Professor Mother Blog

June 18, 2010

Old Traditions for New Places

Filed under: Autism,Home Things — profmother @ 10:22 am

I’m tired from last night.  We celebrate the “birthday” not just on the day when you’re born, but at the minute you were born.  That means that Ray finally got to eat cake and ice cream and open presents at 8:55 last night.  I got flowers from James.  There was much giddiness, much excitement over the Lego set and the goldfish aquarium, and walking of friends home- friends who were up past their bedtimes, too.  Much excitement much too late.  And it’s our tradition.  Thank goodness, all of us were born during the day.  No nighttime babies in this family.

We’ve moved- a lot.  Elizabeth has lived in 8 houses in 9 years.

  1. The duplex house she was born in.- Retirement community
  2. The ranch house we moved into right before Ray was born- Palm trees, a pool, live oaks
  3. The Cape Cod house in Indiana, PA- Cute, in the middle of town
  4. The Colonial house in RI- on a hill, cold
  5. The lovely Victorian on Cherokee Road- that burned six weeks after we got there
  6. The ranch on Yale  that was too small but had a pool table
  7. The turn-of-the century house on Speed that had the retreat upstairs
  8. The slightly contemporary house here in GA on the circle of children

We’ve followed James around in his various consulting jobs; we’ve had houses that just didn’t work, and we’ve had houses burn up.  The children know architectural styles.  We all know how to pack a box.  We’ve learned how to take down furniture and figure out where it goes in a new place, a new configuration.

When we move, we not only bring the couches- once white and now vaguely spotted gray- and the bookshelves that sag a little more each time, and the dining table.  We also haul autism around.  And children with autism love consistency.  They love structure.  They love routine.  They do not love changing houses.

And so we have VERY strong, VERY firm traditions.  We celebrate birthdays on the minute.  We have Christmas ornaments from our various travels.  We have Vicki over for Thanksgiving and Dampa for Christmas.  We watch the sunsets on the Solstices.  We bake Vasilopita cake for New Years.  The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus can always find us.  James brings me flowers on the children’s birthdays.  We open Christmas presents from each other on Christmas Eve and Santa comes f0r Christmas morning (and Santa doesn’t wrap, either, which is always nice for immediate gratification).  We have turkey and jellied cranberries for Thanksgiving.  We use the “good” china and the “real” silverware for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  We try to have Pizza/Movie nights most Friday nights.

Traditions provide us with a way of providing structure for the children, for us.  We can remember how old the children were by remembering the background of certain traditions.  That Christmas when Ray was so sick…?  Oh yes, that was the house with the Christmas tree next to the big patio doors… it must have been the Florida house… he must have been 1.  I love to hear the children gasp when they decorate the Christmas tree and say “Oh, I remember when we got this…”, when they see the familiar in the new.  As they make connections between past and present.

The other day, Elizabeth was talking about her friend Emily, and with a tone of amazement, she said “Did you know that Emily has only lived in one house her whole life?”

“How do you feel about that?” I asked cautiously.

“I feel sorry for her,” she said.  ”That would be boring!”

Despite the upheaval that frequent moving brings and the feelings of being set adrift, I can say that it’s been a weird form of therapy for all of us.  That no matter how much things change, some things stay the same.  That it is so important to be consistent.

The sense of building and holding onto traditions has also helped root us in our marriage.  A friend of mine  said once that after an accident in which he was hurt because of a foolish risk he took, “No child deserves to feel that their world is that unsteady”.  James and I work hard, very hard sometimes, very, very hard sometimes, at providing a sense of stability for our children.  It’s hard, especially when the outside world has other ideas, autism has other ideas, or our own frustrations, angers, jobs, etc. have other ideas.  We don’t always win.  We don’t always succeed.  But we try.  Last birthday of Ray’s, I had to be in KY for teaching, so I flew in for the day and flew out- at 6:00pm.  The year before, James was in CA doing consulting and couldn’t come at all.  This year- this year, we were all together.

So last night, when Ray knew that he was not going to get to open his presents until 8:55, not 8:54, not 8:00, but 8:55, he glowed with the thrill of it all.   He opened up his Lego set (the beach house, but of course!) on an old table, in a new room, with less light than last year, because we’re on the eastern side of the Eastern time zone, not the western edge like the last few years. He had Andrew over, not Jack. James and I were both there.  And it was still 8:54, and the 8 candle was alight on the ice cream cake- the candle that was passed down from Elizabeth when she turned 8 last year.  We have kept the candles from 1-9, used twice, except for the 9.  Ray looks longingly at that 9 candle, so recently used for Elizabeth’s birthday.  He knows it’ll be on his cake next year… hopefully here, but the same candle. This year, he gets the 8 candle.

And at 8:55, he made a wish and blew it out.  I wish for you- a growing year…A healthy year… A happy year.  A steady year.  A year of traditions.

June 17, 2010

So Much More Than I Thought

Filed under: Home Things — profmother @ 10:39 am

Today is my son’s 8th birthday.  Today, 8 years ago, Ray came into a world with a rush.

We had always planned on another child.  We always wanted two children.  In my “World According to Claire”, and when my husband and I mapped out our lives as we dreamed together, I would have a second child sometime after Elizabeth was 2, maybe 3 years old.  Sometime after the rush of babyhood when I was missing the feeling of a little one in my arms.  When I could focus on another one.  Sometime… later.

Ray had other ideas.  Ray, from the moment of his conception, has defined things on his own terms.  Elizabeth was 6 months old, 9/11 had just happened, we were psychotic from lack of sleep from a colicky child, I was nursing full-time, and I forgot all medications for one week.  And in what I didn’t know then would be his pattern, Ray slipped into the cracks and blossomed in a rush.  I didn’t even know that I was pregnant for 10 weeks- I just knew that I felt yucky.  But then, I didn’t know what first-time motherhood was all about and perhaps you’re always tired. 

We had been anxiously awaiting Elizabeth- planning her, preparing for her, and worrying about her.  Ray was our surprise- and has been surprising us ever since. 

Even his birth was indicative of his personality.  He was due, and in my pregnancy craze- I considered him past due.  Elizabeth had come 4 weeks early- I didn’t have the last month of feeling like a complete whale and not being able to sleep and not being able to eat.  I was a caged mama tiger, wanting to be DONE with being pregnant with Ray.  On June 16th, I had an obstetrician’s appointment, who said it could be a while, and not to worry unless we were at another week to go.  So, I went walking.  I walked the whole length of the mall.  I sat in the massage chair at Brookstone- the one that had the sign on it “Pregnant women should not sit here”- and snarled at the salesman that I was trying to go into labor.  He backed away, knowing that you don’t mess with a mama in her last days of pregnancy. I had our doula, Michelle, lean on pressure points on my ankles.  I was READY. 

Ray, not so much, until, all of sudden, he was.  I went into mild labor at 7:00 and went to the hospital.  At 8:00, they put me in a room and they took their time- there was no hurry.  At 8:50, Michelle, our doula, who had been monitoring me, starting yelling for the nurse. “I see hair!”  And at 8:55, Ray came out, hard and fast and in a hurry with a seriously pointed head, and was scooped up by the nurse just in time before he fell on the floor.  The family lore is that he beat the doctor because he was in such a rush.

He’s been that way ever since- hang back, hang back, wait, watch, and then… all of a sudden.  He didn’t walk, didn’t walk, RAN. He didn’t get teeth, didn’t get teeth, didn’t get teeth, GOT eight at once.   He didn’t read, didn’t read, READ at fifth grade level.  Just as I start to panic, Ray exceeds all expectations.

I thought I knew parenting.  I knew that my world shifted forever on March 6, 2001 when my daughter was born.  I thought I knew what to expect.  But having a second child rocked our world, perhaps not as much, but more significantly simply because I wasn’t expecting it. 

Having Ray is so much than I ever expected or planned for, and today we celebrate 8 years of surprises.  Happy Birthday, my Baby Boy…

June 16, 2010

Sun/Son Storms

Filed under: Autism,Tourette's Syndrome — profmother @ 10:27 am

Scientists are telling us that solar storms are a’brewing.  Every 11 years or so, the sun goes into a phase where it sends out electronic bursts of energy with solar flares that can reach out in very dramatic ways, which means that the “quiet phase” of the sun is at the halfway point of the cycle- at about 5.5 years after the last outbreak.  And the last time we had a solar surge…?  6 years ago.  Which means that we’ve been in a quiet phase for 6 years and the sun should be just about to break out in sun spots, solar jetstreams, and even increased sound waves. Listen- can you hear the “screaming” of the sun?  But the sun shows no signs of imminently breaking out.  Which has scientists in a tizzy about their forecasting abilities. 

While we don’t necessarily have to worry about being fried with sunburn, we do have to worry about the electromagnetic bursts interrupting our satellite systems.  The satellite systems control our cell phones, our television, our computers.  In other words, a little bit of turmoil is going to seriously impact communications, especially given the tremendous growth in wireless and digital technology over the last six years.  And right before those storms break out?  Researchers have found that, in the form of shifting magnetic fields, “there is some sort of triggering mechanism that appears before the onset of activity”. 

Triggers?  Decreased communication?  Periods of quiet followed by storms, including screaming?  Sound familiar?  I only wish that autism and bipolar disorder and Tourette’s Syndrome could be forecasted with such information.  But as parents, aren’t we really pretty good at doing our own forecasts?  Change in routine? Storm system moving in! Lack of parental/friend/teacher understanding or confusion?  Communication disruption!  Low pressure weather system coming in?   Waves of negative energy!  Change in eating habits/physical growth/health?  Irritability!  Times when I can almost see the neurological shorts and brain storms happening.

There are lulls, too.  Periods in which we’re all holding our breath, waiting for the storm, but… nothing.  Times when my child is coherent and funny and insightful.  Times when I can almost see the neurological connections being made.  Times when we’re in a quiet place. 

Using the “Worlds within worlds” concept- perhaps it’s not so farfetched that what is happening on a cosmic scale parallels what happens inside our heads.  Perhaps autism and tourette’s and bipolar research could look at solar research and see some similarities…

The sun has rhythms- rhythms that serious impact our lives, our communications, our weather.  My son does, too.*  And we’re all in a tizzy trying to understand them and forecast them. 

*So does my daughter, but our language just doesn’t let me use that play on words…

June 15, 2010

A Glimpse Inside

Filed under: Bipolar,Tourette's Syndrome — profmother @ 4:14 am

Every now and then, I get a glimpse inside Ray’s head… and I’m not quite sure whether to be humbled at the depth of his thinking, or frightened at the possibilities…

After dinner a few nights ago, we went out for frozen yogurt- a treat for a long day at camp and teaching.  Ray was leaning against his dad because why sit in a seat when you can get some touching?, and eating his yogurt when out of the blue he started sharing.

Ray: Mommy, sometimes, when you ask me a question, a lie comes into my head and it just sits there, and it’s so loud.

Me: Well, that’s natural.  Sometimes, when we don’t want to do something or don’t like the answer, we think of what we’d rather do or rather have.

Ray: But sometimes, I have the lie so much in my head that it’s what comes out.

Me: That’s part of growing up-being able to have two thoughts in your head and having to resist the one that you know is the wrong one.  Please, please don’t let my kid be telling me he’s a pathological liar.

Ray: Hmmm.  Eats the drip of chocolate.

Me: Do you mean that you have two thoughts and you’re not sure which one is the lie, or do you just WANT the lie to be real sometimes and that’s what comes out?  Or you’re not sure which one is the truth? So… is this a moral dilemma, or does he not know reality from fantasy?

Ray: I want it so much and it’s all I can think about, so it’s what comes out and then you yell at me.  Hmmm- “Mother’s voice” as voice of God?  Is he talking about this morning when I asked him if he had on underwear and well… he didn’t, or is this something bigger?

Me: Well, I know that you’re big enough now to make the right choice and to recognize that you should tell the truth.  It’s actually a very important part of growing up- being able to resist some of your own thoughts and value the truth.  When you tell the truth, those lie thoughts go right away.

Ray: But how can I have thoughts that are bad?  Why am I thinking things that are wrong? Ahhhh, lovey- a question philosophers have been dealing with for thousands of years. At least he knows right from wrong..

Me: Some people say it’s the devil inside of you.  Some people say that it’s just the part of you that’s still a baby and the grownup part tries to control it.  It’s a very big thing.  As long as YOU know which is the truth and those are the words that come out.

Ray: Mommy, you know the “b” word that’s in Avatar?  Sometimes it just sits in my head and it wants to come out so bad.  It’s just there… and I’m afraid that sometime it’s going to come out when I’m not paying attention and I’ll get in trouble.  Oh man, is this coprolalia- the Tourette’s where they curse?  Is he describing what it feels like?

Me: You’re right- that’s a word that needs to stay inside. Oh Lordy, I can only imagine the phone calls I’ll get from third grade teachers  if THIS happens!  Let’s focus on control…   It’s not one that needs to come out and I’m glad that you’re in charge of that.  It can be scary to have lots of different thoughts, but it’s all part of growing up and getting in charge of your thinking. Deep breathing helps.  Drinking some water helps.  All of us have lots of different kinds of thoughts in our heads, but they’re just thoughts.  It’s a very normal part of growing up.

And with that, Elizabeth interrupted, unable to handle the full-on Mommy attention that Ray was getting, and our conversation was over.  James, who had been silent witness to this and didn’t want to interrupt the moment, looked at me and said, “Wow”.

Wow, indeed. I’ve been pondering ever since.  Is this part of his growing up?  Somewhere around 7 or 8, children turn a corner developmentally and go into Piaget’s Concrete Operational stage where they become aware of their own thinking.  Is this that?  Is he describing the struggles we all go through as we try to steer the ebb and flow of our thinking?  When we recognize that you have thoughts in conflict with each other?

Or is he describing his own struggles with Tourette’s- unable to fully control his own words that come out of his mouth?

Or is it something deeper?  Something darker?  Is he describing that fine line of sanity we all walk as our brain thinks things and we realize that we’re not fully in control?  That conversation in our head that is directed at the “self”, as Virginia Woolf said, and the “chatter” that doesn’t always feel part of who we are?

I have no idea.  But I was awed at his ability to tell me and his desire to share with me.

And I think he’s a pretty amazing kid. It’s not often someone gets to see inside someone else’s head.

June 13, 2010

Day of Rest

Filed under: Home Things — profmother @ 11:00 pm

Rarely in our crazy lives, do we ever get a day as perfectly paced as this Sunday.  Saturday was extended Birthday Party celebration- two friends slept over, I made pancakes AND scrambled eggs, they played on the Slip and Slide AND we went to the pool for hours where we all got sunburned AND we watched rented movies.  Saturday was a bit much.

Sunday… Sunday though was one of those golden days.  We all slept hard and solid.  No middle of the night anxiety attacks.  No going to bed late and lying there awake.  James and I slept until 9:30, Elizabeth until 10:00 and Ray until 11:00.  All of us woke up rested.  Not overly tired, not frantic about the day ahead, not groggy- rested.  We woke up clear-eyed and on top of things.  We cleaned the house- no drama, just a clean house.  Everything got washed.  Meals got prepared, eaten and washed up.  I made chicken fajitas for dinner and it was ready on time.  Elizabeth and Ray played with Emily a little, watched tv a little, played with their stuff for a little.  I read a little, graded a little, watched “Valentine’s Day” as I put laundry away.  James watched a little soccer, organized a little, and played fantasy soccer for the World Cup a little.  I got vaguely annoyed at the “tweees” from the World Cup screeching in the house today, but not really.  It was crazy hot and rained a little.  Bailey the dog was socialable, but not annoying.  We’re ready for tomorrow.  We finished what we started.

There was no autism, no Tourette’s, no stress, no drama, no sense of dread, no hunger, no scenes.

I’ve heard of days like this…  fantasized about days like this… haven’t had one of these in, oh, no immdiate memory… A day of rest.

June 12, 2010

Circle of Love

Filed under: Home Things — profmother @ 10:56 am

I love my dining table.  We bought it right before Elizabeth was born, excited at the possibilities of family dinners, children in high chairs at it, and a “real” table instead of the TV trays we had been using.  We bought a round one so that there was no “head of the table” but that there would be a communal feeling, a feeling of “just gather ’round”.  We bought a big one- accidentally.  I wanted one that could expand, but couldn’t find one with leaves, so the 60″ round was the one we settled on.  It didn’t look as big in the store.  Pottery Barn came out with a 48″ round one that could expand into an oval the year after we bought ours, but I still like the big round table.  It’s hard to find a table cloth that big, so we have a rotating selection of placemats for different seasons, different moods.

Since we bought it, it has been been placed in 8 different houses, 5 different states, and a variety of rooms.  Right now, it sits off the kitchen in our Great Room.  The real dining room is too small for our table, so our dining room is an office.

It now has a big scratch on it, and it’s slightly wobbly from being broken down and set up again so many time.  The long screws holding it together were replaced during one disasterous move when no screws were labeled for anything and nothing fit right again.  We still have shelves missing from the bookcases.  The chairs around it are more rickety and the handle of one lists and gives someone new a surprise when they lean on it.  But the golden maple color is still shiny and warm and the base pedestal still solid.  It still seats 8. 10 in a pinch.

Our table has been the scene of joint Thanksgivings when the family in PA with two children just our children’s age came to dinner and it was alit with golden placemats and children’s laughter, and Christmas dinners when Mamamum and Dampa travel to join us whereever we are for old traditions in new places.  It’s where Jack taught Ray how to play Querkle.  It’s where I piled food for a buffet for Game Nights during the long cold February nights, and for our Walk and Gawk during Derby.  It’s been the location for homework to get done most school nights after dinner.  It’s where I drink my tea and read for a few moment’s break. It’s not where James and I do our serious parent talks- those are in our bed- but it is where we have Family Meetings to discuss and share important decisions.  It’s where we sit down most evenings as a whole family and individually throughout the day.  Currently, Emily, Elizabeths BFF has a permanent spot at it because she eats dinner with us so often.  Last night, it was the location of Ray’s early birthday party where his friends gathered round it to wish him Happy Early Birthday before Andrew left for the summer.  It’s where Ray has learned to gabble our Orthodox Grace and he and James race each other through the prayer before we eat.  I’m sure that God doesn’t mind the pace and understands the family love and humorous competition.

It’s a solid maple table, and solid as the center of our lives.

June 10, 2010

Inalienable Right

Filed under: Bipolar — profmother @ 9:27 am

And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.- Don Draper, Mad Men

…they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…- United States Declaration of Independence

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of happiness recently.  What IS happiness?  Is that that moment when everything is all right in the world?  Is it a sense of direction and purpose?  Is it ignorance and contentment?  Is it guaranteed?  Do we need drugs for happiness to last, or do we remember its sweet taste like we remember chocolate and we long for it?  Are we supposed to be happy all the time?

When we’re not happy, what are we supposed to do?  Get over it?  Wait for it to appear again- plan for it to appear again- like a season in a cyclical pattern or a random event spit out by the cosmos?  Are we supposed to reframe our experience so that we tell ourselves that we are happy, we just didn’t realize it?   Take medication to make it not hurt as much?

And is happiness an event, like a wedding or the birth of a child- the “happiest day of my life”?   Is it a feeling?  Is it when we’re creating or when we’re enjoying the results of our creativity?  Is it an awareness of God or a Higher Power? Is it just the right combination of chemicals in your brain?  Or, as some have suggested, is it a virus?  Is it a tipping point of the right number of friends- real friends-and the right placement within your social network?

Are you born happy?  Or do you, to steal an old quote, achieve happiness, or do you have happiness thrust upon you?

And if someone cannot function because they’re unhappy, are they unhappy because they expect to be happy?   We’re certainly being sold recipes for happiness- “Buy this, and you’ll be happy!”  Our culture seems to show only happy people.  My son told me a few months ago that he was looking forward to high school because that’s when you’re the prettiest and most popular- an image clearly sold to him through Disney and commercials.  And in my experience horribly untrue. Are we more unhappy because we’re expecting more happiness- and missing?  Were we actually happier when we didn’t know we should be?

I watch loved ones and friends and myself struggle with depression and anxiety and stress- and I listen to my son scream himself to sleep and I watch my husband retreat into a silent shell and I watch myself cry- and I wonder… How can happiness  be so strong and yet so fragile?

What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons- Don Draper

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? Albert Camus

June 9, 2010

Charity and Greed: Florida-Style

Filed under: Gifted,Home Things — profmother @ 9:15 am

My children just got a fantastic offer.  Our very good friend Vicki, who is the closest thing the children have to an aunt, offered to take them to Disney for New Year’s Eve IF they can save $100 each by then.  Disney is a 3-hour drive away, so they would drive down there for the day, play, watch the fireworks, and drive home, exhausted and wired and having lived an incredible experience.  She’s a brave woman!  Plus, it gives everyone a long-term project to plan for.

Elizabeth is incredibly motivated.  She’s already a saver.  In a now-legend family story, she saved her Christmas money, and asked for little jobs to do, and saved up $45 over four months for a heart-shaped rug with flowers on it that I had originally told her “No, you can’t have it, but you can always save your money”.  When she was four years old.  FOUR!  She’s going to make the family fortune.  She already had $25 saved for “something”, so she’s well on her way.  She’s plotting all kinds of money-making opportunities.

Ray is… not a saver.  He gets $2 and spends $2.25, somehow convincing Elizabeth, my husband, me, store clerks, random strangers in line, that he will be eternally happy and thrilled with this particular toy/car/Lego/ball/pen, if only he had one dime more…  Manipulation and verbal pleading are his forte.  Plus, he’s cute.  He reminds us a bit of Puss-in-Boots from Shrek with the enormous eyes that beg you to help him out.  Even when we hold the line, he spends the very last dregs of his money immediately. 

So, when the offer of Disney came up, Elizabeth started gloating and figuring.  “I have $25 already.  I only need $75 more.  Over 6 months, I need… and that means….”.  Her strength from autism includes singular focus.  Ray looked at the enormous amount he needed and immediately not only gave up, but started convincing himself that he didn’t really want it.  “There’s no way I can save that much.  Besides, I WANT to spend New Year’s with you, Mommy!” 

I realized that this is an opportunity for my husband and I to actually have a New Year’s together without children, and there is no way that I’m giving that up.  Plus, I really want Ray to learn that long-term saving over time can pay off.  The kid IS going to save money for this trip- we will make sure that he’s successful. 

So I lowered the expectation.  “Because he’s younger” is the reason we gave, but it’s because I knew that he wouldn’t/ couldn’t set a goal for something that big.  So, for every $2 he earns, we will “match” him $1, which means that he only has to earn $66.  When he did the math and realized that he would still be a dollar short, I ‘”graciously” said that we would contribute the extra dollar.  “What about ME, Mommy?” asked Elizabeth.  “If I only get $99, will  you give ME a dollar?”  Ahhh- sibling rivalry.  And so, we’re committed to contributing $2 for this expedition.

Which means that they’re now the most helpful children I’ve ever seen.  For a quarter, they will empty the cat box.  For another quarter, they’ll clean windows.  For another quarter, they’ll wash the car.  We have already established the list of “You have to do these things because you live here and are a member of the family, and anything above and beyond that can be paid”.  My mother has even gotten in on the action and come up with a list of things that they can do around her house to help towards the cause.

And to make sure that Ray doesn’t spend his cash, we have a “bank account” started.  I have an ongoing Excel spread sheet with their “earnings” added into it every evening and they can see the numbers adding up.  So far, they’re each up to $.75. 

But there’s only so much money that they can earn/we can pay them before it’s clear that we’re actually paying for this trip.  Plus, Elizabeth and Ray both quickly figured out that at the rates we pay, they would be emptying cat boxes for a very long time. 

So, they turned very quickly to the age-old strategy of making money from other people.  “What about selling something, Mommy?”  After our refusal to let them sell off all of their furniture on Ebay, Elizabeth thought of a bake sale. ”We can sell cookies!  We can sell them for a dollar each!  We’ll make LOTS of money!”

Which prompted their first lessons in supply-and-demand economics and profit and loss statements.  Their faces were crest-fallen.  “Can’t you even donate the flour, Mommy?” Ray asked, disgruntled, kicking the kitchen cabinet in frustration. 

And then I threw in the kicker “And if you’re going to do a bake sale and make money from other people, you have to give 1/2 of your profits to a charity.  It’s also possible that people will buy more if you do this.  This way, everyone benefits”.  We had just bought some Dawn soap because of their ad to help the critters, so the example was fresh in their minds.

So, we started researching which organizations to give money to… They were very interested in helping out the birds from the oil spill, but it turns out that BP is paying for the International Bird Rescue Research Center to help the birds.  Huh!  I guess that they’re following through on the whole “we will help fix this” thing.  But sea turtles are close to our hearts and the Loggerhead Marinelife Center is planning on receiving a number of the sea turtles that might be affected.  So, we chose to support the LMC and the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. 

To drive the need home to the children, I’m going to replicate a fabulous experiment I did once with kindergartners where we put oil in water and we brainstormed different ways to clean it up.  We tried sponges, we tried hay and the thing that worked the best was soap.  The experiment lesson plan is here…

So, here’s our plan…

  • Saturday, June 12th, my children are going to be making and selling cookies and lemonade.  I will front them start-up money and they will pay me back from the proceeds(I won’t even charge interest).  And yes, I’m volunteering the vanilla and sugar and oven.  They’ll pay for the flour and chocolate chips.
  • 1/2 of the profits will go to the Disney fund- which my children are drooling and slathering about
  • 1/2 of the profits will go to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center and the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary

Wish us luck!  It’ll be an amazing lesson in economics, charity, achievement, and salesmanship.  Although I was kindof looking forward to months of not cleaning the cat box…

And… I’m flirting with the idea of my husband and I going on down- alone-to Disney ourselves, too.  Wonder how much I can pay myself for cooking dinner?

UPDATE: Early Birthday party celebrations took priority over the weekend.  We’re on for June 19th!

June 8, 2010

Wooo, Wooo It’s Magic…

Filed under: Uncategorized — profmother @ 10:36 am

Rueters

Apple just unveiled its new Iphone and I’m drooling.  My husband and I both have a 3G (didn’t see a need to upgrade to 3GS) and the technology has literally changed our relationship.  We text.  We share pictures.  We capture moments in our lives and exchange them with each other.  We reach out to my mother through email (technologically-behind that she is) and send her pictures.  We entertain the children.  We entertain ourselves with various games.  We check the weather, our email, international soccer scores and the most recent news regularly.  Heck, we check in with our airlines through our phone and if we’re ever in an car accident and able to manipulate our phone, we can take the photo of the car, fill out the form and alert our agent, all from our phone.

There are even some fabulous apps for children with autism to help them speak (like proloquo2go and iconverse).  There are fabulous apps for all KINDS of children with disabilities (Matthew Stolofff’s list here).  As Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, says, “If you can imagine it, it can be done.”  People have an awful lot of imagination around the Iphone. And now, apparently the new Iphone does camera zoom and camera flash and a video camera and video editing and two-way (with another Iphone 4- natch) video conferencing, and can download and watch Netflix movies. And… and… Yes,  yes, all of you ‘Droid fans out there, I KNOW.  And I’ve got friends with Verizon as well… I know.  But I’m a diehard fan of the Iphone…

It’s my favorite toy since my tricycle.

Clearly, Apple doesn’t need me as a another salesperson.  We love our Iphones so much that we’re sticking with AT&T, even though Verizon provides better coverage where we are.  But my mind boggles at how much technology I have grown up with…

When I was 2, my parents decided to try the “back to the land” movement that was popular in the late 60′s and we moved into a “community”- not a commune.  We moved to land outside of Questa, NM, where, with several other families, we built our own house out of mud and straw and chicken wire, grew food in a garden, raised turkeys and goats and chickens and for one brief exciting month, a baby pig, and traded services for goods.  It was supposed to be a Utopia.  Unfortunately, humanity stepped in, religious differences crept up, and we moved away right before I turned six after several disagreements happened.

As a child, I remember being bathed in the turkey roasting pot next to the wood stove in water pumped from the well.  I remember kerosene lamps.  I remember the outhouse.  I remember running around like crazy because I had nothing to entertain myself besides my Wendy doll, the outside, and the kids down the hill who had a swingset.  My mother tells the story of taking me to the aiport bathroom on our way to see my grandmother and I turned the water on… and I turned the water off… and I turned the water on… and, round-eyed with the wonder of it all, I looked up at her and said “Wow!”

I remember the feeling of  being able to figure out what I touched and how it worked- how it REALLY worked.  I pulled on the hay sticking out of the wall- it crumbled and came off.  We (ok, my parents) slapped more mud and hay on the wall (after yelling at me, I’m sure, but that part I don’t remember).  A house was something I could figure out how to make.  You planted food.  It grew and you ate.  And if you wanted something else, well, grow it yourself.  Choices took patience.

Our moving didn’t really result in urbanization.  We moved to a ranch 35 miles from a town of 3,000 people where although we had the modern technologies of running water (indoor plumbing =  GOOD!) and electricity, there was still no television signal strong enough to reach that far, and no telephone lines.  There were no children, no swingsets except for school- 1.5 hours away.  But with running water and electricity, I had the beginnings of a love affair with technology- magic that I could control.

In college, I learned about Apple IIGs- tools I could use.  I don’t know how they worked, but I could figure out how to make them do things that I wanted them to do.  I switched over to PC when I learned how to run statistics and SPSS.  My husband and I met because of the Web- he was the College of Education’s first Webmaster and I needed him to do a webpage for our center.  He literally showed me a whole new world at our first meeting.

I think about how technology can bring the world to a little girl, grownup now, isolated and desparate for companionship.  I think about how technology allows us to share and connect what is going on in our heads.  I hear my mother who wonders about a generation who doesn’t know how to relate unless it’s through technology, and I think about how our tools for living, for socializing, for being connected have changed.  How our brains have changed their neurological connection patterns.  How visual and immediate are our choices.  How technology doesn’t take away creativity, or joy or desire- to be loved or for knowing how- or an appreciation of magic- but simply provides new means of expressing those things.

And now, my children ask me if I was alive before cars were invented when I tell them my stories of growing up.  At the risk of sounding like a fogey, I’ve shared with them a few of my “When I was your age” stories… and walking uphill in a blizzard to go to the bathroom is a favorite.  And I watch them play Sudoku on my phone and I watch their childhood get captured in ways that mine could not, and I marvel at the 150 years of technology that I have lived.  Technology is the process- wonder and magic and connections are the destination.

Santa, can I have an IPhone 4, please?

June 7, 2010

Our Own Country

Filed under: Autism — profmother @ 7:55 am

I just saw the movie Babies with my daughter and a good friend of ours, and while it was a wonderful movie, I grieved throughout it. 

It’s a movie about the first year or so of four babies born around the world.  One is in a village in Africa, one on the steppes of Mongolia, one in Tokyo and one in San Francisco.  Clearly, the filmmakers were trying to capture a variety of cultures.  It was also very interesting because there was no sound track, and no dialogue and very little attention paid to the parents or the interaction of the babies with the parents.  The camera was entirely on the babies and their actions.

Cultural differences were evident.  The baby in Africa did not have a diaper, played with rocks and sticks, and wore very few clothes.  Food was scarce for others, but he nursed openly and easily.  The baby in Mongolia had some “toys”, but spent most of his time with the roosters and the cows that were outside and inside his house.  The child in Toyko started math activities before the age of one and had many, many structured activities.  The baby in San Francisco had multicultural dolls and played on a “typical” (to me) playground.  It was fascinating to my Western eyes to see what is considered “normal” in other places and to try not to judge when the baby in Mongolia got strapped onto a papoose board and hauled off on a motorcycle, hours after being born.  There was a hilarious moment where the baby in Africa wass watching a toddler imitate grownup behavior by grinding dirt with a rock.  The baby decided that he wanted the rock, reached over and grabbed it.  A tussle ensued, with the toddler grabbing the rock back and the baby biting the toddler on the shoulder.  There was much laughter in the theater at that!

And all of these babies, no matter where they were, had similar development.  They all learned to sit up, danced to music, were included in their families’ social activities, interacted with siblings, found their feet, learned to walk and started talking at similar moments.  The film was structured so that one cute moment from one child then cut away to a similar moment of another.  The pet montage, where the baby in Mongolia is pulling on the cat, the baby in Africa is being licked by his dog and the baby in Japan is trying to get the cat’s attention is hilarious.  Clearly, the universality of human development as a constant, independent of culture, was clearly a message. 

Cute movie.  Interesting movie.  Movie I will use in my Human Growth and Development class. And yet, I walked out incredibly depressed.  For in the “awww” of the movie, there were no scenes of colic.  No scenes of meltdowns.  There was one little scene of Mari from Japan falling over in frustration because she couldn’t put the stick in the hole of a stackable doughnut toy, but no scene of the hours and hours of crying that might come afterwards.   No scenes of desparately trying to rock a child to sleep who wakens with a jerk, only to scream again.  No scenes of trying to feed a child who will not- cannot- swallow their food because they’re so caught up in the anxiety, the fear, the screaming.  There were no scenes of the babies going to round after rounds of doctors, all saying, “I don’t know.  Let’s try this.”  There were no scenes of a child, mutely pointing and pointing and then screaming with frustration because you don’t understand, and they don’t have the words.  Certainly no scenes of teething.  There were no scenes of parents carefully laying their hysterical child down and walking away, because to stay would mean that the child would be receive the end result of all of that parental frustration that is too much, too much.  Child abuse is a tipping point that is well understood by most parents.  And so we walk away.  There were no frustrated, tired, sad, lonely parents in this movie.

Watching the movie was clearly a series of “awww” and chuckles as well as some cultural insights.  But those children, regardless of cultural differences, were not my babies.  They were not the babies of my friends.  They were not the babies of other mothers whose blogs I read.  The carefully choreographed visual impact of those developmental milestones all being met at the same time around the world served to further isolate me- and other mothers with children even more different than mine. 

I walked out of the theater having received the message, loud and clear, that babies around the world are all the same.  That all cultures share this human experience.  Except for mine.  Except for maybe yours.  Except for those babies that don’t walk, talk, or socially interact the same as other babies.  They are, apparently, not part of this human world.

I typically go to movies to be “taken away” from this world, not to be reminded, once again, how many of the children I love and work with are not included.  How being a parent who is frustrated and sad means that there is something wrong with me, with my baby.  The babies of the “different” create our own culture- a culture that was completely ignored in this film- and by so many others around us.

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