Fun quickie trip to Santa Cruz.

It's a three-day weekend, so we made reservations at our favorite hotel, Hotel Paradox, and had a leisurely breakfast on Saturday morning, then made the drive at Lochlan's usual nap time. It worked great: he slept from about Davis to Fremont! We had a couple patches of slow traffic, but nothing serious, and we got to Santa Cruz around lunchtime.

Ready to go!

After settling in to the hotel room and putting a few things away, we walked downtown to Pacific Avenue. We split up a bit -- Sweetie and Z went to a comic store and L and I went into Chefworks and a couple design and clothing stores. We met up again and went to Logos, the used and new bookstore.

Then we went back to the hotel and had dinner in the restaurant. It was mostly lovely, although Lochlan is quickly heading into that difficult-in-restaurants phase that involves loudness and messes. I ended up walking him in circles around the hotel lobby until I saw that our food had arrived.

It was a big meal, so we all skipped dessert (what?? I know, right!?) and went back to the room to change into bathing suits. They have a lovely heated pool and spa, and we enjoyed both before heading back for our bedtime routine. Lochlan went right to sleep and slept soundly, but Z couldn't go to sleep with our lights on, so we turned them out and didn't read like we usually do.

In the morning, we got up, got ready, and went to Cafe Brasil for breakfast. Well, we actually got there a bit early and drove to a couple places to try to find sand toys (we had some, but no shovel). With no luck and 8am approaching, we went back to Brasil. Man, I like that place! Lochlan was somewhat better behaved, but it was also a shorter wait for food, which helps.

Clifford the Big Red Dog accompanied us.

Back at the hotel, I put Lochlan down for a nap, and Sweetie tucked in, too (he had hurt his back and not slept well). Azadeh and I walked to the park and played (I read) for quite a while. The cherry blossoms were all in bloom, and they were wafting down around us. She picked up a handful, climbed to the top of the snake slide, and set them free on "1" of a three-count. Luckily I starting clicking early.

Cherry blossom time!

Then we went back to the room, packed beach bags, and stopped at Trader Joe's for snacks.

We spent about two hours at Natural Bridges. On the way in, we took the path down to the viewing area for Monarch butterflies. It wasn't the best time of year to see them, but we saw several.

Looking for butterflies.

We made sand castles, dug holes, ran in the surf, ate our food, and just generally dinked around. It was wonderful. Lochlan was absolutely drawn to the water. He kept running towards it, and even when the surf was at his toes, he'd try to run into it. Even with both Sweetie and myself right next to him, we couldn't quite get him out of the way in time for one bigger wave, and he got soaked! But, you know, I had sunscreen, so we just let him hang out in a diaper. For the car ride home, I put him in his sweater. It was fine.

He looks crabby here, but he didn't even cry about getting knocked over by the wave. 

It was a pretty high tide when we got there, and apparently it was still coming in. We had to move our blanket further up the beach. At one point, Z found a hole someone had dug and started to hollow it out more. As soon as L saw, he went crab-walking over to it and jumped in, like, without hesitation. You could see it in his eyes: "I want to be in that hole!"

Here's a funny note: it was Iranian day at the beach. Sweetie nudged me and said, "MAN we stand out wherever we go." "Huh?" I asked, thinking he meant our family. He nodded his head a little and I saw a lovely family of olive-skinned people with, well, big noses. And another down the beach the other way. Anyway, I had noticed in myself the tendency to pronounce "Azadeh" the Iranian way -- a little more "eh" than "ay" and equal emphasis on the first two syllables rather than a stressed-unstressed -- when around Iranian people. I'm not sure why, but there you are. Well on the beach, with the other Iranian families around, Sweetie stood up to call her from somewhere and HE did it too!!

We stopped in the visitors center, where I got Z a bracelet and a tidepool chart and myself some earrings based on Hokusai's "The Great Wave." I held up two books for Lochlan and let him choose, but he kept waffling. "Which one, Lochie? Butterfly or frog?" "Butt! Butt!" he'd say, right before switching to the baby sign language for frog. Finally I decided he was slightly leaning towards butterfly, so I bought that one.

We went back to the hotel and changed into bathing suits and had an afternoon dip. Sweetie's back was really bothering him, so he didn't swim long, but he sat out on a lounge chair while the kids and I swam. Lochlan had a blast! He loves splashing and being hoisted in and out of the water. I hope I never forget the look of sheer joy on his face. Z also had a good time -- she found another kid to talk at, and impressed him by doing about 20 cannonball/bellyflops.

Then we showered up and got ready for dinner. We walked back downtown and went to Mobo Sushi. Luckily, even though it was Valentines Day, we didn't need a reservation. They stuck us in what we have come to realize is the kid room, which is fine. Z got the kids' "Roll Your Own," which is some nori, some sushi rice, some tempura yam, some avocado, and teriyaki chicken. I got Lochlan an avocado-cucumber roll. I had a roll with yam and avocado, and another with yamaimo (Japanese slimy potato), shiso and ume. I like shiso and ume so much that I didn't give a lot of thought to the slimy yam. It tastes like daikon, but it drips snot, so that was weird.

My wee valentines at Mobo.

Afterwards, we went to Bookshop Santa Cruz, then to several other shops. I had planned poorly. I wanted to go to Palace Arts and Paper Visions, but they were both closed. Still, I had gotten to most of the shops I wanted to. I stopped and got a few cookies from Pacific Cookie Company to bring home, and then we met (Sweetie and Z had gone to It's Sugar, the overpriced candy shop that Z loves) at Mission Hill Creamery, which has terrific ice cream. I had been carrying Lochlan on my back in a baby carrier, so I opted not to give him ice cream but handed him a cookie instead.

Then we went back to the hotel and did our bedtime routine stuff. For some reason, Lochlan woke up at midnight and could not be consoled except by cuddling (and nursing) in our bed. So he ended up being in there all night. I didn't sleep too well, but it was okay.

This morning we packed up everything fairly bright and early and checked out. Then we drove down to Kelly's French Bakery. When I was a 19-20 year old, everything at the west end of town -- at least down Swift Street, my path to the beach -- was warehouses and factories. But there's been a ton of development, and now there are both big companies as well as organic tea houses and natural foods stores and charcuteries and wineries. In one particular little plaza is the bakery we love. They have full breakfasts, lots of pastries, several different kinds of baguettes, and decent coffee. We grabbed a couple seeded baguettes, two cinnamon rolls, and a fruit and yogurt plate and sort of split it up. Well, Sweetie just had bread, but the kids and I all had a little of everything.

Then we went for a last look at the beach. There's an overlook where you can park for 20 minutes, so we went and stared out for a while. We saw some seals. When it was time to go, I told Lochlan "say bye-bye to the ocean." He looked very intensely out towards the waves and said "bye" about twenty times.

Two afterthoughts: First, we read the butterfly book when we got back to the hotel room. When we got to the middle, there was a page with no words, just a picture of a butterfly and a frog. When I turned another page, the words were upside-down. I flipped the book over. It was two books in one! We didn't have to decide at all. We'd gotten the frog book AND the butterfly book!

Also, Lochlan has started to throw some fairly epic temper tantrums. He throws, drops food on the ground (or flings it from his tray with a sweep of his arm), and yells. He's also figured out hitting. It's a real bummer. We keep working with him on "gentle hands," but I know sometimes these phases take a while. A couple days ago, he tried to hit me and I said no, and asked him for gentle hands. I guided his hand over my arm, and then he did it himself. So I think there's hope. But it reminded me that I keep meaning to tell you, gentle readers, how gosh dang sweet the boy is.

Azadeh is a wonderful child in many ways. But she's not really affectionate. She's not a lap-sitter. She's never volunteered the kisses. Even now you have to ask for a kiss, and sometimes she'll just turn her cheek to you. But Lochlan is the AFFECTION MAN! "Can Mama have a hug?" I'll ask. And he'll throw his arms around my neck and squeeze. "Mama kiss?" I get a big one, then two or three or five more. Sometimes I just have to pucker up and make the kiss noise and he'll shower me with kisses, grinning the whole time. And I don't even have to ask every time -- he voluntarily gives me hugs and kisses, pats my arm, holds my hand, rests on my lap. My gosh, it's so rewarding! And it's not even just me -- he wants to give his babies kisses, too (a couple stuffed pigs, a couple cats, a dog, and a plastic giraffe). And he wants me to give them kisses. He will hold an animal up toward my mouth, I'll pucker and kiss the thing, and he'll smile at me like all is right with the world. I even saw him make a pig and a giraffe kiss the other day, and then a cat and a truck. It's miscegenation, but it's beautiful to me.

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I just love baby at the beach pictures. I'd have gotten more of Z, but she's fast!

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.