Brave Little Toaster

Once upon a time, I was the mother of a little boy who was scared of the bathtub. Who was scared of so, so many things. 

He wanted to be brave. He tried to be brave. But when your brain sends you into fight-or-flight mode over the sound of a nearby lawnmower, or the feel of grass on your bare feet, it's hard to brave. It's hard to try new things when you can't process them, when you can't articulate what you're even afraid of, when you can't work those new things out to their logical conclusion.

Even when the logical conclusion is: This is supposed to be fun, dammit. 

"I know what that is!" he said, pointing at the rental snorkel gear. "It lets you breathe underwater! Can I try it?"

Uhh. Okay? Sure. Yes.

The thing is, if we'd asked or offered, he probably would have said "NO." And that's okay. We've finally figured out how to sit back and wait for him to ask. To surprise us.

And to always say "yes" when he does, even if it scares us, a little.

Way to go, Noah. You're officially and for-real the bravest kid I know.

BONUS:

!

!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Big Stuff

After Noah learned to ride his bike sans training wheels, and after the trip to the toy store and the coveted Ninjago Lego Set Of Six Hundred Eighty Four Infernal Fucking Pieces Are You Kidding Me was procured and assembled, Noah calmly asked us to put his training wheels back on.

Uh. Well, see, the point was...

"I'M NEVER RIDING MY BIKE AGAIN," he shrieked, before I even finished the sentence. He may have stomped up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door, but I can't specifically recall if that was over the training wheel thing or any of the MILLIONS of hideous injustices his six-year-old self is forced to endure on a daily basis, including but not limited to:

1) not being allowed to watch TV

2) being told he really shouldn't wear that sweater, it's 80 degrees outside

3) YOU HAVE TO EAT ACTUAL FOOD SOMETIMES

4) AND GO TO BED

5) being told to bend over all the way to the ground to pick up the thing that he just dropped, I mean, MY GOD, he's tall for his age. It's like, three whole feet away, down there. YOU DO IT, MOM.

He stuck to his stubborn little guns for a couple days before we could lure him back outside for more bike-riding practice. It went well, but I think he protested for longer than he actually spent on the bike. He didn't fall, he got better at getting going by himself and staying in a straight line. 

He still couldn't wait to get back inside. Sweet, sweet inside! With Legos and soft places to sit! Heaven on Earth for the Inside Kid.

So I don't know what came over him yesterday, just like I never, ever know what triggers a change in Noah, in his brain or just in his heart. Because if I could figure it out I would bottle that shit up in a spray bottle and keep it in my purse. Maybe sell it on infomercials. It's Noah's Amazing Rigidity Anti-Starch! Penetrates the Toughest Quirks! Long-Lasting Flexibility In Every Spritz!

All I know is that he got on his bike and rode back and forth, up and down our sidewalk. Up the hill, down the -- HOLY SHIT THAT'S FAST -- hill. I sat on the yard with the baby and cringed through my cheerleading, because HOLY SHIT THAT'S FAST. 

***

I don't know how to parent Noah, sometimes. Blah blah advocate cheerleading decision-making research good mother all that blah. Yes. In a big-picture, theoretical sort of way, I know how one should parent a child like Noah. I think we're getting the big-picture stuff right. I think we're doing a good job. I hope. Mostly. 70/30. I'd take that.

No, I struggle more with the little details. The day-to-day life with a kid who turns on a dime minute-by-minute. Who is hyper and quirky and boisterous and stubborn and sweet and infuriating. Who tests and challenges and misbehaves and pushes, like any kid, but also like one who is perpetually turned up to 11.

I yell and scold too much, I'm afraid. I push back against behaviors I should lean gently into. I lose my temper, or at least let my annoyance get the better of me and show through. It drips into my voice and body language. I get irritated over things he cannot help, and get angry over the things he can, and some days I can't tell the difference. "DSTSS," Jason and I have taken to hissing at each other, when we see the other making too big of a deal out of something, of being too hard on him, or just fighting a losing battle of wills.

DSTSS. Don't sweat the small stuff. It's the small stuff I suck at, though.

***

Anyway.

Noah rode his bike again, some more, better. He went down the hill super-fast and scared the living daylights out of his overly-nervous, fellow-Inside-Kid mother.

And after each run, he'd stop, and let out a whooping cheer for himself at the top of his lungs.

"I AM SO SUPER AWESOME!" 

Go, Ninja

Noah's IEP meeting went very well, by the way. (The plot points! They are dangling!) Of COURSE it went very well. I always get myself so needlessly lathered up about these meetings ahead of time -- a peril of being overly-informed about other people's horror stories, probably -- and then we show up and remember that oh. Right. These people actually give a shit. About their jobs and their students and that whole "making a difference in the life of a child" thing. 

I'd gotten a somewhat...strange phone call from the school psychologist the week before that knocked me a bit off my axis, and then a conversation with a classmate's mother at a birthday party set me even more on edge. Because this same psychologist was causing problems for them and everything about their IEP was contested and a struggle and the whole thing sounded crazy combative and stressful. Just like another mother had described their experience this year to me a few weeks before, at another party. Sternly-worded letters! Hired advocates! Parents storming out of meetings! Peace negotiations all blown to hell!

I think I need to stop attending so many birthday parties. Or find something else to talk with people about. Hey, did anybody else see The Hunger Games? 

I really do love Noah's school. And his teachers. They are doing an amazing job, and sometimes it blows my mind to stop and realize how far Noah has come. Our IEP meeting was calm, collaborative and about as low pressure as it gets. I think first grade is going to be just fine, for all of us. 

***

One of Noah's playmates learned to ride his bike without training wheels a few months ago. He's a year younger than Noah, and his new skill triggered a bit of competitive peer pressure throughout the neighborhood, and we watched training wheels disappear left and right, it seemed. But Noah, of course, did not care. Did not want. Did not even want to hear the mere suggestion of taking his training wheels off. 

So we did what we always end up doing. We bribed him. Take the training wheels off and learn to ride your bike from corner to corner by yourself, and we'll take you to the toy store and buy some Legos. 

"Ninjago Legos? Like in a big box? The kind that cost too many dollars?" 

Whatever Lego set you want, dude. 

"Okay."

I figured he'd live with this lofty goal in a strictly figurative, hypothetical sense for awhile. That we'd float the idea out there and he'd think about it some more, no pressure, until he really felt good and ready to make an attempt.

Instead, he demanded that the training wheels come off his bike that very instant. LET'S DO THIS THING.

While Jason took care of the wheels I tried to have a talk with Noah about how he would need to practice, that it might take awhile for him to figure it out, and that he would need to stick with it even if he thought it was too hard.

His perfectionistic streak can be vicious, unfortunately -- it even came up during his IEP meeting. "Noah needs to take more risks," his teachers said. "If he's not 100% confident that he'll be good at something, he refuses to try, or he starts and quits immediately."

Getting Noah on a bike in the first place was an epic struggle, and it's never really been one of his favorite activities. Even with the training wheels, he's prone to crashes and falls, or frustration over not going as fast as the other kids who fly down the hill with no fear. 

"I'm a tiny little bit scared," Noah said. "But that's okay, right?"

Definitely. And me too.

I watched for awhile. He was wobbly and positively insistent that Jason not let him go, at all, no no no no. After each run Jason needed to coax him into trying again, and again. About what I expected, honestly.

Don't Let Go from amalah on Vimeo.

I went inside and started loading the dishwasher. Maybe he'll get it by the weekend, I thought. It's spring break so we'll have plenty of time to practice, and as long as we can avoid a bad fall or something like...

Jason came in about 10 minutes later. "Well, he did it! Where are my keys?"

"SHUT UP," I said. I ran back outside. 

"I DID IT, MOM!" he hollered. 

He grudgingly agreed to a single demonstration -- dammit, woman, that toy store isn't going to stay open ALL NIGHT, you know -- but did let me get in some hugs and a couple "I'm so proud of you's" before he climbed in the car, chattering happily away about Sensei Wu and Lord Garmadon mini-figures or maybe he should pick some more Star Wars Legos? No, ninjas. Definitely ninjas. Ninjas are the coolest ever. 

Top Mini Chef

Hey! Let's talk about Ezra's cooking camp, all of a sudden! Because I am literally going to explode all over the place if I don't get some of this cuteness out of my system.

(WARNING BRAGGING AHEAD WHATEVER FUCK YOU IT'S MY BLOG)

So a couple weeks ago, Ezra started a once-weekly "Mini Chefs" class at our YMCA, for three- and four-year-olds. I admit we didn't even know exactly what we were signing him up for, other than OH EM GEE CHEFS THAT ARE MINI. It was $50 for six weeks and sounded adorable. Sold! We'll just go ahead and assume it's not a Hell's Kitchen reboot for the Disney Channel, or something.

I admit I was a teensy bit disappointed at the lack of little kid-sized aprons or chef's hats, and it's a drop-off class so I haven't gotten any good photos of Ezra in full mini-cheffing action. However, 1) IT'S A DROP-OFF CLASS WHUT WHUT, and 2) holy crap, Ezra is having the time of his life there.

Every day, he begs and begs to go to cooking class. There are tears, when I must tell him that alas, not today. At pick-up, while most of the other children have wandered off to read books or play with other stuff in the classroom, Ezra is still shadowing the teacher, helping her clean up and put things away. "Where dis go? Where dis go? I helping!" 

Last week they made yogurt with fresh fruit. And while Ezra really is a very good eater, yogurt has always been one of the few things he really doesn't like. Until...well, last week. He was so proud of his blackberry yogurt that he ate the whole thing. 

A few nights ago, I -- on the advice of his regular preschool teacher -- handed him a "real" knife and asked him to help me with dinner. (The Montessori theory is that dull knives will simply lead to frustration with the task, and that it's best to teach children to use and respect sharp objects from the start, blah de bloop blah.) And then I stood behind him and watched that child CORRECT HIS KNIFE GRIP before carefully and meticulously chopping up some cauliflower florets. 

My three-year-old has better knife skills than I do, officially. He would CRUSH me in a mise-en-place challenge.

He's completely cooking-obsessed. Every day he stages elaborate picnics and birthday parties, involving every single piece of play food he owns. (And oh, but he owns a lot.) Yesterday he climbed on our bed and made me giant "sandwiches" out of the pillows. 

He wants to taste EVERYTHING. Vegetables, meats, fish, even the individual herbs and spices I pull out for dinner. Any toddler-regression into Beige Foods is over with, and it's AMAZING. I took him grocery shopping at Whole Foods on Sunday and it was like...well, like a kid in a candy store, only with artichokes and bell peppers.

The class also covers basic nutrition, including the four food groups, so everything is all "Apples are a fruit! Carrots are a vegetable!" And (my personal heart-squee favorite) "Cookies are in the GRAINS GROUP!"

Grains group. Shut up, mini chef! SHUT UP BEFORE I EAT YOUR FACE OFF. 

To celebrate his YMCA rock-star-ness, I took him to the bookstore and bought him a kids' cookbook so we could have "extra" cooking camp days at home. 

I'm now reading recipes to him as bedtime stories. I...am not making any of this up. 

I remember once, a loooooong time ago, standing outside a restaurant with Noah, who was in full-sensory-freak-out mode. Another mother came by with her daughter and said some sympathetic, well-meaning things. She was really very nice about it.

I said something vague, "Like, yeah, he's having a hard time today." She assumed it was food related, like the restaurant had the audacity to serve grilled cheese on weird bread, or something. She started talking about her daughter and food and how I should buy this kids' cookbook because it totally changed their life, once they starting making food together. 

"If they make it, they eat it!" she gushed. "Now her favorite food is SUSHI!"

I can't remember what I said -- I know I was polite, at least, and not "BITCH YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE," or anything horrid like that. But I do remember thinking how nice that must be, for it to be that simple.

Because OF COURSE I'd tried to get Noah involved in the kitchen. OF COURSE I'd read that same advice about asking picky eaters to cook and prepare meals and tried it on many, multiple occasions. His occupational therapist even provided us with fun recipe cards and we subscribed to a preschooler magazine that included kid-friendly cooking projects. Macaroni-and-cheese muffins, Noah! Doesn't that sound...um...interesting?

Noah reacted to my requests and offers the same way he reacted to so many things, both innocent and genuinely unpleasant: NO, NOT EVEN, YOUR JEDI MIND TRICKS DO NOT WORK ON ME.

The memory of this encounter flooded back to me while Ezra and I stood in line at the bookstore, getting ready to pay for his cookbook. Pretend Soup. The very book she mentioned. Huh.

Dinnertime remains frustrating for Noah, perhaps even more so lately, since Ezra's little culinary explosion has pushed me out of my lazy Let's Just Not Make Dinner Such A Hassle habits. I've been making more of a concentrated effort to put more variety on the table, AND to give them exactly what we eat, instead of endless dumbed-down versions of pasta with hidden veggies in the sauce. Noah's definitely trying more new foods on a regular basis, as a result, but he sure isn't happy about it. And isn't afraid to let me know exactly how terrible he thinks this whole business is. And how mean I am. And etc. 

Over the weekend I caved, however, to his endless pleas for some macaroni and cheese with NO WEIRD STUFF IN IT. (Though little does he know that I haven't served up mac-n-cheese -- boxed or otherwise -- without a generous heaping of pureed cauliflower, white beans or squash in it for YEARS, ha HA.) I grabbed the Annie's and looked around for the pot. Noah had it. 

"I want to help," he said. 

And he did. 

Outside the Box

When the flyer came home in his backpack, I groaned. The Valentine's Day class party was going to have a "theme." A 1950s sock hop, with music and dancing. Dressing up in poodle skirts and "greaser" costumes was encouraged. Please remember that all treats must be store bought, not homemade.

Sometimes integration in the general education classroom sucks. No way would the room parents in special education plan something like that, with so many of the kids easily unnerved by changes in routine and costumes and noise and cupcakes frosted with Red 40 dye. But there was no party for the special ed class -- parties fall exclusively in the domain of the homeroom. The giant overcrowded homeroom, like the one I toured just over a year ago with other parents from the preschool program.

We observed it with wide, terrified eyes -- one mom grabbed my arm and squeezed it while shooting me a WTF look, because we were both thinking the same thing, because our kids won't be ready for this environment in a million billion years. The kindergartners moved around the room in quiet, controlled movements, focused on independent activities, tuning out their dozens of classmates all scattered in different centers, while the teacher quietly went over a reading activity with a small group in the corner. They were writing words in lowercase letters. I swallowed hard and pressed my fingers into my palm -- hard -- and fought back some tears and an overwhelming, crushing sense of Noah's delays.

The principal tried to assure us that the classroom didn't start out like this, that there's a huge difference between September and January, and that there's a huge difference between this January and next January, for our kids. I don't think any of us believed her. One year? No. A million billion. If that. 

I almost didn't send him in on Valentine's Day. I almost kept him home, just because. Why put him through that? He stayed home on Halloween and seemed downright happy to miss the party and the costumes, and it's not like he has any real grasp on Valentine's Day or why we made him write his name on 30-plus cheap-o Star Wars-themed Valentine cards the night before. When I mentioned the party to him, he seemed immediately on-edge and unsure, his THINGS ARE DIFFERENT alarm going off in his head. 

But then I suggested that Jason and I could come to the party, too. And he jumped up and down and clapped and threw his arms around me in a hug because YES YES YES, come to the party. Well then! I may be a bitter, paranoid pessimist sometimes but I'm also not an idiot: One day my very existance will horrify and embarrass my children, so I should accept my invites while I can still get them. 

We arrived, Noah was thrilled. He pulled us around the classroom to show off his favorite things -- mostly the shoebox full of insects that he almost knocked over while excitedly explaining the lifecycle of the mealworm to us -- and then introduced us to his teacher, who we have met many times before but who indulged Noah and shook our hands. "It's so nice to meet you," he said with a laugh. 

Some kids dressed up, some kids danced. Most of the kids put on the sunglasses they'd been given as a party favor. Noah picked his up and eyed them suspiciously. "I don't think I'd like to wear mine," he said. He put them down, then offered them to his tablemate who'd already managed to break his own pair. 

Absolutely nothing unusual happened, the whole time we were there. Except for the fact that absolutely nothing unusual happened. Noah was calm, Noah was happy. He knew and understood the classroom routine; he was good-natured and flexible when the routine was changed. He was not the loudest or quietest or the craziest or the weirdest or the shyest or the bossiest or any other -est. 

He has self-control. He has focus. He has friends.

***

This time last year, Noah was already really into Legos. But only if they looked like they looked on the box. He would argue with us endlessly if he disagreed with the directions, pointing over and over at the finished product on the box, adamant that we were telling him the wrong thing and trying to trick him into building something different. 

If we bought him general free-play sets of assorted blocks, he would study the pictures on the package and meticulously reproduce them, and then refuse to build anything else. 

This weekend he designed and built an alien ship, complete with working side doors and a cash register from the Krusty Krab for a control panel. Later he built the alien's house. It doesn't have a door because the alien is made of goo and can just ooze in through the window. 

I don't remember when, exactly, he stopped worrying so much about the box. It happened when I wasn't paying attention, I suppose. Sometime between this January and last. A million, billion years ago, apparently. 

"Teachers Don't Have Phones."

And with that, the question over whether or not he was telling me the truth was answered. 

We caught Noah in his first big, sustained lie yesterday. The details are exhaustively boring, but suffice to say he'd figured out a way to game his token/reward system at school and make us think he was earning more points for good behavior than he was. Then exchanging those points for treats at home like playing video games or getting some Halloween candy. (That is not actually from Halloween, but just what the boys call candy year-round here.)

I'd grown suspicious and questioned him a few times, and he remained consistent with his cover story (his teacher couldn't find the stamp so she marked his paper with a crayon instead) and insisted that he was telling the truth. 

"I promise, Mom," he'd say, cooly and calmly, with perfect eye contact and an earnest, dimpled smile.

That was what made me back off, every time: the eye contact. Noah remains a jumble of different quirks from both on and off the Spectrum -- at his last IEP his teacher said she absolutely didn't want to change his diagnosis code from the catch-all "Developmental Delay" yet because she simply cannot figure him out, because he simply ISN'T just one thing or the other and doesn't seem to really fit any of the "usual" codes -- but eye contact is a big deal. If he's upset or overwhelmed in the slightest, it's the first thing to go. 

But yesterday the cover story took a turn for the improbably convoluted. I listened to him chatter on, asked a question and sensed the teeniest, tiniest bit of "OH SHIT MAYDAY MAYDAY" in his voice as he quickly tried to backtrack -- yet his words never seemed to fail him, and he continued to speak clearly and articulately. He wasn't making sense to me, but in a different way. There was no hint of his word retrieval/processing problems; he just sounding like a typical kid attempting some verbal gymnastics while trying to assure me that I'd misunderstood the first version of events he'd just described.

Finally, I told him I was going to call his teacher and ask her about it. He jumped back three feet and froze. "Don't call her," he whispered. 

He wouldn't tell me why he didn't want me to call her. He repeated the story again. He promised he wasn't lying. 

"Why don't you believe me, Mom?" he asked, his voice so full of hurt that I wavered again, because if there's one thing Noah is not, it's an actor. He still won't wear costumes or pretend to "be" anyone during play, and he gets unnerved when Ezra incorporates emotions into their games, like fake crying or anger.

But still, I didn't believe him because my gut didn't believe him. The developmental stuff was a convincing smokescreen, but if I pushed it back and stared at the piece of paper covered with suspiciously childlike scribbles that he insisted were done by an adult, well. Come on, dude. 

I repeated my intention to call his teacher. 

"You CAN'T!" he wailed.

"Why not?" I asked. "Is she going to tell me something different?"

"No! I don't know!" he paused. "You can't call her because...TEACHERS DON'T HAVE PHONES."

Aaaaand there it was. The wheels were falling off. We'd hit the limits of the logic ceiling. 

I gave him another chance to fess up -- I assured him that I cared much, much more about the truth than I did about how many points he was getting at school, but that there would be definite consequences and loss of privileges if I had to find the truth out from someone else.

Instead, he opted to double down. "I am telling the truth," he said, with a perfect poker face.

I went upstairs to get my shoes on -- we needed to leave in a few minutes for his occupational therapy appointment, after all -- but apparently Noah thought I was calling his teacher right then. Jason found him staring up after me with a look of nervous, stomach-churning agony. 

I was halfway back down the stairs when the confession started. 

"I just wanted more Halloween candy," he admitted.

***

Lying is bad and wrong, of course. And being lied to by your child is annoying. Choosing punishments and reinforcing the importance of the truth while curbing your own white-lie fibbing habit is an exhausting and not-particularly rewarding part of parenting.

But oh, you guys, it's also just so normal. 

Mr. Fixit

We have an IEP meeting today, the first of two IEP meetings scheduled over the next few months. For this year is Noah's re-evaluation year, the year he's due for...wait for it, oh, you'll never guess...a re-evaluation of his strengths and weaknesses and needs and services, up to an including the Big Label that keeps him in special education and keeps my mother-in-law up at night for fear of his PERMANENT RECORD and her continued, unshakable belief that the public school system is legally allowed to tie him to a cheerful Circle Time Chair and forcibly inject Ritalin into his veins. IT HAPPENS. SNOPES IS IN ON IT TOO.

This particular meeting is, quite frankly, going to be bullshit. Not much more than a procedural checkpoint. We will show up and be told about all the different evaluations and testing procedures they plan to do before our next IEP meeting, the big one that will determine his placement for first grade. (Where there are no Circle Time Chairs, but I believe you may be able to request one of those coin-operated massage recliners for your child's Clockwork Orange-style med drip. Fingers crossed!) They will hand us five trees' worth of paper detailing everything we just talked about and our 17th copy of the Parental Rights & Responsibilities handbook that we cannot turn down because they found a typo on page 47 of the last version, thank you and we'll see you again in a couple months, time for the next family, moving on, thanks. 

***

At almost half past six years old, Noah has no real trace of a speech delay, the thing that started All Of This. He never shuts up, actually. Sometimes his grammar is a tad mixed up and full of extra words that buy him precious processing seconds, and he still adorably pronounces V as B. (As in "This lebel of Plants Bersus Zombies is really hard.") But other than that, he's your typical chatty exuberant omg inside voice, Noah kid. Bonus: he's learned all kinds of delightful words from his classmates, or at least he thinks he has. 

"Damage!" he says, deviously scanning my face for a reaction. "Beenis slug! Poople tale!"

His brain seems to be running a constant loop of things he's seen or heard -- usually TV or movies which he memorizes like a human tape recorder -- and he has a hard time turning off the recall or understanding that not everybody else in the room has any idea what he's talking about when he randomly decides to talk about how the bad bird was up on the roof but then the thing fell down and that was funny, right? Right? Right Mom? Right? 

"What are you talking about?" I usually end up asking, exasperated that I am unable to coax more than five words from him about his day at school but will get several hundred about some bit of an Angry Birds fan video he watched once on YouTube.

The thing is, TV and movies help, too, especially with the bigger social picture and his ongoing issues with rigidity and anxiety. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies and books, for example, maybe play to his current obsession with potty talk than I'd like (OMG THE MOTHERFUCKING IRONY), but have completely changed the way he treats his friends, and especially Ezra. "I'm not a mean brother like Rodrick," he says. "I'm a nice brother. I'm a friend brother."

The various iterations of Star Trek -- with different costumes and ship details and characters and hell, even actors -- have been hugely helpful when he's confronted with something being "different" or "not normal." Before that, Star Wars and Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz taught him how to use his imagination.

And Kung Fu Panda 2, of all things, gave us the phrase "inner peace" as an effective code for "rest your body" or "holy sensory freakout child, please calm dowwwwwwn." 

And the auditory recall seems to work at school, too, despite how easily distracted he is by...well, EVERYTHING. The wiggly leg on his chair. The edge of his shirt sleeves. That other kid who is in time out for saying Something That Sounds A Lot Like "Damage." Anything and everything in the classroom that may have been moved from its usual location. The sound his mouth makes when he blows air out like this or like that.

Despite all the distractions, he's learning. He's reading. He's writing. He's drawing elaborate re-tellings of his favorite movies comic-book style on the wide sheets of paper we set out on his kindergarten-teacher-recommended Writing Station, up to and including the closing credits. His fine motor skills have never been better, and his teacher even declared his handwriting "beautiful," especially for a kid who only really figured out how to hold a crayon properly a year or so ago. 

He says he hates school, which of course bothers me, but I sort of think that's the point: I roll my eyes at "damage" and "fartle fart" and "pooper diaper" but have a hard-to-resist kneejerk reaction to "I hate school." Why? Why do you hate school? What's wrong? What's happening there? Is it your teacher? The other kids? TELL ME SO I CAN FIX IT. I CAN CALL ANOTHER IEP MEETING AND FIX IT.

I should know by now it doesn't exactly work like that. Sure, there are things about Noah that I could cautiously, inelegantly call "fixed" or "resolved." Things that took years of therapy and effort and money. And other things that simply faded away with a little extra time: maturity on his part, understanding and creative thinking on mine. And other, other things that found unlikely, almost sudden solutions: A curved exit ramp, Star Wars, karate or sometimes just actual, real-life magic. 

And of course there are still other things. Big things, subtle things, question-marky-let's-keep-our-eye-on-that things. The IEP helps with some of those things, along with OT and diet and a truckload of patience, so we keep chugging along and showing up and doing everything we possibly can to help, to guide, to aid.

But not to "fix."

Because you can't fix something that isn't broken. And my child is not, and never has been, broken. 

 

Halloween in Real Life

Noah still won't dress up for Halloween, by the way. Won't even consider it. In the past we've managed to get him semi-costumed at the 11th hour via:

1) Lying. 

2) Candy-fueled panic with a side of peer pressure. 

3) Bribery. 

While I was debating which one of these FANTASTIC options to go with this year, my mom actually had an inspired idea: Why not just let Noah wear his karate uniform? 

I asked Noah what he thought about that: It would look like a costume without actually being a costume. We'd be playing a little trick on people, kind of.

He liked that idea. He liked that idea a lot.

"Everyone will think I'm the Karate Kid from the movie but actually I'm just Noah the Karate Kid. From real life."

It didn't exactly make for very exciting pictures, but still. This is easily the happiest he's ever looked on Halloween.

And everyone in the neighborhood was completely fooled by his non-costume costume. 

Ezra, on the other hand...

Ezra just can't even deal with any of y'all right now.

I mean, God. You people.

Around 5:30 pm, Young Master Ezra was sent to his room for a time out. By 6:00 pm, I was scrambling to make the boys some non-chocolate form of sustenance while simultaneously answering the door for early-bird trick-or-treaters and gathering up costumes and realizing that I couldn't find the boys' beloved Pumpkin Buckets (hence the last-minute procurement of They-Only-Had-Cauldron Buckets by Jason, a substitution that damn near RUINED HALLOWEEN)...and Ezra was sound asleep. 

Sound asleep and not at all happy to be dragged out of bed and propped semi-upright at the table in front of a sad bowl of non-sugary pasta.

His mood did not improve with the addition of his little chef's jacket and hat.

(The giant RANDOM HIVES ON HIS FACE didn't help either.)

Stop taking my picture or I will beat you with this wee wooden spoon, woman. 

Real chefs have knives, anyway. This is the worst Halloween ever.

Like last year, Ezra tried to pitch us on HIS version of trick-or-treating: Grab candy from house bowl, deposit in bucket, done. So streamlined! So simple! With no walking around in the scary dark AND less time between the acquisition of candy and the face-stuffing part. 

We didn't go for it. He showed up at a good five or six doorsteps still sobbing his eyes out about it. "TICK OH TREAT," he bawled to several slightly alarmed homeowners, miserably accepting Reese's Cups and lollipops before FINALLY snapping out of it and realizing that all told, this Halloween thing is a PRETTY GOOD DEAL.

(Please note that the one person in the house who could have been worn any costume of my choosing without means of protest was basically dressed as Mommy Bought a Hat* & a Onesie On Sale At Old Navy, What More Do You People Want From Her, Jesus Christ, She's Tired.)

(If you're wondering where the pictures of my costume are, I didn't take any. I went as an Exhausted Suburban Wrangler of Many Small Children. I wore jeans and a headscarf and an overwhelming sense of not giving a shit.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out how sneak all the Red 40 and Yellow 5 dyes out of Noah's candy stash before I have to peel a six-year-old gremlin off the ceiling later today. Because yes. Every year we go through all this sturm und drang over costumes and parties and trick-or-treating...and then everything fun magically vanishes the next day and I leave them with like, a bag of pretzels and one Hershey's fun size. 

*The hat actually says "BOO!" on it, but I now realize I put it on him backwards. I WIN AT EVERYTHING. 

And On Third Thought...

So. Yeah...turns out that was nicely anticlimactic, in the end. 

The best thing about about this whole...uh, thing (besides working itself out fairly quickly) was the fact that it rallied our mostly-dormant parent email distro list like nothing else in the world. What had previously only been used to send out links to special-needs talks and events and charity 5Ks suddenly came alive with the sound of HIGHLY ALARMED MOTHER BEARS.

Everyone quickly passed along whatever bits of conflicting or corroborating information we'd received from the school, the teacher, the administration. We compared notes and conspiracy theories and even a horror story or two. (It was a dark and stormy Tuesday after the first day of school when one child spent 40 goddamn minutes wandering around the school completely lost because neither his homeroom teacher nor special education teacher realized he was missing, holy shit, the end.) By late last night, we were virtually toasting each other's wine glasses over email and firming up final details on a class playdate next week and a mom's night out the week after. It was beautiful.

It was also interesting to see the different advocacy styles: Some go in with guns blazing. They argue, they hang up the phone, they say things like "if I find out you've pulled my child out of general education for even five minutes because of overcrowding, I will file a discrimination lawsuit." Others are more measured and willing to give the school the benefit of the doubt...but not too much benefit, because...you know. Some see conspiracies everywhere, or can always find a reason to be angry, while others have to get dragged kicking and screaming from their confrontation-adverse corners, and fight only when they absolutely have to. Some get amped up by the process, injected with nervous energy that keeps them up and emailing until midnight, while others get so emotionally wiped out by an afternoon IEP meeting that they have to go home and crawl back into bed for a few hours before they talk about it. 

I'm sure for teachers and therapists and administrators it gets AWFULLY exhausting dealing with some of these personality types, and easy to point at a particular reaction and say YOU'RE GOING ABOUT THIS THE WRONG WAY, STOP. The thing is, though, that every one of these parents got to where they are -- to this X-Files-like point of TRUST NO ONE -- honestly. Usually the hard way. From the time they didn't fight back or argue or ask that one last pointed question because they didn't want to seem mean or be a bother. Or the time they DID fight and argue and question...and still were unable to get what their child needed. It doesn't make us right all the time, but just another imperfect part of an imperfect system. 

Personally, I spent the bulk of my afternoon composing a (hopefully) polite yet undeniably pointed email to the involved parties. (Probably shouldn't come as a surprise that writing tends to be my best medium for confrontation, rather than the phone or in person.) I tossed around the proper acronyms and dissected my son's day, calling his service minutes into question while also attempting to appeal on a personal level, describing Noah's level of stress and anxiety about school in general and c'mon, dudes. Don't be dicks about this. LRE, man. LRE.

Within 15 minutes of the dismissal bell ringing at school, my phone was ringing and my email was replied to, with a good three or four other higher-ups from the school now CC'd on it. 

Basically, what we all had here was a failure to communicate. Basically, this kerfluffle is what happens when a principal (who is actually an assistant principal filling in temporarily while the "real" principal is on maternity leave) makes a phone call that probably should have been made by the teacher, and with a lot more notice or lead time to prevent parents from feeling railroaded, or like someone was trying to pull a fast one on us. 

Upshot: I thought Noah spent more time in his homeroom than he actually does, thanks to a misunderstanding at our last IEP meeting, some bungled information we received at Back To School Night and from...yeah, okay, I know...Noah himself, the most unreliable of narrators. He actually gets off the bus, goes to the gen-ed classroom, hangs up his coat and backpack, sits down to listen to about five minutes of all-school announcements via the Promethean Board...and then is immediately told to get his coat and backpack again, line up at the door, and head to his other classroom. 

Oh. 

Well.

Would it be okay if he listened to the announcements in the other classroom instead, so he's not having to transition 10 minutes into the school day? Because the kids are so tightly scheduled down to the minute this year -- all because of statewide changes to the curriculum, which is why this is a new problem -- and the special ed teacher isn't able to get the new, longer math lesson in. So it would really help her if she could have the kids there from the beginning. Then they aren't running late to rejoin the gen-ed class for art and music and science, which is what's currently happening almost every day. The 10 additional minutes a day would not actually eat into his IEP-dictated gen-ed time, but would instead make sure he WASN'T missing more valuable peer interaction later in the day.

Oh.

I see.

I have to admit, there was a part of me -- a small, petty part -- that wanted to stick to my original guns. To cling to Noah's five minutes of homeroom time no matter what. MY PRESHUS! HISSSSSS! To insist that those five minutes provide invaluable peer interaction that they will take from my COLD DEAD HANDS, just to stick it to them for handling this so badly and not explaining things well. To continue to nurture my pet theory that this was still some kind of fallout from the overcrowded kindergarten rooms. 

But I had to admit that his teacher really had a point. Moving Noah around that much in the morning is kind of silly, and probably feels like transition-whiplash to him. For kids without transitioning difficulties, it's SUCH a nice idea to have everyone arrive on equal gen-ed footing before scattering out to special ed and ESOL and the resource room. I mean, I love the sound of that, because it's just so...up with integration! everybody is different and special but also the same! and stuff.

But for a kid like Noah, well, the reality is that it probably makes things harder for him. 

Some of the other parents have decided to reject the schedule change and keep things as-is, and of course the school is bending over backwards to agree that yes! That is completely within your rights! We will of course honor your wishes! Our bad!

I asked Noah what he wanted. I assumed he'd pick the original homeroom option, since he likes that teacher a lot more. (Mostly just because he only sees that teacher for the fun, easier parts of the day.) 

No, he said. He wants to start off in the smaller classroom. He doesn't like lining up to leave all the time, and he always forgets which room he's left his jacket in and then Mommy gets annoyed with him when he gets off the bus with no jacket. It was just too much moving around all the time.

Oh.

Well.

I see.

As you wish, Noah. As you wish.

 

(Photo by Wendy at Blue Lily Photography, and HELL YES SQUEE I have dozens more to inflict on you guys, now that I'm done talking about the latest crisis of my own fool creation.)

On Second Thought, Hell No

The principal at Noah's school called us mid-day on Friday. She abruptly dropped an oh-HI-THERE-just-wanted-to-let-you-know-something-we're-changing bomb, in that sweet disarming way only cheerful elementary school ladies can. And after I hung up I stared at the phone for awhile, trying to figure out what just happened and why.

The change in question felt like...not a good change, or at the very least felt like a change we should have been able to say "no thank you" to, or discussed a little further, instead of what it was: On Monday we're moving your child out of his morning homeroom, and sending him directly to the special education classroom. Try to give him a heads' up over the weekend, kthxbye.

A flurry of emails among the other parents with children in the special education class confirmed that I was not alone in my unease. The "change" seemed to fly in the face of the program our children are in (small, self-contained classroom only when necessary, integrate at all other times), in the face of our IEPs, our right to be involved in these sorts of decisions ahead of time, and our right not to be fed a line of complete horseshit, just because the school is overcrowded and overwhelmed and hey! You know what's easy? Move the special ed kids out. A couple less kids for the general education teachers to have to deal with in the morning. Tell the parents it's a transitioning problem, or something, and we're only talking 10-15 minutes or so a day, no big deal, right? 

TL;DR version: Big deal. Somebody hold my earrings. 

UPDATE: Oh, school. How hast thou violated my child's IEP? Let me count the ways. In excruciating, exhaustive detail, cuz I gots alllll afternoon and every piece of paper you have ever sent me EVER:

You fools! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a compulsive paperwork hoarder when her kid is on the line!" MWA HA HA HA