind of normal autistic ways. Like, a kid who flaps his hands might have his wrist slapped or something. And the very first time I met with Amber, I asked her directly about that. She said that that sort of therapy was mostly in the past and had been phased out, but in their company, they didn't do that kind of thing at all. They focused mainly on rewards, praise, and instant gratification. And my fears do seem to have been allayed. The worst thing they did to her was take down her fort, and that wasn't even punishment, just "we're done playing, time to put away our things." In fact in many ways, she relished the devoted attention they could give her and their willingness to play. I do spend plenty of time with her and I pretend with her a lot, but I do also have to make dinner and take care of the baby and stuff. I can't give all of my attention to her all the time.

But there's also some stuff online, mainly from the community of autistic people, that asserts that any attempt to change autistic people's behavior is wrong-headed, insulting, damaging, intolerant, uh... I ran out of adjectives, but these people are super-duper mad. And although I respect that and see in some ways where they're coming from, the world is a very big place, and my kid is going to meet a lot of people, and she has actively expressed a desire to be liked and have friends, and I'm less likely to be able to address all the 2nd graders at her school and change THEM into the kind of people who are inclusive of weird shouty girls who pee themselves than I am of changing a few of Z's habits to fit in a little better.

There is also a feeling among this community that any expression that being a parent of an autistic child is difficult or burdensome or not all glitter-farting-rainbows all the time is a betrayal and we should just shut our big fat faces about it. But I am not cool with that at all. My daughter is a person whose needs and feelings deserve to be respected. But so am I. And I am going to keep being honest about the difficulties of being a caregiver of a kid like mine. I'm not planning to whine about it, but I don't intend to sugar-coat it either. It's fucking hard as hell. I've given serious thought to taking up marijuna as a hobby. I sometimes want to just drive away.

If you know me, you know I am a patient person. I am an optimistic person. I may veer into straight-up Pollyanna territory. In fact, if you know me from outside this blog, the fact I'd even say I was too pissed to build a fort might have surprised you. I don't get pissed off easily. But I can say in all honesty that 90% of other parents who had gotten Zadie as a kid would have gone straight to the beatings, and maybe 3% would have opted for the bleach-milkshake-to-exorcise-the-demons. (Perhaps the darkest humor in 12 years of this blog. Sorry?)

In the car yesterday on our way home, where we would have that first session, I spoke to Z. "Hey, I wanted to say something. I just want you to know that I love you exactly the way you are, and I love every part of you. And I think your autism is part of you, so I love that too. And I don't want to change it. In fact, I think it's kind of cool that your brain works differently than mine. And just because we are starting this therapy doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with you or that you have any kind of deficit, okay? I just want to help you be as happy as you can and have as smooth a ride as you can through life. This is just about adjusting some behaviors, not about changing you you are. Because you're awesome." She said she knows. And then she told me she had expressed astonishment that some other kid in her class didn't know what "deficit" meant, so she had informed him.

So I'm doing my best, man. I'm doing my best.



NB: I usually re-read and proofread, but this took a long time to write, so I'm going straight to bed. My apologies for anything wacky, word-wise.

Politics of education and me

Today I read an article about IEPs and the failures of special education in the public school system. In sum, the author is in an IEP meeting to try to help their kid, who has learning difficulties in math, but is basically gifted in language. The parents are struggling with where to send their kid, because no public option seems like a perfect fit. The author briefly describes IDEA and 504s, and then says how difficult it is to get help for a "twice-exceptional" kid, one gifted in some areas but also with learning disabilities. Schools are pressured to "mainstream" everyone, and psychological testing is expensive.

The author goes on to talk about how lengthy and technical the IEP documents can be, and how they sometimes seem to be more of a legal ass-covering than a plan for what anyone will actually do for the kid.

Schools are responsible for maintaining high test scores, and kids with learning difficulties can undermine that, so the schools may have an incentive for "counseling out" certain kids.

Furthermore, a lot of the interventions are expensive. Also, a lot of the IEPs are like 30 pages long -- it can be difficult and time-consuming for a teacher to glean all the information they need from them, particularly if they have multiple students with them.

Finally, she decides to send her kid to private school, one of the reasons for which is that the teachers aren't held accountable for standardized test scores.

And then I read the comments. (I know, I know: a cardinal rule of sane internet use is "never read the comments.")

It was fascinating. One person would empathize that it's difficult to get help for special ed kids. Another would reply that parents shouldn't expect public schools to educate them.

Someone would say that public schools were meant to educate everyone. Someone else would complain that they were a taxpayer without children and they shouldn't have to pay for education.

Teachers are paid too much and are glorified babysitters. There is a teacher shortage because the pay isn't enough to cover their student loans.

There aren't enough resources to pay for special ed. People should homeschool their special ed kids. People should homeschool their gifted kids. People should pay for private school. People can't afford private school. People should forgo their iPhones to pay for school tuition.

Gifted kids aren't getting the attention they need. Gifted kids don't need attention. Gifted kids are ignored because they'll get the scores schools need without effort. Schools shouldn't need the scores. The scores are very important. Standardized curriculum is very important. Standardized curriculum is killing us slowly. Standardized curriculum doesn't exist anymore. The common core is brand new. Everything old is new again.

Districts don't have the money to properly educate kids. They have the money, they just misappropriate it. They are forced to use money in certain ways. The money that could educate gifted kids is siphoned off to pay for special needs kids. Some special needs kids should be in vocational school. Some special needs kids shouldn't be educated at all. 

Special needs kids are a disruption. Special needs kids rob the teacher's attention. Classes are too big. Unions fight for bigger paychecks instead of smaller classes.  Unions fight for smaller classes so there are more teachers in order to further line their pockets.

ADHD is overdiagnosed. Autism is overdiagnosed. Some kids just need a firm boot to the ass. Some kids genuinely need help. Parents need to do their job and parent. Parents are doing all they can. Some parents are entitled helicopter parents. Some parents hand their kids off to the school system and expect them to be raised. 



In this multifaceted partly-true and partly-false web are my daughter and myself. I am a teacher. I am a member of a public employee union. I teach special ed students. I teach gifted students. I sit in on and contribute to IEPs.

I am a mother. I pay taxes. I attended public schools. My father was a teacher, a member of a union, an employee of the public schools. My parents both attended public schools. I probably had undiagnosed ADHD. I loved most of my teachers. My teachers cared about me. My teachers couldn't help me. I was stiffed on GATE education.

My daughter is gifted. She reads at a college level in the 2nd grade. She is not getting as much GATE education as she probably could benefit from. The teacher cannot adequately address her needs because it's a class of 32 students, many of whom have special needs.

My daughter is autistic. She disrupts the classroom. She robs the teacher's time and attention from the other students. The teacher can't adequately address her needs because it's a class of 32 students. She might thrive in private school or home school. We can't afford private school or home school. Maybe we could if we went without other things. She needs help and resources to succeed. Those resources cost money, for the district, for us, for our insurance...

The district doesn't want to give her a full-time aide. The district says they don't do full-time aides. I know they do, because my cousin, who is also autistic, has one. Probably my kid is not registering as autistic because she is also so gifted. How could a kid who can accurately describe how sound waves work also need help?

The teacher is doing the best she can. The school is doing the best they can. Sometimes it seems like the IEP is just a legal cover-your-ass. Sometimes I worry that I'm burdening the system. Sometimes I feel like the system isn't doing enough to help.


 

Happy New Year, life is... life

We have our ups and downs, don't we?

Been having a lovely week off since Christmas. Not much to do but laze around, let the girl play across the street (or sometimes the neighbor girl plays over here), read books, check out new recipes, and play our new favorite game, Ticket to Ride.

You have to collect cards to buy train routes between cities, and each player has a goal (secret from the other players) of getting from one city to another. Most of the time, we have great fun. One night, we had a great tantrum. Z's train pieces kept falling off the table the previous night, so the next night we suggested scooting the board a little farther from her. Without allowing us the chance to explain that if she couldn't reach, we'd be happy to move pieces for her (the board is oblong, so the adults had already been doing so for each other), she yanked the board, back, shouted at us, whined, and was an all-purpose brat. Her dad decided he didn't want to play in those circumstances. I tried to coach her on how to change his mind (apologize, talk about how fun it was to play with him, and suggest that she understood now about moving the board). But as is her way, she twisted each part of that into something sarcastic, critical, or mean. So we didn't play. She did, however, spend the next 90 minutes demanding that we do, crying, and generally being unhappy at us.

We played again last night and had a lot of fun. She started to throw a fit that she didn't win, but we sort of talked her down (reminding her that A: she was skillful enough to have come in second in a game with three players and B: it was a sign of respect that we weren't letting her win, but trusting her do do her best and we would do ours). She wandered into her dad's office a few minutes later and I heard her say, "Good game, Dad."

[I left this post as a draft and went to dinner. We came back and played one more game. We were having fun until she did something dumb/dangerous, and then she called her dad a "dummy" so we quit. Ups and downs, I say.]

I took her to The Force Awakens today. She talked incessantly throughout (and stood up, and waved a pretzel bag over her head, surely blocking the view of the people behind her). Nevertheless, I liked the movie. But when we got home, she wanted to spend more time with the neighbor girl, and we asked her to give them a break. She threw a major hissy, so I emergency-called her Grandma and dropped Z off there. When we picked her up a few hours later, we had a nice dinner.

On to the boy! He's so funny -- he really picks up on things quickly sometimes. He found a train whistle and put it to his lips. Then he handed it to me. I blew into it, making the whistle sound. He took it back and tried to blow. It didn't work, so he hummed, "oooh." I took it back and showed him again, kind of exaggerating my movements. He blew it again and it whistled.

He also uses a fork and spoon like nobody's business! I mean, he's not perfect or free of mess, but he gets most of the food to his mouth. Sometimes I even watch him take yogurt or soup and spoon it from one of the two round depressions in his high chair tray to the other -- pretty effectively! He also can put lids on and off of things, figure out the mechanisms on all his toys, climb, and identify chokeables to stick in his mouth from anywhere in the same room.

I was starting to get worried about whether he would ever start walking! He was over fifteen-and-a-half months, and still only ever taking one or two steps at a time. On Christmas Eve, Sweetie and my dad called me over to see that he was taking more like four steps pretty confidently. Still, though... four steps. We went to my uncle's next, and there was one of my cousin's kids, a few months younger than Lochlan. He was walking all over the place. Well out of nowhere, Lochlan started walking around like "This? Oh, yeah, I can do this." Just strolling through the middle of the room.

For a few days afterward, he still chose to crawl everywhere unless we stood him up and said, "go to Daddy!" It helped if we put something in his hands, too. But now he is walking around pretty reliably. He still does this funny knee-walk, too. He's upright, but on his knees. Sometimes he goes straight forward, and other times he scoots sideways.

He might get weaned a lot earlier than his sister. He bites. I don't like it. We either find a solution or we call it a day. Which would be sad. I like the closeness and easy comfort of nursing. But I'm not going to let my right nipple be a martyr to the cause.

He's still not super-verbal, but he has a small vocabulary he employs a lot. And he can say the beginnings of a ton of words -- just today he picked up a Christmas card and I said, "card," and he went "ca!"

He likes pointing out eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and hair. He still notices when anyone is wearing a hat, pointing and announcing "hat, hat!"

His favorite Christmas present was a big ride-in truck, but he is also loving all his other trucks.
Her favorite present is her American Girl doll, called Julie Albright (we were messing with her and told her we thought she was asking for a Madeline Albright doll).

We didn't do much this vacation. My Facebook kept popping up with "hey, two years ago you were in Santa Cruz!" and I was like, "This year I'm on my couch!" We went to Fairytale Town. We played poker on New Year's Eve with friends. We did the holiday stuff. We kept it pretty mellow. Still, I can't believe tomorrow's my last day off. I could use another week.

Operation IEP

This has been the roughest school year yet for Z. She has alienated some of the kids by being so... weird. She has problems with kids and instead of being able to let them go, she fixates on them, then acts on them at inappropriate times (prime example: she had a problem with a kid at recess, then 15 minutes later in class, walked across the room and grabbed the kid's arm). And she really likes her teacher and started out strong there, but now has sort of hijacked the classroom with her constant talking. (Her teacher put it very delicately: "She has so much great stuff to say that would be really wonderful to share with the class. But sometimes I am just pausing to see if everyone's caught up when she starts sharing again.") So if you add all that wonderful sharing to her social problems, (and to be fair, with several other difficult kids in an already-overstuffed classroom), you have a teacher who can't get any teaching done.

We addressed some of the issues already. In the morning, she goes to another teacher's room for a while to read and de-stress. It also keeps her away from her classmates in line at one point, which is a surefire trigger. In the afternoon, there's an aide that can give her some attention. She gets hungry at one point, so now there's a Costco-sized box of snack bars she can utilize when she gets hungry. Sometimes the teacher has another adult take her out to help make copies. The student teacher takes her out to run laps on the playground.

During the summer the special ed teacher and I started the process of an IEP, Individualized Education Program. It took well over the time it was supposed to to get the meeting, and they rescheduled it once (at the very last minute, after I'd already taken the day off work). But I didn't complain. They were doing a ton of evaluations and things on Azadeh.

One day at school, (during a meeting with the principal about a behavior incident) the special ed teacher (Mrs. M) told me she'd added that they should test Z's IQ, not because she thought it was relevant, just because she was curious. I laughed, and said that was fine.

Finally, last week, the day came. It was a long meeting -- two hours! In it was Ms. R, the district case manager, a speech therapist, Mrs. M, a school psychologist, the principal, Mrs. H, and the student teacher (Ms. S) who is training with Mrs. M (and who did a lot of the testing). Later, her teacher, Mrs. P, joined us.

So they went around the table and sort of read out all their reports first. Ms. R had the report that Ms. S had written and provided to her, but that was basically cribbed from my notes to her, so she was reading my words to me, basically. "Azadeh loves science, reading, pretending..." and I'm like, "Yes, I know this." What was funny about her part was that I wasn't entirely sure she had read it before. She kept stumbling a little when coming upon surprising information. "She's reading high... high? High school level texts." And at one point she was grinning stupidly (I'm not trying to be mean -- it was just kind of a dopey grin) and said, "I'm sorry I'm smiling -- it's just not that often that we get to read stuff like this!"

Then the speech therapist went. She had tested a few things: how she makes sounds, how she puts sentences together, and how she thinks social conversations should go. As for sounds, she said that Z had a little trouble with S, L and R, and mixing up F and TH. She also said, "I was kind of surprised -- you nailed it!" I told her I'd studied a little linguistics. As far as forming sentences, she had no trouble at all. The social speech was the funny part. First, she said that she mostly answered appropriately, but that there were some anomalies.  For example, what would she do with this group of kids, one of whom looked triumphant and another sad? She’s address the problem with “trickery!” She also mentioned that at one point,  Zadie was jumping around the room and saw what was on her clipboard — a rubric with scores ranging down from “strong.” So after that, Z would think hard about her answer (what she would say in a social situation), then ask if she’d scored a “strong.” (The report reads, "It should be noted that Azadeh was able to observe the assessor's scoring sheet... and quickly came to understand the scoring procedures. She then became interested in how she was scoring and seemed to tailor her answers in order to achieve the best score.") The speech therapist also said she asked Zadie how old she thought she was, and Z said “Well, you don’t have any signs of the twenties on you, so I’d say 40.” We all laughed, then vaguely wondered what the signs of the twenties were and how you could get them. Is there a special cream?

Then Ms. R asked the psych to go. But a few seconds in, she interrupted her to refer to another report. The psychologist, who had been really pleasant to me, responded surprisingly sharply: "You want me to go or her? I just started." So I was kind of wondering if there was some tension there. Anyway, she thought we should consider outside counseling (I am considering it, but I'm also considering whether there are enough hours in the day!), and she thought it was sweet that Z had drawn a picture for her. But then she shared the interesting news of Z's cognitive tests. It feels weird to even share this, honestly, but they were out of this world. They basically measured IQ in three different areas, short term memory, learning index, and fluid reasoning. The scores were 131, 144, and 121. The first two are considered to be in the 98th and 99.8th percentile of the population, labeled on the report "upper extreme." The third one looks practically ordinary in comparison -- 92nd percentile, above average. Mrs. N, the psychologist, also stressed several times (and wrote in her report) that because Z got up to play with xylophones, go to the bathroom, etc. as many as ten times during each portion of the test, that her scores "should be considered a minimum estimate." She would have scored higher, Mrs. N thought, if she could have just sat still!

The other part of her report was the bad bit -- attention problems, hyperactivity and so on. But I'll skip that, since it's not news to any of you.

Then we went to Ms. S, who had given a different kind of cognitive test. This one broke reading, writing and math skills into discrete categories and assigned them a "grade level equivalent." The scores ranged from a low of 1.6 (for math) to a high of >16.8. Although Ms. S had said these were grade equivalents, I thought I must be looking at the wrong column. I mean, what's grade 16.8, anyway? Oh, it's college. The end of the senior year of college. And an on-purpose "greater than" sign. For the record, that score was in "reading recall," and Ms. Santos said she had read Z a passage aloud, then asked her to repeat as much of it as she could remember. She repeated it verbatim. Ms. S said she even looked at her card to see if it was somehow in Z's line of vision. It wasn't.

All her other language scores ranged from a low of 5th grade to a high (other than that one crazy outlier) of 13th grade -- freshman year of college (in fact, of the 13 language scores, 7 of them fell in the college range, and two more in 12th grade). Math scores were lower -- a lot closer to average -- but Ms. S gave two explanations for that as well. First, she just hasn't been taught how to do some of the math yet, and second, she was distracted during that part of the test because she had a major potty accident.

The psychologist sort of summed it all up for us by saying that we see a kid like this "once in a blue moon."

So then we started talking about classroom issues and what to do and how to solve them. Mrs. R thought we should try "social missions," where someone gives her a mission, like "ask someone to play," then observes her doing that at recess, then debriefs with her later on how it went. She very brightly asked who would take that on. And you could just see everyone that worked with Z trying to take a step backwards yelling "NOT IT." It was a long conversation about whether it should be in the IEP at all, who might or might not have time to do it, why it was really no big deal and it wouldn't take that much time, etc. and finally why Mrs. R was "disappointed." It wasn't ugly, exactly, but I don't think it was very pretty, either. But I understand -- if someone asked me to spend extra time coming up with additional (however short) assignments for a kid and them observing them during passing period AND making it a data-collection issue for a goal in an official document? I'd balk, too. Recess time is bathroom break time, is put-the-math-away-and-get-the-art-project-out time, is breathe-for-a-second time. And trying to run outside and follow my champion sprinter to try to eavesdrop on her talking to a classmate? Seems like too much time, too much work, and too little consideration of the bathroom break issue. I wasn't upset about it, but Mrs. R was.

We're going to keep doing a lot of stuff we're already doing, which is only working so well. I mean, when she's out of the classroom, apparently that's working great. But we could probably find ways to keep her out of the classroom for all six hours, and that's not really the goal of school, is it?

Mrs. R mentioned skipping grades, but because of the social immaturity, we sort of all shook our heads "no" simultaneously. She seemed perplexed and said, "It's hard to know what to do when she's this gifted. You know, a high school student who needs an extra challenge, we just enroll them at City College, but you can't do that with a seven year old, can you?" We all shook our heads no again. She paused thoughtfully. "Sac State is right down the street?"

I suggested that maybe she get some time in the GATE lab with the teacher in there (who also happens to be Z's beloved pre-school teacher). They tried that on Friday and had good results right away. More outside-the-classroom time, but she really seemed to enjoy it, and of course didn't get into any trouble.

I also suggested a classroom aide. Mrs. R said upfront that it was really hard to get an aide, that they didn't do dedicated aides anymore (this is not true, but they are probably for different kinds of issues than my kid's), that we won't even get a meeting until March, and that there's a packet to fill out. I was like, "well, let's get the packet started, then." So that's something to get started on, but I am a little disappointed in how slow it all is! We couldn't start that until we had the IEP. We had to do all the testing before the IEP. I mean, I started this process in August, and it's almost the end of the first semester. And it'll be practically Spring Break before we get a meeting about an aide? I mean, in the long run, if we can get some positive changes made, it'll be good not just for this year but for many years to come. But this year it's taking a long time.

So some of our plan is "keep doing what we're doing." We will add 30 minutes of speech therapy once a week. She might get to be part of a "social group" of peers that also need some help learning how to interact appropriately. She'll still get those much-needed breaks in the day. And she'll have some time in the GATE lab -- on Friday she learned about the Capitol.

They're also going to call in the "behavior specialist" who can rearrange aides already on her campus if a kid no longer needs one, and then that aide can be assigned to Z's classroom (not to Z specifically, but having another adult in the room could really help Mrs. P out, probably).

You know, I really want her to have a normal childhood and a positive school experience. I opted not to send her to the GATE magnet school, because I didn't want that kind of pressure on her. And she's definitely not mature enough to skip a couple grades (much less to go to Sac State -- good god, I'm just imagining what a classroom with her in it would look like). And her intelligence does not really "balance out" or whatever her difficult behaviors. Several friends suggested schools for brainiacs, or schools with different structures (like Montessori), but I just don't know what to do. I don't want to pretzel everyone's schedules and commutes around in the distant and possibly unfounded hope that she'd do better if she was more challenged. She might, but her gifted-ness is far from her only difference from the norm. The idea of putting her into a Montessori school feels like dropping a death metal band into the local acoustic folk jam night. Probably not a good fit, is what I'm saying.

We had breakfast with a friend today, and Sweetie mentioned Z's diagnosis. He is a psychiatrist, and he was like "whoa whoa whoa! I would not start using the A-word!" And I know he means well (and likes Zadie), but he hasn't seen her at her most difficult. She can be a great kid, and I know it. But she can't choose to be a great kid all the time. She's autistic. She perseverates. She stims. She gets in people's space. She yells. She interrupts, she monologues, she says rude things, even to friends (even to people she loves, like her dad and me). She doesn't sustain eye contact. She fidgets. She has difficulty with transitions. She is germ-phobic and can't pick a bathroom stall, so she has potty accidents. She is a really smart, really hard kid, with some magical moments and some times I want to sell her to gypsies.

Sorry this is so long. Sometimes I just write this stuff so I can go back to it later. Thanks for reading if you stuck with me. There is no ending to be found here.

Today at school

There was a lockdown.

It was fine. There was a suspect being chased by police in the neighborhood -- on the street that runs adjacent to the school -- but nothing on campus.

But we didn't know that at first. The announcement came over the loudspeaker at the end of lunch, which meant that all our 1800 kids were out in the hallways. Many of them can't hear the announcements well, so we teachers (who were largely in classrooms) opened our doors to usher them in.

Not knowing what the situation was, we certainly had a sense of urgency. We raised our voices to them to hurry. I pre-locked my door so I could just slam it shut, but I stood there holding it, yelling to students to get into a room.

Because my room is in the back of the school, some students had to come a long way to get there, so they kept coming for several minutes. Some were running, and while most kept a steady pace, there was sometimes a burst of speed from the kids coming down the hall next to my room. Was someone chasing them? Was the threat behind them? How many kids could I get inside before it became important to close the door to keep someone out?

If I were to leave my door and look down the hallway, would it give me any insight? Would I be able to address those kids who were still not in a room? Would I be face to face with the threat, whatever it was?

As the kids thinned out, we got most of the ones I could see into classes, and I closed the door, but I stood in the window and as more kids came around the corner, I opened it again to let them in.

Soon there was an announcement that there was no imminent threat to campus. I then worried more about whether I had to pee, and how long it would be before I could go.

At the same time in San Bernadino there was another mass shooting. It was the 352nd one this year. Politicians are offering their thoughts and prayers. It's not working. Gun control might, but the NRA has financed everyone's campaign, so I guess money talks.

I wasn't really scared today. My pulse rose a little when the kids started running. But mass shootings are real, guns are everywhere, and nobody's doing a goddamn thing to stop it.

Well, except for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which I joined today. Sometimes the craziness of this world just gets to me. Maybe I can do only a little, but I can do something.

Kids, Thanksgiving, in the news...

We were supposed to have Z's IEP meeting at school last week, but unfortunately the school psychologist had to cancel, so we rescheduled for December. The main reason I'm disappointed (besides the fact that I took a day off work for it) is that I'm very curious about some information that I think will get revealed.

At a meeting a few weeks ago, the Special Ed teacher mentioned that she had Z's IQ tested, because (I'm quoting), "you have to admit, we're all a little curious." Yeah, not an educational reason at all -- just wondering! She assured me quickly that I'd signed off on it (yes, I signed many, many papers). And while I might not have sought to have her IQ tested myself, now that it has been, I'm kind of curious. Especially since they let it slip that her scores were even higher than the first grade GATE tests had indicated. In fact, the school psych said they were "not used to working with students with scores like this."

Of course, we know she's bright, and a number isn't going to mean much in the long run unless she can also figure out how to eat with a fork and go to the bathroom before she leaks pee. But I am still pretty curious.

She's been pretty good lately. I mean, she has her moments of shouting, doing stuff long after we've politely asked her to stop (whistling, and thumping around in a cardboard box, just to speak of today). But we've been going outside a lot -- to the park, to the nature center -- and that seems to calm her.

The boy is just a love, as always. He gave me my first un-asked-for kiss a couple days ago. He's making lots of signs. Today he saw a kestrel and made the sign for bird. He also grunted and shouted at me to get the water bottle, and I said, "Lochlan, just ask me, please. Say, 'Water, please, Mama.'" He didn't look at me showing the water sign (he never took his eyes off the bottle), but he made the sign.

For some reason, although he can climb, walk while holding hands or strollers, and even run (while holding on to the couch), he just will not walk on his own. The doctor said to call if he wasn't walking by 15 months, which is now only two weeks away, but I'm not sure I will call. He obviously has the motion down and the strength -- he just needs the confidence to let go.

One thing that I hope I don't forget as he gets older is how he says "cat." He LOVES cats and gets excited when one of ours saunters by. He says cat in a high or low pitch, in a statement or question, as a yell or whisper, but most often just like "CAAAAAAAAAT!" Like a happy, high pitched sigh.

He's not a picky eater, but it surprises me how many things he will eat. Like, sometimes Sweetie will give him a Spanish olive. He grabs it quickly, pops it in his mouth, gives a little shudder of horror, then happily eats the next one. He was demanding to eat some spicy sriracha peas the other day, so finally I let him have one, thinking he'd spit it out and get over it. No, he wanted more and more, and got mad and cried when I put them away. The other night I made enchiladas with mole sauce, and while Z was throwing a hissy over how spicy they were, he was munching away.

Thanksgiving is in a few days. I'm thankful for the same things I always am -- family, home, health, my job -- but I am especially happy for two things. I'm happy that we got Z's autism diagnosis this year. I think that although it's slow going, it's really going to help us help her. And I'm thankful that Lochlan is such an easy, sweet little guy as he grows older and his personality starts to shine.


The news these days is bleak. Like... bleak as fuck. Donald Trump is running for president, and he keeps saying these insanely racist things, and after each one you think "Well, this is it! He's going to alienate people, drop in the polls, and quit the campaign, because people are basically good and sane." And then instead, people are like, "Yay, Trump! Right on! Brown people are terrible!" And you're like... really? Are people... NOT good and sane? Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I'm sick to death of this election season and we have a year left to go.

I couldn't help myself and I took the bait of someone posting an anti-Obama AND anti-refugee meme tonight, so they posted an anti-Obama thing on my timeline. And I should really just have a no-debating-politics with people who don't have enough brain cells to rub two together policy, but I posted a like "hey, here's why you're wrong, and here's the links to prove it." And got called a dumbass. By, literally, probably one of the dumbest people I know. So, like, just fuck it all, man! I AM a dumbass, for engaging with that bullshit! Learn to let it go, Mockula, because that guy can't find his ass with both hands, let alone make his way to the nearest polling place. It doesn't matter one whit whether I can change his mind, show him the error of his ways, or whatever. OMmmmm, mothafucka. Ommmmmmm.

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.

Some responses to responses to the desk-flipping cop in South Carolina.

If you haven't seen it, in SC this week, a 16 year old girl was playing with her phone in class. Teacher asked her to stop and she refused. An administrator came to try to get her to leave the room and she wouldn't. The police officer was called. Cell phone video shows him flipping her desk (with her in it) backwards, then picking her up and throwing her several feet across the room.

I'm no medical expert, but it certainly appeared that his actions could have resulted easily in an injury to her skull or cervical spine.

To me, it seemed clear-cut: a potentially paralyzing or life-threatening injury is not an appropriate response to a kid who won't put her phone away and leave the room. But not so to talk radio and internet commenters!

Instead of going rage-blind on the freeway again while listening to the radio, allow me to respond here to some of the things I heard.

She's a teenager, she's not a child. They're portraying it like she's a child. 

Because semantics are the game we should all be playing right now. Look, I've worked with thousands of sixteen-year-olds. They're children. They're big, puberty-ridden children, but emotionally they are not mature and their brains are not developed.

Well, if she would have just done what she was supposed to in the first place, this wouldn't have happened. 

Again, we don't need spine-injuring punishment for what is really a fairly minor infraction. It also wouldn't have happened if the teacher, administrator, and SRO had made some different decisions along the way.

Teenagers these days [insert bullshit flow]...

Ah yes, the "golden era" argument, where we look back and see the 50s (usually), when kids minded their manners, never talked back, and were angels who... wait, that was the fictional Lake Wobegon. If kids behaved better in school decades ago, it was not because they were respectful, but because A: they were scared shitless of getting smacked* or B: because they weren't there because they dropped out.

*which I am not in favor of.

Parents need to teach their kids how to be respectful. 

Yeah, sure. I'm in favor of that. But again, not for fear of their children being made quadriplegic.

Plus, like what's your empathy level? "Your beloved puppy got hit by a car? Should have taught him not to go in the street!"

It's not a race thing. I don't even think of people as black and white.  

Bully for you! But if you said that, there's like a 99% chance that you're white, and I'll tell you why: because people of color don't get the benefit of not thinking about race. From systemic oppression to microaggression, it's something that comes up in their lives a lot. Imagine what a douchecanoe you'd sound like if you parked in the handicapped spot, then when someone in a wheelchair called you on it, you were like, "I don't even SEE handicaps!" and walked away without moving your car.

Just take a second and imagine a pretty blond white sixteen year old in this video. Same reaction?

We don't know what happened before the video started.

No, but we do know that she isn't armed, is a 16 year old girl, and is seated in a desk when the cop assaults her, throwing her backwards onto her head.

There's a third video that shows she tried to punch him!

There's a third video that shows her arms flailing wildly while, in a chokehold, she is thrown backwards. I don't know what you think the proper arm position is for that situation. Limp?

Actually, if you go frame by frame, you can see that she threw herself backwards!

Actually, I have those same desks in my classroom, and they have a wide base and a low center of gravity. I invite you to try flipping one over backwards. But I watched it frame by frame to make sure I was being fair. At the moment the desk legs go up, her own feet are off the floor. There's no way she had the leverage to flip herself over.  

The cop has a black girlfriend, so he can't be racist!
Why on earth not?

Lochlan loves love

When Sweetie and I got married, we had custom fortune cookies made. One of the "fortunes" read "We love love! Thank you for celebrating with us."

Well, lemme tell ya who else loves love... the boy child of our loins!

He is just the sweetest, cuddliest, lovingest, most affectionate child. I mean, Z wants to snuggle, but on her terms, and she can be prickly. He can barely communicate, and about a third of what he communicates is that he loves us (the rest is mostly about eating, trucks and cats).

My parents used to do this gesture to me, and I do it to my own kids -- I point to my eye, my heart, and them to mean "I love you." Zadie learned it and did it back to me when she was a little older than Lochlan, but he has already done it, pointing to his heart, then to me.

He also loves his stuffed Clifford dog. He pointed to his chest, then to Clifford. I said, "You love Clifford?" He said "yeah."

He also gives hugs, pats us on the arm when we're holding him, rests his head on our chests, smiles at us, and tonight, when I told him "I love you," he said something like "AAA-OUU!"

I'll take it.

We have a winner!

You may remember that two years ago, Z competed in a karate tournament. She completely froze up and didn't place, but I was very proud that she kept her composure until we were in the car. 

Last year, she signed up for the karate tournament her own dojo was putting on. I was sure she'd do well. She had practiced, had home court advantage... So I was sitting in the audience watching the Taiko drummers when I decided to go check on her. It happened that she was running towards me down the hallway, vomiting and crying. We had to go home, of course. 

This year she signed up for the tournament in two events, katas (a series of practiced movements) and sparring. I thought her kata was really good, and when I saw there were only seven participants, I really thought she might place. I stayed somewhat far away so I couldn't catch her eye and accidentally distract her. And I heard her begin her introductions... then freeze again. I couldn't tell whether she was prompted or remembered, but she did get started again, then did Tiger Roll Kata (which she did well), and sat down. Her scores were not high, but not awful either. She didn't place, but she did get through it all admirably. 

Then came sparring, which was on the other side of the auditorium from where I'd been watching. I moved so I could see better. There were only six kids, and I knew two of them well, and both of them regularly beat her in class. She had her first match, against one of the girls I didn't know. The girl was taller than Z, and they were well matched, but Zadie won 5-3.

A girl in her class then sparred and won her match, and then a boy in her class sparred and won his match. So far, her dojo was doing really well. 

Z then was paired up with the girl from her class. I thought, "Well, this was a nice run, and she should be proud of her performance today, but she's about to get her ass handed to her, so this is the end of the line." But then it wasn't. She got in several good kicks and a few good punches. The match was a nail-biter. When one of the judges thinks they see a point, they briefly stop the match and all three judges say whether they believe one of the contestants should be awarded a point. Well several times, either the judges didn't all see, or they disagreed, so it was kind of a long match. Z was behind for a while in the beginning, but when time was called, she was ahead, so she had won her second match, too!

Then the other girl had to fight again. It was her third match, and I'm not that great at figuring out how to tell who's in what place. She won her third match, and if you are good at this sort of thing, you have figured out by now that this means she's just won third place, and the two people vying for first will now spar. 

And they do. And it's my kid against the boy from her dojo. And he's really good. He wins most of his matches in the dojo. He's aggressive, and he puts other kids on the defense or on the run. He's also really focused. Z, on the other hand, tends to lose focus and end up on the run. But not this time. This match was a nail-biter, too. It was one point for him, one for her almost throughout. There were a ton of times when the judges didn't see or couldn't agree. And then he kicked her and she fell down on her tailbone. And one thing she is not, man, is resilient. I could see she was going to cry, and so I hiked the baby up onto my hip, leaned forward to wait for the judge's word that I could go get her, and ... kept waiting, because he talked her down. And in a minute or so, she was ready to go on. And she put her all into it, and she earned those last couple points, and there it was! She was the first place winner! Oh, you should have seen her face. She knew she shouldn't celebrate unduly so that she wouldn't make the other kid sad, but she couldn't help but grin. 

And I am glad, because sometimes things are so hard for her. Sometimes she gets yelled at by us. Sometimes the other kids at school don't get her. Sometimes her very patient, understanding teacher has to pull me aside to tell me what went wrong that day, and last week that was nearly every day. She just needed a win, I think. And she earned one.

A way in

Today we had a faculty meeting at work. It began abruptly with our principal talking frankly about race -- about the fact that it has always been true and it is true at our school and every other school with a population of students of color, that if you go to the in-school suspension room, it will be mostly students of color. More than that (at a school like ours, there are almost no white kids), of all those students, most will be black. He even had some numbers from recent days.

He went on to say that sometimes black kids express themselves differently than we might -- they may tend less to bottle up their feelings, and instead respond quickly and out loud. And then we send them to the principal's office.

He wanted a way to not excuse bad behavior, but maybe for us to make room for understanding and acceptance of different kinds of behavior than we might be used to. He asked some students in an after-school program to share their stories with us. He listened to them first to get an idea of how it would go.

And when he heard how teachers were indicted in their stories, he thought it was too harsh, that we would tune out, and he cancelled it, asking them to maybe re-work the stories in ways that were more accessible to us.

And so he listened again, and he still thought they were too harsh. But when he listened, so did several other adults -- all people of color. And they all disagreed. So he went home and checked his privilege and decided to go ahead with it. We heard their stories today.

And mostly what we heard were things that we know intellectually. We know about substance abuse and physical abuse and sexual abuse and incarceration and gangs and drug dealing and the foster care system and hunger. But we don't often have a 16 year old girl in front of us, her hands shaking and on the verge of tears, telling us that when she got in trouble for being distracted in class, it was because she was wondering why her mother hadn't told her she loved her for thirteen years. Being in foster care is one thing -- we talk to foster parents all the time -- but hearing about why a girl was taken from her mother was different, bleaker. One of the things that surprised me most was how alone these kids were. Several spoke about not knowing their fathers, their mothers dead or disappeared or legally separated from them, but they were also separated from siblings who had moved, been murdered, been taken by their other parent, or were otherwise unavailable. These weren't kids who had no father but still had a loving network. These were kids who were basically alone in the world.

And then they came to school and were asked if they were retarded, if they were illiterate. Told they might as well give up because they'd never make anything of themselves. Told the dream of being a doctor was too far out of reach. I was angry at the thought that some of my colleagues could have said these things.

In the back of my mind, I wondered whether I had said anything like that, or anything that even if meant well, could be interpreted that way. I have certainly pulled a kid aside and asked him to read to me because I wasn't sure he could. I think I did it lovingly and privately, but... how did he feel?

And then a student got up, telling a story in third person with a false name because he wasn't ready yet to reveal that it was his story. "Shawn," he said, "hadn't eaten since yesterday at lunchtime, so he was begging food off his friends and eating it in class. He got sent to the principal's office." I thought of the students I had chastened this week for eating in class. "Shawn went home that night and his dad came home drunk. His dad and mom argued until 2am, so Shawn couldn't sleep. The next day in class, Shawn fell asleep at his desk, so the teacher told him to stand up. He stood up for ten minutes, then asked to sit back down. He fell asleep again, so the teacher sent him to the principal's office." I thought of the kids I constantly wake up.

Don't worry, I don't intend to suddenly let every classroom-inappropriate behavior go, inventing excuses for them or assuming the worst. But I do think I'm going to take a second to think about whether it could be the case. I'm not a hardass anyway. Today a kid came in with a nectarine and said he was hungry, so could he finish it outside real quick? I said yes, of course.

And I'm not a send-kids-to-the-principal kind of teacher anyway. My classroom is mine, and I will deal with the issues that come up if I can. In the last two and a half years, I've probably sent two referrals.

But if I can contribute positively to the atmosphere of my school... If I can make it a safe place to be... If I can not just get them college- and career- ready, but also let them know that I care and believe in them... If I can not make the journey or even an hour worse... That's what I'm in education to do.

One of the first student speakers today said that teachers were often looking for a way out of the situation, but she wanted them to find a way in.  I can't save them all. I can't fix 15 years of prior trauma and neglect and lack of education. But if they're going to land in my class, they're going to find a soft place to land.

Lochie is 13 months and some change

Boy, you wouldn't believe this kid some days. He has the best appetite, and he'll eat nearly anything (he likes pickles and broccoli, for instance). He has really good fine motor skills. In fact, he even picked up a pencil and scribbled on a paper today. He is slooowwlly learning to walk -- a more generous person might give him credit for having done so, because he has taken a couple shuffling steps on a couple occasions.

He is still absolutely crazy for books. He could sit and be read to all day, I think. When you finish one of his favorite books, he'll hand it back to you to read again. He will even sit and turn the pages of a book himself for maybe five minutes. His big favorites right now are the Little Blue Truck books and I Love My Mommy Because (which I got for Z at the zoo gift shop years ago -- it has pictures of animals in it). He pays careful attention to that one, smiling slightly throughout, and then on the last page, which has a picture of a human mommy and a little boy, he grunts, throws himself forward at the book, and points at the picture. I'll say, "Is that like Mommy and Lochlan?" He smiles.

Like his sister, he's a huge climber. Mom took him to the park today and he was climbing all the things.

We were also discussing the ways he is unlike his sister. First of all, she never slept well. He's a great sleeper. He still often gets three naps in a day.

He will sit and focus on a single activity for a long time, whereas she never did. You had to run after her all the time. If you put him in the sandbox with a shovel, you can pretty much sit down and relax, because he's going to spend the next 20-30 minutes digging (and periodically putting disgusting things in his mouth).

We also never really noticed that Z doesn't nod for yes or shake her head for no until this year, when it was a question on the autism forms. I searched my memory and was like... I don't think she does! I called Mom, and Mom couldn't remember her doing it either. We never noticed because she could (and did) say yes or no so early and so clearly, so it never seemed like something was missing. But it's adorable to watch Lochlan nod his head in agreement. Today one of the cats took a (harmless) swipe at him, and I said "Mean cat!" He pouted his little lip out and nodded his head.

He is saying more words and making more signs. I think Grandma sees more of these than I do, but she said he can clearly say "truck" "duck" and "clock" and make the sign for airplane, as well as all done, milk, dog, and some others.

Plus, I really don't try to make my kids conform to gender roles, and I think Z is a pretty well balanced kid. I indulged the fairy and princess stuff when she wanted to and pushed the science and karate and just tried to let her be her. I was never like "you're such a girly-girl!" or anything. So forgive me if I say that Lochlan is a real guy's guy. He likes trucks, buses, airplanes, helicopters, and dogs. A lot. Fire trucks are his favorite, but even a pickup will do in a pinch. It cracks us up how excited he'll get over a truck. Zadie liked to watch the garbage trucks, too, but he's really enthusiastic about it.

And that's my boy at 13 months! He's peacefully asleep now after our bedtime dance of nursing, the I Love My Mommy book, a song ("This Land is Your Land" tonight) and a snuggle with PetePea.

Some days...

As you might imagine, simply having Z's diagnosis doesn't always make everything easier. I mean, it makes things a little easier to understand, but not, like... more fun.

Today was less fun.

I really want to be able to put the baby in a bike trailer and take a ride with Z by my side. That just seems like it would be so much fun. But we've been buying Z trikes and balance bikes and real bikes with training wheels and trail-a-bike rigs since forever, and she's just never showed much interest. Mind you, I could have provided more opportunities to practice instead of waiting for her to ask, but there it stands.

Today I asked if she'd want to try again. She did. We pumped up her tires, put on her helmet, and headed outside. I coached her ("Push hard down on the left pedal. No, don't pedal backwards.") verbally for several tries, then gave it a shot at holding onto the seat and pushing her. I did my best, but it's an awkward angle and she's 53 pounds, plus it's a big bike -- when it started to tip I just couldn't right her with my fingertips on the seat. She didn't get hurt or anything, but she blamed me for tipping her over. And then she didn't want to ride anymore. It's just frustrating to see her give up so easily, and worse, to get blamed for it (like, she was really mad at me).

Later I took her to Target and Cost Plus. There were only three things I needed at Target so I thought it could be a quick trip. But she had to stop on every aisle to ask for things. If I'd bought her everything she wanted, I'd have easily dropped $150. And then when I checked out, she wandered off to look at toy cars, not telling me where she was going. I found her and told her we were leaving, but she wouldn't come. I thought if I walked out the door (Okay, I'm going! Here I go right now!), she'd follow, but she didn't, so I had to go to the other set of doors to go back in (because the automatic doors don't let you go back in the exit) to retrieve her. And of course, it was all my fault again. In her version, I didn't tell her we were leaving, and she had told me she was going to look at cars.

We went to Cost Plus just for fun, to look at Halloween decorations. I told her before we went in that we were just window shopping. Inside, she again wanted one of everything (as always), but I felt a little bad for saying no so much. Plus, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia -- they had New York Seltzer, a soda I used to get and loved as a young teen. I told her I'd buy her one, so we selected the flavor that sounded best, bought it, and brought it home. I told her she should put it in the fridge and try it later when it was cold, but she insisted she was going to have a sip warm, then put it in the freezer for a short time. I took the lid off for her, she had her warm sip, then went to put it in the freezer. But she forgot to put the lid back on, and she couldn't find a flat surface to rest it on, so it fell and spilled all over the kitchen.

I felt bad for her, and I told her we'd get another one soon, but I also gave her some paper towels to clean up, and I got down on the floor to clean it up with her. In my opinion, that was reasonable, but she again thought it was all my fault, was furiously angry with me, stormed off to her room, yelled at me, and told me not to talk to her.

I understand that she's frustrated, too. She was unsuccessful at riding her bike. She wanted things and didn't get them. She spilled her treat. But you know, I was trying to be a good mom today. I wanted to have fun. I got her a treat. And all I got was yelled at and blamed.

I hope the behavioral therapy can address that. It kind of sucks.

Dumb as a post!

When someone who understands my sense of humor (or, maybe, puts up with it) asks how the baby is, I like to say something to the effect of "He's dumb as a post, but just the sweetest thing!"

My mom, who is the nicest person on earth, and who loves her grandbabies, objects to this. "He's not dumb!"

Okay, okay, he's not dumb. First of all, he has figured out several words and signs. He can do the signs for milk, nurse, bird, dog, eat, fan, and a few others. He has also said a number of words including mama, dada, Azadeh and Zadie, hi, bye, yeah, all done, and damn good attempts at cat, bird, book, Boompah, grandma, and some others. There are some things he says that you know what he means even though he doesn't articulate it well. For example, book is still "BOO." But he's like, gesturing at or grabbing for a book, so the meaning is clear.

Speaking of which, he loves books. He is legitimately gleeful when you grab a book to read. His favorite is The Little Blue Truck, but there's no book he doesn't like. The only one he has mixed feelings about is Little Shark, which has a shark finger puppet in the middle (poking through all the pages), and he can't figure out how it moves, so it kind of freaks him out. He'll try to flip it over to the back super fast, and I'll pull my finger out. Then he'll turn it back to the front and I'll wiggle it again, and we can do this game for a LONG time. He'll stare at the finger hole, stick his own finger in it, turn the pages... It's like he knows something is up, but he can't quite figure it out. One time he reached out to pet the shark and I pretended it was going to bite him and he drew his arm back in revulsion. I love that book.

He can't walk yet, but he has tremendous fine motor skills. He has a board with pegs in it that you can hammer in, and instead he likes to pull the pegs out, then carefully place them back into the hole. I handed him a bowl and spoon one day, thinking he'd bang on it, but instead he turned the bowl over and put the spoon in and took it out over and over again. He has a toy screwdriver and screws and he loves to try to put the screwdriver into the slot. And god forbid you try to feed him something with a spoon and you want to hold that spoon. He wants the spoon. And he wants to eat with it. He'll try over and over to dip his spoon into the food, but he has a hard time getting the bowl part facing up. Still, his persistence is amazing. Tonight he actually did get some risotto to his mouth on the spoon. He also loves to brush my hair. One day recently he did it for about ten minutes.

Pretty much anything that qualifies as a problem to solve, he wants to solve it. He wants to try to put the lid back on the snack packet. He wants to put the lid on the frozen yogurt. He wants to push the buttons on the computer and flip the light switches. He wants to enter the password on my phone.

He's also an unparalleled escape artist. There is no high chair (save our own at home) that can hold him. We've gone to restaurants with about three different kinds of high chairs, but he can slip right out of the belt and stand up. He was in the cart at Target the other day and the belt was actually really snug, but he wriggled out, stood up, turned around, and balanced his hands on the back of the seat back like he was the captain of his ship, ruler of all he surveyed. (Mom says he came by this honestly, and that I was an escape artist, too.)

So is he talking a lot? No. Some of those words he's said it's almost like he said it just to prove he could, and then he quit saying them. But he's certainly not dumb. He's my little motor-skilled, book-lovin', problem-solvin', tool-usin' Houdini, and I'm crazy about him.