Soapy Water

...Just like riding a bike

2010-04-22T22:34:00.001-06:00

I've had this growing urge to write on this blog again for the last few weeks. I lost the urge, about two years ago. I just didn't need to share anymore.

But my dear friend Mr. Lady, who writes Whiskey in my Sippy Cup, sends readers over here from time to time, and they send me the sweetest emails, and it gives me the occassional feeling that I'm doing something good just by having this blog out here.

And then there's this: my own post traumatic stress from school drama raising up inside after an email from the school district... It made me feel all the things I felt back in 2006, and as a response, I wanted to write like I did in 2006.

Long story short, the crisis is averted and now that I have no drama with the school district, I'm having so little angst to write about that the urge went back down... Like how you can talk yourself out of driving thru a taco bell... Although blogging is nowhere as bad for me as taco bell. It's actually good for me and I need to get back on to expressing myself this way.

So, this post kind of sucks but I'm going to go ahead and publish anyway, because I need to just start again. Blogging is awesome for its complete lack of editing necessary.

More soon, as I get used to being up on this bike again. I promise.

Bedtime Story

2009-06-01T06:56:00.004-06:00

Our first video blog. Aw.

I interview The Kid, kinda, about Star Wars.

The Kid, Star Wars Expert. from Molly G on Vimeo.

By far, the highlight is the appearance of "the fuzz" at around 00:55.

Out of practice

2009-05-22T20:03:00.002-06:00

I've let the blog go to seed a bit. I need to moderate some comments for viagra out of the posts from 2006, and when I went to type "blogger.com" into my web browser, I wrote "globber.com." I'm totally out of sync with the me that used to write this thing. I'm a mess, generally. I need to get my writer self back, I don't even know what voice to use any more.

So, like, my life changed pretty significantly last year. I moved to take care of my mother, and my jamming personal space was totally disrupted, so the ambiance I like to write in is all but gone. I also changed jobs, same company and all, but totally different job, where I'm now essentially a technical writer. I write all effing day, and I don't have the creative juices to write for myself anymore. It's totally soul crushing, this technical, sterile writing. I spend all day cracking my brain for new and interesting ways to describe benefit shortfalls nowadays, I just don't have the energy to talk about myself for more than a second.

But that's brought me to another reason for this drought: the fucking fact that I am writing a blog. Who writes blogs? Am I one of those people? I completely lack the skill of many mom-bloggers who can write about just about anything that happens to them and manage to make it sound interesting... Many bloggers have lives that sound enviable, in some way, or at least their online personas make it so. Urban, social, experimental, I dunno. Just enviable. No one envies me... I'm pitiable by most, a fact I resent more than any other, including the fact that our country tortured prisoners of war, or some kind of horrible truth you don't want to look at, like how fat you've gotten since high school, or that your favorite tee shirt is now see-through, or whatever.

But I hate, more than so many, many other more important things, bloggers who whine for a living. Not just bloggers, people. I'm totally not a whiner, by definition. So, that is not my blog.

And I can't make this blog a series of "how my son was injured by mental health professionals," no matter how badly my psyche wants me to take up that subject, again and again and again, because nothing's going to make my feelings on that subject better but time, maybe therapy (if only I could find a therapist I thought was smart enough for the discussion), and some serious congressional smackdown of the fuck-holes who invented pediatric bipolar while concurrently getting paid by the pharma industry to sell their products.

The Kid is his own story, and I am my own. I've been telling his through my own eyes for so long, I don't have a story of my own any more. Oh fuck, when did I become like one of those lazy bitches who'd show up crying on Oprah? Ick. I repulse myself.

Anyway, I really want to figure it all out. And I'm just enough a member of this generation that's not quite Gen X and not quite Gen Y, that I'm all for trying to figure it out on the internet, where I get input from random strangers, and dear friends, who know my address.

Bear with me. The next few posts are going to be rough til I figure out what I sound like again.

2009-03-11T21:49:00.003-06:00

Over the years I've developed quite the ritual to prepare for big school meetings. I always read everything I can in the days before, favorite chapters of my favorite books about The Kid's various issues; I lose sleep, I toss and turn; I get really stressed for a good 24 hours; I drink some beer; I listen to loud hard rock music in the car on my drive over to the school. All of this has served me pretty well, I suppose over the years, but now, I have a new secret weapon. It's a talisman, of sorts.

My friend Karen makes jewelry. That's not entirely accurate. She is a purveyor of gorgeous beads and charms who can combine them into the most sublime combinations with personalized touches and gorgeous details. She is also a mom of two fabulous young men. The older of the two is smart as a whip, an outgoing and funny little guy. The younger of them is a happy, gentle kiddo who loves words and letters, and has autism.

Karen has started two new endeavors recently, two etsy shops: one selling charms, the other jewelry. Karen made me a bracelet, a private power source for my every day life... She personalized mine, with beautiful colored crystals in the colors of Autism Awareness, The Kid's initials, a bead that says "HOPE" and a charm with the sign for Ohm, for my quest to approach each person in my life with the true, deep acknowledgement of their light and goodness (a wordy way of saying I try to say "namaste" to everyone I meet, even in IEP meetings), and for The Kid's abiding interest in Chakra Symbols.

This bracelet is definitely one of the things I would reach for if I had to flee my house in the dead of night. Not only is it beautiful, but symbolic, a talisman. It gives me power. It reminds me I have support in my friends, I look down at The Kid's initials and am reminded of why I do it all.

Take a click over to her site. Her stuff is beautiful.

(cross posted from www.hopefulparents.org)

Pharma Humor

2009-02-14T09:24:00.002-07:00

This took me a while to finally post, but this has had me laughing for weeks now.

It's absolutely right on.

It's not you, it's me.

2009-02-11T20:45:00.002-07:00

I have to come clean. Promise to hear me out first. Please. Okay? Don't get mad before you've heard everything I have to say. Are you alright? You, um, might want to sit down for this.

I've been posting elsewhere.

I know, I know. It's shocking that I can even get my fingers to the keyboard at all, let alone to a second blog. I just get something about this other blog. I'm drawn to it. I can't explain it.

Please don't be jealous. I love you. I really do.

http://www.hopefulparents.org/blog/2009/2/12/least-restrictive-environment-anxiety-attack.html

Happy Birthday, Baby Who Is Not A Baby

2009-02-08T00:47:00.003-07:00

Sometimes words just can't get it right. Perhaps a very amateur picture slideshow can attempt to tell you how blown away with how big my boy is.

The Kid's first 9 years from Molly G on Vimeo.

Why I will be rooting for the Steelers this weekend...

2009-01-28T22:41:00.003-07:00

In all fairness, I would have been anyway, but a Pittsburgian friend of mind told me this story today:

In 1975, The Terrible Towel® was created by the late Steelers broadcaster Myron
Cope to inspire fan involvement in a playoff game against the then-Baltimore
Colts. Thirty-three years later, The Terrible Towel® remains a Steelers
fan essential. And for the past 12 years, the sale of any The Terrible
Towel® product benefits the children and adults with intellectual/developmental
disabilities who are served by Allegheny Valley School. The funds that
Allegheny Valley School receives from The Terrible Towel® are used to cover
costs such as equipment, program expansions and renovations to our facilities.

The Allegheny Valley School is school and community care provider for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

How awesome is that?

Disability is my life.

2009-01-20T22:35:00.003-07:00

And I'm completely finding myself in disbelief that this is what it's come to.

My child is disabled. My mom is disabled. I care for them. I worry about them both, 24/7.

My professional career, which began, years ago, as a temp job, has become completely and totally about disability. [and before you go there, it's totally about insuring against disability, not actually helping those with disabilities, unless you consider those who have become disabled after already having been insured, AND you are rich. It's not noble work.]

How Not To Write a Christmas Letter

2008-12-23T20:21:00.002-07:00

This time of year, mailboxes everywhere are filling up with letters from our friends and relatives recapping their years. To a parent of a kid with special needs, or any child struggling, or any family struggling, these letters can be as painful and annoying as sciatica. Maybe I should speak only for myself. I find them to occassionally be as painful and annoying as not just sciatica, but as heartburn, canker sores, and blisters.

I should stop here, or at least pause, to say I do share in the victories of my friends and their kids. I guess I have a hard time with the comparison. Were I to write a Christmas letter, this or any year, it comes out sad and tragic and just not right. Perhaps it's just my writing style, or my intense need to be honest (should anyone ever ask me about it later, I need consistency), but I'm just not one of those people who can paint things in a light that is more cheery than things really appear.

My Christmas Letter, had I actually written one this year, would read thusly:

To my dear friends and family,

Here's hoping 2008 really is coming to an end soon, and let's hope and pray for a fabulous 2009. I hope that the celebrations of Christ's birth in your home and community are filled with peace and love, and if you don't believe in Jesus, I hope you have abundant peace and love too.

We've had quite the life changing year this year! The year began and only 5 days in, my mom's eye went out. As you may know, she has been blind in her right eye for the last 7 years, due to a series of retinal detachments. On January 5, her left retina detached and the surgery to repair it ended up permanently damaging the back of her eye, rendering her almost completely blind. I had essentially moved in the day she had surgery, to help her recoup, but then made it permanent somewhere around March, when we knew that her vision would never recover. The rest of the year for her has been spent relearning how to negotiate the world, and with the help of my awesome sisters and my mom's generous friends, she is doing very well. I tell everyone who asks about her, she's exactly the same, her health is still fine, she just can't see you if you sneak into a room.

So, I moved back in to my childhood home. It's a nice home, I have no complaints. My cat certainly likes it more than she liked our old place, there are more windows and hiding places. I've always loved my bedroom, with its south and east facing windows.

The Kid had a comeback this year that would put Shatner to shame. He started the year in the throes of antipsychotic withdrawals, which lasted until the better part of April or May. I got sick of his weight gain, drooling, bedwetting and continued erratic behavior and told his psychiatrist he was going off of the meds. The Kid dropped from 15 mgs of Abilify to none in 9 months, dropped tenex and depakote without much down-titration (and without ill effects really, it's the abilify that was the bitch for him to lick). While going off of the meds, I tried to engage the help of the psychiatric community, but they all told me to put him back on the meds. I went completely against medical advice, and was right. After he had the meds leave his body, he dropped approximately 50 pounds, his violent and aggressive behavior generally stopped, his motor skills improved, he slept through the night, he engaged at home more willingly, he began to participate in academics more fully, he became capable of participating in group activities at school, he could make it through a day, then a week, then a month without aggression, without outward difficult behavior. We fought hard to add occupational therapy and assistive technology to his IEP, and won.

To anyone who has ever poo-pooed mother's intuition: Go suck it, I was right on every single point. Vindication is the word of my year. That, and eyeball.

So, The Kid was officially rediagnosed with Asperger's in April, bringing on the official autism spectrum disorder diagnosis I'd inexplicably put off for several years. With it comes a new slew of therapies that are on the slate for 2009, most notably occupational and vision therapy. He is getting more one on one work at school on social thinking processes, and my approach to helping him has grown in innumerable ways.

This fall he went back to school and has been an absolute success over last year. His problematic behaviors gone, we've been able to concentrate on a number of core issues and challenges, most notably sensory integration, handwriting, reading, and understanding other's social intent. He's making some progress, and our hope is that before the end of the school year, he will move into a less restrictive classroom environment inside of a general educational setting, so that maybe he can meet some kids who live nearby, and maybe he can begin to make some friends. It's exciting, and terrifying.

I spent a great deal of the year in career limbo. My boss quit his job, leaving me alone for a full 9 months before my company realized I was sitting there day after day with little to nothing to do. I've been reassigned and I'm busy and hassled and annoyed again, and with the economy the way it is, I've never been more grateful to say I have a job, even if it annoys the ever-living crap out of me 90% of the time.

Personally I've been in a deep dark hole and for the most part I've been inside my own head so much I barely recognize the outside world. I wouldn't say I was depressed, because I know people who get depressed and I just think I'm chemically incapable of being depressed. God knows I would have refused psychiatric medications anyway. I am held up by my family, my amazing and loving inspriration of a child, my sisters who are my best friends, my best friends who are like sisters (and brothers), and I guess, I world of hope and a deep-seeded belief that I'm at this for one reason or other, which will only be elucidated after a long life. I'm doing okay. You move back into your mom's house at 32 and tell me you would be all, "MY LIFE FUCKING ROCKS! I'M AWESOME!" you know?

Anyway, hope you get some good loot for the holidays, but more importantly, you get the opportunity to tell someone that you love them, and that you have the luck to be told that you are loved back.

Much love,
Molla

Actual Music I Have Listened To...

2008-12-12T19:03:00.003-07:00

...in preparation for IEP meetings.

I have to psych myself up for school meetings like athletes get ready for the big game. I need to get myself ready with the three basics of IEP preparation: 1. Don't Cry. 2. Kick Ass. 3. Take Names. Oh, and of course, be nice, don't burn bridges, but mostly 1, 2 and 3.

Here's the top five songs I've used to prepare:

1. Army of Me.
"If you complain, one more time, you'll meet an army of me." Simple enough.

2. Lacrymosa.
Get the tears out privately. I nominate this song for the saddest song ever, in latin.

3. Hooker with a Penis
Um, I had to look up this title, and I had no idea this was the name of this song. I know it as the 'Fuck You, Buddy' song, and it's fairly hard for me to believe that the actual name of the song is well, worse than that. Actually it totally changes my concept of the song, and I must state here that this has been my go-to angry song for the last, um 12 years, and I never ever listened to the words, tried to conceive that tool had stories to tell in their songs. But, it totally also totally makes sense. "If I'm the man then your a fucking man as well." Um. That just makes me feel stupid that I never figured that out. I include it, because it's a rocking, ANGRY song. Now, however, I know it's a song about some dude's angry reaction to finding out the painted lady he hired is no lady at all. Ah well.

4. Lessons Learned.
Cheeseball, I need inspiration song. No nominee for best ever anything, unless you count lyrics that speak to me, personally. It is also very hard to find good you tube videos of this song, just so you know.

5. Me Jane.
Dude. This post is making me feel old. This has been my she-power song for 15 years. I swear I do have new songs that I like. I swear! I'm still, um, six months behind being hip! I just can't put any of those songs as my go-to psych up songs yet*.I used to listen to this song to get ready for dates (this may explain why I'm not married). Now I listen to it on my way to talk about my son's special education interventions in the school. I'm also nuts.

*Honorable Mention: Hot Soft Light
Didn't mention this song because it's totally about partying and making out and being stupid and young, so it's not particularly inspiring me for IEP meetings, persay. More of an 'on the way to work' song, for sure. Apparently, I need to rethink my criteria, because I clearly am inspired to talk education by songs about dudes who are really pissed off that their hookers are dudes.

Books About Aspergers and Corresponding Disorders

2008-12-06T17:33:00.006-07:00

In response to my last post, Wrong Shoes asked respectfully for a list of the books I've been reading to get up to speed on The Kid's fairly new diagnosis of Aspergers. So, here's a list of resources, some new to me, some long-ago dogeared, that I find to be helpful in teaching me all that I can learn about how perhaps I can tap in to The Kid's brain, and more effectively build a home and school program to help him succeed...

The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood. This book is the textbook on textbook Aspergers. Lots of info, lots of what to look for, not so much, in my opinion, on what to do. Finding WHAT TO DO is the hardest thing, I think.
Kids in the Syndrome Mix by Kutscher, Wolff and Attwood. Hits it right on, that there is this type of kid that bounces from ADHD to Bipolar to Tourettes to LD to Aspergers. The Kid is definitely 'in the mix.' Unfortunately, once you've read Attwood's Asperger's tome, the Papolos's Bipolar "bible", and then Russell Barkley's ADHD books like I have, you've essentially already read this book. I suggest this book for TEACHERS, and for parents new to a diagnosis, or have a child entering school and special ed without a diagnosis, but with a strong sense that their child will be diagnosed with ADHD and the like.
Seeing Through New Eyes by Melvin Kaplan. I keep putting this book down before I can get very far. It is about Behavioral Optometry, which is a method of helping The Kid that I am very seriously considering. He was evaluated by a Behavioral OD this fall, and it was clear that The Kid had difficulty tracking an object with his eyes across a field of vision (his eyes jumped, intermittently, rather than smoothly following the object, something which developmentally he should be able to do by 8 years old), and cannot discern depth perception with great accuracy. The conceit of this kind of therapy is that if you repair the ability to see, you will clear up a number of the sensory and attentional difficulties that manifest from problems created by these vision impairments. These are not vision impairments normally caught by your everyday eye doctor, and of course the therapy and the exams are not covered by insurance. I am not a fan of this particular book, although I'm interested in following this course of therapy, because it promises a complete cure to autism, aspergers, ADHD, learning disabilities, etc. That annoys me. I don't get my hopes up anymore.
The Out of Sync Child and The Out of Sync Child Has Fun by Carol Kranowitz. The basics on Sensory Integration Dysfunction. The Kid has numerous sensory issues, which I've written about before. Clothes have to be just so, with no tags or fabrics that he might find disturbing. Jeans are out, as are any pants with buttons. Loud, open, cacophonous rooms or venues make him either explode outward or escape inward, either way, unreachable. I could go on and on. I didn't find the former especially helpful for a plan of action, but the latter has lots of fun, sensory-friendly activities and games. We are, and have been, on the waitlist for weekly occupational therapy for months now, and now that we're at this stage, I find it hard to believe that I've waited this long to take this plunge into intensive OT. To any trained eye, it should have been the first thing we did when he was in preschool. Bygones.
Saving the best for last, of course. Thinking About Me, Thinking About You by Michelle Garcia Winner. Big fan. I'm a BIG fan of Ms. Winner. Her methods don't work for all kids on the Autism Spectrum, but her brand of teaching social convention is right up my kiddo's alley. I have been pleading for his school to use the Superflex program with him in his 1:1 therapy time, but they haven't done so even though they own the program, mostly in favor of allowing him to perseverate on paper airplanes and the like. Grrr. At any rate, the basic tennet of the Social Thinking programs is that social convention, like everything else we aim to teach children with ASD's, can be broken down and taught. You can be taught that other people are thinking about you as you are acting. You can be taught that other people think differently than you and may or may not expect you to act in certain ways at certain times. You can be taught that there are appropriate situations for certain behaviors, and situations where certain behaviors are never appropriate. Big fan. Huge.

So, to this I add two items, fiction or memoir.

I Love You To Pieces. A totally heartbreakingly wonderful book of short stories written by parents of special needs children, organized along a timeline of birth to adulthood, representing the various concerns that come along with each milestone and age in both the lives of the children and parents. Some of the authors' children have autism, some cerebral palsy, some more rare disabilities I'd never heard of before. If you are a parent of a child with special needs, this is inspiring, touching, real. If you have a friend who has a child with special needs and you want to know what the spectrum of emotion they may go through, this book will give you a fairly good idea.
Hurry Down Sunshine. I'm not done yet, and technically this book is about schizophrenia, but it's also about a dad and his daughter. I have promised the publisher I'd write a full post about the book once I get it done, so expect that sometime next week.

Now, I know I'm missing many many books here. Most notably, I want to read more books from the perspective of adult aspies, like Look Me in the Eye and some of Jonathan Mooney's books. Any other suggestions?

Internal Debate

2008-12-02T22:29:00.003-07:00

Me: I think I'm going to kill Soapy Water.

Me: But you love Soapy Water. You at least have to keep the archives!

Me: But the archives make me want to cringe. All that bloviating about the "idiots" at The Kid's schools, all the "thank God for psychiatric medications..." It's just a big emblem of the wrong path, the lost years...

Me: And yet, that's what got you and The Kid here.

Me: But where are we? Who wants to read about it?

Me: You know people will read it, the people who love you will.

Me: Yeah, we can't all be as famous as Mr. Lady. But the posts aren't coming out any more. I'm too self aware. I've lost that voice, I've certainly lost all semblance of hip-mom that seems to be prerequisite for mom-blogging.

Me: Dude, you were never "hip."

Me: True. But I thought I was. I have lost something. I can't describe it. And I'm suddenly gunshy. I can't be as opinionated as I once was, ever since every assertion I made about The Kid being bipolar turned out to be The Kid reacting poorly to the meds he was on, not at all bipolar.

Me: Yeah, and then the Asperger's Diagnosis.

Me: Autism Spectrum. I'm a newbie. I'm at a loss. I don't know anything, I'm fumbling around in the dark with what to do. And then there's the fear that just because the Asperger's fits today, it all makes some sense, I know in my heart of hearts I made bipolar fit, like a world view to help me fight. What if I'm wrong about this one too?

Me: But you read the books and you see those similarities. Your friends, all their stories. The years where he didn't sleep, even without meds screwing up his circadian rythyms, the hard times with haircuts and dentists, the vocal self-stimulatory behavior, the narrow interests, the hyper-focus, the social stuff, the sensory stuff. And don't forget the approach.

Me: The approach to Asperger's is the thing that makes me confident in his treatment, that's for sure. If the child is acting out, or seeking sensory stimuli, to what aim? What is the root cause of the behavior? Isn't that the best question ever?

Me: It's my favorite. After years and years of "if he's acting out, let's increase his dosage another .5 miligrams." I think you need to leave the old behind and start a new chapter. Part II of sorts, without moving the actual website, or so I hear...

Me: Part II. I guess it's worth a try. I can't promise anything.

His Name is Speaks No Evil

2008-11-01T19:42:00.002-06:00

Nasty.

2008-10-25T12:32:00.002-06:00

So, this is one for the story books.

The Kid is all shifty eyed and anxious last night. I ask him what he's up to. He flails and avoids me for about an hour. He comes up to me at about 6:30 and says, I can't even tell you what I did. Just go to my room and look in my toybox.

What am I going to find? A severed head? A hideous stain on his nice pants? Something dear to me cut up to pieces? Who knows, but I know one thing. This ain't good, my friends.

I go down and open the toybox. A hideous stench hits me, and there is nothing in the toybox but one of my bigger pyrex bowls, filled with a nasty yellowish water. You know that part in The Shining when he goes into that bathroom and finds the scary dead body in the bathtub? That comes screaming to mind and I freak out and run out of the room and go get him.

WHAT IS THAT? I ask.. He says, look on the bottom. We go back to the toybox, I pick up the bowl gingerly, so as to spill none of this who-knows-what on, well, anything, and lift it up to look at the bottom of the bowl. There is nastiness on the bottom of the bowl, but I still don't know what the frak it is.

WHAT IS THIS, KID? I say with restrained rage, wondering if I now need to worry about him being a sociopath or something. The Kid replies, "You know in Spongebob the movie how they come back to life with water?"

It instantly comes to me. My mom has a propensity towards tchochkes. I HATE them, but there is shit all over this house, loads of nativity scenes (we are sooo catholic), little pottery pieces and vases, bowls with rocks in them, and then there's this one pretty little round glass vase, filled with shells, sand dollars and yes, a starfish. Or rather, there used to be a starfish in that little round vase. The Kid was trying to revive my mom's dried starfish. A dried starfish I have a feeling she picked up decades ago during a family vacation before I was even born. I made him dump the water out and clean the bowl. Nasty nasty nasty. It smelled like, oh, ancient saltwater and rancid liver mixed together or something. We both wretched about 12 times. It was by far, the most disgusting thing I've encountered as a parent, and you have to remember, I'm the mom of the kid who puked almost daily for four years. I'd clean buckets full of vomit before I ever, ever have to encounter re-wetted ancient dried starfish, ever again. Oy.

Oh, and for the record? I have no idea when he performed this operation. I have NO IDEA how long the starfish was in that bowl, in his toybox, in his room. Ew.

Three year blog-aversary

2008-09-02T22:26:00.002-06:00

I just passed it last Weds. Remember when I used to be a blogger? As my friend Shannon would say, Bygones.

I can't right now look back on the last three years. It's kind of a painful exercise. We took a wild detour and are just now on the right course again. I wish I could travel back in time and tell my three-years-ago self to check out the things I know now, but that simply can't happen. Let's focus on the here and now.

Um, tomorrow. Tomorrow, I promise. I need to go to bed tonight, and I've promised myself to write again.

Babysteps, people.

Check it.

2008-07-15T08:39:00.004-06:00

New masthead! So soapy!

Brought to you by my marvelously talented friend Julie, who has an Etsy site, and I'm anxiously awaiting a link. As soon as I get it, I will share. You want this woman to design your Christmas Cards.

Other blog news, my dear friend Mr. Lady somehow bribed Guy, who runs Alltop, to add me to his autism blogroll. Yeah, we're kind of a big deal.

Edited to add:
Julie's etsy site: http://www.mammakins.etsy.com/
Also, I hope she doesn't mind me saying, she is one of the most inspirational mama's I've ever known. She is full time working mom, a student, a graphic designer, advocate and mama to one of the sweetest little dudes I've ever laid eyes on, who has a gentle loving heart and autism.

I think she might be trying to tell me something...

2008-06-27T22:13:00.004-06:00

This is my cat, Daisy.

I really love her. She's soft and cute and she meows and purrs when she comes to tell me to feed her.

However, I'm pretty sure she hates me. She's been trying to leave me hints about her disdain for me for a while now. She never lets me pet her soft fur, she wakes me up before the sun rises by crawling up under my covers and attacking my feet. In fact, she takes her early morning waking duty so seriously, she cut out the competition by chewing through the power cord of my alarm clock. She attacks my feet every time I walk by. She really hates me. I mean look at that picture there. She's thinking about how if she ate my foot I might leave her alone.

And yet, I continue to try. I play with her, I coo at her, I still try to pick her up to revel in her softness.

She clearly decided that subtle hints were no longer working. She's taken to attacking my arms, and I realized today, that perhaps she's trying to carve me a little skin message:

How much do you want to bet the next letter is "U"?

Changing the Byline

2008-06-22T09:53:00.002-06:00

I've been wrestling with a decision in regards to this blog. This post has been germinating since April, when The Kid was re-diagnosed: the bipolar diagnosis was dropped, Aspergers was added, and the ADHD, prominent as ever, remained. I've dreamed that this blog is a signpost for some mother, out there in the middle of the night, googling for answers to her questions about her little kid, who can't function in school, who has temper tantrums way beyond what she'd ever expect of a child before she experienced them, and had been given an indication that these troubles with her child were not from shitty parenting, but from something psychiatric, neurological, brain-based. I could never truly be a guide or an expert, but I've hoped to provide a comforting beacon, You aren't alone.

I don't want that beacon to stop shining, but I want so badly to erase The Kid's history of being considered bipolar from the face of the earth. He was so wronged by being given that diagnosis, and the medications that go with it. I want to irradicate the notion that my child was unrecoverable, as conventional wisdom considers bipolar a life-long struggle, one that is viewed by many as only treatable by medication. I took the advice, and gave him the meds, and we started a spiral of violent behavior and school struggle and weight gain, until the pictures I took of The Kid, his face swolen and heavy, his moody depression and way-too-early-cynicism rendered him almost unrecognizable. I couldn't believe this was it, that my boy was this person, was going to remain this person, and was going to grow into the teen and the adult that would constantly bring me trouble: spending too much, drinking or doing drugs, police reports: when I looked to the future, it was bleak.

I finally cocked my guns and went into the psychiatrist and told her I was done with medications. I wanted to see him off of them. It took so long to recover, it got worse before it got better, and if there is one thing I want my beacon to say to the late night googlers: Anti-psychotics cause withdrawals that make the withdraw-er psychotic. Bipolar. It takes months for the effects to go away. So next time you hear of someone crazy who's gone off of their meds recently, keep in mind that this is not necessarily proof that the person really is crazy and needs the medication, but proof that the drug is leaving the body. For us, it took about 45 ugly days from his last dose to see my baby again.

It sounds strange, but the official autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, the Asperger's, was greeted as good news to me. Autism, while horribly disabling and lifelong, comes with strategies we'd not tried before. There is recovery, and recovery that isn't entirely dependent upon medications. I know so many moms of kids with Autism that would think I'm nuts for saying that, but after being where we've been Asperger's is like a big glass of ice water on a hot day: not like we'd never be thirsty again, but refreshing for now.

And so, the byline to this blog is changing. The Kid is not Bipolar. He still hasn't come out of the cookie cutter, but now when I look into the future, it's just as foggy, and I still have concern, but it isn't as bleak.

Atypical Nation: Soapy Water Version

2008-04-29T11:32:00.003-06:00

I kind of feel like someone’s dropped by and I have curlers in my hair and my kitchen is a mess. All I’ve had up on this blog for the last month is a quickly written musing about The Kid's lovely nose-picking…

Today, Philip Dawdy of Furious Seasons has linked over to me. Philip is a journalist and mental health advocate who was instrumental in planting the seeds of skepticism in some of the advice I’d been receiving on how to help The Kid with his difficulties in school, primarily in the realm of the medications he was being prescribed, primarily the atypical anti-psychotics.

The Kid took his last dose of Abilify in January. Philip has shared our recent success, and my strong belief that The Kid’s so-called bipolar diagnosis was an effect of medication side effects and bad diagnostics more than actual baseline functioning by him; and a rush to react to his behavior (in school, mostly) rather than find the underlying causes.

The Kid has been doing really well. It took about two months to really lift the fog of rage and aggression at school. At this time I can confidently state that I do not see so-called “mood” issues, and neither does the school.

I am pissed about the damage that has been done to my son over the past two years, the atypical years, and the slew of bad advice that I’ve received since I first went to his pediatrician to tell them about my concerns about his development, his hypersensitivity to sound, environment and food. I am pissed that I am complicit. I am pissed that these years have engendered bad habits in my son, I’m pissed that even though we’ve ironed out this ‘bipolar’ thing that he remains challenged, disabled.

That’s the problem. And I’m scared of being linked to by Philip because many of his readers have grown so skeptical of psychiatry and psychology in general that they find it impossible to believe that any child can be disabled, have developmental delays, have a mental illness. I do not need that wrath right now.

If someone were to spend an afternoon with my son and I, they would see a really extraordinary child, but one who does not fit within anyone’s definition of a typically developed kid. Perhaps we will see further improvement over time as the atypicals slowly leave his fat cells (the last place that I understand they cling to… Which is ironic, because one main side effects of the atypical antipsychotic class of medication is severe weight gain… Talk about poisoning over poisoning, and then making it even harder to get off of these medications), his motor skills might improve, maybe we’ll see his social skills improve too. Only time will tell.

The Kid’s just gone through a new set of assessments, to cement his diagnosis of ADHD, and to further explore where he fits on the Autism spectrum. These things do exist, my son will need special education and constant support for the foreseeable future. I just think there are a lot of very careless practitioners out there, and parents, who are not entirely careless, but instead are overly trusting of these practitioners. I also think doctors would do well to spend more time to listen, truly listen, TRULY LISTEN to parents. I also wish schools didn’t suck so very much, but that’s a post for another day.

Anyway, thanks Philip. Your support has meant a lot to me.

Booger Question

2008-04-08T21:14:00.002-06:00

At what age to children normally figure out how to blow their noses? Seriously, I thought The Kid would have this down by 8. Then again, he still hasn't figured out how to fall asleep.

Currently, tissues are used as fluffy, papery finger condoms, all the better for picking the more dastardly boogers from those hard to reach nose crevasses.

ha ha heh

2008-03-20T22:30:00.003-06:00

So, annually, I try to match my bff in birthday posts as her birthday falls just four days after mine. She's much better than I. She could write a birthday post for Pol Pot: she'd tell you about how he actually loved puppies and could make a mean curry and you'd want him to come over for dinner tomorrow, and babysit your kids, and you would so sincerely wish that you had your own friend like Mr. Lady's friend Pol Pot.

I can tell you that I think about Mr. Lady all the time, especially now that she's living so far away from me, and I miss her so sincerely it hurts. Driving to work this morning, I was thinking out the most beautiful post, where I would write about the random ways that I think about Mr. Lady every day, the things I wish I could tell her that would crack her up (and Mas Younon is so right, it's all about her laugh), the ways that she has touched my life and made my life better, well, you'd be sitting in a puddle of your own tears. You would be moved beyond words, the beauty of our friendship would blow you into heaven, you'd reach enlightenment, touch the sublime.

In regards to my literate, touching post, you would ask me,

"Be you an angel?"
And I'd Say, "Nay. I am but woman."

But, this is just a tribute. This is not the greatest birthday post in the world.

Just a matter of opinion.

I love you dude. Happy birthday. Thanks for sticking with me for these years, thanks for holding me up. I can only hope that I return the favor, because I only know the enormous difference you've made in my life.

Happy National "Make a Real Effort To Listen To The Pogues Day"

2008-03-17T21:31:00.004-06:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Is it cheesy to say that I hold this day, personally, in high regard?

I mean, how many people have an actually holiday to point to, that is annually a "I will be nostalgic for college today" day?

I'm not so much nostalgic for the life of college, anymore, but I do miss those great people I met over there. I found this the other day:

My friend Dan, me, and Matt, another good friend, outside the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, April of about 1996. Great guys, I've essentially lost touch with both of them, and well, I hope they are doing well. We had good times. Cheers to them, cheers to nostalgia, cheers to Ireland.

To create a little flower is the labour of ages...

2008-03-16T23:28:00.006-06:00

In order to add to the continuing series, "things I've found in my mom's house," I came across this little calendar my sister Peggy made me almost 15 years ago. It was one of those things, made by hand, hitting my tastes right on the nose, loving my quirks and feeding my interests, that only the people who know you inside out can do for you... Well, here are a few pages:

Very few people know me so inside out. And apart from this being a sweet book of William Blake quotes, I have are hard time articulating why I think this truly is the best gift I've ever been given. Finding this again really made me smile. I'm so lucky to have a sister who has given me not only this gift, but the gift of encouragement in following what interests me, above all else. She's always encouraged me, and I think that's the key.

It's just love. Love and love and love. I love that I kept this to find, on my birthday, almost 15 years later.

Total Mysteries

2008-03-12T23:01:00.005-06:00

Brought to you by site meter: Why is it that five people, in different places around the US, happened to google "Something in the way he moves me" between 6:42 and 6:53 this evening, bringing them to this site?

Brought to you by AquaNet: Did I actually turn around and play some soccer after taking this picture? Nice hair.

EDIT: Never mind, at least about mystery number one. American Idol, Catherine McPhee, which explains the change in gender in the song. I get it.

Sorry to the dudes who read this...

2008-03-11T21:22:00.005-06:00

When I get an opportunity to talk about breastfeeding, well, I have to take it and run. My bff posted today, a wonderful document to the personalities of her children, that helped determined how long they were on the breast, as opposed to the bottle. And that is entirely true.

My story with The Kid is simple. I made up my mind, I was home for a year with him, and he nursed for 18 months. It was awesome. We suffered through some thrush, I had mastitis that sent me to the emergency room only to learn that ER docs don't know the first thing about breasts, I had a traumatic labor and it took a LOT of effort to get my milk in, and this was done with all of the effort I could muster, I was so devoted to breastfeeding, and once we were in, we were way in. The vast majority of our time nursing was wonderful. It was a bonding experience, it was sweet and loving, it cured boo boos, it helped us sleep, I lost my baby weight quickly. Also, The Kid loved my milk.

My philosophy on nursing is very laissez faire, but I'm not totally cool with 'anything you want to do, that's fine..." I have a major caveat.

I have a friend who had her first baby in August. She wanted to nurse, and she did. Her baby was a total champion nurser, and my friend was a natural (whether she wants to believe it or not). She had family*, though, that bugged her about how gross it was, how annoying it was, how she didn't know if the baby was getting enough--even though her diapers were full--and how generations of kids in this world were just fine getting bottles, why go through all this exhaustion and work just to breastfeed.

This is my beef, and I want to state clearly that this isn't the stance of a militant breastfeeding advocate (against other moms, angry at bottle feeders and Carnation and Nestle), but the stance of a woman who wants a different society. Our culture is sick. I know a lot of moms who would love to have breastfed their kids longer, but because of their jobs, their jobs allowing them time to pump, or access to their babies during the day, they dried up before they were ready to stop. Our culture has sexualized the breast and alienated our normal bodily functions so severely that moms who are demurely breastfeeding in a corner of a restaurant, public library or mall are asked to leave or go into a bath room. We have raised generations of women so disassociated with their own bodies and the purposes of our bodies that we think nursing is 'gross.'

My friends who have had to go back to work, my friends who could not handle a vegan diet to keep their babies from projectile vomiting, my friends (who are also saints) who got pregnant again only a few months after having a baby, I have no qualms.

For women who are so out of touch with their bodies as to be uncomfortable with or grossed out by nursing, I take issue. Think hard about how we got here. Think hard about how long we've had formula. Your boobs, ladies, are designed to lactate. It's only gross if you think your boobs are only for people to oogle.

We are lucky to have formula. It fed The Kid for his first week of life, when I had no colostrom nor milk to give, through a Lact-aid, a kind of "IV drip" tube that you stick on to your nipple, and then allow the baby to latch on. Using that, my milk came in eventually, and we had a long healthy run.

I don't propose to say that The Kid is smarter because we nursed, that also bugs me. I didn't manage to prevent any his disabilities. I do think it should be a preferred practice here, though. And I think our employers, our public establishments, our families and our culture should support women to succeed with breastfeeding.

EDITED TO SAY: Dear Friend of baby born in August: I hope you don't mind me using your family as an example. You know I love love love love your family, but their attitudes were things we discussed, and were an impediment, and caused you stress. It's only an example.

2008-03-02T08:46:00.004-07:00

It's amazing how quickly life can change.

On January 6, my mom had retinal detachment surgery. This was her seventh surgery of this kind, five having been done on her right eye, which was eventually lost completely to blindness. This surgery was successful, but at some point, shortly after the surgery, she told us that everything was dark, that this time was different from all of the other recoveries from this kind of surgery that she's been through, that something was not right. Her gut feeling was right: on the back of her eye, her retina, a blood clot had formed, blew, and has rendered her almost completely blind. She can only see a little bit of periphery, just around the edges of her retina that was not effected by the blood clot.

As a result, The Kid and I are moving in. It's not a hardship to do this, but it is an enormous change. I've been busy getting ready to move, cleaning out spaces in the house to fit my stuff, cleaning out my house to hopefully free myself from the five years of crap I've accumulated in my house. The Kid is having a harder time, struggling with the rules of my home being imposed in the usual lap of luxury that is, by definition, the way a grandmother's home is run.

So, I don't feel like writing much lately. Go figure.

I have, however, had a blast looking through my old stuff, my mom's stuff, my family's stuff. And so, in attempt to get me back to writing more often, as it is a kind of therapuetic thing for me, I want to show you all the stuff I've been finding... It's great fun.

First up?

A Postcard.

I picked this postcard up in a bar in Dublin in 1996. I decided to make this quote my mantra for all of the things I chose to do that year: break up with my boyfriend of 3 years, finish of that second bottle of wine, make out with that British boy at that party in Wales, travel throughout Europe, drink it in, live deep, suck marrow, carpe diem.

12 years in, I not only don't regret a thing, I'm incredibly grateful that I did have a big, wide open life. Because now, I have a small life. Home and hearth, taking care of family. It's what I do now. And like that Italy/Holland poem, it's not a bad place to be, "it's just a different place." I'm glad I've had it both ways.

Still not capable of a real post.

2008-02-20T22:54:00.004-07:00

Instead, my pastime. My ever-loving tee vee shows.

And see, there's one, and I know you don't watch it, but you should. Like, seriously. Go rent season one, sit down, and fall in love. Like, I can guarantee you that you will. It's really effing good.

But the show's done for the season, thanks to the writer's strike, kinda, and NBC may just choose to replace the finest hour of television with yet another hour of Deal or No Deal. In other words, it's likely to be cancelling the show altogether, not renewing it for a season 3.

Please watch Friday Night Lights. You can watch it on nbc.com, but if you are just getting started, rent the first season. CAN I SAY THIS ONE MORE TIME: WATCH SEASON ONE OF FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS AND I DARE YOU TO TELL ME IT'S NOT ONE OF THE BEST SHOWS EVER.

Watch it, then sign the petition. Or, take my word for it, sign the damn petition already, and just rent it next weekend.

Effectively Nudged.

2008-02-11T22:36:00.001-07:00

Okay. So. Um.

The other day my sister told me I needed to update my blog because my last post was just not 'me;' in short, it was overdramatic, it was depressing, it was eeyore. Things have not been good. I do not have time or energy to give an update quite yet, but since Mr. Lady tagged me for a meme that will talk, however obliquely, about how I blog and what I struggle in attempting to write this blog, it's kind of a perfect seque. I'll try to keep out the overdrama and the depress-ment.

How long have you been blogging?

Just under 2.5 years.

What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?

My friend Matt emailed me during the summer of '05 that he was starting a blog about food and wine, which is his thing. This would be my first visit to blogger-based blogs. I didn't read a bunch of them, or even think about writing, until the end of that summer and the shit started to hit the fan with The Kid. His preschool staff said he was too energetic and too hyperactive to fit into preschool anymore, just two weeks before Kindergarten was set to start. I knew I had a battle, I knew my brilliant child was a square peg, and Kindergarten was going to be a circle hole, and I just wanted to diarize it. And so Soapy Water started, during that two week period where I took a lot of time off of work, for the first of many times I found myself without childcare. While my views on what's going on with him have changed STARKLY since this blog began, I'm happy to have the blog to look back on, a document to my work on his behalf. Me (and my family) have been the only consistent thing to stand by The Kid these two and a half years of his very rocky education, and while my conclusions have evolved, the way I approach problems (critically, with much ire), has not changed.

I sent an email sending out the link of my brand spanking new blog to my bff and a few other friends. She wrote me back that she, uh, had been writing one herself for about six months. Here's the link. Go check it out. So, she didn't make me want to have a blog, as I didn't know hers existed until after mine did, but she made me want to write for her. She's the best, yo.

Are you trying to make money online, or just doing it for fun?

Is what I do fun? I think this is the problem lately. I do not make a dime off of this blog. No ads. No point. No traffic.

What 3 things do you love about being online?

1. I have connected with people that I know well, better.
2. I have connected with people that I don't know at all but are similar to me, or have perspectives I wouldn't have known about or considered prior to the blogging.
3. Primal scream. I've written some really angry posts in my day. I've also written thought processes out so that I can sleep at night.

What 3 things do you struggle with online?

1. Actually writing the blog. When life speeds up, and I have more to write about, I tend to post less.
2. Overdocumentation. I know that I am the only person who is actually interested in the ins and outs of everything I think about. In general. In relation to The Kid and The Kid's education, I think I tend to go overboard with details of his school issues, to the point that no one will read this but a person who loves me very much and wants to read our updates, and/or someone who is searching for answers to the same questions I'm asking, or teachers. I think. No one else wants to read about a mentally ill kid. Rarely do people even want to even acknowledge they exist.
3. This is not a fun blog. I used to write about funny stuff, about how The Kid's challenges were beautiful and entertaining somehow. But lately, not so much. Life is heavy, and so are my posts. I want to lighten things up, but I think so seriously, and this subject is so very serious, that the posts end up sad, troubling, troubled.

I should so know better...

2008-01-31T22:30:00.001-07:00

...than to be optimistic...

In real life, I really do say Dude this often.

2008-01-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Question: Gee, Molly, you've been notably absent from the internets lately. I mean, you've been logging in to facebook to play scrabble and whatnot, but no blog posts. What gives?

Answer: Dude. So much is going on. Too much, in fact.

Question: Like what? A fabulous vacation? A new hunky love interest?

Answer: No, dude. It's like I've traveled back in time to that one time The Kid was going to hospital school and my mom had eye surgery. Remember? I'm saying this because these exact things are going on right now. Again.

Question: Dude.

Answer: I know! But, apart from my mom and her retinal detachment (which we believe is going to be fine, she's just not seeing all that well yet, so we've moved house and home and cat over to her house to make her coffee and clean her house and wrestle in her bathroom*), this is all ultimately for good, and will have good results.

Question: So, putting The Kid in the hospital for school is a good thing?

Answer: Absolutely! His school was just about up to their ears in The Kid's horrible, difficult mood that is a direct result of his withdrawal from the biggest mistake I've ever made as a parent, Abilify (a psychiatric drug which is supposed to make children with various psychiatric and developmental disabled diagnoses less self-injurous and labile, but in The Kid did, um, nothing except make him gain 50 pounds). So, he was slowly going off of this med, and believe me he is not a dream to be with those first 7 days after a lower dose, and the school is on their last nerve, and while I agree they had every right to complain, they were kind of out of ideas for new interventions... Or at least, they weren't taking my suggestions and don't want to shell out the money for a 1 to 1 paraeducator for The Kid. Also, the class is too big and the teachers are stressed. Yes, it's all true. However, The Kid was not in the classroom for more than 70% of his days, and I just decided that he needed to finish out his last withdrawal period (HE'S DONE WITH THE ABILIFY!) and he needs to be assessed by the best. We need some new recommendations for helping him with his social skills, we need some new recommendations for how to help him focus when he avoids doing his work (we need to figure out what's going on in head that makes him avoid doing his work, first of all), we need to figure out why he behaves like a holy terror in school but not at home, we need to meet with someone regarding diet and supplements, and/or other alternative therapies (yes, the hospital actually has a clinic specializing in these things ready to meet with us and make recommendations. I may just be gluten free shortly, dude.). Most importantly, we need to see what he's really like without being given atypical anti-psychotics.

Question: Will he look different?

Answer: Well, physically, he's already lost three pounds. I do suspect we'll see different behavior. What it will look like, and how we should deal with it now that I've made my decision regarding certain medications, I do not know.

Question: Anything else going on?

Answer: Not really. I'm taking care of my mom, who rocks, taking care of The Kid, who also rocks, driving a lot (because they moved the hospital 20 miles further from home), which sucks, taking partial FML to do all of this, which also sucks but also, secretly, kind of doesn't suck. Seriously, a 30 hour week is just about ideal for a working mother. I can work, cook AND clean. Anyway, this doesn't leave me much time to do much of anything else, short of scrabble on facebook. Oh, except that I met about 40 other moms like me and I joined a supersecret club, but really that's just my business and not the business of the internets. However, if any of them read this, Hi. I'm so glad I found you.

The End.

*That would be The Kid and I. My mom isn't so much into the wrastling these days. Or any days.

All you need is an hour and an internet connection!

2008-01-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

Please follow this link and watch the Frontline documentary, "The Medicated Child." I offer it without comment. Please do watch it and let me know what you think.

how could so many docs be soo wrong?

2008-01-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Quickly, and from work.

The NY Times has an article up today about how the use of antipsychotics is not proven to reduce irritability and aggressive and violent behavior in people with developmental disabilities and the elderly, as it has been widely, and off-label, prescribed. The study blows up the assumption that these drugs help, at all, not to mention their addition of troublesome side effects such as weight gain, diabetes, tardive dyskenesia. The drugs used in the study were Risperdal and Haldol, but the study concludes that the entire class of anti-psychotics can be brought to the same conclusions.

But the routine prescription of the drugs for aggression, they concluded, “should no longer be regarded as a satisfactory form of care.”

How could so many people get this so horribly wrong? Greed? Why were such studies not conducted before this? Before the Zyprexa lawsuits and my own son's 50 pound weight gain and absolutely no reduction in troublesome behavior? It kind of makes me sick.

For Some Reason I'm Supposed to Call This Hoopla.

2007-12-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why. It's really not Hoopla. It's a Meme. And I was tagged, so shit. Let's do this thing.

Here's the rules:

1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a ‘hoopla’ and not the dreaded ‘m’-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you’re done. None of this “if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged” stuff is allowed…then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you — but the more, the merrier to get this ‘hoopla’ circulating through the Blog-o-sphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it.
Amendment: I've been told to kill this thing, which I assume means tag no one else. This is like one of those laws we pass every election day that redacts some law about the amount of sheep someone can have on a one acre parcel of land which has been developed and suburban-ized for fifty years. So, disregard rule number 3.

Here goes:

1. I am writing this as I eat peppermint ice cream. It's about 12 degrees out and it snowed about 8 inches today, and I've not opened my front door for approximately 48 hours. We've shut ourselves in for a big, messy orgy of Christmassy goodness. We have cans of soup, half a chocolate Santa, peppermint ice cream, a bottle of Jameson and a Wii. We ran out of milk today. Were it not for the milk, I think we could have survived nicely until at least next Monday.

2. About two years ago, I took The Kid to see a live nativity on Christmas Eve night. When we got to the church, we saw a little barn on a little grassy spot on the side of the church and walked over to it. As we cleared the corner, it became apparent that Mary and Joseph were nowhere to be found. All that was there was a donkey, and as we approached the manger, a plastic baby jesus lay, unswaddled, in the hay. The Kid was all, "And Mary is supposed to be the best mother of all time? What the?"

3. I've only spent one Christmas away from my family. I spent that one Christmas away skiing at Chamonix, France with this boy who was about to be my ex-boyfriend. We stayed in this very Alps-ish youth hostel filled with drunken Aussies who sang the same verse of Good King Wenceslas over and over until my eyes popped out of my head, and it was by far the most depressing Christmas I've ever lived through. The good side of the day, however, was the skiing: the mountain was so beautiful, and clouds settled in around and above and below us, so we skiied completely blind, white out inside of a cloud. It was the most disorenting thing, like floating in space, the only sensation that could be felt was the gentle gravity taking us down the trail. Boyfriend would be three feet to my left and I wouldn't see him. I couldn't even see my skiis. Luckily, we were well above treeline.

4. This is a hard one to admit: I miss, and might even prefer, Christmas without children around. I'm the baby of my family, and as I grew up, Christmas turned into my sisters coming home from college, staying up late with me watching movies and playing trivial pursuits. Those are the years I remember laughing the hardest, my teenage years before the new generation started being born, and all of their wanting and needing attention and kid stuff. This year, we had all left my mom's house by 6pm, for the various reasons of wanting to go home to play XBox360 (my nephews), needing to go to fucking sleep because of the horrible grouchiness of Christmas Eve's sleep deprivation was closing its grip upon us (The Kid's). No games, no cups of coffee, no sisters making each other laugh until they start crying. I miss that.

5. However, my favorite thing about Christmas now, is The Kid's reaction to his gifts. Anything you give him, he has a heart attack, thanks you with kisses and screams and smiles and is just the most demonstratively appreciative child I've ever seen. I can't take any credit for raising such an appreciative child, because this is fully just part of his personality: he's demonstrative, he's energetic, he's enthusiastic. Best reactions ever? Here are the top three:

2005: My sister gave him Ice Bat. As soon as that toy was out of the package, The Kid began speaking in tongues (or possibly in Ice Bat language, I have no idea), to the Ice Bat, flying him around the room with gusto, and declared undying love, for the rest of his days, to the best ever stuffed animal bat ever made for all of time.

2004: Santa brings The Kid a stuffed animal snake. As he opens it, he screams, "Santa! I've always wanted a stuffed snake for Christmas! You know me! You really really know me so well! I love you Santa!"

2006: One of the things on The Kid's Dear Santa list is a penguin wearing a santa hat (why so specific? I do not know the answer to that). My sister found a little penguin, took a santa hat off of some ornament we had and sewed it to the little penguin. When The Kid unwrapped the present, he went into immediate, hard-core, laughter. He laughed to the point of crying, he couldn't stop laughing. Because laughter is so contagious, we all began to laugh, and for about five minutes, my entire family cried with laughter, all from a five dollar fat penguin stuffed animal, with a santa hat. It was a sublime moment.

6. Catholics will identify with this one: One of my favorite memories of Christmas was finally getting to sing Christmas songs in Church. The Catholic mass does not allow for the singing Christmas carols in mass until the actual Christmas mass. You might get a Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming here and there during advent, but no First Noel, no Adeste Fideles, no Hark, The Herald Angels Sing until Christmas... Ah, but how I would bust out with those songs with all of my little Catholic heart on Christmas...

7. Halfway there. I'm now writing this as I'm about to go to my mom's house for my nephew's birthday party. He was born on 12/27/1995. Good lordy, he's twelve now.

8. My family gets together a lot. It's admirable. We love each other a lot, and we enjoy each other's company a lot. However, I had this sinking feeling, for the first time ever, on Christmas Eve, that it was just another night where we were all together again. We're together every week. Same cast, different occassion. Just being honest. I still love them... Its just a bit possible that when you see your family all the time, it's just kind of ordinary to get together. Then again, I wouldn't trade Friday night dinners at my mom's house for anything. They cap the week, they remove an entire menu from my grocery shopping list. They give me the opportunity to talk to grown ups outside of work.

9. My mom's Christmas dinner traditional entree is this wonderful stuff called hamloaf. I realize this does not sound very appetizing, or maybe it's just me: I don't like the word loaf all that much. Loaf. Say it out loud. Loaf. Ew.
But anyway. Hamloaf. It is just want it sounds like. Ham and pork, ground, in a loaf, baked. It gets all glazy, crispy and yummy on the outside, and is soft hammy goodness inside. You eat it with horseradish. It is the best thing ever.

10. Christmas always brings up memories, strangely enough, of my uncles. My dad had two bachelor uncles, they'd come for Christmas and all the other holidays, but I always remember them at this time of year. We'd play trivial pursuits with them. Or slap jack. Or name that tune. They would get into huge screaming fights with each other over really stupid trivial shit like whether I-40 headed east-west or north-south through Gallup, New Mexico. Those dudes just should have lived a little longer, just so that they could know the satisfaction of settling a dispute like that through Google Maps. Or Snopes. Or whatever. The internet. They really needed the internet.
There's also the year we rented A Christmas Story (like, before it was on constantly, remember that?) and they laughed til they cried, as they were depression-era kids too, and really appreciated all of the small details of that movie, as they had essentially lived it.

11. Okay. Almost done. I was supposed to do this fast. Not so good at the fasties. Um.... My favorite Christmas-season treat is Harry and David Moose Munch. You are more than welcome to send me some. Thanks.

12. I'm raised Catholic but in no way practicing. However, I'm strict with the Advent through Epiphany Christmas season thing. Many people don't even know what that means. Basically, it means that it's still okay to sing Christmas carols, since the three kings didn't show up while Mary was delivering the afterbirth, but instead took 12 more days. Of course, they probably didn't show up in exactly 12 days either, but you know, it's all biblically recorded that way, and for that reason, my Christmas tree will remain up, lights on in the evening, until January 6th.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

This is all the time I can devote to blogging right now. I've got to go play Wii golf. Later.

5 Songs of 2007

2007-12-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Jaci and I often define years or seasons by the music we've listened to. Not like we're the only people in the world who do this, but she really got me thinking about it, as for Christmas, she sent me a CD of her songs of the year. Since I wasn't really around her more than two weekends of the year (she lives in Chicago), it was like she shared with me her moods of the year. And Jaci, the music of 2007 is not as depressing as past years. Did you notice that?

So, I got to thinking. What are my songs this year? What will I hear, years down the line, and think about 2007, or when The Kid was 7, or when I was 31? Here's 5:

1. Cat Power: The Greatest
This song is the depressing anthem of my drives to and from The Kid's hospital school days. Some of this bleeds into 2006, as he was in the hospital then too, but as I worked 5.5 hours a day, was falling apart as far as my duties there went, as I didn't appreciably clean my house for three months, as I just felt like sleeping for a good three months, this song was my anthem. What had I become? I was a shell.

2. Silversun Pickups: Lazy Eye
Same period of time, this was the alternate to The Greatest. The energy song. I have no idea what this song is actually about. But it's kind of building to angry, and has something to do with being unique, which emotionally, regardless of lyrics, hit me right on.

3. Rascal Flatts: My Wish
2007 is the year in which I stopped worrying and started to love the country music. It's The Kid's doing, actually. They listened to country music on his school bus, to and from school, and my awareness of all of this started during that bloated "Idol Gives Back" show, when Rascal Flatts performed this song, and The Kid sang every word. After the song, he turned to me and said, 'Mom, I think that's a good song for Kids to sing to their Moms. It's a good song for Moms to sing to their kids, too. It's a love song for families.' And so, it became "our" song. Cheesy? Gouda has nothing on the cheesiness of this song. Will it go down as one of my favorite songs ever? You better believe it.

4. Billy Joel: Summer, Highland Falls
Just listen to the lyrics. Bipolar theme song. Thing of beauty? Billy Joel does not get enough respect from my generation. Ben Folds, please cover this song for me. Thanks.

5. Journey: Don't Stop Believing
I became the ultimate in TV geek in 2007. I'm addicted. But also? TV has been incredible this year. I've had about 4 television-induced heart attacks this year, but no single television watching experience has ever, ever felt like watching the scene above, the first time I saw it. [Close runner up? All Along the Watchtower, Battlestar Galactica, end of season 3. I've also officially become a card-carrying geek in 2007. And I own it, yo.]

Other runners up? Impossible Germany by Wilco. Beirut, The Hold Steady and Lily Allen, my fave new bands/artists of this year. Hot Knives by Bright Eyes. Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine.

Groceries

2007-12-15T21:20:00.001-07:00

Mr. Lady got me thinking about the food I buy for the week. Please, go over to This Post to proceed.

Soapy Water Family, Denver, USA $116.53

This, of course, is minus milk, minus the free lunches that I get through my job, and minus the random things I don't have to buy every week (like, how do you quantify the amount of mustard, ketchup, olive oil and balsamic vinegar you use in a week?), plus my shameful purchase of ingredients to make fudge, which honestly I've never done before (and then, of course, minus one major ingredient for said fudge that I somehow didn't make it home with).

But still, Damn. I spend a lot of money on food. There is also the $20 hair product I bought that I subtracted from my food total, and that without this exercise I would have never been clued in to having spent $20 on. That shit better make my hair really effing silky, that's all I'm saying.

What I really intend to say with this post: Food is an issue in this house. The Kid is incredibly involved in my choices for food. He intellectually knows what is good and what is not good for his body. His tastebuds, however, are yet to know these things. My favorite veggies, squashes, are like poison to him. He would eat cheetos for every meal if he had any choice in the matter.

When you have a kid that is healthy-food averse who also happens to have severe GERD, wonderful things happen. Lots and lots of puking. I think that the reflux is only a key in this puzzle in that the muscles needed for puking are so incredibly toned from the reflux, that the slightest gag will result in a full gastro-intestinal refusal to put certain foods into the digestive system. And so, whenever The Kid tries foods that he is grossed out by, there is often much puking.

If you wanted to create a general category of "Foods Which Make The Kid Puke" could be easily identified by the following characteristics:
1. Food is green
2. Food is naturally occurring, or at least is cultivated by humans in a natural setting and are then harvested from the earth in some form.

Ergo, getting The Kid to eat the foods that my body generally craves and that are my super favorite things in the whole world (I am so very much a vegetarian at heart), there is very little wiggle room.

It's a rough road. Over the last few months, though, I've really toed the line. I've said, Kid, you can go hungry, but tonight, we are eating ______ (insert: green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, tabbouleh, etc). This has sucked. He's been pissed at me. He has been really pissed at me. But the end result has found a number of foods he can stomach, and we can eat in peace. Among them: Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Peas.

I am still obsessed with beats, and I continue to try to convince The Kid that if he eats beats, his poop will turn purple. He has, as of today, remained both skeptical of my claim and has categorically refused to recognize that purple poop is in any way "cool." To this, I say, whatev. Purple is the best color, in whatever form it appears.

But seriously. I think I have some decent eating habits, myself. Except for the moose munch and godivas that are streaming into my office for the holidays, I actually prefer the healthy choice for food over the not-healthly. I've still got 15 pounds I'd prefer not to have, so whatever, I'm so imperfect. But still. I can blame at least 5 of those pounds on The Kid, right?

How to instill the good eating habits on children, though? When schools offer "Dominoes Pizza" for lunch, and your seven year old lectures you on the lameness on his ham sandwich and carrots in his lunch's inequities to "Dominoes Pizza" lunch days, how do you combat this? I say, "there are a lot of things out there that taste great, but our bodies are healthier with other things." This train of reasoning has failed for me.

At home, I struggle between time and intent. As a working mom, arriving at home, cooking, homework, QT, it's all muddled and over quick and needs to be easy. I'm pretty rocking at the quick, easy dinner, but still. Will he eat it? That's always the question.

It's funny, though, because it all became clear this weekend as I saw my sister is encountering the same problems from a different direction with her 11 year old daughter. My neice eats like a rabbit (heh, to Peggy, and anyone else who might get that joke). Friday night, she ate about three pieces of romaine lettuce and declared herself "full." Her brother teased her about being a "supermodel" eater. She feigned disgust at this claim. An hour later, dessert, a cheesecake w/ chocolate thing, was served. She started in wanting a piece of the cheesecake, when her mom usurped her and reminded her that if she was now hungry, she would be well served to eat some protein and other good things for her body before she went in for the dessert.

Basically, between my neice and The Kid, a great deal of what is wrong with American eating habits are personified. My neice is hyper conscious of eating right, but (at least on the night in question) starved herself of healthily filling, whole foods--we were having lasagne (and moderate portions as opposed to clean plates are encouraged around our tables)--but was willing to eat high-in-fat, high-in-calorie dessert, "as a treat." My son cannot abide real food, like, the food that really comes out of the ground or the farm and not a processing plant, and has a real (in my mind disgusting) preference towards high fructose corn syrup-laden, fake ass nasty ness such as ramen and chef boyardee and McDonalds.

I can't shy away from the fact that I've created my own monster here. He is my kid and I've fed him nasty nasty things that I never thought I'd eat regularly as an adult, like McDonalds, or Mac-n-Cheese, or Chicken Nuggets. But I resolved to stop ages ago. Like, more than a year ago, I stopped with the McDonalds (although I totally took him there once in the last year, but that was the day I got the Harry Potter book, so like, slip!, but also, more-uninterrupted-silent-reading-for-me!!!), I have been reading labels and have been anal about his coloric intake for a while now.

What to do? How to fix it? What did we eat? What did we not eat? I know I was always a gloriously non-picky eater. I still am. Part of me thinks I just got The Kid with every possible opposite personality trait from mine, with the picky eating and the social challenges, but part of me thinks that I have to work against a marketing machine that is so very much bigger than me. It's so big it's bigger than Ronald McDonald.

The end of this post? Will there ever be an end of this post? The beauty of blogging is that it is not professional. I do not need a conclusion. I am done talking about eating, and yet I am not. Please comment. Tell me what to do. Commiserate. Whatever. Just don't tell me that The Kid's eating of chicken nuggets is okay, because I disagree and will not listen to you anyway.

The end.

Ha. (sorry, weird mood).

Okay, Okay, I'm done being done.

2007-12-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Kind of. I can't promise anything.

Because I'm a corporate drone, let's update with bullet points. I've been a citizen of a corporation so long, that when I am in a hurry, I just naturally gravitate towards the bullet point. This is officially the death of the grad student inside of me. Goodbye, longwinded narrative prose. Goodbye soul.

Have you ever seen that Office where Michael tells the office that they are getting laid off, make fabulous plans for the future, are excited about the change, and then find out they aren't getting laid off in the end and feel totally deflated as a result? That was me last week. I still have my job. Whoopee.
I fully realize how whiny that statement is. A lot of people would like to have jobs.
My boss's last day, however, is December 31. I am incredibly sad about this fact. He is one of the few things I truly love about my job.
The Kid's down-titration of meds is causing some major behavior issues. Or perhaps it is the fact that he's really obsessed with Christmas and isn't sleeping.
The Kid's doctor is still certain that we drop meds without adding anything else. Issues will sort themselves out.
I very reasonably and calmly informed the school of what's going on with the meds, and although they were initially very against the dropping of meds, I've gotten them to understand the impetus to do so, and how very vital it is to the health of The Kid to do so, although they still don't see that we had periods like this with the meds too, because we all think in frameworks and cause and effect of the easiest identifiable thing.
We meet tomorrow afternoon to discuss how best to handle the behaviors we're seeing.
They assure me they are not talking about a change of placement. I realize how fucked in the head I am still from the previous school's inability to create behavior plans and follow IEP's, because I find it hard to believe that they are this professional and willing to work with me to keep The Kid in school, to keep him safe, and to get him learning instead of spending time outside of the classroom calming down from anger.

Okay, I have to go to work. It also snowed like crazy this week and remained below freezing so driving sucks right now. I really hate snow. I'm not over last winter. I am dreaming of Hawaii.

Done

2007-11-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

I did it.

It wasn't even that hard. Kind of. Except that one night I ate the chinese food.

Mr. Lady wrote a lovely post today about feeling invigorated by writing again, writing every day. I agree wholeheartedly. And yet, I feel as if I could do so much better.

I started this blog as a primal scream/document of The Kid's journey through school, which turned into my journey through understanding his 'mental' health and his developmental issues. This month I think I spent a lot of time writing not about The Kid, but about things that are infinitely more accessible to me, take a lot less thought for me to write about, and don't make my brain hurt.

This would be fine, except for the fact that I do want to use this blog as a perspective on parenting a child with his diagnoses, for either other moms and dads out there on journeys similar to mine, or for people skeptical that parents of kids with mental health diagnoses are not all just crackheads or overly permissive ATM machines; for teachers and for mental health workers who want to know what parents go through at home; for other parents, to realize that we kind of all go through the same stuff, diagnoses or no.

I squander my brain a lot. I don't challenge myself in my writing because it's hard.

Also? I can't make up my mind. Am I pro-medication or am I anti-medication? Do I think the bipolar diagnosis in children is bullshit or do I think it is a viable name for a diagnosable set of behaviors? Do the things I do at home, and the things the school do for The Kid help? If so, what works, what doesn't? These are the things I really want to write about.

But, let's waffle!!! If part of the purpose of this blog is to show the perspective of a mother of a child, I am more and The Kid is more than discussion of his diagnosis. We are silly, we make snowmen, The Kid likes dinosaurs and Pokemon and Karate and country music, I have a life outside of being his mom, I read books and go to movies and have friends and like to drink whiskey with them while The Kid spends the night at his grandmother's. He is a person that is infinitely more than the sum of his diagnoses. We're all of these things. I can't possibly write a blog so focused that I only write about bipolar this, autism that, IEP's and functional behavior analysis, etc... because we are whole people. And this is not a professional blog. Also, ten of you read this on a regular basis and only two of you are not related to me, so odds are you and I have already had a deep discussion of my latest views on shit anyway.

So, I guess the NaBloPoMo thing has put me back in the habit of writing more often, and I do intend to keep it up (not every day, probably, but, you know, more than once a month). I do want to make myself tackle some tougher stuff, as I'm always working through something in regards to The Kid's many facets. I want to make this site better. I guess that's enough.

Let's end the month with a haiku:

Oh, NaBloPoMo!

I'm so glad you are over.

I can sleep again.

Quandary

2007-11-29T23:47:00.001-07:00

So, about two weeks ago The Kid gave me a VERY SPECIAL PRESENT. It is the first time that he has gone so out of his way to buy me a present, and it was such a sweet effort.

He gave me a Harry Potter poster.

And you all must know how right on the mark The Kid is as far as 'Things His Mommy Enjoys (That He Knows About).' I am one of those voracious readers of Harry Potter, and last summer I downed the Deathly Hallows in two days, while I neglected to care for him, letting him make his own damn peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So, for anything to make me completely neglect him, it must be pretty important to me.

But the thing is, and the way The Kid is, he is so proud of picking this present out, he won't let me hang the poster in his room. It's special for ME, so it must be hung in MY room. So, at the moment, I've got this Harry Potter movie poster propped up on the back of my dresser. The Kid comes in and arranges it occasionally, makes sure it's up straight. So far, I've rebuffed his requests to hang it over my bed. But he still asks, often. The thing is, having this poster of preteens with wands and capes makes me feel, at best really geeky, and at worst, pervy. And that sucks because I've always had these very motherly feeling toward Harry, in the books and in the movies.

Oh my god I just got this vision of me with presents like these from The Kid, a room filled with Harry Potter and Battlestar Gallactica stuff. I'll be like the Thirty Year Old Virgin Mother.

Spyware Alert!

2007-11-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

This is all the post I can handle right now. I am frayed and dismayed and I just got played. And I'm rhyming, so, there's that too... I have a spyware issue I'm dealing with right now, see, one of those, "OH FUCK I DIDN'T MEAN TO CLICK THAT" moments. McAfee is working on it.

All I want is what's coming to me, all I want is my fair share!

2007-11-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

I generally try to avoid ever writing about my job. Mostly, I do this because it is a boring subject. Also, writing, in my field, is a scary prospect. Every email must be careful. Every letter must cover one's ass from future lawsuits (which is to say that it has to be accurate, not lying to cover one's ass, I don't do that, I just can't make wild generalizations or misreport information). I must also report any and all additional income I make to the SEC, so this would explain why I've never considered this blog here to be anything more than a hobby. But still, it's publishing content on the the internet, personal content about me, that could be generally considered unprofessional. Some of what I'm writing on this blog rails against the industry I work for. I have to be careful when I write about my work.

But it just so happens to be all I can think about tonight.

At the beginning of November, my boss met with the BIG boss, and informed him that he does not plan to remain with the company anymore. He's being cooperative, he wants to finish what he's working on right now, but does not want a new sales goal, does not want to be employed by this company for any longer than he has to. Naturally, if he goes, I have to go too. I suppose there is the odd reassignment of work, or something, but really, if my boss leaves, the company will close our office. And no, I will not get his job. I am not qualified. I do not have a penis.

So, my brain is shifting gears from having a job to looking for a new job. And I must say I'm perfectly okay with this. I'm ready for something new. I've been here for five years, and they've been excellent years. My boss is the best boss I will ever have. I've got mad skills now. I'm marketable.

But the company have yet to give us termination dates, layoffs or severance packages or stay bonuses. It's a strange place to be. What am I supposed to I tell prospective employers? Um, I'm leaving my job, but I don't know when, but I feel the strange urge to stay just in case they give me a kick ass severance, because I really want to get paid for two jobs for a few months.

The craziest thing? I have a job offer. It's with a much much smaller company. It's the kind of work I kind of rock at, but the clients would be slightly different. I have no idea what they want to pay me, we've not gotten there yet. I would also work from home. And? They are willing to wait. I'm just flattered that they want to work with me so badly, but I have yet to figure out if it will be a good move for me.

I don't know. This is the most boring post ever because I'm so paranoid about posting about work. There is so much more to this story. So, if you know me, I guess give me a call. If not, invent wild scenarios and email them to me or comment below. If you know me, you could do that too.

Love Letter to Denver

2007-11-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Denver,

I've really only known this city. I was born here. Grew up in its perfect climate. I only left for five years, but came back to raise my family. This is my city. This is my home.

I have snapshots in my head of those days when I realize how much I love it here. Almost all sunny. Sometimes with rainbows.

There are the days, at Bronco games; sunny, warm December days, climbing the ramps to my seats, feeling a crowd of Denverites collecting to enjoy the day and our sport and some coors light. I look over the edge of the stadium, either facing west, to our mountains, or east, to our city, and just feel so lucky to be a part of this life here. We've got it good.

There are the hot summer days, the sun lasting late into the evening. I take the Kid to Liks for ice cream and then the musuem to run through the dancing fountain on the west side. This is my favorite place to see Denver from the steps of the DMNS.

There are my every day walks from my office west to the Union Station, the quick jaunt (which is never so quick) to the Tattered Cover, or the north route, insanely more interesting but arguably less safe, up to 22nd St then east toward the federal courthouse and back.

There are the nights out, I love to go out in Denver, to the dive bars on Colfax or the swanky spots in LoDo (but never, ever on Market Street, except for El Chapultepec), the neighborhood bars all over the city. I love to go out in Denver because jeans are perfectly acceptable attire for a steakhouse. I love to go out in Denver because there's always something new, but not so much new that you need entire magazines to navigate the city. It's a managable size, is all. My head wraps around Denver, and I love it.

I love that I know too much useless trivia about this place that I could never ever learn if I went somewhere else. Like, The Buckhorn is liquor license number one. The Cruise Room is number two, and is an exact replica of the bar on the Queen Mary. Or that the city's distinctive houses are all built with brick, partially because the city burned down a few times, but also because the city was run at the turn of the century by the bricklayers (or rather, the bosses of the bricklayers). I love that I know the streets and the locales and the city like the back of my hand. I can't imagine not working downtown, and if that all changes, I'll need to make special dates just to hang out down there. I wish I could live down there, but that's a different story entirely.

I love being a native of this place. Really. I love how my family made it here, between my dad's family, Paddy working on the railroad and all, or my mom, California dreaming in the sixties but just not quite being able to leave Colorado once she arrived here along the way. I also love that my family is still here (with one exception), that we're freakishly close and all love to be here for these exact reasons. The Broncos, the sun, the mountains, the sun, the history, the city, each other.

Denver is not a city with a whole lot of character of its own. It's newish, the architecture speaks to its boom and bust cycles. We like beer, we love sports, most of us like bikes and/or skiing. Apparently, a lot of us have dogs, and are skinnier than say, Indianapolis.

My love for Denver is not really about Denver. Its about my life, because it's here, in Denver, and that life is so rich, it's all love, all over.

I remember driving home from college with my sister Peggy after I graduated. I was really not looking forward to spending the summer in Denver. A lot of my friends had moved. Shannon had a baby. I had broken up with my boyfriend. I could not abide living in this cowtown, and couldn't wait for the day I left again to go to Ireland. I hemmed and hawed and I don't know how Peggy didn't shove me out of the car somewhere outside of Topeka (it's hot in Topeka, you know). I finally explained all of my resistance to the place to Peggy, and she got it, but she also funadmentally disagreed with me, because she recognized the city for what it was, namely, HOME; and so, as we made that turn on I-70, early summer and the thunderstorms that accompany it, we were treated to and explosion of sun out of the clouds, those God-rays, the shafts of light, and rainbows. Plural. I tried to be smug, but I knew, I was happy to see it again. It was my home. Always was, and always will be.

When Writing Every Day is Getting a Little Too Hard

2007-11-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

I'm scheduled to write a love letter to Denver tonight. Unfortunately, I had a little too much fun last night with Denver and I'm really freaking tired and I just want to go to bed. I should have written my love letter on a bar napkin last night.

We went to a few bars on Colfax last night. Started at the Cheeky Monk, a newish place specializing in affordable food and incredibly expensive belgian beers. Next, we hit the Red Room. Then the Satellite Bar. There was good, adult conversation. There were scrumptious beers. And a juke box with Metallica. I'm kind of amazed that I'm still awake right now.

So, I spent the day today watching football, trying to facilitate The Kid enjoying his last day of the five day break provided by Thanksgiving, cooking. The Kid spent a lot of the day playing with a neighbor, between our house and the neighbor's.

Also, he wrote out his Christmas wish list. It's kind of ginormous. I told him to just write down everything he could think of, and santa will surely find one or two things to bring him. I hope that The Kid understands that I really mean he's only getting one or two things on his list. No worries though, I've already got one of these hidden in the hope chest under the blankets, waiting to be set out on Christmas morning. It'll be the bestest Christmas ever.

And we're off...

2007-11-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's officially Christmas Season! Two indicators of this:

1. To truly prove that I am a Colorado Native, the majority of my friends from my lifetime here have moved elsewhere. They come home during the holidays, and for one month per year, I have a social life. That starts tonight. Maybe I'll tell you all about my crazy night out tomorrow.

2. The tree is up, and a boxful of cutesy santa and snowman stuff has replaced my normal candles and vases about the home. I'm not big into knicknacks. I clutter my house easily enough without them. During Christmas, however, I let go my issues with cutesy, and my issues with knicknacks, and decorate like the dorky suburban mommy that I am.

I was worried about the kitty getting into the tree, but my fears have been asuaged: She's found a new super stealthy spot to sleep all day.

I love this view of the tree because it makes it look enormous.

Alas, it is just The Kid who is enormous...

Happy Saturday. I'm off to drink a beer with friends. Happy happy Saturday!

Sleep issues in the Soapy Water Family.

2007-11-23T22:49:00.001-07:00

I took the best turkey drugged nap of my life today. I'm finally over being loggy, but it was so good, and I will be unable to fall asleep tonight because of it.

The Kid is already anxious for Christmas. He is not yet asleep tonight because he's too excited about Santa. Grrr.

The Cat had a visit to the vet to get her shots today. She is docile and tired. Poor kitty. But, she's the only one sleeping in our house tonight!

Simple day

2007-11-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not feeling very reflective tonight, maybe I should have posted before I filled my tummy. We had a good holiday. No tempers, no foul words. I have a great family. The Kid was in fine form except this morning when he was convinced he could wash my car with a small saucepan and a wash cloth, even though it was 30 degrees outside. It took a while for him to accept my ABSOLUTELY YOU MAY NOT WASH MY CAR.

I am fundamentally grateful that I have a small life. I work with good people. My friends are good people. My family is my center, and we are good to each other. Apart from The Kid's drama, I have an amazingly stable life. It's simple. I know nothing else.

That's a simple, but fundamental thing to be thankful for. And I really am. It's perfect.

haiku weds

2007-11-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

HOME
Silenced alarm clock,
I watch the first snow falling
from my cozy bed.

SCHOOL
Raised hand, anxious pace,
Students tease, it does not help.
He is furious.

FUN
Peppermint Forest!
Now? I'm next to Gramma Nutt.
Stupid Candyland.

MISC
Turkey, cranberry,
Stuffing, Potatoes. Oh no.
I'm such a huge pig.

When is Tuesday like Friday?

2007-11-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

When you close your office on Weds! I LOVE Thanksgiving. It's my total fave holiday. Five-day weekend and all.

So, in preparation for the big holiday, I thought I'd share how I get ready for a turkey day with my family:

Discuss with your mom and sisters who is making what for Thanksgiving. Your sister who has recently moved back to the area will be making pies, and has totally usurped your position as pie maker.
Resent her for 5 minutes.
Volunteer to bring jello and salad.
Search the internet for crazily good salads you can make. Find difficult and extravagant salads and home made dressings on Food.com. Dream a little about candying almonds and develop a craving for beets.
Because you are all about fiber, decide you must make something with spinach and beets. Beets beets beets beets.
Your mom reminds you that you have picky eaters in the mix.
Eat the beets on your own goddamn time. Pickle a few for mom so she will love you best.
Go back to step 4. Settle on fancy thing with arugula and blue cheese and dressing made out of clementines.
Go to the grocery store with everyone else in Denver on Tuesday night because the snow's a-coming tomorrow.
Throw out fancy salad idea and settle on the old standby. But buy the fancy bacon, it's a holiday for cripe's sake.

Quickie News Roundup

2007-11-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

There's been another explosion in our newspapers lately about the prevalence in ADHD in our kids. I read one staggering figure, that one in ten boys in the US is taking some kind of medication for ADHD symptoms. That's a lot of kids. That's a lot of medicine. That's a lot of money.

Anyway, I believe this was brought on by a recently released study showing the academic acheivement of children with ADHD, which is below the 'typical' child at the start of elementary school, generally catches up to the general population by 6th grade. This is interesting on so many levels, and encouraging for me on many others. Principally, it promotes the view that ADHD is not necessarily a mental illness, but a developmental delay. A maturity delay. For me, that worldview is a big deal. That the medical community is catching on to this and may change methods of treatment is exciting.

Reading around about the issue, I stumbled upon this op-ed/article in The Times out of the UK. The thesis, basically, is that we have forced our children into structure so early, that some are incapable of handling it, hence, ADHD. She comes at it from a kind of anthropologically Marxist kind of view, that as culture has become more technological, and as our culture has become an environment to excel and succeed in skyskrapers rather than as hunter-gatherers or even as farmers, we have alienated the boys of the world from access to what they need most: a good wrastle, risk-taking behaviors away from the eyes of overanxious moms, and a day spent less fearful and more exhuberant. It's an interesting way to see things, mostly because it is the antithesis of the message I get as a mom of one of these 'disturbed children' (you should be more stern with him, he needs more structure and discipline). Instead, her point of view says, boys will be boys. Let them be boys.

Love Letter to Greencastle, IN.

2007-11-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

In my mind's eye, I can still see the approach so clearly. The exit from I-70, then west from the Cloverdale truck plaza, you pass under the highway to a briefly flat, wooded stretch of state highway, the spot I got pulled over that late night that Princess Di was killed, fully and awesomely and responsibly the designated driver from a night out in Indianapolis (no ticket, they just saw the CO license plate and knew I had to be a schnockered college student). The amalgum of memories driving 265 to Greencastle are alternately bleak, otherworldly, and beautiful. There are the cloudy, depressing, 4pm sunset drives of late February. There are the late summer night drives into the valleys of farm fields, cloaked in darkness and fog, which the descent into felt like driving into whole oblivion. There are the sunny late spring drives past the fields of corn or soybeans or whatever, the fields specked with blossoms and the leaves of trees bursting with that nubile green the likes of which I've never seen before or after.

I can drive into Greencastle in my imagination at any time, every detail crystal clear. I cannot do that with any other place I've lived, or been, ever. Pass the putting green and driving range that I never did visit. Pass the hospital that I unfortunately did (Sarah). Pass the gun shop, the liquor store, the Robe-Ann Park and then take a left into campus. Of all of the places in the world I've been, all of those American and European capitols, Greencastle is one of my favorite places to visit on Google Earth. Each corner of that town holds a memory.

But no description of Greencastle for me can ommit DePauw, my alma mater. It is where I completed my teens, and left behind a big part of my being as a kid. It is where, within the first thirty minutes of arriving as a freshman, I met two of my lifelong best friends. It is where I read Lolita, first acknowledged a propensity towards medieval art, and alternately grew my brain with a fabulous education, then killed brain cells with the best drinking buddies a girl could ever dream to have.

I miss the food, that we went to school in a town where college students could afford to eat out, what with the farm food and the farm food and the barbeque and the farm food, and the best drunken meals to be had in all of the universe (Seriously, what more do you need in life than french fries, covered in garlic salt and then doused in cheese. Okay, when you are DRUNK and it's 1 in the morning. Also, right now, in Greencastle, Indiana, two college students are hooking up for the first time with garlic and cheese breath. I love that thought, it's like a college tradition).

I have so many incredible memories from DePauw, it would be impossible to list them, and I've sat here all night trying to think up the best or the most poignant for this post. I cannot do it. Suffice it to say that the impact my college years had on me are so deep, those years have such a profound effect on what I do and say and think about to this very day. I did not just 'go to college.' I looked forward to college every single day of my life since my oldest sister left to go herself, and I made damn sure I chose the school that would provide me the best and most challenging education, because I'm a nerd like that. The gamble there, of course, was whether the people and the location of the school would be equally worth it. Turned out, I hit the jackpot.

I didn't think so at first. My freshman year, like most freshman years, I had to grow into being in college. Everyone in my class was as smart as me, and for the first time in my life, I actually had to study. And Greencastle. I had a really hard time with Greencastle. The locus of town was three miles away from town, at the Walmart. The banks closed at four. There was this truck that drove through our campus with an enormous gunrack and a confederate flag hanging on the tailgate. The student body as a whole at DePauw are notoriously more conservative than the professors. It was a jarring experience, and I actually experienced more culture shock in the move to Indiana than in my move to Dublin. My friends, Erin, Maria, then later Jaci and Mary and so many others, kept me there. Also, my professors, my honors classes, my art and art history classes, it was all so unique, I knew I would never find it elsewhere.

It took until my senior year, ten years ago right now, to truly fall in love with it. I had been away in Ireland for a year, and I had missed DePauw. I decided to get a job, tending bar. It was there, at The Duck in the Walden Inn (the link there shocked the poo out of me, they've renovated and it's clearly not the beer-soaked, dark and smoky closet I worked in anymore), that I came to know the town and the people unconnected with the university, and then my love came. It was the only time in my life I was able to walk into bars and restaurants in town and people would know me. And there are some outstanding people in that town. I think of them dearly still.

But this isn't coming out right. As a Colorado native, I am used to being blown away by the beauty of my surroundings. It's right there to the west of where I'm sitting right now, these glorious Rocky Mountains. My friend Maria and I, she's from New Mexico originally, had to really reconcile how to live in a place so plain, so flat. But we figured it out: it's hilly, but not mountainous. There are more trees there, and they are so big. There is so much to appreciate about it, but you have to retrain the eye to see it.

It's there, in the fall, the colors painted in the leaves above you, and really, autumn's colors are more vibrant against a clouded sky. It's there in the long drives to the covered bridges, these poetic red, barn structure expanses over what they call creeks but here in Colorado we would call rivers. It's there in the quiet early mornings of February, when the street lights refract in the ice-coated bare branches of trees, clinking like champagne flutes.

To call Greencastle quaint is a disservice. To call it podunk is lazy. It's just so much more than all that. I guess I can say, Greencastle was once my home, and I miss it sometimes. I think that's enough.

How is The Kid doing, anyway?

2007-11-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

So, this is supposed to be a blog about The Kid. My Kid. Because of the persistent blogging this month, and because I'm normally getting my post done at ten til midnight every night, I've not taken the time to update on The Kid in quite a while.

First, academically. Great. His reading is on par, he's a little easily distracted, so it's slow going, but he understands everything he reads. He rocks at math. I've never really had concerns about his academics because he's just so naturally bright. If he doesn't get it today, he'll get it pretty soon.

His behavior at school is a different story. He's had a rough go of it lately. He has such a hard time in the classroom. I don't know what is going on. He gets stuck on ideas and tasks most of the time, and then the class has to move on, and he's not willing to go with them. I think that, essentially, is the deal. His reactions are all over the place. Most of the time, he gets so frustrated and angry he has to take space to calm down again. I don't think he's missing too much school time, but he has to go through this 'leave the classroom' thing about three to eight times a day. It's been rough.

I don't know how to make it better. It's school. It's kind of outside of my realm, if you know what I mean. I will help them in any way, but when it comes to how he reacts to their structures, I can't do much from work or home. Or, more than we already do, which is talk about the day, every night, and do lots of work with doctors and therapists outside of school. So, it's not like I'm doing nothing, but in the moment? It's up to The Kid.

Medically, well. Oooph. Six weeks ago he had a blood draw at the doctors office. Everything was okay, but his cholesterol levels were high. Yeah, he's seven. We've cut back on fats, for him and for me, and the food I have been preparing for both of us has been more healthy. We went again last week and his numbers are better, now on the high side of 'normal.' The doc is worried that the real culprit, however, is the weight gain and his metabolism from his meds. We are cutting back on his atypical antipsychotic, Abilify, slowly but surely until we will be done with it, hopefully by the end of the year or at the very latest, January. This is all good news to me, as I've been asking for a good justification for his taking it for about three months now. So glad to get this drug out of his system.

The Kid's therapist let a bad 'by the by' comment slip to me on Monday, however. He said he'd talked to the school, and, his words, "they are really against dropping meds." Naturally, they would be against dropping meds that worked to relieve aggressive behaviors. I would too. But these meds are not working very well against his aggression and frustration (see above, he's been on them with these cycles of anger and difficulty remaining safe in the classroom), and they are making him gain weight in a gross way (8 pounds in six weeks, on a good diet). I really wish he hadn't told me that. I really don't want to know what the school thinks about The Kid's medical info.

Of course I updated the school on the status of The Kid's meds, and now I worry that they will be pointing toward his behavior as caused by his meds being dropped. We're all keeping a close eye on him, and he is definitely going to have some difficulty while we take them out of his system. It may take the rest of the school year, in fact, to truly see a Kid without Abilify. I just can't let it go on that we feed him with this med that is not proving to work, that is pretty much definitely causing damage to his body (weight gain). It would be immoral of me.

So, in the meantime, the only real effect of lowering the dosage of the med I've seen (we've only cut the dosage back by 1/3, and it's only been five days) is difficulty falling asleep. He has been pretty much the same, easily overstimulated but incredibly funny and smart kiddo. I can live with this kiddo. He's a great kid.

Brainstorm

2007-11-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Ideas for stuff to write about Friday night:

1. I drove to work with a nail sticking out of my tire today. I ended up with 4 new tires because I put off buying new ones for so long (they were almost as bald as Telly Savales)

2. The nail was sticking out of the wall of my tire though. Do you think someone vandalized my car?

3. Yesterday, my neighbor left her car running, parked on the street, to warm up while she was inside. Naturally, her car was stolen. It was a Lexus SUV. She either has no common sense, or maybe she's from Canada?

4. Wonder what ill, car-related fate will befall my neighborhood tomorrow!

5. My baby neice, Q, is about the cutest thing in the whole freaking universe.

6. I wonder how many episodes Friday Night Lights has left in it because of the writers strike.

7. My guts are in knots, people. I'm serious. I can't really blog about this, but something has got to change.

8. I figured out my food coma from yesterday? That was the first carb-laden meal I've eaten in a week. I'm thinking the restaurant didn't drug me. It was the lo mein.

9. Maybe Jenny McCarthy is on to something with the no dairy, no carbs thing. But in reference to me, not The Kid.

10. Although my behavior wasn't any better. I was still a basket case.

11. Aw, fuckit. I'm just going to bed.

You will find me in the Castle of Aauugh!!!!

2007-11-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

We got chinese food tonight. I think we got the sesame chicken with the extra sleeping pill sauce, I believe that was the #4 combo with eggroll. If I weren't so very very sleepy, I'd tell you about the time my family went out to eat at a chinese restaurant in Boulder and everyone ended up with numbness about the face and nose after we ate. The family that ran that drugtastic restaurant has apparently moved to my neighborhood. Instead of the numb nose, however, I am feeling some weird return of my left elbow's tendonitis, which is a not at all normal thing. And to think I had food in the fridge but we had been running around and it was already past 7 and I thought we'd try the dodgy chinese place and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wednesday is now HAIKU day!

2007-11-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

Each week, a few thoughts.
Categories: home, school, fun
miscellaneous.

Sometimes you just need
Compartmentalization,
Quiet, simple words.

HOME
Daisy, biting cat
I've just about had it with
Your razor-sharp teeth.

SCHOOL
Struggle to keep safe.
The Kid works so hard to be
What most kids just are.

FUN
I ditched work today
To hold my baby neice, Q.
She has too much kick.

MISCELLANEOUS
Don't cry, sweet baby Q.
I know your mom's awesome, but
She wants a shower.

2007-11-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

I have a really amazing support system of friends, family, medical professionals, but all of that starts and ends with my mom. She is kind, and funny, and warm. She has saved my life on a number of occassions, but never so much as she has in the last year and a half. She has served as my son's second home, his afterschool neighborhood, with snacks and activities and help with homework. She's the reason I can still churn away at it all.

Today is her birthday. When I was little, I gave her a card that I made all by myself that said, did you know that if you spell MOM upside down it spells WOW?

Do you know what WOWs me now? How my relationship with my mom has been one of the cornerstones of my life. I couldn't be more grateful for her.

Did you hug/call/thank/remember a veteran today?

2007-11-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

My Uncle Harry joined ROTC in college, around 1939. He graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in education in 1943, and joined the Reserves as American troops were dying in droves in Europe and in the South Pacific during World War II. This was roughly less than a year after Pearl Harbor, and two years before the war would be won. My uncle had no idea what he was getting into.

I'm unsure where he completed his training, where his troops trained, but I believe it was in the South. He was shipped off to England as a First Lieutentant of the 106th Artillery Division in September of 1944. From southern England the division was sent to Belguim on December 1st, replacements for the main line in Holland, Belguim and France. My uncle's division was stationed squarely in the Ardennes forest, a lightly guarded and very quiet part of that western front, for a slow orientation into combat. On December 16th, 1944, German Panzer divisions, the very last of Hitler's army staffed by old men and children, crushed the silence in the Ardennes, lambasting the unprepared and underprotected troops. Over the next month, the Germans progressed through the American line, producing a lethal 'bulge' in their line, cutting off supplies and causing confusion. It took more than a month before the allies succeeded in surrounding the Germans, and the Battle of the Bulge was over by January 25, 1945. In all, nearly 81,000 allied troops were killed in action and over 24,000 were captured*.

Somewhere between the initial onset of the battle and Christmas, 1944, my uncle was captured. Our best guess is that he was transported to a prisoner of war camp for officers called Oflag XIII-B in Hammelburg, Germany. Transported is a kind word. Most first hand reports by veterans of Oflag XIII-B and Battle of the Bulge captured state that they were marched through the cold of Germany to reach the camp. They were fed a diet of 1200 calories a day at first, cutting back to only 1000 calories a day by the time they were liberated. Malnutrition was the cause of disease (from the most simple infections, unable to heal without proper nutrition, to the more serious, like dysentery) and of course, death.

My uncle was always very quiet about his experiences in this camp. I know that he developed an appendicitis, or at the very least an inflamed appendix, while in this camp. A guard offered the medic a butter knife, and said, operate. I know that he was very proud that his camp was personally liberated by General Patton, although it is likely, but I don't know the whole story, that he, along with almost everyone Patton's army liberated from Hammelburg, were the victims of an ill-planned liberation, and were recaptured.

He did make it home. Skinny as hell, but alive, he returned to his family home in Trinidad, Co. His first question of my dad, his kid brother, was "what are your favorite songs right now?" My dad's answer? Bing Crosby's "Don't Fence Me In."

***

I don't care where you stand on war or peace or Iraq or Vietnam or Right or Left, I think we do stand united on this: We are singularly in awe of men who saw the worst things a man can see, and even moreso at their ability to come back home, to reintegrate, and to live lives without the horrors. My heart goes out incredibly to the sufferers of PTSD, even for the men who suffered from it before we called it that. My wish for veterans day is that the men and women who served our country are being served now, by us. That they receive good medical care, that their war wounds, physical and psychological, are healed. And that they never, ever feel unappreciated for their sacrifice, regardless of war or cause or president.

*Just because this blows my mind: 40 days, 81,000 dead. Not that either one is 'better' or more or less brutal, or more or less morally acceptable: compared to our current war in Iraq, that is 2,000% more dead in just 2% of the time our troops have currently been in Iraq. (source for Iraq number here)

Love Letter to Dublin

2007-11-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Preface: I called my BFF last night to brag about a particularly fun happy hour spent with him, him and him, and how she was sorely missed in the mix there. I definitely could have used a little more girl power. Plus, we all have horrible crushes on her.

Anyway, topics of conversation moved from the bloggers I happy houred with to blogging, generally, and my moving from two posts a month to daily, and how I'm kind of out of shit to say. She didn't specifically offer advice, but mentioned that she has tricks up her sleeve, such as these love letters to cities she's lived in. She didn't offer it to me as an idea, but if NaBloPoMo has taught me nothing else, it has taught me how to steal. I am deeply ashamed. Her love letters will be better, anyway, so no big diff.

I have lived in three different places in my life. Seeing as there are three Sundays left to this national blogging extravaganza, I hereby promise to devote a post to those three places: urban, rural and suburban, respectively.

Dear Dublin,

It's always difficult to write a letter to an ex-lover. We had a on-again/off-again relationship that spanned three years. We were together for two of those years, and they were mighty fine years indeed. Then I found myself, as your people like to say, erm, up the pole, and I left you and I haven't seen you since.

During our first year, ours was a definitely one sided relationship. I definitely didn't get to know you all that well, and yet, I have fashioned myself and my identity largely from our time together. I solipsized you, Dublin. I absorbed you far more than you absorbed me, which, of course is understandable seeing our short time together in relation to your 1,000 years here on this earth. I learned about you what I could. I knew what your multiple names mean. I know a bit about who lived on your streets over the span of time that you've existed.

Oh, but we had some good times that first year, didn't we, Dublin? Remember how I bicycled through your streets on clear days and when it rained, your disgusting street water flipping up all over me so that I often wondered, were it not for the wonderful calories burned and the way I knew your short cuts, if taking the bus might have been a better option. Remember the time I met that Italian girl at the Molly Malone statue at the end of Grafton Street (you know, the one who became one of my closest friends, the one with the square glasses that taught me how to cook and drink guinness until my eyes crossed), I, standing in awe of my sweet Molly Malone, with her huge boobs and that bucket full of cockles and muscles, alive, alive-o, and she, with much hilarity, trying to sing me Molly's song.

Remember the speckled sunny days? Those long, head-clearing walks around the soccer pitches at UCD, or to see the tulips in St. Stephen's Green? Remember the mild, cool nights with the rivers of whiskey and new friends and endless possibilities, with new people, new things, places to go?

I struck off, back to my digs in the US. You taught me something that first year, that I will never, ever forget. I am an American. See, when I first went to live with you, Dublin, I identified myself as an Irish descendant. I could boast that both sides of my family came from Ireland's shores to America's, not too long ago. After your famine. Before the turn of the century. We were still new blood here, relatively speaking. But I came home and I knew that I would never be Irish. I was not nor ever would I be. I wore running shoes with my jeans and I have this bland, American newscaster accent, my identity is American. I appreciate that difference.

I returned to you a year later. This time I would know you better. I wanted to study you, your history, the history of the people who had lived in your city and your country for centuries before I had the chance to walk your fields. The first time I lived in Dublin, I lived there to live abroad, to live life abundantly, to drink and dance and be 21 years old. I came back to spend time with you, to work towards a masters degree in Archaeology, and maybe try to carve a live out for myself in your streets.

I remember being nervous. I moved to Donnybrook, a beautiful but definitely inexpensive Georgian rowhouse on Waterloo Road. We lived in the Garden Flat, with the Great Room window facing to the southwest. My flatmates and I dubbed the flat 'Waterloo Sunset,' for that Kinks song. We definitely let the wine flow and the good times happen. Over all, though, I was there for you, and I was there for Ireland. I was there for you and for Ireland more than I was there for myself. I was never convinced I'd be an academic.

And yet, I learned the names of your relics and your shrines, I made an ass of myself trying to pronounce their names. I learned the lives of your saints and the measurements of your high crosses. I chose the tympanums and cornices, decorated with heads and curlicue motifs, built by your monks a thousand years ago upon which to concentrate my studies.

I set off in April of 1999 to see in person my queries. The Nun's church at Clonmacnoise. Cormac's Chapel at the Rock of Cashel. The Abbey church at Clonfert. There was Kilronan and Cong and my very favorite: climbing over stone walls, amid braying cattle and quite frankly frightened of 100+ pink spray-painted sheep, I met the stern faces of Dysert O'Dea.

It was during this trip that I met The Kid's father. A month later, in your fair city, Dublin, I was given the greatest gift I would never have wished for. The Kid.

I left you, Dublin, to start a new life. A couple of new lives, I suppose, technically.

But my love, it is still there, although I've not tread on your sidewalks for 8 years. I love the daffodils in the spring, the way clouds race overhead at speeds I could never imagine for a calm day, the smell of chips with garlic mayonnaise, the endeavor to find the perfect pint of Guinness. I love that your history is steeped in tragedy, but has endured because of valor and that stubborn refusal to die on someone elses terms. I do not love the violence of your past, but I appreciate how the past has added to the culture a humor and genuine enjoyment of life that can only be when you have seen the real sadness.

I love your land and its stories, stumbling upon archaeological site upon site. I love that the earth of Ireland has been churned and reused for gravesite then ringfort then passage tomb then church for ten thousand years. I love that your stones have stories to tell. I love that your people have lived vibrantly along, aside and within the history for all of these years.

Remember that poem? That poem about Newgrange by Seamus Heaney? I found it, finally:

Like somebody who sees things when he's dreaming
And after the dream lives with the aftermath
Of what he felt, no other trace remaining,

So I live now, for what I saw departs
And is almost lost, although a distilled sweetness
Still drops from it into my inner heart.

It is the same with snow the sun releases,
The same as when in wind, the hurried leaves
Swirl round your ankles and the shaking hedges

That had flopped their catkin cuff-lace and green sleeves
Are sleet-whipped bare. Dawn light began stealing
Through the cold universe to County Meath,

Over weirs where the Boyne water, fulgent, darkling,
Turns its thick axle, over rick-sized stones
Millennia deep in their own unmoving

And unmoved alignment. And now the planet turns
Earth brow and templed earth, the corbelled rock
And unsunned tonsure of the burial mounds,

I stand with pilgrims, tourists, media folk
And all admitted to the wired-off hill.
Headlights of juggernauts heading for Dundalk,

Flight 104 from New York audible
As it descends on schedule into Dublin,
Boyne Valley Centre Car Park already full,

Waiting for seedling light on roof and windscreen.
And as in illo tempore people marked
The king's gold dagger when he plunged it in

To the hilt in unsown ground, to start the work
Of the world again, to speed the plough
And plant the riddled grain, we watch through murk

And overboiling cloud for the milted glow
Of sunrise, for an eastern dazzle
To send first light like share-shine in a furrow

Steadily deeper, farther available,
Creeping along the floor of the passage grave
To backstone and capstone, to hold its candle

Inside the cosmic hill. Who dares say "love"
At this cold coming? Who would not dare say it?
Is this the moved wheel that the poet spoke of,

The star pivot? Life's perseid in the ashpit
Of the dead? Like his, my speech cannot
Tell what the mind needs told: an infant tongue

Milky with breast milk would be more articulate.

No love letter to you will ever be complete. But for now,

Love,

Molly

Poetry, by The Kid

2007-11-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Cat sat on The Brat
The Brat is now all flat
Now we call her Matt
What do you think of that?

So little to talk about tonight

2007-11-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

I'm finding the blogging for the sake of blogging thing slightly draining. ALREADY. Happy NaBloPoMo.

I should have set myself with a motif. Or a plan in anyway. But no, I'm flying by the seat of my pants.

So, are you watching Friday Night Lights? It's seriously such a good show. Please watch it. Please watch it and let NBC know you watch it, and then maybe buy one or two things from their sponsors, but throw them and email to say, I wasn't going to buy this, but I saw your add while watching FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and then I went out to buy it.

Anyway, it contains some of the most naturalistic conversations on television. It's like Altman movies, but more relatable. The marriage between Tami and Eric Taylor, their interactions, are magical. And annoying, and spontaneous and endearing and serious and funny and everything that a marriage is. Everything.

You can buy the DVD of season one for 20 bucks. Go buy it, get caught up. It is SO worth your time.

Love,
Molly

Movie Meme

2007-11-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

Day 8 of NaBloPoMo, and I've trolled the internet for a meme I'd like to do. Is that web-socially acceptable? I realize you are supposed to be 'tagged' and all to participate in them, but shoot, this one is easy, and a topic I can't deny.

MOVIES. Y'all know how I am about my watching of the cinema. And probably about the neglected group blog, The Cinema Firmament.

This meme works similarly to the book one that most of you have already done, either on your own blog or via email with me. I'm hoping the following list will create a common scurry of emails and cross posting and just movie knowledge sharing and stuff.

So, here's how it works. Below is listed the AFI's 100 Best Movies.

Green Indicates a Movie I've Seen and Loved.
Red Indicates a Movie I've Seen and Not Loved (don't necessarily need to hate it, just not love it, you know?)
Blue Indicates a Movie I've Not Seen, but Really Want To.

AFI Top 100 Films
1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972) Oh, I love the gangsters. This is in my top 5. Most. Perfect. Ending. EVER.
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull(1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Also, top 5. I make more money that Calvin Coolidge! Put together!
6. Gone with the Wind (1939) This was my fave when I was in fifth grade. I've watched it since, and MAN.
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)
14. Psycho (1960)
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950) Quite possibly my favorite movie of all time. Until I watch The Godfather again.
16. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
17. The Graduate (1967)
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Okay, or maybe this is my favorite movie of all time. It's family nostalgic, and makes me cry every single time. It was my dad's favorite movie, see.
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) I didn't hate this movie, but am I the only person that found both the book and this movie interminable?
24. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944) Of course! I'm an insurance agent! Actually, someday, I want a giant movie poster of this movie hanging in my office. Wouldn't that be so cool?
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47.A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver(1976) I know, even I can't believe I haven't seen this movie.
53. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North by Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976) This movie so amazingly appropriate to right now, it's scary. Have you seen it yet? If not, you better. Today. Thank you.
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All the President’s Men (1976) I was a bartender in college and worked an early shift (11am to about 6pm). I found this on cable, and was alone in the bar watching for the first half of the movie. Patrons began to file in for a late liquid lunch, and I refused to serve them unless they promised not to request a change in station. By the end of the movie, I had a dozen or so bar patrons completely engrossed, and drunk. Then they drunkenly talked about Nixon and Clinton and Tom Brokaw for the remainder of my shift. I don't think I made much in tips that day, but I must say it was my best day of bartending ever.
78. Modern Times (1936) This is Buster Keaton, right? My dad and I used to watch this movie on PBS.
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997) Shut up, haters.
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999) Are you seriously telling me this is a superior movie to Goodfellas?
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

My Favorite Wastes of Time

2007-11-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

I know it's hard to believe that between blogging and reading blogs and doing all of the myriad non-computer-based tasks that fill my day I still find time to waste a lot of my time on this here internet. But, no! I am superwoman! I can run a household and an office and read homework with my child and keep my cat alive AND waste loads of time while I do it. I'm awesome.

Now, the things I'm about to share with you are in no way awesome. They are just what I do and when I'm done doing them, I'm all, Dude, what did you do with the last 30 minutes?

So, with further ado, here are my top 5 time-waster activities (non-blog) on these series of tubes:

1. Pop Cap Games. I'm so freaking embarrased to tell you this, but I ROCK at Zuma. I also am probably playing MahJong while I'm talking to you on the telephone. The Kid thinks these games are interminably lame, but my video game prowess began and ended with Tetris, so I think these games are so totally radical, dude!

2. Slate. Now, I do read the articles, but I come back for the Bushisms. Sometimes what he says sounds like those grammar lessons from 7th grade where we had to circle what was grammatically wrong with a sentence (subject-tense agreement, completion of thought, etc). And occassionally, when he doesn't sound like a complete ignorant baby-talker, he says these incredibly demonic things that make my spine seize. Another reason for Slate? The daily roundup of Political Cartoons.

3. Television Without Pity. I don't know what it is that I like about watching a television show and then spending time the next day reading snarky recaps about it. I've actually started watching shows with rabid followings on TWOP (Battlestar Gallactica), because I figure they know what the frack they are talking about.

4. Movie Trailers. Apple has the awesome hi-def ones to watch. EW.com points me to countless others. It's a totally solid pastime. By trailers alone, I must see Juno (which is the kind of movie one would expect me to want to see, by my 'I like Indie-stuff' persona and all) and I Am Legend (because no one can escape the charismatic grip of Will Smith, plus, SCAREDY!).

5. Okay. This last one? You are going to change your concept of me. You think I'm tough and smart and jaded and hard core. But no. I spend a little time every week, if not every day, oogling adoptable pets at the Denver Dumb Friends League Website. I mean, come on. I'm such a wus.

On This Awesome Conference, Finally

2007-11-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been back from this conference for about three days now, and what I hoped wouldn't happen, that I would get all sidetracked with the job and the family and the cat and the daily life stuff, has happened. I'm so sidetracked its stupid.

But, for my edification if nothing more, I need to list out the key things I learned at the PEP Conference:

It was not a "parenting" conference. The key assumption of this conference was that we were the experts on our own kids. We were specifically instructed in our three small group sessions (about 10 people plus a few moderators) not to 'rescue' and not to problem solve for others. We were there to enable ourselves to act within the educational system as advocates for our children. The Colorado Department of Education, who planned and hosted the conference with the help of experienced parents of children with disabilities, want us and our children to succeed within their bureaucracy. If that's not the most encouraging thing you've ever heard, well, I guess I can just say it's a very encouraging thing for me to hear.
I do identify The Kid as a child with a disability, at least as defined by special educational law. I know some of you who read this and know The Kid and I have trouble with that. I am so grateful that the framework of IEP's exist, that there are laws to back up the accomodations that The Kid needs to be a student, and for that reason, his identity as a child with disabilities is actually a really good thing. He is a kid that without the right supports in place, can't possibly show his potential. Thank god for the IEP.
Our story was rare, and bad, but not the worst. And I don't mean in his medical file, not at all. I mean in the way in which we have struggled with our school district, a little more than a year ago, to obtain reasonable special education services. I was told, "No, we can't do that" far more often than is reasonable or possibly even legal. The Kid's special educational entitlements were violated last year. I have been jaded and hurt by the general ed school that The Kid attended for Kindergarten and the first month of first grade, but now know that not only is this not normal, it is also extremely possible to counteract with specific language and specific actions on my part. I have learned what to do if I encounter the 'I won't do this for your child' response again.
Most IEP violations take place because of ignorance, not because of spite. I need to teach myself to believe this in the case of last year's big time bad news, just to help me get over it. But also, these laws, the ADA, the IDEA, NCLB and the Colorado-specific special ed law are so complex, and teachers simply do not know them, and this is how violations occur. This conference exists to counteract this ignorance.
I am worried about new things. Inclusion. The Kid will be heading from a very restrictive classroom environment to a less restrictive environment eventually. I don't believe this will happen until 2008, possibly not until the new school year, but it is going to happen. I am now scared of what happens when my highly intelligent young man goes back into a 'grade level' school, after having been in a classroom of 6, in a very fluid multi-age setting. He is behaviorally challenged, even in the classroom of 6, but he is also a leader there. He is, age-wise, in second grade. He is doing 3rd and 4th grade math and science. He is reading on grade level. He is writing like a first grader. How do you keep a kid with all of these gifts and challenges in a single-grade classroom? This is not a bad problem persay, but it is one that I had never considered until last weekend.
Finally, THANK GOD FOR BLOGGING. Like I said, the seminar was split up between large lectures about disability law and IEP's, with the one smaller 'choice' breakout session, I went to the one about PBS, as I wrote earlier this week, and then punctuated with a meeting of a small support group each day. At each support group, I sobbed. I am completely incapable of talking about The Kid and his education to sympathetic ears without breaking down into sobs. One on one, I'm generally capable of being articulate and not crying a great river, but get me around a group of people looking at me and caring about what I am saying and having all been in that same place as me, I will lose it. I never cried in the big group lectures, either. Just in the small groups. So, support groups are kind of out for me. I'm not productive in them. In many ways, this blog is my support group. Important people read this blog and know me and are then able to know about what I'm thinking or feeling, and I don't have to sit around and tell them about it later at a party and end up red-faced and crying. I can also write and write and write and you won't be any the wiser if I sobbed through the writing or not. I can bare it all, or organize my thoughts. I'm so lucky to have you, readers (and I think I know each and every one of you, and most of you know me personally and know The Kid personally, and that helps so much).

Thanks for being my support group.

Oh, and Diane? There's snow above timberline. I woke up every morning to the snow machines blanketing Peak 9. Beautiful, pristine skies, bluer than you can imagine during the day, and more stars than you can count at night. I love Breckenridge.

I just really want to go to bed...

2007-11-05T22:27:00.003-07:00

...I didn't think I'd resort to this so early in the month of NaBloPoMo. Here are pictures of my cat:

Oh, and I'll throw one in of Dinger the Rockies's mascot dancing to bad Rolling Stones covers at the big You-Lost-The-World-Series-But-We-Still-Think-You-Are-All-Really-Hot,-And-I'm-Talking-To-You-Ryan-Spilborghs rally I went to last week.

Italy-Holland; PBS.

2007-11-04T22:13:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday I posted a poem about how it feels to be yanked out of your dreams of parenting a typical child. I feel compelled to write tonight, however, just for the record, that parenting a typical child is never perfect. To extend the analogy, Italy has pick pockets, and they have bathrooms you'll run into occassionally that have the footpads on either side of a hole that you have to squat over and that's really not that glamourous. In short, parenting is hard. Full Stop. I can't pretend that I have it the worst, or that people who don't have kids with challenges worthy of medical and educational interventions don't have it hard. There are tough choices all around as a parent. That is all.

So, in that theme, and in the vein of trying to share some of the cool stuff I learned at this conference, allow me to introduce the concept of Positive Behavior Support, or PBS. You do NOT have to have a disabled child to enact this stuff. It's also so rediculously simple you might do it already. If you live in Colorado, chances are your kids have already been introduced to it at school. Odds are, this is stuff you do already when you are in the right frame of mind, but you just call it parenting. If you are like me, you do this sometimes, but not all of the time. The PBS system has you consciously using it daily.

The basic tenet of PBS is to set your child up for successes as citizens, socially and societally, with clear, easy to understand definitions and goals what what that success means. It's not enough to tell a kid that they must respect others... It is our job to teach him what respect looks like, feels likes, and how you enact it.

It so much easier to explain this with examples of daily home behavior.

What is the definition of a clean bedroom? Is a clean bedroom one with nothing on the floor but the toybox spilling over and stuff precariously stuffed into closets? I can't tell you how many times I've told The Kid, CLEAN YOUR ROOM, only to have the whole endeavor back up on me, and I end up in the room, cleaning it with him. I have felt like at seven, he should know the basics of how to clean a room because he's watched me do it enough.

Now I understand, I have to break it down for him. I tried it today. I told him, first, pick up any dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. He happily did it and came back. Next, find the toys on the floor and put them into the right cubby or toybox. Again, he ran back, completed that task, and came back. Okay, now make the bed. Scurry, bed made, scurry back. Are you ready to vacuum? Yep! All the while, he was pleased with his progress, I told him what a great job he was doing.

As I sat in the class on this subject, I sat there thinking of all of the times The Kid hasn't really understood what I asked him or needed him to do, as if just acting dissappointed it didn't get done right or me going and doing it for him in the end was going to magically make him know how to do it the next time we needed it done. As parents, we do this all the time, even if we have obedient, responsible kids. I can't wait to do this some more.

The first step they wanted us to do was to identify behaviors of our kids that drive us crazy. Next, we had to write down what we wanted them to do instead. Third, we broke down the tasks necessary to complete the over riding behavior. In action, you praise (not overly crazily so, but just let them know they pretty much rocked it) each of the smaller components of the things we work on with them. This way, even if whatever it is we want to see as the end result is not perfect, we've likely been able to say to the child that we saw five or six really awesome things to the one or two things that could use some improvement.

Here is an example that I wrote down:

Problem Behavior: Homework doesn't make it back into the backpack until the morning, usually as the school bus is driving up, and I'm the one stuffing it into the backpack as The Kid walks out the door.

What behavior do I want to see instead: The Kid, who is often awesome about the 'doing' of the homework in the first place, completes his homework and puts it right back in his backpack after he's done, and gets the back pack in position by the front door to go to school the next morning.

Components of the behavior: Start homework. Complete homework. Mom checks homework and signs it. The Kid puts homework into folder. The Kid puts folder into backpack. The Kid brings backpack to the front door. The Kid has backpack ready to go out the door as the bus arrives.

So, that's six things I can catch him being good at, when normally I'm just bitching at him in the morning that I had to put his homework in his backpack again. I do ask him to complete these tasks now, but not in such clear terms.

There's so much more to say about the subject. Check out the link above, if you are interested. Also, give it a try and get back to me. I'd like to know how this simple change in communication with kids can make big changes in the world we inhabit together.

Oops! My brain just exploded.

2007-11-03T21:08:00.000-06:00

Whoa.

Did you guys read Shannon's post yesterday? I mean. Dude. Do you love her forever right along with me?

I couldn't write myself, as I was attending a three day conference called Parents Encouraging Parents put on by the Colorado Department of Education. It is for parents and support people (teachers, various kinds of therapists, educational advocates, doctors) involved in raising children with disabilities and exceptional needs.

It was seriously and in all honesty one of the best things I have ever done for myself as a parent, ever. I learned so much, and I got to stay in a cushy hotel room in Breckenridge. I had a beer or two. And I felt so in tune with 100+ people in the same room with me and at the same time. That's saying a great deal for me.

My brain is processing. Unfortunately for you, dear readers, you will be getting numerous posts on this conference for the next few days. I'm going to chew this sucker over for a long time. So, I have to move to the meaningful but trite... They read this to open the conference, to a packed house of dewy eyes:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
byEmily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.
But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

November the Two

2007-11-02T10:41:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I join NaBloPoMo. Then, I force my best friend, who is also doing the whole NaBloPoMo thing plus writing a novel and sometimes she is the mother of three children and stuff, to guest blog today. I am going out of town for a really good reason, it's all kid centered and education-y. I'll tell you about it on Saturday...

So, Mr Lady, Guest Blog. Guest Blog like the wind.

For the Kid: How I met your mother.

Dear Kid,

Someday you're going to be all grown up and scientificating and stuff, and you're going to stop one day in March; you're going to get a call from your mom to pick her and her best friend up from some whiskey bar at 3:29 am because they're all shnockered and can't drive. And you're going to wonder how your lovely momma got tangled up with such a weird woman. Here's how it all happened.

One day, a girl from Illadelphia hopped on a plane and became a girl from Arvada, CO. Her evil step mother wanted her to go to Pomona High School, because that's where she went, but her father realized that Arvada High School was, like, 4 whole steps less to walk to and sent her there. This girl was very nervous, and totally scared, and started the second half of her junior year at this new school filled with dread.

A week or so later, the girl that sat across from her in the world's least informative Chemistry class, a girl named Caty with the best bangs the world has ever seen (and she still does), looked at the girl and asked if she was from Philly. The girl answered that she was, and Caty said she was from Pittsburgh (GO STEELERS). And that was about that. A day or two later, the girl was sitting alone at a lunch table in the back of the cafeteria, and Caty came over and asked the girl if she'd like to come sit with her. The girl did.

This, dear Kid, is one of the moments that completely changed Auntie Mr Lady's life. In a school cafeteria. You never know when it's going to happen.

At Caty's table sat a boy named Scott, who auntie Mr Lady ended up dating for 3 1/2 years, a couple other assorted people who stayed friends with me throughout high school, and your mother.

One day, your mom came over to my house for a visit. She walked in and said something I will never forget. She said, "I love coming to your house because it's always messier than mine." That day, I smiled. For the first time in a very long time.

Your mom and Caty were totally BFF's in high school. I was really close to another girl, and the four of us sorta ran together. We had lunches together and hung out after school together and there were weekend trips to Boulder to mingle with the hippies and listen to Big Audio Dynamite on cassette. There were Lollapalooza concerts, odd tasting brownies, school musicals and loads of silly Monty Python jokes.

I used to hang out at your mom's house a lot, because they let me and I liked it there. Your aunts were almost never around, but when they were they were hilarious and older and COOL. Your meemaw, well, she's the nicest woman alive. She was comfortable to be around and I'd never seen a mom who was nice and pleasant and relaxed before. I kind of leeched myself on to your family, and they kind of let me, and it was lovely.

And then, one other day, your mom and I were in the hall at school and got to talking about something or the other in the VERY SERIOUS department. We ended up gushing a whole bunch of secrets that I think we'd never told anyone about before. We had THE MOMENT.

I graduated high school; your mom and Auntie Caty and most of our friends still had another year. I got a job, and bought a car, and had a boyfriend, and was totally busy. I didn't see an awful lot of them. And then they graduated and went off to college, and that was that. Your mom and I kept in touch as best we could, which wasn't very much at all. Your mom totally came to my wedding, though, and so did Auntie Caty, and I'll never forget the look on your mom's face when I asked her to be my maid of honor. I'm not sure she realized before then that I was hopelessly devoted. And then your mom went off to Ireland. And then your mom met you.

I remember being at your baby shower and all of your mom's college friends were there, and I was pregnant with 2of3 and really upset that night. It took me a long time to figure out what was wrong with me that day, but I think that it had a lot to do with seeing your mom in a new light. She wasn't the cheerleader from high school anymore. She was a woman, with an incredible mind, a great education, loads of swanky friends, and now about to start her own family. And Auntie Mr Lady is a great big insecure scardie-cat, and I thought I was losing her.

And then, one night, after a great big todo, you came into the world, and into her life, and into mine. I came to meet you and I brought your mom the only gift i could think of, Guinness and Marlboro Lights. I looked at you, and looked at your mom, and I saw forever. I saw watching you grow, and watching your mom raise you, I saw myself playing some role in that. I also saw the Guinness and the Marlboro's in that picture, but that's a grown up story.

So far, so good.

So, Kid, when you get that drunken call in the middle of the night, you can blame Auntie Caty. With one random moment of kindness, she gave me the best gift I've ever gotten ever. I will never, ever be able to repay her for it, but I'm always going to love her for it. And you can blame yourself, too, because this thing, this mothering together, is the whole reason I met your mom in the first place, and I know that now, and if it wasn't for you we wouldn't have the perfect perfectness we do.

Again with the Harry Potter

2007-11-01T05:09:00.000-06:00

This is my first post of National Blog Post Month, wherein I have decided to torture myself and write a blog post every day of the month of November. What was I thinking?

But, being November 1, I must take the easy way out: Happy Halloween.

The Kid, again, went trick or treating as Harry Potter. If you need proof of how freakishly much this child has grown in a mere two years, you need only look below and then click here and here. Same costume. Not exactly the same Kid.

So anyway. Harry Potter. He plays with his Halloween costume and Harry Potter accoutrements year-round, so I totally manipulated him into being Harry Potter again. He was thinking about costumes of other [mostly lame] stuff like Pokemon and Superman, but I told him, "Dude. If you are Harry Potter again this year, I'll buy you a Firebolt." And ding! Harry Potter again. My philosophy? If you are going to spend $25 (or more!) on your kid for Halloween, make damn sure there will be full-year use of the costume.

Plus, he's just such a good Harry Potter.

Bipolar is so five minutes ago

2007-10-25T22:30:00.000-06:00

PREFACE:

I've been writing this post for over a month now. See, the thing is, when I write about my feelings regarding diagnosis and psychiatry, my opinion changes constantly. If I don't publish as soon as I write? My mood, my opinion, my knowledge about the subject, will change. So. Here's a highly UNFINISHED post about how I feel about the high incidence of bipolar in children, which hit the airwaves in a big way about a month ago...

So. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children. Two weeks ago, I linked to only one of the many articles that have been appearing in many news outlets in the last couple of months, outlining a recent report on the increase in the bipolar diagnosis in children. I asked you to read it, and promised an opinion at the end of that day.

Um, well, you see... I've been distracted.

Nothing is going on, in any historic sense. I've been working on organizing my DVR for the fall TV season, doing homework with The Kid and getting attacked by my kitten. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Also, my sister had a baby. And my best friend came to visit. And I find this difficult to get out because my mind changes often.

I've also had a difficult time organizing my thoughts in my response to all of this talk of childhood-onset bipolar disorder... Believe me, I think about this stuff as much as a 17-year-old boy thinks about sex (which is sad, I admit), but actually getting it all written down has been a feat lately.

See, I've come a long way on this 'coming to terms with having a child with difficulties' thing, and I've just realized that fact.

I've been blogging for two years now. I started right before The Kid started Kindergarten, when I knew the shit was just about to hit the fan. I knew public education and The Kid were going to bump heads. Sure enough, the first day, I went home in tears. Not because I could not believe my baby had gotten so big that he had started school, but because I knew that his personality, behavior and social skills were going to present issues. Two months later, I shelled out the money for the big neuropsychological testing and he was given a diagnosis of bipolar, more technically 'mood disorder, not otherwise specified, on the bipolar spectrum.'

I honestly didn't expect a bipolar diagnosis. I've written this before, but my boss's son is was diagnosed bipolar at 7 or so. I was conversant with it, but didn't think that was what was going on with The Kid. I wrote this post, then, terribly confused about the DSM-IV criteria. At that time, The Kid had certainly displayed every possible ADHD symptom. The 'mania' symptoms, however, we had not seen the majority of. The 'depression' symptoms, we had seen none of. But at the same time, my difficulties with my son had a name. We identified something, we could set a track and a plan. I was relieved with that. Over the intervening years, I've joined support groups and now moderate one online and see this reaction by parents all the time. A confirmation that it is not just your parenting skills, or the amount of TV you let your child watch, or the myriad ways parents of children with emotional/behavioral disabilities are made to feel inferior as parents, or, not just inferior, but to blame for every action their child makes. It is a huge weight off of one's shoulders.

I never thought I'd give The Kid medications for behavior at all, let alone at the age of 5. I had the sneaking suspicion of ADHD for many years, and believed that there were accomodations and diets and supplements I could give him before I moved to psychiatric medications. But here's a fact I can't shy away from, and that my e-friend Philip will find interesting: With the diagnosis of bipolar, it seemed as though he had more of a disease. A disease that nothing but meds would fix. And it would mean a lifetime of them. And at that time, that was okay, it was something that, if we just found the right combination of meds, we could solve, and The Kid would be alright.

Then last year, he was given a cocktail of meds, Concerta and Risperdal and Depakote, that shot him straight into the most unstable mood and behavior I've ever seen. He developed tics, he didn't sleep, he was so physically violent I was scared for his safety, mine, my family's, the school staff's. He was kicked out of public school.

At the time, I thought, poor kid. He's SO sick with bipolar.

We hospitalized him. He was inpatient for 10 days, and in the hospital's day treatment school program for four months. During that time, the psychiatrists there started saying, it might not be bipolar. It might be autism.

The paradigm of moving from a mental illness to a developmental disorder is huge. It moved me out of a 'he's sick' frame of mind into a 'he needs skill development and therapy' one. It took me out of the thoughts of 'thank god for these meds' way of thinking and into one that questions his need for them, for the long term (he certainly needed something when he was in the hospital, if for no other reason than to reverse the effects of the risperdal and the concerta, which were horrible). His current psychiatrist, who I trust a great deal, supports us in this new way of thinking, and is helping taper him from the three highly active medications he's currently on.

And yet, I'm convinced that the autism thing, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and/or Ausperger's, is yet another misnomer for him. Some of his behaviors fit their categories, and many do not. He misses social cues but he is not un-sociable. He perseverates on things, but not in an overriding way (perseveration is concentration on one thing, and is typical of autism... An autistic person may know every fact possible to know about baseball, for example. The Kid does not do that in a universal way, but he does immediately perseverate: He wants to play with someone, or something, and must do it NOW!!!! and won't take no, or not now, as an answer, and this is not necessarily being bratty, it smells of obsession with the thought to do whatever it is he's perseverating about, if that is even the correct term, but I digress.)

But, read around the internet just a little bit, pay attention to the newspapers and the news broadcasts that continue to be on and around us all of the time, and you will see a change going on with the idea of what a bipolar child is. It is a misnomer. A bipolar child today may not grow up to be a classically bipolar adult, and therefore, it is not the right thing to call a child. It's a simple as that.

And so, doctors need a new diagnosis to name for these defiant and difficult children. In our case, it's shifting to autism. The funny thing is that I'm far more comfortable telling people that The Kid has a diagnosis of Autism than I ever did telling people about the bipolar or even ADHD. I think this has to do with all of the awareness campaigns and Jenny McCarthy, and even the gorgeous girl on America's Next Top Model. Autism is the thing to talk about now.

But I think it's another misnomer for The Kid specifically, but only time will tell.

Dear Universe,

2007-10-24T08:12:00.001-06:00

Thank you.

A year ago, The Kid was struggling with sanity, going into the hospital, and I was in survival mode such that I had a million emotions all at once, and yet none at all (which is to say I cried all the time but I couldn't tell you what I was thinking, at all). Never in a million years did I think that exactly a year later, I would have a new person in my life to put so much hope and love and receive so much joy and optimism. My baby neice was born yesterday, a perfect 6lbs 5oz of babydoll bliss and soft skin and coos and sweet baby head-smell. She is my sister's, of course, my sister who also happens to be my best friend and finest confidant. The joy, the optimism, the hope of a new baby. I couldn't ask for more.

And as far as my message to Baby Q goes, I must say, Thank you. Thank you for choosing my sister and my brother in law and my neice and nephew. Thank you for coming. Oh, and as The Kid and Kurt Vonnegut like to say, "Welcome to Earth." You know all of the secrets of the universe right now, and will for about three more days. Can you please tell me some of them?

Decision 2008.

2007-10-18T07:52:00.000-06:00

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

I never thought I'd say this, nor did I ever think I'd care...

2007-10-16T00:45:00.000-06:00

THE ROCKIES WIN THE PENNANT!!!

I'm so glad to be on this bandwagon.

Interview Me.

2007-09-27T22:54:00.000-06:00

Okay, I apologize for not writing for over a fortnight. I really do have a post coming, like a good poo, but I have been far more into netflix and the fall TV line up to write lately.

So, handily, Mr. Lady came forth with a meme in which she interviews me, to get me off of the couch and onto the computer desk chair, the other place I waste my time. So, here goes:

Leave me a comment saying "Interview me." I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don't have a valid email address on your blog, please provide one. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

#1: Your choices are: remain single for the rest of your life or practice polygamy. Which do you choose and why?

I'm all about communes. My high school sweetheart was born in an ashram and I used to annoy the hell out of him by asking his parents to tell me their stories about making their own soap and how all the hippies got together to birth babies and that time they all lived in a tee pee for a year. One time in college, a jewish friend had me just about ready to sign up to live in a kibbutz after I graduated, but then I woke up the next morning with a massive hangover so instead I went out for bacon and eggs.

However, I cannot abide the paternalistic bullshit that I'm assuming comes with living in a polygamous family. Man of the house and ruler of his wives and all that. Plus, would I have to be like, fundamental LDS and stuff? I can't do that.

Yeah, I'd much rather be single. I will be anyway, so I am losing nothing in this assertion!!!

#2: Please tell in detail the single most embarrasing/humiliating thing you have ever done.

The year is 1990. My friend Brianne and I have been tapped to read the daily announcements over the loudspeaker to the whole junior high school. As I'm reading, this boy I have a crush on (who coincidentally was in a torid affair with Mama Cumquat 7 years later) comes in and starts doing something, mugging for me or making faces or whatever, I can't begin to remember what it was, which causes me to lose my shit and giggle through the entire thing. Like, crying, silent gasping laughing, to which the Principal ran into the office and took over the duties for me. I composed myself and as my friend and I walk into our first period English class, the whole class stands up to give me a hooting, hollering standing ovation. I am shocked and am the center of attention, which truly, in large group settings, is not my thing, and I start crying. I'm laughing, and I'm a good sport, but bawling.

Coincidentally, we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird in that class. Later that day, I receive a letter from my english teacher (I think the standing O was her idea), talking about how Scout had to learn about stepping into Boo Radley's shoes and even though she's a grown up and a teacher, she'd do well to learn the same lesson. I was further embarrassed by the fact that my teacher felt like she needed to apologize to me via letter. I think I still have her letter.

#3: If you could only have one of the two professions listed for the rest of your life, which would you choose: Mall Santa Claus or the person who screens incoming new porn for the hard core pay per view channel?
Mall Santa. Watching that much porn would give me seisures.

#4: Several years ago, my friend and I were driving to Philadelphia to get a cheesesteak. Halfway through Chicago we saw this billboard that YOU had hung:
It intrigued me so much that I pulled over to take a picture of it, and have been lugging this picture around with me for 14 years now. Please explain it to me.

I don't think I ever told you about this, but when I was in college, I was part of a radical student movement called the Art Students for the Subversion of Color Association and Personification (ASSCAP). We were guerilla artists, aiming to change peoples notions of emotional responses to colors, which for generations were shoved down our throats by jackholes like Vincent "Yellow is the color of Insanity" Van Gogh and Wassily "Colors produce corresponding spiritual vibrations" Kandinsky. We sought to completely change the bourgeois notions of 'spring' and 'summer' colors. We raided Mary Kay parties in ape masks and stole their color draping materials. We wanted to end the concept of being an "autumn" or a "spring." You must have missed the other billboard three miles south, which stated, BLUE IS HOT.

Eventually, the group disbanded after one of our number became a nihilist decided the only true artistic expression could be a white canvas, and also we ran out of pot.

But still, every once in a while, I return to my ASSCAP days, as in my latest photo, entitled: WHITE IS GOING TO CLAW YOUR EYES OUT AREN'T YOU SCARED?

#5 Would you rather live the rest of your life without toothbrushes or whiskey?

Couldn't I repurpose something else in place of my toothbrush? I mean, you aren't saying give up the dentist and flossing and using toothpaste. I know nothing substitutes for whiskey, which reminds me I totally have a headcold and so I'm going to make a hot one right now before I go to bed. Yeah, I'd find barbie hair brushes or something to brush my teeth with. I could do without Oral-b, but not without Jameson. The sweet, sweet water of life.

What's in a name?

2007-09-04T07:51:00.000-06:00

A bipolar child by any other name would still have trouble in school, would have sleepless nights and unspeakable rages. But still, academia debates on, and drug companies shove diagnoses down throats:

“We are just inundated with stuff from drug companies, publications, throwaways, that tell us six ways from Sunday that, Oh my God, we’re missing bipolar,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine on Long Island. “And if you’re a parent with a difficult child, you go online, and there’s a Web site for bipolar, and you think: ‘Thank God, I’ve found a diagnosis. I’ve found a home.’ ”

Check out the article. It's your 'day work' so to speak. I'll give you my take tonight...

When in doubt, haiku.

2007-08-22T22:31:00.000-06:00

I can't seem to post
I'd prefer to watch re-runs,
sleep, or sudoku.

stream of consciousness
haiku. brought to you by me,
cuz I don't write prose.

(not tonight, anyway)

The Kid started school
Second grade already, sheesh.
He missed the routine.

He's ramping up like
He did last year. I don't know
what we're up against.

What do his meds do?
Takes them everyday, for what?
He'll lose control still.

What do his meds do?
What will this do to his brain?
I mean, like, longterm.

But what would it be
to have him not take his meds?
Better? Worse? Way worse?

I am turning into
J. Alfred Prufrock. Mermaids
do not sing to me.

In the room the wo-
men come and go talking of
Michaelagelo

I lost my Norton
Anthology. No more
T.S. Eliot

plus, I should stop with
that. you all are going to think
I'm losing my shit.

Manic Depression is a frustrating mess

2007-08-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

Having a kid that is manic and anxious is not so great all of the time. Especially when they are REALLY manic and REALLY anxious. Want an example?

Holidays. Especially holidays featuring supernatural beings that place shit about your home. Last Christmas? I don't think I went to bed until 2 am. Not because of the fun I was having decking the halls, but because The Kid was so excited about Santa coming that he could not sleep, not a wink, until a heavy dose of benadryl finally knocked him out, which I gave him about 1:30. I believe I remember getting him down to sleep at one point, coming up, and next thing I knew he was back in the living room, thisclose to having the whole Santa facade crash down on his anxious head.

Another example? Easter. I rubbed his back for the entire Messiah from 10:30 to oh, what, 11:45 that night. And then the placing of eggs about the house, the jingling coins and the jelly beans against the hard casings of the eggs just about gave me an anxiety attack, for fear that he'd wake up and find me hiding them.

Tonight, we've got the tooth fairy on schedule for a pick up. He lost his tooth tonight, the third baby tooth to go, and there was much rejoicing. Luckily, I've been saving change for this purpose for the past few weeks. However, it's now 12:15 on a Thursday, he's just gone back to bed for the umpteenth time. The kitten is looking at me like, 'Dude, you know I'm scheduled to start attacking your feet in like four and a half hours, right? You better get some sleep.'

At what point to I give up, go to bed, and tell him the tooth fairy had to pass our house over because he didn't fall asleep at the right time? I don't dare, because the foul mood of bad sleep, plus the disappointment would result in a rage. A rage that would spread to when I drop him at my mom's house tomorrow morning, and I hate when she gets his bad moods.

It's not just that, though. I want him to get some some coins from the tooth fairy. It's what you do for your kid. It's fun, right? It's supposed to be fun, right? It's fun for parents of typical kids, right? It's just stuff like this, the stuff we're supposed to enjoy as parents, that I feel like I'm missing out on sometimes.

Whatever, it will still be cute tomorrow morning when he sees his fairy present... If I can wake up.

Can think of little else

2007-07-18T20:40:00.000-06:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

(and yes I'm not allowing comments on this post because I'm that paranoid about spoilers)

Things I'd Love to Write About Right Now

2007-06-30T21:41:00.000-06:00

I'm in that place where I'm thinking a lot, up late, but completely and totally unable to coherently write anything. I want to write. If I could only hone this craft, I believe I could be a writer. I'm okay at this. But, I've had this lifelong issue with actually getting things written. In 6th grade, I won this mystery short story contest put on by a local talk radio station. I was the proud winner of two autographed novels by a couple of mystery novel writers, I have no idea who they were or the first clue what the books were about as I never ever even tried to read them, but I got to go on the radio and talk about writing, which was a really cool experience. I remember telling my parents that day that it was going to be the best day of my life. I remember my mom telling me that she honestly hoped I would have better ones that that. And Mom? I so totally have.

Anyway, the story was about how I lost my creativity. I can't quite remember the particulars about this story, and I'm sure we could locate it somewhere in the labyrithine basement of my mom's house, but I know it involved some kind of neurotransmitters acting as private detectives for my poor, forlorn brain stem robbed of it's creativity. I believe the neurotransmitters located the creativity somewhere in my gut, where some evil bacteria was planning to have me poop it out with last night's dinner. The lesson in that story? Take Acidophilus. Also, this writer's block shit I have had again and again and again (does anyone who was my friend through the evil horrible writer's block that was my last semester in college, when I had to write my honor's thesis, still read this blog and care to comment on my propensity to sit at a computer and not have the first clue how to write down all that I've been talking about incessantly for 18 months care to attest to this fact?) is something of which I've been painfully aware from a very young age.

And so, I have all of these fabulous posts in this brain of mine, while some evil bacteria is instigating bowel movements imbued with my precious, precious gifts of gab (that guy in Dr. Strangelove was so right, it is all about the bodily fluids), and I can't seem to get them out on time if at all, and so, in short:

1. I can't stop thinking about The Sopranos finale. It's been three weeks now. I may need to find a support group.

Do any of you watch the Sopranos? Because dude. It ended with the most magnificent mindfuck of any and all mindfucks I've ever been, um, victimized (?) by. I BAWLED when that last scene started. I knew, since forever ago (Entertainment Weekly obsession, thanks), that the final scene had been filmed at Holsten's (which sounds like the world's best place for a Sundae Sunday), and as it started, I said, "It's Ending!" The last scene was all anticipation and anxiety, that first time, and as it cut to black, I thought, wow. David Chase is an asshole. He just refuses to end this story. But how beautiful, how fitting, how ambiguous, how just like the hours and hours of film already devoted to these characters:

I watched the entire episode again, immediately. And I noticed Tony peeling the orange. And that orange cat obsessed with the picture of Christophuh. And the guy in the Member's Only jacket going into the bathroom, as if following the script from The Godfather. Also, Onion Rings which are Best in the State are to The Sopranos are what Veal that is Best in the City is to The Godfather.

The intervening weeks have only made me crazier. I read that the color scheme of the final scene is only grays and blacks and oranges (it is), Member's Only is the title of the episode in which Tony is shot, previously, and the man in the diner is wearing a Member's Only jacket. Episodes prior to the last, Tony talks to his brother in law, and this conversation is alluded to moments before this last scene, that you wouldn't probably hear a gunshot, that everything would fade to black. And Meadow. She can't parallel park. But she tries twice, unsuccessfully. That third time? Bingo. Tony? First time he's shot, unidentified black males, bottle of orange juice in his hands, not killed. Second time... In the gut, doesn't die. Third time? Perhaps?

So, now I'm kind of thinking Tony is whacked in that scene. But how beautiful and horrific and torturous of David Chase to make us figure it out.

Buon Anima Sopranos. Thanks for fucking with my brain, still.

2. Camp. The Kid has been going to a special needs day camp for the last two weeks, his final week is coming up. It's been FANTASTIC. I'm completely humbled, as I've now met kids and parents of kids that have challenges that so far outweigh our own, that I feel like I can never ever complain again for the rest of my life. I wish every child could go to camp with these kids, get some perspective, learn some empathy, and learn that a child with autism, or cerebal palsy, or any other of the myriad disabilities that exist in this world, are children, are funny, get grumpy, have great days, have bad days, eat food, love swimming, like challenges, and jokes, just like any child, I don't know. I think the world would be a better place if more people gained that perspective.

Also, The Kid is in such a great environment at this camp. He benefits from the people employed there. He still has some tough moments, needs guidance and could definitely not function in a 'camp' or daycare that didn't have staff trained to cater to his needs, but the overall prognosis is AWESOMENESS. Overall, awesome. He is having fun, he is working SO HARD to stay calm, to work the social skills and calming skills that he's learned in the last year in his various therapuetic settings, I seriously could not be more proud of him.

3. My best friend forever is moving back to Canada. I have this entirely beautiful post planned, not specifically about Shannon and her marriage, but about marriage in general, how it mystifies me. How marriage must be so preferable to singlehood, that so many people make the choice to not be single. But I have no concept of that whatsoever. I can't imagine, at all, having another person in my life (other than The Kid) so important, that I would change my course for him. I simply don't own that handbook. What's the deal with that?

But also, Shannon, specifically, is moving back to fucking Canada. Land of socialised health care (and British spelling). I know the distance won't hurt our friendship, I'm not worried about that at all. She's got me for life, and she knows that. She's pulled me into her her incidious web of love and friendship, and I will never be able to escape the pull of being a friend to such an interesting, intelligent and, well, hot woman. But I won't be able to babysit for her from Canada, and that makes me sad. As does the prospect of memorial day weekends without her.

4. Wilco's new album is fantastic. It makes me think of The Beatles. And hot days. And hot days when I used to be able to drink 8 beers on a Thursday afternoon. How is it that an album released in 2007 can make me nostalgic for 1997?

The Hold Steady is the best band in America right now. They make me think of Bruce Springsteen, but I never ever really thought about Bruce Springsteen before, because I'm of the generation sandwiched one layer too young to 'get' him. They are making me reconsider Bruce Springsteen.

Amy Winehouse makes me want to drink to excess in a way that Cat Power does not.

5. There's the fabulous academic shitstorm going on about the diagnosis of bipolar in children. It begins, I guess, with the death of Rebecca Riley, about whom I've written on this blog. The Boston Globe has been a hotbed of this coverage, as has the NY Times.

First up, one Dr. Biederman of Mass General in Boston is challenged on the bipolar child paradigm.

Next, some doctor from Walnut Creek, CA calls Dr. Biederman a murderer.

I believe, as I've said before, there will be some refining of what constitutes "bipolar" and what does not, in children, that will hopefully come out of this. And perhaps, doctors will consider options other than medication (or along with) to help treat the behaviors. We've been doing incredibly well lately on a slew of supplements and very slight dietary changes (this could be item #6, but I'm not quite ready for that yet).

Then, the NY Times cannot be outdone. Of all doctors making money from pharmaceutical companies, psychiatrists rank number one. This could be due to the fact that it is difficult to have large fund raisers for research of mental illness, simply for the fact that there is such a cultural stigma on it (Susan G. Komen Foundation being and established charity for a disease--breast cancer-- which is largely accepted and commiserated with in our country, which what I'm thinking about here[in no attempt to devalue the great things they've done or the importance of cancer research!!!]), but also, numbers this large, it's hard to imagine that there would be no influence on the research. Like, who is funding research on schools and mental illness in children (environments that are more helpful vs medicating and then fitting square pegs into round holes). I've been battling this bipolar child shit for three years now, and have not found a single doc who knows the first thing about natural supplements until our current psychiatrist did say that Omega 3 is beneficial. No changes to diet suggested. No vitamins, no testing of the rest of his body (specifically his digestive tract!!!).

Anyway, as a spectator, it's been interesting, and if you are interested, you may also want to follow the sport from Furious Seasons, a psyciatric-establishment-dubious website, and a great resource for the latest and greatest in the field.

6. I wish I could blog about my sisters. They are fascinating.

Maybe if I could ever figure out how to write, I could write the best novel of all time based on those three women.

Movie Meme

2007-06-30T10:44:00.000-06:00

I posted this over on The Cinema Firmament, the blog my sister and I keep trying to post to but often get busy and don't. I thought I'd try to reinvigorate that too, but I also want you to respond to this too, my gentle readers. I won't tag you, but please do this, it's fun.

Name your (current) top 5 movies of all time.

So hard to whittle down to five... But, here goes: Singin' in the Rain, Apocalypse Now, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Sunset Blvd., Underground

What is your favorite movie line ever?

I like smiling, smiling's my favorite.

Who is your favorite movie character?

Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's

What movie do you love that most people hate?

Well, how about Dancer in the Dark? I don't think people hate that movie so much as they have no idea it exists, and should they have an idea that it exists, they then only know that it is the musical with Bjork in it. That movie SLAYED me. And in general, I kind of worship Bjork.

What movie do you hate that most people love?

Crash. Hated it.

What is the last movie you saw in the theatre?

Spiderman 3. Rockin good time.

What was the last movie you watched on DVD or via Video OnDemand?

Volver. It was okay. Penelope Cruz is hot.

Can you remember what the first DVD that you purchased was? What was it?

I think it was Boogie Nights. I didn't even own a DVD player, but found it in a $5 bin, and couldn't deny it.

(For us old fogies ... ) Can you remember the first VHS movie you purchased? What was it?

Technically, I remember buying a "buns of steel" tape early on in high school, so I'm thinking that was my first purchase of VHS, but as far as movie goes, I have never really owned many and most that I have are kid movie hand-me-downs. We were big on the renting, our family. I too, remember buying It's a Wonderful Life. But my parents did that buying, not me. I do own the VHS of Underground, one of my top 5 up there, so I'm guessing that might be the first (and possibly only) MOVIE I purchased on VHS.

What movie have you seen that you never want to see again?

United 93. And not because I didn't like it. I did. I really did. And not because it was overly disturbing. I'm really glad it was made. It was visceral and real and heartbreaking and I felt like I needed to see it, to live that anxiety again. But from now on, I want film makers and story tellers to bring us something less literal that can tell us about 9/11. Like, if Alien and Aliens were an artistic response to a cultural consciousness that arose from cancer awareness and AIDS, I want to see a figurative response to our reactions to terrorism and the cultural diseases that cause it. You know what I mean?

What is your least favorite movie ever?

Crash.

What song or soundtrack would you choose as your life's theme?

Blur has this song, The Universal, which is really cinematic, I think. I also think the refrain, "It really really really could happen" is fitting for my life, should it ever be a movie. Boring movie, however. If you follow that link, I can't believe how NOT hot Damon Albarn looks in that video. He's one of those incredibly gorgeous human beings.

Which actor or actress would you like to look like?

That's easy. Audrey Hepburn. If I got to inhabit the body of a man, that would have to be George Clooney, because who wouldn't want to be George Clooney for a day?

What classic movie are you embarassed to admit you've never seen?

The Maltese Falcon. I've had it at home for months at a time from Netflix, and never watched. I've returned it twice, unseen. It is now back on my queue. Someday I will watch it. I love Bogey, I love Noir, I can't explain why I've not watched it.

What is your favorite movie genre?

Good movies. I truly believe in assessing each movie on its own merits. I think WAY too much about movies, just like I think too much about everything, but I think when watching a movie, does this film accomplish its aim? Does it do what it sets out to do? I like all sorts of movies, as you can see from my top 5 today, I have a musical, a war movie/reinterpretation of a classic novel, a fantastical children's movie, a classic comedy/satire, and an epic foreign film. I love them all, because they are well done.

What is your least-favorite movie genre?

See above. Bad movies.

Is there an actor/actress/director whose movies you refuse to see?

The guy who plays Ernest as in "Ernest Goes to Camp" and such. I suppose.

What is your favorite movie concession stand snack?

Junior Mints and Sprite. Has to be the minty-citrus combo.

Front row, back row, center seats, aisle seats - where do you prefer to sit in a theater?

I like the front row of stadium seating where there is a bar directly in front where you can put your feet up. I really like seeing movies on opening weekends in full theatres with a bunch of other movie geeks, so I kind of like when I show up and the theatre is all full and you sit where you can because you are with your filmgoing geekitudes.

2007-06-26T23:38:00.000-06:00

So, yes, I've managed to keep Daisy the kitty alive for a full eleven days. Well, there was a close call there in an incident involving a three inch wedge heel and a tail, and I'll tell you, I pulled through that one, barely. The cat? She ran away just in time for my faceplant into the couch.

So other than that, not much is going on here. Did you know that you can watch a kitten grow?

Last week:

This week:
Alright, I realize this may be something only I can see, but seriously, bitch is porking out on the kibbles (okay, I used a bad word there strictly to move from the PG rating I got so I can be more "adult" like her and her and him).

Did you know that a kitty will always need to take some 'personal space' as soon as you decide it's time to clean out her litter box? And that you will never, ever tire of watching a kitten run full speed down a hallway to make a 90 degree turn on hardwood?

In a week, this kitty has gone from angel lover baby to gonzo mischief maker and impulsive killer of any and all moving (or not moving) limbs (or extremities, or clothing, or hair, or noses) on any individual human in her vicinity. In short, she is a kitten.

Also, did you know that if a cat is befouled by falling into a tub being emptied of bathwater, she will return to the scene of the crime to investigate, as if the place had offended her, and you better believe she is going sort this shit out here and now and if there are any loose toes on the way she will definitely be violently pouncing, biting and attacking them with her wet self because, what are you looking at?

In non-kitty news, the sunsets in Denver have been sublime this week. The Kid and I have become connoiseurs.

He's also huge. You can watch him grow as well, like Bamboo. Or Kitties.

Introducing Daisy

2007-06-16T18:19:00.000-06:00

I finally broke down. Last night, we brought home a new family member, a little girl kitty, Daisy. Isn't she just the cutest?

The Kid just loves her, and more importantly, she really loves The Kid. We all stayed up way too late last night playing and playing and playing, and then waking up at an unnecessarily early hour for a Saturday to continue the playing and playing and playing. Naturally, by late afternoon, this was the scene:

So, you'll have to excuse me while I spend the next few days talking in a higher register and playing with catnip toys.

Curious

2007-05-31T21:50:00.000-06:00

How do you see your future? How do you prepare yourself for the future, as in, do you do anything or do you roll with the punches?

I had a long talk today with The Kid's therapist. He told me, in as nicely and non-judgementally a way as one could, that I am a fatalist. I think in worst-case scenarios. That is not to say that I expect certain bad things to happen in the future (specifically, this came up because I voiced a concern that the rest of my life will be spent taking care of The Kid in one way or another, and I have to recognize that with his diagnosis that there are social lures that exist, or the typical 'pitfalls' of bipolar--drugs, alcohol, spending, etc), but I am just really aware of all of the bad things that could happen. I'm not an anxious person, I'm not a depressed person. I think I'm realistic. I also respond to the stress of being The Kid's parent by researching. I'm an academic, and I have always felt like if I know as much as I possibly can about something, I will be able to handle it, handle anything.

When I found out I was pregnant, I chucked my master's thesis out the window. I've never looked back. Instead, I dove headfirst into everything I could get my hands on about childbirth. Childbirth, but, Natural. I read medical books, advice books, lay-medical books, apparently I also read this book (according to my sister), and all sorts of hippie midwifery books. I think it's fair to say that by the time The Kid came to town, I knew everything about birthin' babies (that one could learn from reading a book, which, as you can imagine, is a far cry from knowing the first thing about childbirth, but anyway).

With years of perspective, I realize that I did all of that preparing and reading and Kegels and meditating and hotshot knowitall bullshit to prove to myself that I could be a mom in the first place.

So, what am I doing right now? What kind of hotshot knowitall bullshit am I pulling with myself right now?

I haven't the slightest, but I'm certain the fatalism isn't new to The Kid. I think I have this perspective on life, borne from a very happy life, marked with a series of significant losses from pretty early on (my father, my grandfather, my uncles, and so on), that generally, life is worth it, and good, but that bad things are going to happen. It's so Mark Twain-ish to say, but one thing we can count on in life is that we will go through periods of complete sadness, maybe misery.

That's a view of my whole life. I am not entitled to be happy, which is why I am a happy person. I know that sad is always around the corner, but it's definitely coming, so why anticipate it too much, like how the first snowfall of the season will always end the pleasantness of autumn.

But when it comes to The Kid, and all of the billions of possiblities that exist for his future... Am I wrong in reading up on the worst, just in case I need to know it? I don't sit around and plot interventions. I don't expect a life plagued with problems for him, I just know that if it hasn't been easy thusfar, it's bound to continue in a similar pattern, right?

So, The Kid's therapist called me a fatalist today. I'm actually perfectly okay with that title. Molly G, Fatalist. [Ms. Dillinger, can you please make me a label?]

But you know what? You wanna know why this has turned into a blog post? He did annoy me when he tried to 'remind' me of all of The Kid's strengths, and that he knows kids who have gone on to live very productive, mental-illness-free lives after having tough goes during childhood. I say, DUDE, I'm aware of that outcome too. I PRAY for that outcome. But I just can't be caught unaware. I'm an academic by nature. I live to be in the know.

But I still wonder if I'll look back on all of my current reading and writing on this subject some day, like I can about the childbirth stuff, and identify it. Ah, this is what I was compensating for, or Oh, I can see how I was preoccupying myself back then.

And here's the part where I tell you, and remind myself, that hindsight is also best left unanticipated, because, well, it just shows up one day. I guess I'll just wait.

Practice Makes Perfect

2007-05-29T20:48:00.000-06:00

The Kid: Hey, mom! Let's have a staring contest!

Me: Sure.

[staring contest begins]...

...[two minutes pass]

Me: Wow, Kid, you've gotten good at the staring contest.

[we're still staring]

The Kid: Yeah, I've been practicing.

Me: Do you practice with the kids at school or something?

The Kid: No. I practice with my stuffed animals. But they always win.

[I lose the staring contest]

What Will the Rockstar Scare Sound Like?

2007-05-28T22:29:00.000-06:00

You know, the band that The Kid and Mr. Lady's kids will be starting in about 10 years? Haven't you wondered what kind of music our kids will be listening to (and in my case, making) in the future? Here's my theory...

I know that B likes his indie rock and/or nerd rock, like Weezer. The Kid has recently been exploring his country roots, but still just wants to scream into microphones and be famous. His hard rock growl has already been perfected. Like, seriously. L is going to bring the sweet pop sounds, and she'll totally end up pulling a Stefani and be more famous and successful working on her own projects. And T. Well, something makes me think (bad connotations be damned) that he might bring a little old school Michael Jackson flava:

Godzilla Pooped On My Honda

2007-05-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

I'm about to do this meme that Shannon and Diane have been up to lately, which is a big list of books and I'll tell you if I've read them or not, and I get to understand why I went to college because having attended means that I've read a good amount of those books, which, in turn, I get to list off on a blog. God, that was a good $100,000 spent.

But first, I need to share with you the last book I read. It's titled, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (and other stories you're sure to like, because they're all about monsters and some of them are also about food. You like food, don't you? Well, all right then.) So, anyway, as if the title doesn't totally give it away already, it's a fantastic book of poems about various monsters. So, like, there's a poem about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where in the doc messes up the potion and instead makes himself turn into an incredibly boring old man named Mr. Henderson. Then there is this rivalry between the Yeti and Bigfoot. The phantom of the opera is annoyed, continually. And finally, the title of the last poem, which I stole for the title of this post, had The Kid crying with laughter for a full 5 minutes. I timed him. He loves the poo jokes.

So, if you have a 7 year old, and you know who you are, you MUST go check this book out of the library, like, THIS WEEKEND. Okay?

Anyway, I read books:

Directions:
Use blue font for everything you’ve read
Use red font for everything you’ve started but never finished
Use purple font for everything you’ve read but wish you hadn’t
Use yellow font for everything you’d never read, even you and that book were the only things to survive the apocalypse
Use black font for things you’ve never read
Use green front for things you want to read
Use orange font if you’ve read the author but not that particular work

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) [and shannon begins to wonder why it is she calls me her best friend]
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

But, like, anyway, of all of these books, none of them are my favorite. Here's where you actually can learn a little something about me and my feeling about literature (other than poop/dinosaur/poetry): My favorite book of all time and ever and forever because it just gives me the shakes thinking about it is Lolita.

She's Baaaack....

2007-05-10T20:45:00.000-06:00

Mr. Lady, you know, my bff, has hit the blogosphere again, this time in green.

And they said Howard Dean was a freak...

2007-05-09T22:27:00.000-06:00

Can't. Comment. Laughing. Ha.

edited to add:
No John Stewart in this one, I forgot that they've cracked down on the you tubing of the daily show. However, one cannot delete McCain's preposterous smile...

Word to the wise: Don't Yell at School District Administrators

2007-05-03T20:50:00.000-06:00

Word to the wiser: Don't let THEM yell at YOU, either.

I haven't been writing very much lately, and part of the reason why has to do with the fact that I'm working through, in my brain, a number of things I am really not going to ever write about.

But have to break my silence because I'm finally ready to tell you this story:

In March, The Kid's school and I met for an IEP addendum meeting. You review an IEP on an annual basis, and his annual date happened to fall in the midst of last fall's placement fiasco, so I was never satisfied with the goals they set him, or about the information contained within the document in the first place. In fact, when the IEP was written back in October, I had pages of requests for changes, but those changes never happened. I let it slip, for a little while, knowing I could, or rather thinking I could, approach making those changes at a more appropriate time, like when I wasn't spending my time between bed, work and a hospital. So, when The Kid started his current school, I asked that they work toward cleaning up his IEP, and setting goals that fit his needs.

When I got the new IEP, I saw some really great teaching going on. His goals are measurable and real. Like, they changed from 'The Kid will behave better' to something more along the lines of 'he will increase the amount of words he can read.' 'He will gain the ability to work independently during writing.' And after each goal, they wrote really excellent plans to make those goals happen. Because, when you are a kid with an emotional/behavioral disability, or at least a kid like The Kid, your ability to attempt academics are a direct demonstration of how well your behavioral issues are being addressed.

They aren't "easy" goals, but they are attainable, and really, isn't that the "goal" of goals? I think it is. The feedback and the background information the current school wrote described my son, not some monster that was keeping a teacher's day from normalcy.

But (and with me it's always about but, isn't it?), they wrote all of those "new" things without altering or adapting anything that had been written by the old school. So, those errors that were made about The Kid seeing doctor X and taking medication Y on date Q, they were still in this legal document. And, in some cases, when there was no update to add, they left an evaluation in the IEP, unattributed or undated, that described The Kid when he was at the nadir of his insomnia, anxiety, negative drug side effects and what I can only describe as a mixed state of the worst of The Kid's life with bipolar disorder. For example, under the heading of "Present Level of Communicative Functioning," it stated that he had variations in intelligibility, and that his words often run together and were slurred. When I read this in March of 2007, not realizing that it was describing my son of October of 2006, I completely freaked out. The mishmashed speech and slurring, those were side effects of the evil meds he was on for about two weeks last fall. We immediately discontinued those drugs, and those side effects stopped as well. I have grave concerns that an acute reaction to one med he was on for two weeks in the month of September was recorded as his "present level of functioning."

I asked the school to attribute that information to an author, or to please update it. If it were a matter of, "oh, he grew out of that," it would be one issue. But because of the nature of that description, being brief and because it was due to a bad reaction to meds and therefore ultimately anomalaic, it doesn't belong in the IEP. In my opinion.

So, in this March IEP meeting I expressed my concern about these things existing in a legal document with my son's name on it. I thought I made a well reasoned case on why I would like to see some of these things correct, and also made it clear I wasn't trying to remove warts from my son's record, nor was I even trying to take the district to task on our dispute over his old school's IEP violation wherein they made me homeschool him because he wasn't allowed back at their school again. The current school asked me to list the changes I wanted made, and they would see about it. I could tell the lovefest we were having about the great things they had been doing and the strides The Kid were making melted into a pool under the table. Being a therapuetic school, no doubt these folks have seen it all.

I made my proposed changes and sent them in a lovingly worded email to about 6 people at the school district. I heard nothing for over 5 weeks, when I received a call from a district special ed supervisor informing me that none of my changes would be adopted because they were all conjecture, and that would be that.

He told me that I wasn't seeing the forest for the trees, and asked me "how could making all of these changes actually help The Kid?" I gently counted, "I don't really see how having incorrect information in his IEP could help him much, either." I then explained, as if this man needed explaining--and really this is where my big, expensive college edumacation and my fancy words and well, my bitchiness really isn't a helpful tool--that I'm well aware that the goal of therapuetic schools are to prepare a child for reintegration into a more mainstreamed classroom setting is the main goal. Right now, we're looking at a change in placement again for The Kid as soon as second semester next year. Further, I explained, it appears that the habit of the schools in the writing of IEPs are to build upon what is already written (he was evaluated by special ed services in preschool, and all of those items remain in his current IEP), and if that is going to happen, it needs to be right. Even further, think of the worst case scenario. A scandal. A horrible violent outburst. Something we can't even forsee. If his IEP is inaccurate, it hurts us all. Finally, I told him, these things are not conjecture. I can go get my pharmacy records if you'd like, but he was not on med Y prescribed by Dr. X on date Q. It's a inexorable fact. No conjecture.

After that, it turned into screaming, me at him, and he at me. He insisted that I'd missed my chance in changing things in October. I had been told we could address it later. He told me I was SOL. I never called him a name, but boy did I want to. He was not allowing me an inch of power in the writing of my son's IEP. And that was the final word.

***

Today, out of the complete blue, I received in The Kid's backpack a copy of his IEP. Everything written by any previous school had been removed. All that remains is the "new" info. The good stuff, I guess, but I'm still not mollified. Why can't they even meet me half way? If it is a practice of the schools to include a history, have they wiped his out, rather than find one we can both agree on? And what the hell happened to make them decide to do that? I fear they won't call me anymore because I have such a bad reputation with them all.

I throw up my hands. I am not a teacher, and I am not a school administrator. But I am a damn good mom, and a strong advocate for my son. I've been told I'm an important part of this process.

I can't think of another way to end this one, mostly because I don't believe it's over yet. It's perplexing, and counterintuitive to me. I read all over the internet, I grew up in a house with parents as teachers, and I know how frustrated they get when they have parents that don't care. In me, they have a parent that cares so much. I care so much I've started a fucking geeky blog to document how much I care.

My friend and I were laughing on the phone the other day about how if The Kid were not The Kid, but some completely typical child, I'd be such the PTA mom. The school would know me, and I'd do as much as a working parent can do to help her kid and his school. But I have this whole other direction, and I know they hate me. But I don't know how to do it any other way.

So Filled With Love

2007-04-17T22:38:00.000-06:00

Dulcinea's 100th Monkey

Divasonic (one of my best friends from college)

9 pm, May 20, 2007.

2007-04-12T21:06:00.000-06:00

Good bye Kurt Vonnegut. I hope you found a neat way to die. (What a bokononist thing to say)

Thanks for blowing my mind fifteen years ago when I read about how you wrote yourself into your own novel in that jazz bar with the artist guy from Blackbeard in one corner as you continued to write about the fate of Dwayne Hoobler (or was it Kilgore Trout?), who was also in the bar, living as you wrote Breakfast of Champions. Thank you for bringing us Bokononism, Tralfamadorians, and thank you for the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Thank you for Billy Pilgrim's epiphanies in time and space.

But mostly, thank you for this:

Moving right along.

2007-04-06T15:56:00.000-06:00

So, I've been in a bit of a blogging rut for the last couple of weeks. I believe a great deal of that has to do with the fact that I blew my wad with my last post. Like, it exhausted me. So, how does one follow what I wrote last?

Makeovers!

I am not a big purchaser of anything not edible. Meaning, other than the grocery store, I avoid retail shopping like, well, someone who hates spending money. I think as a culture we buy too much crap in order to justify ourselves, prove our stations in life, even if we can't really afford the stuff we buy. Like, there's a lot of credit card debt in this country and I think it's fair to say that it is largely due to people buying stuff they can't afford. And I see this as a bad thing. Get it?

But, like most people with or without enormous credit card debt, I enjoy feeling pride in my home, and honestly during the period last year when The Kid was in the hospital, I neglected my home and the housekeeping and the general upkeep of things around casa soapywater to the point that in January, I got really pissed at my laziness and at myself in general for living in this craphole when I clearly remember falling in love with this condo and being really proud of it, so cleaned the hell out of it one night. Since then, I've been working bit by bit to get things back to normal.

And so, with the windfall of my tax return, I decided to upgrade a bit of my furnishings. See, I had an aesthetic in my home based entirely on what my relatives could provide to me for free at the time I moved in here. It's a design philosophy strictly for function over form. So, let's see. I had an entertainment center which certainly functioned:

A coffee table and end tables so ugly I painted them in a fit from watching too much Trading Spaces and just made them uglier, and in fact they are so incredibly ugly I couldn't bring myself to photograph them. But let's just say this. I painted them Yellow AND Orange.

I know. Damn you Paige Davis!

I also had this lovely dining room table/chairs which was fine for every reason but simply just doesn't fit with my home or my tastes:

And so... This morning at 6:15, to the chagrin of my neighbors, the furniture delivery dudes showed up to give us:

1. A new TV table:

2. A new coffee table and end table:

3. And the piece de resistance, a new kitchen table, which I believe was made to be placed under the light fixture that was a large contributing factor in why I chose to purchase this home in the first place:

Long story short? I'll be spending the weekend making out with my new tables, thank you very much.

The Grand Apologia: Why I Give The Kid Medication

2007-03-20T23:13:00.000-06:00

This is one of the stickiest subjects ever... Should parents give their children psychiatric medications?

I don't think I have to tell you that I'm not arguing against a straw man here, or at least, a singular couch-jumping, Xenu-loving man. Many people are strongly against giving their children these meds. I've been one of them, until I've lived being The Kid's parent.

We hear stories about young children on psychiatric medications, with diagnoses we didn't know exist in children. There are horrible tragedies which pop these issues before us like the recent murder of Rebecca Riley, the four year old in the Boston area who was overdosed by her parents with a decongestant, an atypical antipsychotic, an anticonvulsant and an antihypertensive. We hear stories like Rebecca's and are quick to judge, and to be honest on this particular case I am among the judgmental--because really, this is a case of child abuse, isn't it? But when I first heard about it, I was able to quickly divorce the abuse issues from the mental illness issues. There is not a direct syllogism that if a) she was diagnosed bipolar so that b) she was given meds so that c) she died, therefore diagnosing children and giving them meds will lead to death. There was abuse, a questionable doctor and a horribly chaotic family situation mixed in there.

But I knew what was coming. I've been looking around the blogosphere in responses to this, and sure enough, there were many connections between giving her psychiatric meds and her death. I'll link a few, here and here, but there are more. There are not a lot of, "what horrible abusive parents" in these blogs, but there is a lot of "what are people thinking by giving children medication at all." Blogs were not alone in reporting in this fashion, most of the television reports that picked this story up were quick to segue into the “should you medicate your child” discussion, as if a malicious, premeditated murder is somehow a natural consequence of giving a child medications for a psychiatric condition.

Not all parents are the Rileys. Thank god. But reading around about this story made me feel like people do think that if you give your child psychiatric meds, you are the Rileys. But I say to the internet (and all 3 of you who read this blog--hi mom!): We are not. See, the Rileys, left to their devises, could have murdered their daughter in any number of ways, and given her circumstances, her father's history of sex crimes, the horrible abusive home, etc. Also, pretty much any prescription med could lead to death when given in excess, but for some reason... But I'm getting off of the point. This is a long lead-in for the meat of this post: why I'm compelled to tell you how I came to give The Kid psychiatric medications. So, let me frame the debate.

There's this assumption that children given meds are somehow similar to someone that a person grew up with. You will hear, "my cousin, growing up, was a spaz, but now he's an accomplished attorney and he never had to take ritalin" or something similar. You don't often hear about "that kid who came to my school in fifth grade, and everyone hated him because he got in fights all the time, cried until he slobbered that one day after he tried to throw an eraser at our teacher, and then in eighth grade he turned into a total dirty stoner guy... And I don't know what ever happened to that guy. Hmmm."

I'm not talking about your spazzy cousin. I'm talking about mentally ill children. Real mental illness in children exists, and there is a vast difference between the child who is often offered up as "energetic" or "creative" or "poorly disciplined" and one who suffers from debilitating anxiety, hears voices, cannot control his rage, does not sleep, masturbates at 5 years old, is compelled by the belief that were he not to count steps and hand washings he will hurt his family. But in most debates I hear on the subject, people stick with the familiar: highly active children vs. ADHD. ADHD is bandied about to the point that it sounds like every kid could be diagnosed with it. And while that's entirely possible that it is over diagnosed, it really does a great disservice to the kids who have it so severely that it hinders their ability to function.

I'm not the greatest fan of the diagnosis. I hate the figures cited that bipolar in children has increased 400% since 1990. An alarming figure, but it is a natural increase, actually, since juvenile onset bipolar disorder has only been included in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual-IV within the last 30 years. No mental health professional would say that the symptoms they list as consistent with bipolar didn't exist in children prior to 1990; it’s just that we didn't call it bipolar. A rose is still a rose by any other name. I would venture a guess and say that eventually, what we're calling bipolar in children today, will be split into different categories and/or called something completely different by future versions of the DSM.

So, if we take this discussion out of the realm of the "ADHD" vs. high energy child, the kids we all know, and into one of the child with serious issues of disability, allow me to describe why I believe The Kid fits into the latter category. Since he was born, he's been MORE. And I mean this literally, he is more of everything.
1. More wakeful: he slept no more than 1-2 hours at a time from infancy to age 12 months.
2. More stimuli-seeking: since he could walk and run, he has sought out deep-tissue contact (running from one end of a room to the other to ram into a couch, stool, person).
3. More distractible: certain environments (large rooms, crowded places--like a classroom) excite him to the point that I cannot get him to listen, speak clearly, or catch eye contact for more than 1 second, every time we are in one (as opposed to the odd time where he's been given caffeine or sugar or anything external that might cause excitability or distractibility).
4. More reckless and risk-taking: The Kid has always been a nightmare to keep safe: he’s been known to climb up tall bookshelves, stand on the edge of the kitchen counter like a diver (tippy toes only), and even once, on a vacation, he snuck out of our rented condo and was discovered on the outside of the railing of a third flood balcony.
5. More moody and sensitive: Prone to sudden swings of mood, this one is hard to describe. He will go from “I love you” to “I hate you and will attack you” in a moment. He will lose his temper, begin an inconsolable crying jag, or get so upset at himself for failing do something well that he hits and hurts himself at the slightest mention of bad news.
6-100. I could go on: more anxious, more easily frustrated, more suicidal and so on.

Now what you all need to know, see, is that The Kid I’ve described above is The Kid, at “typical” or “baseline” at home. He lives in a stable, loving home. He has never been abused or lived through any kind of trauma. I discipline him, set reasonable limits, provide a loving home with rules that he follows. I am a good parent, and his behavior is not based from the way that I parent, or the home that he lives in. I can say this with the utmost confidence because my parenting styles have been scrutinized by so many experts (social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers and even social services and police—the only people I’ve not had sniffing up my parenting butt are politicians and I suppose scientologists) in the past two years, and all of them have returned with answers of Wow, you do a really good job, mom. And while I’ve adopted suggestions from some of these experts (most notably using feedback from the schools to either allow or disallow certain privileges), I get a lot of support, and a lot of the comment, “Keep doing what you are doing.”

So, I described The Kid. But I described The Kid at “typical,” and at that, “typical at home.” We’ve not discussed “The Kid at School” Suffice it to say, he’s an entirely different child. If he’s “more” normally, he’s even “more-er” at school. At his worst at school, he is not teachable. When he was still in a general education classroom, they were flabbergasted by what they saw: a bright, quite possibly brilliant child, who could not sit down to even write his name. He is completely over stimulated in any environment with more than 6 children, he will not sit, he will not take direction or redirection. If he does not feel as though he can get help for his perceived problem at any given time, he will escalate to extreme violence, or he will run away. Truly, he resorts to fight or flight.

In September, when life really hit the fan for him, he was so anxious about what he would do wrong the next day in school, he would pace in his room, he would toss and turn, and at only 6 years old, try to function on less than three hours of sleep. He trusted no one. He thought that people hated him, that certain teachers and staff at his school were out to get him. He reached what under the constraints of ‘bipolar disorder’ is considered mania. He would speak in extremely fast, slurred spurts of unintelligible words; he would jump from action to action, unable to finish anything properly, but wanting desperately to do it all.

Seeing that behavioral changes were not working, or had not worked, after all of these years, I was at a complete loss, and turned to doctors. But before I turn my sights on the medical community, I want to finish up with schools.

I think schools have a great deal of responsibility in this debate, and while I agree that parents bear the greatest accountability to their children's health, there is enormous pressure on parents from schools, more so than from any other single institution.

And this, I think, is the ultimate double-edged sword. In the 1970's the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act was passed into law. It was an awesome feat of civil rights, winning children with disabilities the entitlement to free public education, and at that, a free public education that catered to each child's unique needs. It also set in motion the procedural documentation that is now necessary in order provide those services: read this specifically as diagnoses.

What I think a lot of people don't realize in the boom of mental illness diagnoses in children is a direct result of parents and schools trying to cater to children’s educational needs under the constraints of their own system. In order to qualify for special education services, kids need a diagnosis. Schools cannot diagnose children. Do you see where I’m heading here? We have to go to doctors for these diagnoses.

I’ve tried to find a definitive source for the average age that ADHD and bipolar is diagnosed in children. Some studies I’ve found state 6, Kindergarten aged, and others state 8, or 2nd grade. Regardless, I don’t think I’m grasping at straws to suggest to correlation to the beginning of school and the diagnosis of mental illness in children.

Regular classrooms cannot handle children with special needs, let alone severe special needs, because of the pressure they have to perform. In this age of results-based teaching, when a school is pressured to prove their “accountability” to teaching their students to tests, special education is a key component to tease out kids that can cause poor scores. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I see this happening all over the state of Colorado. I recently got a letter from The Kid’s school district listing the percentage of “acceptable” C-SAP scores from last year. The district received passing scores in all demographics except for ‘limited English proficient’ students and ‘IEP’ or special education students. It is nice that they can exempt these students from the rest of their results, is all I’m saying. And isn’t nicer to identify these kids before they gum up your scores?

That’s perhaps a little unkind to actual, classroom, day-to-day staff and teachers in our schools, but the movement exists, and for now it feels inexorable.

But let me get back to the pressure on parents to seek a diagnosis, and to whom parents must turn for these diagnoses: mental health workers. Oy. I live in a big city, with lots of mental health professionals and facilities, even for kids. And I’m lucky. But even with all of these folks out there, there are really very few choices. It is difficult to find a psychiatrist or psychologist at all, let alone one that you trust or that will grow a good, professional relationship with you and your child. Their practices are filled to exploding, and you are lucky to get an appointment in a timely fashion. When you do find one, you are generally at their mercy. You can take their prescriptions or leave them, sure. But you rarely go to a psychiatrist without first being at your wits end. And then, you try the medication.

If, like us, you are put through a slew of medications, some which cause side effects, some which only work for a while and then need to be up-titrated, work again until they need increasing again, etc…, you are still at the mercy of the doctor which prescribes you medication. When The Kid was in crisis last summer into fall, I spent three months attempting to find a psychiatrist who would see him at all. Once I found her, she plugged him full of drugs which caused him severe muscle stiffness, facial and somatic tics, drooling, confusion, and the horrible pair of sleeplessness and fatigue. By the time I realized it was imperative to find a second opinion, I was looking at one doctor who couldn’t see The Kid, even on an emergency basis, for six months, and many others who would not see The Kid at all.

The end result is that The Kid had to go into the hospital to be stabilized. And while I did change a few things about his home life (like disciplining at home for things that happened at school), the majority of positive changes that we saw come out of The Kid were due largely to the fact that he was finally put on the right medications. Medications allowed him to sit at a table and concentrate on a task long enough to complete it. Medications that allowed his body to slow down and obtain a healthy sleep pattern again. Medications that provide the stimulation in his brain that help him control his impulses and make socially acceptable choices with his actions.

The important thing is to note that The Kid's story is not in any way unique. There are families all over this country encountering this exact struggle, right now.

I don’t blame teachers. I don’t blame doctors. I certainly don’t blame parents, as I am so sympathetic to the struggle of parenting a severely troubled child. This is a broken system. Insurance companies tell us who we can see and when, not doctors. Doctors are so few and far between that their practices are jam-packed with kids that they barely know, and must make life-altering decisions on their behalf in a monthly 20 minute appointment. Teachers are wholly underpaid and are pressured to teach to tests, and are not adequately trained to deal with kids that need accommodations. It's broken.

Sad huh? Welcome to my world.

ha ha heh

2007-03-20T07:00:00.000-06:00

Tuesday is Shannon's birthday. I kind of love the woman to death... We first met about 15 years ago, and we've wove in and out our each others lives ever since. So, what can I say about her that I haven't already said?

She's the absolute package, people. She is a looker, that's one. Also, she's funny. No, like really. And if only she still had a blog I could link to, I would prove that one... But seriously, she's a true and honest friend, a really loyal person. She's one of the smartest people I know, and she's gloriously self aware. She makes good babies. She knows her whiskey, and her favorite book is Prayer for Owen Meany. I hear she also likes long walks on the beach, and pina coladas. And yes, getting caught in the rain. Although, if she's got the baby in the stroller with her and the groceries to bring in, she actually doesn't like rain persay. Anyway, if you want to date her, just let me know. She's hot. But like, I'm her BFF, and well, don't mess with her.

So, Soapy Water dating service aside, what do you give the woman who has it all?

I am going, I am going where streams of whisky are flowing...

2007-03-17T21:21:00.000-06:00

Or, rather, a few Smithwicks before I go to bed tonight. I'm now 31 and have given over to the quiet Saturday night.

Thanks to all for the compliments on my hair and stuff, which is not in anyway different than it was prior to turning 31, but nonetheless, looked fantastic on my birthday. Also, thanks for the birthday wishes.

The birthday was good. I got some sweaters, a hong kong phooey t-shirt (awesome), a teakettle and an ironing board, and so on. I got to kind of take the day off of work, which was nice, had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Denver, if not in the world, with 66% of my sisters. We followed dinner up with coffee and carrot cake at Paris at the Platte, the cafe where, as a teen, I spent a great deal of time trying to talk about Camus, or Jasper Johns, or whatever, so it was nice to come back full circle, and like, make me feel old and stuff on my birthday, but also, happy to be getting older and just so pleased to hang out with 66% of my sisters for the most mellow birthday in my adult life (wasn't that comma-riffic?).

But also, it's now St. Patrick's Day. Ireland, I love you:

Whaa!

2007-03-14T22:11:00.001-06:00

I screwed up my blog! Goddamn you Blogger and your fancy new widget stuff!

Um, what happened to February?

2007-03-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's like, gone. And I can barely account for it. I know that The Kid turned seven. He had a pretty fab party with our family:

And then, another fab party with his best friends forever:

Also, there was this Blogger Bash thingie that allowed me to meet some super nice bloggers and let my slight fear of meeting new people prevent me from meeting a bunch of others (or really, my severe laziness that keeps me from meeting anyone not sitting directly next to me)... But at any rate it also just so happened to be a great excuse to hang out with my BFF:

I guess I've just been partying too much.

As far as the whole, "How is The Kid" thing, I must say that he's doing pretty well. You have to keep in mind that a kid like The Kid is going to have days that, isolated, sound horrible. But on the whole, this kid is doing great in a school that is simply designed to teach him and kids like him. I have a lot to say on this subject, but I'm still so blown away that it is now a full week in to March that I just need to go to bed. Just please, don't let me sleep until April.

Seven!

2007-02-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight, at bedtime:

Me: Good night, sweetheart. Happy Birthday.

The Kid: Hey mom, you know what? Tomorrow, I get to wake up as a seven year old for the second time!

Me: That's awesome, Kid.

The Kid: I know. I love this age.

The Eavan Boland Poem has not been working like it used to...

2007-02-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, when I became pregnant with The Kid, I was in grad school studying archaeology in Dublin, Ireland. It was a career choice, as I got deeper into it, I realized wouldn't be very lucrative, unless I sold out and wrote some book about new agey Celtic mythology mixed in with my scientific findings, or suddenly became smarter than I was and got that one-in-a-million job at Harvard or something. But the subject has always fascinated me, and I was really coming to love the archaeology people. They were smart, but also practical. Not your average "graduate student" stuff. They were not reading Proust, they were into figuring out the date and sequence of stone age hand axes. They liked data, and laughing. It's a rare field in the higher learning world, you know, to find grad students you can truly laugh with AND talk about heiratic measurements in Irish High Crosses, is all I'm saying. Additionally, I want to drive home the point that I knew as a career, archaeology would not be have me heading in direction of purchasing a porche, either.

Anyway, in April of 1999, I had just returned from an international conference on paleolithic rock art in Portugal (gasp! So awesome, I'll have to tell you about it sometime). And so, literally as The Kid was conceived, I was mulling over two exceedingly poor paying jobs for archaeologists I'd met at that conference. The first was a roman cooking site in the glorious Algarve of southern Portugal, like, the site was virtually in heaven, and the second was a paleolithic site in The Alps. No damn joke. I had a choice between a mediterranean seaside and a ricola commercial. I would have no money, and I would be showing wealthy tourists how to tell rat bones from cooked stone, but, well, I'd be on the Med or in the Alps. Rough.

But now, I sell insurance. Christ. Insurance. Is it not the iconic soul-crushing job? Also, if I've sold out to corporate America, should I not have something to show for it? I guess I do. Do you know what I have to show for the money I make?

$110 per month in prescription drug copays
approx. $180 in doctor's visits costs, if we don't see his pediatrician, dentist, or therapist more than twice
A child with a mental disorder, or three
constant worry, gray hairs and enormous strain, in every thing. EVERY LITTLE THING.

So, it's not the Alps. I'm generally okay with this most of the time. I made a choice to have The Kid. All mothers, however, at one time or another, regret their choice. I certainly have too. And I don't want to say I don't want him, or I don't love him, or that I didn't expect motherhood to be hard, or that single motherhood would somehow be more financially easy, but damn, people. It's hard to be The Kid's mom. The toll he's wrecked on me, and really (I could not be more serious about this one) on my family, my sisters and their kids and my mom, feels at times as though it is limitless. And he's only 6. Every day it's something new, and I'm fucking tired, let alone conceiving of what I've got ahead of me for the rest of his life. I'm exhausted of having The Kid, The Kid who must fight me at every moment over food, over not getting enough attention/ getting too much attention, daily phone calls from school, doctors, etc. It's the et cetera that kills me the most.

I love him, but I also like to fantasize about my alternate path, the summer spent in Portugal, the jobs from there, that professor I met from Cambridge asking me to work with him on Romanesque finial research once he got funding, the impermanence of the life of an archaeologist, and the wanderlust of it all. I wouldn't be human if I didn't.

So, anyway, this poem I added to the blog below. It's my favorite... It's resonated with me long before I got all knocked up, but after being a mother, it really began to rock my world. It combines all of those things that cross your mind at 5am with a suckling baby: the routine, the lonliness, I guess, the monotony of it all, but also all of those spectacular flashes of the cosmic in holding a tiny being in your hands. When they coo at an empty ceiling, and you look up, expecting to see a ghost, or an angel or something, and you get the chills; when you think of how you are continuing the species, and your body's acheivement in childbirth somehow connects to the sorority of all women, of all time who have felt this and done that, and you realize that God is somehow tied up in all of that, and so it follows that you are God and God is you, and we all are immensely creative, in the truest, purest sense, in the stupor and sleep deprivation of motherhood. So when I'm feeling the pull of sadness at my lot in life, I read that poem, and I generally answer her big question, about the going around and down to the old temple, that I am most definitely a priestess.

I reserve the right, however, to occasionally feel as though I am the sacrifice.

Snow Sucks

2007-02-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

Remember how I used to be all, "I love snow, it's peaceful and it makes you slow down?" Yeah, I'm over the slowing down. I've never wanted to believe in the prognosticating powers of a ground hog as much as I do today. Please, Jack Frost, get the heck out of Denver and go back to Buffalo or Minneapolis where you belong.

Monotony

2007-01-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is that life at the Soapy Water household is pretty much back to normal. The Kid is in school, and is doing okay. Still has some rough spots to work out (especially regarding working and playing well with his peers), and the day is long for him (the bus leaves home at 7:10 and then he is dropped off at Meema's at 4:00), but generally? He's improved so much.

I'm back full time at work and trying like mad to organize my life there again. It was chaos. The bills from the hospital are finally streaming in, and are looking accurate finally. Do you want to guess the amount of insurance claims my insurance company has paid on The Kid's behalf for services rendered between 9/11/06 and 12/15/06? I'm sure that you don't really care, but let's just say we've exceeded $72,000, and we've still another 3 weeks of claims to even begin to be processed. Hefty, yo.

And so, we've gotten, for the most part, back into the swing of things. Early to bed and early to rise, and all work and no play makes me absolutely boring.

So, rather that dither on about boringness, allow me to quote to you my very favorite poem of all time, the poem I turn to when my life is sucked into the 'polar drab of the suburb:'

The stilled hub
and polar drab
of the suburb
closes in.

In the round
of the staircase
my arms sheafing nappies,
I grow in and down

to an old spiral,
a well of questions,
an oracle:
will it tell me --

am I
at these altars,
warm shrines,
washing machines, dryers --

with their incense
of men and infants,
priestess
or sacrifice?

My late tasks
wait like children:
milk bottles,
the milkman's note.

Cold air
clouds the rinsed,
milky glass,
blowing clear

with a hint
of winter constellations:
will I find
my answer where

Virago reaps?
Her arms sheafing
the hemisphere,
hour after frigid hour,

her virgin stars,
her maidenhead
married to force,
harry us

to wed our gleams
to brute routines:
solstices,
small families.

-Eavan Boland, I love you for this poem.