Driving Ms Daisy

After our the second of our three cats died in August, #3 was obsessed about getting a new cat. "Psycho is lonely. We need to get her a baby," he'd say.  Uh, she's 14. I think she's WAY beyond wanting babies. Yes, our cat is named Psycho. Did you expect anything less?

#3 doesn't have a lot of currencies, that is, things don't matter very much to him. When he is in trouble or going down the road to trouble, if you threaten to take away his toys, he won't care. There is very little he is interested in besides his legos and on some days, not even them.

So when his birthday was approaching and we asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he immediately said, "I want a cat." And the answer never changed, not once.

One afternoon I took him to the animal shelter so he could look at cats. One cat took an instant liking to me. I looked down to see which cat was rubbing against my legs and as soon as saw her, I said, "well hello, big fatty." She was a tortoise shell cat with a little dainty face and little paws and a HUGE belly, and a little short tail. #3 heard me, laughed and said, "she needs a last name. Let's call her Big Fatty Mailbox." I bent down to pet her and she swatted at me. One of the workers warned me, "be careful, she isn't very nice." I guess she'll be there forever. See ya Big Fatty Mailbox.

After the trip, he told me he still wanted a kitten. I guess we were going to have to do it.

After a potential kitten fell through, we took the whole crew back to the shelter. This time, they had kittens. After the kids played with a few of them, #2 declared we were going to adopt one and went with me to inquire about adoption. Entirely on his own, he approached a woman and asked her if she worked there. When she said "yes", he told her "we want to adopt a kitten. It is orange. Come with me." I didn't get a word in. I guess we really were adopting a cat. I was just going to inquire about it.

We paid and loaded everyone in the van. The new kitten in her travel box was placed securely on #3's lap. As we drove home, I asked the kids what we should name it. #3 answered, "let's name her Ms. Daisy" and all the kids agreed.

I had to keep myself from cracking up that we were driving miss daisy home.

Miss Daisy, welcome to Casa de Crazy.

Mini-Van Pissing Contest

Everywhere I drive, everywhere I go, I see those awful family decals. You know, the ones stuck to the rear window of the family vehicle, that you have no choice but to stare at when you're stuck behind them.  Plastered on the window, there are little stick figures that represents every member of their family. Like I care.  What is the purpose for putting that on your car? To show how miserable your existence is? Are you complaining or bragging? Are you serving me?

At every traffic light, moms have the ability to show how hard their lives are. It's a van decal pissing contest. "I have three freaking kids in all types of sports" and next to them at the light is, "I have three dogs, two kids and a husband"  and behind them is the full color decal depicting children playing football and daughters who cheer. Like I care about you. It's mini-van-one-up-ness.

I've been tempted to participate in this pissing contest by buying enough decals to fill up the entire window. Yup, there's me, my husband and our nineteen Ethiopian orphans and my six cats. I dreamed about installing a rear view camera, just so I could capture the reactions. Try topping that ladies.

I've seen all types of decals: storm troopers, zombies, little faces, stick figures ice-skating, playing soccer, cheering, skiing, and the list goes on and on. I went on a website and tried to design my own. I searched through the graphics and tried to find a true representative of each member of our family. That was harder than I thought.

 I didn't see one that would represent #1. I needed the ADHD one that had 14 arms and 14 legs that looked like it was in perpetual motion. Or for when he was in overload state:

I am auditory processing overload figure

Talk to the hand

I found a stick figure holding a computer; perfect for #2, but I needed to find one for #3 that had his hand held out in a "talk to the hand" pose while twisting his head as far away from the opposing force as possible. Couldn't find one, so I made it.

I found the super mom, but what I really needed was something like this:

Breakfast

  Or on a good day, this:

lunch

 For the twins, I found princesses and fairies, but they were just so one sided. I needed the crack fairy. The ADHD meets butterfly. Flower, flower, so many flowers. I want that one, wait, I want that one. I want them all. Ooh, which one do I choose. Oh, which, oh which? I'm tired. 

That is one BIG smile

For husband, he could have had the scientist, or the athlete to represent him,  but what he really needed was one waving "goodbye" as he joyously left for work. see ya.

In the end, though I was really tempted to be the champion of decal wars with my  orphanage, I decided not to get the decals.

I'll enjoy the reading material at the stop lights and let those mini-van billboards of family suffering go unopposed. I know I'd already win that pissing contest.

You have been silently served.

Here's to the losers

When I started coaching soccer last year, the kids were aged four to six years old. It meant that we spent most of the time getting the kids to stay on the field, run in the right direction and stay upright. The goal for them was to run around and maybe kick the ball once as all the kids ran around together in a pack. The focus was fun and learning.

This year, I am coaching the next age level and the kids ages range from six to eight. And although that doesn't sound like a large age range, it is the difference between first and third grade, and we know that is a big difference as far as maturity, gross motor and cognitive abilities.

And now, the competition is fierce. So not used to that. I miss yelling at the kids to run the right way.

When the season began, I thought that each team would have a mix of ages and skills which would make all the teams as close to equal as possible. As the season progressed, I learned that was not the case. A couple of the teams were together the year before and have a distinct advantage.

We tied our first four games and then we lost. So not used to that. And the following week, we got annihilated. Even their goalie scored a goal. It was awful. At half-time, half my team asked me to replace our goalie because they thought it was his fault. As a former goalie, I got annoyed and told them, "you think this is his fault? If you were doing your jobs, the ball wouldn't get to him in the first place. You all own this." The boys took the field for the second half and most of them played their best.  But after the score passed 5-0, I stopped counting. One of my players who didn't play their best, confessed, "Soccer is not my favorite sport. Tennis is." Well isn't that just dandy?

At the end of the game, I pulled them all in to give them the pep talk.  As the assistant coach talked to them, I struggled to figure out what to say to inspire, teach and encourage them. What came out was something like this: "we're not the best team in the league. Many of these teams have been together for over a year and if we work hard, by this time next year, we'll be better than them." Not my best motivational speech by far. Think I missed the mark.

When you're losing, it is easy to get discouraged. With each goal, I watched their hearts sink a little lower and after the fifth goal, what can you really say besides, "yea, I know it sucks"? It was hard enough to get some of those kids on the field and do anything in the first place. And we're talking Neuro-typical here. I am their coach and I am painfully aware that I have the power to make them love or hate the game. Tread lightly.

I asked one of my massage clients, who had coached his children's youth teams for years: "How do I approach the frustration of loss when the other teams are much better than us?" He relied, "Tell them, it's not about the score. Pick three goals to work on; be it, passing, dribbling, team work, whatever. If you achieved each of the goals during the course of the game, then it was a success regardless of the score. They should be praised for their success with the goals. And remember, it needs to be fun. Tell them jokes."

I got so wrapped up in the competition that I neglected the basics.

So I made a five step program to survive the rest of the season:

Step one: Go back to the 4:1, praise for criticism ratio.
Step two: Pick three skills to focus on.
Step three: Relax, it's just a game.
Step four: Turn off competitive switch in coach.
Step five: Learn some jokes.

Maybe, I should add a sixth step: Beer after the game is absolutely necessary. 
Back to basics. I'll take that.

The Power of Princeton

Last year, #2's school had spirit week and one of the days was called "color day". The teachers all wore shirts from their Alma Mater and the children were encouraged to wear the colors or apparel of the college they planned on attending. 

Thinking I had that one in the bag, (between Husband and I, we had six Universities to choose from, and that's another story) I asked him what school he wanted to represent. "Princeton" he answered. "It's where the first football game in the Unites States was played and it has an amazing science program. And since I want to discover unknown planets, it would be a great place to go." Not the average answer for a seven year old, but a typical #2 Aspy, response. I replied, "that is great. However, I don't have anything from Princeton. How about Cornell, Rutgers or Brooklyn Poly?" He gave the grimace, "No mom, it has to be Princeton."

It was 9pm on a Sunday night. I realized the probability of failure was quite high. I asked him:
"How about Oswego State? The head shake.
"Ohio State?" A bigger head shake.
"Seton Hall?" The "are you on crack?"head shake.
The last hail Mary:"Beijing Teacher's college?"

"No Mom, It HAS to be Princeton."

You may not feel like it is a big deal to ask that I pull a Princeton shirt out of thin air, but it is.

I thought for a minute and then responded, "We don't have a Princeton shirt and there is no place we can go to buy one right now. We have one choice; we find a black shirt and use fabric paint to write "Princeton" on it." He looked satisfied and then we went on a search through the bins and eventually found a black t-shirt. The only fabric paint I had was silver glitter. I guess it will have to do.  I took the fabric paint and carefully, wrote the word "Princeton". 

10pm. I was done and he happily went off to bed. When he woke up in the morning he put on his new shirt and wore it to school. 

He has been wearing it ever since. It is his treasure.

When his ninth birthday was approaching, Auntie Norlyn asked me what she should get him for his birthday. Without hesitation I suggested she get him some official Princeton apparel. She agreed and placed the order. 

On his birthday, he opened his present. (If you read "the Value of Clothes", 10/2, you'll understand his initial reaction.)

He was one happy boy. He now had Official Princeton gear and could take on the world as the youngest fourth grader in his class. 

And the nice thing is, that he still wears the original Princeton shirt I made for him. 

Now if he could only get early admission.....

The value in clothes

When I was a kid, birthdays and holidays were the time you were supposed to get the cool stuff you saw on TV, that was destined to be awesome and fun. But alas, we always had that relative who insisted on giving us clothing. Not that clothing wasn't useful, but inevitably it would wind up being something that was beyond my taste, and not only would it sit in the draw unworn, but it would cast a spell of lameness on birthday presents. I could've had a real present.  They're not supposed to be useful.

Flash forward to my own kids. We have that relative who insists on giving clothes, and although I have told them we have enough clothes, it doesn't change the outcome. I get it, they have 12 nieces and nephews, pick a common theme and go with it. They are always very generous and the clothes are beautiful, but I feel bad that my kids aren't fans, and in their minds, that relative has become that relative.

#1 never cared about clothes at all. He wears clothes because we tell him to.  He opens new clothes and then throws them on the floor. If it doesn't beep, talk or have an entertaining function, it is lame. End of story.  Up until now, #2 and #3 didn't mind clothes, and sometimes they actually got excited. Nothing was more amusing than hearing #3 yell excitedly "oooh underwear", and #2 used to have equal enthusiasm for all presents, "I got sweatpants! Hooray!"

This year, the enthusiasm for apparel has declined.  #2, who always got excited about clothes, gave me the "more clothes really?" after he opened his second present of clothing. That is,  until he realized that the clothes were from his University of the future, Princeton, and then they were the best clothes ever. #3 has decided that "unless it's toys, it's lame" and there was no convincing him otherwise. His ODD has reared it's ugly head.

On #3's birthday, I watched him unwrap his presents and was taking video to show the family member the pure joy he had opening the presents.  I watched him discover his new gifts;  Legos, a remote controlled car, a Nerf gun and then, this:

How could I send that video?

I then sat down with #3, who now at seven, should be able to understand some bigger concepts: "we need to be grateful that we have people that love us so much that they take the time to shop and pick out presents and then mail them to us.  It takes a lot of time to do that and that means they really love us. It doesn't matter if it's not our favorite present, clothes are useful.  Now, we need to make a video to tell them how much you appreciate the clothes. It may not be your favorite thing, but it is useful. You need to thank them." That "Thank you" video needed to be convincing. I couldn't look like the parent of an ingrate.

It seemed that he got the pep-talk. He repeated my message back to me and I thought it worked. I was ready to pat myself on the back, but then I started shooting the video and put my hand down.


Attempt #1

"These are not the clothes I wanted, but it is very helpful. Thank you, but, I'd like to exchange the clothes for something. Thank you, but I don't know if they'll look good on me."

How could I send that video?

We tried five more times and each attempt was worse than the one before.  And then I just gave up. It was NEVER going to be a heartfelt thanks. It was always going to be "thanks for the sub-standard present" at best. There was no winning that battle.

Later on in the day the calls from friends and family members came. He asked one person, "are you the one that gave me the clothes?" Seriously. He has a vendetta. I told husband that he will never forget who gave him clothes. Ever.

Logically speaking I know he understands that clothes can be useful and that he should be grateful for a present. Does he like it? No. Will he survive? Yes. Will he remember it  as a shadow cast on his childhood as vividly as I do? Most definitely.

But, you try explaining why a sweatshirt is just as good or better than a Lego set.

Come on, I dare you.

Whine x 2=Wine x 2

My younger brother told me long ago when his daughter was three years old, that she was driving him nuts; "the whining, I just can't take the whining. I lose my mind". I heard him, but the severity of it really didn't register . By the time my niece was three, I had three boys under five. We had lived through having a non-verbal #1 who would stand in the kitchen and scream until we figured out what he wanted, but we didn't have a whiner. I asked him if it was that bad. It couldn't possible be as bad as the screaming a non-verbal kid does when frustrated. "It is horrible," he replied, "it's a girl thing. Something about them makes them so whiny."

Yea, ok. I thought. It's his first, he's a rookie. He'll get used to it. It can't be that bad.

A couple of years later, we added twin girls to the mix and when the twins hit three, my brother's words resonated loud and clear. He was right. The girls would whine. The type of sound that makes finger nails on a chalk board sound like muzak. They used whine as an accent for communication when it wasn't the dominant one. And when they didn't feel like using any of those girl words they had, the whine took center stage. They'd be whining about something, losing a toy, a sparkle had fallen off their shoe, they wanted attention, Mommy not sharing her beer, anything. But somehow, asking a kid who has no problem using their words any other time of the day becomes an issue when they NEED to.  "Use your words", I'd say, as I said a million times before, but the words had left them.  I then had to try to guess what the crisis was . After failing miserably, and frustrated, the countdown began, I had 10 seconds of patience left before I lost my mind and I told them exactly what I thought of Rainbow Dash. Someone was going to time out and I wanted it to be me. I'll put that time-out stool right next to the beer fridge.

The boys never did that. It is painful and can cut right to the core like no other sound. I think that the hospital should hand out noise-canceling-headphones to all new parents of baby girls. "Congratulations on your baby girl. Here are your headphones. Good luck."

I  also think that the US government should shift gears and view toddler whining as a weapon of mass-destruction. If we just flew big speakers over Afghanistan and let the whine of thousands of girl toddlers flow through the cities, they would surrender in 10 minutes. We could save thousands of lives by whining them into submission. Only the deaf would prevail as the immune ones, but somehow, I think the vibration of it would work on them too.

On second thought, I know it would. After we entered the whine-stage, my neighbors never looked at us the same. Through telepathy, I heard "please, make it stop." And I never looked at a bottle of wine the same either.  I would if I could, but the duct tape only muffles the sound. Wine anyone?

That Coach

I started coaching #3's, soccer team last year.  The decision was easy to make because two years ago, I signed #1 & #2 up for soccer and we were stuck with a coach who's eye was focused on winning and basically ignored my kids. I spent the entire season feeling like an annexed coach with my two players.   Because #3 has PDD/NOS/ODD, I decided that being coach was absolutely necessary. That was not going to happen again, so here I am, the only female coach in the boys soccer league. When I was kid, I played soccer all through high school, so I know the game and love it a little more than I remember.

When I coached the team last year, some of the players were barely four and they played right along with the five and six-year-olds. For most of them, it was their first time ever playing an organized sport. Most of our time was spent making sure the kids ran in the right direction and stayed on their feet.  We played six on six and no goalie. It was fun for them and funny for us. By the end of the season, everyone had improved dramatically, including #3.

When soccer season began again and #3 wanted to play, this time without the bribes, I continued to coach. We moved up to the next age group but I didn't anticipate the shift from teaching soccer to competition. I always treated games as a chance for both teams to learn and be coached by both sets of coaches. This year the kids are six and seven years old. Out of the ten kids I have on the team, maybe three have that athletic ability. The rest run around, not sure what to do, checking out the grass, dirt, bug, sky, cloud formations and each other. #3 is in that category. Most of my time coaching is spent trying to keep them on task and on their feet. And we're talking my kid plus nine neuro-typical kids.

The first three games, I talked to the opposing coach and we set up the parameters; sub at seven minutes, water break at 10. Two 15 minute halves, whatever. The teams were like mine, random good players thrown in  with a myriad of skill levels complete with a laid-back coach who laughed and didn't think twice about using any stop in play as an opportunity to teach the kids about field placement or strategy.

And then I met the green team and their aggressive coach. We all know the ones that bark out orders to the team, run it like a tight ship and push through the games until the job is done. First off, the coach approached one of the dads to discuss game matters and then he sent him my way. Yes, the chick is in charge. See my whistle? Now, I'm not a small person, I'm 5'8", but this coach towered over me. He was easily 6'3" and it was apparent his eye was on the prize. As soon as the whistle blew, their team came at us fast. Coach big green was pushing his team to take throw-ins as soon as they got the ball while my team was mulling around not noticing that the ball was back in play. I did ask him if we could blow the whistle at each throw-in so the teams would know that the ball was going back into play, but he didn't agree to it. I do realize that in real soccer, that is not done, but they are little and half of them were meandering around the field. Minute by minute, I found myself more wrapped up in game play to get my guys through the game, rather than using the plays to teach, and I didn't like it. What were they going to take away from that game experience?

I did manage to praise every goalie save, each rally and each missed goal, but the joy of the game, while I was in the game, was gone. I was so wrapped in keeping my team plugged-in and moving in the right direction that the game ended and I had missed the fun.

In the end, once we shifted a few players around, we dominated the second half and the game ended in a no-score tie.  Maybe, my coaching tactic was working better than his; lots of praise and no negativity, "this time you did this, next time let's try that. You did great today!" But, maybe I do need to push the boys a little harder and make the game a bit more efficient.  I believe that if you take the time to teach them teamwork and field position, the speed and cooperation will come. There are some situations that only come up during game play and the moment to teach them is after the play is done. When the kids are this small, and we're trying to teach them to like the game, play the game properly and prepare them for the more competitive age groups, we need to take the time to lay the foundation. This is not the age to rush, it is the time to teach.

I was complimented by a mom from the other team. She said, "I think it is really awesome that you are coach." Thanks!  My friend Becky told me that the league needed me and I just shrugged it off. But after that mom's comment, I thought about it, and I guess if I were on the sidelines watching me coach, I'd see a coach that treats all her players as her own and teaches her players to be the best players that they can be. Will that win games? Not so sure. Will it teach them to believe in themselves and love the game? Hopefully. But the Magic 8 Ball says, "it is decidedly so."

Note to Coach big green: You're going down.