Sorry to the dudes who read this...

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.

Quickie News Roundup

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.

On This Awesome Conference, Finally

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.

Italy-Holland; PBS.

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.

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.

Again with the Harry Potter

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.

Curious

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.

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

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.

Does it ever warm up in this country?

The coming superstorm has come and superstormed all over us. The city of Denver has been ransacked. Chaos reigns in the streets. I fear that I will never get out of my parking lot:
The Kid screamed in anquish:

Okay, not so much anguish. But at some points in his trek about the snow covered condo complex we call home, all I could see was the blue hood of his parka. It was up to his head, yo.

And while I secretly, or not so secretly, love the weather and excuse to stay in my pajamas at all hours of the day and night, I did not like spending hours trying to dig my car out of this snow, only to realize that my HOA would not be coming to plow our parking lots until tomorrow, or possibly ever, rendering my hard work and sore muscles all for naught, as I will never, ever be able to back into (and then drive out of) the 4 foot drift of snow that is directly behind my vehicle. Or, I will have to shovel out my parking lot my damn self. But at any rate, I will not be making it to work tomorrow either. But I still need to work. So, please, call a whambulance for me immediately.

Also, because of this storm, my playdate with Mr. Lady, Alison and Sarah has been indefinitely postponed. This really sucks because I've not been able to hang out for an entire evening sans children with Mr. Lady for approximately 5 years (I'm so not kidding about this, am I Shannon?), nor with Sarah for any appreciable time since we were in Indiana at a wedding, and her friend and I saw fit to laugh at her when she broke her thumb the night before she had incredibly important guest book duties at a wedding we would be attending the next day. Alison, however, I've seen recently, thank GOD, but I simply don't see her enough. So anyway, I'm bummed about the postponement. However, it WILL happen. It must.

So, I guess, watch what you wish for. On one hand, I've got all the pajammy jam time I've been praying for as of late, but on the other, I'm stuck in my house with an awesomehouseparty.com junkie who is going a little bit stir crazy. He also eats me out of house and home, so much so that he has turned to eating snow to fill his insatiable appetite:

I actually love blizzards, however, for this exact reason: it's the best excuse to be stuck at home for days with just me and The Kid. The Kid and I have had so much time on our hands, we've developed a new sport, Snow Wrestling, and we've figured out that The Kid can "oink" Jingle Bells, while I simply cannot make my pig noise go fast enough to create any kind of rhythm. It's really hard to explain, but it's simply awesome. The Kid completed a charming art project, I've eaten about 3 candy canes today because The Kid always decides at the last minute that he actually does not want a candy cane in his hot chocolate. Basically, all moms need ME time. It's huge, in trying to keep the semblance of sanity in family life. But all families also need US time. For us, this blizzard is a time out. No appointments, no rushing around. (I'm so about to go all Goonies on you here). Out there, it's "their time" (their time!). During a blizzard, well, you get the rest.

A Gathering of Angels Appeared Above My Head, And Sang to me This Song of Hope and this is what They Said:

I'm addicted to music. It's kind of my thing. I am not, however, in any way a music snob. That much must be known about me. I do, however, have lines to draw as any sensible person would have, as you will see.

I have a few musical flashpoints in my own young life that I must share as background before I go too deeply into the true intent of this post, which is to tell you about The Kid's amazing relationship to music. But indulge me in a few moments that made me the music nut that I am today:

1. I am about 6 years old. It is approximately 1984. My sister Peggy is in full-on Police-mania, goes to their concert, and I feel true, real desire to be older, to get to have cool friends (one of hers was from Germany and I thought he was so dreamy, at six, yo) and listen to music with them and be cool too. It is Synchronicity all the time in the basement of our home. My first "favorite" song is Miss Gradenko. I sneak into her room on numerous occasions to listen specifically to Miss Gradenko. Is she safe? Who knows? All I know is that a nearly lifetime crush on Sting is begun at the tender age of 6. Unfortunately, the crush is blown to hell at approximately my age of 28 when he starts starring in ads for cars. But that was a good 22 year love fest we had, Stingy. [Stingy, this is a joke for Peggy. Do you get it?]

2. I am around 10 years old. My sister Bonnie is home for the summer from college and has all of her albums in her room. I discover, again surreptitiously, the world of musical theatre. Yes, geek, I know, but god, do I love that Stephen Sondheim. I could act out the following musicals from their soundracks alone: Sunday in the Park with George (favorite of all time), Sweeny Todd (which I hear is going to be movie, directed by Tim Burton: HEEE!!!), Les Miserables, Chess (yes, the musical written by the dude from ABBA, what of it?), later on I discover Into the Woods (god, great musical, Stephen Sondheim is truly a genius). If there would have been hidden cameras in my sister Bonnie's bedroom in the years between 1885 and 1990, I would have paid a great deal of blackmail money, on account of my fantastic renditions of the role of Eponine in Les Mis and Dot in Sunday. God, I wanted to be Bernadette Peters. Seriously. It must also be noted that Sunday in the Park with George just happens to be a musical based on the famous pointelist painting by Georges Seurat, which ultimately began my other obsession in life, ART, the history of which became my major in college. By the by, and, everything is connected, or in otherwords, Sychronicity.

3. I am 11 years old. Some goofy folk singer has come to my school to sing goofy folk songs. I can see the other kids in my school enjoying this incredibly. But I am making fun of it in my head. I am not clapping and singing along. I feel akward, like the dumbness of this guy's act is so apparent to me: He's a grown MAN! He's singing about Hildegard the Hippopotamus and he's as old as my dad! There's something totally wrong here!!! Later, my teacher asks me if I liked the concert. I politely said yes, but then she followed up with the observation that I didn't participate. I said, Well, it just seemed kind of dumb. And then I cried, because I was embarrased because I was clearly the only one who thought it was disturbing that this grown man was singing these inane songs. I was horribly self aware at even the age of 11. This self-awareness turned, for YEARS, into pretentiousness, a disease of which I am proud to say I've been cured. Thank god.

4. I am 12 years old. Saturday Night Live is good again. The Church Lady and Toonces the Driving Cat and all. I'm hooked. One night, The Sugarcubes are the musical guest. The Sugarcubes are Bjork's band, prior to her amazing solo career, which I have watched and admired at every single step since. My life subsequently changes, no joke. I buy their tape the next day. Oh my god, I can't tell you how many times I listened to Birthday. I hear that song today and I can see my junior high bedroom. I can even smell it. Bjork. I. Love. Her. Don't even talk to me about the Swan Dress. I don't want to hear it. She is brilliant. She can do no wrong. She is amazing. She has never been in a car commercial, nor do I think she ever will be.

[okay, before I go any further, can I say that my computer is freaking me out with some Sychronicity tonight? I usually write while playing music on my Windows Music Player. Almost everything I own on CD is on this computer. As I've written this, The Sugarcubes has played, which rarely comes up on the "all play" option as it is only one album of hundreds, and The Police have played about three times. But now we've got The Girl From Ipanema, so whatever.]

So, we've established the following: An early interest in non-child-friendly music. An interest in adolescence in "interesting" music. And I've confessed to sneaking into my sister's rooms and scratching their favorite records to hell. Yep, it was me, girls.

Now that I'm a parent, I need to explain some more. Going into this deal, I knew I would have a short fuse for Barney. I knew I wouldn't be able to listen to more than .23 seconds of Raffi. Because even when I was a little kid, I couldn't stand that stuff. I've been so painfully self aware my whole life. I've always attributed this to being the youngest of four daughters, teased at every turn for my developmental stages. With adulthood, I kind of realize that this was always just part of my psyche, but regardless of its source, I can't be highly dramatic or self-centered at any point in my life without knowing what an asshole I am being, so I rarely do it [i think, or hope anyway]. The result of this is 1) I am the world's worst candidate for reality television; 2) I'm an incredibly good friend because I rarely turn anything into something about ME; 3) I could never be a hippy or a deadhead because I'm far too aware of how dumb people look when all deadheaded out.

The Kid's grown into a true, awesome, devouring love for music as well. I can't wait to talk to The Kid at 22 or 32, and ask him about his relationship to music. Because right now, he is very into it. It all started with the Yellow Submarine. Choosing music in the car has always been a carefully done thing, mostly because a lot of the music I hold dear I don't really want The Kid to hear the lyrics to quite yet. So when he was really little, we played a great deal of Beatles in the car. One trip to the video store later, he had found the DVD of Yellow Submarine on his own, at three, because there are only so many things you will find with a Yellow Submarine on them, and yes, they will be mostly related. So, we rented Yellow Submarine and watched it so constantly that I had no choice but to purchase the film. And listen to the Beatles pretty much constantly until he was about 5 years old. Which was cool. The child's obsession was with something of amazing quality, The Beatles, arguably the greatest musical act of the modern age, and not with some mind numbing singing vegetables or any kind of CD that idiotically mispells Kids with a Z or contains the song "The Wheels on the Bus."

As the years have gone on, The Kid's journey through the history of rock and roll has been interesting, and stimulating. He has an amazing relationship with a certain song by The Smiths. Like, he knows all the words. He frequently requested T-Rex for quite a while. I'm unsure if he adored the pre-alternative sounds of Marc Bolan, or if he just really liked the name because of his concurrent love of dinosaurs. The Kid approaches music with total earnest commitment. He loves it, he dances around, he learns songs by heart. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have listened to The Bicycle Song by Queen. I have found myself waiting to introduce him to certain songs until he is older (Tom Saywer? Mama?). He has a "thing" for Waterfall by The Stone Roses. The first concert he ever went to, he met David Lee Roth. The second concert he went to, he got us into the VIP section of a Bright Eyes NPR appearance, and was given a free T-Shirt, which he still wears weekly, no joke.

About a year ago, Peggy gave me a burned copy of Styx's greatest hits. She knew my soft spot for 70's prog-rock, but mostly she gave it to me because she knew The Kid would enjoy it. I remember playing it for him, but she gave me the disc at the same time she also burned the soundtrack to Xanadu, which deserves its own music history of Molly G's life of its own, and so the Styx disc went into the pile, and The Kid didn't really dig it at the time.

I recently spent a Saturday night at my friend Erin's house, and in preparation, I brought over one of my CD books so that she could [uh, totally download all of my music] listen to some of my CD's. In the book was this unlabeled CD. I threw it in the player. I was Styx. So we drove around for a day as I played The Kid some of their better songs [uh, Renegade, duh], until we came across Come Sail Away [link is totally awesome Karaoke version of the song, please, go, and give singing it a try, for The Kid]. The song is, undeniably, one of the best 70's prog-rock songs, and if you dare dispute me, I've got the guns and ammo to do it. Bring it on. That song is great. Don't fight it. No, no, you can't stop the rocking.

Needless to say, The Kid fell in LOVE. Not just love: lurve, the Woody Allen word for love when love just isn't enough to express all of that emotion. And so, by the time we got to Erin's house on that Saturday night, The Kid made me bring the CD in so he could sing it to Erin. And so, for the fortnight since, it's been a 24 hour per day Styx-fest. Come Sail Away with the cornflakes in the morning. Come Sail Away with the toothbrush at night. Just this morning, he was estimating how many plays of Come Sail Away it would take to get home from the mall. For your information, it took 3.5 plays. Just so you know.

As I dropped The Kid off at Karate this morning, then, what to my delight did I hear but that the talented Dennis DeYoung of Styx would be giving a free concert tonight in downtown Denver at The Taste of Colorado. As a responsible mother, I had no choice. We had to go.

He was SOOO excited. I can't think of a time in my life, in my own music freak-dom that I've ever been able to see a band live as immediately, as concurrently as a new obsession has formed. So, as we walked through the festival to get to the stage, he was literally bouncing. He was ecstatic, in the most literal sense of ecstacy.

So, as soon as we arrived at our chosen concert-viewing spot, Dennis began singing Domo Origato Mr. Roboto. One thing you must know, the dude is totally gray haired and old. Other thing to note? He still sounds exactly the same. Good voice on that dude, undeniably. Pure joy came over my son. Pure. And I honestly got teary. It was so sweet. We watched the whole show, waiting for Come Sail Away. I knew they would play it as the encore. Everyone knew it would be their encore, in that it is Styx's best song next to Renegade, which Dennis DeYoung didn't sing, so like, fuggedaboutit. The Kid was near to tears at the end of the show because they hadn't sung it yet, so I got to teach him what an encore was all about. But we screamed and yelled for about 1 minute before we heard the tinkling piano that begins The Kid's favorite song.

This all came after a week of total hell. My job sucks beyond definition, and this week it reached new lows that I cannot, literally, explain to you. The Kid had a violent bipolar explosion at school that resulted in a half-day's suspension (who is that kid? Not The Kid who spent this wonderful Saturday with me), and I got the flu of the century and missed an unprecedented three days from work in a row. But as the musically cheesy and hilariously brilliant Dennis DeYoung sang to me tonight, and almost as I'd say them to The Kid, my wonderful companion in life:

The headlines read these are the worst of times
I do believe its true

I feel so helpless like a boat against the tide
I wish the summer winds could bring back paradise
But I know, if the world turned upside down
Baby, I know you'd always be around
The best of times are when I'm alone with you

Just in case pregnant women and mothers of babies aren't paranoid enough...

There's this article from the New York Times today.

I also read a little blurb about Schitzophrenia, OCD and Bipolar and other mental illnesses that are linked to the existence of certain bacteria in the blood stream.

Yikes.

All nature. Where's the nurture?

Two of my unconventionally favorite things about parenting

1. Going on trips, to get away from The Kid. Which is what I am doing tomorrow through Monday. I'm so incredibly lucky to get away and be with grown ups only for three whole days. And not just grown ups, my best friends in the universe!!!

But seriously, it is not all to get away from him. He's not that hard to parent. And I always love him. In fact, the real highlight of being away from The Kid is getting to call him at his grandma's house, and hearing his tiny voice over the phone. He sounds so little on the phone, and it just makes me love him so much. And after three days of separation, I will be so appreciative of my life with him, and I will miss him so much. But I will have fun in the meantime. It's a total win-win situation.

2. Finding random toys stacked in interesting arrangements about our home:




Being an archaeologist by training, I can't help but try to reconstruct the play that was intended by the stack above. Is he guarding something? Is he riding a doomsday animal of some sort? By the way, the toys that are stacked (from bottom to top):

• Rubber ducky
• Cap to Johnson & Johnson baby wash, in lavender (The Kid's signature fragrance)
• Baby Alligator, head covered by the middle body part of a "stackable" Ronald Mc Donald
• Arctic Excavator Guy from Playmobile, armed with a totally contraban shotgun that the Kid must have conned off of the neighbor kid (it is so not our toy).

Have a nice Memorial Day Weekend! I'm outta here!

6 Years Ago RIGHT NOW

I was sitting on the floor in my mom's front room, watching Four Weddings and a Funeral, talking on the phone with my sister, and getting ready to change my life forever.

Peggy said, "Are you totally sure it's real? Let's talk for a while."

I went into the kitchen while we were talking, rummaged around in the kitchen drawers and pulled out a funnel.

"No, really," I said, "I feel like a funnel. Like, I can feel that my body is a funnel."

No. I wasn't stoned. I was in labor.

Peggy had done this labor thing twice, and was wise. "Let's try and get some sleep. Call me back if it keeps up."

I remember hanging up with her about 11:30 pm. Which is what time it is right now, as I write this.

I went to lay down, but The Kid was coming. There was to be no laying down. I called Peggy back, probably about 3 minutes after she'd fallen asleep, and told her I'd be needing her. Soon. I went back to Hugh Grant, my focal point, until Peggy showed up.

The labor went all night, I just remember not being able to do one thing for very long because whatever worked during the last group of contractions wasn't going to work during the next, and I also remember repeating, "I didn't expect my hips to hurt this much!" Because labor hurts in your hips, yo. Your hips are growing, right there. If I could have kept still and hadn't had a full layer of pregnant blubber over them, we could have watched them expand, like bamboo. So, you know those jeans you liked before you got pregnant? The skinny ones that hugged your hips in that perfect way that probably helped you get pregnant in the first place? You've got two choices of what to do with them now:
1. Goodwill.
2. Learn how to quilt.

We got to the hospital about 5am, and after an uncomfortable period where the nurses had to check to see if I was "really" in labor (um, yo.) we got down to business.

I don't want to get too bogged down in the whole labor part of this story, but I must write about transition. For non-labor-minded folks, transition is the rapid-fire period of labor, usually after the cervix has dilated to 7cm (it generally needs to go to 10), where contractions last longer, and you get pretty much no break whatsoever in between them. I chose to go through labor without the aid of drugs. At the time I was full of hippie zeal for "natural childbirth," but now I know that I was just psyching myself up for single motherhood. Kind of a little test of endurance, I guess. That said, I will strongly suggest non-drug childbirth to anyone. It is truly ecstacy. In the few moments I had to think (as opposed to tend or react to the pain), I thought of Saint Theresa of Avila, the Spanish nun who believed that Christ had entered her body and she reached a mystical orgasmic state of pain and pleasure from God's power. The pain of labor just takes over your body, it is NOT unbareable, your body knows how to deal, but you can only lay and let it happen. I really loved this. [Keep in mind, last week, I got a paper cut on my thumb and complained about it for 3 days, I'm not some kind of freaky pain-lover, generally.] It was such an extraordinary challenge in self control. I think I got only about 3 "good" meditative contractions during the two hours that was transition (this is all more hippie stuff, and I promise, I'll be done soon). But it was ME in my most primal. There were and are no words. Just a strong recommendation to try it, if you are into having babies and all that stuff.

[Okay, and as another total aside, I just had another totally different kind of mystical experience. I went through a couple of sites to find the best photo of Bernini's St. Theresa, and settled on that one because it included some of St. Theresa's own text (she wrote a book, kind of). Then as I was editing, I went back to the site, and I notice my friend Chelsea's name in the upper corner. Chelsea is a dear friend of mine, we lived together in Ireland, although there is much more to how we knew each other than that, she is my true 6-degrees-of-separation friend. It is from her final project as a performance artist/dancer (and I honestly thought that she went to UT to study math) at the U. of Texas. Chelsea also just had a baby, named Oscar. What a crazy world wide web coincidence.]

After about just about 12 hours of labor, The Kid entered the world, perfect and pink and wide-eyed. And The Kid is meant to be the main subject of this post.

I remember very little after he was first born, just exhileration, exhaustion, and I remember naming him.

I remember touching his perfect tummy, trying to keep his baby hat on him, and his wrinkled fingers and toes.

But mostly I remember his eyes. I looked in his eyes tonight before he went to bed. I think he's lost some of that infant-wisdom that is just there for the few days after a baby is born, but he's still wide-eyed, he's still so present.

Happy Birthday Kid. I love you so much. There are no words. Really, I tried. I can only hug you, and kiss you and live for you and breathe for you. I do everything for you, ultimately.

There's so much crap around right now about mothers "losing themselves" in parenthood, as if the kids ask for that. I lose myself in The Kid all day, every day, with no damage done to my identity. He and I aren't the same person. I have a lot going on that isn't really for or with The Kid. So I do have stuff that makes me feel like me. But I've also recognized that being The Kid's mom is being me. So these moms on Oprah, who don't know what they've done with their lives, filling their lives and their kids lives with soccer games and ballet lessons and whatever else they do with themselves that gets them lost, I just have to say sorry. Sorry you've compromised your love for life. Look in their eyes, you'll see it. Why else are you here on earth?

Ah Kid, I keep rambling trying to find better words or better ways to describe this, but I'm unable. I can't believe I'm about to quote Faulkner, but Addie had it right in As I Lay Dying:

And when I knew that I had Cash . . . That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride...

Kid, I'll leave it at that. I just love you. Happy Birthday.

Co-sleeping

Apparently, one of the more traditional baby doctor experts has decided that it can be beneficial to allow your baby to sleep in your bed with you. There's an article, here, about it from the NY Times last week.

I'm so glad the hi-falutin' physicians of the United States have finally caught up to the wisdom of mothers across the globe, and across the millenia (I'm so totally sure that the cave-women let their babies cry for hours in the back of the caves, attracting predators, alienating cave-mates, and creating self-soothing individuals, ha ha).

The Kid NEVER slept in his crib. I tried to make him cry it out for three days when he was about 9 months old. It was horrible. He went hoarse. He threw up all over himself, and he never slept, except after about 5 hours of LITERALLY CONTINUOUS CRYING, and at that, he fell asleep sitting up. I just couldn't stomach that.

With all of the behavioral issues he's had, all of the discipline issues at school, the anger and rages, I am so grateful for our awesome emotional connection that we have. In the midst of last fall's terrible drama, The Kid and I were able to still have a very open, loving mother-son relationship, communicative in emotional depth (for a 5-year-old) and The Kid never waivered in self-confidence in our relationship. I don't think his self-esteem was very adversely effected by any of the trouble at school. Dare I say it was due to our attachment? I nursed him for almost two years, and we co-slept. I also talk to him every day, read to him, and he's just naturally awesome, but I do have to wonder, had I perservered in the "let him cry it out" sleep issue, what would last fall have looked like?

Perspective

We are very very lucky people living here in the US. Today, Nicholas Kristof wrote in the NY Times another in his series of reports from the Darfur region of Sudan. (I would link you to it, but it is one of the articles available only to "premium subscribers." If you find yourself near a newsstand today, I suggest you shell out the 2.50 and buy The Times if for no other reason than to read this article, and Frank Rich's while you're at it!!!)

In his article, Kristof linked to this blog. It is written by an aid worker living in the region, and she is telling us information that we are getting from no American news source that I've been able to see, other than Mr. Kristof. Two years ago, the president and congress passed a completely impotent resolution against the genocide in Darfur, and since, in American minds, the issue appears to have been "solved." Unfortunately, the genocide continues, and much like Rwanda in 1994, it continues unabated and with no sign of help from the US, and very little from NGO's and the UN. We can only hope that unlike in Rwanda, the aid agencies are able to stay to help the displaced people.

Why is it that people are complacent? We are talking hundreds of thousands killed because of their ethnicities. Is it because the notion of Africa comes with the a priori images of rape, civil war, AIDS and famine? Is it because they are black? Is it because the idea of helping them seems hopeless? Or is it because no one even knows about it until someone in Hollywood decides to make a movie about it?

For me, this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Education is the key here, and I'm not just talking about being able to locate Sudan on a map of the world. I'm not even talking about schools. We need to educate our children and each other in the art of empathy. It's so simple. How would you feel if you were forced to go out into fields to collect grasses, certain that if the armies of your enemies find you, you will be raped, if you are female, or killed, if you are male? Did you know that the women in the camps in Darfur often do this work, get the water or the food outside of the camp, because if they are found, they will be "only" raped while their husbands would be murdered in the same scenario? Can you imagine making that choice? Beyond the simple "substitution" idea of empathy, there is then our government, that has the power to fight this kind of killing (but I suppose has never done so appropriately), but instead seems overly concerned with filling their own pockets with a corporate, oligarchical political agenda and keeping alive a single braindead woman in a coma in Florida. In my ideal world, the ideas of empathy and democracy would be one and the same.

We are so lucky to have been born here. Here is my Thanksgiving post, I suppose. For me, I am thankful to be a financially struggling single mother of a bipolar child. I still have everything that I need, and am not in danger.

Ah, sense memories...

Don't ask me how it started, but The Kid and I just got done with a house-wide water-wing soccer tournament. I have no idea why, when or how the water wings found their way in to the living room. I just saw them on the floor while corralling The Kid toward the bath tub, and kicked one of them at The Kid to get his attention. He got a devilish look in his eye and kicked it back at me. Naturally, I kicked not one, but two water wings at The Kid. On my hardwood floor, those suckers can get to flying. It's kind of like they become little hovercrafts. Suddenly, a super-competitive new sport has been born. The Kid played through a stubbed toe, even, this Water Wing Soccer is not for sissies.

The best part of the whole thing? As the game made it's way back to my bath room, The Kid asked me to blow up one of the water wings more so he could take it in the bath with him. As I bit at the plastic-blower-upper-nozzle to blow some more air into the water wing, I could still totally taste the last pool we'd gone to, and for a quick second, I was transported to one week before Kindergarten started, when The Kid and I took a spur-of-the-moment vacation to the Hot Springs Pool at Glenwood Springs (if you've ever been there, you know what I mean about tasting the water, it's all sulphur-ish and mineral-y).

Last summer feels like a different age to me now. I've never been a worry wart. I've never had trouble sleeping. I've never found a gray hair. But in the last two months, I've turned into a complete wreck. My house is an embarrassing mess, I'm disgustingly behind at work, I've forgotten bills (literally, FORGOTTEN, not "forgotten" or claiming "willful blindness"). I've become wistful at the taste of sulphur on a water wing (and thus need therapy, clearly).

The Kid has gone into a spiral of violent outburts and aggression, while I can't say they weren't completely absent two months ago, but at least they didn't show up in my home. The Kid has uttered the words, "I hate school" and "Everyone hates me" and I know he means it. It's been dark, tough times.

But it all comes back to my favorite 4 letter word: DEAL. We can't go back, and can only continue on the path, complete the hard work. I subscribe devotedly (and knowingly, and tongue in cheekingly) to the idea from Candide on the view of our world:

...the old woman ventured one day to tell them:
"I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?"
"This," said Candide, "is a grand question."

Indeed, this is the best of all possible worlds, because this is the one The Kid and I inhabit. Right?

Meet The Kid, Part Two

So, The Kid started kindergarten last week. The school works it so that in the first three days, only a third of the class comes in on one day, therefore allowing parents to come along, get to know how it will work. This, I'm sure, makes the first day without parents run a little more smoothly.

Our first day went pretty good. The Kid immediately required everyone's full attention, playing the comedian whenever he could. Everyone knew The Kid by the end of the day. The Teacher knew there was more comedy (heh) in store for the rest of the year, and asked me at the end of the day if we could talk. Of course, I started crying. I don't know if it was the pressure of school starting, knowing how important our relationship was going to be, the embarrassment of being the mom-of-the-kid-in-the-center-of-attention thing, I can't explain it, but I exploded and couldn't get an intelligent word out of my mouth. So, I promised we'd talk another day, and that I'd e-mail her what I would say had I the presence of mind.

The e-mail that resulted follows (or at least most of it, abridged and revised slightly because I'm obsessive, and because I don't refer to him as "The Kid" to his teacher, duh):

The Kid has been a special case since birth. He was a voracious nurser. He didn't sleep much as an infant, and was extremely alert and wakable until he began walking (early but normal, about 9-10 mos), when he started to sleep in a more "normal" schedule (like a whole 5 hours at a time). Doctors have always said that he is a completely healthy child, albeit with some very strong impulses. No medical diagnoses. Last year, realizing that kindergarten was not too far away, I enrolled him at a county school-district run preschool, where I knew they had county resources (like psychologists, therapists, social workers) that no other preschool could possibly provide. We ran him through the child find program [this is a Colorado program designed to evaluate children w/ learning disabilities in primary education], when his teachers suspected some possible sensory integration issues. He was tested but they found no substantial sensory integration issues (on the spectrum, he was low, although he has a few traits like sensitivity to clothing, but none of the truly serious ones--fear of touch, chewing, mouthing, etc) and no further reason to classify him as special education at that time. We continued on at The Preschool throughout the year. I think he came a long way there, although he still has some major obstacles in front of him.

His principal issue is impulse control. He wants attention, he wants it now. He wants to be first, not second. He wants to touch object X, nothing can stop him. He and I use the vocabulary of "keeping control" or "getting under control" and talk about his "control panel." If you've seen the JamieLee Curtis book "It's Hard to Be Five," you'll understand the visual that he and I talk about with the control panel. He understands that Control is his job, but he still really struggles with it. It's hard to watch him because he is often so upset after he loses control. He talks about how he tries but then he forgets... Which I suppose is the ultimate issue with impulse control, isn't it?

Working with The Preschool during the school year was wonderful. We set up a system where I got a daily progress report page that gave him happy faces or sad faces for the different sections of the day. We were able to see the trend of difficult times (transitions, nap--he is so happy to be done with institutionalized naptime, afternoon centers), and we saw the phases of issues that he had. He and his teacher would go through the page together in the late afternoon, and they would talk about the choices he had made,what had been good and what had not been so good. The idea was to reward him for jobs well done, but to help make me aware of the issues going on day-to-day so that I could enforce at home the behaviour at school. I kept a sticker chart--one sticker for each happy face--at home that when full resulted in a kind of reward (some were big, some were little). Additionally, the days with more sad than happy faces would result in some kind of "hits home" punishment at home, like no television, computer time, no play with our neighbor friend, etc. I saw a lot of improvement, and most of all, self awareness of how controlling himself is his job, cannot be blamed on the situation or other kids.

I also have talked to a child psychologist about The Kid. He has not yet met The Kid, and probably won't for a couple more months. Like the pediatricians, he has told me to stay the course with him, provide him stability (which I certainly try to do) and consistency, and when he's more mature, we can start working on psychological analyses and tests. He has also met with The Preschool's psychologist and a County School District social worker. They all say about the same thing. Good job, Mom, keep up the good work. I kind of think the good work has got to really start in earnest now, though, as he is now in school with the kids and in the system I hope he will be with for the next 13 years.

I think the key to helping The Kid is keeping a steady flow of information coming and going between us. I need to know what's going on, because if I ask him, he'll tell me everything's great. He's such an incredible kid, he's so smart, he is so bright, compassionate and has a love for life that has taught me so much as a parent and, well, human being. I just want him to be a success at school, and as we both know, being bright and passionate doesn't mean that he will fit in at school. It's the culture of school that is our problem, not the academics. Just have a three minute conversation with him and you will know he's smart, willing and ready for the academic stuff.


So, I wrote her all of this. She finally wrote me back today and thanked me for my LONG email. That cracked me up because, yes, it was long, but why not cut the crap and just put it all out on the table? This is what you're up against, Teach, but you also have the mother who is so involved, she just might start to haunt your dreams.

She also agreed to the daily progress report thing. And Dammit if The Kid isn't kicking and hitting on the playground. WHAT TO DO? I certainly don't hit and kick him, where does he get that kind of aggression? It's that impulse thing. If I didn't have a good impulse control, I might hit or kick at least 5 people per day.

Anyway, better sign off before you say, thanks for the LONG post, yo.

Meet The Kid

The Kid is a classic "spirited child." Mary Sheedy Kurcinka started writing about the spirited child in the seventies, and describes them as a child who is MORE. I love her description because the more common way of referring to this type of kid is to call them "difficult" or "clearly insane" or simply to say, "that kid has issues, yo." Calling The Kid spirited embraces his personality for all that it is but doesn't cast it in a negative light.

So, the main characteristics of the "Spirited Child" are :

• INTENSITY (loud and dramatic-focused outward, quiet and intently observant - focused inward)
• PERSISTENCE ("lock in" to important ideas, love to debate, goal oriented)
• SENSITIVITY (easily overstimulated by their environment, low sensory thresholds to any of the five senses)
• PERCEPTIVENESS (easily distracted, notice everything going on all the time)
• ADAPTIBILITY (don't transition/shift from one activity to another easily)

In other words, spirited children are "more" of each characteristic. A spirited child is not necessarily ADD or ADHD, although they can be diagnosed as such. The Kid has not been diagnosed with any disability or disorder, although he is admittedly too young for the full psychiatric evaluation (or at any rate we're waiting until he gets older). Spirited children are often gifted, although that's not a given. Mine clearly is a genius and will be the leader of the free world someday (if he can make it through kindergarten).

To be the parent of a spirited child alternatively inspires me and drives me to drink (not literally, well, kind of). The Kid is so intense, is so persistent, is so perceptive. It truly amazes me.

So, that said, The Kid is a handful. He is also a force of nature that must be enjoyed.

We went bowling yesterday. He was DYING to go bowling. We played with the bumpers up, played two games and both games, I only beat him by about 15 points. Never broke 100, shoot, barely broke 80. All this, with bumpers.

So we were leaving the bowling alley and The Kid asks if he could have his birthday party at the bowling alley. His birthday is not for another 6 months, but we've been planning this 6th birthday party since, well, 15 minutes after his 5th birthday party. He was trying to sell me on the idea and said, "We could have a sweet party here, Mom." Sweet. He's been in kindergarten for three days and he's talking like Napoleon Dynamite. I bet he's got some great skillz.