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 →

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 →