Waste Not

We had a surprise dusting of snow in our area yesterday, about 2 inches.
This morning, as we were leaving for school, my 10-year-old remarked on the amount of snow still left on our front lawn,

"Wow, we've still got lots of snow."
"Mmm hmmmm," my reply.
"Well at school, it's already all gone. Some of it melted in the sun and people used up the rest."

To be sure, my Three will be found on the front lawn after school today, shrieking and pelting each other with the slushy stuff. Building a snowman or dragging each other around on sleds would ideally require a lot more snow but I don't doubt they'll still manage to do both. And even though the age span between a 14-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy could otherwise constitute a great divide--- it seems for now that the Three have purposefully not allowed each other to pass the age (or the attitude) of finding snow to be useful.

Shelter

I just learned that Condé Nast's Domino magazine is discontinuing it's circulation due to lack of advertising revenue. I'm a little embarassed to admit my attachment to a home-dec publication, but I found its 'sensible-not-predictable' attitude refreshing and unique to the genre. With its smart and accessible resources, part of my 'devotion' stems from the fact that I was actually able to pull together my own ikea workspace based on one of the magazine's articles:


Of course mine is nowhere near an exact translation and certainly a less glossy version, (I still have a problem with cords everywhere and the shelves went a little wonky) but it's a much more usable space than it was before. And without said magazine, I would have never had the guts to replace the inherited French writing desk or the plastic filing boxes.

From inspiration to reality? Well certainly the reality comes two-fold.

Yesterday, we faced the regrettable task of pulling the plug on a long standing dream of ours to build a little cabin in the country. (My whimsical intention to draw upon more mag articles--- dashed.) Our building and design plans had finally been completed and permitted. And it had been almost a year of planning put in after the purchase of the lot. But the current economy and housing market forced us to rethink our venture and has kept us from breaking ground. Fitting and not at all ironic that a magazine purposed for attractive settings and fanciful inspiration is gone as well, due to similar circumstances. Absolutely no bitterness, though. I don't intend to complain about having to hunker down in the Burbs while there is so much to be grateful for.
In the meantime, I will focus on our current shelter which is in dire need of some serious Spring cleaning. How in the world do we collect so much stuff???

It snowed this morning and turned to slush. I feeling slushy myself. I will put myself to task now and hope for these winter doldrums to ease away.

Sure to gladden the heart...

a little song, a little dance, a healthy portion of Broadway, and lots of love.

As it's so easy to do on Ravelry, I got side-tracked one day while looking for a knit pattern and instead, I found this: (start at 1:48)

Coming into one's own.

Flashback two years. We are hopeful, but wary. Our son sits quietly with us in an interview we've set up with a new school. We've spoken with the admissions counselor and now it's Nathan's turn to speak...

Nathan was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of three. Our effort to ensure his education within our local school system was a six year battle that culminated into one awful moment for our son.
Just a few weeks prior to the aforementioned interview, Nathan was so overcome with stress and anxiety that he became literally paralyzed while walking between classes at school and actually got "stuck" in a hallway. He couldn't move from the spot where he was standing. I was telephoned by the school and promptly asked to "please come get him." Just typing the words attached to this bitter memory brings tears to my eyes.
When I found him, he said simply, "I need to go to computer lab, but I'm too nervous." He was softly tapping his head against the wall.
"Let's go home now," I said.
"I can't go home. I need to go to computer lab."
"It's alright, we can go home now."
"My head's bothering me," he said. I took his hand and held it as we walked out of the school. I don't think I said even a single word to anyone as we left. Seeing Nathan in that state--- I can hardly explain. I was terrified that in an instant, we'd somehow lost him or at the very least, lost a significant part of him; that he might not be able to come back from the place he was in. There was nothing left to say or do, but to leave... And never go back.


The admissions counselor is courteous and very direct, "Nathan, what's the thing you liked least about your old school?"
Response: "I'm just tired of wrong answers."


My dear sweet boy, I could never have put it as eloquently.

You were two years old and you weren't yet talking. After a battery of tests and evaluations, seeing one specialist and then another and another, navigating an unnerving and bewildering course through Children's Hospital, we were finally told that the collective answer to the question was this: mental retardation. Even ten years ago, the term sounded more like an antiquated label than an actual medical diagnosis.
Regardless, it was the first wrong answer.

The summer before first grade, we were very encouraged. Almost two years earlier, two champions came to your rescue. They were your autism behavior consultants, Dr. Kathy and Dr. Liz. We owe so much of your success to their expertise and devotion. Not only did they design home programs for you to learn the nuances of social interaction, they designed school programs and pro-actively trained your educators to implement accommodations that would help you to be successful in the classroom. The services your school provided were meager and the supplemental training we provided for school faculty was an expensive and difficult thing for us to coordinate, but we were hopeful that you would benefit. We became less and less encouraged though as we witnessed educator after educator happily accept the training and ABA credentials we facilitated and paid for, add them to their resumes and then promptly leave or transfer to another school without you ever having benefited.
Another wrong answer.

We weren't alone in our struggles. We knew several other families who'd suffered similar or worse experiences. We were advised to sue the school district in order to get the accommodations you were entitled to by law. Your school made a joke of our good faith efforts, but we chose not to become litigious. Mainly because a due process law suit would only serve to take up valuable time and resources, neither of which we could afford to forfeit. Still we were unable to avoid coming to the sad realization that the accommodations we had worked so hard to put in place for you at school were not being implemented. We knew because we would receive frequent phone calls from the school asking us to come and pick you up because you were upset. All the while, you told us, "I just want to be like other kids. I don't want to leave class." I decided to volunteer as much as I could at your school, to help everyone understand that your needs were not complicated. I helped the school with many things in many volunteer positions, but sadly, nobody would help you. On one occasion, the principal of your school flat out refused to require your teacher to implement a very simple classroom accommodation for you, a visual calendar of events for the day (something that would actually benefit all the kids in the class.) Her response to me, (in practiced patronizing tone reserved for overbearing parents in denial) "Kathy, you really cannot expect us to grant every request every parent makes, that would be impossible. Sorry, the answer is no."

We limited your class time and you continued to work very hard, 3 and 4 days a week in your behavior therapy and tutoring at home. You wanted so badly to do a good job in therapy so you could prepare yourself to do a good job at school, too.

Even though verbal instruction was almost impossible for you to process, you were always exceedingly quick to learn given visual or written reference. Unfortunately at school, you were shuffled back and forth between several "specialist" classrooms for the few hours you were there, but you were still required to complete the work assigned in your regular classroom even though you weren't present to receive instruction--- all of which caused you a great deal of stress.

You needed only a few small, simple things
to prevent confusion, frustration or misunderstanding.
Small strategies consistently placed:

A simple, written schedule to indicate a date change or time change.
No need to be upset that the school assembly's been cancelled.
Here's the new date, here on your schedule for you to see.
Because your greatest strengths are your visual ones.
You taught yourself how to decode numbers and symbols at the age of two
but right now,
you cannot process the auditory information you're receiving:
Your teacher's telling you that the assembly has been cancelled.
You cry and scream.
There was no warning for you.
No written schedule to show a date change, time change, an assembly re-scheduled.

Small strategies consistently placed.
Your teacher's aide is asked to escort you out of the classroom.
I'm asked to pick you up from school.
But you don't want to leave. You tell me you're sorry for breaking the rules.
My heart breaks for you.
It's not your fault.
It will be okay...

But the next day when you return,
you are disoriented
because you realize you've missed the instruction to the science project and now
you don't know what to do.

Again...
no one bothered
to give you any of the written instruction we'd worked so hard
to facilitate for you.
You take the science quiz and give

all the wrong answers.
You cry and scream and

Again...
I come to pick you up from school.
And one school year turns into the next, and the next.
Then one awful day,

I found you "stuck"
in a school hallway, unable to move.
I wanted to cry and scream. There were no words to speak.

I'm so sorry, my dear sweet boy.

All the wrong answers.


Flash forward to this morning, 10:45AM: back from taking my sixth grader to school. How restorative these past two years have been at his current school. He attends 3 days a week. He studies 10 different subjects that range from theatre arts, to Spanish,
to botany. All subjects of his own choosing. He receives most of his instruction one-on-one, with all the visual support he needs. His classmates include a range of students with varying degrees of challenge and ability. There is a nine year old boy who like our son, enjoys Lego. Unlike our son, he'll be attending college in three years. Among some of the others, a sixteen year old professional jazz musician, an equestrian and downhill skier training for the Olympics, and a sweet little girl with Aspergers syndrome who thinks my son is cute.
My son is respected for his abilities and his weaknesses are no longer sought to be remediated. Instead, his natural abilities and interests in art and science are focused upon and cultivated.
Finally, the right answer.
Nathan has grown into a happy, optimistic young man. He's no longer a child defined by a disorder, 'the autistic boy.' He's a boy with autism--- who endears his family and makes them laugh often with his particular insights and sense of humor. There are still days when he begrudges and laments his disorder. "I'm sick of having autism," he'll say. As his parents, we understand that there are many challenges he's yet to face. But the difficult part is over. Because he now knows his own self-worth, and he didn't before. And we are so blessed to see him come to it.

Monday morning devotion.

This Gen-Xer thanks you, Gen-Y.

I wish I would have started sooner, as to have a better record for posterity. I'm talking about blogging. Being that I'm a decade removed from the Net Generation, I was destined to join the ranks in a generation that subjected itself to something I've seen as blogging's primitive predecessor, a thing called Scrapbooking.

Although, I think the intention behind it was a valid one, many may disagree when I say that the scrapbooking movement of the mid-nineties placed me in circumstances similar to those I experienced in another cult (please know that I use the term affectionately) I once fell into. A rather harsh perspective to take, I know. And granted, my obsessive personality type did not help my cause. But these “Cropfests” as they were called, were venue to multitudes of mothers, mostly. We were constantly barraged by 'manifesto' from the organizers of these conventions: "Your role in your family unit is one of immeasurable importance--- you are your family's historian!" "It's up to you to preserve and record your family's memories for posterity!" *echo, echo, echo...* So we all strived to do.

The 'manifesto' turned out for me to be a spendy, waste of time. (Cue violins...) Not only was I geographically limited to the company of whoever decided to show up at those things, the other “croppers” as they were called, were an infectiously enthusiastic bunch whose influence caused me to amass piles full of stickers, doodads, and expensive photo albums that sat hopelessly empty for all the contemplating it took to arrange the massive amounts of paraphernalia. Stacks and stacks of photos began piling up. "I must preserve my family's history!" Falling further and further behind in my commission, the pressure would mount, I would pay a nominal fee and register to attend the next 'conference' with high hopes of living up to my responsibility. More often than not, I would meet again people who were once fellow croppers, moved up in the hierarchy to become convention organizers themselves. Time and time again, I would come home from an entire day of archival effort with nothing more to show for... Except maybe three new pairs of scissors, a new set of pens, and a new piece of luggage on wheels to put all my stacks and stacks of photos in.

I do understand the inarguable necessity for actual physical documentation with regard to preserving historical record. Still, I think of how much more liberated the 'defectors of scrapbooking' have become with the intervention of the blog. It starts with something as simple as: no more sitting next to the lady who takes offense to the fact that your newborn is wailing his head off in his baby carrier because he needs to be nursed. Just filter that out--- literally. Filter out whatever negativity makes it's way toward you by simply 'clicking.' Awesome! Share ideas, join conversations, admire and comment on each others pixels. Keep your own pixels in your hard drive and back them up on disk every once in a while. Most importantly, be liberated to the fact that you're not entirely limited for the sake of time or budget, to commemorating special occasions only. If you choose to, you may reflect on the urbane, the mundane, the unextraordinary, the day-to-day experiences that are just as meaningful. Oh, the exultation!

So thank you Gen-Y, for forging ahead of me. I appreciate and admire your innovation and fearlessness in the way you interact with technology, each other, the world.

Give me a moment...

Yesterday, I had one of those moments...
A completely disorienting, oh dear, DANG-IT! moment: Doorbell rings.... it's my weaving instructor, per the appointment I made with her, noted in my calendar, and had by phone confirmed with her. Only, this week, two of my three children have been on mid-winter break from school while their brother had only Monday off. Of course this is just the sort of thing that causes me not to know what day of the week it really is, what time I'm supposed to pick up and drop off whom, which sports team practices have been cancelled, etc...
So having already been late to drop off child #2 to school, having not eaten, having not tidied the house, having not even combed my hair... I open the door to my lovely weaving instructor, Barbara who readily greets me and the other of my offspring in her usual gracious and easy manner as if nothing's amiss.
I apologize for my lapse... blame it on the proverbial loss of brain cells, yada, yada,... we chuckle, I scramble, toss odds and ends out of the way, make some clanging of dishes, put on a pot of coffee... and we're ready to begin.
Later, after we'd comfortably settled into our session, I remembered the purchase I had made at the puzzle and game store and thought how appropriate it would be to share with Barb:

... a human brain cell, magnified a million times. I'd purchased several to give away to brainy friends. Of course I hadn't given any thought to the fact that I could probably use a few extra myself considering all the brain cells I've undeniably lost due to pregnancy, hormones, stress,--- what we all know to be part and parcel of 'motherhood' in general. I gave one to Barb who said it'd make a good party favor for a girls' get-together she was planning on hosting.



I was glad I could convince Morgan and Colby to join in on our weaving session, too. The kids actually had a lot of fun working the loom... I couldn't resist teasing Colby about giving up Lego for the textile arts.

"Huh???....,"was his response. I changed my tactic.
"Maybe, I'll save these pictures to show your girlfriend when you have one, what do you think?"

(Barb with extra brain cell in hand)

"Is that blackmail?," he said.
"No!," we all laughed. "We'll just call it leverage," I said, and Mocha knowingly agreed.

I had another type of moment just then---you know the moment. It's the one where you'd readily agree to give up any number of brain cells ..... and forget any concern you've had about the progression of these since the onset of motherhood:

......because you're grateful for all the ordinary moments just being Mom.

Misrepresented?

I saw this card while shopping at our local organic food store:

"Hilarious!" I racked my brain for someone I could send it to. Later though, I felt a bit badly for finding it so amusing. After all, people who are willing say, to make their office commute on a Segway instead of in a car, (as does a neighbor of mine) are only guilty of doing well for the environment. Riding a Segway shouldn't automatically qualify someone as a "dork!" Right?

Then I remembered coming across this photo:

If "dork" can be defined as: an otherwise able-bodied person who automatically chooses Segway-ing over walking......can there be any exception???

Failed attempt to create idyllic homescape.

Caution, reader: mental instability ahead. Sadly, the author has taken to speaking to fake plants.


Curse you, fakeus plasticus, you wretched species of plant!Yes, that's right... curse you! Mostly because I'd much rather blame you than face my own insolence, but it's February, the week of Valentine's Day and I am just now dismantling your presence in the form of Christmas tree.
"Just now?" you say, "why that's not right... extremely unusual."
Exactly. Look, I can't claim the title of champion for 'green,' but I will say that if it weren't for your unnatural resistance to decay, you would have been taken away at the proper time, with the proper reverence, through the proper composting/mulching channels and would not have been left to cause this amount of grief. If you were a real tree, you would have forced me (out of your own good nature) to bereave myself of you in order to keep you from becoming a fire hazard. As simple as that.


But instead, you've taunted me with your silent admonishments... "my, aren't we good at procrastinating?" and... "Why can't you just put me back into the box in the garage where I belong this time of year?"
Well--- why is that YOU, fakeus plasticus, have taken it upon yourself to single me out in your reign of annoyance? When I told Papa Bear that I would be taking you down today... he looked at you with nothing more than a simple, bemused sort of nostalgia... "oh, that's right... the Christmas tree's still up." He and the rest of the family had stopped seeing you some time ago. No, instead you've forced me to detain visitors where they would be just outside the line of sight of you. They'd been completely unaware that I had been keeping myself quite busy finding every possible reason and excuse, managing to put every other daily matter ahead of taking you to pieces for the past month and a half.


Well, no more. I am stepping out from behind this folly. I'm photographing you and putting you on my blog..... along with all the others that have 'invisibly' taken up space in this, my home. I am actually seeing your species? genus? family?--- whatever! now, through a new 'lens.' Yes.... from here onward, there may be no such happy purgatory as the garage before the place called 'plastic recyclables bin.'
idyllic homescape???---yikes!!!

Beer advertisers: more flexing of the social commentary muscle.

I know, I know......I'm only perpetuating unflattering stereotypes..........but it ain't funny if it ain't true. Thanks for sending this, Linda.

"Love is in the details..."

Got my 'baby girl' fix today.... yes, I did. Always a treat to meet friends for coffee on Friday while the kids are in school. Extra special treat today to have one amongst us bring her baby girl so that we all could fuss over.

It's been a span of several years since my friend R. gave birth to Baby Girl's siblings and it's been almost as long since this group of girls has had a get-together. Of course, there have been many changes in all of our lives over the past years; many good, and some, not-so-good. But to behold the absolute delight that Baby Girl provokes, definitely puts an emphasis on 'the good.' This morning, it was unanimously agreed upon that Baby Girl's cheerful and easy-going nature is proof that she was born to be 'one of the girls'... she actually giggled every time a new outfit appeared out of it's gift wrap. Neither did she neglect to express her approval for the gift wrap itself... how else? but with plenty of drool! What's more, we realized that the little doll I gave Baby Girl actually bears a striking resemblance to her:

I neglected to share one small thing with the group when we were together, (probably because we were very busy fitting as many details from the past few years into our visit as possible and because it wasn't important to our conversation) but I'll use this venue to note my personal penchant for the gifting of M. Alexander dolls. I love that Beatrice Alexander Behrman gave herself the title, Madame, when she founded her company in 1923--- out of her kitchen, no less! And I love of course that she designed her first dolls based on the characters of many beloved books including Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, and Gone With the Wind. Therefore, I don't think it would be a completely illogical leap to hold to the belief that girls who are given Alexander dolls grow up to be lovers of books. Well, maybe the only proof I have for this theory is myself and my own daughter, but I happily hope that there will be many more fortunate occasions to speculate on this. Madame Alexander's favorite expression is said to be, "Love is in the details...." Now, could a doll infused with the same sentiment, given and received, somehow impart a quality equally as magical as a love for books? You already know what I think.

Thanks for a great time this morning, friends o' mine!

Great Expectations

To say I was 'giddy with delight' at the very idea of making a Cinderella tu-tu for my four-year-old-neice, is an understatement. I unabashedly (and gratuitously) squealed and shrieked upon the addition of each piece of tulle, each silk flower and cut of ribbon---much to the amused annoyance of the three offspring aka Coco, Nay and especially Mocha. When she was the same age, she would wear that sort of thing only out of obligation, never with the delight of a 'fairy princess.' Although she was never considered to be a tomboy, at age six she opted for Breyer horses over the most beautiful Carolle and American Girl dolls. *sigh* I had had such great expectations for this first child, only girl of mine. The 'First' had been profusely and repeatedly bequeathed by her court of doting relatives an extraordinary array of playthings that ranged from porcelain tea sets to pink feather boas and tiaras, doll houses, collectibles, and virtually every kind of doll stroller and cradle imagineable. To the extreme satisfaction of her gift-givers, she was always generous with smiles and hugs of acknowlegement. Beyond that, she was all but completely oblivious to both the stock-pile and the latest supplement. I remember her young friends and playmates being somewhat, albeit happily stunned, to find that they could 'call dibs' on her prettiest dolls without so much as the smallest fuss from Mocha. I suppose the same sort of preferences have carried over to today--- and I'm glad for it. At fourteen, her 'likes' are still a-typical and somewhat secondary in popularity amongst her age group. She has a penchant for blue nail polish instead of being 'made-up' for a cover shoot..... her hair is braided instead of 'highlighted'.... ahhhh, I certainly should have known better than to lament over one six-year-old's sweet indifference to tulle and sparkles.:)


My 'growed-up' girl, studying--- who else??? but Dickens, "Great Expectations" before volleyball practice.

Crochet efforts

Working on this for my one-year-old neice and hoping to have it done before she enters kindergarten.

A short history...

When I first met my husband, we would eat dinner around 9pm almost every night. I taught piano at a private music school and didn’t have to be at work until 3pm on lesson days so (at least I) could afford to stay up late. That was 16 years ago.
Today, I love… my man more than ever and our three kids. We’ve infiltrated the suburbs but I dream of small towns; this self-admitted misfit longs for undulating topographies underneath quiet gray skies. I love the outdoors (and the indoors) of big cities, too; the mix of culture, ideas, history, the upbeat pace and energy.
But my favorite venues are "fiber" ones: Knit Group on Thursdays mornings, Spin Group on Saturdays and home, where I find the comfort of yarn endeavors, a retreat from navigating the unfiltered outside world, along with books as treasures, the constant companionship and noise of not-so-small offspring, strong coffee, lavender tea...... and we still like to eat dinner late.