Barnmaven

Boat...missed

Maura Kelly missed it by MILES.  Not only in her article denigrating overweight people and whether or not a television show should be showing displays of affection between them, but in her "apologetic" remarks that were edited into the post.

Ms. Kelly believes that anyone who is overweight can change that problem simply by eating unprocessed, healthy foods and exercising. 

Ms. Kelly said in her apology that she thinks its "great to have people of all shapes and healthy sizes represented in magazines (as, it bears mentioning here, they are in Marie Claire) and on TV shows--and that in my post, I was talking about a TV show that features people who are not simply a little overweight, but appear to be morbidly obese. (Morbid obesity is defined as 100% more than their ideal weight.) "

While I concur that for many people who struggle with weight that much of the issue can be addressed by addressing issues of diet and exercise, for many other people the issue is far more complex than calories in vs. calories out.  It is.

When we focus only on the mechanics of obesity - diet and exercise - we miss the mark by miles.  No one becomes morbidly obese by accident.  Nobody just 'forgets' to eat right.  Its just not that simple.

Unless we address important underlying issues, we won't get anywhere.  Until healthy food is more readily available and affordable than high-calorie, high-fat, high sugar crap, we won't get anywhere.  When its cheaper to buy a Big Mac than it is to buy a healthy meal, we won't win this battle.  When people in economically depressed areas don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, when the food that they can buy in the highest quantities are the foods with the lowest nutritional value, we won't succeed.  Until we address the issues of self hatred or PTSD that haunt many people with eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia, we won't get anywhere.  Until we stop bombarding our young people with the idea that unless they are physically perfect they're worthless, we won't get anywhere.

And most importantly, every time we send people who aren't thin the message that their weight is more important than who they are as a person, we won't win this battle.  Stop overlooking fat people.  Not only do they have feelings too (which honest to GOD should go without saying), they are more than likely FAR more sensitive to comments about their appearance than YOU are. 

Don't tell me that an actor who happens to be overweight is less deserving of being in a sitcom than an actor who is thin.   Dont' tell me that a brilliant, funny, beautiful heavy person isn't a better actor and more worth my admiration than some skinny, pretty trainwreck like Lindsey Lohan.

What I want for the people I love is for them to be happy where they are, with who they are.  If they're not happy in the skin they're in, I support anything they need to do to get to that point.  But its not my job to tell them how they should look, how they should feel, what they should eat, how they should exercise.  I choose my friends by far more complex criteria than their physical appearance. 

Fact is, if you look at a person who is overweight and ALL you see is their weight?  You feel superior because you're thin and they're fat?  You think you're a better person?  You're more screwed up than they are.  Period.  Shut the hell up and go look in the mirror.  Point your judgmental finger at yourself and solve your OWN problems.  Look in your soul and find a little compassion.  Stop making assumptions about how that person got to be where they are in life.  Accept that the world isn't going to conform to your demands and expectations, and open your mind to the thought that people who don't look like you have every bit as much value, are every bit as smart, creative, funny, capable and wonderful as anyone else.

Maura Kelly, you missed the boat, sweetheart.  Its not as simple as food, and its not as shallow as representation.  Its about throwing aside the assumptions of your own experience, seeking the humanity that exists in each and every one of us and honoring that FIRST.   Its about opening your mind to the idea that beauty wears many faces and they don't all look like YOU.

 

***thanks to Adrienne and her amazingly well-written blog post for bringing this subject to my attention and my soapbox to my feet.

When helping isn't helping

I think its a given that dysfunctional relationships breed dysfunction.  Personality and past have a lot to do with the level of bad juju you start a relationship with, but the dynamics of the relationship develop over time and create lasting habits.

I wasn't always codependent.  There were years and relationships in my life where I didn't take responsibility for another human being's happiness or discontent, success or failure.  It occurs to me those relationships might not have been the healthiest or best, and so they ended eventually.  I can only remember one relationship in my past, though, where the mutual level of dysfunction matched the last 10 years of my life.  In my memory it seems to have been a very long term relationship, but in reality it was probably not that long at all, a few months or a year.  The habits I picked up from it have caused a lot of hurt to me and to other people, though.  It was when I met someone who was also codependent that those issues blew up into something worse than unmanageable.

(Interesting side note, I discovered last week that the man I dated for a short while back in the 1980's is still the #1 most wanted deadbeat parent in the state of New Jersey.  He owes over $54,000 in child support.  How awful is THAT?  Hey, at least I can say "I dated a guy who was Number One!")

One of the most harmful things I have done in my relationships is to continually try to "help" people.  In reality, what I did was enable people to be doing things that really weren't healthy or good for them.  I tried to fix things for them instead of letting them fix things themselves, thereby teaching them to be helpless.  I remember offering to be the stand-in for my ex and his ex because dealing with her was so upsetting to him.  It seemed like the right thing to do at the time -- I thought it would help him be less angry and upset, thereby killing two birds with one stone.  I would help him and myself at the same time.  How silly it was of me to presume to make decisions for him regarding his son, or to insert myself into a relationship that I had no business being part of.  I wasn't my stepson's parent, and I didn't have the right to be his father's voice in dealings with his mother.  I also hurt my ex by not allowing him to work through his issues in that relationship on his own; by helping him avoid the problem, I helped prolong and worsen it.  In short, I messed up, royally.

As I continue to recover I am trying to learn how to hear other people's problems without trying to fix them.  At first it seems cruel to let someone suffer, but over time it begins to feel more natural.  I can let somebody vent, let them know I hear how they are feeling, have empathy for what they are going through, but recognize that they are capable of managing their own lives and problems.  Its something I'm also trying to learn to do as a parent.

There are times when our children need something from us, something we ought to give them, and that is when it is helpful to them for us to provide assistance.   When they are babies, they need everything from us - without loving hands to feed, clothe, bathe and transport them, they would wither and die.  As they grow older, though, they need to learn how to do things for themselves.  It starts with simple things and over time encompasses the most complex decisions about who they are, what they believe, how they should handle their own affairs.

Today I got a call from my son's school.  He was in the nurse's office, crying inconsolably.  His sensory issues had kicked in and he couldn't stand the feel of his feet or his socks.  Rather than just take them off, he was having a downright fit about them.  He does this at home a lot.  Sometimes its the shoes or socks, other times its his pants or his shirt or his hair.   He'll be sitting doing something, and suddenly he'll begin shrieking and tearing at whatever item is causing the offense.  Its hard to know how to respond to these outbursts.  There's a big part of me that wants to do anything, anything at all to help him feel better.  Over time, though, I've seen that there's not a whole lot I CAN do.  If I try to help him with something he'll scream at me.  If I get upset because he's upset, I simply escalate him further.

I think the school nurse was really taken aback when I suggested to her that she simply leave him alone.  I can hear the thoughts spinning now, "Is she really that cold-hearted?  How could she suggest I ignore her son's crying?  How mean!"  The truth is, leaving him alone is the best thing I can do for him.  Because his issues aren't caused by the actual item of clothing in question but instead by his neurological response to stress and the smallest discomfort, I'm not helping him by sitting and cuddling him while he screams or even asking him what I can do for him, or trying to get him different socks or different pants.  What he needs is to be left alone, without any pressure from me, so that he can calm down and start to feel better.

I discovered this by accident on a day when I was busy getting ready for work.  He started flipping out about his hair, and I was so late that I couldn't do anything for him.  Didn't have time.  And so I just said as calmly and lovingly as I could, "I can't help you now.  You'll have to figure this out for yourself."  And eventually, he did.  My mother has seen the same thing happen at her house.  He'll start yanking on his shirt and screaming and she'll see if he's okay, and then say "Okay, that's enough,"  and walk away.  Sometimes it takes him longer than others, but eventually, he gets to feeling better and less anxious, and he pulls himself together.  The more we let him do this on his own, the better he gets at it.  I'm not going to lie and say that there are days when I'm already stressed out about other things that he goes off on a shriek bender that I don't feel like I'm losing my mind right along with my will to live, that there aren't days when I snap at him to please quit it right now fortheloveofgod!  Of course there are.   But he's getting better at it and so am I.  And so I learn, that sometimes the best way of helping someone is to not help them at all.  My son, he teaches me that.

Rolling along

Years ago I dated an older man, whose favorite response to "How are you?" was, "Rolling like thunder down the road of life." 

Five or six days ago, I think what I was doing was more of a crabwalk, and I've not quite hit "thundering", but at least I'm picking up speed.  Rolling like...a Red Flyer wagon wheel, or maybe a big, rather odd-shaped rock that tumbles down a slope.

And so, amidst what seemed at first to be a very terrible week, there was a bright spot or two.  The birthday of my daughter, the support of friends, the warm fur of my horses when I warm my cold hands under their manes on a cold morning.  The sweet brown eyes of my dogs as they gaze at me in love.  The warm weight of a cat who has taken my sitting down as an invitation to have a snooze on my lap. 

If I am grateful for anything today it is that when life seems hardest to bear, when I begin to wallow in those thoughts of "I hate having to do all of this by myself" that I realize I am not by myself.  In those times when I feel I just can't take one. more. step. -- He's there.  It seems odd that struggles might be the best way to grow my faith, but its true.  I'm not one of those people who believes that every difficulty we face in life is somehow placed there by God to teach us something.  Oh sure, there are things we need to learn and perhaps there are times when that's the case, but I rather think that we have struggles and pain and misery and suffering because of the things we as human beings do to one another.  But that no matter what the pain, now matter how many tears we may cry over it, that God sees our pain and hurts right along with us.  That He loves me, and you, so very much that the simple fact that we have suffering breaks His heart.  And when I think of what Christ endured, I feel somewhat ashamed of my suffering because it doesn't begin to equate with what agony it must have been for Him. 

So there's gratitude.

Gratitude for other reminders;  that my Mom is, always has been, and always will be the kind of mother who loves her children and feels that her job of providing band-aids for skinned knees doesn't end when we graduate from high school.  In the absence of daycare and the necessity of still getting to the office for meetings and to accomplish my job during what is our busy season, my mom didn't wait to be asked for help, she cleared her schedule and pitched in by picking C up from school and getting A off the bus.  She came to my house and folded laundry and did crafts with the kids and fed them lunches and snacks and dinners. 

Gratitude for new things learned; that even though in my self-pity parties I often feel that I am the only person who is handling everything and being consumed with worry and anxiety over my child's struggles, that they have a father who worries about them every bit as much.  Who will take C to his Doctor's appointment today because it was the only appointment we could get and I would like to make it to work again. 

Gratitude that I have an employer who is flexible and who values families.  A boss who says "Go do what you need to do." 

I found a solution that I think will work; a mom who gave up half her family's income to be with her kids until they are in school full time, who has a sibling with issues just like my children, who in all ways appears calm, patient and who loves kids.  Who, for what I can afford to pay, will pick my children up from school three days a week and alleviate the need for my struggling son to be in an aftercare environment that is chaotic and noisy and completely overstimulating and overwhelming for him.  The first day he didn't have to go there he was so much better.  Mom and I both thought he seemed relieved that he didn't have to go to group aftercare anymore. 

We started an additional medication last Friday for the ADHD and we increased the dosage on his medication for Bipolar.  The aggressive behavior tapered off significantly this week and he has gotten some good reports from school.  He's still very active - overly so, and perhaps the second medication isn't quite the right one - but we are on the right track.

So we're rolling right along.  Waiting for the next bump in the road, but I know we'll get over it when it inevitably appears.

 

Make it work

Count me among those who find ADHD to be a positive force.  So many things about me that I have learned over the years to be true assets are gifts from my ADHD.  I get things done.  Lots of things.  I manage multiple competing priorities and countless tasks seemingly at the same time.  I sometimes feel as if I never stop doing something.  Even if my body is motionless, my mind is awhirl.  I can multitask the bejeezus out of things.  I can fold laundry while eating dinner while talking to my mom on the phone while buckling my daughter's bicycle helmet while watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  The stark beauty that ADHD has brought to my life leaves me arching my eyebrow and cocking my head to the side at those who consider it to be a "disorder." 

I realize that for many people ADHD can be crippling.  For those who successfully learn to live with ADHD, though, its like harnessing a tornado and using it to power the state of New York.

Long before I learned that my behaviors were actually symptoms I created coping mechanisms.  I'll often read books about living with ADHD and find myself thinking, "Yes, I already do that.  And that.  And that.  That too.  Tell me something I DON'T know!"  I make lists.  I use multiple calendars.  I write notes to myself.  The most important note is the one on the door to the garage that reads "DID YOU TAKE YOUR MEDS TODAY?"  Believe me, its stopped me in my tracks more than once.

But I forget things.  Constantly.  I forget about meetings, appointments.  If I forget to put it in my calendar right at the moment I make it, its gone.  Thank God for my blackberry. 

Having children with ADD and ADHD taught me that I needed to get even better at this gig, because my kids are looking to me to teach them strategies to manage their lives and their behavior.

Some of the things that I find most helpful:

1.  Keep a central calendar. 

Some people have calendars for work and for home and are able to remember to do things from two reference points.  I find it works best for me to put everything that needs remembering on one calendar and then to find ways to get that information to follow me wherever I am.  The Lotus Notes calendar at my office is my primary calendar.   It is synchronized to my Blackberry, which I carry with me wherever I go.  When I make a new appointment, I put it in my blackberry, which adds it to my calendar at work. To keep some things private, I also keep a Google calendar, but the beauty of it is that I can set my Lotus Notes calendar to retrieve all the information from the Google calendar and display it with everything else.  Oh God, do I love technology.

2.  Make your calendar work for you

One of the hardest things for me is to remember to do recurring tasks.  Dental appointments, vaccines, flea treatment for the dogs, worming the horses are extremely difficult for me to remember.  Time has almost no spatial value for me, and so I rely on my calendar to tell me that its time to take care of things.   Having a PDA that is synched to my calendar means my reminders follow me wherever I go.   I put in repeating appointments for things like vaccines, dental appointments, worming.  Garbage days.  Birthdays.  Anniversaries.  Then I set my calendar to give me a reminder minutes, days or hours prior to the event.   For my kids' birthday parties I created events in Google Calendar and I sent invitations to myself via email. 

3.  Organize your personal space

Like many people with ADHD and processing disorders, a cluttered environment means cluttered thinking.  I can't concentrate when my house or desk are messy, so I set aside time at least once a week to file, put things away, and organize the things that need to be handled into a central location where I cannot overlook them.  "Out of sight out of mind" applies - if it needs to be taken care of, I have to make sure it stays in view or it will be forgotten.  What has been set aside to be handled must also be prioritized.  Sometimes I will use labels or sticky notes:  "DO TODAY"  "Deadline is next Friday."  I tackle big projects in fifteen minute increments.  I just emptied the garage of all of the things my ex had stored in it, so I'm taking it one section at a time.  I mostly hate the Fly Lady for insisting that I put on pants and shoes every day, but for giving you tips on cleaning a room, she's the bomb diggety.  The Fly Lady method of room cleaning: 

• Pick a room to declutter
• Have three boxes:  Put away, Throw Away, Give Away
• Set an egg timer for fifteen minutes
• Anything that does not belong in that room goes in a box, everything that does belong there gets put where its supposed to go.  If you haven't used it in six months, it goes in the Throw Away or the Give Away box, if it belongs in another room, it goes in the Put Away box.
• When the timer dings, STOP
• Take the Put Away box and take everything in it to the room it belongs in and put it in its place. 
  
• Take the Throw Away box straight out to the garbage.
• Put the Give Away box in the back of your car and the next time you leave the house take it to the Salvation Army or the Goodwill or the Habitat for Humanity or the charity of your choice.

See how easy that is?  Love it. Even someone with ADD can do THAT.

4.  No open ends

I find that unless I set drop-dead dates for projects and tasks they will remain eternally unfinished.  When my boss gives me a project without a timeline, I push back for a "required by" date.  Otherwise he might as well have taken that project and tossed it in the garbage can.  It would be more likely to get finished that way than be completed by me.

5.  Structure is your friend

ADHD has the tendency to make me feel like a bit of a free spirit.  My tendency and desire is to follow each whim that touches my soul, and if allowed free reign, I will flit endlessly from one unfinished thought or activity to the next.  Once my children were diagnosed I was forced to abandon my wanton ways and build a structure to keep us all from going starkly insane.  We have a routine that we follow as closely as possible every day.  I try to keep the structure alive even on the days when the kids are with their dad.  I have a morning order of doing things and an evening order of doing things.  Alarm set for the same time, workout routine, breakfast & coffee, medicine, shower, get dressed, feed animals, leave for work.  Come home, let dogs out, clean litter box, feed cats, feed dogs, feed horses, feed chickens and collect eggs.  Make dinner, do dishes.  Throw in one load of laundry and fold another.  Free time until bedtime, which is around the same time each night.

6.  Lighting

This is really important, believe it or not.  Standard flourescent bulbs in the office and school create a flicker that is detectable by the ADHD brain.  It tires me out and makes it very hard to concentrate.  I took all of the long bulbs out of the ceiling lights in my office and put in desk and floor lamps instead.  It makes my environment far more soothing for my eyes and my brain.

7.  Communicate

I know this can be a toughie, but I have always found honesty to be the best policy.  I work hard, I'm smart and I'm fast.  I can GET THINGS DONE.  But I have periods of time where I can't concentrate as well, I lack focus, and I forget things.  So my boss is very aware of my condition and when I'm struggling I let him know about it.  He in turn gives me some flexibility and understanding, and our agreement is that he lets me know right away - NICELY - if my distractedness or my behavior is a problem.  We work together to help me be successful.

My doctors, dentist and child caregivers also all know that I have ADHD.  This helps them to be a little more understanding if I'm late or I forget an appointment or a meeting.  If I find someone who is intolerant of my ADHD, I change providers to find someone who is.

ADHD makes life challenging, but it also makes life interesting.  When I harness the extra abilities that ADHD gives me, I can make it work for me instead of against me.

If you are an adult with ADHD, so can you.  If you are a parent of a child with ADHD, you can teach them how to think positively about their condition and how to implement structure into their life in order to be successful.

 

4,730,400 minutes

    

Three weeks early, she arrived.  There were times I didn't think we'd survive her toddler years, or even her preschool years, and yet here we are.  

This summer on our beach trip, she had fallen off her bike.  Barefoot, I ran over to pick her up off the ground and comfort her.  She was still gulping on tears as I walked across the little yard to the rental house.  I stepped on a spiny plant and got a foot full of thorns.  I yelped and hobbled to the porch to inspect the damage.  Within seconds she was by my side, having completely forgotten her own hurt in her concern over mine.  She tenderly picked some twenty thorns out of the sole of my foot, apologizing if it hurt, asking me constantly, "Are you ok, Mommy?" 

She loves.  She is deeply empathic.

She loves to create.  She's always drawing, cutting, pasting, gluing.  Always bringing me something new to decorate my office.  Everything she makes is beautiful, colorful, expressive.  She is a true artist at heart.

She loves animals, and they love her right back.  My cat Juliet isn't really my cat anymore.  She'd rather be with her little Amazon queen, curled up and purring. The dogs, too.  They love to be near her, to lay on her bed or on the floor near her.  She is always petting them, hugging them, whispering her affection.

She's tall.  A full head and a half taller than most of her friends, and growing like a weed.  She's grown a full inch since this May.  Keeping her in clothes is keeping me in the poor house and I don't mind it for a second.

She's determined to be her own person.  She put pink streaks in her hair this summer, because she wanted to, not because her friends did it too.  Now the pink is fading and she wants to replace it with purple.

She is beautiful.  When she smiles, the world around me blazes with light.  When she laughs I hear the beautiful music of angels.  When she's engaged in playing and shouting with joy and laughter, I have to laugh too.  She makes me smile, all the time. 

She loves to sing, and she sings all the time, off key and with vigor.  When I sing to her at bedtime, she sings along: 

You're the end of the rainbow, my pot of gold

You're mommy's little girl to have and to hold

A precious gem is what you are, and you're daddy's bright and shining star

You're the spirit of Christmas, my star on the tree,

You're the Easter Bunny to daddy and me

You're sugar you're spice, you're everything nice

And you're Mommy's Little Girl

(Yes, we changed the words.  It suits us to do so)

I am so proud of my daughter.  I love every single thing about her, her heart, her mind, her beautiful thick brown hair and her amazing smile, her long legs and her freckled nose.  I love her quick mind, her big heart and her tight hugs. I love her so  much it takes my breath away. 

Happy birthday, baby girl. 

Kicked.

Out, that is.  Out of aftercare.  I knew it was coming, was trying to stay ahead of the curve but they beat me to it.

As time went by it was becoming painfully obvious that the hubbub and chaos of a large group aftercare program was not the right environment for my highly sensitive son.  I had hoped that the medication we just started him on would help, but it's still the same story, every single day.  Hitting.  Oppositional.  Can't sit still.  Won't participate.  Refuses to cooperate.  Runs out the door.

I start interviewing home care candidates tomorrow.  I can't afford it, but I hear that if I just leave him home alone for six hours with scissors and a hand grenade I'm probably crossing some sort of legal boundary, so home care it is.

Times like these I realize I need a wife to stay home and watch my kids.  Because, you know, the applicants are just lining up by the droves to get involved with the codependent, opinionated half-crazy middle-aged woman and her two non-neurotypical kids.  Can't you hear my phone ringing off the hook with all the guys asking me on a date?  No?  Yeah, you probably hear the same dead silence I do. Oh well, I suck at relationships anyway.

I'm ok.  Or at least, I will be.  So will C.  We just have some work to do to get there.

 

A Tooth's Tale, or Why I Can't Get to Work on Time **Updated**

 

My 9 year-old started getting her adult teeth early, and when she loses one these days, we're all Ho, Hum, better ring up the Tooth Fairy and see what the going rate is this week, when what she'd really like is for the Tooth Fairy to deliver Justin Bieber, singing and dancing, for her birthday party.  She had so many problem teeth as a toddler that when the last silver cap took its time to finally work its way out, I was ready to yank it with pliers.  We haven't dealt with a first loose tooth in well over four years now. 

When my son announced he had a loose tooth last week, I was so excited.  He showed me where it was wiggling in the bottom front of his mouth, and I told him that it was finally HISturn for the Tooth Fairy to start visiting!  Yay, you're a Big Boy now!  Every day he would sit there with his fingers in his mouth, wiggling and wiggling that tooth.  Oh, the fun and excitement.  Oh, the joy! 

Oh, the SOMEONE GET A SHOTGUN AND END MY MISERY NOW.

Why?  You want to know why? 

Yesterday.  Breakfast.  The tooth is wiggling so far back and forth you can see the underside of it - but it won't come out.  I'm standing at the counter contemplating making another pot of coffee before church and out of nowhere, from the breakfast bar, a bloodcurdling shriek so loud and frightening it almost made me wet my pants.  I literally jumped four feet across the kitchen to my screaming son.  "Oh my God, baby, what's wrong, what hurts?  Are you OK? What's the matter?" He sits there screaming with his hands over his mouth.  "Did you bite your tongue, sweetie?  Let Mommy see."   "NO MOMMY!!  My tooth!  My TOOTH HURTS!!!!" 

Sensory issues and loose teeth, apparently, are not a match made in heaven, when every bite of one's breakfast makes one's loose tooth move about excessively in one's mouth.

He won't let me pull the tooth out.  He won't pull it out himself.  As of this morning it was hanging on by a thread and still, he won't let me pull it out.  And every bite of food he takes, every snack, every meal, he screams like a FREAKING BANSHEE because his tooth is bothering him.

If that tooth doesn't fall out today I swear to GOD I'm going to knock him out with Benadryl (there, I just lost my last follower.  You know what?  I FEED THEM MCDONALD'S, TOO!) and go after it with a pair of pliers.  My nerves can't take much more of this.

 

UPDATED:  MONDAY AFTERNOON

The tooth came out.  The tooth fairy got quietly drunk on a cheap bottle of wine to celebrate.

Forward and Back

 

He doesn't sit still in class.  He hides behind the door when the teacher asks her class to move to the reading rug.  He takes the staples out of the stapler and pokes a little girl with them.  He pretends to be sick so the school nurse will call me to come take him home.

---

At the beginning of the ride, a mule in our group gets antsy and suddenly squirts sideways into the horses waiting to go through the gate.  Like a small brown bowling ball, he scatters the other horses like pins.  Bugs jumps ten feet sideways and tries to bolt.  He is frightened of the mule now.  He doesn't want it near him and keeps edging away from him as we head out on our ride.

---

He goes two days at after care without an incident report or without someone having to be called to come get him.  He grins as wide as the ocean when I tell him how proud I am of the way he controlled his behavior, and practically skips all the way to the car.  He lights up when I tell him this means he has earned his toys back, and is so excited to play with them he chatters all the way home.

---

He recovers from his initial scare and as we head up the road toward the first set of clues, he relaxes his neck and lets his head lower.  He walks along nicely , not trying to break into a jog or trying to crowd out the other horses.  He responds to my leg and seat cues and moves out at a brisk walk.  His ears are forward and he starts to look content. 

---

His daycare provider sends home a report:  He was scratching and kicking another child today.  It wasn't bad enough for them to call me and come get him, but it was worth an incident report.  His toys go back into timeout as he screams "NO!" at me and tells me "I HATE you!!"  He spends the evening in timeout.  I catch him swatting at the dog, who has done nothing more egregious than be in his presence.  He screams at me, "GO AWAY!" when I ask him to use "nice hands" with the animals.

---

My trail riding partner takes her horse Maggie over to the second clue in this set while I wait at the first clue so that we can get our bearing lines and find the intersection.  To get to the second clue Maggie has to go over a slight rise.  The moment she is out of sight he panics.  I attempt to let him walk over to where she is, but he tries to trot, to run.  I pull my "oh shit" rein a few times to get him stopped, but when he comes out of the last circle, he goes straight up.  I am afraid we are going to go over backward, but he somehow regains his balance.  He stands, shaking and breathing hard while I try to recover my composure and figure out the best next move.

***

He spends the afternoon with his grandmother at my house.  To pass the time, she picks up toys and puts things away, folds some laundry and sweeps my floors.  As he sees her cleaning, of his own initiative, he goes to his own room and he cleans up every single toy from the floor and puts them in his toybox. I catch him sitting on the easy chair in the living room, our little cat on his lap.  He is petting her and she is relaxed, purring and happy.

---

As we try to regain some time on the other teams, we let the horses move out.  Smoothly, he begins to trot.  When I ask him to give me his nose, he breaks perfectly at the poll, and as I let the energy flow down into my seat, he begins to extend his trot, throwing his front feet forward while still remaining fluid and smooth, keeping his neck low and his nose pointed straight at the ground.  It feels like perfection and I suppose it looks the same.

---

Every day, we have a measure of success and a measure of failure.  I know that life is a mixed bag, and that whenever we have a bad moment that doesn't mean that all is lost or that I should give up the battle.  Keep looking for solutions.  Don't give up on him.  Try to have some patience and when you have to discipline, do something that makes doing the wrong thing hard and doing the right thing easy.  Be positive, even when he isn't.  Remember, we're not looking for perfection -- we're looking for progress.  Celebrate every single win and make sure he knows how proud and thankful you are for his successes.

For every step back, we take another forward, maybe even two.  Its all in the balance.   If I don't lose sight of today because I'm too busy looking for the day when every day is good, I'll forget to notice the many beautiful moments that happen right in front of me. 

On friends and gay teen suicides and other random things

I haven't written a blog post in so long you probably all thought I'd skipped town with a hot young Flamenco dancer.  You did, didn't you?  Admit it.

I didn't mean to take a vacation from blogging, but honestly, I didn't have much to say.  My friend Jaimee, the original vagabond, finally showed up on my doorstep after a meandering drive West from New Jersey.  I wasn't sure when she'd arrive or how long she'd stay.  Unfortunately it was horrible timing work-wise, so I couldn't really take any days off.  When I was home and got done slogging through all the other stuff I needed to do, the last thing I wanted to do was sit at my computer when I could be spending time with one of the most lovely people on the planet.

When you're me, or when you're like me, friendships and people aren't easy.  As Jaimee would say, I'm crunchy on the outside but the crunchy layer is only there to mask my soft nougaty center.  I'd like to think that as I get older I get more comfortable with who I am and less afraid to show my feelings, but I'm sure I'm not as far along that path as I'd like to be.  People scare me.  I don't trust easily, and I have a terrible phobia of being made to look ridiculous.  The end result is that I will twist myself into the most convoluted of knots to avoid allowing anyone to see how sensitive I truly am. 

Jaimee is one of those people that can get along with just about anyone.  She's part tree hugger, part hippie chick, part beautiful, sophisticated center of attention at parties and she can put on a dress and heels and have every guy in the room wishing she'd dance with him.  In many ways you would think that we have nothing in common aside from our mutual love of nature and the outdoors.  When I left New Jersey for Washington Jaimee gifted me with a beautiful necklace - a Yin/Yang symbol made of a white and a black pearl on a silver circle.  She told me that she thought it was symbolic of our friendship. 

What we found, though, when we were comfortable with each other to actually talk about the important stuff, is that we are inwardly very much alike.  She's just far better than I am at masking her vulnerability.

So we've been hanging out a bit the last week and a half.  We didn't *do* much, really, just sort of hung around.  Sadly I was unable to convert her into a Cowgirl.  I like her anyway.

 

It was good times. 

~@~@~@~@~@~

On the home front, C started medication two weeks ago.  We've been gradually increasing dosage, and he's been doing better.  He had two days last week that he didn't get written up at aftercare, which was a first.  He's still apparently not doing all that great fitting into the routine in Kindergarten, or at least that's what the prinicipal observed to me, since his teacher hasn't communicated a damn thing.  I requested last Friday that I get an email from his teacher just letting me know what kind of a day he had - even just a sentence or two so that I could communicate that to his doctor.  Its Thursday.  Guess how many reports I've gotten from his teacher?  Yeah.  I requested the IEP testing be conducted and that's underway.  I know a bit more now than I did when this started with A a few years ago.  I now understand that the IEP is not only to address cognitive function but life-skills as well.  So even if the testing shows no cognitive impairment, under the I.D.E.A. he is still entitled to assistance in social and life skills. 

And because I'm in a good mood at the moment, I'll refrain from discussing the nightmare arguments I've had with the insurance company over coverage and refills. 

I have friends and acquaintances I've met who are very anti-medication, and friends who are pro-medication except when it comes to their own children.  Lest anyone think that my very first avenue of approach is to medicate, let me clarify a few things.

From my perspective, medication isn't always a requirement when behavioral problems are present.  As an adult with ADHD, I'm not even certain that medication is a necessity for all children who have the disorder.  I had no idea I had ADHD until I was almost 40 years old.  I spent my whole life learning how to live with it with no pharmaceutical help whatsoever.  It CAN be done...but I can tell you from experience that it's not easy. 

When it came to my own children, my first steps were to find out what was wrong and to understand how much it was a problem.  We tried things prior to going the medication route, and honestly, I'm almost sorry we waited as long as I did.  My daughter's quality of life before Focalin and Lamictal was so awful compared to how it is now that there I times I feel guilty for not pursuing it sooner.   We actually waited a little bit longer to medicate C than we did with his sister.  His issues have manifested much differently, and I wasn't really certain how he would react to a school environment. 

For my family, medication has made a colossal difference.  But I also respect that it is not the avenue of choice for every family.  At the best, though, I hope that parents of children who have ADHD, Bipolar illness, Anxiety disorder or any other neurological disorder that affects corporate governance and cognitive function will at least consider looking into medication. 

I've heard so often, "Medication just turns your kid into a zombie."  I can't promise that every medication out there won't turn your kid into a zombie -  but I can tell you that there are very likely many that won't.  We did find one medication that had results we disliked - weight gain, general listlessness - and very few positive results, so we discontinued it very quickly and found something that worked better.  I can't imagine any parent that wants their child to be a zombie.  I mean, can you imagine how hard it is to clean all of those brains out of their school clothes? 

 

~@~@~@~@~@~@~

Finally, if you've stuck with me this far, I will weigh in on the hot topic of the news, blogosphere and twitterverse this week - suicide amongst gay teens.

It is distressing and disheartening that even with all we know now about sexual orientation being an integral part of a person's hardwiring, with LGBT stars living open lives, with television shows and movies and reality shows either featuring LGBT cast or at least having them as key cast members.  Unfortunately our growing awareness and acceptance hasn't reached every family, particularly people in small, conservative towns, and the social conservatives among us have only stepped up the hate rhetoric in response to such wide acceptance. 

I hope that the hard of heart among us will be moved by the recent attention to this issue, that anyone who is a parent or an aunt, uncle, grandparent, teacher, classmate, or spiritual leader will read the following statistics and if they have been unsupportive before, will mend their ways:

According to a recent study, LGBT teens who have experienced rejection from their family are

• 8.4 times more likely than their non-LGBT peers to attempt suicide;
• 3.4% more likely to use drugs; and
• 3.4 times more likely to engage in unprotected sexual activities than their peers who have received family acceptance and support.

There are people who want to argue that the bible preaches against homosexuality.  I'm no biblical scholar, and I won't pretend to be.  There are plenty of respected scholars out there, though, who have researched the etymology and original context of the earliest writings the bible was translated from, and who have concluded that the writers may have been speaking about something entirely differently than the current commonly accepted meaning.  Issues of biblical scholarship aside, as a Christian, I find that my understanding of God and Christ are so much bigger than what one can find in a book.  If you want to see the love of Christ in living color, all you have to do is look at the eyes and hearts of the people around you.  In my belief system, each and every one of us is a child of God and each and every one of us is loved equally.  I could say more about my opinion of people who aren't biblical scholars, have never researched its many translations or read all the many versions and scholarly treatises regarding it, but are absolutely willing to take the word of some pastor or religious commentator that it is the unequivocal word of God and only the one translation they're reading from is the "right" one, but I won't.  It would be a waste of breath.

Science has taught us that being gay is not a choice, that it is the way people are born.  How can it be a sin to be born gay?  Seriously.  God doesn't make those kind of mistakes.  If God thought being gay was sinful, people wouldn't be born that way. I am so tired of Christians who need to feel morally superior to other people.  Stop being so damned judgmental, will you?  Your hatred and fear are, literally, killing our teenagers. 

~@~@~@~@~@~

 And finally, in other news, the chicken is off the nest and happily wandering around the yard eating worms like all good chickens should.

I know this was long.  I'm sorry.  I missed you.  How have you all been?