My Shore of ruins

With apologies to Springsteen. Who, for the record, I think should have played "Wrecking Ball" during the Sandy benefit concert, instead of "Land of Hope and Dreams," which after all lost a little resonance when it became the MLB postseason theme. Just saying.

We're OK. We shockingly didn't lose power. There were a few moments Monday night, very early Tuesday morning, when it went out and we thought, OK, that's it then, but then it came back on. DH and I sat in front of the TV, tuned to News 12, and listening to the wind whipping around the house and the creaking all around us, and waited for things to get worse but they never really did. Eventually we quit dozing on the couch and went to bed.

The kids slept through it. I have no idea how.

In the morning we still had power and school was closed. (We didn't know, of course, that school would be closed all week. It may or may not be open tomorrow. There is some cabin fever going on.) The house seemed OK. Here is how much we lucked out: Wednesday or Thursday, when we finally ventured outside, we discovered the two huge evergreens on either side of the house had both been uprooted. Completely out of the ground. Both of them fell away from the house. In opposite directions. They're like dead tree bookends.

We kept watching News 12. And hit up Twitter and Facebook. And then we started to see the images from the Shore.

Look, I'm from South Jersey. I grew up on boardwalks. I've been on the rides at Seaside Heights and I've played the cranes in Point Pleasant. I love that little aquarium there. I've admired the pretty beachside houses and hung out at Jenkinson's and eaten my share of funnel cake and boardwalk fries fresh out of the fryer, which are the best fries in the world.

When I was even younger, and we lived in Monmouth County, we used to go to Keansburg. There was a giant undulating slide that you went down sitting on a burlap sack, and there was a rotating helicopter ride where you could make the copters go up and down as they went around. There was a duck game, where you just picked up little plastic ducks as they floated past you and whatever was written on the bottom determined the prize you got.

All of that is wrecked now.

The images of devastation keep horrifying me over and over. I feel terrible for all the people who lost their homes. But the shot that really went right to my heart was seeing the roller coaster at Seaside Heights sitting in the ocean.

We didn't make it down to the beach this summer. It's a long drive now, and I hate sitting in Shore traffic -- like I'm somehow above it because I used to live 20 minutes away. Plus we have a pool nearby. But I wish we'd tried. Because I really liked bringing my kids to the places I used to love. I liked watching them on the beach and trying to win them stuffed animals in the arcades, the way my father did for me. I liked watching them shriek with pleasure on the kiddie rides. And I don't think we'll be able to do that again. Not for a long time, if ever.

Things might get better. But they won't be the same.

Storm storm stormy storm storm!

... sitting and waiting. We have bottled water and non-perishable food. The sparkly Halloween cat and the scarecrow have been uprooted and moved inside, the lawn furniture is in the shed. I'm doing as much laundry as possible. And I'm using the heat pack on my back as much as possible because if the microwave goes out, it'll be useless.

Oh right, did I mention I have arthritis in my back? That's right, I said ARTHRITIS. I'm not even old enough to get a mammogram yet and I have arthritis. I found that out a little over a week ago, after the back pain got so bad I went to the doctor and they had X-rays done.

"Am I even old enough to have that?" I asked the nurse on the phone.

"Everybody's body develops differently, dear," she said.

Hey, thanks.

Possible factors: the scoliosis I've had more or less since puberty -- I was seeing a specialist about it for a while, but the curve was so mild they opted not to do anything -- and the genetic predisposition toward arthritis I apparently had but didn't know about. Until Dad said, "Oh yeah, I have it in my knees. And my mother had it in her shoulders."

Because that's what happens every single time something medically weird comes up. My parents say "Oh yeah, every third cousin for five generations had that, didn't we tell you?" I could find out next week I have the gene for spontaneous combustion and they'll say "Oh yeah, your Great-Aunt So-and-so spontaneously combusted in 1976, didn't we tell you?"

Yes, I know you're reading this. Take a joke. Nyah.

Anyway, I've been seeing a chiropractor and doing stretching exercises, plus the heat pack and meds if necessary, and it's been OK aside from the occasional twinge. It's as though periodically my back likes to nudge me and say, "Hey man, guess what! You've still got arthritis!"

I'll be joining AARP next, I guess. And eating more early-bird dinners. And changing my blog's name to "Angry Old Mom."

Anyway. My bum back and I are awaiting the storm. Just windy now. It would be really really nice if no one got hurt, and the power stayed on, and the trees stayed up, and Halloween wasn't postponed for the second year in a row. And if we could actually stay in the house this time instead of fleeing. But it's early yet.

... and on to Plan B

Yeah, the 504 plan isn't working out. Kiddo just can't settle. He can't transition into new activities. He can't stay in line in the hallway. He can't keep his hands to himself. He gets upset a lot, to the point where he throws himself on the floor in a fit.

So I'm pushing for in-school OT, and for an IEP.

The OT required an evaluation form ("does he do this? how about this? how frequently?"), which we have just filled out -- not the most fun thing to do on a Saturday night, but since we were also watching the Yankees lose and Jeter fracture his ankle, basically, a downer of a night all around. (Stupid A-Rod. I digress.) The first step in the IEP process is an RTI meeting -- as in, "response to intervention." Everybody remotely involved in teaching and/or parenting him will meet to discuss what's working and what isn't.

And then ... I don't know. More research on my part, clearly. Someday I would like to read for fun again. Imagine ... a novel! A comic book! I don't know, a cereal box!

Seriously, between ADHD, ODD, OCD and IEP, it's like an alphabet soup floating through my head.

On the plus side -- and hooray that there are plus sides -- kiddo seems to have buddies at aftercare at least. We went to a bowling birthday party yesterday, and for the first time in a while I didn't know any of the other parents. But kiddo knew four or five of the other boys and they all hugged him hello. Granted, he threw a fit or two over not getting his turn, and kept lugging his ball to the wrong lane, and then would sit there twirling the ball on the floor till it twirled away from him, and kept climbing on top of the ball return console (or whatever it's called) until I started counting him down to a time out, but you know, aside from all that it was fine.

I have no idea what the other kids in kindergarten think of him.

In related news, Happy ADHD Awareness Week, everyone! You know what my favorite part of dealing with this disorder is? Dealing with all the people who think it's bogus. Need proof? This is how the above website kicks things off:

The debate about
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is over.
And the truth about ADHD is clear.

 

Yeah, here's the thing: If you feel the need to introduce your awareness website by referring to "the debate," it means the debate isn't over. Even if it should be.

Also, surely you've heard about the doctor in Georgia, per the New York Times, who's prescribing ADHD meds to low-income kids who don't have it because they're struggling in school. And calls the disorder "made up" and an excuse to give the kids something that will help them focus in a substandard classroom setting. 

And my knee-jerk reaction is: argh.

You think ADHD is made up? Spend a week with my kid. You think the answer to a lousy school system is medicating kids who shouldn't be medicated? Man, you must be a big Mark McGwire or an A-Rod or a Jose Canseco fan. Or a Manny Ramirez fan. How is taking drugs to enhance academic performance any different than taking drugs to enhance athletic performance?

And once again, for the record, my son is not on any medications. But on behalf of all the ADHDers who legitimately need those meds to function -- not to get A's in school, just to function -- I'm pretty appalled. 

For further reading, an interesting column from Forbes here, and for your amusement, Stephen Colbert's take on the matter here. 

And thoroughly exasperated, I am off to watch my son struggle through another week.

Ups and downs

Kiddo is not what you'd call living up to expectations these days. He's running around in class. Not listening. He got in trouble a couple weeks ago for hitting another boy with the strap of his backpack. (He wanted the boy to move, he explained later.) He's doing his homework, but he'll write one letter the right way and then scrawl the next one all over the page, or write the next three letters too close together and say that they're holding hands, or some other kind of story.

On the plus side, he hasn't missed the bus yet.

We're also back to the "I don't want to go to school!" bit when he wakes up in the mornings. "It's boring!" he says. Fortunately threatening to have breakfast without him -- or just leaving him to go into his sister's room -- tends to get him moving.

I've already requested an evaluation for in-school OT, per his teacher's suggestion. Hoping that helps.

At least I hear good things about his teacher. By which I mean absolutely glowing things. Like "My kids are in college and they still rave about her!" In fact we specifically requested her because she was said to be good with special-needs kids. The one phone conversation we've had so far, prompted by the backpack incident, seemed to go well, in that she was more trying to figure him out than trash him for misbehaving. Although admittedly I was threading through Route 80 traffic in the pouring rain at the time, because she called my cell and I didn't want to blow her off. So I hope I sounded coherent. (Don't bother telling me I'm nuts. DH already did.)

And the school district, not that I'm any kind of an expert in these matters, seems like a nice one, in that people are pretty involved.  Back to school night? Standing room only in the multipurpose room. PTA meeting/ice cream social? Packed. Although that's because it was not so much a "meeting" as an ice cream-fueled free-for-all. Sugared-up kids did their best NASCAR impressions, zooming giddily around the place. And then zoomed outside to play on the playground, in the dark. Kiddo and a few others discovered the almighty game of "lie down and roll down the hill!" and did that a few hundred times. And I got to chase after him in heels. I do not know how the other parents all have time to change clothes before going to these things. Either none of them works, or they all have two-minute commutes.

Also, have I mentioned what a really nice area this is to live in? Here was our day today: I got the kids up and we went to the Unitarian Universalist church we've been attending (fairly good choice for interfaith families). It's a lovely drive to the church, all winding roads and trees, so that always puts me in a good frame of mind. We went to our usual diner afterward and the kids didn't embarrass me overmuch. Then kiddette went down for her nap and kiddo and I hit up a town bicycling event at the park nearby, where we ran into a classmate of his and the other mom and I had a nice chat while they played.

(Kiddo, incidentally, insisted on riding his trike to the park even though he has a bike. So the other kids were all cruising around him while he double-pumped on the trike, which he is just about too big to be using in the first place. It was hilarious.)

Then we hit up one of the gazillion farms in the area (all of which are totally overrun right now on account of the apple picking) for apples and cider and pumpkin butter. Kiddo ran around like a loon and had a fine time climbing the hay bale pyramid and yelling, "I'm king of the mountain!" Then we came back and finished his homework.

It's just ... bucolic out here. There's so much outdoorsy stuff to do, which is great for Mr. Energy. And people rarely seem bothered by kiddo's intensity. Either they know about his condition, since I make no secret of it, or they don't think his behavior is especially un-ordinary. He's so happy when he's running around with other kids.

So things aren't all great but I feel like there's the possibility that they'll get better. Which I think is about all I can ask for.

And then she was 3

And there was much fanfare. Kiddette was thrilled that her family was coming to her birthday cake. She also hoped that they would eat her birthday party.

We booked the usual let-the-kids-amuse-themselves-so-the-parents-can-chat party place and got the usual child-approved menu of pizza and cake. Or as I call it, pizzacake. Everybody serves pizzacake. I fear these children will grow up to be culinarily stunted, and should they find themselves at a fancy cocktail party in a fine dining establishment sometime, will be baffled and sad to see no pizza. Or cake.

(I do buck the trend on this a little bit and also serve fruit, and am secretly delighted that the children actually eat it.)

Kiddette is still in her loves-monkeys phase and I see no reason to snap her out of it, because once she goes full-on princess it's going to be all pink sparkles, all the time and then our eyes will hurt. So her cake had Small Paul on it, to match the napkins and the plates and such. I did buy her a purple tutu to wear at the party, because it was so goshdarn cute I couldn't stop myself, but purple is her favorite color. And one ought to dress up a little bit at one's own party. And besides, she wore it over kiddie jeggings.

All the kids had a fine time and I didn't have to climb up into the jungle gym thingy to rescue anyone this time, which is good, because I seem to have a bit of a back problem and probably shouldn't be climbing into kiddie play places. Stupid back. (The doctor said, "Do you pick your children up a lot?" Why, Doc, are you offering to swing by my house and pick them up for me?) Apparently I understuffed the goodie bags, since there were some mild complaints about them. But I really really didn't want to pad them out with candy. We have Easter candy we still haven't eaten. We have Christmas candy we still haven't eaten. We don't eat a lot of candy. I see no reason to inflict extra candy on other parents, a month away from Halloween, when we'll all have too much candy.

Honestly I can't figure out this goodie bag thing. How much stuff are you supposed to put in them? Aren't three or four things enough? Are the kids measuring by quality or quantity? (Quantity, duh.) Is the monetary value of the goodie bag supposed to equal the monetary value of the gifts? Because that seems like wedding-gift logic.

I feel like I need to consult Emily Post on this before the next round of birthday parties. Or whoever handles etiquette for the under-10 set. Li'l Emmy Post?

At any rate kiddette enjoyed herself immensely and used the ruffle of her tutu to wipe pizza sauce off her face, which should annoy me, but she's gotten food on so much of her clothing that at this point I just shrug. At least she eats. And she very much likes the talking Woody and Jessie dolls she got, and so does kiddo -- even though Grandma got her a Woody so she would leave his Woody alone. But hers talks, you see. So we've got a bit of a scuffle going on at Woody's Roundup. Meanwhile I am disappointed that talking Woody doesn't say "There's a snake in my boot!" like in the movies, because I always thought that line was hilarious.

And now that all birthdays for the year have been accounted for, on to Halloween.

So far, so good

At least as far as we can tell. The first day was more or less a blur of photos and a parental mob scene in front of the school. But kiddo seems to like kindergarten. He likes riding the bus and occasionally mentions kids by name that he played with (not a thing he frequently does. Usually I start guessing names, based purely on which kids I've met at birthday parties and play dates). He's even done homework without too much fuss. Note: The homework comes in a folder with a sign-off sheet that we are supposed to mark, to show that he got it, or that he did it, I guess. Maybe the teacher doesn't want to mess around with lost homework.

We've even managed to not miss the bus yet. This is pretty good, considering kiddo -- like lots of other ADHD kids, per my studies -- can be legendarily impossible to get out of the house. He'll stop getting dressed to inspect one of his Thomas tracks. He'll quit eating breakfast to yell through the glass door at the rabbit in our back yard. He'll throw a fit instead of eating breakfast because I put his cereal in the wrong color bowl. He'll run around the house, or burrow into the couch, instead of going upstairs to brush his teeth.

I use the timer on my phone to get him dressed, and if he's not done by the time it chimes, I leave the room. (He hates that.) We tell him if he's done eating, we'll throw the food out, or we tell him he can go to school without breakfast. And for the toothbrush refusal, we'll generally count him down to time out. Or else DH just carries him upstairs.

Basically it's a constant game of calling his bluff. Eventually he's going to take it too far and we really will miss the bus. But I've decided there are worse things in life and we'll just have to drive him those days.

Packing an a.m. snack for him has been an interesting challenge, because of the no-nut rule, and my desire to get protein into him whenever possible. I tried making granola bars from scratch, which is actually not hard -- unless of course you use the wrong size pan and you end up with granola crumble. But it tastes good, anyway, so I have bags of it in the freezer as needed. (Unless DH eats it all.) I also stocked up on whole-grain Goldfish, for whatever that's worth, and sometimes I just give him fruit, because he loves it. 

We even got the 504 issue resolved -- the coordinator added the missing item, sent a new plan home in our "welcome to kindergarten!" packet, we had it back to her the next day. Oddly easy. I'm hoping it stays that way.

I know the real test isn't how he does the first week, but how he does two months later, when he may or may not have gotten bored. But it's a hopeful start at least.

Angsting

School starts this week and I'm really, really hoping he's up to it.

We did get an updated report from his OT and it was pretty positive -- she saw a lot of improvements in behaviors, self-care, physical development, etc. So that's good. She did recommend he continue with the group sessions, which is fine, because he loves them. We've gotten a little ritual going, in which he and I drive to the session, he does his thing while I read/check Twitter/chat with other moms, then we have lunch together and he gets his inevitable grilled cheese sandwich. Sometimes we go to Trader Joe's after. Sometimes we go some place interesting, just because. (This weekend we got the oil changed in my car. He thought that was the coolest thing ever and was watching through the big windows as the mechanics did their thing.) He's good about ordering his own lunch and carrying his tray, and then helping to clean up when we're done. And then he falls asleep in the car on the drive home.

He and I went to the farmers market yesterday and he was great -- helped pick out veggies, stayed with me, didn't run off.  The rest of the day, though, he was a whiny mess  and I blew up when I discovered he'd dumped the liquid soap out of the dispenser and refilled it with water -- again. Especially irritating when you're trying to get the kids to wash hands for lunch.

 (I have no idea how to channel that habit positively. Give him a fish tank? Get him a water-filled toy? Make him wash dishes?)

On Saturday, we all went to a barbecue given by friends from preschool -- it was a lovely time. He was fine, except when he came careening down the backyard kiddie coaster before checking that the coast was clear, and slammed into one of the younger boys (who was fine, thankfully). And except when he drove the ride-on electric kiddie car a little too enthusiastically, and slammed into the table some of us were eating at. Luckily, as they say on Sodor, no one was hurt. There were absolutely no eyes poked out during the s'more making, and even though he threw a fit about having to go home, at least it meant he'd been having fun.
 So there are good moments and bad moments with him. I think there are more good than bad moments, these days. But the question is, will he have bad moments at school? How often will he be having these moments, and will these moments, in fact, be epic?

I'll feel better after this week. Theoretically. Maybe.