The first day of the last year
So. Seven years ago, when I started blogging, Chickadee was but a precocious 6-year-old finishing kindergarten. She alternately delighted and infuriated me, and I worried about her (a lot).
Today she is a precocious 13-year-old, starting her last year of middle school. She alternately delights and infuriates me, and I still worry about her, but less than I used to. She’s getting where she needs to go, even if that does mean she’s snarly and grouchy and mostly unappreciative of the fact that I made her a special breakfast and packed her the lunch she requested. Instead of saying “I’m sorry” she texted me from the bus to complain that she was the first one on and it would be a long ride and IF ONLY I’d let her take her iPod with her she’d have something to do. (My response: “Oh well. If only you weren’t so rotten.”)
We butt heads. We laugh together until we can’t breathe. I drive her crazy and embarrass her, and she takes me for granted and doesn’t listen until I get mad. She’ll be taller than me by the end of the school year, but I bet she’ll still sit on my lap. read more…
Hip hip, hippie-hoo-ray!
“I want to study chemistry,” he said. “Do you do that here?”
“Sure,” she said. “If you come here, you get to choose a lot of what you do. What do you like about chemistry?”
“I don’t really know, yet, I just think it would be neat.” He was playing with Legos in the middle of the floor, happily chatting, a far cry from his refusal to look at the new parapro the day before.
“Well, you can maybe choose that for some independent study, or when it’s time to do a group project you can pitch that to the other students and see if other people want to do it, too.” For the past half hour she had gamely jumped from topic to topic along with him, unperturbed by his non-sequitors and occasional lack of manners.
“I want to learn how to blow things up!” he said, sweeping his arms wide. As I barked his name and dropped my face into my hands, he laughed. “Just kidding!” he added. read more…
A tale of two orientations
Yesterday we got to go to the middle twice; first, for Chickadee’s 8th grade orientation, then later, for Monkey’s 6th grade one.
I took Chickie in the morning and marveled at how different it was, now, from her first foray into this building two years ago. She met up with friends easily, ran to greet and hug favorite teachers, and then parked herself at the brief assembly with her buds, leaving me happy to catch her glance now and then from the row behind them.
We picked up her schedule and discovered she hadn’t gotten a couple of teachers she’d wanted. Worse, it appeared many of her friends had the classes she didn’t. I braced for her disappointment.
And it didn’t come. read more…
Stalemate
Back in May, I baked a ginormous batch of my most sinful cinnamon rolls, and I packed up a plate of them—still warm—and took them over to the middle school. I opened our meeting there with a quick disclaimer: I will always ask for a lot, at these meetings. I’m there as my child’s advocate, and I want what I want. But, I always bake. I’m not there to make anyone mad. I want us to be a team. I am not averse to greasing the wheels with butter and frosting. Know this about me.
My speech (and my baking) were well-received. Our team from the elementary school came, too, and they were fantastic. On-task, forward-thinking, quick to tell the new team what they’ve learned about how Monkey works and how he’s best supported. They spoke of what a bright and loving kid he is under the right circumstances, and how most of the time he’s a delight. My mama bear heart, squeezed with trepidation at the start of the meeting, swelled with gratitude and pride. And make no mistake, we asked for a lot of things. We laid out what we felt he would need to succeed in middle school.
And they said yes, to everything we asked. So I began to make peace with him being ready to move on. read more…
Life is not a movie
Sometimes I think that Hollywood primes us to expect every life experience to have a Very Special Lesson or moment of tidy resolution at the end.
Life isn’t always like that. Life is unpredictable and messy and full of cliffhangers that never get resolved. Life doesn’t always hand us resolutions when we want them, or balanced victories to outweigh disappointments. Of course, if movies were more like life, people would throw popcorn and demand their money back.
Once upon a time, I learned this lesson the hard way. And I’m over at Off Our Chests to tell you about it. I bet you have a similar story, too.
Battle of the terrible commercials
On Friday night I collapsed into bed feeling decidedly off. It had been a long day and we’d been out in the heat and I figured I was just hot and tired. But on Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed and was considering a nap about five minutes later. Basically, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. There was no denying it: I was sick.
Otto, who was skeptical of my crazy diet plan from the start, was convinced I had somehow poisoned myself with the restrictive eating plan I’d been following. He lectured me about how I had “completely obliterated my immune system” and was now reaping the results. I rolled my eyes and agreed to drop the diet to placate him, although that was an easy thing to do as eating ANYTHING would clearly interfere with SLEEPING, which was the only thing I wanted to do for the next two days.
So I slept for most of the day, and then spent the evening on the couch watching quality television with my family. Read: We watched a Hoarders marathon. I don’t know that any of us consciously chose to watch it, it just sort of happened. And then we made an interesting discovery: The target audience for these shows are apparently women with digestive issues. read more…
This one time, at band camp…
So Chickadee made it through band camp without incident. I’m not gonna lie, we were pleasantly surprised. It is HOT and GRUELING and there were plenty of texts about who’d passed out and how sick she felt and more than a little angst over the enormity of the task before her. [Hint: Someone spent all of last year as first chair in the band. Guess whose ego was not quite prepared to be last chair despite being 1) the youngest 2) the newest and 3) the only non-high-schooler in her section?]
Now we go to a regular rehearsal schedule and soon—weekly football games. Friday afternoon found Chickadee sporting a stylish farmer tan and the biggest smile we’ve seen in months. After early dismissal she’d gone out to lunch with her section and was basking in the glow of being treated as an equal by the older kids over pizza. “I think I’ve got it,” she confided to me, a little bit proud and mostly amazed. “It got easier. It’s hard but it’s fun.”
And so last night we headed over for the first demonstration of the season, to be followed by a giant picnic of band families. (Apparently the last adhesive required to fully cement the bandie extended family is hot dogs and ketchup.) read more…
Hush, Baby
To recap: Monkey had to leave his social skills group last week, but this week he was allowed to return for the last session. There were apologies all around and he made a special effort to play nicely with the kid he clobbered last week, and as it was the wrap-up and party I think we were all happy to be able to end on a high note. But all was not sunshine and rainbows; he did end up under a table for part of the time, demanding that his therapist “just please make him shut up” (referencing a chatty kid who was getting on his nerves), and although SuperAspieDoc assured me it was fine and he handled it well—“He didn’t get violent! He asked for help!”—it only added to the growing knot of fear in the pit of my stomach.
We used to say that these episodes were so unlike him. More and more, the hyper-irritability and bursts of aggression ARE like him. Crowding out the clearer parts of him; dulling the brighter ones.
We still don’t know what we’re doing about school, with just a week left before classes start. I said to SuperAspieDoc “I know you can’t tell us what to do, but I kind of wish you would just tell us what to do.” And she acknowledged that she can’t make that choice for us, but did say she thinks it’s time to reevaluate his medications. read more…
I like to jumpstart with crazy
Hey, remember back when a group of us got together and started Five Full Plates and vowed to lose weight and exercise more and clean up our homes and face our fears and generally become better, smarter, faster, and thinner than ever before?
That was fun. During the challenges we put ourselves through there, I got a ton of crap done—and I also lost 10 pounds. I felt GREAT.
A year and a half later, I seem to have… gained most of it back. Not all of it—most of my “victory clothing” purchases still fit—but enough that I just feel gross. And as I discussed ad nauseum over on FFP back in the day, as someone who was stick skinny until about 35 or so, this whole “dieting” and “being healthy” thing remains kind of a mystery to me. I mean, in general I eat very healthy foods. But I also suck at any kind of moderation, and even if I’m eating healthy, overindulgence is still a problem. Also a problem: Ice cream. And popcorn with real butter. (Mmmmm… butter.)
So it was clearly time to Do Something. read more…
My first best friend
It’s Tuesday, and that means I’m over at Off Our Chests today.
Friendships come and go, but today I’m telling you about one of the best friends I ever had. Back then, I didn’t have a lot of friends, so she really meant the world to me.
(Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t have a lot of friends now, either. But I like to think I’m more well-adjusted than I used to be, regardless. Hush.)