Growing

My kids are cute…getting big, big personalities both of them. I’ve never really been around kids this age and I’m not a baby person, but it’s just been cool to see them emerge. They have this way of engaging and speaking, and it’s just funny so much of the time. Walking the soon-to-be-six-year-old Little Man to the bus. He asked me my age, which is safely in middle territory. His response, “Whoa, you’re close to dying.”

Mr. Man is still all about the puzzles, but he’s recently found a passion for Lego. They are EVERYWHERE, and they hurt. It’s actually near impossible to not step on something. We pick-up relatively often, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like the carpet is destined to be a treacherous and painful apparatus, and I’m a little bitter about it. I was hauling to answer the phone for one of the few non spam calls. My arch collides with something plastic, and my whole body practically radiates with breathtaking pain. I catch my voice and scream in a very cool mannered parenting intervention, “Pick-up your shit!” Little Man calmly says, “What shit,” which would be funny if my foot nerve endings weren’t on fire. To their credit, both kids didn’t argue. They earnestly and efficiently tackled the floor spread…not that it remained that way the next day.

Warrior Queen has always been a force. Even in my womb she seemed like one, and it’s just (mostly) a cool thing to see her increasingly tune those finer points…her personality characteristics more defined. Her language some of the best expressions of her feistiness. Walking back from the bus, I reach to touch the little girl who is the best parts of me…a person even at just-shy-of-four knows her voice…something I’ve always struggled to have. She steps away glaring at me, “You’re annoying me.” My fierce girl is also big with her, “I’m not enjoying that,” assertions. Granted much of the time she’s grumpy about the consequence to her own annoying behavior toward other people, but I love that she is such a presence.

What encapsulates my kids is their kindness. They just have this awareness and empathy for others. Little Man has always been good about asking about how I am…or how anyone is, but Warrior Queen has also started doing the same. If she isn’t grumpy coming downstairs in the morning, one of her first sentences uttered is, “How are you feeling?” I’m told she behaves in a similar manner in school, and I just love that in a very hard to define way.

Last night Warrior Queen was overtired and upset before bed. I wasn’t having much of an impact, even as she’s requesting my presence. It was during that phase of her unhappiness when she isn’t really able to assert what she needs. All she knows is that she’s unhappy. But, her big brother wanted her to feel better, “Here’s your blankie,” “Do you want your bird?” He tried to read her a story that she likes…so many sweet, lovely things.

And, when I’m not at my best, my daughter often scratches my back briefly because she likes a good back scratch. My son continues to read me stories when I don’t feel up to doing much of anything. I don’t know if these things are typical of kids at this age, but it’s good to know that with all of the jerkiness that’s part of raising humans, some of these gestures of theirs consistently shine through.

There are so many word things and snuggle things I want to remember, like the way Warrior Queen requests food at “Old McDonald’s,” or the way both kids refer to an “ambleeance.” At some point they will get it right, but I’m not looking forward to it.

I told myself that I wouldn’t do school visits once my kids started in the public system. I’m well aware that I’m intimidating, and I’m not good at hiding disdain, and I worried I’d be unhappy with what I saw. It was an inauspicious beginning, and I just…worried. Little Man came home one day and offered a rare discussion of school. Usually he’s telling me about an iPad game he’s obsessed with. He doesn’t play any kind of electronic games or use my tablet or phone for this kind of thing, so school is an overstimulated novelty. He burrowed into me and began telling me of a Mommy that came in for a little while. I asked if he was just telling me to tell me, or if he was passive aggressively hinting at something. “I’m telling you because I want you to do it.” I can’t argue with that.

I’ve now visited his class twice, and there are really no words for me to describe what the experience is. I’m only there for about an hour. I think it’s supposed to only be a thirty minute visit. I don’t want to make a nuisance out of myself, but I also don’t want to disrupt the routine by leaving mid thing…so it ends up as a clean hour with the timing.

My son is mostly a snuggler, even as an almost-six-year-old. It isn’t all the time, and often enough he just want to lay on my expanse without me touching him, but he’s never been unhappy with the contact. He welcomes the smooches and hugs greedily most of the time. But, it’s very different when I’m in his class. He’s in a constant state of touching me in some way. It isn’t the lap sitting of home or the other flops and sprawls I’m accustomed to. It’s me sitting on the floor next to him with his shoulder pressing against mine and his fingers resting lightly on me knee. Then he’ll turn to me and place his finger tips on my shoulder, continuously mouthing he loves me. My son often says he loves me. There is something very different about his expressions when I’ve been in his class, and it almost steals my words and pulls me in. This marvelous strong boy who throws caution to the wind with regards to the world in so many ways…indifferent to the pressures I was tormented with, even in Kindergarten. I don’t have a good sense of time or memories, but some of the few of that young child space was feeling left out and friendless. Little Man does not have huge collections of friends. He does have an assortment, but not really anyone in his class. It doesn’t seem like anyone is mean to him, but he doesn’t feel connected, and he is totally okay with that.

Otherwise the kids and I have been snuggling more, in general. My elliptical has been broken for two weeks with a few more days until it will be fixed, if things go according to plan. I’ve been reading more, which I will spare the details of, but suffice it to say I haven’t been voracious about the stuff I’ve been wanting to complete. The higher brow stuff I’m reading is good literature, and truly it pulls me in with such a unique force, but they are also heavier reads, and I’ve not been in the mind to concentrate. But, as I’m on the sofa under a down comforter I’ve had since early high school, little man burrows in next to or on top of me watching his media, enlightening me with comments I don’t understand. Warrior queen finds her place on me as well, and we become a type of pile of limbs and warmth; it’s probably one of the greatest things ever. When someone tells me to appreciate every moment of this time, I immediately call bullshit. There is no shortage of moments I’d rather forget. But, then there are others smattered throughout in no shortage. I could play them on a continuous loop for the rest of my life.

The Good Days

I spend too much time complaining on this site, or at least it feels that way. It isn’t that I have bad days most of the time, certainly there are pretty great moments almost every day. But, sometimes a day will just be good and fun. I have isolated and select moments often enough when I can attest to the sentiment, but sometimes the entire day is just a good day…a fun day. I might be feeling sad about something or stressed about something else, but I just feel good.

I haven’t been exercising much of the week. I’m feeling a little tired and drained. Some of this is a menstrual cycle thing, and some of it is that I think I’m fighting the cold Warrior Queen has…or has had for the better part of six weeks. I’ve learned to listen to my body. No motivation to exercise is almost never my issue, so when I’m not feeling it, I need to pay attention and not force myself. So, I’m not.

A few days before my cycle starts I will DRAG in a relentless fatigue. My limbs will be heavy and I can barely keep my head up and awake. It’s more or less predictable and maybe lasts a day or two. It’s not pleasant, but I manage. I plan my week over the weekend. I make a chart of what I want to do and when…make my various task lists. I have an exceptionally crowded and noisy brain, so whatever I can escape all of my internal stimuli, I do. I was struggling over the weekend, so I scaled my plans WAY back. I mention this because when the misery of the cycle stuff lifts almost miraculously, I physically feel it as something profound. I feel lighter…peppier, and just all around fantastic. At times there is some euphoria thrown in there, especially when I’m able to crank through things. That feeling started yesterday, and carried into today.

Little Man was ushered off to school without much controversy. It’s a warm mid-week, so the streets aren’t as icy as they had been…both kids wiping out for the days prior at fairly regular intervals during this simple one minute task down the street. This climate change thing is not good. I’ve been in this area for twenty years now. I can feel the shift in the months. In the last decade-ish December has become this weird collection of mildly cold skewing to downright warm days. By the end of the month things are still not as bitter as I recall from when I first moved here. On the other end, March is often pretty miserable, and many winters are slammed with hard core snow in February. January tends to just be cold.

But, my good day started with an easy-peasy bus marching child troop. Little Man off to school, and I had a solid thirty to spend with Warrior Queen before trekking to her preschool. I like the time. It simultaneously feels expansive and brief. Usually we read some stories and snuggle until I’m running late and remember that I need to actively wrangle the girls into a bra that doesn’t really fit, but is better than it was…at least I’m not in my late pregnancy maternity bras anymore. I could live without the ladies managing their own orbit, but hopefully in time I will look back to the planetary stature they share, and it will be more of a silly, absurd memory. Eventually we were out the door, and traffic wasn’t terrible. Warrior Queen settled in her play-based program, and I’m off for my own adventures.

A snow day last week had me missing something I’d been planning to do for months. I managed to at least participate the second day I’d planned. I’m not really into holiday fare, as it’s Christian, and it makes me uncomfortable…as well as entering churches. I feel tremendously uncomfortable entering churches for any reason. But, my agency has a robust affiliation with faith communities (read: a collection of churches containing a specific demographic of people), so I’ve found myself having to enter churches for meetings and such on a regular basis. It’s very uncomfortable. But, this is a popular program we run. It’s popular for the incarcerated men this program supports, as well as a tradition for various families and community members in the area. There is talk of expanding it, and I don’t feel as though I can make a sound decision or effort if I don’t take part in at least a segment of what this program involves. But, church aside, I’d very much been looking forward to this…I like community service…I like bustling about doing whatever task, especially if I’m a worker bee with no responsibility. With Warrior Queen having her cold thing, I was worried I would have to wait until next year. I’m glad I at least had the one day of participation. This is a neat thing we do, and I have a good grasp of what we need as an organization with regards to this specific venture, as well as possibly expanding it. On many levels this was a good, fun thing for me…stuff to think about, and the tasks themselves.

I even managed to get some soup I like in our town cafe. I had so much soup yesterday that my fingers turned to sausages. I couldn’t manage my wedding ring. I guess middle-age ushers salt bloat rather easily? So, there I was…having more soup. I’d say it was well worth it; sausage fingers be damned! Take-out order that I ate waiting for Little Man’s bus to arrive. I even accomplished the overwhelming thrill of paying his tuition invoice now that my son insisted that he loved school and proclaimed he wanted to remain for the entire day…sigh. I won’t complain though. More cost for things, but considering how much I worried about him starting in the public schools, this is a very good thing. I’m not thrilled with certain aspects of his education, but I guess it’s something I will have to be more focused on next year…like teachers teaching the bullshit Thanksgiving story. Not sure what I’ll do about that, but I have a little less than a year to figure it out. But, given how much Christmas stuff I’m seeing Little Man take home, I emailed his teacher to offer a Hanukkah lesson…or thing. It actually really bothers me that THIS is our holiday that gets the attention. The only reason it’s celebrated or given any attention at all is because of its proximity to Christmas.

The small pile of bills tended to, I was left with a few more minutes before Little Man’s bus. It’s a lifting thing to manage a collection of emails that aren’t a big deal to make happen, yet I always dawdle my way in writing them. Also lifting, I called a joint state house committee about a bill that is set for its first hearing. I’ve been calling about this issue to my state congressional critters for a while now. I like when things progress, especially when it’s legislation that will protect vulnerable people. I didn’t quite make it through the list of all of the Senators and Representatives on the committee, but I plowed through most. These kinds of calls are super quick, “Hi, I’m so-and-so. I’m a resident, but not a constituent. I’m calling in Senator/Representative X’s capacity on the Committee of whatever. I support (or don’t) such-and-such legislation.” And, that’s the call. If I have five minutes, I can usually check several names off the list.

And before I knew it, Little Man arrived home, and remembered to pick up his Lego off the floor. I hurt myself the previous night. He saw me hurt myself. It was just before bed, so he said he would pick them up in the morning…which he did for a little while before running out of time. Then he committed to finishing after school. It was the first thing he did without me prompting him. He knew I hurt myself, and he wanted to make things better for me, and I love him so much for that…not that keeping his Lego off the floor is generally a priority for him. Sigh…I take the wins where I can. Warrior Queen wasn’t due for her pick-up, so Mr. Man and I snuggled on the sofa, and I read to him. He periodically rested his head on my shoulder, and told me how much he loves me. They do this for the rest of their lives, right?

Warrior Queen is amazing to retrieve from school. There are two doors to her classroom. I’m usually toward the end of the parent line, which gives me the opportunity to peek in the second window. Often my girl is sitting at the far table closest to me. When she sees me she lights up, and yells that she loves me. Then she will blow me kisses and smile this huge smile she has. She will always declare how much she loves me among her peers, right? When I trickle my way to the front of the line, Warrior Queen greets me with a “Hi Mommy! Are we getting cookies today?” No, little girl; no cookies. “Can we get them some day?” Yes, my girl. We will get cookies again some day.

Yucky day, so the kids didn’t want to play outside at Warrior Queen’s school. Entering the house, Mr. Man urges me to puzzle with him. I’m not good at puzzles. Some of the ones I select end up harder than I thought they’d be. Little Man is mostly working 500 piece puzzles or 300 piece ones. I chose this silly puzzle…because it’s silly, but almost didn’t because I didn’t find the picture aesthetically appealing…I’m weird like that. I don’t know that Little Man cares. I’m glad I chose this one because I can more or less do it. And, while I don’t like puzzling per se, I enjoy this time with my son. I enjoy how my daughter often sits on my lap as we are working and snuggles into me. It’s funny how one of my least favorite past-times is one of my favorites.

And, after some quality time with the kids, I make some calls on behalf of a presidential candidate, and tick away slightly at a new program I’m taking part in writing for the women’s prison. Eventually Warrior Queen enters the room with her dramatic flair, and it’s time to stop my brief stint of work…most of my work is in brief stints. My three-and-a-half-year-old daughter climbs onto my lap. She giggles, and we exchange in some kind of word game of yes/no. I say one; she says the other. Periodically I switch it on her and dip her way back so that her hair sweeps the floor. I don’t know that I pay much attention to the game itself, transfixed by her smile and giggles when I flutter kisses on her neck. That moment lasts until Mr. Man proclaims his entrance, insisting I do something similar. Ultimately, I give him the tightest squeezes I can manage and ending with the “Kissing Bandit.” I flood his cheeks and neck with imprecise kisses in rapid succession. The final tight squeeze until my arms fatigue, and the kids leave the room.

I follow, work on my new afghan project for some time. Little Man resumes his puzzle. Warrior Queen keeps him company at the kitchen table like she does so many times. We roll around until dinner, and the end of our day together. Bedtime is Warrior Queen’s rocking, but she’s tired without a nap during the day. The final stage are the dinosaur jokes with my son that are vaguely having to do with a dinosaur and aren’t really jokes. It’s a cause-effect game. He tells me to make the jokes silly. As I manage the ten that I count down, my five-and-a-half-year-old Little Man ends with a real giggle. Often he forces these ear piercing shrieks when he’s amused. It’s an artificial gesture of amusement, and hard to be in the same room with its pitch. But, in those final minutes of the day, he gives me his real laugh. The one I hope he will also have for the rest of his life.

New beginnings and loose ends…

Look at me all diligent with my blogging! Like countless parents this time a year, my first entered Kindergarten. I’ve been generally anxious about this, mostly because my son is a unique gent, and the world doesn’t not appreciate neurodiversity. On the one hand he could be part of a wonderful group of children…on the other he could have my experience as a kid. Horribly bullied to the point that I didn’t really have a friend until high school, and most of my teachers treated me poorly because I was so weird and annoying. I’m desperately trying to push these fears down. There is nothing I can do about it. He is who he is, and I hope others appreciate him.

Little Man is about five-and-a-half at this point, and newly potty trained. For a couple of weeks I was hesitant to say he was potty trained instead of describing him as still in the process of this delight in parenting adventures. And, this process had been in some kind of swing since the spring. My son is Autistic, so the notion of this milestone is weighed differently than neurotypical kids. I don’t have firm data for this, as most of what I read is created by ableist parents and practitioners. I’ve been educating myself on Autism by reading information provided by those who are part of the community. Consequently, I’ve been trying my best to center around Little Man, and attempting to assess his shtick and what he responds well to…or not.

Up until the spring he wasn’t willing to entertain toilet use whatsoever. It turned into him waving his hand in my face and telling me to stop talking. But, as much as I want to respect his process, I was becoming increasingly nervous he would be wearing diapers in Kindergarten. It isn’t the diapers themselves that were a problem for me, but Little Man easily looks like he’s entering the first grade, maybe even the second. My concern is that he would become the target of other children. Once that happens, there isn’t anything I can do. I expect such a thing would not follow him throughout his entire elementary career, but I also don’t want to see him sad or hurt. Generally, my son is indifferent to kids acting like a bag of dicks toward him, but it is possible for him to be bothered. It’s also hard to predict what would push him over the bothered threshold, and I frankly don’t want to find out.

The process started with me having blunt conversations with him about my concerns. I knew there was a shift in him because he listened to what I had to say. I didn’t want to be too hopeful, though, because we’ve had several false starts over the past couple years in this realm…a dynamic I’m acutely aware of, but don’t want available for public consumption. This time, however, things felt different.

This is one of my favorite calming images. Standing at the foot of a tree and looking up…or seeing the changing light going through the canopy of leaves. If there is a subtle breeze on a perfectly overcast day, I just might manage to reduce my internal raging for a few. As Little Man was allowing me to speak to him about using the toilet, I immediately felt myself transfer to the zen of these exquisite trees with the calming currents of air brushing my face and tousling my increasingly gray streaked hair.

After our conversations that eventually amounted to guilt trips for not shitting in the toilet, we started on the charts…MONTHS of charts. Little Man earned his prizes…so did Warrior Queen because it’s lunacy to give Big Brother a doughnut and deprive her. Not surprising, my son was more interested and invested in the checks on the charts themselves than working for the reward…whatever, it was working.

Below are the charts I generated in Word documents in the event such a thing is helpful for someone else. All of them can be edited, and if anyone has specific questions after my spiel, I’m happy to share whatever tid-bits of things I’ve not outlined here. Most of these follow a kind of linear path of increasing expectation, but note there are outliers from when I experimented to see what might work best for Little Man. Toward the end of diaper use, I would write in how many times he decided he wanted to poop in the toilet for the chart cycle or use the facilities outside the home. That probably isn’t evident in the below documents, as such adjustments were hand-written in. For a long while I was able to reuse the same templates. And, by the end the charts were becoming specific to situations he was avoiding…like using the bathroom at school. He wasn’t having accidents, but holding it in for the duration of his four hour school day and bus transits.

I tried to keep Little Man as involved in the planning as possible, which worked as I threw it back in his face when he didn’t feel like using the potty…I’m not ashamed to say that sometimes I was not entirely easy going with this. I wasn’t crazy abrasive, but I wielded a heavy hand to keep him on track at times. In the end we had all kinds of carrots going on. There were the general “potty charts,” but eventually he was slacking on the dump end, which yielded another chart (the last document below). The reward for pooping in toilet was (and still is) an extra 30 minutes of television at night. That wasn’t always an effective incentive…mostly it’s how I knew he wasn’t remotely ready to go through this process. There isn’t much this kid wouldn’t do for some extra television, but apparently a visit to the porcelain bowl was a bridge too far in expectation. The poop chart gave him that extra nudge he needed. We would determine the time span of the chart…with every chart actually, and I’d have him decide how many times or the span of the chart. The only requirement I had was with each new chart: he had to do more than he was doing in the previous one.

Final note, I designed these charts to absorb bad days. For example, if he decided he wanted the chart to cover seven days, there was not an expectation that the days had to be consecutive. That said, more times than not he was whipping through these things…and both my kids seemed to be in a constant state of consuming doughnuts.

potty-chart-1Download

potty-chart-2Download

potty-chart-3Download

potty-chart-4Download

potty-chart-5Download

potty-chart-6Download

potty-chart-7Download

potty-chart-8Download

potty-chart-9Download

potty-chart-10Download

potty-chart-11Download

poop-chart-1Download

After my third or fourth successful diaper and accident free outing, I stumbled upon these marvels of kitchenware designs…clearly whoever created these mugs was potty training their five-and-a-half-year-old a breath away from starting Kindergarten.

By the end of the chart designs Little Man managed to transition to underwear full-time, and easier than expected. If he decides it will be a good day, then he won’t have an accident. Most of the time he won’t need to be prompted to use the restroom. There is usually a point in the day that he gives me a hard time about it, but that hard time is not as challenging as what this process used to be. The longer he’s been in underwear full-time, the more natural the process for him, and the more I trust his judgment…that’s yielding significantly less to no nagging. And, here we are…a couple weeks into school; my little man is growing up! He’s been so proud of himself…telling anyone and everyone who will listen how good he is at “pottying.”