Spring Break: Beyond Fabulous, Beyond Exhausting

We could approach spring break casually, I suppose, but we don't know how. Leo is happiest when he's busy, so we don't chill -- we schedule. Or, as some concerned friends and perhaps husbands have pointed out, overschedule. But the kids and I had so much fun during their two tandem weeks sans school! Look:

We kicked our week off with a favorite, Butano State Park near Pescadero. The redwoods, coolness, and quiet act like a giant body sock on me and our kids. This is the hike we take new friends on, so they can see our kids at their best. When I am frazzled, I want to see our kids at their best, too. And so we went. Leo always enjoys hiking at Butano.

Mali always knows how to put herself together for the trail -- straightened hair courtesy of big sister Iz, and an animal-print tutu. She was delighted to discover so many blooming trilliums, and introduced herself to nearly a score of banana slugs:


QUEST on KQED Public Media.

(Banana slug video courtesy of Seymour and team. If you want some good randy banana slug backstory, take the man out for a beer. He's got material.)

On another day, our friend Laura Shumaker came for a neighborhood hike with me & Leo, which was too fun -- Laura knows everyone, and always shares the best stories about raising her not-at-all-like-Leo-but-still-autistic son Matthew, who's now a young adult. And Leo adored Laura, as you can see by the hand-holding. A warning, though -- Laura likes to pounce on the lunch check. Next time, I won't have Leo with me, so she should ready herself for a preemptive check strike.

Leo and I always plan a Sebastopol day when we have a good stretch of free time -- the area has endless hiking, fun, & funkiness opportunities. We're fans particularly of People's Music on Main Street, which has nearly any instrument you could imagine, and where the generous staff lets Leo explore them however he likes -- which is how I now know that the steel drum I'd long considered getting him would have been met with meh.
We also make a point of hitting Screaming Mimi's conjured on site and sold by weight ice cream, especially if we can meet up with smart Twitter friends whom I will not out, while we're nomming.



Sebastopol also has playgrounds designed by people who understand that kids crave varied gross motor/weight bearing activity. We hadn't visited the relatively new Ragle Ranch Playground before, so that made it doubly-motivating for Leo. But what I really enjoyed was watching him cross this webbed rope bridge repeatedly, until he could do so without losing his footing. Love watching our boy persevere.

The trails at Ragle Ranch itself were rather mucky with mud, but it was still a lovely day and we banked at least a mile. So not entirely a wash. Leo thought the gloompy mud and the sound it made when he extracted his foot were delightful; I have not yet washed those shoes. *shudder*

We also always hit Harmony Farm Supplies, since they really do have the region's best plant, seed, bulb, & gear selection. But more interesting than their Himalayan strawberry and broccoli starters was this flyer on their community billboard! A goat source! Just wait, one day I will have my own herd of tiny aponkyes (Twi for goat), you'll see. Not kidding. Enrolling Mali in 4H, come Fall.

There are so many places to hike in our area, it's almost embarrassing. We can walk out our back door to one set of trails, and two more regional parks are within homemade catapult distance. And if we're willing to drive or bike a couple of miles, then the possibilities near innumerable. Arastradero is one such place - a lovely, earnest park where the nature center features straw bale construction, native plant restoration is active and ongoing, the toilets are clean and plentiful with paper towels intentionally amiss, and the hiking is mellow. We like it.


Mali complained a bit during our two-miler, but she can't really be blamed. Neither Leo nor I are dawdlers, and her legs are short. She did have fun, this is evidence.

We have to keep up our energy somehow during all that hiking. Thankfully a local place started making spectacular cupcakes, so good my kids' squeals of excitement spiral into wavelengths only bats and dogs can hear, and I was willing to risk Iz's godfather's displeasure. Leo gives them his seal of approval.

Oh, and hey! Our new iPad 2 arrived. We were busy folk and kept missing the FedEx truck, and had to go pick it up at local HQ, where the girls had no problem telling the employees that Leo was not just any iPad 2 owner, in their opinion. Posts on cases, new apps, raffling off Leo's original iPad, and apps in the classroom coming soon. As in this week.

Seymour and I had exactly one night off together during the two weeks of madness. We used it to celebrate the 20 years since our first date on April 12, 1991 under Sr. Procopio's watchful eye. We had a lovely dinner eventually, though Seymour's arrival was delayed 90 minutes by a really unfortunate CalTrain accident. Can't really complain about that.

Leo decided that the best way to start off week two of spring break -- the week his sisters, not he, was out, was by jumping on Iz and torturing her awake. She was not pleased. (Note stack of heavy books over Iz's head. This girl has been warned, but has obviously not yet experienced an earthquake.)

Happy Leo! But not-much-for-sleeping Leo, unfortunately. I'm not sure if it was because of meds changes (more on that soon, most likely with a request for advice) or just growing and changing, but he's had a shitty sleep pattern lately, not going to bed until 11 PM some nights, waking up as early as 3 AM others, remaining as happy as you see him here.

The second week also brought my brother Chet and his Mali-energetic son P. to stay. For a whole week! Chet always has a lot of information to share, for instance Oman has great beaches, did you know? Though I did break out the tiny violin when he complained that he'd only been skiing twice this winter, as that gripe included indoor skiing in Dubai. But he taught the girls how to eat kiwifruit with a spoon, and he gave us an excuse to eat Mexican food almost every day (it's not nearly so good in his part of the country, he says). And he's straight-up good company.

Also, Mali & Iz have completely converted P. to the ways of Akiko and Babymouse, so their trip was a success on the literature front as well.

Of course we went to the Pebble Beach at Año Nuevo State Park. It's what we do! It's the most remarkable beach in the area, as long as you don't equate "beach" with "sun" or "swimming."

And who doesn't like to find a good Turkish towel? Sometimes I dream of what this beach might look like, what shells and creatures and discoveries would litter it, were beachcombers barred from removing their finds.

Until we get that herd of goats, we have to clear our hillside by paying lots of money to humans. Which we did last week. One benefit: We can get to our see-saw! Since our pool is not warm enough for Leo to swim, he now asks us to go see-sawing every hour on the hour. Which is understandable, given how happy it makes him (here with his uncle).



We've become official CalAcademy devotees. Which means we can now drag guests along at a moment's notice! I'm looking forward to the opportunity to explore more nooks and crannies, but the kids (and my brother) enjoyed even our quick five-hour visit.

Then, of course, we took Chet and P. rock climbing at Castle Rock state park. It always feels weird, going without Leo since he loves bouldering so much, but the kids' enthusiasm made up for my guilt. And the day was so so beautiful, and the park practically empty of other hikers/climbers.

We went straight from climbing to picking up Leo, so his cousin could see his school -- and were greeted with a sick boy who'd gone through four changes of clothing -- all of which were handed to us in plastic bags. At the time, I thought Leo had food poisoning, so we took him home and washed him off and let him rest. He went from green (literally) to pink and healthy by the time he went to sleep, so we thought he was fine.

So I didn't worry much as Jennyalice & I drove up to San Francisco and hung out with some of our favorite people -- all of whom we know through blogging, btw -- and celebrated a birthday. We know cool folks, is all I can say -- and, also, now I know what the cool lofts by Seymour's work look like inside!



My brother had never experienced anything like Dynamo Donuts, so the next day we indoctrinated him. He approved. I have to say, the proprietors are extremely kind with chatty, possibly overenthusiastic six-year-old girls.

We also took Uncle Chet & his boy to Franklin Square playground. Merry-go-round FTW! Though Mali got spun off once, and she was not pleased.

We then took our vistors to the Cartoon Art Museum, where we met up with friends who share Chet's love of all things Looney Toons, and exercised extreme self-control in emerging from the gift shop with only a single Amelia Rules! volume.

We had plans to way laste to more of the city, but unfortunately Leo's school called with the news that our boy was sick again. Nothing quite like having to make a 50-mile dash. Leo was actually in good spirits rather than ashen this time, but we took him home and decided that he would stay home the next as well -- his first-ever sick day at his new school.



Which meant Leo got to come watch Iz and P. go indoor skydiving! Poor Leo, he really wanted to skydive too. But participants have to be extremely good at following directions in a sensory-overload environment while wearing ear plugs -- wasn't going to happen. Iz's paratrooping uncle said she was a natural, though (while noting that parachuting and skydiving are different skill sets). Iz then used her newfound aerodynamics knowledge to pooh-pooh Margot Kidder's flying sequence with Christopher Reeve in Superman, which I made her watch that night after she asked "Who is Christopher Reeve?"

After the Superman showing, almost everyone in the house became sick. (Causation! Superman causes stomach flu!) I ceded our room to Seymour and went to sleep with Mali, who didn't appear too bad off but who woke me at 2 AM with a vomit shower. Our guests had planned to leave that morning anyhow; I'm guessing they'd have found an excuse regardless. And I'm worried we seeded the entire Bay Area with the dreaded ick. Good thing I'd already written my Easters With Elvis BlogHer post! And Iz is still home sick today.

I won't deny that these two weeks laid me low by the time they were over. But I like to think the exhaustion has to do with the stomach flu's five-day Rosenberg campaign (I alone have not puked as of this writing) coupled with several of Leo's respite sessions getting canceled. I wouldn't change the rest. I love my family, I love our friends, I love where we live -- I can only feel grateful for getting two weeks to embrace them all so fully.

A CalAcademy iPad 2 Spring Break Photo Fest

Last week was Leo's spring break, this week is the girls'. And because it wasn't awesome enough for the girls to have nine consecutive school-free days in a row, one of their favorite cousins is in town, along with his dad, my brother Chet. How much Bay Area fun can a quintet pack into a single week? We're exploring that idea to the fullest.

We spent yesterday at CalAcademy. If you've not been, well, damn, I'm so sorry. Please know that the CalAcademy.org site provides an extensive and immersive virtual experience. I especially recommend the new Planetarium show Life: A Cosmic Experience - did you know that CalAcademy members get their own special Planetarium show right at opening time? We do now. No line at all, which is something during spring break.

Our big experiment for the day was taking photos exclusively with the iPad 2. The photos were grainy, especially in low light situations, but mostly usable enough. You can tell that Mali and her cousin would pass through the wall of this aquarium and become fish themselves, were it possible.



Well-lit photos look better, as when Iz found out that starfish are not exactly helpless -- even though she was prodding this one according to the docent's guidelines, it turned around and latched onto her with its tube feet, and wouldn't let go. I told her she was lucky to get away before it turned its stomach inside out over her finger and started digesting it.



In case you think it was evil of me to invoke that starfish to terrorize Iz, she earned it. She has been encouraging her good-hearted but easily cajoled cousin into ganging up on Mali at every possible opportunity. Mali needed a lot of consoling each time her current very favorite cousin in the world turned on her, in the name of what he was told was good fun but which Iz had orchestrated with pure malice. (She took this picture, by the way. Time to dye those roots, ahem.)



One extra-cool iPad 2 benefit: Every time a sign was too high for Mali to read it easily (short, plus thick glasses), all I had to do was take a picture with the iPad and then hand the iPad to her. Gawking passersby thought this was nifty, too, apparently.



We won't be giving up our regular camera, but the iPad 2 camera was certainly fun - especially for the kids. (A warning - it is almost too easy to take pix, so give your kids clear photo-taking-volume instructions, unless you don't mind photo culling.)

There's a whole lot else going on this week - PBS News Hour's autism series, Leo's med changes, some really spectacular Autism Story Sharing Month essays on The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. Spring break exhaustion is hampering my documenting these things as fully as I'd prefer -- there is no daytime downtime, which is problematic for keeping these introvert's batteries charged -- but every day is also full to bursting with fun and family. It's a completely acceptable trade off, unless you've been waiting on me for correspondence.

Super-Sized Spring Break

Cannot believe the sheer number of activities our family shoehorned into eight Spring Break days! All three kids and all three schedules overlapped for one overstuffed, wonderful, trying week. I'm still not fully recovered from being ON for so long and with such intensity, so this will be choppy. But here's a record of what we celebrated/survived:

A free-range, grain-fed, at-home spring break would mean the kids would slaughter each other by Tuesday or I would keelhaul them sooner than that, so on Saturday all five of us drove from the Bay Area to San Diego. Our goals: Easter Bunny time with my mom and brothers' families, and witnesses for/help with any keelhauling. 

Seymour drove down with us and got to partake in Easter fun, kiddie egg hunting, beach frolicking, and even a 7.2 earthquake in the middle of Easter dinner.

Then he had to leave Sunday evening as his series, Quest, was mid-launch on its fourth season. He even blogged about it: the coolness of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's chain-mail-scuba-diving-shark-tank cleaners, which he  filmed, as well as something I alluded to on Twitter as being cooler than my Forum interview: my charming husband was invited to meet and go behind the scenes with Mythbusters Jamie and Adam! (HATE HIM sometimes.)

Monday Leo got up at 5 AM and we visited the seals in La Jolla Cove and we went to Anza Borrego Desert (pix below) which was in full bloom - dramatic cholla and ocotillo and barrel cactus and dramatic scenery and palm canyons. I hadn't seen the desert in bloom since I was ten. There was freezing rain and hot apple pie in the mountain town Julian on they way back, then perfectly pristine blue skies back at the coast.

Tuesday Leo got up at 5 AM again and I got a triple shot latte at 6 AM. A couple of hours later (before the caffeine wore off) I was invited to a group interview with the amazing Holly Robinson Peete (post coming tomorrow) about her adorable, necessary new kids' book My Brother Charlie. I was not able to get babysitting and my mom had to work but thankfully my brother and sister-in-law volunteered to pinch-hit with Leo while I asked my questions.

Wed Leo got up at 5 AM again and I published my BlogHer interview with Pamela Merritt, aka Shark Fu of Angry Black Bitch, as part of BlogHer's autism awareness month, including my Welcome to Yellowknife post, and interviews with all the BlogHer10 autism panelists - Pamela's was the first, I will be interviewing Stimey next week, plus my sister BlogHer contributing editor Mir will interview Sharon DaVanport, plus write her own posts, which I will link to here as they emerge. Interviewing Pamela was such an honor -- I adored her long before I found out her brother Bill has autism. Her interview is of particular value to those thinking about the people they love who have autism and are thinking about long-term caregiving needs.

Wed also: Drove home. Was looking forward to resting after three three-hour nights, but then my mom told me that she never drives anymore because she falls asleep even on the drive between San Diego and Orange County. She wasn't trying to terrify me, but she did. And terror is a powerful stimulant. So I was in the driver's seat, all the way home. Which was fine.

We stopped by Seymour's brother's restaurant in Culver City on the way home, and discovered that he serves the scrumptious as ably during lunch as during dinner. We also took a short detour to meet Bonnie Sayers of Autism Family, who was even lovelier in person. Didn't get to meet both of her sons but we did meet N, who was charming and who understood Mali instantly. Leo was in mood, though; we didn't get to stay long. :(

Thursday: Leo painted a painting with a wonderful therapist for an autism auction later this month.  I was skeptical but the artist had faith in him and he responded to her faith with beautiful results. Perhaps I will go to the auction and bid on his painting.

Friday/Sat/Sun: More trips: My wonderful mom watched Mali while Leo and Iz went to sibling camp and Seymour and I took off for weekend at coast - first trip away together in more than two years in which I was able to jettison all projects and finish work before we left. And we saw/talked about/experienced: Sharks, flowers, beach walks, hot tubs. People were so nice everywhere. We found out that gimlets were created to thwart scurvy and they are now my new drink because I heart anything about which once can say, "eat/drink this so you won't get scurvy!" We saw an informal, unmarked beachfront graveyard and talked with someone who'd found centuries-old bones there. We found out why the coast is called the Chalk Mountains (come on, ask me!). We got to see two local bats up close!

This spring break deserves one of the Was it a Good Week? posts. So much amazingness. But Leo didn't sleep. I won't ever again go on vacation with three kids and no Seymour without arranging for someone else to take over my work shifts. And there were no breaks during the day - no one else was able to handle Leo. Who wasn't at his best - he had one tantrum the likes of which I've not seen since 2008. Nor were his sisters. And there were horrible, stressful, this-shouldn't-happen-to-anyone events happening in friends' lives that I couldn't do anything about.

But: Wildflowers were in full explosion mode in Tejon Pass, Anza Borrego Desert, Torrey Pines, and on the San Mateo County Coast. Got to meet Bonnie. Got to take my mom and kids to their uncle's restaurant. Leo was really sad about going to camp after only being home for a day but cheered up and a great time; Iz had a great time too and we were told that they'd hold a counselor spot for her if she wanted it! Mali, who never gets 1:1 time with anyone, got 1:1 time with her beloved Grandma all weekend. Came home from weekend with Seymour (mmm) revitalized but also after that week (plus windstorms on coast meant no sleeping) to house with kids who were happy to be home and a wonderful mom who had made us all split pea and ham hock stew from scratch. What's not to be happy about? Really. Especially since school for all three kids resumed today.

Here are the pictures:

Leelo drew a house! Spontaneously! During Saturday's dinner at everyone's favorite Anaheim restaurant, Mexi-Casa! I am such a huge believer in the power of the travel-size MagnaDoodle/DoodlePro.

Mali's 14-year-old cousin Nicole really likes to play with makeup. I am both creeped out, and fascinated by the idea of my eyebrowless kid having eyebrows.

Leo pre-Easter egg hunt. He did great! He wasn't as frantic as his siblings and cousins, but still found plenty of eggs, on his own, without more than an initial prompt.

Silly me, I thought the kids wouldn't want to swim in the frigid San Diego waves in April, and brought no bathing suits. But they were all perfectly pleased to be practically piscine in their undergarments.

Leelo visiting his friends the seals. He was initially less than pleased about getting out of the nice warm car before 7 AM. I was not terribly sympathetic as I was not pleased about getting out of my nice warm bed before 6 AM.

Proof that I was awake far too early - I am not only wearing the world's ugliest Crocs (bought at Ross for $10 for precisely that reason -- if one's going to wear such nasty shoes, one must fully embrace their hideousness) but I am wearing them with BLACK SOCKS. Nice background, though, eh?

As my sense of humor has been irreparably warped by being raised with three brothers, I consider this the funniest part of our entire trip to the Anza Borrego Desert Interpretive Center.

Cactus Flower at Anza Borrego!

Leo loved digging with his toes in the soft Anza Borrego sand.

Torrey Pines during wildflower season, another hideous part of San Diego. Those flowers are sea dahlias. They only bloom during particularly lush years.

Purple pound cake at Uncle James's restaurant! Leo liked this cake so much he ate it even when we smothered it with crushed pistachios. Sadly, it may be off the menu by now.

Almuerzo con perro, como muchos Angelenos.

Meeting Bonnie! She gave Iz the most awesome hint-per-day Calendar for kids with autism and social skills deficits. Which Iz immediately hid, because it's HERS.

You've earned a gimlet if you're still here. Fresh lime juice makes all the difference.