Haiti

My great-uncle Watson did field work in Haiti in 1929 and 1930, learning abut taxidermy for the Smithsonian and collecting specimens (including live specimens for the zoo).

Hearing about the devastation of the earthquake there, I wonder what he would have done.

As for what we can do, the best thing in such disasters is to give money. The Red Cross and SAlvation Army can get supplies, equipment, and personnel there faster and more cost-effectively than we can, and they don't have to pay retail prices.

The Salvation Army

The American Red Cross

Wordless Wednesday: How Far We've Come

My Small Corner of the Interwebz

I've been sharing our lives with you all for 3 1/2 years now. Potentially, I have let the entire world in on my life, my thoughts, my adventures, my ups and downs, for the last 3 1/2 years. Life is very different. In May of 2006, Joey was still in preschool. He speech was so limited, I actually blogged about even the hints of conversation, though Joey was still using single-word responses. We went crazy with joy at signs of pretend play. The huge, dramatic meltdowns of a frustrated child were far more common. I remember that first comment from Maddy, that first hint that I wasn't just talking to myself out here. We were in the midst of IEP Hell, trying to get footing, trying to get a master's in special education practice and law in the few short months we had to master the system and the skills for getting Joey was he needed. We needed to know what he actually needed. At the same time, we had Andy to raise and learn about, and his needs to understand and master.

Yeah, we've come a long way. In that time, I have seen other folks with wider-read blogs, blogs that started and took off. OUr little corner has remained a comfy corner with my squishy-comfy couch, hot chocolate on the stove, and plenty of cozy quilts to snuggle under. I don't do the things that make a blog expand and take on life of its own. I don't advertise, I don't label and tag, and don't do a lot of jumping up and down and making noise elsewhere. I don't do reviews, unless I feel like something out to be brought to your attention because I think it would be helpful and awesome. I have never been to BlogHer. If I get 100 hits in a day, that's a big deal, and I check out what I talked about to cause the spike.

I started out trying to help folks. That was the idea behind this blog- to offer what we were learning, knowing others needed to know, and fast. Being a quiet little corner can help that, because you don't get the tramping of unwelcome feet, you don't see a lot of the venom from having huge numbers of people with vast diversity of opinions battling it out in your comments. I can share experiences here that might not normally be put on a huge blog, more pictures, more little vignettes of life with children generally, and with an autistic child, a very beautiful autistic child, specifically. I can provide those little reminders that life is good, you can do this, and we're all in it together. After all, that's what life is- we're all in this together. The Earth is really quite small, you know. A little comfy corner of the cosmos.

Perhaps being a bigger blog (and a better-written blog), along the lines of Whitterer or Stimeyland or Maternal Instincts, I might reach more people. Or maybe not. One thing you learn as a teacher, just because you give the lecture and answer the questions doesn't mean everybody learns. Yet somehow I find being that comfy corner of the web with the squishy couches and ice cream to be something else the community needs. Maybe that's just the way I am.

Introducing: The New Residents

If these die, we're getting gerbils. I can deal with small fuzzy things that breathe air.

Zakh Price: Sleepless Nights

There are stories out there that keep me up at night, wallowing in thought. The story of Zakh Price is one of them.

For those of you not aware of this ongoing epic, Zakh Price is eleven years old and just started at a new school in Arkansas this past fall. Unfortunately for Zakh, the school's ignorance about special education practice, law, and purpose now has this disabled child facing felony charges and institutionalization. Needless to say, his grandmother, who is his guardian, is beside herself- and out of money. Lawyers ain't cheap, and going head-to-head with a school like this requires lawyers.

If that's not enough to make for sleepless nights, get this: one of the school personnel involved in the escalation of the situation and pressing charges against this child is the school principal.

I am currently working to start the transition process for my son. Our district has gotten on the trendy bandwagon of separating elementary grades into upper and lower elementary. Now, I know there are lots of really good reasons for doing this, particularly with regular-ed kids. After all, there is a huge difference between a kindergardener and a fifth grader. On the other hand, it makes for a pain in the butt for special-ed kids. We lose consistency in staff and philosophy. You just start getting the kinks out of IEP implementation, and you have to basically start from scratch with a whole new set of people who don't know you, don't know your kid, and may have a completely different idea of what educating your kid even means.

I have emailed the school principal three times. Only two of those emails have apparently gotten through to his office. One, I was told he would call, and he never did. The next was only acknowledged after I pointed out this issue to the director of student services, was again told I would be called, and... never have been. This man clearly doesn't understand why I am concerned and want to get this ball rolling now. I have been told balls started rolling among the school personnel, but the relationship with me? Not batting 1000, that's for sure. I find that frightening, especially in light of stories like that of Zakh Price. If the principal is not on board, not trained, not educated, then it clearly is not a priority to that principal- and how can we expect the teachers and staff to be appropriately trained, if such training and understanding are not considered a priority by the principal of the school?

Fortunately- and unfortunately- I have seen some of the special ed staff at this school in action. I have seen excellent teachers. I have seen fair-to-mediocre administrators. I have seen representatives of the school inappropriately railroad a parent in a public forum, and steer a public forum inappropriately to a specific case instead of considering the broader issues involved in that case. Overall, I'm really not comfortable with sending Joey to this new school based on my current observations and conversations with parents in that school. The best teacher on the planet can be railroaded by a mediocre administrator- I've seen it happen first-hand. I know for a fact they have not yet hired the personnel they will need to appropriately understand my son and appropriately support him in regular-ed classrooms. We are not looking forward to the step back we are likely to see if that doesn't change in the next few months.

Yes, the story of Zakh Price keeps me up at night. I fervently believe that we will not have such a dramatic and ugly experience as the Price family is experiencing, but it doesn't need to be so dramatic to still be disastrous.

Plans and works

I had to tell Joey this morning that Quille was gone. When we told Andy about Chris, we got the expected heart-wrenching wailing of loss. With Joey, grief is not so obvious (unless, of course, you know him). I had prepared him, telling him last night how sick Quille was, and that we did not expect him to live, but we were doing everything we could do. I think he knew when he toddled in to the bedroom and saw my face. His own dropped.

He didn't cry or wail. He had questions for me. Was his fish moving? Was he in the box with Chris and Godot? Would a cat eat him? Can we get a new fish? What will Andy name his new fish?

Then the processing: Quille isn't moving any more. Quille was alive yesterday. Andy's fish is dead. It isn't moving anymore. Quille isn't moving anymore. We will get new fish. I'm sorry about the fish. I hate that my fish is dead. My fish died.

I explained our plan to get rosy reds instead of goldfish this time. Rosy reds are minnows, so they are more social and not as dirty as goldfish. They don't get as big, either. Both boys seem to have latched onto the new minnows. I have checked out the water and gotten some bacteria and stuff for it to get it to recover its cycle, and having less dirty fish in our tank should be a help. I scouted out the fish in town, and I have our source pegged out. I spent a long time in front of the snail tanks.

A long time.

Fish Catastrophe

I'm sorry to announce that we have had a catastrophe with the fish. I use filtered drinking water to change the tank water every other day. I bought the water at a different-than-usual place yesterday, and changed the water this morning. We believe that there was something in that water that has resulted in... well, we have lost Chris and Godot, and Quille is very, very weak.

I have pulled the tank apart and cleaned and rinsed everything, refilled it with the proper water, and changed all filters. We will see how many fish we are buying tomorrow.

Edit: Quille did not survive the night. I am going to let the tank settle and clear, and then the current plan is to try some rosy reds to help the tank cycle again.

Taking Christmas Down

So Joey turns to me Monday afternoon and says, "Mommy, let's take the Christmas tree down." Yep, it's time. Christmas is over. For Joey's world view, Christmas came, Christmas went, it is time to move on. So today, the tree came down. Happy Twelfth Night.

I started while the boys were in school, stripping the tree of ornaments that might require special packing or sorting of any kind. The gold chains, the paper Santas, the toys, etc. all go in their own particular boxes, leaving the plastic to be tossed into one big tub together. In a couple more years, I'll be able to get my real decorations out. Then the boys rolled in. Andy took a few decorations off, then got distracted by the arrival of our neighbor. Joey came off the bus without his backpack, and he nearly melted down he was so upset about forgetting it on the bus. He didn't really recover enough to be interested until I was taking the lights off. Those still need to be boxed. So I ended up doing the vast majority of tree-disassembly myself.

And like most years, as I take the decorations down, I realize that the vast majority of you, once again, never even saw them.

If that strikes you as odd, just keep in mind that as I am putting them up, I am thinking things like, "wow, Stimey would really like this," or "Niksmom would think this was totally cute," or "I wonder what Maddy's kids would think of this." Yes, I love my Christmas decorations, and the solid majority of them I am thinking, "I'm glad Mom this this is pretty" or "JoeyAndyDad enjoys this" or "Joey and Andy are gonna go bonkers over this." And of course, "Hey, this is nice. Let me see how it would look if I did this." And there is an awful lot of things I wish I had gotten around to doing, planned to do, even bought what I needed to get it done, and didn't. But it just seems really weird and surreal to me that most of you guys never see them. In fact, very few folks ever see them. The boys. JoeyAndyDad, My Mom. Evan. This year, my Dad and his wife saw them. Ms. A and Mr. Wesley happened in to see them mostly, but not fully, set up. The neighbor saw them briefly.

And that's it.

I know, last year I put up the video of the decorations, and I hope you guys liked it. I love putting them up and seeing the world all pretty-sparkly Christmasy wonderland in my house. I will miss my lighted garlands of glass ornaments, even if I've been mostly too tired to spend a lot of time in the evening downstairs.

But somehow, that realization that you guys don't see them, it is just one of those things. Something about wishing you were here.

Godot Cam: Happy Snail Edition

Insanity: Again.

Many of you might recall that my father and I have an odd non-relationship. You might also recall that he insists on coming to see us around January/Christmas, and that I'm too much of a freakin' chicken to do anything about it. After last year, you'd think I'd get the hint. But no.

He was arriving at 3:30. There were murmurings of picking up the kids from school and hiding out at Chuck E. Cheese, but I didn't. I should have. But I didn't. There was no way to clean the house in time. I hadn't really bought them any presents. My plan had been to see them at the family Christmas and hope to hide for another year. However, my father had made something for the boys, and it was "too big". Just what we needed, something big.

Every year, my father makes something for the boys. It is a nice gesture, I suppose. One year he made them a rocking chair (meaning he painted one green and put a little "John Deere" faux logo on it). Another year it was rocking horse (not sure if he actually put that one together or not). He glued little wood animals to some peg strips he got as the craft store one year. Last year it was a Tic Tac Toe board, which worked out nicely, as the boys were very into Tic Tac Toe. This year? This very large board, painted in strips, with a hole, and legs on one side. You set up the board so it is angled, and toss bean bags at the hole. He had some fancy name for it, and much time was spent informing me of the official rules, and the fact that this was an official-sized board, but the hole was a little bigger than "regulation" because the boys were still little.

Do you have somebody that does things like this to make themselves feel better, and have you ever wondered how you are supposed to take it? I'll put it against another example of gift-giving. My Uncle Lou made the boys a game a couple of summers ago. He took PVC piping, made a three-bar frame, then drilled into tennis balls and connected two with a rope. You throw the balls-on-rope at the frame, and score points if you get them to wrap around one of the bars. The boys love it. It comes apart to be stored, and it is an outside game. He made it for them because he had made one for his own grandsons (the Cousins), and they had really liked it. During a visit, they surprised us with it.

Somehow, it feels so very different. My uncle has no obligation to my children. He saw they really enjoyed something, and he made it happen. Am I the only person who sees the difference?

My husband has assured me more support next year. As in, when we get (if we get) warning, we are hauling butt to Chuck E. Cheese. It's less stressful.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010! Here's hoping this year is happy, healthy, and tons of fun!

Wordless Wednesday: Team Stimey Rocks

Godot Cam

As Far As it Gets

We're as far from Christmas as we can ever be. Hope you had a good holiday, we certainly did.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I will be spending the day avoiding the Birthday Bird- a story I shall one day share with you guys. Let's just say, this is my Bad Luck Day. Yay, me.

Out Into the World

Well, folks, we emerged from the Snowpocalypse today, little worse for the wear. we were not amused to find our town sucks at clearing roads, while just across the bridge, the arteries are clear and beautiful. We had speech this morning at 9; I left plenty of time, and we did so well, we got to stop and have Second Breakfast before the appointment.

Then, since were out of my driveway and actually in the world, we decided to kick butt and take names with errands.

We did some stuff for my mom at her office. We got folks paid who needed to be paid. We got the holiday cards in the mail (will yours reach you by Christmas? No idea. But Merry Christmas anyway. I feel fortunate I got to write them at all this year). We picked up a few things at the grocery. I even took the boys to lunch!

And what a lunch it was! It is our favorite little place to take the boys, so we had a lovely time. The boys actually got up, got plates, served themselves food, and sat down. By themselves. Without any peeps for help from a mom. It was kinda weird, actually. And when they wanted more food? They got up and got it.

My babies are all growed up.

After such success, we went home and made snowmen and watched movies and ate popcorn and drank hot chocolate and stuff. because that's what you do when it's day 3 of the Snowpocalypse: you just sit back and enjoy the snow.

The semester is officially done.

Yes! Yes! I have turned in the grades, and Hell Semester is officially over! Now I can get back to the good stuff: Christmas and blogging. Where has the time gone?

This will probably be another thin posting week, but you never know with me. Hopefully I'll be really, really back to everything after the guys go back to school. But then, I have three classes to revamp (especially in light of Hell Semester 2009).

Hey, Look! It Snowed!

Hmmmm. I think it snowed this weekend. This was our Saturday Morning Jaunt into the snow. We lasted about half an hour, because the snow kept blowing into our faces- and coats, boots, mittens, hoods...


This is still the morning venture. By the time we went out for the afternoon, Joey was in snow above his knees to go down the sidewalk. He got snow in his boots, which made him very unhappy. But the morning for him was OK.


Boys exploring a winter wonderland like they have never seen.

We got about 18 inches, maybe 20. It hasn't snowed like this here in a while. It was the fluffy stuff, too cold to pack- maybe tomorrow the sun will hit it enough to be able to make snowmen. Or something. Virginia usually gets wetter snow, so the depth is a little deceptive. Rule of thumb is that wet snow is half as deep as dry snow for the same about of water. So this storm would have been 9-10 inches or normal Virginia snow. That would still have been major (in my opinion, more major, as wet snow is heavier to shovel and doesn't blow or sweep as well as dry snow). This was an awesome storm. Think the whole winter will be like this? Spring semester will be a disaster!

It's snowing.

Joey pops his little head down the stairs. He's supposed to be in bed, but hey, its officially Christmas Break! There's a big, lit tree in the front hall, ornaments everywhere, excitement abounds! And now we're being hit with a lovely snowstorm!

"It's snowing!" he announces gleefully. He hops down the stairs.
"Whatcha doin', Buddy?" we inquire, the cue to tell us if something is wrong.
"I want kisses!" he informs us. "Two!"

Happy Snow Day.

Why I Love the Child Across the Street

Coming off the bus, his first question is always, "Can I play with Joey and Andy today?"
"Sure," I usually reply. Andy gets off the another bus, because the friend is slightly older, but he and Andy are quite compatible in terms of energy. Andy likes having someone to run off energy with. We wander over to our house together.
"Where's Joey?" He stops, then says, "oh, I forgot, he's on another bus." That is all there is to that, a statement of fact; his friend is missing, he misses him, he wishes Joey present, but will be patient.

"Let's go outside," he announces; the weather is nice, and he wants to be out in it rather than playing with Andy inside. Besides, my glass is up, so he can't bounce in here. Joey wants to watch the Disney Santa laugh, so he doesn't move. Andy tosses on shoes and coat. "Aren't you coming, Joey?" Joey doesn't respond right away, so the child says, "OK, then," and out he goes; as he reaches the door, Joey finally gets the words out, "I want to watch Santa laugh first. When this is over." The child looks slightly disappointed, but responds with another version of "ok, then."

Andy and the child race up and down the sidewalk with trucks, they are actually playing two different games, but the games mesh nicely. Andy then races off forward, is fussing with a tree; the child glances at our van. He has seen it dozens of times before, but suddenly notices my bumper stickers. He reads them aloud.
"What's autism?" he asks.
"Autism is a different way of thinking, having your brain wired a little differently. It causes kids to have different strengths and weaknesses than people expect. Autistic people often have trouble talking or having a conversation, for example."
"Oh."
"Joey is autistic."
"Yeah." He reads another one. "Autism is not a tragedy, ignorance is a tragedy. What does that mean?"
"It means people often don't understand people with autism, or what autism is, and they think it is a bad thing, or they think autistic people are stupid."
"Joey isn't stupid."
"No, he isn't..."
"He's one of the nicest kids I know!" the tone is one of offense; he is upset that anyone would think badly of Joey. I have seen him struggle with trying to include Joey, trying very hard to play with him, talk with him. I have often wondered what this child thinks of my son, since he has seen Joey react in unexpected ways, answer in unexpected ways, or not react or answer at all. Now there is no doubt, the fierce look, the sharp tone, the grim brow tell me everything. This child finds the idea of JOey being "different" to be perfectly acceptable, and people who think less of Joey as being ignorant.

And he's quite right.

I do love that child. He can bounce through my house anytime he pleases.