I have no excuses, friends.
I mean, yeah, I'm parenting three children. But a lot of people in this world parent and still write. And I'm teaching two classes - but people teach and write always.
So, yeah.
Please forgive me. I'll come up with something amazing soon. In the meantime, please accept this tidbit from Carter who will either grow up to be an atheist or a preacher:
Carter: So mom, how did Jesus die?
Me: Dude. You know this. What's the Easter story?
Carter: Yeah, yeah, cross, spear blah blah blah. I mean after that. How did he die after that?
Me: Well, remember in the creed we say he ascended into heaven to be with God?
Carter: (lowering gaze) I prefer to think of him as an old man.
Me: That's cool dude, I'm just saying what the church says.
Carter: Yes. I think he was an old man who died in his sleep. And had a cane. Canes are cool. The church can say what they want. They're church. I vote old age.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Mom and Baby encounter: Candy Corn Oreos Edition
Honey Badger and I had big work to do today. We had to drop the Budge and Monkey moo off at school, then stop at Target to spend $50 on whatever it is that people spend $50 on at Target and pick up the much loved and reviled Candy Corn Special Edition Oreos.
So. . .10 Scotch tapes (I'm always out. ALWAYS. And they were 70% off.), a bucket of coffee, and 2 steeply discounted t-shirts later, we rolled through the checkout with these babies:
I asked the Honey Badger if she wanted one. In the parking lot. At 9:33 a.m.. Of course she said yes because she's 21 months old and don't care!
Oh look! I said. These are special - they have a roll top and little tabs. How quaint. Then I ripped open the package. Oh dear god. Oh dear god. These smell. . . awful. And the smell was everywhere - the scent of canned white frosting.
I handed one to the Honey Badger, who immediately twisted it apart and said (I can only assume, as my baby translation isn't so grand) Why mother, you are wrong, these look delectable - I shall now suck the yellow and orange goo off of this side while I jam the other half under my butt to warm it up.
I ate one myself.
Fast.
Then I broke into the Halloween Oreos with orange middles to try to kill the taste. It didn't. I think the orange goo might be pervasive to this season's specialty Oreos. Or, wait, is that just how they taste all the time? It's been awhile, I'll admit it.
Five minutes later, Honey Badger piped up from the back seat: Anodder cookeeeeee mommy? Anodder cooooooookkkkkkkkkkiiiiiieeeeeee?
And because I am the world's best, most amazing, clearly superior mother, I gave her one.
It took her the next 45 minutes to eat it. It was as if she knew in her heart it was a cookie and thus should be good because, hey, cookie.
Right after she finished she asked for gum. Which she promptly swallowed.
Then asked for more.
Me? I came home and brushed my teeth.
So. . .10 Scotch tapes (I'm always out. ALWAYS. And they were 70% off.), a bucket of coffee, and 2 steeply discounted t-shirts later, we rolled through the checkout with these babies:
 |
| I had to buy the special edition Halloween Oreos because look! Bats! Yup. I'm a sucker for marketing. |
Oh look! I said. These are special - they have a roll top and little tabs. How quaint. Then I ripped open the package. Oh dear god. Oh dear god. These smell. . . awful. And the smell was everywhere - the scent of canned white frosting.
I handed one to the Honey Badger, who immediately twisted it apart and said (I can only assume, as my baby translation isn't so grand) Why mother, you are wrong, these look delectable - I shall now suck the yellow and orange goo off of this side while I jam the other half under my butt to warm it up.
I ate one myself.
Fast.
Then I broke into the Halloween Oreos with orange middles to try to kill the taste. It didn't. I think the orange goo might be pervasive to this season's specialty Oreos. Or, wait, is that just how they taste all the time? It's been awhile, I'll admit it.
Five minutes later, Honey Badger piped up from the back seat: Anodder cookeeeeee mommy? Anodder cooooooookkkkkkkkkkiiiiiieeeeeee?
And because I am the world's best, most amazing, clearly superior mother, I gave her one.
It took her the next 45 minutes to eat it. It was as if she knew in her heart it was a cookie and thus should be good because, hey, cookie.
Right after she finished she asked for gum. Which she promptly swallowed.
Then asked for more.
Me? I came home and brushed my teeth.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
An exhausting work of unbelieveable awesomeness
This is the post I've been trying to write for days but I'm not sure what to say or where to start. I keep coming back. Erasing. Rewriting. Erasing again. How much to share, how little, or even what to say, I just don't know.
This is a post about the Budge. The boy who has confounded us since birth and has been crash-bang from the start. The boy who not only lives outside of the box - he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the existence of a box at all. Perhaps he is a genius. Perhaps he is a madman. None of us know yet - time will tell.
Last year, as he adjusted to Kindergarten - his quirks got worse. Lack of understanding of social cues, chewing on everything, soundtracking (this is what we call his constant creation of low-level noise): you could go through the manual for a kid with sensory issues and the Budge would fit the bill. We discussed our concerns with his teachers and discovered that, over time, his issues lessened, his teachers grew comfortable with him, and the general feeling was that nothing that was happening was terribly outside of your average high-needs, sensory-seeking, spirited five-year-old.
We all came to conclude that he was an oddball, but his strangeness would not get in the way of his education and as such, we could let it go. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves. We consulted educators and counselors and got a general response - he's a tough kid, but he's fine. It'll be fine. Relax.
And relax we did until June when his reactions to discipline in all forms became so extreme that every time he was disciplined or corrected, we heard some variation of I wish I were never born! or You HATE me! Thus followed a downward spiral of weeping, misbehaving, and hurting himself. We couldn't pretend that he was just an outside of the box kid any longer.
Unfortunately, his six-year-well-child checkup with the physician we've used since birth unearthed a rather common thread in our interactions with people: He was fine, but we were probably just shitty parents who didn't discipline him enough. After our low in early June, though, things got slowly better. That fact combined with changes we'd made in parenting/discipline and the doctor's commentary led us to believe that a little work would make everything okay again. After all, hard work always pays off, right?
And pay off it did, until school started again. We are two weeks deep into his first grade year and The Budge has seen the counselor no less than 10 times. He's had to be removed from the classroom several times. Some days he's weeping, others he's hiding under his desk. His complaints range from the physical (vision impaired, having headaches, can't breathe) to the emotional (doesn't feel safe, is sad) to visions of persecution (being bullied, everybody hates me). Our high-needs, highly-emotional, tightly wound boy is moreso - and his commentary about wanting to hurt himself is finally triggering the district, counselors, teachers, and doctors to listen to us when we say we JUST need to know how to help him.
I spent at least 20 minutes per day on the phone with his counselor or teacher last week. There were notes and e-mails and follow up e-mails and phone conversations. His counselor and teacher both refer to him as "exceptional" and "brilliant" and "charming". He's been put on the watch list for Gifted and Talented - but with the tag "Double Exceptional". This means that in addition to being very smart - there is some other special education/learning disability to conquer. We don't know what it is yet, but an appointment with another physician next week and the occupational therapist will hopefully unearth at the very least a direction or diagnosis so that we can help him.
Let me be clear: I don't want to FIX my boy. I don't think he's broken. I think he's intense, in touch with his emotions, and highly intelligent. I would never want to make that go away. I do want to make him the best possible student he can be - which means giving him a set of tools that will allow him to work in a classroom. I want him to be the best possible friend he can be - which means giving him another set of tools that allow him to work well in social situations. And eventually, I want him to be the best possible grown man he can be. All of that means that now is the time to learn these lessons.
But in the meantime, as we wait for some sort of diagnosis - a set of terms to use to understand the boy we are to parent, we are lost. And as his mother, I cannot help but question every moment of conception, pregnancy, infancy, and his childhood - wondering what I have done to break his brain. How might I have done things differently so that living would be easy for him? Why did I go so long thinking he'd probably just be a strange guy but function just fine in this world?
We are also judged - for being too harsh, too lax, too slow on the uptake, too fast to push for diagnosis and help. We judge ourselves probably more harshly than anyone else.
But finally, above all else? We are exhausted. Our little man is intense to parent. He's tiring to be around. We can't keep up with him - and right now, we're asking that we not only keep up, but get just a tiny bit ahead of him to understand who he is, what he is about, and above all else, how to parent him in a way to make him successful in the most important way - happy, self-actualized, and surrounded by love.
This is a post about the Budge. The boy who has confounded us since birth and has been crash-bang from the start. The boy who not only lives outside of the box - he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the existence of a box at all. Perhaps he is a genius. Perhaps he is a madman. None of us know yet - time will tell.
Last year, as he adjusted to Kindergarten - his quirks got worse. Lack of understanding of social cues, chewing on everything, soundtracking (this is what we call his constant creation of low-level noise): you could go through the manual for a kid with sensory issues and the Budge would fit the bill. We discussed our concerns with his teachers and discovered that, over time, his issues lessened, his teachers grew comfortable with him, and the general feeling was that nothing that was happening was terribly outside of your average high-needs, sensory-seeking, spirited five-year-old.
We all came to conclude that he was an oddball, but his strangeness would not get in the way of his education and as such, we could let it go. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves. We consulted educators and counselors and got a general response - he's a tough kid, but he's fine. It'll be fine. Relax.
And relax we did until June when his reactions to discipline in all forms became so extreme that every time he was disciplined or corrected, we heard some variation of I wish I were never born! or You HATE me! Thus followed a downward spiral of weeping, misbehaving, and hurting himself. We couldn't pretend that he was just an outside of the box kid any longer.
Unfortunately, his six-year-well-child checkup with the physician we've used since birth unearthed a rather common thread in our interactions with people: He was fine, but we were probably just shitty parents who didn't discipline him enough. After our low in early June, though, things got slowly better. That fact combined with changes we'd made in parenting/discipline and the doctor's commentary led us to believe that a little work would make everything okay again. After all, hard work always pays off, right?
And pay off it did, until school started again. We are two weeks deep into his first grade year and The Budge has seen the counselor no less than 10 times. He's had to be removed from the classroom several times. Some days he's weeping, others he's hiding under his desk. His complaints range from the physical (vision impaired, having headaches, can't breathe) to the emotional (doesn't feel safe, is sad) to visions of persecution (being bullied, everybody hates me). Our high-needs, highly-emotional, tightly wound boy is moreso - and his commentary about wanting to hurt himself is finally triggering the district, counselors, teachers, and doctors to listen to us when we say we JUST need to know how to help him.
I spent at least 20 minutes per day on the phone with his counselor or teacher last week. There were notes and e-mails and follow up e-mails and phone conversations. His counselor and teacher both refer to him as "exceptional" and "brilliant" and "charming". He's been put on the watch list for Gifted and Talented - but with the tag "Double Exceptional". This means that in addition to being very smart - there is some other special education/learning disability to conquer. We don't know what it is yet, but an appointment with another physician next week and the occupational therapist will hopefully unearth at the very least a direction or diagnosis so that we can help him.
Let me be clear: I don't want to FIX my boy. I don't think he's broken. I think he's intense, in touch with his emotions, and highly intelligent. I would never want to make that go away. I do want to make him the best possible student he can be - which means giving him a set of tools that will allow him to work in a classroom. I want him to be the best possible friend he can be - which means giving him another set of tools that allow him to work well in social situations. And eventually, I want him to be the best possible grown man he can be. All of that means that now is the time to learn these lessons.
But in the meantime, as we wait for some sort of diagnosis - a set of terms to use to understand the boy we are to parent, we are lost. And as his mother, I cannot help but question every moment of conception, pregnancy, infancy, and his childhood - wondering what I have done to break his brain. How might I have done things differently so that living would be easy for him? Why did I go so long thinking he'd probably just be a strange guy but function just fine in this world?
We are also judged - for being too harsh, too lax, too slow on the uptake, too fast to push for diagnosis and help. We judge ourselves probably more harshly than anyone else.
But finally, above all else? We are exhausted. Our little man is intense to parent. He's tiring to be around. We can't keep up with him - and right now, we're asking that we not only keep up, but get just a tiny bit ahead of him to understand who he is, what he is about, and above all else, how to parent him in a way to make him successful in the most important way - happy, self-actualized, and surrounded by love.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The dangers of NPR. . . and the post where I talk about Batman and bullets
We've known for awhile that NPR was dangerous car territory. Unlike your average parent, who is probably light-years smarter than I seem to be, I keep tuning into 90.1 while I drive to drown out the sound of bickering from the back seat. For whatever reason, sometimes the fighting stops and all three children go silent (they're likely plotting when that happens - or torturing each other in the most whisperly of ways) at which point it is inevitable: NPR will discuss something I don't want the children to hear.
Of course it's not NPR's fault, it's mine, but when your 2 1/2 year old son says Somali pirates? from the backseat, you have to wonder exactly how much he's sussing out from the news snippets he hears. And now that they are 6 and 9, they hear and understand a lot.
And they ask questions.
Why would somebody shoot people at Batman?
Why would somebody shoot people at a church?
Why would somebody shoot people by a college?
They ask the same questions we do, I guess. Questions for which there don't seem to be - at this moment - answers.
I've been trying to write this post since the day after Batman's opening night - and each time I sit down to the computer prepared to write something - there has been another shooting. Yesterday's attack on the security guard at the Family Research Council actually happened when this post was half written. I'm at a loss for words with my children and at a loss for words on this blog. I guess now, I can only quote my friend Robin, who posted on Facebook yesterday: Words I shouldn't have to say, much less say this many times a week: STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE
I'll even be civil about it: Please stop shooting people.
Of course it's not NPR's fault, it's mine, but when your 2 1/2 year old son says Somali pirates? from the backseat, you have to wonder exactly how much he's sussing out from the news snippets he hears. And now that they are 6 and 9, they hear and understand a lot.
And they ask questions.
Why would somebody shoot people at Batman?
Why would somebody shoot people at a church?
Why would somebody shoot people by a college?
They ask the same questions we do, I guess. Questions for which there don't seem to be - at this moment - answers.
I've been trying to write this post since the day after Batman's opening night - and each time I sit down to the computer prepared to write something - there has been another shooting. Yesterday's attack on the security guard at the Family Research Council actually happened when this post was half written. I'm at a loss for words with my children and at a loss for words on this blog. I guess now, I can only quote my friend Robin, who posted on Facebook yesterday: Words I shouldn't have to say, much less say this many times a week: STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE
I'll even be civil about it: Please stop shooting people.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Quiet for awhile, I know.
I've been mulling. You see, I've written a lot about my deceased stepfather. He's had an extraordinary influence on my life. I have three other parents who have also had a significant impact on the person I have grown to be and as such, I wanted to write about that. But there is a lot of stress in writing about the living. I have the freedom of reflection on my relationship with David. My relationships with my still-living parents are ever-unfolding.
One of them is with my father. That's the entry I've wanted to write. But I'll be honest: to say that it is complicated is a severe understatement.
I love my father as every daughter loves her father - the person who gave me shoulder rides and taught me to roast marshmallows over an open fire and taught me to think and discuss politics. But there's the rub - the politics.
I have landed in a political position that differs from his. I hoped for many years that we had gotten to a place of mutual respect, though. That despite us having significant differences in our beliefs, we respect that each of us was an adult and was capable of making reasoned and rational decisions regarding what we valued - and how we communicated those values in our elected leaders.
Then Dad joined Facebook.
And honestly, I'm not sure what to say after that. Over the course of these past three years, he has decided that I am a snobby, college-professor-talkin', rude, "THE LEFT" liberal who lacks respect, while I have decided that his internet persona is a sort of id-release for a snarling and angry personality who is convinced that we are a nation of Godless moochers and that the only answer is the eradication of social programs, a completely free market, and guns for all. He calls the President stupid (along with another extra special slur he whipped out a few times in cute old nursery rhymes and colloquialisms to cover up the depth of his offense) along with all other liberals, who he has grouped as "The Left" and demonizes daily.
What I know of him on the Internet is so utterly opposite his face-to-face behavior, I have a huge difficulty reconciling them. Some days, I'd like nothing more than to defriend him and pretend that this internet persona didn't exist at all.
But I'm sad that it does. Let me be clear: I am not saddened that his beliefs differ from mine. Obviously, I value what I value and I highly doubt that will change. The same stands for him. We disagree, neither can see why the other holds the beliefs and values that they do, but that's fine. What's not fine is the bickering and berating and talking down (accusations fly from both sides, of course). And I don't know what to do with that.
Back in the day, when I was a dual major in History and English, I was fascinated by the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars. Not by the events so much as the psychology. I wonder what the dinner table must have been like each evening. How did families survive that sort of thing - was the blood bond of birth stronger than politics? Then again - this was more than just politics - these were matters of deep values and world-shaping points of view. How did families survive being so different?
I don't know. I really don't. But I'm willing to bet being face to face at the dinner table diffused a lot of anger and that one downfall (or blessing? I don't know) of the internet is the fact that now we know what everybody is thinking. Particularly about us.
My father is a good man with a big heart. It does me well to remember that - and to accept that there are always aspects of those we love that we don't love. I hope he will do the same. In the meantime, I will return to my previous rule of non-engagement and remember that lovely quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
Addendum: I realize that this is completely awkward and incomplete. As I said, I've struggled with what to say. I still don't know. But I can't keep waiting. I have to get it out.
 |
| My family doesn't look like this. If I'm the one in pink, you need to add another Mom and two step-sisters, though we probably maybe wouldn't all hold hands. Just imagine me in the middle. . . |
One of them is with my father. That's the entry I've wanted to write. But I'll be honest: to say that it is complicated is a severe understatement.
I love my father as every daughter loves her father - the person who gave me shoulder rides and taught me to roast marshmallows over an open fire and taught me to think and discuss politics. But there's the rub - the politics.
I have landed in a political position that differs from his. I hoped for many years that we had gotten to a place of mutual respect, though. That despite us having significant differences in our beliefs, we respect that each of us was an adult and was capable of making reasoned and rational decisions regarding what we valued - and how we communicated those values in our elected leaders.
Then Dad joined Facebook.
And honestly, I'm not sure what to say after that. Over the course of these past three years, he has decided that I am a snobby, college-professor-talkin', rude, "THE LEFT" liberal who lacks respect, while I have decided that his internet persona is a sort of id-release for a snarling and angry personality who is convinced that we are a nation of Godless moochers and that the only answer is the eradication of social programs, a completely free market, and guns for all. He calls the President stupid (along with another extra special slur he whipped out a few times in cute old nursery rhymes and colloquialisms to cover up the depth of his offense) along with all other liberals, who he has grouped as "The Left" and demonizes daily.
What I know of him on the Internet is so utterly opposite his face-to-face behavior, I have a huge difficulty reconciling them. Some days, I'd like nothing more than to defriend him and pretend that this internet persona didn't exist at all.
But I'm sad that it does. Let me be clear: I am not saddened that his beliefs differ from mine. Obviously, I value what I value and I highly doubt that will change. The same stands for him. We disagree, neither can see why the other holds the beliefs and values that they do, but that's fine. What's not fine is the bickering and berating and talking down (accusations fly from both sides, of course). And I don't know what to do with that.
Back in the day, when I was a dual major in History and English, I was fascinated by the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars. Not by the events so much as the psychology. I wonder what the dinner table must have been like each evening. How did families survive that sort of thing - was the blood bond of birth stronger than politics? Then again - this was more than just politics - these were matters of deep values and world-shaping points of view. How did families survive being so different?
I don't know. I really don't. But I'm willing to bet being face to face at the dinner table diffused a lot of anger and that one downfall (or blessing? I don't know) of the internet is the fact that now we know what everybody is thinking. Particularly about us.
My father is a good man with a big heart. It does me well to remember that - and to accept that there are always aspects of those we love that we don't love. I hope he will do the same. In the meantime, I will return to my previous rule of non-engagement and remember that lovely quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
Addendum: I realize that this is completely awkward and incomplete. As I said, I've struggled with what to say. I still don't know. But I can't keep waiting. I have to get it out.
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