Hop

It’s getting worse.

That hop she has to do between every transition is getting worse.

It’s making me crazy.

Here’s a message from her teacher that I got this morning:
Tommie,
Today, I got upset with Olivia because she wanted to argue with me about a direction I gave her in math for an assignment. Afterwards I asked her if she knew why I was mad at her and she didn't know. I decided to place the work aside and work on it during recess. At recess time, she completed the work with no arguing and was sent to recess about 5 minutes late. I believe she didn't mean to argue about the directions, but she is constantly questioning orally directions given by myself and Mrs. S, the classroom aide. Is there a strategy you use at home when this occurs? We will continue to work on this at school.
Next, I have noticed over the past few months that she has to jump in place at least once, sometimes more than once before she will sit down. She also makes a clicking noise when she does this. I'm wondering how you want me to handle this behavior? I have asked her why she does this, but she doesn't know, so I've ignored it. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thank you:)
She has also started to write a number 1 after her number before she writes her number, which is 8. (Olivia 1 8 - is what she writes on her paper). Do you know why she might be doing this? When I ask her to erase it she says why? She has also told Mrs. Shellhorse that she doesn't have to erase it at home.
Finally, thank you for being such a great support to the teachers at school. I'm proud of how far Olivia has come in so many areas as it relates to school. I want her to continue to improve on her academic and social skills at school. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on how the 'team' can do this.
Thank you again for all you do! You're a wonderful parent!
Blessings,
K

So yeah, it’s not just a bother at home, it’s starting to affect school.

Well, the hopping and the arguing. The hopping, I’m not sure we can stop without some sort of therapy, to be honest. I mean, what can you do, spray the girl with water each time she hops?

No, we’re not going to treat her like a cat on the counter.

The arguing, well, we’ll see about that one. She doesn’t really argue with me as much as she does with her dad but we can still talk about the issues at school with her and try to figure out why she does it and see if she can stop herself.

I know how badly she wants to be ‘normal.’ She wants to be one of the kids playing on the playground at recess. She wants to invite friends over and just be one of the girls. She wants to stop hopping but I’m not sure she can do this on her own.

The plan, for now, is to make an appointment with our GP, see if he thinks we’d benefit from a referral to a therapist of some kind (ABA? Other ideas I’m missing?) and see if we can help this amazing, smart, beautiful girl of mine.

I could probably deal with my own frustration with the hopping if she didn’t seem bothered by it too but since it is bothering her and seems to be affecting school, it’s time to stop ignoring it and figure out what she needs from us to get over this most recent speed bump.

Can't Have It All

Last week Lyss brought home a note inviting her to enroll in Art 1, a high school class. This is only open to junior high students by invitation.

It is a big honor to be invited to join this class. The letter stated that Alyssa has shown maturity and an aptitude for art and the teacher would love to work with her to encourage her artistic abilities.

I was happy for Lyss and asked her if she wanted me to sign the letter and send it back to the school.

She frowned a little and hesitated.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I told her. I could tell something was bothering her about the invitation to this class.

“It’s not that,” she began. “It’s just, if I take that class, I’m afraid it will interfere with band and choir and those are more important to me.”

Ahhh, got it.

“Well,” I told her, “I guess you really can’t do it all. If band and choir are more important, that’s what you need to do.”

I’m proud of her for already being willing to let some things go in order to concentrate on those other things that mean a little more to her. She’s very much into music these days and band and choir answer some need inside her to explore music and all the ways it can teach her, speak for her, be expressed through her.

Some people (me?) try so hard for so long to have it all, to be it all, to wrench every drop of experience out of life that they don’t really end up with anything because they’ve stretched themselves so thin there’s nothing left to actually enjoy what they have. I want more for my girls.

I want them to find what gives them the most joy and work on that, concentrate on that, explore all that has to offer. Sure, keep being open to new things but when something comes along that you just know isn’t as important to you as another thing, it’s okay to let it go.

Do I want her to keep drawing and painting? Sure, when she’s moved to do so but I also want her to follow her heart and if her heart says that music is her love, well, I support that with my whole heart.

And in the end, it was an honor to be recognized by the art teacher and invited to join the class even though she’s choosing not to do so. Having a choice is always nice.

Always Early

About that Family Fun Night…it was Saturday night.

Yeah, we (my mom, Olivia and I) drove the four miles to the school on Friday because, well, yes, I’m an idiot. But that’s been well established, right?

I mean, I’m the woman who arrived a week early to a party that was in Indianapolis. Let’s all remember that I live a good three hour drive from Indianapolis. So yeah, that happened.

Even though we tried to attend Family Fun Night twenty four hours early, we did make it back the next night and it was…underwhelming.

We attended one of these events when Alyssa was in either second or third grade and now I remember why we hadn’t attended any since.

While it was nice to get out of the house on a Saturday evening (Alyssa even went with us since she was home from Trudy’s house) and we picked up her friend Sally.

Olivia hated the games that were set up in the elementary hallway. There was the matching game where you pick a duck and try to match the number on the bottom to another duck’s bottom…huh.

There was face painting but the people who were doing that were, um, how do I describe this kindly? Oh, that’s right, I can’t. They were awful! They were basically painting kids’ faces one solid color and then swiping a couple of weird whiskers on their cheeks and calling them cats and/or dogs. So awful!

There was a bounce house with a slide but it was four tickets (50 cents each) for one climb and slide. Olivia refused to go in without me or Alyssa and we both declared we were much too (big) mature to do such a thing.

So we sat on the bleachers in the gym and watched people walk back and forth.

Olivia refused to go into the cafeteria to see what kind of food was being offered. She informed me, “I have to go in that awful place every day for lunch. It smells bad in there and they have terrible food.”

Okay then.

There will probably not be another Family Fun Night in our future…like, ever.

Family Fun Night

Alyssa is spending the night with a friend tonight so Olivia and I are going to the school and spending an hour or so with the rest of the community for some Family Fun.

The school puts on this little carnival-esque thing every year. We attended the year Alyssa was in second grade, our first year at this school and it was…okay. I mean, the games were cute and the kids got some trinkets but there was no reason to make it an annual thing we just had to do.

But Olivia’s older and more aware of her peers these days. And she said her classmates are excited about Family Fun Night and so, that means she’s excited. So away we go.

Olivia wants to be more social. She wants so badly to be like Alyssa and have friends over and maybe, someday, spend the night at friends’ houses.

She’s self-aware enough to know she’s not ready for the spending the night at other’s houses but she thinks she ready for a day with several friends at our house.

Huh…I guess we’ll see. This morning I told her that maybe during spring break, she could invite a few friends to our house for the afternoon.

I want her to have friends. It’s one of the things I’ve longed for for her for so long. So…I guess I’ll do the work it takes to help her along her way in this world of social relationships.

Let me just say that it’s not easy for an introvert to do this. But for my girl I’ll do whatever it takes.

Stifled

I am feeling stifled these days.

Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe spring will lift my spirits.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m trying to diet and yet I hate it with every fiber of my being. Usually when I’m doing a weight loss program, my psyche is all in and I’m okay with what I’m eating. I don’t even want the junk I’ve given up. This time, I’m miserable. I hate the food on my ‘diet plan’. I hate eating because it’s just no fun anymore.

I don’t know.

I feel like I’m angry all the time these days. Heck, half the time I don’t even know why I’m angry, I’m just sitting around furious at the world.

I try hard not to be angry at my kids. They’re awesome and I want them to know this. And, lucky me, they usually find my anger (that, again, is not directed at them) to be funny to the point of hilarity. That sometimes actually lifts my mood. So there’s that.

Whatever. All this is coming across as so ‘boo hoo, poor me’ and that’s not good either.

How are the girls? They’re awesome. Lyss starts track on Monday. She has a solo ensemble performance in April. She’s performing in a flute trio. I love this for her.

I have Liv’s IEP meeting the Monday after that. That ought to be fun. She’s having a tough time lately too. She’s being more obnoxious than usual and it’s spilling over into school. She’s sassy and argumentative and it’s keeping her from doing her work at school. I’m sure we’ll discuss that in our meeting.

And Tom…he’s trying. He’s trying so hard and when I take a minute to drag myself out of the haze of anger that seems to surround me and recognize that, to realize that his love language is so different from mine but in his way he’s showing how much he loves us, it brings a little sunshine into my world.

That’s something to hold onto until the sun really does come out again.

I Don't Mean to Be Rude But...

If you ever find yourself prefacing a statement with the above phrase, stop. Just stop because you know you’re about to be rude and saying that you don’t mean to be rude isn’t actually helping with your rudeness.

Just saying.

And people who say they’re ‘brutally honest’…whatever. Those people are just using their version of honestly to be brutal.

One of the people who visited our house last weekend chose to preface a statement about how mature my older daughter looks with the phrase, “I don’t mean to be rude but…”

And then she made a rude statement that included pretty young teenagers and pedophiles all in the same sentence.

Everyone in the room was disgusted by her comment and my aunt quickly pointed out that what this woman had said was basically a victim-blaming statement and it was uncalled for.

Ugh!! Just ugh!

And while I’m on the subject of preface comments let me state that if a person feels the need to say, “I don’t have a racist/sexist/homophobic bone in my body but…”

Well, just get ready because that person is about to make a racist/sexist/homophobic statement. That’s just how it works. So how about if we all agree that if we feel like we need to preface something we’re about to say with a phrase that denotes that WE are not rude or racist or sexist or homophobic, perhaps maybe we just shouldn’t say it what we were about to say.

Mmmm, kay?

Yellow

Tom brought the girls into town and met me at the orthodontist’s office for an appointment for Alyssa. Because it was after school, he was able to bring them to me instead of me leaving work, going to the school (twenty miles away), picking Alyssa up and bringing her back to town for the appointment. On those days, Tom has to be at home when Liv gets off the bus.

But yesterday he was able to bring them to me. It was a nice change.

Olivia and I went back with Alyssa and sat in the chairs provided to watch the fun of having braces wires changed.

We chatted, as we do and finally, Olivia said, quite matter-of-factly, “I have a yellow slip at home.”

I gave her a curious look, “What did you do to get a yellow slip?”

There was no anger in my voice. We were still just having a conversation.

She shrugged and answered, “I didn’t write a number on my line when Mrs. A told me to.”

“Why didn’t you write the number?” I wanted to know.

She shrugged again. She often doesn’t know why she’s misbehaving, she just does it.

I told her, still with no anger in my voice, “When we get home, you can’t be on your tablet. You have to wait until tomorrow after school when you can show us that you can follow your teacher’s directions.”

She nodded and went back to reading the book she’d brought from home.

Sigh. This girl…she’s so amazing and so exasperating all at the same time.

Sunday morning, as I was preparing for guests, she came to me very casually and showed me her new Barbie (a Monster’s High doll with two heads.)



She’d drawn on both faces with an ink pen.

“I did this and now I’m going to wash it off,” she declared, heading for the downstairs bathroom.

I stopped her mid-stride and said, “No, let’s go upstairs. That is not going to just come off with soap and water.”

When we got upstairs, I first tried washing the doll’s faces with a Magic Eraser. None of the ink budged from those faces. Then I tried nail polish remover.

Nope.

I told Olivia that she’d made a very bad choice.

Then I did what any self-respecting mother in the year 2016 does when they have a dilemma. I googled ‘how to get ink off a doll’s face.’

I found a youtube video of a woman who drew on her doll’s face deliberately just to show how well pimple cream works to get it off. This woman wrote on that doll’s face twice to show two different applications. Then, when she was done, she said, “And if that application doesn’t work, well, you’re on your own.”

That last sentence kind of pissed me off, but I was already pissed off by O’s bad choice (I was trying hard not to yell at her, because, well, what good would that have done?) so I took it out on the youtube lady and hissed, “Thanks for nothing, you hag!” Then I shut the browsing window and got to work trying what she’d suggested.

And what do you know? It worked! I had to apply it twice (we have Zapzyt, which is 10% benzoyl peroxide), put plastic over the faces and lay them in the sun but it worked. One of the dolls, Peri, the one with the bluer hair, had her lipstick smeared a little across the left side of her face but other than that they’re fine. Olivia was quite relieved and promised to never hide behind the recliner again with a doll and a pen.

So we’re working on things over here. Every day, we work on them. Together, we work toward maturity and growth and a sense of personal accountability.

When we got home from the orthodontist last night, I went through O’s backpack and found the yellow slip from her teacher. Mrs. A wrote that instead of following instructions, Liv wanted to argue about the instructions and why she even had to do what was being asked of her.

So we had another discussion on what it meant to follow directions and how when Mrs. A or Mrs. P or even Miss S. told her to do something, she HAD to do it because they were the boss of her. They’re the adults, they want to teach her something and that’s why they’re giving her direction.

Yes, I want her to be independent but I also want her to learn and being defiant at school will impede her education.

She listened, she nodded and she promised that today, she’d follow her teachers’ instructions.

We’ll see.