Category: Growing a Daughter

Updates and stories about my daughter from China who came home with challenges described in letters—PDD-NOS (on the autism spectrum), ADHD and RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). Her learning curve has been steep and therapy is a way of life. School and social interactions are a challenge. Making art is a way of life. So is a vivid imagination.

and so it begins

The season is turning.  When we drive on the highways, the earliest of the trees are beginning to show color.  Orange and yellow.  And walking, we’ve found orange and brown leaves on the ground.  Such a joy!  Tinged with a bit of bittersweetness, but can the same be said about almost everything these days?  These continuing unprecedented days?

~ School began today.  We are so late this year!  Julia is one of the high needs students who has been invited to attend every day at school. High needs is a category of more than special ed students.  She will get some of her classes in person—those she takes with special ed teachers—and some on line—those where she is in general ed classes.  All classes are 90 minutes long, with the expectation that content will be taught and some, if not all, homework will be eliminated as it will be done in class.  Julia is anxious but she was so happy to be in the school building when she has her senior pictures taken that I think she will do fine.  The number of students in-school is very small.  I’ve heard 50 to 100 in a building that houses 2000 comfortably.  There should be sufficient room for them to spread out. I hope she can attend safely although there are plans if in-person needs to be shut down in a few months. Or sooner.

First Day of School 12th Grade
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and a red moon rose

Third day at the Cape.  Falmouth, MA.  First day on the beach.

The plan for this four-day vacationette at the Cape was to park the car at the inn, bike everywhere and spend at least part of each day on the beach, Julia digging and making castles, me, reading and writing.  As it turned out, we arrived on Tuesday in time for supper, walked up to the main street, checked out the bike rental store which was closed and found out the they are only doing multi-day renting.  No problem, I though. We’d pick bikes up on Wednesday morning and keep them until Saturday.  We had a very nice Mexican meal, sitting outside, reading the menu on my phone.  I had the margarita that I sorely needed and we walked home. 

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quiet

This morning, we’ve spent the morning on our back porch.  Julia is editing pictures for her blog.  She has drawn most days but has not posted since the week before the wedding.  We counted and that was 40 days ago.  She lost interest in posting and I can’t blame her-it was supposed to be a place to put pictures for the short term.  After 100+ days and 100+ pictures, it is no longer short term.

This morning, we took pictures of her pictures and it will take most of the day for her to edit and post.  The blog began with pictures of what she/we did during our quarantine days but Julia got bored, it became a lot tougher to come up with ideas and I could not inspire her to continue down that path.  I also was, for a short time, busy with the wedding. And so, she has been drawing what she wanted to—mostly anime characters that she obsesses about.  Not being an artist or educator, I don’t know what to do next with this mountain of pictures. Perhaps an artist or educator could see some development or where to go or what to ask for next.  I don’t. This has long been my challenge.

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of the goo

The time rolls on; once again, days melt into one another.  Everything is effort. The news comes to us via radio, youtube and the nytimes.  I don’t think that Julia hears and comprehends much of it; however, she is quick to say that she doesn’t want to go to school and catch the virus.  I tell her that I will not send her if it is not safe and at the same time, I gather information on how to send her to school and what to do when she gets home.  I tell her we will listen to the teachers and the scientists, even though no one has definitive advice. Julia does not do well with gray.  I fall and fail with the continuing ambiguity our time.

The chrysalis stage of a butterfly is my favorite metaphor for transformation.  What a miracle that a caterpillar makes the container and turns itself into a gooey substance before transforming.  Where are we in that process right now? Who is in the process now? Can we have as much trust as a caterpillar? Continue reading →

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roots, wings, officers & self-pity

237D0ECB-BCFD-4BAE-8FF4-AEAD4D5CFD26The wedding and the week at the lake house were wonderful but not without snags and challenges—challenges that have continued into the new week.

On Friday afternoon at the lake, Julia had a melt down.  It was not about anything in particular and it was not the worst she has had but it hurt me pretty deeply.  We had spent the week with Cheshire’s new in-laws and they were lovely to us, to Julia.  We’ve been with them for holidays and the long weekend over the Fourth of July.  Their interest in Julia and kindness towards her cannot be faulted. Even their children are kind and loving. It was precisely for those reasons that Julia’s behavior hit me so hard.  She was making the situatin difficult and uncomfortable.  All I could see at that point was that I had brought a very difficult family to the table. Quickly my hurt devolved into self-pity. Everyone else was coupled, I was alone.  I could not even deliver Cheshire’s father to the wedding. Okay, that was not my fault. At least, I knew that rationally, but rationality had no place in that dark space.  My aloneness and loneliness, that I fought against all week, reared its ugly head. I saw myself as a taker and my move to Boston as a mistake. If I was far away, Cheshire could, for the most part, engage with her husband’s extended family without the challenges that Julia brings to every event. Of course, when I voiced some of this to Cheshire, she disabused me of the ideas.  Continue reading →

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lake house & antipasto

94e5de63-27ce-4580-b1de-9803a13f5b40Lake house.  Day 3, if you count Saturday when we packed up the car, unpacked, sorted and generally unwound. This morning, Julia and I took our rented double kayak out for an early morning paddle.  We were out for a bit less than an hour.  I was somewhat apprehensive about finding the house on the way back.  Tonight or tomorrow, longer.

Most of the household is hiking this morning, a few went food shopping, Julia is doing zoom school and I have a few minutes on the porch alone to tap on this machine.  The porch faces the lake and if I move the drying beach towels, the view if lovely.  The sound of water is lovely. I type in 25 minute intervals with 10-15 minute breaks to tell Julia to get outside during her breaks and to sign in for her next class.  Her video is not working today.  I have followed all the instructions given by support last week.  Video is intermittent and re-booting and/or getting closer to the router works once or twice but with no regularity.  Julia is getting used to the intermittence. When I return to my typing, I move chairs, trying to stay shaded.  Continue reading →

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letting go

I wrote the following yesterday.  It doesn’t have an ending that I am satisfied with; however, the week will only get busier.  So, I’m posting it today.  Perhaps some ending will come.  Perhaps not.

An online friend suggested we keep our expectations low. Which ones? The expectations that I usually hold close are diminishing, falling like leaves after the first frost.  Truth be told, I’ve always juggled such a plethora of hopes and dreams, long and short term goals complete with due dates, many expectations, many hopes for possible futures.  I have lived for long periods of time holding expectations as a nervous bride clutches her bouquet.  But today, after a year away from my old Wisconsin home and loving community, after 10 years away from the love of my life, after 17 weeks of quarantine, I bear witness to an increasing number of plans, goals and expectations dramatically dashed upon rocks or quietly slipping away. If there be a life lesson here, it must be that living in the present is what is essential.  Life can be, at times, gently shaped, tended more like an orchid than a row of sturdy marigolds.  

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to the lake and back

We are home from a holiday few days in New Hampshire.  Julia and I stayed at the Henry Whipple House in Bristol, visited with friends at a nearby lake house during the days, boated and swam and hiked and ate summer foods and played many games of skipbo.  We wore our masks at our inn and walking in the little town center and tried to stay socially distant from everyone not in our immediate party.  Sometimes that felt awkward and uncomfortable but I was grateful that most people we met were observing the same rules.  I so enjoyed being spoiled a little bit—having someone else cook breakfast and make my morning coffee felt like a spectacular extravagance.

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peace of a day

A rain storm is coming in.  Slowly.  I sit on our front porch tapping on the laptop. It was cool, sunny and breezy this early morning and I checked the weather when I woke up.  Giving Julia the choice of a morning bike ride or walk, she chose the ride.  

Biking has been a very long process for Julia.  It took a long time to learn to pedal, and then to balance, and then, even after balancing, it has been years of practice to get her to the point of riding steady enough to do it in the street.  Our shut down lives have yielded a bonus of empty streets.  Julia is riding on quiet streets, and occasionally rides on streets that get a few cars often.  She is finally steady enough to be able to ride on smooth, wide sidewalks.  In Madison, we had the benefit of being close enough to a small bay to ride around.  Fortunately, this year I think she is ready for streets. Continue reading →

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helicopter gardening

That’s me—a helicopter gardener.  My first year since 1993 without a real garden of my own and I have all the time in the world to plan, plant, weed, mulch and water.  Well, not all the time but much more than I’ve had previously. So with time and a little plot, much like an over protective parent, I am out watering and a bit of weeding most days. The weeds are small and mighty—how I wish I had brought my small curved fork on a stick.  Moving, I let go of almost all of my gardening tools.  I use the rake my landlords have to weed and then put in some hands-and-knees time.  I contemplate straw mulch. I’ve spotted the morning glory seedlings along the fence line but I don’t know what sunflower seedlings look like.  I weed around the morning glory and try to remember where I planted sunflowers.  

Most of the vegetable plants are doing well without fuss.  I planted too early—yes, indeed, I did—and there have been many slow starts.  Some of the basil and the rainbow chard show cold burn but even those are beginning to perk up.  I worried the sudden onset of very hot weather yesterday and then laughed at myself.  Too hot, too cold—most of the plants will do fine.  They always have. Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 2