Fear Can Be A Good Thing

Oftentimes children on the spectrum have a tendency to be fearless.  Connor has always been exceptionally curious, and once he was mobile, there was no stopping him.

Once he could walk, he wanted nothing to do with a stroller.  We were extremely vigilant when we were out in public, because he thought nothing of taking off to wander around and see the sights.

He’s done this at the crowded shopping mall.

He’s done this at the Georgia Aquarium.

He’s done this at numerous parks and playgrounds.

For several years we almost never took him out solo to a crowded place.  We tried to always make sure we could both go, because those trips required two pairs of eyes and at least one good runner.

As Connor has grown older, he’s learned to stay with us and to not behave so impulsively.  Still, he’s got that same fearless quality, never thinking ahead about the consequences of his actions.  But then something amazing happened.

I picked up Connor from camp, where I got the report that he had an excellent day.  AWESOME!!  On the way home, we ran into the pharmacy to pick up a couple of things.  Now that he’s 7, I don’t need to hold his hand throughout the store because he’s pretty good about staying right with me.  I was looking for Sprite, and he was a few feet away looking at sunglasses.  I didn’t see what I was looking for, and stepped around to the next aisle, casually calling out “I’m right over here.”

He must not have heard me.  As I scanned the shelf, I heard him calling out “Mommy!”  I called out, absent-mindedly, “over here!”

A few seconds ticked by, and he wasn’t beside me.  I stepped to the end of the aisle and peered down the wider aisle, and saw him about 6 rows down.  He had turned the wrong way.  I called out and he turned around.  I smiled and waved for him to come to me, and with each step closer his face scrunched up more and more.  By the time he reached me, he was sobbing.

This was something new, this fear.  I held onto him and patted his back, softly telling him that “I’m right here, I would never leave you, you’re all right, Mommy’s right here.”  He must have cried for about 5 solid minutes, clinging to me like he did when he was just a toddler.  No parent ever wants to see their child scared or crying, so the tiny feeling of relief, mingled with a tinge of happiness was making me uncomfortable.

Why was I alternating between concern and gratitude??

Because it was a milestone.  My child finally understood what it was to be a little afraid, and to be thinking ahead to the next possible “what if”.  He wasn’t behaving fearlessly or recklessly, he was actually thinking about the implications of the situation, and was focused on something other than his ever-changing impulses.

And that’s progress.

In the car I asked, “what were you thinking about, when you were upset and crying?”

He said, “I was thinking that I’d lost you.”

Never.  You’ll never lose me.

Sometimes It’s Mom That Needs to Learn a Lesson

My son is smart. He’s so smart that he was climbing out of his crib several months before he turned two, could somersault out of the porta-crib at 14 months, learned how to stack up stuffed animals to reach the light switch by 22 months, and knew how to remove safety doorknob covers at 2 1/2.

Suffice it to say, he kept us on our toes.

We would often joke that he is super-smart when it comes to being devious, but when it comes to academics, he’s just not that interested. And I have to make a confession that pains me: I would often think that he was choosing to be lazy when it came to school work.

Here are some of the descriptions we’ve heard from daycare staff, camp counselors, or school personnel:

“Connor is very smart and knows what he’s doing. He knows when he’s doing something he shouldn’t be.”

“Connor is very capable, but only if it’s a preferred activity.”

“Connor can be lazy, and doesn’t want to put in the effort if it doesn’t involved playing and having fun.”

After a while, some of that seeps into your subconscious. And getting through first grade this year, I started to wonder if maybe there wasn’t some truth to him being “lazy” when it came to reading or doing spelling and math worksheets.

This weekend, I was trying to get Connor to read one of the new early reader books I’d bought him. He refused, and wanted to keep going back to the same book he’d read twenty times already. I told him they were both Level 2, and it wouldn’t be a harder book.

Finally I asked, “Why? Why don’t you want to read a book that is the same level as the other one?”

His response? “Because I don’t want to get any words wrong.”

I’m not Attila the Hun when it comes to reading. I help him to sound out words he doesn’t readily know, and I cheer him on as he reads, saying “good job!” or “Nice reading!”

But for him, it’s the anxiety that accompanies not knowing something. The simple act of not knowing bothers him to such a degree, that he doesn’t want to venture into any new territory.

I was struck by a terrible sadness for thinking it was sheer “laziness” that kept him from reading new books, when all along the issue was anxiety-related.

Now I need to fix this. I need to find a way to motivate him and alleviate the anxiety of learning. We’ve talked at length about how getting things wrong is part of the process of learning. And it’s okay. Everyone gets things wrong sometimes.

Still, it’s going to be a long road. I wonder, what do you do when your child’s anxiety prevents them from moving forward in school??

Safety and Special Needs Series, Post #2

For this week’s post on Safety and Special Needs, I’m really excited to be running an informative and well-researched piece by Karla, from Tales from Beyond the Dryer Vent.  Be sure to visit her site, where you can read about her adventures raising her daughter, Little Miss, and trying to keep an aquarium of fish alive.

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Safety & Special Needs: Identification

Communication issues are often rolled into the challenges faced by special needs families, and this particular challenge is never as frightening as when it comes to identification. Weeks before we took our first family trip with the Little Miss, I had nightmares of her becoming separated from us and being unable to communicate even the most basic information. Lost and terrified (and probably having the meltdown of the century), how would Little Miss be able to share her name or other identification that would help us to reconnect with her?

My first solution was simple, cheap, and effective – but there are a lot of options out there for families to try. I’m going to use this opportunity from Flannery and The Connor Chronicles to share with you some criteria for making the best choices for your own child’s identification. Then, I’ll finish up with links to some of the solutions available.

So, what did we do?

I’d seen some families use a strip of masking tape to attach a phone number to their child’s shirt… but I didn’t want Little Miss parading around with our phone number for everyone to see. Instead, I found one of those tiny jewelry bags, wrote all the contact info I needed onto a brightly-colored slip of paper, folded it up, slipped it inside the bag, and pinned it to the back of her shirt.

The emergency info in a zippie bag worked out perfectly for our brief vacation and gave my husband and me some much-need piece of mind. But, as Little Miss has grown a little older and “elopement” still remains at the top of her list of maladaptive behaviors, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re going to need a much more robust solution.

What are the criteria for an ID solution?

Privacy: Above all, the emergency information has to be private. Little Miss has no real sense of stranger danger, and I worry about the very real possibility that someone could walk up to her, read her name from the emergency information, and tell her “Hi ____! Your mommy and daddy sent me.” If the person also happened to have a bag of goldfish crackers, Little Miss would have herself a new best friend.

Visibility: This may seem contradictory to the privacy thing, but visibility is critical in a situation where identification is in question. Odds are that if Little Miss has become separated from us, she will be confused and maybe upset. The challenges with her executive function will make it very unlikely for her to point to an ID tag hidden inside her shirt and say “Hey – call my mommy and daddy.” So, the thing has to be visible.

Durability: The emergency info in a zippie bag had one major flaw – after about three days of riding around pinned to the back of Little Miss’s shirt, we seriously needed a new set. That’s fine if your goal is only to get through a few days’ vacation, but if you’re looking for identification that can be worn daily, you’re going to need a LOT of zippie bags.

Hard to Remove: During our vacation, we pinned the zippie bag to the back of Little Miss’s shirt because we knew it would be nearly impossible for her to get it off. At the time, Little Miss did not know how to remove her own shirt. But times — they have changed. Now whether or not Little Miss is likely to remove her shirt is another question entirely, but it still begs the question – could she and her ID easily become separated? If the answer is “yes,” the solution is not going to work.

Enough Room: Our family is one of many special needs families out there that deals with multiple diagnoses. In addition to her autism diagnosis, Little Miss has epilepsy. If we became separated, it would be critical for first responders to know of this disorder so that they could respond appropriately. So, the right ID for us needs to include more than just a phone number.

Cost: With the budget already overloaded for therapy, school, doctor bills, and everything else, cost is always a consideration.

Options, options, options…

Google “special needs identification” and you’ll find a LOT of options. Since Flannery has been gracious enough to host me this far, I’m not going to wear out my good graces but going into all of them. Instead, I’ll show you some of the basic types out there and rate them on a scale of 1-3 (1 being a total fail and 3 being the best) according to our criteria.

Disposable ID Bracelets (Example: TigTagz) Description: Think of those single-use bracelets that amusement parks use when you buy the “ride all day” option – made of heavy laminated paper that you have to cut with scissors to remove

Criteria: • Privacy: 2 (you could wear the bracelet inside out), • Visibility: 3 • Durability: 2 (for single use) • Hard to Remove: 3 • Enough Room: 2 (allows about 3 lines of information) • Cost: 3 (less than $1 per piece)

Medical ID Bracelets (Example: Sticky Jewelry) Description: There are all kinds of medical ID bracelets available – and many kid-friendly designs offered on comfortable fabric bands. The added benefit of using a more standard medical ID is that first responders are trained to look for them.

Criteria: • Privacy: 3 (medical info is hidden on the back of the bracelet – unless you choose otherwise) • Visibility: 3 • Durability: 3 • Hard to Remove: 2 (Velcro closure) • Enough Room: 3 (allows up to 6 lines) • Cost: 2 (could be $25 or more with options)

Shoe Tag ID (Example: Medical ID Store)

Description: You could go for one of the official medical ID shoe tags — or do like we did and order an engraved luggage or pet ID (a trick we used on our second family vacation). The only big con to this option is that the wearer must have laced shoes.

Criteria: • Privacy: 2 (info is on the back, but some tags can get flipped over easily) • Visibility: 2 • Durability: 3 • Hard to Remove: 3 • Enough Room: Many tags allow up to 5 lines • Cost: variable

QR Code Stickers (Example: ChildID) Description: Each sticker has a QR code printed on it that can be scanned with a cell phone. While the QR code can still be decoded even if there is no cell signal/WiFi, the first responder does have to have a smart phone with a QR code app.

Criteria: • Privacy: 3 • Visibility: 3 • Durability: 1 (single- use, stickers can fall off) • Hard to Remove: 1 • Enough Room: 1 (short message + phone included) • Cost: 3 ($4.99 for 10)

Temporary Tattoos (Example: Tattoos with a Purpose) Description: These are like the temporary tattoos you get in a Cracker Jack box but with room for contact

information. The same I found is autism-specific, but there are lots of other versions out there.

Criteria: • Privacy: 1 • Visibility: 2 • Durability: 2 (single-use) • Hard to Remove: 2 (requires baby oil or alcohol wipes) • Enough Room: 1 (2 lines – if you write small) • Cost: 2 ($9.00 for 6 pieces)

Obviously, I’ve just scratched the tip of the iceberg with ideas to help identify your child. But I hope that with these criteria, you’ll be able to solve this important safety question for your own family!

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Don’t forget, the Safety and Special Needs series will run every Monday.  If you’d like to submit a post, please email it to nuttydingo@gmail.com.

Out With the Old, Almost

We’ve been submerged in super hero entertainment at my house.  Animated series of Avengers and Green Lantern and Transformers rule the roost, and gone are the days of Fresh Beat Band, Phineas and Ferb, and Team Umizoomi.

Sayonara, bitches!

Although these changes are bittersweet, I have to tell you, I’m not going to miss those Umizoomi kids.  And I’m still not quite sure what they are.  Are they small-statured aliens?

This is part of the process of growing and maturing.  So I was rather surprised the other night when, asking for a new iPad game, Connor chose Where’s My Perry.  It was fairly inexpensive, either .99 or $1.99, I can’t remember.  I figured that at that price, it was worth a try.

And I have to say, I am shocked.  He LOVES this game.

I love this game.

Agent P has to shoot down underground tunnels to get to headquarters, and there are blockages involving water, steam, ice and trolls that have to be navigated.  The game involves thinking and planning ahead, and figuring out how to maneuver the water, turn it into steam, unfreeze ice, and get it into the drain pipe to release agent P.  Planning and executing multiple steps to complete a task is excellent practice.

You even get Doofenschmirtz voice-overs!

I don’t want to give a video game too much credit or power, but it’s really well done, and anything that gets Connor thinking and planning ahead is pretty damn awesome, since this is a skill that he struggles with daily.

Every night at bedtime he asks to play this game.  So the deal is that he does his reading first, then he gets iPad time.  Sweet!  We have incentives for the incentives for the task.

Thought I’d pass on this info because I like to share when I find something that works.  We spend enough time trying things that don’t work, right?  So, check it out, friends.  It’s well worth the spare change.

Safety and Special Needs, A Series #1

If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s my blog buddy, Lizbeth, from Four Sea Stars, to bring a great story to the table.  She’s been kind enough to be the first contributor to the series, Safety and Special Needs.

Be sure to visit Lizbeth at her blog, where you’ll find many more crazy, funny, and poignant stories about raising her her kids, one of whom has Asperger’s.

Lizbeth, Four Sea Stars

I’ve often joked that my son has a running relationship with cars, specifically the side mirrors.  And by relationship I mean, they hit him in the face when he walks by.  Every single time.  Alex doesn’t have any real sense of where his body is in relation to where other things are around him, so he often runs into walls, misjudges distances, bumps into people, stands too close, etc.  We’re on a constant vigil for things that may cause problems.

When he was younger, we lived in a house that had an open floor plan with one small detail—it had two steps down to the main family room.  It was the house that we brought Alex home to and we grew used to those two steps and never really thought much of them.  Alex never thought of them either.

He fell up them, down them, rolled over them, on them, tripped down them and one particular time forgot they were there all together…..and landed in the Emergency Room and went right into surgery.

Having forgotten about the steps, he careened over them and when he landed, he bit through his bottom lip, he bit clear through it, and it had to be stitched back together.  And since he has sensory issues, those stitches in his mouth were replaced no less than three times before we just gave up—he would relentlessly chew through them.  I can’t begin to tell you the horrors of watching your child chew his mouth into hamburger and how bloody that was.  Enough said.

That was when he was three.

So we’re always on the look-out for things that we know he will run into, not see, or not even be aware of.   Which brings me to the car mirrors.  My kid is a magnet for them.  We could be in a wide open parking lot and he’d still manage to smack into one.  I would intentionally park away from other cars, I still do.  Trust me, I’m not parking in the back nine to get a little more exercise, it’s to protect my son.  There was a period of time where he had a series of black eyes from running head first into a car mirror.

I can’t trust he won’t be busy in his own thoughts and not be aware of what’s around him.

And that brings me to a bigger issue.  I have to be his eyes and ears—all the time.  I can’t rely on him to pay attention to his surroundings.  I can’t depend he’ll see oncoming traffic and I certainly can’t expect him to walk across a parking lot unattended.

So for us safety is not a given.  It’s not something we take for granted and its not something we take lightly.  It’s something that keeps me up at night.  I’m constantly ticking off where Alex can get hurt, lost, wander away or run over.  And I’m being dead serious here.  The amount of time my neurons are firing, thinking of all the ways to keep him out of harms way, is astonishing.  I can’t trust he’ll look both ways at a corner and I can’t expect him to look up from the ground to see the car mirrors.

So the next time you see me and I’m out in the nosebleed section of Target’s parking lot, know I’m not there for my health.  I’m there for my son’s.

30 Minutes of Solitude

One thing I know for certain from reading blogs, Facebook comments, and Twitter tweets is that moms, especially moms of kiddos with special needs, don’t get much time to themselves.

Can I get a witness??

The smart and sassy Lisa Quinones-Fontanez, from Autism Wonderland, wrote an awesome guest post about her quest for some quality alone time.  I think we can all relate to the need to eek out a few moments in the day to get our thoughts straight.

Don’t forget to leave her some comment love, and visit her site, where she writes about her beautiful son, Norrin.  She’s a very active autism advocate, especially within the Latina/Latino community (I hope I phrased that right).

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I knew when I became a mom that I would never be alone.  And as much as I love my husband and child.  I miss having moments of solitude.

My alone time consists of my subway commute to and from work.  But I guess that doesn’t really count. I may be alone, but I’m in a crowd.  And it usually smells.

There are days when I go into the ladies room and go into a stall and just sit.  And its quiet and no one can find me or bother me.

Bliss.

Unless a coworker follows me in the ladies room and decides stall to stall conversation is okay.

It’s never okay.

But I need something more than a few fleeting moments of ladies room sanctuary.

That’s why I’ve been waking up at the crack ass of dawn, lacing up my running and heading out to run in circles. (There is a circular walkway in front of my building.  Seven times around equals a mile – or so I’ve been told.)

Well…I’m not really running.  I’m walking at a very brisk pace.  I’ll start running next week.  It’s part of getting my sanity back.

It’s just me and the squirrels and maybe a few other people running.   And people leaving to work.   But they do not get in my way.  I can think.  Or not think. I can clear my head.  Gather my thoughts.  I can just be alone.  And I think I deserve that time.

Someone else thought otherwise.

On my second morning as I was walking back into my building I saw my neighbor, in her cute pink short running shorts.  A mom of 3 NT kids under the age of 7.  She knows everything.  And she’s quick to tell that “all kids do that”. She is her pre-baby weight.  She likes to give me advice about my kid.  Even though she has no experience with special needs children.  I avoid her like the plague. But at 5:45 am there is no avoiding her.

“Oh are you running now?” She asks.

“Uh..yeah trying to.”

“What time are you out here?”

I know where she is going with this.  She wants us to be run buddies.   She has tried this before.  Wanting us to be work out pals.

I tell her I am out at 5 am and say goodbye before she can say anything else.

I don’t want her interfering in my alone time.  I don’t want to have a conversation before I’ve had my first cup of coffee.  I don’t want to run in circles and feel as if I’m jumping through hoops trying to make polite conversation with a woman I have absolutely nothing in common with.

On my third day she came out earlier and I’m still running. I wave hello and pick up my pace. I think she wanted me to stop.  I walk a few more laps around the circle and went into the building.

On the fourth morning I see her again around the same time.  I am relieved to see she found a friend to keep her company.  We said hello and I had no choice but to run behind her and her friend.  (I could have passed them but that would mean I’d have to exhaust myself running.)  And the two of them talked the whole time.

I may need to start heading out at 4 in the morning.

What would you do for 30 minutes of solitude?

Safety and Special Needs, A Series

Back when Connor was not yet one-year-old, and still crawling, we lived in a house with a fireplace in the living room.  At some point each day, he busied himself with crawling to the fireplace, in an attempt to get into that big hole and play around.

There were several well-read parenting books on my shelf, so I knew that my job was to move him and distract him with his toys.  This didn’t seem to be working, but I dug in my heels and decided I would stick with this plan.  Connor, of course, had not read the parenting books, and as soon as I plopped him down with his toys, he abruptly turned and crawled right back to the fireplace.  I stuck with it, mentally counting each time I moved him away, and when I got to 100, I knew something wasn’t right.  I hadn’t been around that many babies, but I knew that it usually wasn’t that hard to interest them in an alternate object.

Since my main goal was his safety, I got online to look for gates.  Most seemed to be in the $100 range, which was just not in the budget, so we had to be creative.

I found a large cardboard box in the garage, and cut out one side in the shape of the fireplace.  Then I duct-taped the flat cardboard to the front of the fireplace.  Hubs laughed at me, asking “do you really think that’s going to stop him?”

But it did.  As soon as the opening of the fireplace was covered up, it was like it no longer existed.  Connor crawled that way once, looked at it, and turned around and went back to his toys.  He never bothered with the fireplace again, as though it had disappeared.

Now I realize that compared to some, we don’t have it so tough.  There are many parents that have to go to extreme measures to ensure their kids’ safety, often in creative and innovative ways. And there are too many horrible stories out there about kids that have wandered and gone missing.

When I was looking for someone to guest post for me, I had several kind offers.  They wanted to know what topic I’d like, and my mind kept coming back to safety.  And instead of just having a single guest post, I thought this might be a great topic to run as a series.

Every Monday I’ll host a guest post from someone with their story of safety issues for their kids, and what has worked for them.  There are so many great ideas out there, and I know this will be helpful to others.

There aren’t too many rules, just a few:

1.  Contact me, via email (nuttydingo@gmail.com) or Facebook, letting me know you’d like to submit a post on safety.  I’ll run them on consecutive Mondays, in the order they’re received.

2.  Submit your finished post, along with any pics or links to be included, to me at least 48 hours ahead of time.

3.  I will not edit your post.  If I spot a spelling error, I may correct it, but that’s it.  The usual disclaimer applies:  if there is any material that is offensive, abusive, or defamatory, I reserve the right to withhold posting the piece.

4.  As is customary, post a link on your blog on your Monday, linking back to The Connor Chronicles.

I made this handy-dandy picture, meme-y thing that you can use if you want.

(When I added text it blurs just a tiny bit when I save it.  Why?  Why does it do this?  This is the crap that makes me crazy in life, this stuff right here.  If you know how to do this so the text doesn’t blur, tell me and I’ll send you the pic.  Otherwise, this one isn’t too bad.)

This is Why Parents Should Always Lock Their Bedroom Door

Am I alone here, or does this happen to you guys too??

It does, right?

Tell me it does.

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What about this?  NO??

Anyone?

So it’s just me then.

GREAT!

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Respect-Mongering On The Interwebs

You may have noticed this strange phenomena happening in the online social world. It’s permeating blogs, Facebook posts, tweets, and honest-to-goodness legitimate news sites (like HuffPo, because that’s totally legit.) I call it Respect Mongering. More and more people are clamoring about feeling disrespected, marginalized, victimized, and bashed.

Respect mongering isn’t the same as being justifiably upset about a real affront. When 50 Cent made injudicious and derogatory statements about a derelict fan “looking autistic”, it was justifiable to be insulted by the tone and intent of the remark.

When that teacher in New Jersey was caught by a recording device calling Stuart Chaifetz’s kid a “bastard”, outrage was an acceptable reaction because there is never, ever a circumstance where a teacher should EVER call a student a name, especially an autistic student. That is just flat-out abuse.

But these aren’t the kind of occurrences I’m referring to here. I’m talking about when people leave nasty comments about a blog post where someone talks about their own experience with something, and they express their own opinions about that experience. Similarly, I’ve seen this when someone expresses an opinion on Facebook that meets with venomous attacks.

It’s one thing to say something completely horrible, like “conservatives are evil, face-eating zombies.” Ok, see that there? That is a statement that frames a whole group of people in a negative light, and makes a false assertion about said group. That is a bad thing. That is something that invites vitriolic opposition.

But what’s been happening is more like this: someone says on their blog, or in a Facebook Comment that “my conservative next-door neighbors remind me of evil, face-eating zombies.” Now this is different. See, the person has expressed their own opinion, not about a large group, but about someone specific to their social sphere, and is probably referring to some kind of negative interaction they have had with this specific neighbor. Maybe they even know for a fact that their neighbor engages in the abuse of bath salts. Who knows? But this is the kind of statement that will bring a barrage of nasty, hate-filled comments by people that are OUTRAGED that someone could be so prejudiced against the face-eating zombie people that are out there in the world doing good deeds and contributing to society.

Similarly, it will also spur negative responses from people that believe the statement implies that ALL conservatives are face-eating zombies. And OHMYSWEETBABYJESUS, Sarah Palin could never be a face-eating zombie, because she lives right there by Russia, and they would not allow the threat of face-eating zombies to be that close to the Mother Land. And Sarah cares to much about America and she knows lots of things about stuff to ever be a face-eating zombie, so WHERE DO YOU GET OFF SLANDERING SARAH PALIN??

Official White House Photo.
Not really.

Do you see how this might be a tad…nit-picky? Perhaps a bit over-the-top?

But this happens almost every day to someone who has innocently put forth their own opinion based on their own experience. You know, it’s like when someone writes about their personal parenting experience of their autistic child, in their own home, and maybe they decide to write about how difficult or challenging they are finding it, and someone goes all unhinged and starts a campaign to shut them down.

Yeah, maybe like that.

Or, like when someone *cough* makes up a cutesy picture with a snappy saying about parenting a child on the spectrum, and someone completely loses it and accuses the person of being “defamatory and ruthlessly harsh”. Especially when the person, who is usually inclined toward a biting sarcasm (cough), went out of their way to make something happy and positive.

Defamatory and Ruthlessly Harsh, or the truth as I see it?

Here’s the thing. We live in a free country where expressing our thoughts and opinions is a right and freedom that is protected. It’s protected even if you don’t agree. So, while I may have personally thought that 50 Cent’s comment was insulting and hurtful, and perhaps I did or did not partake in a Twitter campaign of sending out dozens of pre-scheduled tweets educating him about autism and requesting an apology, I still would not deny him the right to say such stupid and ignorant things publicly.

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And if someone on their blog, or their Facebook feed makes a statement about their own personal experience with something, as long as it doesn’t degrade and insult a whole group of people, then why not let it be?

I’ll leave you with one more example:

If someone on, say, Facebook, compares liberals to “people that wear helmets and lick the Windex off of bus windows”, then this is pretty unkind and an obvious attack on people with special needs. It may be a crude attempt at humor, but it is still bad and wrong and ugly. This thing invites unhappy comments.

But if someone says that liberals are “a silly bunch of clowns”, then that statement is okay. It’s not okay because it’s a true statement, because obviously that is just WRONG. It’s okay because clowns aren’t offended at being compared to liberals, and people in general just don’t like clowns. And frankly, clowns are silly sometimes.

Do you see?

Restraint and humor, that’s what we all need to exercise when trolling around the alternate universe of the interwebs. Maybe instead of all this respect mongering, we can learn to laugh and learn to accept that we may be reading one person’s personal account, not an across-the-board depiction of someone or something.

But hey, if you wanna bash…gimme a sec to get these earrings off, and let’s have a go, shall we?

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I’m Really More of a Figurehead

On Friday afternoon, Connor said, “can I do a worksheet, so I can earn a trip to McDonald’s, I only need one more sticker?”

Then two things happened.  The first was that I jumped up and sprinted across the room to get a worksheet so fast, that I almost sprained my ankle.  When a request like that happens, there’s no time to dilly-dally in meeting it, lest the momentum be lost.  So I limped over and found a spelling worksheet, and got Connor set up at the table.

The other thing that happened was that I was overcome with a feeling of triumph and superiority, because my cleverly devised plan of setting up a rewards chart was working so well that my child was asking to do a worksheet.  Oh yeah, I totally rock at this parenting thing.

My clever friends will see that this feeling of accomplishment and mastery was both foolhardy and premature.  But that kind of parenting high is so rare, that I let myself indulge and bask in the warm glow of satisfaction.

I left Connor at the table to do his worksheet,and went into the other room to fold laundry, all the while feeling smug in my clearly superior parenting ability.

A couple of minutes went by and I returned to the kitchen in time to see Connor walking across the room with something being held behind his back.  “What have you got behind your back”, I asked.

“Just scissors.”

“Oh”, I said.  “Well put them away, you don’t need scissors unless you’re working on crafts.”

My thinking was obviously clouded by my newfound feeling of awesomeness, because I totally didn’t even wonder why he had his scissors out.

He told me he was finished with his worksheet, so I came over to check his answers.

They looked pretty good.  But something didn’t seem quite right.

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Huh, weird.   There’s no space for the last two answers.  Maybe I should just compare the paper to the rest of the workbook.

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Crafty little shit, isn’t he??  It’s called “shortened assignment, accommodations.”

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At least it was decorative cutting.

So now that I came crashing back to earth with a thud and long, painful skid, it was safe to go back to being pissy mom.  So I made him write the answers anyway, in the space above the  question.

I really should have known better than to let the moment go to my head.  For several years, in the game of Mom vs. Connor, I’ve been outmatched nearly every step of the way.

So screw it, I took him to McD’s anyway.  I figure he earned a reward for his clever problem-solving skills.

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