Be A Good Mom

A tax that I fully support. (and by support, I mean ENFORCE).

I squish your head! Because you are so cute!

I remember when you were just a wee little baby. And now you are 1 year old! Happy Birthday Little Giggles!

I hesitate whether I should even dare to answer this question, because I do believe in jinxes. But I also believe that your child is your child no matter what, so in the end it does not matter.

Are we out of the woods yet? Does Giggles appear to be developing normally or will she have a developmental delay like Pookie? First, a few facts:

1. Autism does occur in girls, but it is 4-5x more common in boys.
2. BAGD and I are well-educated and very aware of our children, yet we did not see the full picture of Pookie’s developmental delay until he was almost 3 years old.
3. Giggles is turning 1 on Friday. Pookie hit all his developmental milestones until about age 2- 2 1/2 when the language skills did not evolve from pediatric echolalia to true communication.
4. While we did not know the warning signs then, we do now. In excruciating detail.
5. Autism is more likely to occur in the sibling (especially twin) of another autistic child than in the general public.

So, where are we? Do we think Giggles is developing normally? Yes, we do. All we can do is look for hints that she is on the right track, things that mean something in the world of ASD.

She mimics. If you give her a hairbrush, she will touch the top of her head with it. If you give her a cellphone she will put it on her shoulder. The beginning of imaginative play, a good sign.

She responds to her name. She won’t turn around no matter how many times I call her “Kitty Cat” or “Pickles” but she responds when I call her real name.

She looks to us for approval and acknowledgment. She puts socks in a basket and after each one, she looks to us, to see if we will clap for her. She already understands that she is part of a larger group.

She knows that her blue coat has something to do with getting to go outside and wait for the school bus, one of her favorite things to do. So, she will crawl to front door where her coat is hung and babble while looking up at it longingly. As soon as I take it off the hook, she laughs with delight. If I pick her up first, she reaches and lunges for the little blue coat.

She motions for things she wants. She does not just cry and reach for it, she does a little “gimme, gimme” motion with her hands. She does it alot. She wants alot of things.

She tries to point at pictures in a book. Its clumsy, but she does it and looks up at us. It seems like a small thing, but this one excites us most. She wants others to see what she sees….notice what she notices…share experiences with her.

She cuddles. She says “ma-ma” and “da-da”. She knows where her milk comes from and gets excited when we open the fridge. She claps. She wiggles when we play music. She likes to look at pictures of herself.

Pookie did alot of these things, sure. But not all of them. And not all of them at age 1 year. And not all of them consistently. Does that mean we are out of the woods? Probably. Does that mean we will stop thinking about it? Probably not.

Haylo.
Maye I play for tee pretty lady? Si?

I put my Gorilla Birdie picture up on I Can Has Cheezburger.

I am disappointed in my caption, but under the pressure of being among such funny pictures, I could not think of anything better. Lets see if they put it on the homepage! It would be such an honor! I would be so cool. If it gets put up, I will let you all know, so you can go there and vote for it (or re-caption it!)

Here it is. Its not on the main page (Yet!)

We had a nice trip to the Zoo last Saturday.

We saw penguins:

We enjoyed the natural surroundings:

We were flipped off by a Gorilla:

We rode the Sky Glide:

I was very proud of my children on Saturday. Geetle did alot of cousin bonding with Tman and Baby Belaina. Pookie looked at all the animals and happily explored the whole zoo. It was his idea that we should ride the Sky Glide. Giggles demanded to be let out of the stroller to see the monkeys and fish. They had fun, which means I had fun.

Happy Rocktober everyone.

…..show. Free TV show, that is. HeeHee.

iTunes has free downloads of the series premier of the new PBS Kids show “Martha Speaks.” It’s a cute show about a dog who learns to talk when her alphabet soup gets lost on the way to her stomach and ends up in her brain. What sounds like a painful medical condition is actually the start of a great new TV show! Martha is quite an intelligent dog. Just the kind you would expect from PBS. Rather than using her new skills to play tricks on the mailman or fool the cat into giving himself a bath, Martha uses it to solve crimes and help her friends. Awwwwww!

They also have some episodes of Seasame Street for free too. I am downloading some right now, for the big kids to watch on my mp3 player while waiting for Giggles at her doctors appointment this afternoon.

Its a limited time offer, so head on over there right now to download “Martha Speaks.” While you are there, get familiar with the other free downloads on iTunes. I am also getting an Alvin and the Chipmunks music video “That’s How We Roll”…..oohhh yeeeahhhhhh.

Interesting article on CNN.com today. Its about a horrible situation, a little girl who was starved and beaten; she died. Her father has been setenced to 29 years in jail. Her mother is now about to be setenced. Her father beat her; her father killed her. But her mother let it happen and did not call for help until hours after she had died. Both parents obviously had some role in her starvation too. Her mother could receive 33 years in jail, while her father has alread received 29 years.

Now, who knows if she will get the full 33 years. I think her setencing is in a few weeks. Maybe the father was eligible for 50 but got 29. She might be eligible for 33 but get 10…who knows. But this raises the question of whether mothers are held to a higher standard. For the sake of arguement, lets not consider the starvation right now, although its a horrible thing. He killed her= 29 years. She let it happen= 33 years. That is not right. I am not sure 29 years is enough for killing a 7 year old, I don’t know what is the right punishment. But lets say the punishment is “X”. Then allowing the crime to happen is probably worth a setence of “X/4″ or “X/2″. Don’t you think?

Why would she be held to a higher standard than him? I notice that the victim’s last name is not the same as her “father” or her “mother” so maybe it was not his biological child and the mother therefore had a greater responsibility to protect her than he did? Is that why? Maybe since the girl was also malnourished and the mother was the primary grocery shopper/meal preparer and that contributed significatntly to her death? Or is it because no matter how far society comes in parental equality and co-parenting…its always the mother who is ultimately responsible for protecting the children? Is that a good thing? Maybe there is some evolutionary evidence for that arguement.

When I was pregnant with the twins I read that there is evolutionary reasons for why childbirth is so painful. It hurts so that you value the end product. If the babies just oozed out while we kept on doing our daily buisness, we would not value them. Think about fish….they squirt out dozens of eggs and keep on going. No matter what you think you saw in “Finding Nemo” fish do not anxiously await the birth and name each one. They are gone by the time the eggs hatch. Fish will never rule the world. Higher species are those that invest more time in their offspring. Humans invest the most time in their offspring….so we rule the world.

Pregnancy is uncomfortable. Childbirth hurts. Raising children is stressful. Mothers are enormously invested in their children, right from the first second. So, when that investment falls short and fails the child, maybe we are more to blame. Its a failure that is magnified by our starting point. We start so much farther in….to fall completely out is a long way. Longer than it is for a person who is less invested. But if that is true, then I had better not ever read another story about a mother who was denied custody of her children or received 1% less joint custody than she wanted. Its a two way street. You cannot say we are more responsible if you do not give us more rights. Pick a side people.

Today Giggles and I volunteered at Geetle’s school for their Walk-a-thon. Each class (preK-6) was to walk around the perimeter of the building 5 times. My job was to keep them on the sidewalk and out of the parking lot on the side of the building. As the kids filed by, I waved to those that I knew. I responded to each one that said how cute Giggles was. I told them her name and how old she was. I made chit chat with the teachers as their groups walked by my post. As I did so, I could not help imagining how my kids would look in these groups. What would Pookie, Geetle and Giggles look like as 1st graders? 3rd graders? 6th graders! Would they be the gregarious one skipping with their friends or the sullen one dragging behind the teacher?

I studied the groups and picked out little clicks. I saw three 4th grade girls pretty much dressed alike and knew they were the trendy girls; the girls that I think would peer pressure a nice girl like Geetle. I saw 4th grade boys who would rather walk closer to the 1st grade group than their 4th grade female classmates. Boys who think “fart”, “retard” and “balls” are 3 prety good words to pepper into just about any setence. And I saw awkward outsiders, walking with their heads down. I saw what would be Pookie’s class if he was in 3rd,4th or 5th grade. His modified learning classroom is grades K-3 and is housed at another school. But here at Geetle’s school they have a modified learning classroom for grades 3-5. This group intrigued me the most.

At first, I thought “Oh No! Pookie would not fit in with this group! They are quiet and well-behaved, not a single one of them seems to fit the Special Ed stereotype. No one is echoing, no one is flapping their hands, no one is stopping to pick dandelions. Pookie is **too** Special Ed for this group.” It made me sad. I have huge turmoil about the whole Special Ed thing. I want him to get a quality education including social and emotional skills….whatever that means. But I am always unsure whether that means Special Ed, Modified Learning Program or a regular classroom. There is no real way to know that you made the right decision. There is also the emotional burden of wanting your child to be in the “best” category. Do we want him to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? Better to be the smartest kid in Special Ed or the dumbest kid in the regular classroom? Better to be happy with your peers or unhappy in a group of those who are higher on some archaic, stereotyped, popularity and coolness food chain? Better to be “just one of the guys” in a Special Ed classroom or “the weird kid” in a regular classroom?

I don’t know. This is one of those posts were I just type out the random thoughts in my head. I have no answers. But I am telling myself that these are the facts:

1. There are alot of kinds of kids; I saw many kinds today.
2. Sometimes kids in the “good” group are unhappy and awkward and sometimes kids in the “bad” group are not, and vice versa.
3. Your experiences as a child do shape your adulthood. But all in all, your school years account for 15% of your life. Geeks grow up just fine. Princesses and Cool kids can turn into losers and meanies as adults.
4. I need to keep my emotions out of Pookie’s head.