Morning Ritual

I finish getting dressed and go to collect Lily.  The monitor told me she woke up about the same time I did this morning, a blessing, frankly, since it's been 4:00 a.m. for the past three or four weeks.   Emma's light halos her closed bedroom door and I say, "Good morning, Em," waiting for her answer before pushing open Lily's door.  When I enter her room she is sitting up in her bed waiting for me pleasantly.  I fold down the bed rail and she swings her legs over the side, holding my hand as we walk down the stairs. We walk carefully.  Her socks are slick on the hardwood steps and there have been many near-falls.

I help her into the bathroom and she sits as I start switching lights on.  Bathroom light, office Christmas tree, family room, kitchen, family room christmas tree. 

Every morning I feel like I forget a hundred little things.  This morning I see laundry baskets filled with folded clothes as I enter the family room.  My dad had folded the laundry in the baskets.  I chose not to put them away last night, tired from homework and housework and...workwork.  I forgot that choice until this morning.  This reminds me of the laundry needing to be transferred from the washing machine into the dryer, and the dry clothes waiting to be basketed.

"I'll be right back," I call to Lily, and I walk downstairs to my basement laundry room to pile the clean dry clothes into an empty basket from the dryer.  Then I transfer wet clothes from the washer into it.  Some days I rewash these because I forget they're there for a day or more, but today I judge that they hadn't sat long enough to need it.  I walk back upstairs and deposit the basket of clean clothes on the couch next to the baskets of folded clothes. 

The cat twines himself between my legs and meows softly, reminding me he needs to be fed.  I'll wait for Emma to do that. 

Lily gets up from the toilet and I hustle in to help her get dressed.  She finds the ipad and busies herself with YouTube videos of the Wiggles performing a skit about a princess who falls asleep for a hundred years.

Also forgotten were some dishes I left in the sink.  I start Emma's breakfast then begin rinsing plates to put in the dishwasher as Emma hurries through the room headed down into the basement. 


"What are you doing, Em?" I holler down to her.
"Looking for my clothes!" she replies.
"Did you try the couch first?" I ask her ironically, "I'd hate to see you waste a trip into the basement." 

There is silence for a moment, then, "Yeah, thanks," as I hear her climbing the stairs again.  She briefly rummages through the clothes in one of the baskets before grabbing joggers and a sweatshirt and heading back to her room.

 Something smells like it's burning, and I hurry to check the poptart in the toaster oven.  It seems fine, but I remove it anyway and put it on a plate.  The day before yesterday I forgot that Lily's lunch bag was sitting on top of the toaster oven and smelled it melting before I rescued it...mostly.

Lily is placing her ipad on top of the napkin rack at the kitchen table now.  Each time she places it atop the napkins it is slightly off to her eye.  And she picks it up and places it down again over and over.  Most of the time I can put this out of my mind and focus on what I'm doing.  This morning, though, she's knocked the napkins out of the rack and as she continues to try to place the iPad atop the rack she's scattering the napkins further and further across the table, widening her mess, increasing the entropy in the room.

I tell her to go into the family room and sit down with her iPad, something I'm not spectacular about being consistent with.  She obeys as I clean up the napkins, stacking and tidying them until they're in a neat pile, placing them into the napkin rack.  Lily is back now though, and immediately resumes her placing and replacing, hovering with her face a foot from the screen.  A periodic stream of questions that must be answered cycle from her lips.  I answer these automatically, without thought, sometimes incorrectly.  It doesn't seem to matter, this correctness.  If I'm wrong, she'll let me know.  If I'm right, she'll move to the next question.

"What is Lachey wearing?"
"Purple, like a snurple" (I add the snurple because it makes her laugh.  Now it belongs to the script)
"What color is Emma wearing?"
"Yellow," I reply.
"Like a marshmallow," she continues.  This is somewhat new and surprises me.
"Yeah, baby, that's a good one!  Yellow like a marshmallow."
And so on.

I send her back to the family room, telling her it's because she made a mess of the napkins.  She ignores this but goes and sits down anyway. 

I return to the fridge and get out the milk and cream.  I had forgotten to set the coffee maker to automatically brew, but blessedly did NOT forget to get it ready.  I mentally rejoice that I wasn't too lazy to do this and add one more thing to my growing list of "stuff to do before leaving for work".  I push the button to the coffee machine and the grinder begins to growl as it prepares the beans, scaring the cat, who has returned to rub against my legs, between and around them in a figure eight.

"Your mommy will feed you," I tell him, nudging him gently out of my way with my foot as I get my coffee mug and Emma's glass out of the cabinet.  I pour then set the drinks at the table when they're done and get out our vitamins.

Emma is back downstairs from getting dressed.  She sits.  Lily is back at the table. 

"How'd you sleep, baby?" I ask Emma.
"What's Lachey doing?" Lily asks
"Fine thanks," Emma responds, "How'd you sleep"
"He's waking up the princess," I say to to Lily, "I slept fine," I tell Emma.
"No he's holding her hand," Lily replies.
"Good," Emma replies.

Lily hovers a bit too close to Emma's chocolate milk and I pick it up and place it closer to my side of the table.

"Daddy," Lily says.
"What, baby?" I reply.  But she doesn't answer.
"Daddy," she repeats.
"What, Lily?"  Again no answer
"Daddy," Lily again says, this time drawing the a sound out...daaaaaaaaaddy.
"Ugh...WHAT, Lily?" my answer is loud, my tone irritated.  This doesn't appear to have any negative impact on Lily who simply replies, "What's the prince doing?"
I sigh heavily and respond without looking, "He's kissing the princess, honey"
"No, he's waking her up."
"Em, did you feed your cat?" I ask
"No."
"Go feed your cat."
"Is Lachey a prince?" Lily asks.
"I'm eating," Emma replies.
"Yes, Lily, Lachey is a prince," I tell Lily. "Go feed him," I tell Emma.

She gets up from the table with a dramatic (but not particularly irritated) sounding sigh and feeds her cat before returning to the table.

More of the same.  We finish our breakfasts.  Emma mounts the stairs to finish getting ready.  She has Keystone Exams this morning and wants to get there early.  She doesn't know what room she's being tested in.  We worked on her math homework and Keystone review from 9:30 until close to 11:00.  Boxplots and slope, y-intercepts.  I was exhausted when we were done.  I'm sure she was too. 

I ask Lily whether she would like a poptart too, and she says yes.  I cut it with a pizza cutter into 16 easily-chewable bites, learning long ago that she will hold larger pieces in her hands and squeeze them.  Perhaps she gets some sort of pleasant sensory feedback from the act.  Perhaps she's unaware of how easily poptarts are rendered into goo, or how hard that goo is to clean off of fingers, and tables and chairs and clothing.  Regardless, this works.  I prop the ipad against the napkin holder at an angle and help her restart the video.  She begins to eat independently as I finish the dishes in the sink.

Her plate is clean as I load the rinsed dishes into the dishwasher and eventually wanders back into the family room, grows tired of her ipad, and asks for TV.  I join her and cycle through the old familiar options. 

"Apple store" she requests.

I arrow over the options on the youtube apple tv screen, finding what I know to be "Apple Store".  It is a video of the Wiggles performing live at the Apple Store in Sydney.  I sigh in relief.  This particular performance is 20 minutes long, so Lily doesn't require my help to restart it over and over and over again the way she does with the Wiggle princess live performances, some of which only last 3 minutes. 

"What's Lachey wearing?" she asks.
"Purple like a snurple," I reply and she giggles.
"Where's Lachey, daddy?" she asks.
"Right there, baby," I say, pointing to the screen.

 I get her supplements ready.  Her developmental pediatrician has me giving her EFA powder, zinc, magnesium, folic acid, probiotics and Vitamin D.  In the five (six?  seven?) years I've been giving them to her I've never noticed any positive (or negative for that matter) impact from giving them to her or from forgetting to give them to her.  I do it because it can't hurt.  I do it because he says it helps a statistically significant percent of children with an autism diagnosis.  How long do I keep this up? 

I mix the zinc into her 'red drink', pulling it into a syringe from the bottle cap, then pulling in her drink to mix it in.  I hold the tip of the dosing syringe to her lips and she closes her mouth.  I push the plunger in.  I mix the magnesium in a shot glass, dumping a measured 1/2 teaspoon into maybe a half teaspoon of red drink, mixing it with the tip of the dosing syringe before pulling it in and repeating the process.  The wafer, vitamin D and folic acid are chewable.  I give them to her one after the other and she chews them up. 

The EFA powder goes in her yogurt.  I'll do that in a minute, but run upstairs first to get her clothes.  She's asked for "green" clothes, but she doesn't have any green clothes suitable for how cold it is today so I get her a red sweater, a white cami, a pair of white socks and blue jeggins and run back downstairs. 

"I don't like that white dress," she says pointing to the cami.  It must not feel good when she wears it.  I'm not sure.  Or maybe it's just how she has to push her arms through it. 

She's starting to grow, and I don't feel comfortable sending her to school without it, so I simply tell her, "I know, baby, but you have to," fending off her arms as she tries to push it away before finally surrendering and allowing it over her head. 

"Sit please," I tell her, and she sits on the couch while I pull her pajama bottoms off.
"Foot," I say.  She holds out her right foot and I put one leg of her jeggins on her.
"Foot" I say again and she holds out her left.
"Stand up please" I say, and she stands.  I pull the jeggins up.
"Sit down please" I say and she sits.
"Foot" I say again, this time for her sock.
"Foot" I say again to complete the ritual.

I glance at the clock.  The bus will be at our house in 5 minutes.  Still plenty of time to get her on the potty, and get shoes and coat on and...I remember I forgot to pack her lunch but breathe a huge sigh of relief when I see my parents have packed me one, as they (and my in-laws) always do when they get her off the bus for me at the end of each school day.  I open it and see that it's missing water.  Way easier than packing the lunch.  I fill a sippy cup with water, push it into the lunch bag, zip it closed and place it in the backpack. 

"Time to go potty!" I say as I walk the backpack to the front door.

This time she willingly comes with me to the bathroom.  It is her last potty break for at least the 40 minutes it will take to get her to school.  I hear her go.  When she stands I clean her up, help her get dressed, brush her teeth, wipe her face off, then hold her hand and walk with her into the family room to get her shoes on her. 

"Where's Lachey?" she asks me, and this time I glance up to see that Lachey is off-camera. 
I point and say, "Just off camera, baby...there he is" as the camera zooms out to show all four Wiggles on stage.

I grab her coat from the hook and I wrap it around her as she insinuates herself into it.  I zip it up just under her chin, brushing the stray hairs from the front of her face so they won't get caught in it as I do.  I switch off the television and the christmas tree. 

"I want to watch Lachey," she says. 
"After school we can watch him again," I reply, as always.

We walk to the front door to wait for the bus. It's not long, but the bus is late.  I get her on and tell her I love her.  I tell her to be good and have fun.  The bus driver grabs the backpack from me, smiling and telling me to have a good day and the aid helps her to her seat and buckles her in.  She looks out the window at me and I smile at her and wave.  She is saying something.  Possibly wondering what color Lachey is wearing, or whether the princess is asleep, maybe saying goodbye.  Probably not though.  She looks away and I watch the bus drive just around the curve of the cul-de-sac before turning away to head back inside. 

I forgot to give her the EFA powder.  It'll be fine.  It'll keep. 

I go up to my room and make my bed.  I open the blinds to the bedroom and let the light spill in.  I brush my teeth. 

I walk to Lily's room.  The bed is unmade.  On a chair across the room is a stack of clothes that a friend of Emma's gave to Lily.  I need to organize Lily's drawers.  They are already full.  Some of the clothes are too small, but I haven't made time to clean it.  Until I organize the drawers I can't put away the clothes on the chair.  I'm disgusted with myself not for first time.  Not for the twenty first.  They've been on the chair over a month.  It'll be fine. 

I make the bed.  Lily's TSS will be here tonight.  Sometimes that's the only reason the bed gets made.  Because I need people to see that I'm taking care of the kids.  I know I am.  I'm doing pretty well, I think, but I'm aware of appearances.

I go back downstairs to get my coat and get ready to go to work.  I look around the room and see again the baskets of laundry.  Multiplied now that I added the load this morning.  I'm running late.  I curse under my breath.  I think about who is coming to pick up Lily.  It's my dad.  Sometimes the only thing that gets me to put away the laundry is knowing that it's still sitting in the same place it was when my parents or in-laws left the house.  I gather one stack of Lily's folded clothes and run upstairs to put them away in her drawers.  It'll keep.  It'll be fine.  I'll do it tonight. 

I look around the family room and the stairwell and the office and the kitchen.  Christmas decorations are stacked in piles.  I haven't gotten them up yet.  It'll be fine.  It'll keep.  I'll do it tonight. 

I'm aware of how it looks.  The clothes on the chair.  The baskets on the couch.  The decorations on the floor.  The plant in the dining room dead from lack of water.  The box of tshirts in my office from the charity walk in May.  I'm aware.  It'll keep.  I'll do it tonight.

Tonight is enchiladas.  When I get home at 6:30 I'll grill the chicken and preheat the oven.  If I work quickly I'll have it done by 7:00 and we'll finish eating at 7:30.  It's bath night for Lily, so I'll probably pile the dishes into the sink and just run water so that I can give her the bath, dry her hair and put her to bed on time before I help Emma with homework.  And tomorrow morning...well...forgotten dishes and laundry.  It'll be fine.  It'll keep.

Okay?

No.  It's not okay.

A parent made a statement about being torn over the use of the question, "Okay?" when requesting something from her autistic son.  Her reasoning was that she didn't want to parent so strictly.  I get that.  Saying "Okay?" seems to soften things.  It makes demands seem friendlier.  Unfortunately, it's confusing and teaches kids the wrong lesson.  It's a habit.  And it's a hard habit to break. And before I write about it, I want to say...I do it.  When I notice I'm doing it I stop.  I'm not saying you're a bad parent if you do it too.  I'm just saying you'd be better if you didn't; I'd be better if I didn't. 


The beauty of "Okay?" is that its sloppiness allows me to be a lazy parent, its confusing permissive vagueness complicit in my parental languor.  Picture me sitting on the couch, for example, a beer in one hand, the remote in the other.  Lily walks past holding her coat in her hand.

"Lily, put your coat on the hook, okay?" I ask, sipping my beer indifferently.
"No!"
"Meh...alright," I sigh in response.

At least I'm not sending mixed messages.  She was given a choice and she chose "No."  If that's what you're trying to teach your children, then using "Okay?" is okay.  Okay?
 
Because by introducing the question "Okay?" at the end of a demand, we are unwittingly giving our children a choice we may not have intended.  What if the answer to your question "Okay?" is "No."  What's your next step?  Ignore it?  Argue it?  Overrule it?  By giving your child a choice and then overruling it you are succeeding only in confusing the kid, and teaching him/her that there really is no choice.  No = Yes.

One way to fix this is to stop placing question marks on our expectations for our children.  The other, harder way, is to learn not to put demands on our kids that don't really matter, limiting our demands to those that count.

We're not perfect about this, but one thing that we periodically focus on as Lily's parents (that apply to Emma as well, but probably we never would have noticed) is making demands count, because as parents we always need to be ready for the right counter-measure to our kids' refusal to do something we want them to do.  Like parental chess masters, we have to do a better job of planning our moves in advance.

• "Lily, would you please put your coat on the hook?"  This is a question.  If the answer is no, what do you do?  Overrule?

• "Lily, please put your coat on the hook, okay?"  This is a question too, and a bit of a wishy-washy one at that.  Do you want her to put her coat on the hook?  Do you not?  Same issue if the answer is no.

• "Lily, please put your coat on the hook."  This is a demand.  It's a polite demand, but it's a demand.  There is no built in option or question.  It is clear.  And refusal means a fight.

Is it important?  Certainly if part of your child's school ritual is learning to place his/her belongings in a cubby or on a hook each day, then reinforcing that at home is also important.  I'm prepared to enforce that demand if Lily is reluctant to comply.   I'm prepared to argue, punish, etc.

What we as parents have to be careful of is enforcing the demands that we really don't care about.  Because when it's no longer a choice or option, what happens when your son or daughter rebels against it?  Now you're essentially backed into a corner.  Maybe you even realize that it's a stupid request, but you've made it.  Backing down sends the signal, "It's okay to ignore parents' demands."  How important is your victory in the subsequent battle of wills?  If you cave, then she learned that she can get her way if she battles back hard enough.  If you win, but at the expense of a long battle and an emotionally strung out kid, was it worth it?

Where I'm most guilty of this is at the dinner table.  Typically the corner I back myself into is the one where I require Lily to take "one more bite" before she can be done.  How important is that last bite?  Why am I fighting so hard for it?  What if she won't eat it?  What if she gags on it or spits it out?  Has she eaten enough?  Is she full?  What purpose does "one more bite" serve?  I need to work on that.

Certainly any demand a parent places on a child can be appropriately argued against if the child has a compelling and logical reason for noncompliance.  But where kids with limited communication are concerned, specifically those who best succeed when given clear, logical, and literal instruction, our attention to the importance of our clear instruction, as well as the differentiation between what is necessary and what is optional becomes even more important.

Consider eliminating "Okay?" from your demands, and consider too how you communicate questions and demands to your children.  Ask yourself these questions before deciding how you want to phrase yourself.

1. Are you asking or are you telling?
2. If you're asking, what if the answer is no?
3. If you're demanding, is it worth a fight?

Okay?

What Are Kids READING These Days?

Lily was watching Hannah Montana.  Hannah was having her weekly "I'm conflicted about revealing the Hannah secret" issue because although her alter-ego Miley had good grades, her constant touring as Hannah meant that her transcript and application to Standford showed no extra-curricular activities.  Hilarity (or so one would assume) ensued. 

I found this episode to be particularly irritating because Miley, exhausted from travel, asks the woman at admissions if she can eat her sandwich because she hasn't eaten all day.  This just seemed so...stupid...and then she jams the whole thing in her mouth and attempts to answer questions as bits of half chewed sandwich cascade out of her mouth.  Ultimately she spits it into napkin.  Awful.  But I digress.

Emma, watching this for perhaps the hundredth time, said, "So stupid...how can they not see she's Hannah Montana?  Same voice, same face, just a wig!" 

And I heartily agreed, "I know, it's as bad as Superman!"

And Emma replied...

"Who's Superman?"

Leslie cackled out loud at the look on my face.  I say cackled because she was unable to contain mere laughter at the expression on my face.  It was...like...VIOLENT laughter.  Hurtful violent laughter.  For my part I just stared numbly at my daughter thinking about all the ways in which I've failed in her education.  (She has no interest in seeing Star Wars despite my protests that she will almost certainly not be accepted to Yale if she can't pick up Star Wars references...(oh...Yale because she asked at what school Des Durant from The Voice played football, and I replied Yale, and she said, "Yale Law School" and I said, "I don't know if it was the Law School, but Yale is a great school.")).

And so this morning I told her in my own words the origins of Superman (she knew who he was at least but I guess the sticking point was that she did NOT know who Clark Kent was...or that he even HAD a secret identity).  I told her there would be a quiz, and I'm almost certainly going to buy her a Superman comic book to read.  We covered Jor-El, Kal-El, The Kents, Louis Lane, Jimmy Olson, The Daily Planet, Kryptonite, red and yellow suns, etc.  Tonight we'll discuss Metropolis, Lana Lang, The Forbidden Zone, and as many of the major super villains as possible, even if we have to turn her book report in a few days late.

Then Spiderman...cause she didn't know Peter Parker's name, or WOULDn't have if my wife hadn't muttered "Peter" under her breath...neither could come up with the last name.

Some outtakes: 
"And he'd duck into a phone booth and take off his glasses and fly away."  .
"What's a phone booth?"  (okay, she didn't really say that, but it would have been funny as shit if she had, because let's face it...where's a phone booth these days?  She DID say, "Wouldn't people just have been able to see him through the glass?"  and I replied, "These were phone booths with privacy."

"And Peter Parker works at a photographer for the Daily Bugle."
"Do all superheroes work for the newspaper?"
"No."
"Sure seems like it."

"Then there's Aquaman," Leslie added.
"What was his secret identity?"
"He didn't have one."
"Why not"
"He was always underwater."

What the hell are they teaching kids these days?

Ridiculous.

In Defense of Parents

Emma and I were watching "The Next Food Network Star".  Despite Emma's issues eating food, she actually enjoys watching shows where chefs are preparing it.  Food Network is a nice family compromise because most of the programming is pretty kid-friendly, and the contest/reality shows, Chopped, Iron Chef, Cupcake Wars, and The Next Food Network Star for example, are paced nicely and are interesting viewing even if you're not that into cooking. . . or eating.

From http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/

Last night the contestants were required to prepare a dish for Paula Dean and her brood, then make a kid's version of the same dish for a "beach party" themed challenge.  I'm getting to my point, I swear.  "Ippy", the 23 year old, broad faced, broad bellied, friendly Hawaiian, made a statement while he was prepping the meal, something to the effect of, - I think kids should eat what their parents eat.  I think if you raise your kids right, then everyone eats at the table together and you don't have picky eaters - .  


I said, sotto voce, "And that's because you've clearly never had any kids."


Emma overheard me, turned to look at me and said, "Why did you say that?"  


"Only someone who has never had kids could make such a positive statement about how best to raise them."


"What do you mean?"


"I mean, until you've had kids, you don't really understand what it's like trying to get them to eat.  You're sure that you know the best way, only because you've never experienced anything other than your own imagined success at it."


I was never a better parent than I was before I had kids.  I remember sitting with my girlfriend, Leslie (spoiler alert - we get married later in the film), at a Pirate game.  There was a mother sitting with her two kids.  We broke down all the failures in her parenting after the game.  She sat down in her seat, and the two kids sat to her left.  That, in my estimation was her first mistake (I'd have split them up, one on either side of me, or so I told my girlfriend).  She bargained, she threatened, she failed to follow through on threat after threat, she coaxed, and she cajoled.  We tsked to ourselves and thought about all the ways we'd never fail at parenting.  Until we became parents and failed at all of them many, many times.


And it's not just parenting.  It's everything.  I never knew more about politics than I did before I went out and got a job, got married, had kids and sent them to school.  I never knew more about other people's weight problems than I did when I was 6' tall and 150 pounds.  I never knew more about unemployment than I did before I left college to get a job.  I never knew more about disability than I did before I had a disabled child. 


Experience teaches so much, but overall I think the most important thing it teaches is how little we really know about anything, how important it is not to pass judgement on someone else's decisions or approach because unless you have experience with it. . . you don't KNOW anything.  It teaches empathy, or it should.  It teaches patience, or it should.  


I hope it's understood that the above implies I'm aware I still make the mistake of judging people without having experienced what they've experienced, but I do try.  I do continue to experience and learn and grow.  Sometimes it is important to remember that some of our harshest critics are just kids themselves, and as intelligent as they may be, if I may quote Inspector Douglas Todd from "Beverly Hills Cop", ". . . you got great potential, but you don't know every fucking thing."  There's some comfort in remembering that some of the most cutting rebukes we receive as a parents are coming from people who. . . for lack of a better phrase, just, "don't know every fucking thing."  Nobody does.


So we sat and watched Ippy pass his judgement on my past parenting blunders and I thought this:  
I thought I was a picky eater until I met my wife. I thought my wife was a picky eater until we had our first daughter, Emma. I thought Emma was a picky eater until we had our autistic daughter, Lily. I thought Lily was a picky eater until we applied for feeding therapy and learned that other children were being fed from tubes.

There's always something more. Someone always has it "worse" or "different". You don't KNOW what people are dealing with until you trouble yourself to learn or experience it first hand.

And that made me think about this post. . . the ironic idea that with every new truth revealed to us there is still so much about which we remain ignorant; our learning broadens our understanding of how little we know.

Apply this "lesson" however you wish, but if I'm to make this an Autism Community-Specific post, I'll say this.  It bothers me to see well-meaning parents harshly criticized by childless autistic adults.  I don't necessarily always disagree with their criticisms, but the repeated theme is that because they are autistic, they know better what to do and what not to do with your autistic children.  And that's just not a good argument. 


Emma said, "I know what kids would eat because *I'm* a kid."  


I looked at her and replied, "Yeah, but just being a kid doesn't mean you know how to RAISE kids."  


Being autistic doesn't mean you know how to raise autistic kids.  Some of the bluntest critiques leveled at parents of autistic kids are coming from newly minted autistic adults.  Razor sharp minds in that group, let me tell you.  I read their blogs. . . I often have to reread them because their brains are three steps ahead of mine.  But that doesn't mean they know every fucking thing.  


This post isn't about anything that's happened to me.  It's not prompted by any specific blogospheric occurrence, but it's something that I've thought a lot about in general during my brief stint here posting blogs, and reading others' blogs, observing the friction and factions and sort of just trying not to make waves.  And there have been a few posts I've read that got my blood boiling and made me want to engage. . . parents killing their autistic kids, parents seeking a 'cure', restraining/not restraining, etc.  Their are just some topics where, if I'd have read them in a vacuum I'd have thought, "wow, good point, I never thought about that, you're totally right," then reading the exact opposite view point (in the same vacuum) would have thought the exact same thing.  Reading the comments, the judgements, and the criticism by whichever side you wish is what makes my blood boil.  Too much judgement, not enough understanding.


We are all still learning.  The more we learn the more we find out we don't know.  Even our harshest critics may someday learn that the criticisms they leveled at us weren't justified once viewed through the lens of real experience.  So try to deflect a little of that criticism's cut with the understanding that the person expressing it may just not really get it, even if it does make your blood boil.  


Unless you're just a shitty parent.  Then I guess you got what you deserved.  

Balancing Act

Me.  I have to get back on the treadmill.

There is a balancing act that every parent performs when they have more than one child:  the act of lavishing enough love and attention on each that the other doesn't feel slighted by a perceived lack of his/her share. 

On the one hand (Lily's point of view) that's easy.  Lily doesn't notice whether we're spending extra time with Emma because she doesn't (for the most part) care.  That's not to say that she doesn't miss us, or want us, especially when she's being asked to attend to some less-than-preferred task/function (currently that's any TSS time, daycare or kindergarten), but for the most part, as long as we're not absent, just being there seems to satisfy her sense of "mommy/daddy time".

Emma, in the case of this blog, the "other" child, however, does.  It did occur to me as I began posting to this "special" blog that Emma's awareness of a "special" blog for Lily would immediately prompt the question, "Where's my blog, daddy?"  That awareness manifested iself last night, as I was working on the little cartoon face I drew of Lily for her blog title. 

With Lily fast asleep upstairs, I fussed with the picture on the PC from the office.  In the Family Room, my wife, playing with Emma, called, "What are you up to in there?"

Unable to suppress my urge to surprise or maintain the mystery, I responded, "Working on something!"

"What are you working on, daddy?"  Emma joined in.

"I'm drawing a picture."

"Can I see?"

"May I see?"

*groaned response, pause* "May I see?"

"Sure!"

She joined me in the office and looked over my shoulder at the picture.  "I like it," she said brightly.  "What's it for?"

This part I was prepared for, "I'm writing an autism blog for Lily.  This is a picture for the title."  I hurried on, "I have a blog for autism, and one for family stuff with mommy and you and Lily and I together."  I figured she'd want to know that I wasn't just doing something cool for Lily and forgetting about her.

I should have known what would follow, but didn't think it completely through.  To be honest, the blogs themselves aren't anything I necessarily want my 9 year-old reading until she's. . . well. . . not a 9 year-old anymore.  I thought the blog itself and the idea of blogging would be something she'd remain ignorant of until her early teens at least.

"May I see the picture for our blog?" Uhmm.

"I haven't drawn it yet."  Yet.  The magic word in this case.  I bought myself time.  The thing I had overlooked, that should never have been overlooked, is that yes, having a child with special needs sometimes means you have to pay them special attention, even extra attention, but it also means likewise paying special attention to the child without those needs. 

I hope Emma never feels that ironic sensation that if only she'd have been the one with autism, she'd be getting all the special attention.  I hope that we, as her parents, always do the extra "work" we need to do to make sure she feels included and loved and yes, "special". 

So after a momentary lapse, and a temporizing "yet", I formulated a plan to add a cartoon to the title of my other blog as well, and I remembered something I should never have forgotten in the first place:  That yes, I'm willing to put in the extra time and effort needed to give my special needs child what she needs to help her succeed in life, but that will never preclude or eclipse my other daughter's needs.  She's not a "special needs" child, but her needs are equally "special."