How to teach the dispassionate to be compassionate

Now that it seems like the Asperger's diagnosis is more possible, I've been reflecting on what it may mean. This kid needs some compassion, some social awareness, a way to interact with his peers without anxiety and with caring.

It reminds me just too much of Dexter, which I've been watching lately. His father works so hard to teach him how to act like the rest of society--including, in a recent episode, to smile in photographs. It definitely feels like that when I have to teach G to say, "Excuse me; I'd like to read now" when I talk to him as he's reading, rather than "Stop talking!" or something even ruder. And when I have to teach him to look at people when he says "Thank you" or "Hello" or even "You're welcome."

The feeling is not one of "fake it till you make it" but rather, "Do it this way even though it'll always feel alien to you." And that right there is just crushingly sad.

Appointments to evaluate whether to make appointments

Today was G's appointment to be evaluated by the psychologist. After he sat with G for about a half hour, he called me in without him. He certainly was on the same page I was--I'd read the diagnosis for Asperger's Syndrome (turns out I was pronouncing it wrong; it's a hard 'g') and he might qualify.

The trouble with these appointments is that they're so damned brief, it feels like nothing gets done. Met with the first guy on the first day, Yes, he said, there could be something there. Met with the second guy, Oh yes, he says, that could be something. Let me have you meet with our Asperger's guy. Met with him, Oh certainly, he says, let's set up appointments so I can evaluate him for that.

But at the end of today's appointment, he says schools don't usually do IEPs for kids who aren't failing. Mama Bear really came out then. I said that my concern was him getting suspended or expelled from school for his behavior! Yes, he says; let's make the diagnostic appointments and get him an IEP. Phew.

A nice thing is that the appointments are at 7PM, so no juggling school or work to make them. And he's squeezing us in before he goes on three months paternity leave to be with his wife and brand-new twins. Sounds like a good guy, eh?

Goodbye, Hairy Potter

Last week, I looked into the guinea pig cage and saw our longhaired guinea pig, Hairy Potter, lying still on her back. Oh, boy. That moment I'd been waiting for had come.

When we got our two, Hairy Potter and Molly (the shorthaired orangey one), the woman who gave them to us said they were 3-5 years old. Some websites say they live to 3-5 years, so I thought we had a tiny commitment. That was probaby 5 years ago. I am not kidding.

Other websites (actually, this is a different page from the SAME website!) say 6-8 years. When I heard that from G's Kindergarten teacher, my jaw dropped. Eight years? I'm not sure I would have agreed to this, had I known that.

Last fall, I brought the piggies in to work while we were going to be on vacation, and a coworker picked up Molly and said that either she was pregnant or she was really fat. Well, since Hairy had failed to knock her up for the previous whatever years, I was guessing fat. And I did take a microsecond to consider worrying about her food intake. And then I realized that a guinea pig who was too fat from carrots is really not one of my top-10 concerns.

But I did have a soft spot for Hairy. Goodbye, H.P.

More hockey! On my TV!

Just in case there are other poor slobs too cheap to pay for cable TV and jonesing for some live (or tapeable) hockey on broadcast TV, here is the upcoming schedule:

(All on NBC-11)
Saturday, April 26, 12-3PM (3PM EST)
Sunday, April 27, 11-2 (2PM EST)
Saturday, May 3, 10-1 (1PM EST) (maybe; depends on earlier results)
Sunday, May 4, 11-2 (2PM EST) (ditto)

You cannot believe what I've gone through just to find the above list of information. It's like they want to make it hard to find. Sheesh.

Don't look back

I tape my sessions with my therapist (she insists on it, actually). I have a small Olympia digital recorder that I absolutely adore. Works great, easy to use, has the inputs/outputs I want, doesn't eat batteries like a Wii remote. Got it from Costco, so I can return it any time it decides it doesn't like to, for example, record.

I was listening to my oldest sessions, which went back to November. I noticed I sounded really happy. This felt like a real contrast to now. So much so that I was really woken up by how sad I'm feeling these days. It is really hard to be parenting G lately. I'm feeling incompetent way too often.

But after the recent funeral I went to, I'm trying to think of ways of living my life to its fullest. Keep my house clean (as it makes me much more serene), not put off trips to here or there that I've "always" wanted to do (we are going to camp at Castle Crags this summer!), make plans to get out and follow through.

G did have a great birthday party. On Saturday, his two friends came over and had some Wii time (his friend gave him Mario Galaxy for his birthday, after we got him a 2nd-hand PS2 Spongebob Game, wow), then pizza, then a little Uno Attack silliness (they just hit the button till it was empty), then more Wii, then ice cream cake (from Baskin-Robbins; next time, I'm just going to make it! $38 is crazy for a tiny cake), then huge pillow fight in his room, then finally to sleep at 11. (Not to say that G had great behavior the whole time--I periodically pulled him out of the fray to do a chore as a consequence for being unkind while playing Wii, ugh--but overall, it really went very well.)

They woke up before 7 (I told G that he needs to find some friends who sleep), had pancakes, finished our 4-person Wii game (Mario Party 8; all 4 of us thanks to a loan from a friend [thanks R!] of 2 additional remotes), and they went home with parents. And I wanted another night to sleep.

Rectangular aluminum keys?

I had a dream that involved the Cal Band... and my boss.

I did something (can't remember) pretty intense for the Band, and when I'd finished it, it was time to go into the stadium with them. But, as I pointed out to my boss (not IRL in the Band), I didn't have my 'horn' (I think I've called my piccolo that maybe twice in my life, even though it's the standard terminology in the Band) and needed to go home.

To come back, I'd need keys, so he hands me this huge wire loop (somewhat similar to the loop that my water polo teacher uses for the water polo caps, come to think of it) with maybe 25 aluminum rectangles on it. Each rectangle is much like the others, with subtle differences in the stick-figure diagram on it. Apparently, I need the whole keyring.

I go home and get my picc and music, and come back and park close to the stadium. (Now you know it's a dream!!) I think I had to place one of the appropriate triangles into a recession to get in.

Dreams are so weird.

Sadness

I was listening to my therapy sessions the past few days (she requires that I tape them; I used to write notes, but she pointed out that it distracted me a lot, which was true), and I noticed that I sounded a lot happier in December/January than I was feeling this week.

"Hm, what's going on?" I thought. Well, first, G had another 'episode' on Saturday, where he absolutely refused to cooperate for the photo-taking at our church for the directory (so much so that I thought, "Geez, has he got ADHD now?" could. not. stand. still!), and then turned over every chair in the next room as I tried to choose a photo of us to use, and then scram.

Much later, he said to me that he hates to smile for people he doesn't know. This explains his less-than-stellar school photos lately. I kept sending him back for retakes, as he has had great photos in the past--so photogenic! sigh

Then, also, I realized that although I had made plans to go to a memorial service for a wonderful man from our church who died suddenly Saturday night, I'd kind of forgotten that it was a memorial service. For someone who'd died. Suddenly. Way too soon. And such a great guy!

Somehow, it helps to remember that I have a good reason to be sad when I'm sad.

Disneyland recap

About a week and a half before we left, my sister called me up and moaned, "I don't think we'll ever make it on Priceline." So, with her on the phone, I put in Sun through Thurs, $44, and tried it. Rejected. Added a non-3*-containing area (it is so tricky, this Priceline stuff), bid $46--and won! And when we added our Friday night (the one folks were saying was taking our bids) with their "Add a night" button, we got that, too!

So instead of paying about $100/night for a Best Western with free internet and parking, we got the Hilton (newly renovated), but had to pay for Internet (one day, but they credited it b/c the system was flaky) and parking ($15/day but we split it). Same distance to Disneyland. And woo, pretty nice! I could have stood for the rooms to be bigger, and the maid service was a little spotty, but overall, bliss. And having adjoining rooms, great! Several times, G watched cartoons in one room while I watched episode after episode of Law & Order. (Aaah, cable.)

We got there Sunday, checked in, opted for bellhop service for our eleventy-seven bags, and got settled in with our ice chest and plug-in fridge, and some of us went off to the local Trader Joe's to stock up on food for the week. On the way, we buzzed by Target for my sister to buy a bra (? I know!) and something else, but it was closed. For Easter. And there was this self-important security guard there all day (we passed by later), just to tell people it was closed.

Monday morning, we were up by 5:30AM (my sister's schedule, which includes getting to the gates by 7:30AM) and everything went smoothly. By Day 2, we had abandoned the idea of bringing my big ice chest full of food for lunch & dinner and just went back to the hotel for one or the other. We did find the picnic area, which I decided was like the Weasley's camping tent. You can't even see it if you aren't looking for it! This area also has larger lockers than the main area, so we rented a huge one and stuffed our ice chest and extra jackets into it.

We headed toward the new Nemo submarine ride, but had apparently missed all the folks in Main Street calling out for us to go toward FantasyLand to get to the line. The line for this ride was long all week. G started to whine and ask how much longer and I told him if he whined once more, we'd be getting out of line. My sister whipped out her cell phone, brought up a Breakout-type game and taught him how to do it. Thank goodness, as we still had quite a lot of time left to wait. (The ride is good--fun, creative--but worth a 40+-minute wait? I don't think so.)

I never did make it onto the Matterhorn Bobsled rides that week, but no loss. By Friday, G was done with Disneyland (5 days is too many), so I set out with my niece, my nephew wanting more sleep and my sister working. Every time I asked, "What do you want to do now?" she didn't know, so it was the Jennie Show All The Time. We went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Jungle Boat Cruise, Astro Blasters (where I could blast away at will, unlike riding with G, who would crumple when he saw my score top his, oy), and others I've apparently forgotten. By now, my sister & nephew were ready to come, so I needed to get back to the hotel to be with G. I couldn't stay for long, so I got him to get dressed and come with me for a short visit (one last trip to Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, which turned out to be his favorite ride, on FastPasses). I had done the math and decided that if we came back for 3 days before March 24, 2009, it would be worth it to get Annual Passes with the credit from our 5-Day Park Hopper Passes.

So I got him into the Annual Pass Shop and got our photos taken (with me finger-combing our hair to make us somewhat presentable), and we had a lovely evening, really, ending with dinner at Rancho del Zocalo (with 10% off for our Annual Passes!). We got a table right next to BTMR, but the sad thing was that it broke down right as we sat down, so instead of seeing car after car whiz by with screaming passengers, we just got to see folks walk off down the exit ramps.

Overall, we really had a great time. Getting up super early was the right thing to do, especially for Spring Break Week for so many people, as we were rarely in the park in the early afternoon, when it gets so busy. Plus, we collected FastPasses like crazy and tried to use them all up every day. And finally, being there early meant we could go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, have a great time, and run around to the end of the line to go on it again! That was the ride G asked to go on by himself. The operator asked him, "How old are you?" I saw him answer her, she leaned toward him, and he leaned toward her and said something. With a wry grin, she let his car go ahead. I cracked, "I'm 44," and she said, "When he said 'seven and three-quarters,' it threw me a little!"

Dang, that's my son. He lost his first tooth while we were there and will be eight years old in less than two weeks. Holy cow!