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.
It is cold (but not like NYC with 6 inches of snow. What’s up with that?). The garden has been put away. I am not forgetting to put on a hat and grab gloves when I go outside. Julia is wearing a coat (Why do teenagers think that underdressing is cool?). There is a thin coat of ice on our little bay. There were large patches of gray, still water yesterday with just a few ripple-ly circles.
Winter is coming. Continue reading
Last week, I asked one of Julia’s art teachers for an update on how she was doing in class. Learning Adobe Illustrator is not second nature to Julia (or me, I might add). The answer was that she is doing okay but not getting any of the larger art concepts. Oh, how I wish she was. But I am not surprised. That is Julia in all her classes. She doesn’t take history because she is awful at time and although she is okay at memorizing dates, people and the causes of any war, she doesn’t get any bigger pictures.
But I’ve held onto much more hope for art. She has probably drawn more pictures and made more clay figures than any ten kids put together. That counts for something, right? Continue reading
State of my world:
Julia’s head scratching has not abated with the delousing and aftermath. She is losing hair and areas without hair are increasingly visible to the casual observer. I think she is doing most of her scratching at night before she goes to sleep and when she is alone in the bathroom. Anxiety, habit, stimming or something else? Years ago, the way she finally stopped scratching her skin was on a three-strike-and-she-was-sent-home-from-school program. It was radical and it worked. I don’t know right now how much scratching is going on at school — I’m checking. I don’t think that school staff would be willing to put such a discipline into effect. Of course, if it is mostly at night, that it wouldn’t work anyway. I am in full worry mode. We will visit our doctor next Tuesday and her shrink on Thursday. OT is working on it as well. Needless to say, I am without control.
I spoke with a local reporter yesterday about Shabazz High School and my experience last spring when Julia applied for admission and was first asked for an interview and then rejected before the interview took place. I talked about inconsistent messages and requirements, and apparent exclusion of kids with IEPs. I told him that just before school closed for the summer and we were about to travel, how I got a call that they were reconsidering everyone who had applied and was rejected. (I don’t remember if it was rejected without interview.) Julia couldn’t interview before traveling and when we returned home, I check out the requirements again. Julia had been summarily rejected for not doing grade level math. Neither the requirement for doing grade level math nor her math skills had changed. I decided not to put her through an interview. I acknowledged to the reporter that the school has been good for kids there and I didn’t want to jeopardize the school for those kids. And yet, what of kids like Julia? I am conflicted. Continue reading
I’m having a hard time writing. With all that is swirling around in the greater Madison/ Wisconsin/USA world, with pipe bombs and the massacre in Pittsburg and the killing of Kroger shoppers in Kentucky–all just in the last week–I find it hard to take the petty concerns of my days seriously. Can we all vote now or on November 6? Can we vote for Democratic candidates no matter how we’ve voted in the past? We need to break the choke hold that the current administration has on the rhetoric of our nation. I’m sorry to ask good Republicans, moderates, fiscal conservatives to betray your party. But really, is it your party? I find it hard to believe that the Republican judges I worked for and those I knew in the legal Indy community approve of what the Executive and Legislative branches of out federal government are doing. Or saying. It is horrifying to see a major American political party welcome Nazis, White Supremacists and misogynists into its ranks. It is appalling to hear a president’s speak so disrespectfully of people, institutions, agencies that are vital to our way of life. Today’s insult, to nullify the long-accepted constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in the United States via executive order is absurd. He must know that. It is, however, a great way to rally the racists. And when it proves not possible, he will lie and say he never said it and those same racists will believe him. How can you stand his lies? 3084 since his inauguration, some possibly not intentional but for a president to lie unintentionally is no excuse. It just means he didn’t both to find out the truth. Continue reading
News Flash! Three years ago it was a Dancin’ Dino. This year it’s a Sax playin’ Dino! Visit http://www.papercloudsapparel.com to order shirts, hats, bags, etc. in adult and child sizes emblazened with Julia’s newest design. Also, for those who missed the chance to order their own Dancin’ Dino, check this out: Dancin’ Dino stuff. Paper Clouds Apparel is a great organization! They sell t-shirts, hats and totes featuring artwork designed by individuals with special needs; they hire individuals with special needs to package all the clothing and 50% of the net proceeds from the sale of all merchandise go to a special cause. Proceeds from Julia’s Sax playin’ Dino will go to SOS Children’s Villages which builds loving, stable families for orphaned, abandoned and other vulnerable children in 135countries, including the United States.
I have a free hour and 24% on my laptop. Time for a lice update. (Musical introduction, please!)
Within an hour of publishing the last post, I had heard from five different sources, not all local, about an expensive but definitive lice treatment. One of the sources was our family doctor (Julia needed a flu shot). She related her own experience of a multi-month war against the tiny critters with a daughter who has long, thick hair. After persevering for months, she brought her daughter to The Bright Side salon in Sun Prairie for treatment and the war was over.
Yesterday was two days post Monday’s treatment and Julia took a bath after her doc appointment, washed her hair and I combed it out. I found many nits but I was still imagining that I could handle those nits myself.
Comments and email kept coming in. Continue reading
Where do I start? I’ve been jotting and bursting out on the page for days about public and personal and private things. There never seems to be enough time to edit and organize. And I’ve missed my two half days of good weather to get into the garden. And on Monday, I had a whole, impossible list with the ambition of the first cup of coffee residing in my belly when the school nurse called.
Lice.
And any thought of business and house and garden and writing slid off the plate like an omelet on a Calphalon Fry Pan.
Backstory: We’ve been dealing with obsessive picking and scratching her head for a few months now. It got worse after traveling and at the beginning of school. Me and all the experts diagnosed anxiety. When Julia scratches, there are tiny flakes of skin in her hair. At some point, those flakes “became” (via spontaneous generation, of course) nits (lice eggs) and I ignored the change. Also, and of most embarrassment, during the weekend, Julia took a bath and was combing out her hair and reported to me that she saw a bug in her hair. I said something like, Julia, don’t blame anyone else, including bugs for your scratching. Continue reading
I began this two days ago and wrote more in the morning, the day after Judge Kavanaugh complained the his “family and [] name have been totally and permanently destroyed.” He also said what goes around, comes around. I believe Christine Blasey Ford. I believed Professor Anita Hill. These women have showed courage beyond my wildest dreams. My thoughts of the season pale beside their actions. I honor them.
Still, I write.
Ah, the turning of the season! Last week or late the week before, I noticed a few fringes of red on the trees I see driving on the Beltway. Why don’t I know the names of trees? I could say the oaks are redding, the maples show scarlet. Maybe one day. Not today. Closer to home, the ashes are yellowing and dropping those tiny yellows so that the street gutters are looking messy with yellows and greens and browns. I love that clutter. Every year at this time, I remind myself never to buy a house in this season. The colors, the wind, the crackle of cold air, the smell of first logs in fireplaces and the clutter of leaves lining the gutters in streets—I would be romanced, swept off my feet. I would not make a sensible decision. Continue reading
This is, in part, an email that I sent to Julia’s Computer Art teacher. She wrote yesterday asking for some guidance on how to work with Julia who has been unskillfully flirting with a few boys in her class, reacting to the boys’ awkward reactions with anger and swearing, and also swearing generally when she is unsatisfied with her work. The work is learning Adobe Illustrator and learning it according to a teacher’s instructions.
My immediate answer to her query about Julia’s behavior was that I was seeing these behaviors more frequently.
“Julia is showing interest in boys without the social skills or filters to appropriately flirt. She is also indulging in swearing and anger. Some of that behavior is her testing limits in new surroundings and with new teachers, and some is because there are a number of very disruptive kids in her math class and she is copying behavior. However, Julia can control both the inappropriate flirting and the swearing and anger. She needs a very firm hand and needs to know, in no uncertain terms, that the behavior will not be allowed in the classroom. You might say something about how everyone needs to feel safe to learn and create art. Julia needs to know that if she does not behave, you will ask her to leave the classroom until she can behave. She likes the class. She is showing me what she is learning almost every day. She will not want to leave.” Continue reading
After two reminder emails to my list of PTB (“Powers That Be”), Julia was picked up this morning in time to get to school on time. Her case manager texted me that her bus was on time and she was not marked late during first period. I’m holding out for a week before I ‘get off my high horse,’ as my grandma used to say.
However, just because nothing is ever sweet and easy—This morning we went to the door three minutes before her ride has been scheduled to find the bus waiting. I don’t quite know when it got there and I hadn’t received any word that she would be picked up sooner than her scheduled time. I really don’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth (Barb, lots of horse idiots today!), but it felt that it was just a wee bit passive aggressive to reschedule the pick up without any word to me. Because the bus has been coming late, we have been going to the door just on time. If we had this morning, the bus would have probably left. I’ll swallow this complaint right here, because I know what response I would get. I’m not even going to add to my thank you that a schedule getting Julia to school on time should have been worked out before school started. Continue reading
Chasing Joy 