Review: Liking Myself, and The Mouse, The Monster, and Me

The good people at BlogHer Ads (what a fine, fine crew) let me back on board even though I jumped ship three years ago. Times have changed, and I can no longer scoff at spare blog ad change. But hosting ads means no more reviews on this site, as they could dilute the perceived value of purchased ad space.

The way I see it, I've sold my soul, so I might as well fracture it too. All future reviews will be sequestered in my bloggy horcrux, SquidRosenberg.wordpress.com. My opinions will remain honest, and I won't be reviewing anything I wouldn't purchase for myself or my family.

I've posted a new review, even: all about some really sweet kids' self-help books by Pat Palmer: Liking Myself, and The Mouse, the Monster, and Me. I really do recommend them. But you'll have to pop over there, and sit through some cute videos of Mali reading from the books, to see why.

Selling out,

Squid

Turning Nine on a Ninth in 2009

Leo had such a busy, fun, indulgent, and productive birthday that he asked to go to bed right on time. We even had him declaring that he was nine- rather than eight-years-old by day's end. But before that...

Seymour and I woke him up and presented him with his new Catbus! He was not as immediately overjoyed as I'd hoped, mostly because he didn't want to wake up. But once he realized what we were shoving at him, he was pleased.

Every seat had a cute little butt in it during carpool this morning, which meant that six people sang Leo Happy Birthday while we made the morning drop off rounds. Our cabin music also featured happy birthday songs, by The Jimmies, The Candy Band, and Justin Roberts.

After Leo and I returned home and he got on his bus, I worked for a bit then awaited the behavioralist sent by the regional center. Leo's regional center case worker was pleased by the reduction in Leo's aggressive behaviors since last year, but since his remaining behaviors are still dangerous when they do happen, she offered us a few hours of in-home behavioralist consultation. Supervisor M works at Leo's school almost exclusively, and supervisor E works on his home program rather than doing QA as she used to, so I figured a good pair of QA-like eyeballs might be helpful. Let's hope the regional center reviews the behavioralist's intial report on Leo and grants those hours to us.

Then I scurried off to Leo's school with his sad looking but tasty cake. Before I could make it to his classroom, both his teacher and Supervisor M asked me to walk down the hall and meet with the county director to talk about transitioning Leo to an integrated site. Which I did. We talked for a while, and I think we're going to move him -- ideally, when the new year arrives, Leo will spend one day per week in an autism classroom on a typical elementary campus, where he will get to mingle with neurotypical peers under the watchful eyes of one of the best teachers in the county (and an aide who knows him, of course). If the class works for him, he will transfer fully for fourth grade. The best part: he will have two friends in the class, the children of two of my favorite people!

More scurrying after the meeting, to Leo's classroom. The class staff had covered the tables with festive purple paper, and Supervisor M was there! A huge treat. His teacher even had a candle for him to blow out -- something I'd left at home as I didn't think it would be allowed. Everyone sang Leo Happy Birthday to the best of their abilities and then he blew out the candle (with some assistance from inspired classmates). And Supervisor M got him a solar-powered remote controlled car! How very cool.

Afterwards, I skulked into the neighborhood Starbucks to caffeinate and finish off my work shift. I didn't really want to be there because I am disappointed with that company: I sent their customer support crew an email asking if would be possible to procure my Starbucks straws-obsessed son with autism a case of their straws as a birthday treat, and their bot-like answer was:

No, we don't sell our straws, and furthermore our supplier is confidential. 

Seymour said they had a right to refuse and I understand -- but it seems like a missed opportunity to generate serious social media goodwill while delighting a challenged little boy who doesn't ask for much. I grumpily and defiantly grabbed a big bunch of the longer straws when I left.

Leo's birthday afternoon was about mellowness and watching Totoro while squealing and tossing around his new Catbus. And sometimes even offering it to his little sister while informing her, "It's Catbus!"

We picked up Indian food for dinner, as we'd promised. Leo not only sat patiently and non-violently in the regular non-five-point-harness booster seat next to Mali the entire way there and back, but he accepted that he had to wait until we got home to eat his naan bread. No hitting, no complaining, no whining. Whoa.

We still had to portion out his naan when we got home -- if he ever does learn to reasonably self-regulate his eating, naan will be the final non-bolting test item.

He asked to go to bed, as I mentioned. He also asked me to play him some tunes on the penny whistle, as has become part of our bedtime routine. Many of the songs he loves fit within that seven-note range -- including the Totoro theme song (mostly), Good Night by Laurie Berkner, This Little Light of Mine, and, as we discovered tonight, the Justin Roberts version of Happy Birthday. Afterward, and after only fifteen minutes of giggling in bed, he slid into sleep.

Nine nine nine. My son is nine. I still can't believe it.

Happy Ninth Birthday Leelo!

Happy birthday beautiful boy!

I am thrilled about what Nine Years Old means for Leo. Our happy, well-adjusted boy has helped us be happy and well-adjusted, too. One year ago I would not have believed such gladness was possible. This is a precious time.

I love that he was excited yet conflicted about going to camp this past weekend. He wanted to go, but he didn't want to be apart from his family -- both positives. He also may have been worried that this was a week-long rather than a weekend-only camp, even though I reassured him that it was the latter. He had a great time, with a great aide, and greeted me at pickup with Spiderman-worthy leaps of joy that ended in a bear hug. He was voted Sweetest Scarecrow during the Harvest Carnival.

I can't wait to greet him when he wakes up, because we got him a new stuffed Catbus for his birthday. I thought was going to be the size of a Chihuahua but no -- more like a portly Jack Russell terrier.  It's huge, and really well made. Leo is going to go out of his mind when he sees it.

I am saddened that Leo's birthday day carrot cake is a pathetic-looking, non-CakeWrecks-worthy fail. I give up on gel decorating tubes! They are sploogy and gush liquid half the time. His cake may be covered in wee rainbow puddles, but it will be delicious and I'm hoping his classmates only care about that. I promise to make a better one for his birthday party, which I am really looking forward to (as I wrote on BlogHer last week). I hope he is too.

There will be green straw snatching runs and naan bread for dinner tonight!

Mali and the Mathematics of Fibbing

Here's Mali and her friend Trinian, off to shoot dragons and eleven-year-old boys during her friend Merlin's birthday party.  Look at that determined walk -- she had absolutely no fear when it came to battling the older kids with her mini-Nerf gun.

"No fear" has always been her standard operating mode. It's served her well for almost five years. As have bravado and enthusiasm. But she's almost five, she's becoming more tuned into social dynamics, and she's starting to change.

Example: She is starting to fib. About anything. About nothing. When it really doesn't matter. Why? I suspect she's had an epiphany similar that of Ricky Gervais in The Invention of Lying (an excellent and original film, though it fails the Bechdel Test), in that people will believe any reasonable statement, so why not say something that gets a reaction? Like saying she's allergic to bees? Or peanuts? I suspect and hope it's a phase, and am running interference where necessary.

She does not like not being the center of attention. She spends her entire soccer game ("game" possibly being too organized a word) stomping around the field, looking at the ground and scowling as the ball and the rest of her team whizz by. (The coaches, thankfully, mostly ignore her non-sporting behavior.) And she hates the after-care dance class at her school, possibly because there are so many other kids.

I would like her to find an outlet for her energy and coordination, and brought up the possibility of a martial art to Seymour, but he doesn't think it's a good idea for her to learn combat skills. Maybe tap or jazz dancing? I would like to find an activity she likes, that also taps her natural rhythm and energy.

She was out of school for two weeks in the middle of October -- one of the many benefits of her year-round school calendar. What a delightful opportunity for us to bond, given that my youngest is fast approaching five and her souped-up version of four years old is so much fun?

Well, no. I work now. Whoops. I forgot about her upcoming break when I took the job. But I had a plan! I would finish almost all of my work at night, and hang out with her during the day, devotedly.

This plan sort of worked on her first day of break, which was also my 40th birthday and so an excuse to cajole her into a Mini-Me outfit complete with houndstooth check pants. She came with me on errands and we may have even read a book, though I remained preoccupied with my new schedule.

And then we came home from that day's school pickups and errands to find my mother in my house, even though I had talked with her just the day before about how much she was continuing to enjoy her family visit to Vancouver. Seymour had imported her as a birthday surprise! I was so very much beyond surprised that I ran around in a little circle instead of bounding over and hugging her, which she probably would have appreciated a bit more. But yay!

If I was happy to have her visit, Mali was even more so. Our poor third child is a social beast like her grandmother and unlike her  mom, so what a treat to spend the first week of her break playing, baking, dressing up, reading, painting, coloring, and talking talking talking with her beloved grandmother. It was also a relief for me -- I was able to shift some work hours to the day, without feelinglike I was abandoning Mali.

I think Mali wore five different outfits each day while my mom was here. My mom put makeup on her, too, which Mali thought was so dandy that she helped herself to the makeup the following morning. Her version of "eyebrows" (her natural brows, like my mom's, aren't visible) was hit-and-miss, but she put on the mascara perfectly. I still can't do that.

Eventually, and after Seymour, my mom, and Jennyalice threw me a surprise birthday party so fabulous that I'm still pinching myself, my mom left. Then it was just me and Mali again during the day.

I can't say I balanced work and parenting perfectly during the remainder of her break, but we did have a good time, including a trip to San Francisco during which she charmed the cupcakes off the Ferry Building vendors, ran most of the length of the Embarcadero, made friends with or totally irritated half of Seymour's co-workers, and surprised the patrons of Coffee Bar by being a child (love that place, but it is deadly grown up-serious). Did you know that My Little Ponies have magnetic feet that work really well on metal staircases?

I love this kid. I want her to stay just like she is, right now. I worry that I underestimate her, given that she's the third kid and I already taught Izzy and Leelo everything and won't remember what I need to revisit for her, or pay enough attention to where her mind is at. Recently I was wondering if she understood counting and one-to-one correspondence because she kept asking me what 1 + 1 and 2 + 2 equaled, but then after I teased her by answering "6" to "What is 1 + 2?" she looked at me witheringly and said, "No, Mommy, it's half of six." So I guess she gets what to do with numbers.

I hope I continue to get what to do with her, how to help her remain such a  treasure, even as she repeatedly experiments with pushing our buttons. She is one of the best things that has ever happened to our family, and that is a sentiment that needs to be on the public record.

Cat Heaven

I'm sure that's where Pat the Cat has gone. It's been four weeks since he waltzed out the door with the other cats in the morning, then for the first time in his life didn't come back for dinner. He had been getting stiff and frail, so we are telling ourselves he did a typical feline hide-and-die somewhere in the multi-acre wild canyon below our house.

Seymour and I found Pat the tiny flea-ridden kitten in a Charlotte, NC rental truck yard, during a 1994 Brooklyn -> Bay Area relocation trip. He rode across the country in my lap and received flea baths in many I-40 motel sinks. He was waiting in the truck while Seymour and I succumbed to the Painted Desert and got engaged. He lived in four different homes with us, and went through three separate WTF processing periods each time we brought home another yowling infant.

He was our beautiful otter pelt cat, he drooled copiously when he was happy, he was much prettier than he was smart, and everyone loved him. His non-pseudonymous name was Boone. Now you get the joke.

The Sharer

Leo made it all the way through our cavernous new Costco without much fuss over the baguette he requested and which I placed in our cart. He so desperately wanted to attack it and shove it in his mouth while we wound our way through the aisles between the bakery section and checkout! But I told him he would have to wait, and that he could have a bite once we got back to our car. He made a few more requests for his bread and hit his head once or twice along the way, but was easily calmed, and -- so you know our benchmark -- I rate one or two yells/head slaps strictly mathematically, i.e., almost zero.

His tolerance of delayed gratification was amazing. It was not so long ago that I would have let him have a few nibbles so we could complete our trip. Now I have faith in him, and his self-control.

I tore him a hunk of baguette once he'd strapped himself into his car seat, then started loading our haul into the car. His sisters noticed him nomming the baguette, and pleaded for some, too. So I tried an experiment: I tore another piece from the baguette, then handed it to Leo, and said, "Leo, pass this to Izzy."

He did. Though all he wanted to do was to eat the bread himself, and without me mentioning any kind of reward, he did what I asked.

That would be a milestone.

Please ask for *Luv Ya Bunches* at your local Scholastic Book Fair

Written by an anonymous friend who very much wants her message to be passed on, so feel free:

You might or might not have heard by now about the recent brouhaha over Lauren Myracle’s new book *Luv Ya Bunches*. If you haven’t, here’s the story in a nutshell: Myracle wrote a book that features, among other things, a girl with two moms; Scholastic wrote her editor a note asking her to change it to standard hetero parents so they wouldn’t have trouble featuring the title at book fairs; Myracle refused to change it, and (not particularly surprisingly) Scholastic is not offering Luv Ya Bunches at book fairs.

Scholastic says it’s not censorship because there are *lots* of books they don’t offer at book fairs; they pick and choose based on many factors. I’m sure they do select for a number of factors, and also that
potential controversy is one of those factors (I once heard Gordon Korman recount a conversation with his editor who, having just read the first page of Korman’s *Born to Rock*, which features a reference to an a prison cavity search, said matter-of-factly, “So, not a book fair candidate, then.”).

Nonetheless, and regardless of what it's called, as a former book fair chairperson, a librarian, a reader, and the lesbian parent of a girl right in *Luv Ya Bunches*’s target audience, I am spitting mad about this. There’s a petition going out to Scholastic leadership asking it to stop censoring gay-friendly books.

I’d like to try another tack as well. The truth is that overall, this mess is probably (I hope!) going to bring lots of welcome publicity and sales to *Luv Ya Bunches*, so that’s not an issue. The issue is the book’s availability *at book fairs*. Book fairs, like libraries, are where kids get to exercise their autonomy and freedom of choice by picking their own books about the things they’re interested in. Book fairs are one of the places where kids’ horizons get expanded. (I still have the copy of *Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret* that I bought at a book sale in elementary school, and still remember the feeling of revelation I had when reading it.) If this title isn’t available at book fairs, kids like my kid and her friends won’t have the chance to make that choice for themselves. By excluding Luv Ya Bunches from book fairs, Scholastic is putting same-sex parents  in the same category as a prison cavity search: something yucky, distasteful, and for mature audiences only.

When I told my daughter yesterday morning about this development (I left out the cavity search analogy, and in fact didn't give my opinions at all), she was shocked and indignant. “They need to WAKE UP!” she said. “Families can be different. NOT everybody has a mom and a dad. It’s just not right!” I couldn’t agree more. I suggested to her what I’m going to suggest to you: that when your school has a Scholastic book fair, you ask for Luv Ya Bunches by name **at the fair**. If you are a school librarian or book fair chairperson, and you have your initial consultation with your book fair rep from Scholastic, ask them to send Luv Ya Bunches in your shipment. If you are a parent or classroom teacher, ask your school librarian and/or book fair chairperson to order it. If you are a book blogger, ask your readers to do the same. And if you aren't any of the above but know someone who is:
pass it on.

And then, if they do manage to order it at the book fair? Buy it.

Look, Scholastic isn’t evil, and I’m sure most of the people involved would tell you that they’re not homophobic themselves. Scholastic is a business, and it’s driven by the market. Its decision-makers are afraid of getting negative publicity and losing book fair sales in conservative communities if Luv Ya Bunches is offered at book fairs. But if there is demand, they want to sell books. If there’s enough demand, regularly, for a title, and they’re licensed to offer it, they’ll stock multiple copies and send it in those huge unwieldy metal carts loaded full of books about vampires and best friends and Bionicles and cute little puppies. Communities that don’t want the book offered can always ask for Scholastic not to send it, or can pull it at book fair setup and hide it (like the Easter books Scholastic inevitably sends to Jewish schools' book fairs).

So, please, ask for *Luv Ya Bunches* at your local Scholastic Book Fair. Let’s help Scholastic wake up to the 21st century.

Leave Photobooth Pix On My Desktop, Will You?

Though they both have nice healthy pink tongues, don't you think? Oral hygiene is important.

Fat Talk Free Week Is Over, Dude

photo by Barak Yedidia

I think this is a lovely photo, in which everyone in my family looks great, our yard looks appropriately autumnal, and even the broken concrete pieces forming our leach field's retaining wall appear picturesque. But I also think that my right breast looks larger than my head, and that my overall shape is displeasing -- to me at least.

I told Jennyalice about my concerns. She was sympathetic, and asked if there was anything she could help me do, go on walks, etc.

"Hell no!" I said, "I'll just ask Barak if we can do a reshoot from a different angle."

He's the King of a House! And a Bush! And a Cat!

Check out this boy. I bet he's saying, "Oh marvelous me! For I am the ruler of all that I see!" While these projected thoughts mostly reveal how much Dr. Seuss we listen to in the car, my boy does rule.

His food tolerance continues to stretch and accommodate. He flabbergasted his parents three weeks ago, by willingly taking chewable antibiotics to treat an ear infection. I ran with that precedent, and bought him some chewable vitamins to see if he'd take those, too. He did! Six years of grinding NuThera vitamin pills into his rice milk, all done!

Unfortunately his food cravings -- we think it's more of a stim -- are at an all time high, and so is his weight. His pediatrician is not yet worried that he weighs 91 lbs, but Seymour and I are. More exercise for everyone, more activities to keep him away from the kitchen. Not easy as the kitchen/counter/peninsula area is our house's socializing nexus, but we'll make efforts to congregate elsewhere. Otherwise Leo thinks he gets food whenever he sees people gathered in the area.

We had Leo's annual social worker visit last week. My son did not hit her. That is a win! She did not cut our respite hours despite how well he's doing compared to last year, as Leo is still very obviously a 1:1 boy.

He is mostly cheerful and snuggly, grabbing us for spontaneous hugs and kisses, with huge lit-up smiles and giggles. He loves for us to lie down with him in the morning before he gets out of bed, and just hug. I'm normally a rather tactile-averse person, but cannot resist Leo's ever-so-sincere requests to "Lie down wif Mommy!" I'm savoring these moments, too -- I know two boys with autism who hit puberty a lot earlier than their peers, so who knows for how much longer early morning snuggling will be appropriate.

He had his first-ever full dental exam two days ago. They had no choice but to knock him out cold, and pull his loose front tooth as it was a liability for the anesthesiologist. (The awesome part: she handed me his tooth to keep, another first. He's swallowed or ignored/lost every other baby tooth.) His dentist couldn't believe what good teeth he has -- no cavities! Apparently the saying about "an apple a day" extends to dentists. He had a hard time coming out of the anesthesia, with prolonged emergence delirium, but eventually we got him into the car and took him home. Then he had a hard time remembering that he temporarily lacked sufficient balance to run rings on his beloved tactile path. By late afternoon he was just fine.

 

Yesterday we took him on our annual pumpkineering excursion to Bob's Pumpkin Patch in Half Moon Bay. He so loves running around with all the other kids, between the pumpkins, over the dead truck, through the cornstalks, around the goat pens, and up the hay bale pyramid. He enjoys his yearly trip to Bob's more than any other part of Halloween. And because he loves it so much, I feel the same way. Not that this will stop me from mooching candy off of his sisters on November 1st. (BTW, yesterday's BlogHer post is all about how to do Halloween -- or not -- when your kid has special needs.)

Even among all this happiness and goodness, I know that winter's coming. Leo's never had a good winter. The fact that Leo's never had a good winter is why he's still at the all-quirky-kids school rather than in a special ed class on a regular campus. But today, he is good and we are good and hope you're good, too.