The Family Room

States of Flux

Moods lately like late-summer storms: cloudy, then a few huge teardrops, then thunder, then, magically, all clear again. All hail the first day of school and the moodiness it brings. Normally, we would try to plan this whole enterprise into the ground, but this year we procrastinated until the absolute last minute. Just had a few quick conversations, sent him off to school, and whammo--he refuses to go in until one of his fave teachers comes out and leads him into the classroom. A few hours later, home comes this exquisite piece of artwork.

If you sort of squint, you can see that Isaac wrote his name on top, though the "A" and "C" sort of mush together at the end. Yay for my boy. The original is, naturally, on the fridge, in a place of honor.

Normally I would refrain from pee humor (as you know, I am so very delicate) but this is one is worth it. Beata, now back from Poland (for which I thank all the deities I am aware of) relayed this charming tale: the other day, Isaac was relieving himself when she noticed that his aim had been, shall we say, a little faulty. So she pointed this out. He paused, looked down, and uttered the following lovely sentence: "Dammit, I missed!"

All good things, no? And yet. Tonight I picked up the boys at (or as it turned out, outside) a pizza restaurant. Apparently there was a very friendly little girl at the next table who came over and wanted to talk to Isaac. She tried twice, at which point Mr. Hard-to-Get stood up, walked out of the restaurant and refused to go back in. When I got there, J, and he were standing outside, and J. looked a little deflated. We picked up some dinner and came home, where I am now typing this while watching the completely incomprehensible Aeon Flux with the sound off. The set looks a lot, as J and I agreed, like Teletubby Land.

It helps to think in year increments: where we were a year ago, two years ago, and where we are now. Now is better, hands down.

Motor Planning Can Be Fun!

I've been mulling over our trip to NY last week, how it helps me see how Isaac is growing and changing. We go twice a year, so over time it has this oddly staccato effect of making me see him in six-month increments. Last time, he was afraid to go down the twisty slide at the playground, preferring to watch his cousin bound up and rocket down, while Isaac contented himself with climbing to the top, then throwing a ball (or shoe or rock) down to see how fast it went--our little Galileo. A few months later, he tried it himself, and now he's a pro.

This time, he was focused on climbing. We went to J's elementary school, clearly built before property values skyrocketed, so it has this enormous field, basketball court, hopscotch, foursquare (remember foursquare?) and, now, a brand new climbing structure. School hadn't started yet, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was so neat to see how focused and precise Isaac was about getting from point A to point B. We also showed him hopscotch, which he can't quite do yet, preferring to jump from one number to the next. Lateral jumping is a huge milestone, and the numbers were so motivating. And, of course, hoops, followed by a nice swing and a cuddle.

Cheap Thrills

A very wise friend asked me lately where, in all of this, there is time for me. As usual, when someone asks me this question, I was struck completely mute (which isn't easy, as you can probably imagine). But then I started to remember all the tiny ways in which I manage to, as they say, get my ya-yas out. So here are a few simple things, in no particular order, that have pleased me lately:

1. Hairspray. No, not the actual spray (not that kind of girl). The movie. Very, very sweet and fun.
2. Neutrogena Build-a-Tan. Because it allows me to wear skirts without looking like a vampire.
3. Black licorice. Don't ask. It's an addiction. But I can stop anytime I want.
4. Triple-marked down black patent sandals. Because they make my feet look pretty, and that's an accomplishment.
5. The new New Yorker and the new Vogue. Because the New Yorker has a terrific article by Tim Page about what it's like to have Asperger's, and because the new Vogue, at 840 pages, is a very glamorous lethal weapon. And even though I'll never wear any of the clothes, it's nice to know someone can.
6. Frozen yogurt. It's so 80s. Welcome back, my little friend. I missed you.
7. Reading you, and writing this. So good for the soul.
8. Veronica Mars. We are hooked (via Netflix). She's funny, smart-mouthed and has a great relationship with her dad.
9. A decent night's sleep, when I can get it, then waking up to Isaac sweetly saying "Hi Mommy!" while trying to pry my eyes open with his fingers.
10. The occasional "grownup night out" with J. Next on the agenda: Superbad. Because we are that urbane and sophisticated.

What's making you smile these days?

Composed a Few Miles Above White Plains, On Revisiting the Grandparents, August 2007

Back from tantrumland, at least for the moment. Was it Wordsworth who said that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquillity"? If so, our lives are pure poetry these days. In my more disoriented moments, I find this thought mildly reassuring, even though I doubt that's what old Will had in mind as he was penning Tintern Abbey during that lazy summer back in 1798.

***
On the train to the city yesterday (grandparents generously having offered to watch the boy), J. and I did some recollecting ourselves, some talking each other off the ledge, some vague rationalizing, but we mostly just gazed out the window and read, save for the occasional "He did great this morning. Did you see how he..." And then our voices would trail off, and we'd read a few more pages as the landscape flew by.

Many blocks, a triple-marked-down jacket (ah New York summer sales) and a rushed and mediocre pedicure later, I am feeling a little more myself. Is it that sometimes I need to hit the pause button? Is it the exertion of managing my feelings through every meal, moment, transition, wondering what's around the next corner? Mostly Isaac has been terrific here--affectionate toward his grandparents, connected and happy--but the twice-yearly visits always feel momentous in some way, as if we need to demonstrate, in five short days, the arc of his progress and the gorgeous 45 degree trajectory of his future...so everyone else will be happy? So they'll stop worrying? So I can relax and feel like a good mommy?

No one is asking me to feel this way. It's my own doing, and it feels somehow as traitorious as it is pointless and exhausting. He is not a science experiment, after all, just my own sweet boy, who is who he is, who learns and grows and changes with each passing season. So I need to, as a certain colleague of mine would say, put on my big-girl pants and deal. Here it is for your reading pleasure--me dealing.

***
Tomorrow we get on a plane and go home. I'll share some of my newfound travel tips for those of you contemplating a plane ride anytime soon (#1: If you have a sound-sensitive and newly potty-trained child who has never been in an airplane bathroom, you might consider a pull-up for the ride. We did okay after a four-hour nail-biter when I finally convinced him to go with the door open and his hands over his ears. I'm sure the whole cabin appreciated that memorable sight).

***
But, back to the moment. Dinner, which came from the farmer's market at the Rockefeller Preserve, is done, and the dishes are washed and put away. Nonna is upstairs, Grandpa is on the couch, and Isaac is sitting on the floor with J, who is trying to tempt him with a variety of delicacies--blueberries, carrots, strawberries--to go with the ubiquitous crackers. Then they get silly, J. suggesting a range of other options for the meal: crackers with hummus, with hair, with cars, with blocks, and Isaac starts to giggle. It is our own sort of tranquillity, made a little melancholy by the fact that we return home tomorrow. And so we'll see what home, and daily life, and a new school year, will bring.

***
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

- William Wordsworth, "Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of The Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798.

Tantrum Redux

Consider the tantrum. It's a universal experience for parents of young children. It gathers like a storm: the air turns heavy and wet, you feel the pressure build and build, and at some impossible-to-predict point the clouds open and all hell breaks loose. Tonight's, I have to say with a measure of awe, was truly spectacular. The contributing factors: a long, active day spent with family, lots of sun and swimming, unfamiliar surroundings, not much downtime, irregular meals. The catalyst: bedtime, or rather, the difference of opinion about when it should occur (our proffered 8:30, rather than, say, the eventual, exhausted 12:45). The last straw: refusal to allow any more Sesame Street. The duration: really, really, really long. The volume? Ask the neighbors. I'm sure they're still up.

So here's my question, since we're on the subject of perspective lately. Is a "spectrum tantrum" really any different, objectively speaking, from a typical kid tantrum? There is the same yelling, insistence, screeching and tears, the same throwing of objects, the same wracking sobs that subside, eventually, eventually, into sleep. Maybe they are identical, the only difference being that age and duration and frequency play a part in what's considered (here it comes again, that word) "normal."

But here's the difference for me. I feel, and I hazard a guess that J. does too, that our tantrums come with subtitles. We experience them firsthand, and we simultaneously watch them play in a film loop inside our heads (J.'s revelation tonight: "Wow--his "R"s are really getting good!" Mine: pronouns generally still confused, mitigated somewhat by the gorgeous sentence "Daddy, please move your hand!!!"

And then, when it finally, suddenly stops, come the sports highlights: "Coach, what did you think of your team's performance in the first half? What will you do to play better next time?" And the same dull interviews with the athletes, and the tallying up of runs, hits and errors, until the credits roll and we all, finally, fall into fitful sleep.

Normal, Whatever That Means

Every so often, something will happen--at school, therapy, wherever--that throws our whole vision of the world into question. Sometimes it's a cool thing, like the other day when Isaac spontaneously said "All three friends!" during a session with his therapists (they nearly fell over), and, later, "I want 10 friends!" Or he'll look impishly at me and announce, "I want to pee on Daddy's hat!" So silly, so four years old, so not what I want him to be saying, especially in public (but so age-appropriate, for which I am PROFOUNDLY grateful.) But then, for no reason we can see, he'll refuse to go into the bathroom at OT, or melt down at the drop of a hat (not Daddy's), or start turning in circles, or we'll get a message from school that he was running the perimeter of the room today and the dread...creeps...in.

It's lovely, this feeling of lightness when he's so connected and happy and silly. But the "symptomatic" stuff still freaks us out, I admit. I know, I know, he needs vestibular input and all that stuff. We get it. And we do what we can to give him the right "sensory diet" and guide him into a more regulated frame of mind. But I wonder: Is it possible that we haven't fully accepted this diagnosis? (We'd better have--I have a whole blog about it, for heaven's sake.)

We were in the car the other day, and J. was telling me about a message from school that Isaac had been acting unusually disconnected, and out of the blue I said, "I think we have PTSD." By which I mean that the diagnosis was so traumatic that, whenever we see something that "looks autistic," all those feelings of fear and worry and dread come rushing back. And we have this this hair-trigger reaction to a behavior, or a look, or a word, and we go right back to the feeling of numb terror we had in the developmental pediatrician's office. From my armchair, this looks a lot like post-traumatic stress.

Have you ever looked at skin under a microscope? The smoothest, youngest skin baby skin, when magnified, looks like the surface of the moon, with huge craters and crevices and....yeecch. It's like that in those moments: everything is magnified out of all proportion.

So if ASD is a spectrum disorder for the child, maybe it comes with the added bonus of a perspective disorder for the parent. We have become so accustomed to looking at our children under a microscope that we are in danger of losing our own sense of proportion. This blog, this community of us, is a place to try and get it back.

Ten Things

The Ten Things post has been circulating lately, so I thought I'd add to the fun. The idea is to write down ten ways that you and your child are alike. But Isaac is such a mix of J. and me that the best way to describe him is to choose, say, five ways he's like me, and five ways he's like his dad. So here we go:

Like me:
1. We wake up slooowly most mornings. J. describes it thus: "as if you were evolving from the primordial ooze."
2. We both love letters and language, and can get a little lost in the way that words sound.
3. We are both left-handed.
4. He has my eyes, but in brown.
5. We have the same goofy, hiccup-y laugh. And the same juvenile sense of humor. (But only one of us has an excuse.)

Like J.:
1. The exact same walk. The same hands, feet, forehead, basically, the same body, in miniature (but not for long!)
2. The same stunning facility with numbers.
3. Both hate crowds, loud noise, prefer socializing in small groups.
4. The same kind, open nature, mixed with a goofy take on the world.
5. A sense of adventure and love of the little things.

How are you like your child?

What, Me Worry?

So there we were, surfing the developmental wave, feeling kinda groovy, when all of a sudden some of the behaviors that had kind of disappeared for a while made their return: echoing, more perseveration, more shouting. Whyohwhyohwhy? Isaac's teacher called the other day and asked whether anything had been different lately. "Well, not really," I answered, "except that I went to Chicago for a few nights..." D'oh. I guess my quickie social story routine didn't quite take, or it was possibly/maybe my absence that made him more than usually grumpy? I missed him terribly, after all.

But to be honest, this little phase has been building a while. Is it a growth spurt? A developmental leap? He doesn't seem ill. No changes in diet, no changes in sleeping patterns. So, excluding the impossible (alien invasion, possession) the remainder, however unsatisfactory, must be the truth. S**T happens. I hate this. And I want it to stop.

Okay, look. I love Isaac's eccentricities. I think his flapping (when excited) is cute. And his use of language--"I want need help," "I want Mommy come to bed,"--is endearing. But I know that what's cute at four might no longer be cute at, say, seven. Or fourteen. And I hate that too.

So I hover between, as Kyra has so beautifully put it, acceptance and remediation. But I don't like hovering. I want to hunker. I want to find a place and stick. It's not going to happen--in fact, it's better that it doesn't happen. But vibrating between all these possibilities and realities is, well, tiring.

Plan for the weekend: do something simple and satisfying. It might be a late-summer peach, a walk with the boys, a (gasp!) pedicure if I'm lucky. And we'll see if the hovering thing gets any better. What's your trick?

My New Friend Elizabeth

Thank you Stefania for this lovely photo of me with Elizabeth Edwards at the BlogHer07 party this past weekend. What a thrill to meet her--amazing woman.

Playdate Series Part 2: The Playdate

Interview with Fiona Zecca, Early Childhood Development and Behavioral Specialist

So, yesterday we talked about setting up the initial playdate. Can you elaborate on what we should look for in choosing a potential playdate partner?
Start by picking a child your child is interested in. Your ultimate goal is to have your child interact with another child, so pick someone who motivates your child. If you are unsure of this and your child is in a school or child care program, ask his/her teachers. If your child hasn't had many opportunities to form interest in another child or simply is not interested in other children, pick a child that is easygoing and willing to go on a playdate. Pick someone that you know is a good match for your child's temperament and sensory system - someone who will not overwhelm them. If your child is typically the leader, pick someone who can follow. Note that some kids that do not seem like they would be a good match sometimes bring out the most in each other. Probably it is most ideal to pick someone in your child's same age range.

What should be the format for the playdate? Where should you do it and for how long?
To start with I would have the playdate at your house, for no more than an hour, ideally once a week. Your child is going to be comfortable at his/her own home and this allows them to feel in control and possibly have the opportunity to show the other child some toys/activities that interest him/her. This is also beneficial for the partner because kids typically love going to someone else's house to check out their toys. Also, a park is the worst place to have a playdate because the children are not natually motivated to stay togetehr and play the same activity. You often will find one child on the swings, while the other child is going down the slide.

How do you choose the right activity?
I recommend choosing an interactive, high-interest activity that you will lead with the two children, such as baking/decorating cookies. If possible, playfully guide the partner to involve your child by transferring any directive you might give to your child on to the partner to keep your child an active participant. For example, you might ask the play partner to be in charge of the M&Ms by having him ask your child how many he/she wants for each cookie and what colors. This way they are having constant interactions. Eventually you will fade out as the playdates progress and the children are able to interact without so much support. I would recommend doing the same high-interest activity each week to give your child the opportunity to practice his/her role and because most children love predictability and repetition. Change the activity when it is clear they are bored and want a change. Other ideas might be: putting together a ginger bread house or painting a large cardboard box to make a train they can ride in together or an interactive structured game such as "Don't Break the Ice" or rocket stomper or large bubble wands or balloon pumps, etc. What you will choose will depend on your child's interests. Just make sure it is motivating to both children, and, naturally interactive.

So how do you tell if it's not working?
Give the partners at least four consistent times before giving up. Look for small amounts of progress. Certainly you should reevaluate if either child is having a horrible time, but be sure to not give up easily. Even if your child doesn't seem to be getting anything out of it, he/she may be getting more than you think. You may want to take some photos of the playdate in progress and post them on your refrigerator so your child can look at them during the rest of the week and anticipate the next playdate. If you find you just can't bear leading the playdates, it is just not your thing or perhaps you are too emotionally involved, see if you can get someone else to do it, an aunt, your child's dad, a tutor, a social coach, perhaps an aide from your child's school who wants to earn some extra money.

If you would like to ask Fiona a question, leave a comment here or contact her directly at fiona [at] fionazecca [dot] com. You can also check out her Sensory Social Playgroups website here.