our spring break trip=break from habits

The kids had spring break starting on Good Friday.  Things felt so busy and crazy before that.  But I also felt that things were starting to be better.  S was having less and less meltdowns, and she was coming out of  school much happier.  Her re-eval testing was going well.  I was feeling more encouraged.

Bedtime was hit or miss with S, though.  She would be very happy and head upstairs and sometimes she would be fine. Sometimes she would start to get anxious and cry.  But all that was getting better through the first week of April.  The strange change she clung to was who was going to read to her at night.  For YEARS, it has always been my husband.  She would tolerate me reading, but she really did prefer him.  Then for a short stretch, it didn’t really matter so much.  The last couple of weeks leading into break, it had to be me.  She would ask over and over again who was going to read to her. She would insist that it would be me.  A couple of times when it was my husband, she would start to cry.  It’s a very odd thing for us, because more than anything, she has always been Daddy’s girl.  ALWAYS.  You hear that babies are born,  and seek their mother, and naturally root for their breast.  Nope.  Not with us.  She would only want me when she wanted to nurse.  Later, as she got a little older into baby months, she would look to me to feed her and for comfort.  Yet, she wanted her dad.  It went on for years, or rather until this year.  Strange.

We took a cross country trip to California to meet our new nephew and niece twins!  So exciting!  We were going to spend time with our 3 1/2 yr old nephew and meet his twin siblings!  While we were at it, we were going to try to meet up with some friends, too.

What a trip.  A couple of days in warm and sunny San Diego.  Amazing.  We went to some beaches, saw some amazing views, went to Sea World.  We just had fun.  Exhausting but fun.

Then we headed up for warmer LA.  We saw my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, nephews and nieces.  The girls and my older nephew haven’t seen each other in a year and a half.  They hit it off after an initial 5 min shy period.  They played like they  played everyday.  How my girls took to these babies, especially M.  oh, just melted my heart.

Over the next 3 days, we saw 3 different family friends, 1 of them spent the day in Disneyland with us.  They all had so much fun together.  I guess after 3 full days of just the 4 of us, the girls were excited to be with friends.  Even friends they just met.  S got into the mix with all of them, too.  She also knew when she had had enough and went to find some quiet time for herself, too.  I found that very encouraging that she was able to monitor what she wanted and needed to do.  The days were very long, with lots of transition, yet fulfilling for everyone.

For someone who is so adverse to change, S travels very well.  S and M both love transportation rides.  Planes, trains, taxis, trolleys, bikes, etc.  They love it all.  They love hotels and hotel rooms.  Each one is different with different amenities.  They look forward to each experience.  Maybe because we are all together and there is always someone to sleep with that make them more comfortable.  Even if we did a 1bdr, the girls would share that room together.  Or if we were all in one room, then they fall asleep and wake to us being in the room with them.  I don’t know.  I just find it strange yet very encouraging.

Upon coming home, there have been no fusses about who reads bedtime stories.  No fusses about pretty much anything. Just very happy faces going to be at night.  Now, it’s significantly later in the night than they are used to because they are still operating on PST.  But it seems for right now, those fussy habits have stopped with the break from our own routine.  Maybe that’s the key, we need to go away for a night to break the night routine!  LOL!  Obviously that’s not really an option, but it is food for thought now.

 

Re-evaluation years

Every 3 years,  a child with an IEP, by law, has to have the district do a full educational evaluation of the child.  This way, a child study team is taking the time to figure out where theatchild is after 3 years of the different services that have been offered.  They have 60 days to complete it, and report back all finding back to the parents.

3 years ago, S had her first evaluation in the district.  She was 5 years old and in PreK.  It was a nightmare for 2 months for us.  Everyday, S would fight going to school and be super emotional during the day and at home.  She didn’t want to go to speech if she was by herself or to OT.  She must have figured out if she was going alone, all the attention was on her, and she would be peppered with questions.  When S is asked question after question, without the reassurance that she has it right or wrong, she starts 2nd guessing herself.  And once she is unsure, she stops really answering questions.  The shutdown begins.  By the time the final piece, the psych eval was getting done, this poor kid was fried.  She refused to go with the psychologist so her teacher had to sit with them and hold S on her lap.  She refused to answer many parts of the test, and only did a little.  In the end, we were told that the psych eval was incomplete.  The rest of it was finished and the doctor wrote what she could.  But it was left that way.  Incomplete.

3 years later,  8 years old, in 2nd grade, we enter the process again.  I was told that the psych eval took 2 sessions but were able to be complete it.  The speech has just finished, as well.  The learning specialist has to do her part, and the OT has to finish theirs.  Then we will be done.  We are almost 30 days into our time limit.  Not bad  I say.

There have been some tears about school this time around.  There have been some tears about other things at bedtime or afterschool.  There has been general moodiness this winter and going into the spring.  And I’m left wondering……is it the re-eval process again that is leaving her so unsure?  Is it that she is more aware of all these things and has other feelings on it?  Is she 8 and some hormonal fluxes leaving this child uneasy and pendulant swinging emotions?

I have been in constant contact with the different people doing the testing and her teacher.  All have been supportive.  I wonder all the time how accurate any of these tests are of S’s true abilities.  She is such a finicky test taker, in class and standardized.  Will it have any real insight for us on our daughter?

3 years ago, her speech teacher sat me down to discuss the report.  She scored so low in so many expressive categories.  If any of you have been through any process of scoring or testing, you may know what I speak.  Its always the most depressing thing to read.  I know my child is bright.  And I know that she has many different issues.  But seeing scores, and percentages, even if I don’t put too much meaning in it, they still glare out at you.  2%, 14%, 65%, it doesn’t matter.  It hurts.  Not that I am expecting these 98% anywhere.  I mean, she wouldn’t need all this support and an IEP if that were the case.  But still.  It’s a difficult pill to swallow each time we come to it again.

So S’s speech teacher went over everything in private.  She explained how she couldn’t prod beyond the questions or give more clues.  She had to read everything the way it was written.  S was looking for reassurance and knew things worded differently.  But she couldn’t get points on these questions because they couldn’t give it to her how she knew it.  She didn’t think the scores were indicative of S’s abilities.  Yet this is where she was testing.

What are we supposed to do with that  now?  She isn’t testing well.  Her skills are scattered.  What she needs most is confidence and reassurance which standardized tests don’t give us.

So far I have to say, I’m happy to see that S must have matured to have gotten through the testing as she has had to so far.  With some anxiety, but not what it was 3 years ago.  That’s a great sign.  But I have anxiety with where she is going to come out.  Not anxious about her services.  If anything, the way she tends to test, they have to give her the support.  Her scores indicated it’s what she needs to have.  But will there be true improvement?  I mean, yes, there is. I know she has many more skills than she did 3 years ago.  But will we have improved within the same rate to be in the same percentages and in raw score as we did 3 years before?  I have to believe yes it should.  But what if it’s all equivalent?  What does that mean?  What do we have to change?  The questions never really seem to end.  There is an ebb and flow of when it’s better and worse.  But they never stop, do they?

is it the beginning? or middle? and where do we go from here?

I’m feeling a bit heavy-hearted this evening.  At first I couldn’t figure out why this, what I’m about to share, bothers me as much as it does today.  But I realize it’s been building.  Today was just additional, but weights on me now.

S was out sick for 1/2 of last week and the Friday the week before.  A couple of weeks ago, she came home to tell me that the water bottle that I put in her bag everyday for snack wasn’t there.  Hmmm….I was pretty sure about remembering to put it in there, but maybe I forgot?  maybe.  It isn’t likely, but it could be possible.  A few days after that she told me a girl in her classroom had her water bottle.  S wasn’t upset by it.  She didn’t say that this girl took it from her or her bag.  But she said she had it.  My daughter drinks out of a small poland spring water bottle.  I figure, that girl must have had the same one.  Then, Thursday I labeled the bottle with S’s name on it, in red Sharpie.  She came home and said there was no water.  I wrote a note to the teacher, asking about snack procedure, where it’s kept during the day, etc.  Maybe someone was just taking the wrong bottle.  Or maybe it was rolling out of her bag.  Friday, I peeled the label off the bottle.  I wrote S’s name on it 3 times, and used the label maker to put 3 more tabs on it.  There was no mistaking this was hers.  I pick her up, and she tells me there was no water again.

I ran up and caught her teacher before she disappeared back in the bottle and asked about it.  She had no idea how that happened.  Apparently, 1/2 the class takes the snack out of their backpack and put it on a shelf.  Since S’s snack is always there, and not her water, I find that a little strange.  Her teacher told me to tell S to keep her snack in her backpack for now while she does some digging around.  She was taken back how anyone can have this highly decorated and labeled bottle.  She did say that they were having an issue with a few things disappearing, but she never saw any water bottles anywhere.  She was definitely going to keep an eye on it, and wanted me to keep her updated.

Could someone be taking my kids water bottle and it not be a mistake?  Could someone purposely be hiding it?  Or even throwing it out?  Because why would you take home a bottle that so says S’s name on it?  At first, I was thinking just an accident, or it rolled out or whatever.  Now I’m wondering if they are doing this with intent.  I’m sorry….what the hell????

Luckily enough, S, doesn’t seem bothered.  But again, what the hell?  Especially coming off a really bad cough/cold, I wanted her to be able to drink the water whenever she needed to get to it.  But really?????

This bothered me through Friday and Saturday.  The more I thought about it, the more of a bullying, but sneaky dealing, thought was underway.  By this morning, I had let it go, mostly.

I took M to a birthday party of a friend today.  She was very excited to go.  She really likes this girl.  They were in school 2 years ago, and while they were very good friends, the other girl could get really nasty to M.  Very bossy.  With M at a different school last year, I did hear through other friends that this girl pit a lot of other girls against one another.  A lot of, don’t play with her, don’t be friends with her, etc kind of crap.  I know these are girls.  I know we will have many years of this.  But it is exactly that.  CRAP.  These kids were 4, 5, and now 6 year olds.  I actually did not want these 2 to be together for Kindergarten.  I wrote notes and everything.  Not that they have a bad relationship.  They are good friends.  But I knew there was potential of this, and we live in the same neighborhood.  I just didn’t want it all right here so close.  Still, they got in the same class.  SHIT!!!

I thought it was going okay.  Nothing too much going on.  Recently, I started seeing a few things go on on the blacktop afterschool.  I don’t want you to play this, etc.  I was teaching M to say, “Well, you aren’t the boss.  I’d like to play.  We are all friends.”  I even tried the “You can’t say you can’t play” route.

M had a great time with all her friends at this party.  so much fun.  Eating cake, I kept seeing her frown.  I thought she was having problems with her juice box.  I waved her over to me.  She told me that the bday girl, and another good friend told her they weren’t her friends.  And that they were telling lies about her.  I told her to go back and tell them what they said was not nice, and that she didn’t like it.  She did.  The other friend heard her, and turned her back to M.  But I saw her watching me the whole time M was talking to me.  The bday girl was in conversation elsewhere.  She tried again with her friend, and that friend got up and hid behind her mom who was standing 2 people away from me.  Mom didn’t know, although the woman between us heard.  We went to get our shoes on, and M sat next to her good friend, who got up and went to sit next to her mom again.  I shook my head.  I didn’t take this one to be like that.  But who’s judging?

On our way out, I told M to wish the bday girl a happy birthday and thank her for the invite.  Do you know what she said?
“Happy birthday.  Thanks for inviting me to your party.  I had so much fun.  By the way, I didn’t like it when you were telling lies about me, and then said you weren’t my friend.  That wasn’t nice. and I didn’t like it.  I thought we were good friends.”  Bday girl looks up at me.  What was I supposed to do?  I just sort of shrugged.  I wasn’t expecting that speech.  Birthday girl says, “I”m sorry.  I was teasing both of you, but the other girl thought it was funny.  I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.  Sorry.  We are still friends.”

Now, I know this girl.  If I hadn’t been standing there, I don’t think that apology would have rolled right off her tongue.

This is disturbing to me.  Both scenarios.  The water bottle.  That’s just sneaky and wrong.  The birthday party…that’s very girl behavior and we are going to have a lot of that going on.  I just feel so discouraged by it tonight.  I know it’s out there.  It’s not the first time.  Won’t be the last time.  I’m not saying either of my kids are perfect and don’t measure in this equation.  In M’s case, she absolutely could.  They said they weren’t her friends after she tried to correct them.  When they kept insisting that she did something, she got mad and called them liars.  and not just any kind of liars.  the big fat kind.  Thus came the, we aren’t your friends comment.  I let M know what she was responsible for.  I want them both to know the things that they can do to ward off these types of outcomes.  But they are still young.  It’s going to happen.  I hate it.  I hate it for my girls.  I would hate it if it were my girls that did that to someone else.  I hate that kids can be so mean and are like that.  And I hate that parents aren’t accountable for their children, either.  Parent involvement is tricky.  And most of the time, I don’t like to deal with that.  But you aren’t going to be accountable for your own kid and their mistreating others?  You are just going to look the other way, or think…not my kid?  I don’t get that.  I hate to judge. I really do.   But this road…..I don’t like it.  One of the few I’d rather not see what lies ahead.

couples

M has been playing house in her pretend play for a long, long time.  Recently, in the last month or so, she has named herself a husband.  Brutus.  Where she got this name, who knows.  I always assumed we would play names of our friends.  She has had a huge admirer over the past year.  But no, it’s not him.  My son-in-law is Brutus.  Brutus is a construction worker, turned handyman, turned jack of all trades, including logging in many hours on his computer.   Doing what?  I don’t know.  M and Brutus have 3 girls, too.  It’s M’s job to take care of them.  Taking time off from her fashion designing.  M takes all of her kids to swim lessons, karate, to the babysitting room while she goes to work out, and to school.  She drinks her coffee in the car while listening to music.

I’m honestly afraid of some of the things that might come up in play.

It’s very interesting listening to her play by herself.  Her daughters occasionally fight with each other, and she referees them.  And I hear sternness in her voice when she corrects them.  She is very loving to her babies, which is a comfort to me.  Hopefully, she thinks I’m loving to her, too????

S doesn’t do a lot of pretend play.  She expresses a lot of things in her drawings and stories.  Happy faces, very sad and mad faces.  Storytelling in an abrupt and non continuous flow.  But it’s all there when I’m asking about it.  The person is mad because they were not allowed to choose a MarioKart character by themselves.  This person is feeling anxious because the nightlight bulb went out while she was sleeping.  Life imitating art, or art imitating life.  There is less of a where it begins and how it ends, but more of a this is what is happening in the middle.

I saw this couple today in the parking lot at the grocery store.  I’d say in their 70s.  Plain old nasty to each other.  They bring 2 packed carts to unload to the car.  I was parked next to them, unloading my own car, wondering why they needed so much food?  Wife asked what was in the bag he was passing her.  He went off!  ”How the hell am I supposed to know what is in there.  I don’t have x-ray vision.  Open the damn bag and look at it youself.  Hell, you were the one who bagged these.”  It went on for awhile.  To the very end.  He put the cart away, and came back to open the door, it was locked.  Then they start yelling at each other.  And I can’t back out until he gets in the car, so I’m left waiting….listening.

What’s the point of this anecdote?

I often wonder what we leave behind for our kids, in the present.  I see how they play out in their work, in their play.  But life is not always happy happy, and marriage most certainly is not.  It’s a lot of work.  And if so far, we are able to pass off to our kids that we are a loving married couple with these 2 kids, great.  But how do we go from that to that couple I saw today?  We have fought and debated in front of the kids.  We don’t yell and scream at each other, but kids are perceptive.  They know when things are amiss between their parents.  I want them to know that these relationships are work, with a lot of give and take.

Seeing a lot of things lately have been bringing tears to my eyes.  That story of the father who fell trying to catch a ball at the baseball game for his son dies.  Seeing the video that his son went back to the Rangers ballpark, and threw out the first pitch at the Divisional Series Game.  Baseball pitch caught by the player who originally threw the ball up to his father right before the fatal fall.  Today, that crazy 15 car wreck in the NASCAR race.  I saw a picture of the driver who died, after he won a race in May, with his wife, toddler son, and tiny baby.  What will they take with them from their parents?

As my parents get older, I no longer take their presence here for granted.  How long will they remain in my girls’ life?  What will they remember of their grandparents?

I guess, I’m just wondering of what kinds of legacies we are leaving behind.  Do I want to be remembered for kissing them every night and singing a little tune at bedtime?  Or do I want to be remembered for bringing my daughters to tears because she forgets to bring her homework home.

I know this isn’t the most pleasant of subjects to be thinking about.  But it has been weighing heavily for a little while now with me.  Thought it might help to put it out there.

 

still trying to break through

When S was born, she was such a colicky baby.  Then while she was a very happy baby, she was still difficult to put to sleep.  When we conquered that with her, life was so pleasant.  She was very routine, and slept great when we put her down around the same time.  She could be flexible in her schedule, sometimes.  But then getting her back on was trying.  As a toddler, S was easy going and happy.  Looked forward to taking her naps, bath, and nighttime sleep.  We moved when she was 19 months and that was about the time the first of her anxieties started.

It started as separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.  We assumed it was because of the move.  Meeting new people, she always greeted them with a horrific screetch.  Once she settled in, she was usually fine.  We would see anxiety go up and down over the next year, definitely added with the arrival of M.  When M was on the move crawling and then walking, S got a little worse.  She would cry everytime M would come into the room on her own.  She didn’t want M getting to any of “her” toys.  We saw the spillover into school.  The first year of school we had minimal issues.  The second year of school things started to pick up.  New routines at school really threw her for a loop.  A true rigid nature began to emerge.  Yes, in some ways, S could be easy going…or appear to be.  In other ways, incredibly rigid.  The way she learned, how she wanted things set up, the way they played.  Any type of deviation began an emotional shutdown.

At that age, you kind of take it as…you have a difficult child, who is strong-willed and stubborn, and tantrumy.  But you take it as a phase or “just the age”.   At least we did.  After awhile, you look around and wonder why it’s only your kid.  Then as a year goes by, you realize, oh…it’s not just a phase.  It’s a personality characteristic.

Since then, we have been trying to get S to be more flexible.  New is still difficult, but it’s interesting how the timidly growing flexibility develops.  People will always tell you that a parent can’t force a child to do anything that they don’t want to.  It’s true.  You think you can.  But it’s not really the best way…butting heads to get them to bed to your will.  But neither can you just “let’s just wait until they come to it” when your child is so rigid.  So what did we, and continue to do?   We introduced new fun things to her, hoping she might enjoy it.  A new video game or a different aspect of a particular game she liked.  Mystery trips where we just don’t tell her where we are going, and we end up at Dairy Queen.  Things that may create a little anxiety because it’s unknown, but a place that S gets to and can see that it’s okay.  She loves ice cream, and learns to get over what she was feeling before.

Sometimes these efforts work, and sometimes they backfire in our face.  We can go on a long mystery drive to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, and not say where we are going.  We get there, and also let her know that her friends are meeting us there.  Then it’s super exciting.  She’ll have the best time and say that was an awesome mystery trip.

Or my husband could introduce a new course, like the mirror stage, in Wii MarioKart. S was whining and yelling how she didn’t want to try it.  What a fuss she would put up.  A week later, she is playing it on her own while my husband and I have a quick dinner, and we see her doing the mirror race.  go figure.

For months, S was obsessed with playing Rock Band.  Then all of a sudden it stopped.  Really suddenly.  Tonight she didn’t want to play.  She had played Super Mario Brothers with my husband, and the deal was we all play Rock Band as a family.  Now to S’s credit, while she did whine, she did not breakdown and cry and really dig in her heels.  She whined and said she would watch.  Pretty soon, she’s singing in the mic, and then she’s onto the drums.

We went out for a walk today, and left the bikes behind.  It was starting to get dark.  M said she was going to ride her Razor around the neighborhood.  S said she was going to walk.  No big deal.  I asked her if I could ride hers with M.  She said fine.  I start to close the garage, and S is about to duck under it.  I ask her what she’s doing, and she tells me she needs her helmet.  I let her get it, and close the garage.  I’m still not catching on.  I carry her Razor to the end of the driveway, she takes it and rides away.

We still have times where S really flips out if things are not the way she wants them.  I changed their comforters over to warmer ones when the weather got cool at night.  The first night, I didn’t have the matching sham on her bed.  It was the one for the summer quilt.  I hadn’t pulled the winter one from the dryer yet.  She wouldn’t go to sleep.  On one hand, I thought….what’s the big deal?  Let me just change it.  On the other hand, I thought….the sham is not completely dry yet, and she needs to get over this.  Things are not always going to be the matching set, and we still need to go to sleep.  So, there were some tears, and some soft-spoken comforting words, followed by some sterner ones.  Was it smooth?  No.  Did she finally fall asleep, and withing 20 min, yes.  And did she ask me about it the following morning and night?  Yes.  Did I change it?  Yes, but not for another 4 nights.  By night 3, she stopped asking.  When I changed it without her asking me to that final night, S was ecstatic.

Honestly, I get no joy out of torturing my kid like this.  I know what it must do to her to have things out of place, for things to be off, or completely new.  I have my own issues.  And my friends will definitely vouch for that!  But life is always changing.  Things aren’t going to go as script.  or we won’t have matching sheets sometimes.  or we learn to play the same game in a different manner.  we have to learn to be okay with it!  At least a little bit.  People will not do things exactly the way you like, and you have to be able to live and not freak out over all those details every time.

I never know if what I’m doing is really the right thing.  I hate to cause anymore anxiety to S than she already seems to have.  But I’m hoping that the greater good is allowing her to learn to be even a little more flexible to different situations.  I hope that she can learn that there are many ways to do things or learn the same thing in different ways.  I want her to get the most of out of her life, now and in the future.  With that eye on that goal, I hope she learns that being flexible can allow her to be open to some new experiences that may enrich herself beyond the everyday.

We’ll keep you posted on that one!

 

fall blues?

We are officially at October 3rd, and a very chilly front has blown through.  It has been constant showers and rain for the past couple of weeks.  So I have to ask, is it too early for fall blues?

I love this time of year.  Pumpkin spices are everywhere.  I love to hear the sound of leaves crunching under our feet.  I like to wrap myself in a warm sweater while we are outside.  I like how crisp things are at this time of year.  While I don’t like to be cold, I love to lounge in my warm bed while the outside the covers, it’s a delicious chill.

October also means things are in full swing.  The kids are still adjusting to their days at school.  They are still puckered out at the end of the day.  This also means that the newness of going back to school and the initial excitement is over.

S, since the first day of school, on the whole has been okay.  A bit whiny here and there, especially at bedtime, but okay.  M, whiny through the late afternoon and right before bed, but she’s been okay, too.  Here we are in October, and S is STILL whiny at bedtime.  I got on my husband’s case last night because instead of walking right out as S started to say, “Something’s the matter,” he started making comments back.  He wasn’t sitting down for a full discussion, but keeping the conversation going.  I would love to hear her out sometimes.  I would.  But it’s so garbled sometimes and a mishmash of thoughts, and it’s difficult for us to really understand what it is she is trying to convey.  I mean, yes, I understand the actual words, but the thought that she seems to want to express is not all there.  It could be “I’m just confused.”  Or “something’s the matter.”  Then you ask what or why and you might get an answer about a book, or toothpaste, or medicine, or something completely unrelated.  This is where I feel bad that we can’t break through some of these expressive language delays.  I don’t know for sure if S knows what she wants to let us know, but she is having a hard time getting us to understand.  So then he sticks around for a couple of minutes to chat, but with each sentence, S gets more and more irritated.

I asked him last night why he didn’t just walk out.  He said that sometimes when he does, S gets even more upset.  So what are we supposed to do?  I don’t know.

Good thing, though, 8 out of 10 times, S falls right to sleep. 7 out of 10 mornings, though, she wakes up whiny.  She comes in saying, “I was just upset”  or “I was a bit confused.”  Then we start asking the what and why, and we are no closer to figuring it out than we were last night.

Is it just a habit now?  Is she getting more anxious?  Is it just her adjustment phase to her schedule?    Do we ever really know?  Tough love? or nurturing and some coddling?

perceptions

It’s always amazed me that 2 people can go through the exact same event together and come out with 2 totally different versions of what they happened.   That’s as adults.  So it goes to show you how different each of us are even in the same situation.  So how do we resolve conflicts when our point of view is so vastly far apart?  And how do we get children, who are still developing social skills and awareness and tact (!!!) to solve their issues?

S came home from school last week in tears.  I find that as she gets used to the school days again, Wednesday and Thursday are the most tiring.  She is so spent by then.  Friday she can usually get through because most of the teachers are just trying to fly through that last day before the weekend.  Swim team this summer was the same thing.  Wednesday, Thursday, S would peter out.  S comes saying she was upset today.  Stupid me, first comment I make is, “Where is your sweatshirt?”  New tears emerge.  ”I left it in the classroom.”  So I tell her to go ask her teacher if we can run back and get it.  S does, and as she turns back to me, I see more tears as her teacher shakes her head apologetically at me.  Honestly, no big deal.  It’s not Friday.  We can just get it the next day.  The fit S threw on the way to the car.  If she grew horns on her head, I wouldn’t have been surprised.  She was over the top.

When we got into the car, and S was calming down, I started to ask some questions about school.  S told me that she sat all by herself at lunch.  No one wanted to sit with her.  There was no one on the right or left, no one across from her or from the seat on the right or left.  Some more digging.  I found out S sits in EXACTLY the same seat everyday.  She doesn’t go look for where her buddies are sitting.  She goes to the seat.  And it happened to be a day with less kids in school.  So all the seats were not filled.  I asked her if people said, no I don’t want to sit next to you, or don’t sit next to S.  And she said no.  No one said anything.  I asked her if she asked anybody to come sit with her, she said no.  So you have a situation where she has to sit in the same spot, there are less seats to fill, and the kids slid down towards the other end.  ok.

A couple of things.  If I am in a lunch room as an aide, sure I am busy.  But if I see a kid sitting all by herself at the end, upset or happy, I would like to think I would make an effort to ask her if she wants to sit down with her friends or encourage her to join the others.  I would like to think I would make some kind of gesture to ensure that nothing was going on in the first place that would isolate that child.

Secondly, you have my kid who made this situation with needing to sit in the same seat.  If she felt lonely, she could just move her stuff down and join her class a few seats down.  But she doesn’t.  Her rigidity of needing that structure has paralyzed her in this situation.  Plus it shows her lack of initiative when it comes to social situations.  She takes herself out of the equation before it begins and keeps it that way.  However, now she has gotten the perception that they don’t WANT to sit next to her, when that may or may not be the case.

Thirdly, you have kids who may or may not notice S sitting by herself.  And they leave it at that.

I don’t blame the other kids for anything.  Most times for lunch, you just want to sit down and eat and chat with your buddies.  You aren’t looking around for who’s left out or anything.

I feel bad for my daughter.  I encourage just the opposite.  I encourage new things, sitting in new places, changing up routines so she doesn’t get stuck.  This is out of my “jurisdiction”  because I’m not there.  I encourage her to join people.  Sometimes she does, sometimes she is intimidated by the bonds that others have with other friends.  She feels shy and not ready to join in.  She always wants to be social, but doesn’t seem to know how.

I could ramble on a million different things about perception.  But this example seemed so clear.

So again, with these different perceptions, and frozen capabilities, how does this start getting solved?

 

team sports competition

Last week began the fall soccer season and ALL after school activities.  It is the end of the weekend, and I am absolutely exhausted from all the shuffling around.  Looking around, listening to others, watching my kids, I have to wonder sometimes if this is all worth it.

First of all, I personally can be competitive when I am playing in a sport or just playing my husband at a Wii game.  There.  I fully admit it.  As a parent, while I would like to see my kids and their team play well, I don’t keep track of scores or who won, etc.  To me, it’s not about me or how I feel about competition.  It’s about the kids.  It could be also that all my kids add to the team sometimes is a lot of cheerful team spirit.  By the way, I think that’s pretty important as well.  I like to see effort, personal improvement, and team comraderie.

Depending on the sport and child, we get different results on different days.  We had soccer start last week.  S’s game got canceled with all the rain last week.  M’s game was still on.  S’s games are going to be on a full field now, with a full size goal.  They went from playing 4 on 4 without a goalie on a small field with a little goal to 6 on 6 with a goalie on a huge field.  This past game was exciting to watch.  There was so much more going on.  S even tried to be the goalie.  Clearly spacing out and not really sure what was expected of her, she watched without moving a muscle, the ball slowly roll into the net.  The next 2 she saved pretty well.  M definitely got in there a lot more.  Every year both girls get a little bit more into it, get ever slightly more aggressive.  By that I mean, they run a little more, and just maybe make some contact.  Yesterday, M scored 3 goals.

I always thought that maybe they, especially S, would do better with a sport that was more on an individual pace.  Tennis, swim, golf.  Their score would be part of a bigger team, but it would be the individual effort.  As much as I love the concept of a team sport, I just thought it fit S better to do the individual.  But after the summer, I began to change my mind.

With swim, S’s coach only cared about the individual improvements of each child.  She didn’t care if the team won or lost.  I loved that about her.  But she also took chances.  She swam people in events they didn’t really know, for the experience.  S went into a medley relay.  People sometimes would wonder about S if she spaced out in an event.  But I thought nothing of it.  It was just her and her place and time.  But in a relay, where you are swimming with 3 other people…they were relying on her.  It made no sense to me.  That morning, she swam her freestyle and backstroke and it was strong.  She went into the relay, and there was huge HUGE confusion right before it.  They threw her in the pool at the last minute and she was off.  She stopped swimming and sank underwater for a couple of seconds.  Then she would stop and turn to see the wall every few strokes.  Clear disqualification.  The middle school kids behind me were yelling all kinds of questions and obscenities.  I could only imagine what parents were thinking.  My friend was one of the timers, and I later found out parents were going OFF about S.  She had to be disqualified.  What did she think she was doing?  Why was she in this event?

I realized when whatever S does, it somehow affects the team.  Sometimes more than other times, but it’s still there.  In soccer, as a team sport, how she plays or doesn’t play, affects the team’s game.  She plays harder than she has ever done so in the past, but compared to the skill and intensity of her teammates, it pales.  She has wonderful coaches that pat her on the back for all the little or big things she does.  The parents around us have been wonderful over the past 2 years.  But I have always wondered if they think she is deadweight to the team.

It started to feel that way with swim.  S is not competitive by nature.  She just goes however she goes.  Somedays it is with a spark, and somedays it’s not.  And for my husband and myself, we really have been and will continue to be what she puts into it and what she is getting out of it.  And our goals are far different from that of other parents.  We like that she is around other kids/females her age.  We like that she is apart of a team, and to start understanding what that means.  We like that she continues to move out of her comfort zone and tries these new things.  She continues to show so much growth in these aspects.  But other more competitive parents really don’t care where we are coming from.  They are looking at their end winning result.

I wondering where that leaves us as they get older and the separation becomes even starker.

summer trips

What’s a summer without a little bit of travel?  It doesn’t have to be far trips or overnights.  But it does need to be a chance to do something different from the day to day.  Just about anything can be an adventure.  A trip to a museum, a new park, the beach, the boardwalk, a waterpark, a new pool.   Or you can hop on a plane or train or car and really go places.  It’s up to you.

I sat through a lecture a long time ago, and the details of the whole speech and who gave it are lost to me.  But there was one very important point he made, and I never forgot it.  Kids need different experiences to build upon.  Each of those experiences opens the child up to new discovery and feelings.  That’s how a child grows.  A child who only does the same things and doesn’t have outside experiences will not have a worldly growth and appreciation for new or adventure.  On one hand, I can’t say that would be a universal statement.  However, for the most part, I do think it’s true for many to a degree.

My cousin got married in June in NYC.  We decided to get a hotel room for a night so we didn’t have to trek back to NJ in the middle of the night.  If you have ever been to NYC, you’ll know that everything is small, tight, and crowded.   Our hotel room was no different.  But the girls were ecstatic.  They have been in the city many times, but not likes this.  They enjoyed just walking around, seeing the lights.  I took M on the subway to a place on the Upper West side to get her hair done for the wedding  (she was the flower girl).  We caught a cab on the way back.  These are all normal things people in NYC do.  But to them, what an experience!  I liked seeing this side of them.

The hotel stay used to freak S out a little bit, even if she was excited.  Travel, in general, while she has been good, is sometimes difficult.  She liked her own things.  She was uncomfortable in new rooms.  There were always tears.  Sometimes when we left our house.  Almost always when we had to leave to come back home.  Now, she loves hotels.  I’ve learned we have to bring a couple of familiar things, and a night light certainly helps.  We are all able to stay in one room for an overnight without waking each other up every hour.  That helps, too.

We went to my parents home in Syracuse for the 4th of July.  Both girls always have fun there.  This year, we also went to a friend’s lake house on the finger lakes.  It was a huge party.  Tons of people, tons of kids, swimming, a bounce house, dinner, fireworks, everything.  It was interesting to see S and M mix it up with the kids of people I grew up with.  Some clicked, some didn’t.  But they both tried.  Most of these kids already knew each other from school or being family or friends.  But they all accepted my 2.  M definitely put herself in the groove more than S, but S tried, too.  She certainly participated in everything.  S has acclimated to the room she sleeps in at my parents home.  She looks forward to sleeping there, and we rarely see tears at bedtime or morning.

In August, my husband had to be in Toronto for a few days for work.  He has been talking for a year now about having the family go up when he has to work and see Toronto.  He couldn’t say enough things about it.  It happened to work out that he had to go up on a Wednesday and would be done by Friday.  So I flew up with the girls on Friday to meet him.   We stayed until Sunday.  The girls had the time of their lives.

Toronto is a very family friendly city.  There is so much to do there, so much to explore.  We definitely wore them out.  There was no question they were exhausted.  Yet, in a packed weekend, they experienced so much.  The weather was great, so walking around the city, finding restaurants to eat at, walking the underground malls, swimming at the hotel pool, it was so easy.  We took a day to take the ferry to the Toronto Islands, and spent the afternoon playing there.  At dinner time, we took the ferry back, and walked to the CN Tower.  A huge needle point tower.  At the top was a restaurant that rotated for a circular view-  the 360.  A great and expensive dinner.   Dinner included a special express line to the elevators.  The regular line was about 60-90 min long.  Then after dinner we could go to the observation deck 1 floor below.  Lots of views, including the glass bottom floor.  SCARY for my husband and I.  Dizzying even.  Not so much for the kids.  They were lying down on their bellies with the faces to the glass.  I know that’s not really sanitary and totally disgusting, but we were fighting off the dizzy spells.  We’ll let the kids do whatever while we get our bearings.  An express ride down the elevator led straight to the gift shop-also very family friendly, but not at family friendly costs.

A ride on the subway led us to Toronto’s Korea town for dinner on our last night.  After eating pizza and pasta and sandwiches, Korean food was a welcome treat for us all.  In the corner of the room was a big screen TV, playing Korea’s top 20 pop music performances.  In a language they are far from fluent in, M and S were mesmorized.  We were asked to download some of those songs when we got home.  Funny.  We took the light rail back, and headed to the airport.  The kids say that was their best hotel stay ever.  And love their pink CN Tower shirts and caps.

We spent a week at Bethany Beach, DE with a couple of families.  My kids love the beach, and are well accustomed to spending many hours out there.  I wasn’t worried about them loving it.  But sharing a house with friends is always something we look forward to, but worry a little about to.  I never know how my kids will react sharing rooms, toys, etc.  They were very comfortable with these kids, so I worried less.  Honestly, couldn’t have asked them to do any better.  The kids got along amazingly.  A couple of little tiffs, but really, in the span of the week. nothing.  S and M shared a room, with S on a top bunk.  I always wondered how she would be up there, especially when she sleep walks.  S loved it, and M enjoyed being on the bottom bunk.  They made it work well for themselves.  And both knew without us saying not to come and wake us up until 7am!

Finally, we spent a day in NYC with a friend that just moved in.  We parked in Jersey City, and took the ferry across the Hudson River to Battery Park.  The girls were so excited about these transportation excursions.  They played in a playground, and rode their razors around lower Manhattan.  My husband got out of work early, and he walked out to meet us.  It was a pleasant day, they were riding with friends, and they got a little taste of city life before we went back to suburban life at night.

I feel like we gave the girls a good fill this year of a lot of different kinds of experiences, and I would like to think they got a lot out of each of them.  If I opened any doors in their minds, and gave them a little bit of newness (is that a word?), then I feel we more than did our part this summer in creating a little more flexibility, even if for just a little while.

summer

I can’t believe that summer has come and now has gone.  Where did it go?  Every year I feel that way, I know.  But the last week or 2 usually drag for me.  But there was nothing dragging about it this year.  It was a go, go, go summer all the way.

S and M were old enough to go to all the same camps this year.  AMAZING!  Different groups, of course, but same location and time.  I had no idea life could be like that.  I didn’t put them in camps for many weeks, and didn’t do them in consecutive weeks, either.  It broke up the summer nicely for us.

They both went the first week out of school.  Again a new thing for us.  I usually wait until after July 4th.  But there was room, and I just went for it.  It worked out well.  M, especially, was ready to socialize with friends and make new ones.  S was in a group with a bunch of kids she knew, too.  This being S’s 3rd year of this particular rec camp, she was fully ready for it.  There were no tears or whining.  She knew what to do, where to go, etc.  M was excited after seeing her sister there for the past 2 years.  The head of the K-1 group is both of the kids’ first pre-school teacher.  So she was familiar with both of them, and myself.  It just made things a lot easier.  They went one week, off for a week, did a VBS week, took a week off.  Then they did 2 back to back weeks of the rec camp.  Another week off.  A vacation week.  Then 2 weeks at home before school started.  I have to say, it worked out great.  Gave them down time, kept them busy.  It was only a 1/2 day camp.  3 hrs.  but it was a heavenly 3 hours for me.  I went to the gym, or ran errands.  I just had a chance to breathe.

The week of Vacation Bible Study was another great week.  This year’s theme was Nazareth.  The K-1 group was done so well.  My very good friend was M’s teacher for the week.  She’s amazing with the kids.  She would have been an awesome teacher, and still could be if she chose.  S’s teacher was such a sweet and kind woman.  She was enthusiastic and energetic.  She just made it fun for S.  The whole week I was surrounded by songs about Jesus and God.  There was a lot of love in the house that week.

The amazing thing about the summer was the summer swim team.  We have a couple of friends whose daughters are on the swim team of the local pool we go to in the summer.  S watched them swim practice last summer.  Occasionally, this spring, I would ask her if it was something that interested her.  She loves to swim, and I thought at the very least, she can get more endurance and have better form.  It wasn’t so much the competition for me.  But S always said no.

The first day she saw the swim team practice, she started calling out to me.  Yes I want to do it, Yes I do.  I told her to wait and watch,  and then we would decide after.  If we were going to do this, I didn’t want her to quit because it got hard.  I talked to the coach after practice.  NICEST woman.  Really kind, encouraging, and realistic.  Apr said that the hardest days would be the first.  But that I should bring S to the next practice, and we can decide from there.

So the next evening…oh, practice is 6-7pm M-Th nights.  Wed nights were meets and Saturday mornings, too.  BRUTAL schedule.  We suited up and went.  S was on her 3rd lap when she started to look for me with watery eyes, complaining that she was tired.  I made minimal eye contact and kept my sunglasses on.  I did have to watch M in the pool, who was playing with her friends.  S made it through the hour practice.  She was rewarded with an icee, and an ice cream at home.  But she was exhausted.  I realized then that there was no way I could let her give up after 1 day.  And she was definitely ready to.  I had to bribe her with rewards for the next 2 practices.  I knew if we could make it through a week, there was a good chance S would stick to it.

In reality, if she did join the swim team, my July schedule was shot.  We would be committed to the pool for the next 4 weeks.  Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.  I would have rather S never started, and then I would never know.   I was okay with that.  But she asked me to.  And now, here I was, bribing her to stick with it for a week.  A little ironic.  Luckily, S could be rewarded with small things.  A coloring book.  A summer peach Snapple, a Mango Madness snapple.  And she was over the moon about getting them after practice.

We saw some major improvements from S this summer.  Her stroke, while it really does not look pretty, did get stronger.  Her stamina was noticeably stronger.  Kev said even in the OT sessions, he noticed a better movement in her arms.  Apparently, the rotation of the arms and shoulders made those muscles stronger, which made her arms stronger, which supported her hands better, giving the small motor more strength, too.  Her bilateral skills got a little better.  If you have never been to a swim meet before, let me tell you.  Straight up.  They are LONG.  not very family friendly.  a ton of waiting around.  and if it’s 100 degrees and humid, I’m sorry.  It downright sucks.  There can only be 5-6 swimmers at at time, depending how many lanes the pool has.  Each stroke is broken down by age group.  And each age, if there are a lot of them, have separate heats.  Boys swim separate events from the girls.  We are talking 6 and under-18 years.  There can be over 60 events.  Spanning over 3 hour meets.  Those Wednesday meets, we were home at 9:30pm.  S was usually entered in the freestyle and backstroke.  2 events.  30 sec (ok.  if you are really good under 30 sec for 25m.  Someone closer to S’s skill, closer to 50 sec. still.  do the math.)  I brought snacks, coloring books, handheld games, everything.  2 kids having to pass 3 hours, it’s a nightmare.  There are so many people at these meets.  swimmers, parents, siblings.

About 10 min before your event, the coaches come around and gather the kids.  They line them all up by lane, and they sit and wait until they are told to move up in that line.  In the past, all this sitting around, without a parent right next to her, S would have gone nuts.  Anxiety through the roof.  She would have been chewing on her nails, crying, and would have wanted to go home.  Not once.  NOT ONCE.  for 6 meets or more, she was patient and nonchalant.  For me and my husband, it was amazing.  I’m sure S was feeling anxious on the inside.  However, to not let it show and manifest the way it normally had in the past, that was amazing control for S.  That alone made this whole experience so worthwhile for me.  She did us so proud.  This was not the same child we had 6 months ago.

S’s times got better each meet.  We definitely saw an improvement.  She even won one of her heats, but was DQd at the end because she put her feet down and turned around right before she was supposed to touch the wall.  We were still so proud, regardless.  Her coach continued to be positive with S.  It was apparent that S was not the team star or was going to win the team a lot of points.  She is not competitive and just does her own thing.  Whether she is first or last, she doesn’t seem to mind.  She is proud that she made it across the pool and finished.  This is where I enjoy telling the kids that we didn’t play winning games at home.  We don’t yell, I won I won.  We play until each person finishes.  We take pride in the individual accomplishment within the group.  At least, that’s what I tried to promote.  And in this case, that’s what happened.

S says she will go back to swim team next year.  She wants to.  And from this mom, I am finally all for it.  M says she wants to do it, too.  And I think she just might.  It would be easier for me to have them both on it.  We will see.  M really likes the funky Speedo suit they get.  But regardless, I’m hopeful on a lot of levels.