Mom & Pop Home School

Tonight Sunshine fell down and scraped her shin. It’s the kind of scrape that doesn’t bleed, but shreds the top few layers of skin all the way up and down the shin and stings to high heaven for a little while. It was just at bedtime (she had a scuffle with the stepstool in the bathroom while brushing her teeth), and as I tucked her in she was whimpering about how the covers hurt her leg. I went to see what I had that might help with the sting a bit, and came back with some Solarcaine—the green gel kind with the aloe.

She wrinkled up her little nose rather skeptically when she saw that I planned to rub green goo on her leg and asked, “What’s THAT stuff?” I told her it was medicine to help ouches feel better and was especially good for sunburns and scrapes. Her face lit up. “OH! Is that the stuff you put on me when I had that sunburn that one time?” Her finger traced a line around one cheek, up over her nose, and around the other cheek, tracing the area of the sunburn in question. I told her it was the same stuff. Her face took on a faraway nostalgic glow, eyes sparkling, little pink lips smiling gently. She heaved a HUGE, wistful sigh and murmured softly, “It was such a CUTE sunburn….”

I’ve spent the past week and a half visiting my sister. She’s one of the people expecting twins (next spring), a high risk pregnancy for several reasons, and she has been tired, nauseous, and having some related health issues to deal with. Her husband is a lawyer and sometimes has to travel out of town on business. This being one of those times, I went to do the cooking and help with her three children so she could regroup a bit, and have some support until her husband is home again. It was a good visit. I was particularly pleased to have won the friendship of my three year old nephew, who is not an easy soul to befriend, as he has a sort of defensive “angry” thing going. Peanut butter cookies and playing video games together eventually won the day. I think mostly he just needs to know that you’re not easily frightened off—you’ll love him no matter what. Once you get through the wall, he’s a sweet kid.

I took Cricket with me so as to be able to continue his schooling, and left Sunshine home with Pop so she could continue hers. We didn’t get as much schooling done as would have been nice, but we got GOBS of social skills practice. I think we’re all happy to be home and together again.

I’m certain the one I’ve been working with recently is not the one I started out with.

Exhibit A:

I am regularly reading a romance—and ENJOYING it. Even eagerly wondering what will happen next. This is not at all like me. I rarely pick up a romance on purpose, I find the plots excruciatingly trite, the characters two-dimensional, and they’re all too often much too pornographic in nature for my prudish tastes. This one sorta snuck up on me. Which could possibly qualify as Exhibit B in the brain-snatching case because, I mean, it’s CALLED “My Super Hopeless Romance”. I mean, c’mon! How does something like that sneak up on someone who is, let’s face it, extraordinarily gifted in the thinking department (hee hee, wink, wink)?

It was my friend bon that did it to me. I blame her entirely. There I was, at about 1 am, unable to sleep and doing a little blog browsing, and she sticks a very innocent looking “go here” link in, with a promise of entertainment and an injunction to read it from the beginning. (A course of action which I also recommend, by the way.) So I clicked it. There was this frilly pink blog by some chick named Cordy that was all about how she was hopelessly in love with her best friend, who didn’t love her back. I almost ran screaming, but three things stopped me.

1. Bon is not, so far as I am aware, any more attracted to sickly romance than I am. I was curious what on earth about it she found entertaining.
2. A quick scan showed that the writer had a wry, self-deprecatory wit that seemed somewhat appealing.
3. It was 1 am and I had nothing better to do, and hey, it might make me go to sleep. (It didn’t, I was up until 3 getting caught up to present.)

I got hooked fairly quickly I’m sad to say, and I actually began checking back ever few days to see if anything had happened. It didn’t take me long to begin to suspect that it was all fiction—but then I’ve lived enough real life romantic idiocy myself to not quite be able to commit completely and make a definitive declaration. About the time I’d made up my mind that it was a fake (which didn’t bother me, because I was entertained), maybe about a week or so after I started reading, the author outted herself. Evidently she’d begun receiving gobs of letters commiserating with “Cordy” and sharing very personal experiences in the hopes of giving “Cordy” encouragement, and the author, who had not expected that sort of response, felt a need to come clean. So she had rapidly wound up the story and then posted a mea culpa explaining the situation. I felt both vindicated that I’d been right about it being fiction, and also disappointed that it had ended so soon. And just when things were really shaping up for some fun, too! But it was fun while it lasted.

Except that I went back later to read some of it to Pop (I know, but he humors me sometimes; see what a great guy I married?), and there was a new update—a notice that the author had decided to snip off the hasty ending and go on and continue the story, so the blog would be renovated accordingly within a few days. And sure enough, the story continues. And is beginning to expand. Cordy dropped a not-so-subtle hint about how to hook up with her (fictional) best friend on Face Book. And his profile has a link to his blog, so now we get to follow both sides of the story.

I am officially intrigued. I have always thought it would be interesting to read and/or write a book telling a story of some sort from one main character’s perspective, and then instead of a sequel where the same character told a new story about what happened next, have the next book tell the same story, but with a different character cast as the hero and telling his side of the story, and giving enough new information about the events of the first book that the first story is seen in a whole new light. This isn’t quite that, but it does give us the he said/she said format in a fun new presentation with a little pseudo-reality flavor thrown in for kicks. I’m now curious to see if our pseudo-reality expands into additional blogs or Face Book accounts for some of the other characters. Will we find the blog of Melissa, Cordy’s scheming roomie and discover that she’s secretly seeing Chris behind the scenes? Will we be directed to a newspaper article about a business conference where a photo shows Seth with some cute blond clinging to his arm at a dinner party? Only time will tell.

Part of the intrigue here, I think, is that this is not a book off the rack at the store. It hasn’t been carefully written and edited in order to fit the boiler-plate framework of a specific genre. There’s no publisher requiring the story, in order to sell more copies, to have the traditional gratuitous steamy sex scene that all readers of romance novels have come to expect. This on-the-fly format also gives the author the flexibility to mold the story as she goes along. When I read a book, I can see and feel how many pages are left, and observe the plot progression as a fairly predictable prefab structure. This is new, and fun, and flexible, and unexpected. And it’s been really nice to have some light, fun-spirited entertainment in my life just at this particular season.

So Sue, if you’re out there, thank you. And keep up the good work!

Edit: Ok, actually I enjoy romance. Just not romance NOVELS. Or, y’know, movies in the same vein. I am a sucker for Jane Austin, though.

 WORKING WITH OTHER STATES: 

Word has been received from the state office. Because the taxpayers of this state paid for our home study to be done, the state “asks” (aka requires) that the family be available as a resource to the children of this state ONLY for a period of one year from when the license was issued. After that, if the family wants to have it sent to another state, they can fill out various forms to request to have it sent. Then our state can “choose” to help the family by sending it out, but only to other state offices.

Some thoughts:

At each stage of the process, recruitment/intake, training, home study, licensing, adoption committee review, etc., we have been informed that due to our special circumstances and the narrow range of child we’re able to accept, chances were slim to none that the state would ever find a placement for us, though it could theoretically happen. BUT, we were specifically told, that’s okay because we could search in other states and have our paperwork sent there as long as we were seeking children in foster care, and as long as the state belonged to the interstate adoption compact.

Our RFC (resource family consultant–aka caseworker) had never heard of this policy.

The county trainer, whom Pop contacted to ask for clarification, had never heard of this policy.

The foster care licensing lady, whom Pop contacted to ask for clarification on the recommendation of the trainer, had never heard of this policy.

After making quite a few phone calls, what it boils down to is that everyone is surprised, everyone is sympathetic, but no one can do anything about it.

Additional thoughts: (more…)

 Once there was a creature called Moeritherium. Moeritharium evolved, and over the course of about 15 million years, it evolved into Phiomia. About 15 million years later, Phiomia had evolved into Gomphotherium. Now over the course of approximately 18 million years Gomphotherium evolved again! This time it was a Deinotherium. About 2 million years later, it had already evolved into today’s African Elephant! From Moeritharium, to Phiomia, to Gomphotherium, to Deinotherium, to African elephant in under 50 million years! How crazy is that? Now dogs on the other hand are all descendants of the Gray Wolf. Things that live in similar climates and conditions often evolve in similar ways. Take the Cactus and the Spurge, two kinds of similar plants, for example. A whale’s flukes used to be hind limbs. Remnants of the bones still remain in todays whales. Living things don’t evolve during a single lifetime, the changes are gradual and do not happen to anything that has already been born, hatched, grown,etc. The Horseshoe Crab, a relative of the scorpion and the spider, is a living fossil and has barely changed in millions of years! Different bird species have evolved different shapes of beak, to help them with different kinds of food. Same sort of thing with cat’s claws. A few last words, a dolphin’s flipper bones and a Chimpanzee’s arm bones are similar, 3 main bones and 5 fingers.

Also known as shopping for shoes and trousers. And shirts. Which is what I did today, and which is always interesting when the articles of clothing in question are for Cricket. Keeping in mind that his nervous system doesn’t process sensory information the way most people’s do, you might imagine that new clothing, with its crisp fabric, or stiff soles, might be a bit of a problem.

Pants aren’t so bad, so long as they’re at least a size too large, and baggy. And have snaps instead of buttons. I got a bit of a scold today for (accidentally, I swear! I forgot the snap thing) picking out a pair for him to try on that had a button. And the fabric on the inside has to feel right too. Softish denim works well. Athletic style pants or anything with a lining is absolutely out. Khaki’s can work, depending on the cut and the weight of the fabric, but they’re a bit titchy. And belt loops are a must have because in general they need to be big enough around to almost fall off, but we mustn’t have our underclothing on display, so a belt is both in order and sensorily acceptable.

Shirts. No button ups, except on Sunday. Nothing with anything resembling a picture on it, and ABSOLUTELY NO WORDS!!! The importance of this requirement for no type face cannot be stressed enough. Not only is it visually distracting and overstimulating in one’s peripheral vision like pictures, but unlike pictures, and ever so very much WORSE, words invite people to get close to you and stare at your body in order to read the words, which makes Cricket VERY uncomfortable. And if they’ve gone that far, and think he’s using his clothing to make a statement (like  “Boys rule, girls drool!” or whatever), they may actually respond to the statement by making a casual comment, or (gasp) trying to strike up a conversation!!! No, type has NO place whatsoever on articles of clothing worn by civilized human beings with respect for the personal space of others. **

 Shoes are almost unpurchaseable.  We found some today, but it’s rather like looking for a needle in a haystack . Cricket’s feet are very sensitive. They’re also fairly wide. Which makes for pinchiness in most shoes. He also has some small muscle coordination troubles, which have caused him great frustration with trying to learn to tie shoelaces—which has in turn led to a sort of compulsive paranoia about shoes with laces. Velcro is our FRIEND.  We found some casual shoes and some dress shoes for church. By some stroke of luck they were both the ONLY ones in those styles and that size left in the store. I tell you “someone” looks out for that boy. And appropriately enough, the style name for the casual shoes—extra wide sneakers with a little extra toe protection, velcro closures, and NO pictures of superheroes, vehicles, or athletic mascots—was “Cricket”. I mean, really. Has someone been reading my blog? 

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** There is a theory floating around in the autism world that one aspect of autism may be a hyper-sensitivity to people. You know that feeling you get when someone walks quietly up behind you, and you don’t really hear them, or see them, or smell them, but you KNOW they are there because you sort of “feel” their presence? It’s like that, only magnified to the point of being overwhelming. The theory is that this is one (of many) factor in the social difficulty, and the avoidance of eye contact that is observed in many people on the autism spectrum.

I rather think “they” may be on to something there. I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but it’s something I definitely “sense” myself, and I’m not even (officially anyway) on the spectrum. Some people especially seem to sort of radiate…something…I don’t know a name for it, if there even is one. But I know it when it hits me. It’s like the person and I are…I dunno…vibrating at different frequencies, and it’s very discordant, and makes my spinal cord just crawl around, like fingernails on a chalkboard. And it has nothing to do with whether or not the person is nice, or friendly, or anything like that, it’s just…I really don’t know how to describe it. But it’s stronger through the eyes than it is just standing next to the person, and I sometimes have to focus on some other part of their face in order not to feel sort of assaulted by it. On the other hand, there are other people with whom the…vibration?…feels harmonious and comfortable, and being near them helps me feel strengthened and comfortable, although eye contact can still feel a little intrusive. One thing small children are good for, by the way, is giving you a really good excuse to look at something other than the eyes of the person with whom I am conversing.  

 I always kinda thought I was imagining it. But I see Cricket react to it in a similar, but more exaggerated way, so I begin to suspect there may really be something going on there. I would really be interested to see a study done on that. Although I’m not sure exactly how you’d set it up.

I don’t know why, but here lately every time I hear this exclamation issue from the mouth of either of my offspring, I am sorely tempted to answer by flouncing my backside flamboyantly in the general direction of said offspring, pointing grandly to it (and I’m afraid it has gotten rather grand in scale over the years), and responding, “Mom butt.”

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(And I confess I’ve actually done it once or twice. How’s that for juvenile and obnoxious? Effective, though. Nothing like a good laugh to nip the whining in the bud….or butt, as the case may be.)

Snow on the mountains, rain in the valley, and a huge, bright rainbow in between.

My juried show entry “has not been accepted for this year’s exhibition”, according to the form letter I received today. So unless someone out there wants to make an offer, I guess Pop has a new decoration for his office. Oh well. Once my ego recovers I’ll have to just go back to doing what I’m good at. What was that again?

I don’t often indulge in political commentary on this blog, but I’ve got a couple of political ponderings churning around in my brain of late, and one or two of them may spill out here at some point. Some things I’ve been chewing on for a while now are these:

What is with all the name calling? When did ”At least I’m not him, so there!” become the best both major political parties could come up with as a reason to support their candidate? If your political ideas are so all-fired wonderful then why do you feel compelled to misrepresent and exaggerate the other guy’s point of view in order to get people to agree with you? Is the American public really so mentally somnolent that we believe a bumper-sticker slogan to be an actual plan of action, and mistake showmanship for depth of character? Even if we accept the notion (which I don’t, though recent evidence is certainly not in my favor) that you have to be mean-spirited and dishonest to be a politician, does that mean the rest of us have to drag each other through the mud too?

Why can’t we disagree without being so disagreeable? Does the other guy have to be “evil”? Can’t he just be “wrong”? Or, hard as it may be to imagine, merely have a different perspective? Or, stretching credulity a little further, an equally valid opinion? Can we not respect anyone who does not agree with us on everything? Whatever happened to the ability to agree to disagree? Or better yet, to set aside differences and look for the common ground? Live and let live? Or (gasp!) even try to UNDERSTAND the other guy’s point of view before slapping a one-size-fits-all label on it, lighting it on fire, and tossing him out on his tailbone in the street?

What? You don’t agree with me? Well, then you are obviously a racist / baby-murdering / Bible-thumping / tree-hugging / sexist / kumbayah / homophobic / pot-headed / war-mongering / socialist / gun-toting / elitist / red-necked / hypocritical moron and I’m not going to give you a chance to explain yourself because you’re obviously evil. Otherwise, you’d agree with me.

I know it’s EASIER to pidgeon hole and label each other than it is to, I dunno, LISTEN to each other maybe? Name-calling certainly keeps us from having to THINK much. And it makes dehumanizing one another an absolute breeze! But as convenient as it may be, I’m seriously getting sick and tired of it. Aren’t you?

Don’t you grow a bit weary of this childish game of “good guys” versus “bad guys”, in which we all gleefully throw rocks at each other, without regard to the fact that we’re all standing in the same boat, and that rocks are not particularly conducive to flotation? Aren’t you a bit fed up with all the “neener neener“, and the choosing up sides, and the ”Nuh-UH! We’re the good guys! You guys are the bad guys! No sir! Yes way! Well, you’re not invited to my birthday party!”

When are the grown-ups going to step up to the plate and send the little kiddies home for their naps?