Give Me A Little Sugar

I went to Jake's school yesterday for the parent group meeting. I love going on his campus.. it is so filled with great people and interesting kids (and adults).. and friendly office staff. Each time I step on that campus I am reminded how lucky I am to have my son at such a great school, and grateful that he is thriving there.

Jake's been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. I'm not sure if it's growing pains or nightmares or pre-teen angst, but he's been up and out of bed as many as ten times a night. Sometimes I hear his feet patter across the hardwood, other times he whoops and hollers (which his little sister just loooooves.) It doesn't really matter because unless I am really, really sick,  I can hear my children through closed doors with the television blaring... I can hear when a blanket has slipped off the bed leaving a little tushie uncovered. Is this a mom thing? or a skill I have picked up because Jake requires such constant monitoring?

Lately if I hear him all the way out of bed and coming down the hall I will greet him and lead him back to bed. He usually dives back in, but more recently he's been leaping in to bed, then sitting back up and looking right at me, as if he is asking for me to sit with him, or lay down and sing to him, or pet his hair.

He has added a new level of relationship to his repertoire, and with these new developments we are experiencing more snuggling, more hand holding, more gentle swishing the hand across a person's back, and, at school, I saw him lean in for a hug from a peer. Not a class aide, because he is generally pretty friendly with his aides.. but another child in his class! Apparently the boys have mutually decided that they are best buds, and the other little boy hugs Jake and speaks to him in sign language, and Jake laughs and reaches out to hold on to him...and there's smiling, so much smiling!

And Squid and I had a good laugh because she had heard that her son had become best buds with Jake in another classroom. She was surprised to learn that it was our Jake! Our boys are seeking each other out, standing near each other...hugging?

Our nonverbal, English-as-a-native-language in a predominantly Spanish-speaking school (previously), Jake has still had friends, he even had a girlfriend in first grade (the daughter of a class aide fell madly in love with him!), and everyone seems to know he has a good sense of humor. I'm not surprised really, because as not-nice as I think I am, I have managed to collect a lot of wonderful friends, and I don't think there's a person yet who hasn't liked my smart, kind, always-does-the-right-thing, husband.

I didn't know I had a check-box on my "Life List for Jake" that had anything about ensuring he could establish friendships on his own, but of course I did, I think that must be normal, because I know I have it on Lucy's list. Nice to be able to check a few things off now and then

It's Only Kindergarten

Change. The only constant in this world, and I think I might hate it. Oh I pretend to like it: time change, when we get to sleep in, or see the sunrise. I like to change the color of my hair. Really I just love a new haircut. I like to go on a road trip and get a change of scenery, or try a new cocktail at a new bar. But really, none of those things are very risky. Not at all. They have very little consequence. Even if I bleach my hair out to Gwen Stefani white I can get it back (or most of it, what hasn’t fallen out) back to a normal-ish blonde color that doesn’t make my mother gasp.

I like to joke that “apples don’t fall far from the tree” when it comes to Autism. Jake is such a combination of the people in my family, and I can see parts of his personality in each of us: his sense of humor, his lack of dexterity, his determination, his migraines, his struggle with communication, even if it is exaggerated in how he demonstrates the behavior, I can almost always get a glimpse of how Jake became Jake… including his need for things to be the same; and that he got from me.

This doesn’t mean I’m not flexible, I am, but I always have multiple threads going, so even if it looks like spontaneity, I am hopefully already prepared for that possibility. I feed the kids at the same time every day, even if it means we add in meals with other people at other times. Jake’s body clock does not alter with season, or place, or time zone, so that means he eats 5-6 meals in Hawaii, and goes to bed with hours of sunlight left in the summer. He has worn the same brand of pants for three sizes now, and I have been known to buy the same shoe in two colors if I really like them, or two pairs, for when one of them eventually wears out beyond repair.

I work hard to get things to a “steady”. It’s not settling for anything, I just want to keep the boat afloat, with everyone on it, with provisions and direction. Not to go overboard (ha!) with the metaphor, but I don’t even care sometimes if we have the sail up. I just need to know where we are headed and know that our crew is ready. We can float in one place, as long necessary, if we are together and (mostly) happy.

So Lucy is starting kindergarten in the fall, which means we need to decide now where we want her to go, and I am a wreck. Change. Again. Or maybe not. Or maybe. Aaaaghhh.

When Jake went to kinder it was sort of a surprise. I thought he was going to stay one more year in his early intervention preschool. I thought I had time to ponder the choices, visit schools and determine which disability we would try to place, autism or CP. Instead I was sort of bombarded with “Uhm, Jake is really big (tall) and don’t you think he should move on to kindergarten so he doesn’t step on any little ones who are just entering preschool?” and somehow I nodded believing that height had something to do with matriculation.

Then I visited two classrooms and picked one. I made the wrong choice, or a bad choice, because I’m not sure the other class would have been right, but I know where he went was wrong. I didn’t ask the right questions, and when I took Jake for his first day I was greeted with aides who received no direction, and a new teacher, who spoke very broken English, as it was her very-distant-second language. The class had a mix of kids with such a wide variety of disability that there was no teaching. After the first month I learned that Jake spent most of the day in a Rifton chair buckled in, and rolled from table to table. I spent the first semester in conferences every week, and the second semester trying to find another placement. I felt like a horrible mother. We got him a new placement, and two years later, when he needed a different setting again, we found him Wunderskool. Now he is happy, and healthy and thriving, and as we settle-in to the back half of his second year there I am finally breathing. I had not felt steady since Jake was three.

My close IRL friends are probably, no, I know they are done with this conversation. I keep talking about where Lucy should go to school because, while I am generally a very decisive, opinionated, independent thinker, in this case, I want someone else to have the answer, tell me it’s the right thing to do. I have at least one very close, trust-worthy friend at each possible location, so I can’t even use the “Who can care for my child if there is an earthquake and they need to take her for three weeks?” Because, yes, tragically that is how scary my brain is…

This has taken up all of my free-thought, and a lot of my previously-allocated-for-other-things thought too. I feel a bit silly being so upset by it all, but last time I did this I screwed up, and I certainly can’t handle that feeling. And I’m not having any more kids, so it’s sort of the last chance I get to do this right. And, most importantly, she is a neat kid, who is smart and funny and I don’t want to send her to the wrong place.

I know what I want: I want same. I want no change. I want to put off for another year, or two, any sort of thinking about change, but I need to really think because there are options here, and financial impacts, and logistics to consider.

So I have been on the tours. I have all the paperwork. I’ve even asked the four-year old what she wants, because, you know, that's responsible parenting. She very capably decided that she could go to at least two schools if the hours were different, and then she put her hands over her eyes and said it was “much too hard to decide."

I agree.

Fluffy Pancakes and Other Holiday Miracles

It's a new year. Shiny and bright and filled with promise, like a new school year, or a blank journal, or an empty center console in a family mini-van.

I am already ahead as this year starts. If I accomplish very little else I will feel like I have had success because...

I can make pancakes.

Now this might seem like an easily overcome obstacle for most adults who can read, have even limited physical coordination and access to the necessary ingredients for cooking. This simple task has eluded me for all of my 38 years, but I have now successfully made beautiful, fluffy, properly cooked-through and most importantly, edible, pancakes four out of the last five days (I didn't have a fail one day, I just wasn't in charge of brekkie). I can now make breakfast for the troops swiftly and easily. I fed four kids Sunday morning before 7:30am and it was a breeze. I have now mastered breakfast.

It's amazing how changing even the simplest things in life can make all the difference, to our confidence, or happiness.

On Christmas day we changed the time dinner was served. One hour earlier and Jake was able to enjoy the same, fancy, dressed-up, china, and three different wine glasses and four forks meal that everyone else had. He was able to stay the entire dinner, and finish three rounds of dessert before Descartes took him home. One hour earlier, and we had family dinner, with 14 people and Jake was able to be a part of the whole thing, and we all had a great time. Jake had a great time, because he loves being with his family.

Our holidays were lovely. Changing a few simple things made each visit with each family go smoothly, even successfully. In fact, I can't actually think of any major drama, aside from our "typical" daughter throwing a no-nap induced fit on Christmas Eve, but she's four, and it's been documented, and when she's a mommy we will pull out this photo, and remind her of all of her drama and cuteness.

The trip to Southern California for Christmas was one of the most successful we have had in years. We felt taken care of, accepted, welcomed and for the first time in a long time, I think we could have stayed a few more days. My family is filled with loving, kind people, really. I'm not even writing that just because they read this blog (Hi Mom!) They really are wonderful people, and we have had visits go okay before, but Jake is a different boy now. He's matured so much in the past two years, and it makes travel and visits much easier. He is calmer overall, and if he does get upset, he's able to calm down faster once his needs are met. And of course, we have grown up too. I worry less about what other people think, and more about how to take care of my family. I also focus more on my family, rather than my family of origin. It's hard not to fall back in to family systems when you go home, but I know that if I take care of Descartes, Jake and Lucy first, it will work out for everyone.

It really went so smoothly. My mother had everything ready to go at her house. We had the right milk, snacks and help each morning with breakfast. Our beds were all set up and the kid toys were available. And guess what my mom bought? A bin filled with smooth rocks and little army guys and small (plastic) sea creatures; Jake had his very own sensory box. It was easy for her to get done (with the help of my sister-in-law, Pinky) and the kindest gesture. Such a small thing that Jake loved, and shows just how hard every one is trying to make sure that we get to be a part of things.

Christmas eve we went to my brother's new house. It is in a very cute neighborhood, that reminds me a little bit of Toon Town at Disneyland, but it is a house filled with toys and non-breakable joy. Aside from Jake cracking off the manifold

in my brother's backyard, it was an easy, fun, family dinner.  The backyard was all set, and available for him to play in, for hours. We just moved one piece of furniture to block off some mud, and when it came time for Jake to turn in, he was able to sleep in his little cousin's pretty pink princess room, snuggled into all of those cozy rosy-hued pillows. Keeping doors closed, and breakables off the side of the table where our long-arm Larry walks through the kitchen, I didn't even have to make those requests because they know my kid now. Even the what-we-thought-was-major-but-turned-out-not-to-be-so-bad, plumbing issue was made to be no big deal, and certainly no one was angry with Jake.  We have a running joke in the family to guess who's going to ruin Christmas each year. One year my brother Gerard asked for the receipts to all of his gifts so he could return them and get what he "really wanted." Another year, my youngest brother Albert threw a little fit about how we "don't even know him" because we guessed the wrong size sweater for him, and I sort of tried to top that ruin by being upset that Descartes had not proposed to me (he proposed the next day). My sister fell into the Christmas tree one year, and missed another year entirely. So Jake tried to ruin Christmas this year, but we found the sprinkler shut-off so I'm not sure he can claim the title.

Christmas day with the other part of my family, has been troublesome for us in the past. The mix of Jake with china, glassware, and expectations led to many of us being sad. My parents have valiantly tried so many different ways to accomodate us, and this year was no exception. Their perseverance has paid off; this year it was fantastic. This was the dinner we moved one hour earlier. The other thing they did was to get a private room for our large party, which was perfect. This way the house was not "set-up" and breakable by Jake, and the mess of dinner was taken care of by a very nice waitstaff. The private room gave us some breathing space, and the patio we could access meant that we could take breaks between courses. The little kids got to wiggle and dance and we all laughed and enjoyed the very, very delicious food. It was such a luxury, and I am so grateful.

Our drive back to the SF Peninsula was easy. We left before anyone was too grumpy, packed food in the car, and were able to avoid drive-thru food for the duration. We stopped for dinner before we got home to avoid that horrible let-down of post vacation combined with an empty fridge. Then we washed some clothes and packed the car again and went to Tahoe for the week and New Year.

The gloves are 80's rocker-girl, but they are on!

What a fantastic week we had there! Beautiful snow, perfect accommodations, doting grandparents and little children who got along. I got to sneak out with the girls, and spend time chatting and sipping while gazing out at the icy lake, and later in the week, I went snowshoeing. The guys went ice fishing, and we all played in the snow.
Jake wore a hat and gloves. Jake wore gloves, and a hat! And he kept them on. Whooooooooo Hoooooooo! This is the first year he has ever kept them on. We cheered and laughed and he smiled, and all the little kids congratulated him! Perhaps it was the 20 degrees outside, or the fact that they've been working with hats at Wunderskool, or maybe Jake is growing up, and recognizes that he can tolerate some things for short periods of time. I know he heard us say that he would have to go back inside if he wouldn't wear gloves...and that boy loves to be outdoors. My sister got some great photos, and while he's not smiling in this one, he really did have a great time, which means we all got to have a good time.

We're back at home now, and I have almost finished unpacking. Jake had school on Monday, and Lucy goes back tomorrow. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks filled with little things that have made all the difference: pancakes, room to breathe, gloves.

What a great way to start the year, grateful for these small things. I must remember that nothing in our life is static; there is room to grow and change, and even the smallest of changes can transform our family.

just in case you need a little bit of Happy Change, here's the recipe for those pancakes:

Favorite Mountain House Pancakes
sift together:
1 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons of table sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

add to:
1 egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 1 cup of milk

Lead me to the Gate

We're happy around here. Vacation for the kids has begun. Descartes is taking some time off. We'll see family, and snow, and the beach, and most of our Great State as we traipse up and down in our all-wheel-drive van. If you ever buy a Toyota Sienna... pay extra for the AWD. It is so awesome to drive right up and through those chain control check points.

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. My Tahoe family came down and Descartes' parents came across the bridge, and we had a lovely, lovely day. My sister made most of the food, or maybe she didn't, but since she brought food from Tahoe, beautiful home-made food, and then she helped me here, I think she did most of the work. Descartes' parents were precious with the kids, of course, and they had fun decorating the Turkey Lurkey cake.  This was not a tradition I had growing up, but it is a great way to entertain the kids, especially right before dinner is served when every one is antsy. In our family you frost a chocolate sheet cake (okay Descartes' mother does all of this...) and you let the children coat the entire thing in candy, with the goal that the cake look something like the Turkey it was cut out to be. It's really gross, and awesome, and sickeningly sweet. The tradition we have added with this generation is that I let the kids eat a piece of that cake for breakfast the next day. I love being that kind of bad mom.

There's lots of new lately. Mostly things look the same, and certainly to the untrained eye, to an outsider who doesn't notice the nuances of our life, nothing looks different, but there are some great things happening.

Late afternoon on Thanksgiving day, when it came time for us to say goodbye to Cookie and Papa, Jake was very upset as we shut the kitchen door, and watched them walk away. The little kids wanted to walk the grandparents to the gate, and as I said yes, it occurred to me that Jake probably wanted to go too. So I asked him, and he said, "Uh ye....ah!" So Jake went to the gate. The little guys peeled off to play before they even made it down the back steps, but Jake went to the gate and stood there until he saw his grandparent's car drive away. And as the car passed by the gate he raised his hand, a sort of mix between a salute and a wave. And when they had driven off he turned around and walked down the breezeway and back into the house.

Relationship. Social awareness. Understanding family dynamics.

We're also seeing something else that seems like no big deal to most families... Jake is beginning to lead people to where  he wants to go. He took Descartes' hand and pulled him, gently, towards the door in Tahoe because he so desperately wanted to go outside. He took Squid's daughter Iz's hand and walked her around the entire bounce house party. He took Uncle Jaster's hand and led him to the door (once again.. that boy really likes playing outside!) He took my hand just today and led me to the breakfast counter for a snack.

Communication. Intent. Calm insistence. Proprioceptive awareness.

And he's been snuggling. Really snuggling, on the couch, in the bed, and nuzzling in when we give him a hug. This month we've spent at least two rainy days snuggled on the couches in the living room, watching his favorite show MythBusters, or a movie. It might make us a lazy family, but we are trying to let Jake lead. I watched almost all of The Princess and the Frog with Jake at one end of he couch, and me at the other, or feet snuggling and twisting under the blanket. And just this weekend he took a rest with his head on a pillow between Descartes' and mine, for almost 40 minutes. He had one arm around his dad's arm and his other around my shoulders. We were closer to him, for a longer than we had been in years- years.

Affection. Preference. Increased attention span.

We have seen so many little things that amount to such big long term changes. He has been happy and healthy and present, and it has been wonderful. In this season of thanksgiving, I could not be more grateful.

We head out tomorrow to Southern California. The rain should be plentiful, and the food delicious, and seeing family will be wonderful in spite of the obstacles of changing our routine and leaving all of our comfort zones. If nothing else, our family loves a good road trip. Although there is one other thing Jake has been doing lately...bugging his little sister. Very normal brother-sister teasing: sneaking a single cookie out of her bowl when she walks away, taking her doll in the car, and laughing when she throws a fit, or tapping her arm until she gives in and shares her snack on a road trip!

My Tiny Babies

They were never small, either one of them. My kids have always been on the long/tall side, and while skinny compared to the rest of the family, they are both strong and healthy. They have grown a lot this year, both emotionally and physically. The big trip gave us a nice grounding moment before the school year shook us by its tail, and this week of Thanksgiving will be another touchstone to remind us of how wonderful it is to be a part of our family.

I've been purging the house. It's eight years overdue. We had a lot of things to begin with, then we had Jake and I think I just never got rid of anything that was still useful ever again. I have too many sheets, towels and pillow cases, hundreds and hundreds of books, more shoes than Imelda. I went through 13 boxes/plastic bins filled with my children's clothing, and more than two bins of their shoes shoes. I sorted them all by size first, then called friends so they could place their orders. One family wanted 2T warm clothes only, and possibly some size 8 shoes. I pulled out the next sizes for my sister's boys, the items that Princess Lucy won't wear because it looks "too much like boys." (She does love camo though!). Then I went through again quickly and picked out things from each bin that had I had little memory of a kid wearing it, or at least I knew I wasn't emotionally attached. This sounds ridiculous even as I write it. Who gets attached to a cheap Hawaiian shirt or a blue dress with apples all over it?

I can remember something about almost every single item in those 16 crates. I can remember that Jake wore the beige sweater with the little red zipper on the Golden Gate bridge. I took a picture of him, and I was so scared his little ataxic body was going to lunge and leap over the four foot barrier and land in front of a car or worse, go over the side of the bridge. The stripey sweater he wore in Montana, the last time we went vacationing with those close family friends before our marriages went in different directions. Jake got caught on the barbed-wire fence at the edge of the property. I made a new land speed record that day rushing over sage and dirt to get to him. By the time I screeched to a halt, he had slipped out of the sweater, calmly pulling his body down and out, leaving a striped scarecrow on the fence.

Lucy came home from the hospital in the pink onsie with snaps up the front, and monkeys printed on it. And the little blue and white dress with the duck embroidered on the front? Cheezy I know, but she  wore it on her first visit to feed some ducks at a nearby park. The multi-color sweater with the hood? I bought that the day the ultrasound revealed that Lucy was a girl (and then with the worst kind of buyer's remorse, I worried that I had somehow overstepped a boundary and had invited misfortune into our lives, jinxing everything.)

I remember buttoning and zipping and folding and maybe even ironing so many of those tiny clothes...but only as I look at them again. I think this is how my brain works: an event occurs, a good thing, a bad thing, any thing, and I remember the event for a very short amount of time. But apparently I really do remember it because it gets stored in a long-term memory section of my brain, only to be released again when I see the sweater, the street sign, the wedding invitation, the pen, the shoes. I use objects as external hard drives. If I don't see the object, I'm afraid all those memories will be gone.  Now I know I sound like a crazy person.

There's another thing happening as I clean out all of these things. I get closer to the corner of the closet with the baby crib.

Baby. Crib.

It is beautiful. Jake stayed in it until he was too tall and I was afraid he would tip over the rails, and Lucy jumped out the day before her first birthday, prompting a hasty trip to IKEA. We packed up the crib and put it in Jake's closet.

Every time I open Jake's closet door I have a flood of memories looking at those beautiful wood slats; Jake finally pulling to a stand in his sunny bedroom with yellow walls, when we thought he never would, and Lucy jumping up and down yelling MAMAMAMAMAMAMA to get out of bed. I remember Descartes and I putting that crib together, and arranging the room before Jake was born.

Now getting rid of that crib would hardly remove all of the beautiful memories I have of my children as tiny babies but there is something keeping me from passing it on to the next family. At least I thought there was; I thought that our family was not complete without another child.

This whole time, I've had this crib in the closet, thinking that we would change our minds and have another baby. Getting pregnant with Lucy was a big decision after Jake, and though we thought we would have three or four children, I've realized (after some long discussions) that I am not really missing having another person in our family, and I cannot actually imagine where or how another child would fit, into my heart, or our home, or our schedule. I just don't have a hollow any more, and I know I used to feel that ache, as if we were not complete--but my heart is full now. And we are whole, and happy and as hard as it feels some days, we are on track. 

***

What I am wanting, what I confused with wanting another child, is that idea of fresh and new, and possibility. It's that whole hope thing again...and while we're at it, I want that fearless part of me back. The woman who was carrying a perfect child and made sure we bought a house near the best elementary school. The woman who read Thoreau, and C.S. Lewis to put that beautiful boy to sleep at night. The woman I was before I broke my leg on the front stairs and had to ask for help, really, really ask for help for the first time in my life. I am trying to get some more pieces of that woman back, and somehow I mixed that up with having another baby, because while I do like myself now, I really did like the woman I was then too--she was awesome, and she knew it.

Is There a Pill for This?

I've been working on a post for The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism on why we chose to give Jake medication to address his ADHD symptoms, and how to go about it if you think your child might benefit.

The thing is, as I keep working on the post, and I've been opening it and writing, deleting, and writing again, every day for over a month, I find that it is really not my best work. The language is stilted. There is no flow. I can't seem to get the words out, or clarify my message.

Last night was a restless one for Descartes and I. I could tell at about 4:30am that neither of us was sleeping. But just in case I was wrong, I let the silence surround us, as I am NOT wont to do. Silence is so heavy for me. It forces me to think for myself, instead of bouncing my ideas off of other people, gauging their reactions. It forces me to be my own company, which makes me think about what I like and do NOT like about myself...and then how I want to change those things, which inevitably leads me to thinking about how I need to do more for my family, for my friends, for my work. I form to-do lists at 5am that I will accomplish TO-DAY! for the projects I dedicate my mind to.

So this morning in the darkness I tried to work through what was bothering me about writing what would appear to be a simple post about the medications I give my son, why we do it, and how to do it. I think I am worried about the judgment. People, myself included, are so quick to judge others. It's how we determine friend or foe, helpful or harried. We make snap decisions about people all the time. If we have grace, or empathy, or something other than outright narcissism, we might consider why another person is behaving in a certain manner, and hold our harshest judgments, or our condemnation, but sometimes we just judge and move on.

People, individuals I know, and talk show pundits, and magazines and teachers have judged my family and our choice to give Jake medication, and it is painful to think that others might view me as the type of parent who would cause my child harm. What's worse is that I judge myself. I know we've made the right decisions.. I know that we have, but a part of me questions the ethics of giving a non-verbal 10 year old medications, which alters his mood. He can't tell me when he has cotton mouth. He can't tell me if it is making him feel anxious, or if he's not eating because the medications remove his appetite, or he ate a big snack at school. And I have found myself thinking that many children are mis- or over- diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, when all they really need is some more stimulating way of teaching to keep their attention focused on learning.. or maybe they just need to have P.E. in school again to run some energy off some of those antsy legs.

But I don't want to share that part with parents who are trying to figure out if pharmacological intervention might help their child. I only want to tell them the good parts, about my son's overnight ability to sit in a chair, or go to brunch with his grandparents again. The way he can make it through a five hour flight to Hawaii, and dinner. I want parents to be unaware of those harsh judgments, so they can get to the point of helping their children, because in spite of those naysayers who tell us we have made up ADHD, some children will benefit from medications like this.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism is filled with fact-based information. Science. Truth. Honesty. It is already helping families and has opened communication with adults on the spectrum. I know that an honest account, of all my emotions, will be the post that reaches the most people. I just want to balance all of that negative- the negative in my own mind, and all of those harsh words around us, with all of the possible benefits, and somehow write all of it down, without being judged.

or, as I have often done in my every day, going-to-get-through-this way, I suppose I could just do what I need to do and let the critics say what they must before they move on... because they do eventually move on, and what always remains is the best decision I can make for my family at the time.

Mad Woman Takes a Pause

I am cleaning out my bookshelves and the kids' drawers trying to make room for some peace in my life, and I'm actually getting somewhere. I think I am giving away about 100 books today. I'm feeling like we need a good clean sweep of things.. of everything to keep our family headed in the right direction.

Just now I made the mistake of opening a journal from 1995. I probably should have just thrown it out without looking, but decided to read a bit instead.

Wow. I dated a lot that year, which makes sense, because it was the year before I started dating my husband. I had forgotten the drama, and the highs and lows of that young single life. It made me ever more grateful for what we have now, however hard some days are. I did a lot of dancing, at least twice a week, and a lot of falling head over heels for the wrong guys. From the looks of it, I had good friends and I worked all the time.

What was fun to find, along with poetic descriptions of rock bands and smoke-filled cafes, was a list of descriptors that I think I was putting together to use as part of a checklist for a spouse. It is interesting to see the things I valued then...not only did I find most all of them in my husband, but I actually still value those traits today.

smart	outdoorsy	humble
handy	eloquent	friendly
opinionated	kind	reserved
private	stubborn	appreciation of the arts
sense of humor	passionate	solid
ambitious	compassionate	social
strong	witty	dedicated
educated	family oriented	committed
amusing

When I made this list I had already met my future husband, and I wonder how much he influenced the list, considering how much time we spent together that year (as friends). Did I really put stubborn down as a trait to look for? Maybe I meant, not a pushover, or with conviction?


and now, back to work.

The Hat Makes the Man

I don't really like Halloween. I'm not sure when I started not to like it. Maybe it was the pressure of coming up with a great costume; jeesh, I had the kind of friends who dressed up as green m&ms and other cool things.

Maybe it's that I was raised to think that I was  destined to be hit by a car while trick-or-treating, or that by the time I got to college, it was expected that all females would dress as some sort of sexy version of normal things: sexy vampire, sexy nurse, sexy meter maid, sexy butcher, sexy Cal-trans worker...although I did the Castro thing in the late 90s, and I had fun (and yes I went as a sexy cowgirl).

and now I'm a mom, and so I do Halloween. I am anxious about it every year, that my kids won't have the right costume, that they will look back and think I didn't do enough.. it will somehow be obvious that I can't wait for October to fly by.

scary girls, scary babies

But enough of all that... we DID do Halloween this year, and not only that, but it went well from costumes to school parties to trick-or-treating.

We went to the Halloween store a few weeks ago in the search of a costume for Jake.  We've done several years of those muscle costumes where the fabric is stuffed with filler to make the kid look big and manly. So far, he's been the Hulk, and Superman and Mr. Incredible, and Spiderman and I can't remember what else. They are great, easy costumes (which end up in the dress-up box later!), but we couldn't find one we liked.

We found a lot of scary things that someone, not us, might set up around a house, but the costume selection was not all that great for tween boys unless you want to wear a mask. We didn't find anything reasonable that night, although my daughter very sweetly let me know that I my legs would look great in this costume:

I love that my daughter thinks I look like this

We carved pumpkins with Descartes' parents last Sunday, which was fun, and made me remember that I carved pumpkins with them the first year I knew them in 1995. This year the carved pumpkins didn't last until Halloween. We enjoyed, okay, I enjoyed, watching Hello Kitty slowly melt and be consumed by mold. It was less fun to clean it up, but I have a wonderful husband who took care of that.

We finally found costumes for both kids. Lucy went as Belle, and Jake went as a cowboy. Picking out Jake's costume was really very fun. Descartes, Lucy and I each picked one or two costumes we thought would work for Jake, then presented them all to him. He laughed and laughed, especially when we each tried to convince him to choose the costume we were holding. We got it down to three, then two, and he finally picked the cowboy outfit.


Both children had school parties/parades... Lucy first... my galliwompus little Belle, who could barely hold still long enough for me to brush her hair. She actually said that her head was going to pop off because she was so excited about Halloween. For trick-or-treating on Sunday night she had to put on a long sleeve tshirt under her dress. I love how Northern California kids just suck it up and wear jackets or layer to keep warm. There's no complaining like we did when I grew up...oh, all that moaning I did about how the shirt or jacket was going to ruin my costume.

The best story of Halloween may be as simple as a hat. Jake wore a hat. JAKE WORE A HAT!

He apparently wore his hat almost all day at school on Friday. Certainly he wore it the entire time Lucy and I were with him when he went from classroom to classroom collecting candy. He also wore it on Sunday trick-or-treating. This is so huge. He's also been wearing his helmet when he rides his bike at school, and all this after he wore a helmet horseback riding this summer.

I know he's getting older, that he's learning every day, gaining new skills, but I think I have just let go of some things. When we realized that Jake hated hats (and gloves) we knew that we were not going to move to any place less temperate, and I sort of stopped worrying about it, and stopped thinking about it last winter. It is exciting to be able to check that box off. We still have a long way to go before he's wearing a baseball hat to keep off the sun, or a knit cap to keep warm, but I'll take several hours of an ill-fitting cowboy hat. It's a start, and we like starts because that means at least we are on the same road.

yes, Gus has a costume on.

awake and happy the entire time!

Sunday night we went through the neighborhood with a couple of other families. Jake went in his wheelchair, for safety, our peace of mind, and the fact that he normally goes to bed around the time most kids start trick-or-treating, so we expected him to get tired. Lucy was very precious, as she asked for another piece of candy for her brother, if we couldn't easily wheel the chair to the door. Later, she just took half of whatever she had been given and put it into his bag rather than ask for more. She gets extra points for that because that girl loves candy like no one I have ever seen.

Everyone made it through the trick-or-treating..no tears, no complaining, no melt-downs...we have bags and bags of candy, and no sick stomachs. Both kids are sleeping now, (although Lucy is next to me on the couch) and I am a grateful woman who just might like Halloween a little bit more this year.

Posted By Popular Demand: Cake

It is my sister's birthday next week, so while she was visiting this weekend, in between the reveling and the beer-making, and the beer-drinking and the concert-going, I made her a cake.

A few of her favorite foods in life are mayonnaise, chocolate and apparently Bordeaux chocolates from See's Candies..that last one I actually didn't know about when I chose which cake to make her, but this cake sort of managed to hit all those sweet spots.

I remembered that I had read about a World War II era cake that used mayo instead of eggs and shortening because as two of you may recall, and a few more of you may have read.. there was rationing during the war...back when people actually had to sacrifice some of their personal luxury for the benefit of a greater good...but I digress.

Wikipedia tells us "Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 after supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. Soon afterward, passenger automobiles, typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, coffee, stoves, meat, lard, shortening and oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies, and fruit butter were rationed by November 1943."

And since necessity breeds ingenuity, the bakers, really, the women of that generation, found new ways to make their cakes..voila... the delicate deliciousness of this cake was born.

This recipe comes from America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget in which I have found several great recipes, for obscure and once well-loved foods like Runsas, which are also called Bierock which my family loved.

World War II Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (all italics are my own notes)
Ingredients
Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup water



Frosting 
(I doubled the amount of butter, brown sugar and milk, and used 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar to make my frosting, because we always like more frosting. I think if I had used the entire amount of powdered sugar it would have been too stiff.)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Directions

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9-inch square baking pan. (Because you make this in a 9x9 pan you can actually use your counter top (toaster) oven to make this cake, thus avoiding heating up the entire kitchen!)

Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl.

Stir the mayonnaise, granulated sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl until smooth. Add the water and stir until combined. Whisk in the flour mixture until incorporated.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan (you can actually let kids lick the spatula here without worry since the eggs in the mayonnaise have already been cooked! A great cake to make with little kids!) and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely in the pan, at least 45 minutes. (Many people leave this cake in the pan and frost it there. I flipped mine upside-down onto a serving platter before frosting it so it would look more birthday-ish and less Grandma VanZanten Poor-Man's Cake-ish..but let me tell you Grandma VanZanten's cake was AWESOME!)

*****
For the frosting, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the brown sugar and bring to a boil. Boil until the mixture begins to thicken, about 2 minutes, then, off the heat, carefully stir in the milk.

Return to a boil, then remove from the heat to cool until just warm, about 30 minutes.

Stir in the confectioner's sugar and spread the icing evenly over the cake. The cake can be stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. (if it lasts that long!)

Enjoy!

Jump Start

earlier this morning...

Most of you would not be surprised to know that I have a lot to say. A LOT to say, but lately I think I have so much to say that I can’t get anything out, which is extremely frustrating because my mind is getting very full.

Well, apparently it just takes a little jump-start, because I am so upset right now I am shaking. And when I am this upset, I feel the need to write.

I was just in a store, and a little boy, not even three, walked right outside and onto the street. He opened the front door and walked out onto one of the busiest corners in our downtown. I caught what was happening just as I got to the register, and watched as the very sweet cashier, who is probably not older than 20, raced outside. I knew exactly what she was doing without even seeing what she was rushing after.  I guessed it was the little boy because I had already brought him back to his mother three times in the ten minutes I had been in the store.

Twice I turned him around and said "Go back to Momma.” while nudging him in the right direction, since I could see her from where I was. And the third time I actually took him by the hand and walked him back to her. She never looked up from what she was doing when I brought him back. Kids might wander a bit down the aisle you're on, but he was so sad and looking for her, "Momma, Maaaaaaamaaaaaa?", and so short he couldn't find her in the maze of boxes and displays.

When the cashier brought the little boy through the door I thanked her profusely. She smiled and I took the little boy by the hand and marched to the back of the store to his mother. She picked him up this time, but didn't say anything to me.

Life is hard. For a lot of people, life is very hard, so I am not going to judge the woman too harshly because Lord only knows what has happened thus far in her life, but based on her smooth appearance and lack of tear-stained cheeks, and her desire to look at Christmas ornaments, I am guessing not much tragedy had befallen her this morning. Her other child was at one of the display tables with a bag of candy from the store ripped open in front of her.

I told the mom that her son had gotten outside and that the young cashier had chased after him down the street. She just looked at him and said “Why did you go outside?” and that was it...I was so surprised by her lack of concern, that I started to think maybe I was making a bigger deal out of it than I should, so I just said, “I thought you’d want to know because he is strong enough now, to open up a heavy store door and get outside by himself. Maybe that’s a new skill?” She said nothing to me, so I turned around and walked back to the cashier.

I paid for my items and realized I was very upset. I was trying to figure out all of the emotion I was having. I thanked the cashier about 60 million more times... for paying attention, for doing more than her job, for making sure that woman didn’t have anything horrible happen to her today, for saving that boy’s life, because surely with the parking garage and the giant trucks, and the busy, busy light with a turn-right-on-the-green-arrow light, and the boy's lack of safety awareness, he would have been hurt in a matter of minutes. The young lady was so gracious, just saying that she didn’t think he should be out there on his own. She told me to have a good day, and gave me my bag. My hand was shaking.

I realized I was very angry. Sweaty palms, gonna lose it, shaking, sick to my stomach, angry.

Watching my son is a full-time job at home and in public. Spraining my wrist trying to keep ahold of his arm as I try to pay someone, wearing a backpack so I have more free hands, being fearful to go certain places because I’m not sure I will be able to keep track of him…resorting to his wheelchair because I am worried I will lose him….waiting years to take both of my children out together, waiting until Lucy was capable of following directions and walking without holding hands before I ventured to do things like lunch, or the grocery store, or the movies. Jake ripped my rotator cuff dropping to the ground when he was younger, and now we are working on walking nicely and holding hands...eventually walking next to me without holding hands. It is a goal at school. It's something we are trying very, very hard to master because it's very important that he stay with me, and we have the same expectation of our typical kid, because it's important that kids stay with their parents. Right?

and this lady just let her kid, her typical, able-to-talk, able-to-hear, knows-his-own name, walks-without-aide, child walk out of the store. He just walked out of the store, and it took someone bringing him back for her to notice he was missing.

I'm not one for saying "that's not fair." because no one promises us that life will be fair, or even, or equitable, or easy, but I found myself saying it anyway. 

It's not fair. It's not fair...I try so hard every single day not to be a burden to others, to make sure my children are not causing problems for any one else but me. Jake tries so hard to keep it together in stores. We leave restaurants when either kid is having a hard time, we leave stores and abandon carts when there is a meltdown. We do not lose our children in stores. Our family works hard every time we go out, the whole time, to do the right thing, and she, she just lets her kid all the way through an entire huge store and out the door....and doesn't even say thank you when he's found alive? 

**********

I am re-reading this 7 hours later, and I still have all those feelings, but another one has crept in...that feeling I get when I realize I am not being grateful. I wish sometimes my personality would allow for just appreciating that the child was safely returned to his mother, and not feel like I have a moral imperative to change the world and the way people think, or get them to think when they are obviously not thinking.