Every kid is different.

This morning I sit at ArtBeast, where Lochlan happily rolls trucks around, filling them with sand, emptying them, and rolling them around some more. We stay in one place for about 40 minutes while he plays. I flash back to Zadie's toddler years, when a trip to ArtBeast involved climbing multiple sets of stairs, trying to clean up messes while she ran out the door to another area, apologizing to the other mothers for various things, and getting to sit down basically never. I stand up now to stretch, and Lochlan pats the low brick wall. "Mama... here." I sit down again, and he rolls a truck across my knees.

I remember her artworks, most of which contained the same funny brushstroke, a little swirl on a vertical. I never thought much of it then. As I often do, I wonder how I didn't know she was autistic until she was seven. But I always come to the same conclusion -- she was my only child. She was different than I expected, but isn't every kid different?

My mom used to say that people would comment on how early and how well I talked, but she had the same issue, no real point of comparison. Azadeh is a lot like me, and all kids are different.

Having Lochlan -- who is without a doubt the calmest, most patient, most affectionate kid I know -- puts her behavior in a starker relief. He pretends to feed his stuffed animals. He gives me bites of food. He helps out -- just yesterday when picking up up Z from camp, I said, "Lochlan, can you go get the pink flower bag and bring it here?" He fetched her lunch bag and handed it to me.

It's almost a year since we sat on a little couch at Kaiser, her in her overalls, tangled hair hanging in her face, staring at her Kindle with her big earphones on. The doctors told me there were a few other tests that needed to be done to know what services she qualified for, speech, occupational therapy... I asked, "when will we find out if she has autism?" The doctor looked almost surprised. "Oh, she definitely has autism." All of a sudden, it wasn't an "every kid is different" thing. My kid was autistic. My kid had special needs. My kid was gonna be a struggle -- not that she wasn't already, but she wasn't going to grow out of it, either.

Since January, she has been receiving ABA, a type of therapy that sometimes gets a bad rap for how it was practiced decades ago. It's been terrific for her. She now brushes her hair, brushes her teeth, washes her hands after using the bathroom, and generally gets dressed without help. Her ABA technician taught her to ride a bike, finally! We're working on cleaning her room and doing a few chores, and it's going well. We've addressed some of the sleep issues (that one's ALWAYS going to be an issue, but we're going through a good phase [knock wood]). Our next plans involve working on speaking politely, asking in kind tones of voice, that kind of thing. She still sometimes says really mean things out of nowhere.

When I first got the diagnosis, I was a combination of relieved and terrified. I mean, what does an autistic teenager do? An autistic adult? She used to tell us she was going to live with us forever, and the thought that it was a real possibility flickered through my mind.

There are still things I worry about. Puberty, for one. The awful things that can happen in junior high and high school when you're a weirdo (and diagnosis or not, a weirdo is a weirdo). Boys.

But overall, I can see a future for her. I don't know what it is. Science? Writing? The arts? She's a passionate person, and despite her issues with interpersonal stuff, she does desire companionship.

I was reading the book Neurotribes, and there was a passage stating that Asperger's syndrome* people are basically completely without issues if left alone in their room with the door closed -- all their perseverations and stims don't bother anyone if you just let them be by themselves. I don't want that, though, and I don't think she wants that.

Other parts of the book talk a lot about finding your space in the world -- whether it's Star Wars "fandoms" or computer programming. I think she will find that.

And in the year since the diagnosis, I've realized that the diagnosis itself -- although it did help us get services that have made a huge, positive impact in our lives -- isn't that big a deal. My kid is still my kid. She's hard to live with sometimes. She's smart as hell. She's funny and weird. She's different. But every kid is different.

*Asperger's syndrome is no longer its own separate diagnosis, but is part of the autism spectrum, according to the DSM-V. However, the more I read about it, the more I am certain that Z would have gotten that diagnosis under previous editions.

Making music for dummies!

When I was a little kid, my grandma had an upright piano and a couple books with songs that taught you how to play by numbering the keys. They were about frogs and things, and went "3-2-1-1-1, 3-2-1-1-1."

When I was in high school, I joined the choir. I am an adequate singer.

I mean, I think I've said before that after getting kicked out of the performing arts school, I was a pretty big fish in the small pond of my new high school. I was in the regular choir and the smaller performance choir. I loved my teacher, and she did her best to teach us some basic musical notation. I still remember "Every Good Boy Does Fine" and that the notes with just outlines last longer than the filled-in ones. But I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, read music. She would sing us our parts, or play them on the piano, and I can memorize, so... 

In college, I joined the madrigal choir. I passed the auditions for the small group, but then the music issue came up: without reading music, I was falling a bit behind the others at learning the parts. But the other members and the director helped me out, and I got there. We performed before the Shakespeare festival for several weekends (in costume, even!) and it was a lot of fun. 

When I was 23 or 24, my friends Skye and Althea and I decided to start a band together. None of us had any musical experience, but Althea's dad played guitar, so she picked guitar. Skye chose drums, and I figured I had decent rhythm and would try the bass. I went to Skip's music, bought a "how to play bass" VHS tape (I know, right?), mastered the first couple lessons ("My Girl" and "Stand by Me
), and was on my way. By which I mean, I'd figured out the fingering and tuning and everything, so I was ready to write songs. And I did. I mean... DIY ethic, right? I played things that sounded good, more or less regardless of key and time signature. It worked, too -- the three of us were a team, so we worked together to make it sound right. We had a lot of fun playing our sort of riot-girl/punk/nerdrock. We broke up around the time I got married, when I was 29. 

After that, I fooled around with my uncle's ever-changing procession of dudes who got together to "jam." Some of that I chronicled here on the blog (anyone remember Jeff the Arhythmic Drummer?). It wasn't hard. The guys would tell me what chords they were playing, and I'd play that root note, sometimes fooling around with the timing, and you know... bada bing, bada boom. Not a great bassist, but I could keep the beat, play a goodly number of songs, and I had a good time. 

Somewhere around three years ago, some guys Sweetie works with asked if he played any instruments. Anything. They were desperate! He said no, but his wife did. That's how I joined "Rogue Scholars." They were real musicians. And although I was in it to have fun, my lack of skill started to interfere in certain ways. We'd agree to learn a song,  so I'd go home and learn it by looking up the tablature (sort of like sheet music for dummies -- it uses the 1-2-3 system just my Grandma's old frog songs). But then we'd start playing, and it would sound horrible. "Are you playing this in F?" They'd ask? Well, I have no idea!! I'd try hitting a few of the notes one or two frets down, and it would sound better, and so I'd try to re-learn it that way. If you're a musician, you're realizing the problem, I think: not everything benefits from being just moved over one. That shit's complicated.

But I *mostly* got it *most* of the time, and we played a lot and it worked, except when someone would say, "Oh hey, can we try that in E instead?" Because for everyone else, playing a song in a different key is no big deal. For me, it meant days' worth of work re-learning something. 

The band broke up recently (no major reason other than that we were paying a lot for a rehearsal space, never playing any shows, and kept losing singers). Within the week, a friend at school (like, my very oldest teacher friend -- we sat together at lunch at teacher intern orientation day 16 years ago!) asked me if I could play bass for an upcoming gig for his Star Wars-themed band. 

I said no. It was in March, and there was no way I could learn a whole set of new songs by then.

He came back a couple days later and said he was wrong about the date. It was in May. Could I do it? He didn't have music for me to learn from, but I could listen to the songs.

I said no again. I really didn't think I could learn that many songs in two months with no music to work from. 

The other member of the Star Wars band then came to my room, practically begging. He would try to make tablature for me. I said yes. 

He made the tablature for two songs, and then I got together with my old friend and he showed me how to play about three more, but there were still two more I didn't have music or even a demonstration for. I was on my own. I asked him to send me just the bass track separated out, and I listened over and over, but it's fast, and there's no recognizable pattern (the guy who played it for the recording is some jazz virtuoso) and I have to listen, then try to pluck out the patterns (all without waking the kids)... It's been very frustrating. 

The Rogue Scholars were doing covers, so they'd suggest some song and I could just look up the fan-made tab, or even a video tutorial of someone playing it, and the bass track by itself.

As you might imagine, this is not the case for a two-man Star Wars band.

Worse, my old friend is a music guy. Like, he'll give me suggestions like, "you could just play around in B, you know? Maybe throw in a seventh or something? That'd be cool. Hit that third like wee-ooh."  The brotha might as well be speaking Old Norse.


So I Googled until I found an app into which I could play that bass track, and it would spit out musical notation, and then I Google stuff like "which key has two sharps" and then I write down which version of Every Good Boy Does Fine I'm working with (because they're not all the same, oh no!). And then I make a handy little key for that, and then I use that key to translate my musical notes into the names of the notes (it's easier to work with tab, but I can at least locate the notes on my fretboard), and then, finally, I will figure out which 6 or 8 notes per measure I can hit and still have the song sound good, leaving out the 27 fiddly jazz bits I can't play anyway, and THEN I will be able to play this one goddamn Star Wars themed rock song. 

Anyway, the point of this isn't a pity party. I'm very glad to get to make music, no matter how badly I sometimes do it. The point is that I really wish I had learned to read music. It feels like a gap in my education. It is embarrassing to be in a room full of people who can do something well and only do it at the most basic level. (Incidentally, this is why it is futile to invite me to one of those "Ladies' Wine and Painting" nights, unless you need a wine taster.)

The raising two kids and having a job thing makes extracurricular activities kind of difficult to schedule. But someday, I plan to take a music class at community college, and maybe an intro to bass guitar class as well. I feel like I need the fundamentals I skipped past on ye olde VHS tape. I'd love to be able to walk into a room of real musicians, have someone go, "Hey, do you want to just jam in F for a while?" and be like, "Yeah, let's do it!"

Last week I emailed a kid to make a proposal. He does ONE presentation he's scheduled for, does some work from a lower-level class, and switch out of honors class and I'll give him a pity C.

As you might imagine, he's in pretty deep shit, grade-wise.

He said he didn't want to drop the honors class, he'd make up anything, I'd really lit a fire under him, and could he please work out a schedule with me to turn in old work?

J's a tall kid with a kind of retro flat-top. He's cocky as hell. Twice this year he's gotten in trouble for mouthing off to teachers. It seems like it's mostly female teachers, too, like we wondered whether maybe he has a problem with women in authority. I like him though. He's cocky for good reason -- a good mind, a good writer, funny.

Yesterday his mom was supposed to come to the school, so the counselor, the history teacher and I sat around and waited. She never showed. We tried to get her on the phone but there was no answer. His social worker was there, but she wasn't on any of the official school paperwork, so we couldn't hold the meeting with her. I wondered what had happened in between setting up the meeting and attending it.

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I try not to have favorite kids, but you know... When Azadeh asked if I had a favorite student, before I could even think about it or deny it, M's face was in my mind. She's a great questioner. She questions everything. She wants to know why we do education the way we do. Who chose the curriculum? Why this book? In what way, exactly, is this going to help her get to college? She's got more philosophical questions, too. I love a good question. And she's involved.  Mentoring, clubs... She actually misses class more than a lot of other kids because she needs to talk to the counselor, the director of a group she's in, her mentee... or she's on a field trip to colleges. It's that fine line some kids walk between doing a lot and doing too much.

Just recently, her work has slipped. She didn't turn in an important assignment. I kept trying to catch her to talk to her, but with all the in-and-outs, I didn't get a chance. Finally today I told her I was worried about her. She spilled the beans: she'd had trouble getting her work in because her mom had kicked her out and she didn't have regular access to a computer.  Her mom kicked her other sister out last year -- she knew I'd remember because one of the other teachers on campus adopted her. Apparently, the mom just gets this way. She sees the girls on the path to success or whatever and flips out. Stops parenting.

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A is that kid who, though she is different than me, reminds me of myself. She's a little brash. Different. Not into what everyone else is into. Constantly challenging the rules. She wears a hat into class every day, her earphones balanced on her head (both dress code violations). She drops the F word a LOT. Last year she got expelled, went to a credit recovery school for a while, and then came back this year.

She's one of my best writers. Completely not in the same category my other kids are in. Just a total risk-taker. One assignment early in the year was a "pastiche," a parody of a writer's style. Hers was so funny I laughed out loud in my chair, told my colleagues about it, saved it for ages before finally feeling obligated to give it back to her.

The other day we were talking about college. Her grades aren't that great, so I was asking if she works or does community service. She works three jobs. But she assured me over and over that it wasn't that many hours total -- some of them are only occasional. Today as we talked a little more about her life -- dad's in jail, mom's a bipolar drug abuser -- I asked her, "if you want to succeed, and you're capable of succeeding, why aren't you succeeding?" She looked at me as if in total confusion. Behind the big mirrored sunglasses she kept on, I saw a tear. "What's stopping you? Like, when you get home, what do you do?" "I go to sleep. I pretty much go home and go to sleep."

I asked her if maybe she could be suffering from depression and she told me that she had been diagnosed with depression and had been on medication for it and been in counseling, but basically felt so judged by her mom for it, that she'd stopped.

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A few hours later, after school, my colleagues and I were talking about social-emotional learning, about restorative justice, about self-management, goal-setting, and grit.

And I'm so conflicted, because of course our kids need that stuff! Of course it will help them succeed! Of course the only way to really help them achieve academically is to make sure they have these things in place.

And also... I was supposed to teach English. Verbs. Counter-arguments. Similes and shit.

I don't know if it was clear: all three students described above are in the most challenging classes on campus. They're striving for admissions to the good colleges. They've voluntarily taken on the hardest work in exchange for some bonus GPA points. They're motivated, they're trying, they want it. They're struggling so hard, and the challenges in their way are so huge.

I find myself, fairly or not, kind of mad at their parents. I mean -- these kids are doing their best. If you can't help them, could you at least get the fuck out of their way?

If my best kids, the top five or ten percent, are struggling like this, what's going on with the kid in 3rd period whom I haven't seen in two weeks and whose special ed teacher would only say his family issues were "serious"? The kid living with a "kind of like a guardian"? The "gang-identified" kid, the kid with the pregnant girlfriend, the kid with anxiety and old scars on his arms?

I know I'm a bleeding heart liberal or whatever. I don't know how I would even begin to address the problems they face, since they range from poverty to health to violence to abuse to drugs to... I know that to outsiders they look like "ghetto" kids and kids that won't go anywhere and kids that are scary to sit next to on light rail. But they're kids. They're my kids, and I love them, and I'm seeing how few of them -- even of the most motivated and successful ones -- have the kind of resources and support they need. They need and deserve loving, stable homes, and so many of them don't have that. And I don't think all the lessons on "grit" in the world make up for what they don't have.

Venn diagramming

The kids have things in common. They're both ridiculously good-looking, for one. Both big eaters (and adventurous ones). They both like the outdoors -- in fact, both kids, when upset, generally calm down if you simply walk them outside.

And some of the differences I've already brought up. She doesn't sleep, and he does. She was fussy and he's mellow. She was verbal and he's not.

But we keep noticing funny little things. Some of them are things that I don't think I'd have ever particularly noticed about Azadeh if Lochlan didn't present such a contrast. For example, she never cared much for stuffed animals. He loves them! He picks them up, points to them, naps while cuddling them, asks us to kiss them, offers them a turn at nursing time... He loves trucks and buses still, of course, but he often jams an Elmo doll into the top and drives him around.

She liked to be held, but was otherwise not that affectionate. She didn't want kisses or hugs. He voluntarily gives both, and smiles bashfully if you just kiss and kiss him. Yesterday there was a video on that he was watching. He was standing in front of me, and my left leg was crossed over my right. He rested his arm on my leg, and then thoughtfully stroked my leg back and forth while he watched. He likes to be within touching distance of you, to pet your hand, to gently pinch your forearm.

She never wanted to be groomed -- she'd run from having her hair combed, and until this very spring, getting her to brush her teeth often resulted in screaming matches. He happily opens his mouth to have his teeth brushed, watches you pleasantly while you comb his hair, and lifts his little chin towards you if you threaten to put Chapstick on him.

And he really watches for other people's reactions to him, in a way that she never could be bothered with. If you turn on Sesame Street, he laughs and points and smiles and whoops, and every few seconds he turns to you to make sure you're watching, too. If you're reading and he knows you're about to make a funny face, he turns to watch your face. If you set him free to walk on the sidewalk, he'll go, but he'll turn to make sure you're there.

She's gotten more affectionate as she's gotten older -- she especially likes it when I pick her up and swing her around. But she's never been a big kisser. I try to respect her boundaries. Tonight I asked, "May I give you a hug?" and she said yes. When I asked if I could have a kiss, she turned her head away and changed the subject. That's okay, too.

Lochlan's an easier child. That's not to say that he's easy. He fights diaper changes. He spills water everywhere. He harasses the cats. I love them both like crazy, but I admit it is a little nice to get a volunteer to snuggle here and there.

I should really post pictures, but I'm too lazy to go grab my phone and upload them. Another day soon, I promise.

Eight years is a long time!

Today was a very nice 8th birthday. We sang Z the birthday song and let her open one present -- a cool bag full of stuff for geocaching ("swag" to put in the caches, a retractable mirror and magnet). Then we went to Fox and Goose for breakfast. On the way home we stopped and found TWO caches in East Portal Park near our house. She was really excited. 

She then got to play with her friend from across the street for a while, and we packed a lunch. We went to Effie Yeaw nature center (the neighbor, Fidget, and her dad went with us) and played around a bit, walked to the river, ate some lunch, then spent a little time in the visitor center. Finally we came home for just a bit more playtime. Then it was karate (she opened her new gi from Grandpa first), where she was the class leader, and we dropped off her black belt project collection box. Then we picked up Chinese food for dinner, opened a few more presents, and then she and Lochlan just played with balloons for a while. 

While I don't downplay, in this space, how difficult it sometimes is to raise her/live with her, I am not sure I say often enough what an absolute pleasure she can be, too, and what a blessing, and what a smart, kind, funny girl she often is. At the age of 40, you'd think I'd stop being astounded at how many years have passed, but I never really am, and to think that we've had her in our lives for eight years (1/5th of my life!) is just marvelous. 

Happy birthday, Azadeh Finn.

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.