high school

Small Victories: A Birthday Story

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach2 Comments

Wednesday Maddie turned 17. Sounds so grown up. Most of our friends with kids the same age spent the last two school breaks touring the east coast and Southern California colleges. They’ve spent money and time on SAT prep, college counseling,  and just getting through the eternally stressful junior year. Some are launching their kids in the fall, anxiously counting the days until their babies fly the coop.

Yesterday, on the 17th anniversary of her birth, Maddie showed me the insecure young person inside and the socially savvy young lady that also resides within her. I never know what side I’m going to see.

A few weeks ago Maddie’s wonderful tutor Kim suggested they see a Giants game together to celebrate the end of the school year. A look at the Giants’ schedule pointed them to a day game which happened to fall on Maddie’s birthday. I wanted Maddie to do whatever made her happy and at the time it seemed like a great idea. Looking back I think I was in denial at best, and just straight up stupid at worst. This was in fact a mistake whose full terribleness would  not rear its ugly head until that morning.

First of all, this plan involved me having to wake Maddie up. It has been established that this is to be avoided whenever possible. Waking her up to go somewhere or do something, even something ostensibly appealing, is fraught with emotion and fear for me. I think I fake it rather well, but even a failed first attempt sends tensions throughout my body and I feel my heart clench. I breathe deeply to remain calm, but I’m immediately almost ready to give up. The problem that morning was that I had bought ferry tickets, so the arrival time mattered. The Giants game ferry really does complete the experience, but it adds significant time and eliminates flexibility. Anyway, I feel like this alone doomed this notion to failure.

Second, Maddie was sleep deprived. For some reason sleeping didn’t go well the night before. Maybe, as it turns out, she was anxious. I also know she was up at 3:00 a.m. because I, too, was up at that time searching for a cough drop when I felt a light tap on my back (DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN! I said). She was mid-allergy-attack and looking for a Zyrtec.

So at the start, we had two strikes against us.

And then, the tears. She was tired, she said. She was trying so hard to power through, but, tragically, on her birthday, she wasn’t able to cope. Her tutor, Kim, used her magical skills to try to turn it around. And in fact there was magic because although Kim ended up leaving our house, alone, in her Giants gear, there was a breakthrough. Maddie realized she just didn’t feel comfortable doing this new, out-of-the-norm thing with her tutor. She would go to the game, but only with me. The tears were from fatigue, to be sure, but also from insecurity about this new situation. This girl whom I think of as fearless isn’t in fact fearless. She’s often so brave, but the sense of being able to be in the world without her safety net (me!) is sometimes fragile.

So in her usual way, she inhabited a young child and a mature person in the same moment. Her anxiety came from insecurity, fear of the unknown, fear of feeling untethered, her inability to imagine herself through the what-ifs into a mental picture of success. And yet (and this is even more significant me) she was able to access her feelings and the reasons behind them, and then ask for what she wanted. Such a huge achievement for this kid!

And so, as it should have been all along, I took my daughter to a Giants game for her birthday. Once we arrived at this conclusion, I let go of my stress and just went with it. I ditched my long list of errands, cancelled a salon appointment, packed up my sunscreen and a hat, and off we went. It was too late for the ferry (the ship had in fact sailed by that point), so we hopped in the car and headed across the bridge. The fretting was over. Time to jump into this surprise of a day.

The Giants were terrible. But the day was beautiful and due to a lack of forethought on my part, we had tickets behind the opponents’ dugout, which put us in a sea of Kansas City fans. And that, my friends, turned out to be great! As the numbers on the scoreboard became more and more lopsided, the crowd around us erupted in cheers. They were having fun, and so were we. The couple next to Maddie was visiting California from their home state of Missouri, following their beloved baseball team around the state. They were so friendly, offering to buy Maddie treats for her birthday and engaging in conversation. We talked about all of the wonderful things you can do here in San Francisco, and Maddie asked, “Have you been to Muir Woods?”

Well, that might not seem like a big deal to you, but it sure was to me. Such an appropriate and normal thing to say! She was engaged and conversational! And she asked a relevant and meaningful question, given that we live not far from there. And when the husband repeatedly and enthusiastically offered to buy her a frozen lemonade in honor of her birthday, she politely and gratefully declined several times before finally admitting “Lemonade isn’t my thing.” I felt like a million bucks. My daughter who struggled in the morning, who seemed like a child afraid to be too far from her mother, was out in the world acting her age. Only a parent of a special needs kid would feel like jumping up and down because their kid said something appropriate.

Much to my surprise, we stayed for the entire game (well, almost). It was hot out there in the sun, and she hadn’t really been paying much attention to what was happening on the field (really, who does at a baseball game?), but although I repeatedly informed her that everything was up to her, she was happy to stay. We bought at Pence jersey (“I don’t know who any of these guys are,” she said when shopping for jerseys. “Then just pick a number you like,” I said.) and a big orange foam finger and garlic fries.

In the end, I would call this day a success. But it wasn’t easy. Sometimes I’m reminded in no uncertain terms of the challenges my daughter faces. Sometimes I’m not reminded but instead learn something entirely new. My brave, strong kid can still be a frightened young child inside. She can still struggle to know what she’s feeling, and when she is able to not only identify it but also verbalize it, it’s a small victory. I can’t even think about college, or next year, and sometimes not even tomorrow. It’s enough, quite often, to be surprised minute by minute.

Recently my sister recounted a moment with her teenage daughter. They are both musicians, and my sister has been playing more regular gigs. After a recent performance, “You inspire me,” her daughter began, and my sister’s heart swelled with pride. “To eat ice cream,” the sentence concluded.

“That was a rollercoaster of a comment,” I replied.

And that is precisely how I feel. A single moment with Maddie, a single utterance, can encapsulate a high and a low, both a pleasant surprise and a slap-in-the-face reminder of the challenges we face.

But still, as of yesterday, my daughter is 17. That is 17 years of her becoming this complicated young lady, and 17 years of my own growth into the mother, and person, I am today.

The Art of Acceptance

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

One of the many concepts I have struggled with and contemplated over the years of parenting my autistic child has been the difference between giving up and acceptance. I have come to the conclusion that it’s simply a matter of mindset because the outcome of giving up and acceptance is the same: you recognize there is a reality you probably can’t change, so you put your energies elsewhere.

So many times I have felt like I was giving up. Or perhaps just giving up too soon. I was hard on myself, too. Remember my failure to chart? I felt so guilty when every single professional we worked with, including psychologists, psychiatrists, and occupational therapists, insisted that making reward charts was the answer. THE answer. It never was the answer for us, and I knew it. But I would often try for a week, and then just bail out. Was I giving up? I didn’t know. I just knew it wasn’t working. It seemed futile. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe I wasn’t organized enough or disciplined enough. Maybe it felt too difficult for me (it is true it’s not in my nature).

I realized at some point, however, that it wasn’t my failure. Charts were meaningless to Maddie. So I could release myself from guilt because really what I was doing was recognizing what was true (acceptance!) and acting accordingly. Maddie didn’t give a shit about a reward chart and she never would, so why keep trying? I could release myself. And guess what? That is not the same as giving up!

I also remember deciding there would be no more fights about homework. And in our house, that meant no homework at all. It wasn’t going to happen without a lot of pushing on my part, and often my energy was wasted. I really should have made that decision when Maddie was in first grade, when homework first came into our lives. What should have taken ten minutes (an appropriate length of time for a six-year-old, if they absolutely must have homework at all) took a full hour because of the Asperger’s (and with it, ADHD) I didn’t know she had. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell the teacher, “Look, this is killing us.” I now realize years later that she would have most likely said “No problem.” But I was fighting it, swimming upstream in a deluge, losing my mind over something that was at the time both impossible and unnecessary. If only I’d had the wisdom of acceptance back then. Or the next year, or the next year, or the year after that. And on and on.

Finally, after more than eleven years of this struggle, two weeks ago we began the new phase of Maddie’s education. She hasn’t set foot on a campus for months, and in fact she took a couple months off to do whatever the heck she wanted. Which, by the way, was awesome for me, too. I realize parenting involves occasional conflicts with your kids. You will inevitably be at odds at least once in awhile. But the daily grind of morning-long battles, fraught with anxiety on both our parts, was just too much. For both of us. I got to say at least a temporary goodbye to migraines. And, it turns out, Maddie was able to to go off the Prozac she’s been taking since she was nine.

I noticed a few days ago that her prescription bottle was still in the Ziploc bag she had taken to camp last month. She had been a bit less reliable with her nightly medication since she quit school. I was no longer managing my teenager’s bedtime, which involved watching the clock, telling her five times to brush her teeth, cleaning off her bed, filling her water bottle, reminding her to take her medication, and hanging out for a bit (I do miss our nighttime conversations) before turning off her light and saying good night. So I wasn’t aware she had simply stopped. Fortunately, unlike many similar medications, you can apparently just stop cold turkey without withdrawal symptoms.

After I spotted the neglected bottle, I casually asked Maddie if she had been taking her medication. “No,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“I thought so. Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

“Yup!” Clearly she was feeling better than OK.

“If you start feeling any anxiety or if you feel a little depressed, you need to tell me, okay?”

“Yup!” And I know she will. I’m so grateful for that.

And so here we are. Her decision to quit school relieved me of that two-month migraine and apparently freed Maddie from the anxiety, in particular, that had been plaguing her since the fourth grade. Seven years later (SEVEN YEARS!), we figured out together that “giving up” on school was really just accepting that it wasn’t working, and then making the choice to do something else, and rather magically, we are both okay. After all these years of struggle, all these years of meetings and IEPs, and then no IEPs, and then IEPs again, after traumatizing experiments with ADHD meds, after all those fights and struggles and tears and digging in on her part and frustration and yelling on my part, and frustration and even the occasional physical outburst on her part, and my trying and trying and feeling like a failure, and wondering what I should do, and then trying something and finding that doesn’t work, and trying something else and then something else, and feeling defeated and exhausted and afraid and discouraged, Maddie and I found acceptance.

And so, for now, we are free!

The difference between giving up and acceptance, it turns out, is in your feeling of power. When you give up, you are admitting defeat. The thing, whatever it is, has won. And so you shrug and say, well forget it. With acceptance, you are making a choice. You are not a victim. You are in charge. YOU say, I have decided this thing, whatever it is, is happening, and you find a way to embrace it, and hopefully, to make the best of it and find a new path to peace.

Still Looking for My Inner Bad-Ass

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach3 Comments

It’s the beginning of a new year. And the beginning of a new era. A school-free era for my kid. Which is great. But it’s also an era of exploration of sorts. Hmmm…now that I see those words I realize the exploration era isn’t new at all. It’s about 16 1/2 years old right now. And it’s not really getting any easier.

One of the areas I have had to explore is within myself. And that is my ability to ask for help. Oh man, do I suck at that. It is not a point of pride that I’m like that. In fact, I think it’s a deficiency. I mean, isn’t it a bit superior to think that I’m to be the helper only? That perhaps I’m beyond needing help?

I have explored this in therapy. For years, when the stress of the mornings (and the afternoons and evenings and nighttimes) was about to break me, my therapist, in her infinite wisdom, advised me to hire help. If a had a person in my home to do the mundane stuff, it would free up my energy to do the hard stuff. And perhaps I might not actually GO CRAZY. We had that conversation so many times, and I would nod my head in agreement. “That is such a great idea!” I would say. “Yes! I’ll for sure look into that!” But apparently I didn’t mean it because by the the time I was closing to door to her office and heading home, I was thinking, “Nope.”

I know where I get this from, Mom. My mom is one of those bake-a-lasagne-while-pouring-concrete kind of moms who also sewed our clothes and mowed the lawn and painted the outside of the house and made dinner out of nothing and gave us every last dime she ever had to make us happy. But would she ever ask for help? Uh, nope. The reigning philosophy at our house long preceded Tim Gunn: Make it work. Do with what you have. You can do it because you just have to. That’s what a strong person does.

So here I am. I’m a grown woman. I not only don’t mow a lawn, I don’t even have a lawn. We have a gardener who comes twice a month for some basic yard clean up. I knew by the time I was seven that sewing machines and I were destined to be enemies. (In fact, at some point my mom put my sister and I to work simply cutting out the patterns pinned to the fabric, and I was so bad at that, she told me to forget it). We have a weekly house cleaner who does all the really big stuff (although I certainly spend a ridiculous amount of time doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen and generally trying to keep my house from being a pig-sty, emphasis on the word “trying”). For years, though, I felt so weird about it that I would help our house cleaner when she was here. I still do a little bit, telling her to forget this room or that, or don’t worry about the floors she didn’t get to today, or here let me play with your kid while you’re working.

In comparison to my mom, my workload is pathetically easy. And yet still I am overwhelmed to the point of occasionally falling apart in a big way. And I still won’t get help. There is just something inside me that expects that I can do all the parenting because that is how it’s done. I should be able to handle everything with my kid. That’s my job! And if I can’t, perhaps that means I’m not good enough. I would never think that about anybody else. In fact, I’ll be your biggest cheerleader if you say to me, “Ya know, this is too hard for me. I’m getting help.”

“Good for you!” I would say. “We all need help!” And I would mean it.

Perhaps even more of a roadblock in getting help for Maddie has simply been a lack of knowledge of what in the hell to ask for. I add those words quite intentionally because it’s the most humbling, frustrating, regrettable thing to find out, after years of struggling, there was help available that I could have asked for if only I had known about it. And that happened to me recently.

In preparing to move Maddie from her public high school to a home school environment, I sought out the professional experience of my friend “Carol.” She is an experienced behavioral therapist and business owner who works closely with schools to provide support and interventions for kids like Maddie. She is a not only a terrific person but also a great resource that I should have hired the minute I met her. (Quick advice for parents of special needs kids: Get yourself a professional advocate!)

Shortly before winter break, I received an email from Maddie’s teacher/case manager suggesting that I immediately un-enroll her from school so that she would receive Incompletes rather than F’s on her report card. Okay, I thought, I’d better do that because that’s what I was told to do. A week went by and I hadn’t made the official declaration because I hadn’t yet put an alternative education plan in place. I wasn’t sure what to do or how to do it yet, but after another reminder email from that teacher, I set about writing a long letter explaining why we were taking her out of school. I wanted the teachers and staff to know I appreciated everything they had done, but that, due to Maddie’s difficulties getting to school and because of the recommendation from the teacher that we officially un-enroll her, we were going to educate her at home.

Still somewhat apprehensive about making it official, I forwarded the draft of my letter to my professional friend Carol. I wanted her feedback on the letter, particularly since we had discussed hiring her to create a home school program (even though I kept thinking I could do it myself because I ought to be able to do it myself).

“Whoa!” she said. “Because of her IEP she should absolutely not be getting Fs.” She was a little bit angry, I sensed, because she believed Maddie’s case wasn’t being handled properly. She also wanted to know why more interventions hadn’t been attempted at the source; why hadn’t they sent somebody to our home to motivate Maddie to get to school? Why hadn’t she met with a counselor or psychologist to get at the core reason for her attendance problems? Why hadn’t there been a plan in place to address these issues?

Crap. I could have asked for all that? Those are things they can do? 

I know there are other parents out there who raise their voices and demand what their kid needs. I honestly don’t know how to do that. So feeling ineffectual in that way, I asked Carol to add to my letter wording that would properly and very specifically address what she thought I should ask for now: a specific plan to address the core issue of attendance and a clearly delineated academic program that would allow Maddie to graduate. I tried to write it myself, but the words just didn’t seem right and I felt as though I wasn’t even sure I knew what I was requesting.

So Carol, my friend and fierce advocate, using the voice she knows how to use working with schools and insurance companies to get what her clients need, was clear and unapologetic in her requests. I edited it all a little bit, softening the edges to better suit my own style, and sent it off with my fingers crossed.

And shortly after that I received a response. I had clearly offended her teacher, who seemed to take a rather defensive tone. And I immediately regretted my letter. I really hate offending people, for one thing (which is part of my problem, I guess). And I felt shitty because it seems that somebody else can acceptably use a more powerful voice because it belongs to them, but when I adopted this more demanding demeanor, it somehow came across as ungrateful and perhaps inauthentic. I fear I set this whole thing up by always being so undemanding and flexible, and then when I suddenly get all fierce, people don’t know what to make of it.

So I turned around with a sort-of apology, saying I hadn’t meant to be confrontational but instead I was trying to figure out what to do with Maddie and that I have always found it hard to know what to ask for and how to ask for it. (As of now, she is not un-enrolled and we are supposed to meet in January. Also I now have a clearer idea of what we’re working toward.)

And that made me feel better in a way (I nipped the conflict in the bud! Phew!) but worse in another. Here I was simply asking for something very specific for my child and pointing out that despite repeated requests for help I still hadn’t gotten her what she needs, and it was as if I was trying to pick a fight. And the last thing I wanted to do was start a fight. On the other hand, maybe that’s what I ought to do sometimes. Sometimes, it turns out, you really do have to be the squeaky wheel. Or the bitch. Or whatever.

So here it is, 2017, the year I will turn 50 (!), and I still struggle with asking for what I need. I even found the courage to ask for it and I ended up apologizing. One thing has become clearer as I write this: the ability to ask for what you want and to demand what you deserve is a strength, not a weakness.

Perhaps I think I need to write this on a some post-it note and stick it on my bathroom mirror:

“Use your voice and don’t apologize for it.”

And, perhaps:

“Be kind to yourself.”

How to Be Awesome

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach3 Comments

Yesterday I picked Maddie up from the camp bus. She has gone to winter camp for three years, and as you may know, the planning for winter camp begins the moment she leaves summer camp. Summer camp ends with a rest and then plans for winter camp. Basically this kid lives for camp. If she could do anything full time, it would be camp. Camp, camp and more camp. Thank goodness for camp! Have I mentioned she likes camp?

The first time she went to sleep-away camp, I was a nervous wreck the entire week. Instead of relaxing and enjoying having only one kid for a few days (it is SO MUCH EASIER), I lay awake in bed chewing my nails wondering if she was she ok emotionally without her mom. Would she be lonely, could she make friends? Would the kids be nice to her?  Did she need to call home? What if she got sick? Can she eat the food? What if she’s sad???

And then on pickup day I discovered what a magical place this camp was, and the only time I worried again was her first winter camp when it very suddenly became freezing for exactly the days she was there. I ordered wool socks from Amazon and overnighted them to camp. She thought it was weird. But I was glad I did it.

This session, though, I was a tiny bit worried. She had put so much effort into preparing something and I was afraid her heart would be broken.

Maddie’s current obsession (and I do not use that term lightly) is a video game called Assassin’s Creed. I don’t play video games at all, but I have seen enough of this game to understand its appeal. It takes place in various historical periods, and the visuals and costumes (HELLO COSTUMES!) are magnificent. She and my husband have declared Assassin’s Creed “their” game recently, and that’s how they connect. And his big gift to her this Christmas was an elaborate costume of the hero from the middle ages.

A few months ago, Maddie had an idea for camp. (Hey, thinking ahead!) Each cabin is charged with naming itself and creating a cheer. This is a creative bunch, given that it’s a performing and visual arts camp, so they always come up with something inspired. And inspired Maddie was. She wanted to name her cabin after one group in the video game and hope that the cabin of one of her guy friends would be their foe. In preparation, she bought 20 tee shirts, 10 black and 10 white. She made out of paper and duct tape (surprise!) emblems matching the groups and attached them with velcro. She made two incredible flags as well, again with the duct tape.

It was great to watch her pour her passion and creativity and time and effort into a project. I had nothing to do with it other than the requisite trip to Party City to get supplies. But all the while in the back of my head, I kept thinking this might not go as she planned. I didn’t want to dampen her spirits, but I also felt the need to prepare her for the possibility that the other kids aren’t so enthusiastic about Assassin’s Creed.

“I just don’t want it to ruin your camp experience if the kids don’t go for it,” I said. It hurt my heart to say it, but it was necessary.

“It won’t,” she replied. “I’ve gotten better at that.”

Well, indeed she has. And her self-awareness was startling and a bit of a relief.

All week I kept wondering how it was going. Perhaps her preparation would have been met with such appreciation that people would feel obligated to participate Or maybe there’s a whole teen cult of Assassin’s Creed among the drama set that I don’t know about.

Yesterday she arrived across the bay on the camp’s bus. When I drove up to retrieve her, she was already off the bus and waved me down. She looked great. Relatively clean, in her nice warm coat, hair in a pony tail, happy and relaxed.

After we threw our arms around each other for a long hug, a young lady introduced herself to me. “I’m Otter, Maddie’s counselor.” (All the counselors have nicknames, like Awkward and Sparkle and Tiny.) “We had a great week!” she said.

“Well, Maddie LIVES for camp,” I said.

“We know!” she said. Of course they know!

“She did a lot of preparation,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Yes, she did!” said Otter.

I turned to Maddie. “How did it go?”

“Well, it didn’t go like I expected. It turned out even better!”

I had been so afraid to ask her about the Assassin’s Creed thing, thinking perhaps if it had been a huge disappointment, that might not be her most desired topic of conversation. But now I had the opening to ask.

And this is how it went: The kids didn’t want to adopt her cabin themes. I didn’t ask for the details because it didn’t seem to matter. But what did matter is what came next. Instead of feeling rejected and disappointed, she decided to put all of her work to use in a different manner: She approached the camp director and suggested some LARPing (live action role playing). LARPing does involve costumes but it mostly involves particular types of battles and games. So she helped organize the whole thing and they rounded up pool noodles for weapons. There was a huge themed battle with those tee shirts and a big game of capture the flag with those great flags she made, and she got to not only enjoy all the fun but experience the rewards of her flexibility, creativity and leadership. I believe she felt positively heroic at that point. Apparently the LARPing was a huge success, and they all had Maddie to thank.

So she will begin preparing for next summer’s sessions. We’ll wash the shirts and she’ll make some more (a few kids kept theirs). And I suspect she’ll have some other ideas, as well, to help enhance the LARPing experience.

These moments are the glimmers—no, flashes!—of hope for the future. I don’t know what exactly Maddie will do, but what I do know is this: She is passionate and creative and flexible and she’s growing up and changing in all the best ways.

Finding My Voice

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Recently I wrote about what’s been keeping me from writing. A few personal distractions have factored in to be sure.

Now I have realized there has been another big distraction from my Asperger’s parenting blog. And that is the current election.

I won’t go into my opinions here. Suffice it to say they are strong. They are burning. They are becoming increasingly consuming of my mental energy. I have always had opinions about these things. I have some very firm beliefs, which have developed over the years as I have grown and matured and become more open-minded and more worldly. I would say they are mostly fully formed.

But like many of us, I have refrained from engaging in discourse about those taboo subjects: religion and politics. I think money is one too. I still don’t really want to discuss religion. That’s personal. Another person’s religious beliefs are their own. I respect them and value our differences. I am certainly curious to learn about various religions, but I don’t feel the need to convince anybody one way or the other or to be converted, either. And money is just not that interesting to discuss.

But politics has become something else for me all of a sudden. I am so fired up I feel like I might explode. And guess what? Sometime over the last year, I have found my voice. Partly it’s probably due to my age. I turned 49 last month. I still feel 25. I’m still goofy and silly and jokey and dancey and sing-y and face-makey and all that good stuff. One of my purposes in life is to have fun with my people. I want us all to enjoy ourselves. I put a lot of myself into that mission on a daily basis, particularly with my family. We dance with the dogs, and say “That’s what she said” as often as possible. I crack myself up, to be honest. Seriously, I am HI.LAR.I.OUS.

But this 49 thing has given me something very powerful. Maybe it’s courage. Maybe it’s kind of the old-lady-who-doesn’t-care-what-anybody-thinks attitude, even though I don’t exactly feel old. Maybe those are one in the same.

Or maybe writing 100 blog posts about my life, letting down my guard to expose my fears and failures and weaknesses and hopes, has given me the courage to speak my mind about other things.

Or maybe it’s because things are falling into place with my kids, which have been the consuming force in my life.  I’m learning to accept the challenges of my 16-year-old daughter, and my nearly 14-year-old son is becoming more independent. So I have this freed up energy, energy that is searching for a purpose. And I’m finding that purpose.

Whatever precipitated this development, here it is. I have found my voice. And I really do mean found. I have had this voice my whole life, but I’ve kept it quiet. I’ve been polite and diplomatic and quiet. I have sat around a table full of people who shared a singular viewpoint while I most vehemently but also silently disagreed. I didn’t want to stir up trouble. Oh, the fire burned in me, but my desire to be polite and maybe, I hate to admit, to be liked, has suppressed my voice.

I wish I had found it sooner. It seems like I wasted so much time being afraid to speak up. I was a painfully shy child, fearful of adults in general, even the lady at the Taco Bell window waiting to take my order. Or my neighbor’s grandma, who insisted she pull that sort-of loose tooth out of my five-year-old mouth. I was too timid and shy to stop her. Or my teachers, who just might call on me to speak. Even though I knew the answer or had something important or meaningful or even brilliant to say, the fear of having to open my mouth and expose myself was overwhelming. So first, I had to overcome my shyness, and that has been a lifelong journey.

But there is a lot of room between not being shy and being bold. I think I just figured that out.

So now, finally, as 50 looms, I have decided it’s time to be bold and use my voice for good. Do I still want people to like me? Well, sure, I suppose everybody does. But I want to be liked for what’s truly inside, and that’s coming out, people! It’s coming out! 

I want my kids to see me this way. I want them to see a fearless woman who speaks her mind, who stands by what she believes in. A person with a passion and a voice and the courage of her convictions. A person whose words can make a difference. Because words are my medium.

This particular blog will continue to focus mostly on parenting. No politics here, unless they involve autism or special needs or kids. I have decided, after 100 entries, that this blog is really about my journey as a mother more than Maddie’s journey as a teen, and this newfound courage is part of that journey. It’s my coming out, as they say. My declaration of strength and power and intention. My declaration of purpose. And it feels good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the Horse

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

It’s been several months since I’ve written. I’m not completely certain why I’ve had such a dry spell. Certainly life has continued to provide challenges, failures, successes, more questions–with or without answers–and even some adventure.

I have my suspicions, though.

This blog has been primarily about raising Maddie. And in the last several months, although she has provided many an interesting moment, there have been some other serious issues on my mind, and I didn’t want to necessarily write about them.

One is my health. I’m one of those people who always has an issue. Or two. Or three. It’s my back. And migraines. And terrible allergies. And unexplained and ongoing gut issues. And my ankles are messed up. And I have an allergy-related sleep apnea that makes me so tired all the time. I might sleep for ten hours and still feel exhausted all day. It sucks. I’m slowly trying to address all of those things, but I’ve found it hard to say, stick to a Pilates schedule when my stomach hurts so bad all the time. I’m finally figuring that one out, so maybe it’s time for those Pilates classes again. And yes, I have to do something like Pilates where I’m less likely to aggravate my ankle or back or hip or whatever. I have one of those bodies.

Second is my marriage. It’s a struggle sometimes. Statistics show a greater risk of divorce among couples with special needs children. Boy, ain’t that the truth. As if being parents isn’t hard enough, you throw in some extra challenges that nobody’s really equipped to deal with, and you’re rolling the dice.

Third is the other kid. Our son. He’s almost 14. He’s such a cool human being. I’ve been challenged with two completely opposite children, so parenting each one is an adventure, to put it nicely. H is intelligent, thoughtful, philosophical, and deep. Sounds awesome, right? Well, those qualities are admirable and desirable and all that good stuff, but parenting a kid like that is hard. He can argue you into a corner, for one thing. And he never ever gives up. While I admire his persistence, sometimes it’s just exhausting. More on him later, though.

Also my parents. I love my mom and dad. They live about 45 minutes from us. I wish they were closer. So I could help them. On the other hand, they’re not super great at accepting help (like mother, like daughter, I’m afraid). My dad has suffered from debilitating depression and anxiety for many years. My therapist thinks he’s agoraphobic, among other things. The word “bipolar” has reared its ugly head of late. I suspect he has some PTSD from a few episodes from his younger life. Whatever the diagnosis, and whatever the cause, he is severely disabled. He rarely leaves the house. It’s too stressful. Just riding in the car is often more than he can bear. He hasn’t driven for years even though he is only just turning 70. So I worry about my dad. But even more so, I worry for my mom. She is a doer. A worker. A creator. She likes to make things, so for several years she has been sewing items to sell at a local consignment store. Or two. Or three. She also refinishes furniture and makes things like framed chalkboards for kids’ rooms. She cooks up a storm, too. She recently completely re-landscaped their front yard so it’s more drought-friendly. She likes to be industrious. She has also spent her life without a lot of extra money, so when something needs doing, she does it, for the most part, rather than paying somebody else to do it. Every once in awhile, there is something beyond her scope (particularly since becoming permanently partially disabled some years ago because of chronic wrist pain in both arms) and she’ll have to hire somebody. But her go-to is “just do it.” How do a person who can’t do anything and a person who only wants to do things live together? Guess what? The doer, my mom, adjusts her life to suit the other. There is a lot of going nowhere. Particularly because Mom worries about what might happen when she’s gone. Dad’s just not reliably level-headed anymore. I want to help them so desperately, but it seems to be out of my hands. I want my dad to be well and, even if he can’t be well, I want my mom to have a life.

So I’ve been distracted, I guess. And I haven’t felt compelled, or maybe just comfortable, putting all this in writing. I don’t want to “expose” anyone. I also don’t want to make this blog a tribute to all my problems, and most of all I think some of this stuff is kind of private. At least the other parties involved might think so.

And then there’s Maddie. She’s still exactly Maddie. She’s at camp right now, the camp she absolutely lives for the rest of the year. When we were anticipating a New York-London trip we took last month, I asked her if she was excited. “Meh,” she said. “CAMP!” That pretty much sums up her experience of our trip (another blog or two will cover that). She just wanted to get it over with and go to camp. So right now I can rest easy knowing she’s in her happy place. She’s probably filthy and she probably has terrible B.O., but it’s out of my hands, and isn’t that a beautiful thing!

And before that, of course, the infamous school year (the actual “Year of Living Hopefully”) came to a close. More on that in another entry, too.

So today I’m back. I remember now that I can write and I like to write and I have something to say. A lot of somethings to say.

The story continues.

Another Spectrum

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Spectrum:

1. A band of colors, as seen in a rainbow, produced by separation of the components of light by their different degrees of refraction according to wavelength.

2. Used to classify something, or suggest that it can be classified, in terms of its position on a scale between two extreme or opposite points.

How I felt the true meaning of that word this last week!

One moment I was holding Maddie’s hand while she struggled to tolerate the miserable sensation of “buzzing” in her face, begging me to somehow help her. In another moment I engaged in conversation with Maddie and her cousin about how one of them wished she knew herself better and the other had learned in the last couple of years how to feel more comfortable presenting her true self. From helpless young child to self-aware, philosophical teenager all in the matter of a weekend. A spectrum, indeed!

Yesterday I drove about an hour to have Easter with my parents. Maddie had spent the night with my sister who lives near my parents, so we all met for a casual afternoon celebration including lunch and multiple eggs hunts. And, as is always the case when my niece is involved, board games. We struggled through a few rounds of Apples to Apples (if you don’t have it, get it!) because we just couldn’t stay on topic for some reason. Suddenly, Maddie announced, holding her belly, “Ugh. My stomach hurts.”

“Do you need to lie down?” I asked.

Much to my surprise, she nodded quietly and started heading toward the nearest bedroom.

“Do you need anything?” I called.

She nodded. And pointed. At me. Of course. Just like last week, when she wasn’t feeling well, she just wanted her mom.

Hey, I get it. I’m 48 years old and it wasn’t so long ago that I felt like the one person who could take care of me was my own mom.

When Maddie was born my mom came to live with us for the first week. When I was eight months pregnant with my son, and Maddie had just turned two, I had complications that made it very difficult for me to get around, so Mom stayed with us for the entire last month of my pregnancy. She did everything. She cooked and cleaned and dug up stumps in our backyard and cleaned the tops of our kitchen cabinets. She did laundry and took care of Maddie. I was so grateful to have her there.

And then, after both visits, she unceremoniously began to pack up to go home. She had certainly done so much more than I ever could have imagined. But I wasn’t quite ready to be without her, even though I was 33 and 35, and so I cried. The first time, when suddenly there I was with a newborn baby and a lot of raging hormones, I was scared. How would Jake and I manage this new life? The second time, when my son was born, I was certainly more ready, but after a number of complications (including a systemic rash and a rib cracked during my c-section) I was still pretty miserable. Maybe I was scared. Now I had TWO babies. If I thought one was challenging, how on earth would I manage two? And post-c-section with my still-cracked rib and a rash that was getting worse before it got better.

And so I cried. With Maddie I cried for two days. With my son, it was brief, but I still cried. I still wanted my mom.

And here was Maddie feeling sick to her stomach, wanting her mom. But now she wanted me for something I really couldn’t help. I finally talked her into going into the bathroom, where I thought her problems might eventually be solved. She sat there, suffering with cramping intestines, reaching out for my hand. Again. “Help me,” she begged.

“Well, I can’t really help you with this.” She’s nearly 16. I really can’t help her in the bathroom. Nor do I necessarily want to.

“Uh, I’ll sit out here and you can leave the door open,” I offered. We were in my parents’ room, so I could just close the bedroom door and we could have privacy. I sat on the couch, looking at the spines of my mom’s books for something to read. I didn’t have my reading glasses nor was there anything I was particularly interested in. (I eventually picked up a book and handed it to Maddie. Painted Crafts. The operative word: crafts. Maddie loves them. I’m allergic to them.) So I just sat and sat and waited. And tried not to listen or breathe through my nose.

“OOOOOH, help me, Mom!” she cried again. She must have had food poisoning. She was in pain and sweating and uncertain of how long this feeling was going to last.

I sighed, “Maddie!” I’m sure I was exasperated by this point. “There’s really nothing I can do for you.” Deep breaths. Of course my heart went out to my suffering child, but I was also feeling exhausted from the demands upon me over the last several days.

Eventually she was alright and we were able to make the hour drive home.

But I couldn’t help but notice how sometimes Maddie is very fifteen, and sometimes she’s very four. Teenager-y and toddler-y. And there is not a lot of in between.

And this morning there was a lot of teenager-iness.

Mondays are always hard for Maddie. Mondays are hard for most people, I suspect, and I tell her that all the time. Everybody is tired! Even your teachers! But they get up anyway!

Despite her promise that a sleepover on Saturday wouldn’t negatively impact her school week, she was unmoved this morning. I tried all the usual tricks, and eventually I managed to get her up. I wasn’t sure how I did that although some threats were involved, as was a little bit of yelling and even some counting (toddler-iness!). I had taken her electronics out of her room and promised to return them once she got up. I even let her wear the shirt and pants she slept in (just add some deodorant, please), so all she had to do was put on her socks and sneakers, grab and hat and glove, throw her backpack over her shoulder and head up the stairs.

I took the dogs and her French toast wrapped in a napkin and headed to the door. Maddie asked, “Where’s my phone?”

“In my purse. You can have it in the car.”

Shortly after getting the dogs into the backseat and settling in myself, Maddie appeared with her backpack. I looked at the clock. 7:35. We might be on time today! I thought cheerfully. It was a stressful morning but not only we were on our way to school, for once she might not be late.

Maddie opened the door, threw her backpack in, sat down, and reached for my purse. I buckled my seatbelt. And then…

She grabbed her phone and got back out of the car.

Are. You. Kidding. Me.

She did all of that in order to get her phone without having any intention of going to school. It was all a big ruse. Or at least it became a ruse. I suspect the more insistent I had gotten about school, and the fact that I had removed her phone, had somehow inspired her to dig in her heels. She was going to win this. 

I hopped out of the car but there was clearly no way for me to win this, if winning meant getting her phone back. Even if I had tried, I’m not strong enough (or willful enough) to physically extract the phone from that grip of hers. I could stand in front of her all day, keeping her in the driveway, I guess, but that’s just ridiculous.

“If you don’t get back in the car or give me your phone,” I said sternly, “when I do get my hands on that phone, you’re losing it for a month.”

“You don’t mean that,” she challenged.

“Oh I certainly do.”

Unfortunately that month includes a trip to Mexico. Oh crap. What have I done?

Seriously. What. Have. I. Done.

I fell into the trap again. She was so determined to keep her phone that even if I had promised to destroy it during the night, she wouldn’t have done anything differently. I could take away her allowance for a year. I could even take away sleepovers for a year, and she absolutely lives for sleepovers with her cousin. I could have done any and all of those things and she would have stuck to her guns because in a moment like that, her “guns” are the only things that matter.

Actually, now that I think about it, this morning’s behavior seem both toddler-y and teenager-y. Rebellious like a teenager. Unable to anticipate the future like a toddler. Stubborn like Maddie.

I guess ultimately that’s who I’m dealing with. Not an age or a phase, but just a Maddie. She’s complicated and confusing and maddening and surprising. She is a whole spectrum unto herself! And it’s very challenging.

Some people might be grateful for the challenge. Or at least they might think they would be. I’m not grateful–at least not today. It’s damn hard. Today I feel like I’m losing my mind.

But I do accept it. That’s a gift, I suppose, of having a special needs child. You learn a whole lot of acceptance. You learn to see a person for her whole self, and you love and accept all those parts. You embrace every color of the rainbow and learn to see all the colors in between.

And somehow you just keep going. You get up every day hoping for a pretty indigo or gold but knowing today might be kind of a muddy brown or a swamp green. And today the spectrum wasn’t pretty. But maybe tomorrow will be that soothing, beautiful blue or something even better.

Finding Peace in Acceptance

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Dear readers, you may have noticed I haven’t blogged in a few weeks. I have had occasional dry spells when I’ve started a bunch of posts but couldn’t seem to develop them properly. Or maybe I’ve been busy. Or tired. Or maybe I just couldn’t write one more “I couldn’t get Maddie to school” story. How boring it would be if my blog were a daily account of Maddie’s attendance, which is predictably unpredictable if that makes any sense.

A few days ago I started thinking about my blog, and I realized what my “roadblock” has been. The reason I put quotes around “roadblock” is because that word tends to indicate something negative, something in the way of a goal. In this case, though, I think the “roadblock” has been my attitude of acceptance. I have spent so much less energy swimming upstream. I just hopped on board the raft for the ride, I guess. The ride might be tranquil and relaxing, predictably smooth. Or I might hit some Class 3 rapids, which require a bit of attention if you want to stay on the raft. Or maybe a Class 5 comes into focus, and I have to hold on for dear life despite the fear and lack of control over the outcome.

I went whitewater rafting some years ago, and, not being an especially strong swimmer, my approach was to spend the ride leaning slightly toward the middle of the raft. That way, if I lost my balance, I would (I hoped) fall into the safety of the raft, not the wildness of the river. It worked that time. Maybe that’s what I’m doing now. I didn’t fight the waters; I just tried to manage what was coming my way in the best way possible, accepting that the unknown might be around the corner.

Having a thirteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, I see an awful lot of orthodontic work among their peers. Braces have come and gone over the years. Many kids are on their second round. Some have even completed that.

Maddie could use braces. Her jaw is slightly off center, and although her teeth are generally straight, her canines have come in slightly above of the rest of her teeth. Braces would straighten her jaw and give her adorable face a dynamite smile. But something has been holding me back.

A couple of years ago we visited a holistic dentist for this purpose. Instead of traditional braces, the protocol involves a series of appliances that you wear on your teeth that slowly move your teeth into place. The appeal is in the outcome, which would theoretically help breathing by moving the teeth outward for a wider smile rather than inward as has been somewhat more traditional (or so I am told). I absolutely loved the idea, but I was skeptical about Maddie’s ability to manage something that was, realistically, optional. And I was right. Two years later the first appliance still sits in her nightstand, barely used. I guess I gave up. She just couldn’t manage it, and neither could I. A long and uncomfortable process that involved compliance, for an outcome Maddie didn’t even care about, was ill-advised, but I had paid the $4,000 anyway. A poor choice in every aspect.

And yet I’ve felt guilty about my failure to take care of Maddie’s smile, as if I have failed her in a measurable way. Everybody else is out there getting their perfect smiles, and every time I thought of even meeting with an orthodontist, something stopped me. After Maddie’s most recent trip to the dentist, I was determined to move ahead, but this time with braces because once they’re installed, they’re not going anywhere until the job is done. But the “call orthodontist” item on my to-do list remained untouched as the days went by. I couldn’t even make the phone call.

And then my niece Rachel, who is living with us, said something magical. She described how painful and miserable having braces was for her. I never had any orthodontics, so what did I know? I see other kids struggling on days when their braces are adjusted, but I didn’t realize how painful it could be. Nor did I realize how much tedious care was required, like frequent tooth-brushing and flossing above the braces. As I pondered the unlikelihood of braces being a successful endeavor anytime soon, Rachel said, “Maybe she’s not ready.”

YES! Maybe she isn’t ready. Maybe not now. Suddenly a weight was lifted that I hadn’t fully realized was there. She’s not ready. She’s not ready and that’s okay. She doesn’t have to be ready now. At all. Even if she’s not ever ready, so what?

And so I let it go. Perhaps in a few years we can make it happen, but the truth is it might never be worth the suffering. Maddie certainly doesn’t care if she has a perfect smile. I hope she doesn’t end up with jaw problems, but if she does, we can help her then.

Those words have sunk in and settled in my brain. Maddie isn’t ready. Maybe she’s not ready for full-time school. Maybe she’s not ready to handle homework. Maybe she’s not ready for a lot of things. And what’s wrong with that? What is the hurry, after all?

I have long realized the interesting dichotomy that resides in my daughter. She is at once 15 (“He’s hot!”) and four (“I need help shampooing!”). Right now she’s in her onesie cat pajamas, lounging in her cave-like room, playing Minecraft. I’m not sure which parts of that are four and which parts are 15, but it doesn’t matter. She’s just Maddie.

And–at least for the moment–I’m okay with that. I am trying to meet Maddie where she is. And for now it’s working. Of course it’s day eight of a nine-day vacation, during which I have required virtually nothing from Maddie, so perhaps I’m in denial. Come Monday morning, who knows how I feel?

I just take it as it comes, and there is certainly some peace in that.

Stars Wars Part 1

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Sunday night I had a great idea. Or so I thought.

We had decided to see Star Wars as a family, along with my niece and her boyfriend, Friday afternoon. Opening day. That means picking Maddie up from school after her last final and grabbing her brother a couple hours early. And here was my brilliant idea: I told the kids they had to go to school every day this week in order for this to happen.

Maddie’s surprising response: “I have to go to school. I have finals.” She has to do something? Well, that’s new.

This baby’s in the bag, I thought. I bought tickets for us all. Everyone is going to school, and everyone is going to the movie. This is going to be a good week, I thought.

Right now, Maddie’s still in bed. The cab has come and gone. I will drive her to school now, if she’ll just get up.

My son keeps trying to convince her to go. “Just go for a little while,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather go see Star Wars than stay home from school for one day?” “Oh, are you nervous about finals?” he is asking right now. “No? Just an old-fashioned stomachache, I guess,” he says. He’s really giving it his all. Despite years of what I would categorize as resentment towards her, he loves her. She is the biggest Star Wars fan in our family and now she might miss out. This could be tragic.

Last week I had a meeting with Maddie’s special ed teacher and the assistant principal. I had been trying to make things happen strictly via email with the teacher, Mr. L., but I haven’t been satisfied. Nothing beats face-to-face, so I called this meeting. I left there feeling very optimistic. Not necessarily optimistic about Maddie’s behavior changing, but optimistic about the school’s approach to handling her. Mr. S., the assistant principal, clearly understood the problem. He is going to be firm with her, but he also understands that many of the protocols applicable to truant kids aren’t appropriate for Maddie. This is part of her disability, and everybody at the table understood that.

Pause for a pointless drive to school

My son’s attempts to convince Maddie to go to school were effective. Sort of. Maddie had been crying at one point, a rare occurrence. When she cries, it means something. But somehow all of my son’s efforts had the desired effect.

“She’s up and even has her shoes on!” he announced proudly. There have been times in his thirteen years of life that he has driven me absolutely crazy, but there are times when he blows my mind with his insight, his thoughtfulness, his initiative, his kindness. This is one of those times. He really wants things to work out for everyone.

“Maybe you should bring Otter,” he suggested to Maddie once she had gotten up and dressed. Otter is a Beanie Baby who has been with us for the last 13 1/2 years. It has been a source of comfort since Maddie fell in love with it so many years ago on a trip to Carmel. I can’t believe we still have that thing. Maddie grabbed Otter, held it close, and walked upstairs. She was reluctant still, but she was moving in the right direction.

So I said goodbye to everyone, and Maddie and I set off for the 25-minute drive to school. We brought our puppy Banjo along for good measure. Puppy snuggles are always better than no puppy snuggles!

As we pulled into the drop-off zone, Maddie just sat there in her seat. Banjo was on her lap, and nobody was making a move. “I can’t do it,” she said sadly. Her stomach hurts too much, she had said. She did the best she could, she said. She had really tried. The tears welled up in her eyes again.

Well, now what do I do? I thought. I had tried to convince her to go to school for even a just part of the day. I would pick her up if she couldn’t do it. “Just go say hi to Mr. L.,” I had suggested. Her classroom was so close, but that didn’t matter. The distance from the car to the classroom was still too great for Maddie. This wasn’t happening.

And here I was again, having given a very clear reward offer for a very clear set of expectations, but still finding myself in the middle of a rather murky moment. Did this count as “going to school”? Have we already arrived at the no-Star Wars moment? That just didn’t feel right. She clearly wasn’t feeling well. She had done the best she could. But I didn’t know what to say, so I called my husband and explained the situation. I guess what I wanted was permission to give Maddie permission to go home. That was my inclination, but I am in a constant internal fight with myself about things like this. Another rational person sharing in decision was important. And my husband came through. “She did her best,” he said. Oh, thank goodness.

Thank goodness for two reasons: First, I really didn’t want to leave her out of the Star Wars viewing. When the first one came out in 1977, it was near my tenth birthday, and our parents took my sister and me out of school to go see it. I will never ever forget that day because of the movie itself and how special I felt getting to miss a little school to go see it. I had planned to take Maddie out early, too, but it turned out she was getting out early anyway. My son does get the special early pickup for the occasion–on pajama day, no less.

Secondly, it seems to me that when the carrot is no longer available so early in the game, there’s no point. If I say “you have to do this thing all week to get a reward,” and Maddie blows it on the first day, what in the world is going to motivate her the rest of the week? That’s a huge problem.

So my husband and I agreed to let her go home and still have a chance to see Star Wars Friday after school, and we turned around and came home. Nearly an hour trip for nothing. Well, I guess it was for something because Maddie got credit for going to school in a way.

Soon after I got home, I got an email from Mr. L., who wanted to know if Maddie was going to be at school. It turns out that the extra time she is allotted for test taking was front-loaded: she could start early in the week (i.e., today) and finish with the rest of the class. Well, now that’s out the window. He thought perhaps she had anxiety. My son had asked her about that as well, and she had denied any such thing, but I had to wonder. One of the defining aspects of autism is an inability–or diminished ability–to identify emotions. Maddie has always had difficulty with that although she’s made significant progress over the years. Still, it’s not uncommon for stress to result in stomach issues. And even I sometimes experience physical manifestations of stress before I can identify what’s going on in my mind. So the likelihood of that being the case with Maddie seemed high. After all, this is the first time she’s really had final exams. She’s most certainly feeling some pressure.

In fact yesterday she was given her history exam, and instead of making progress, she made a paper airplane. Yes, this is my child. I have the child who makes paper airplanes instead of taking a test. When I asked her about it, she said he had been bored. Bored. Hmm. I wonder if bored was really stressed.

So I asked her again this afternoon if she was nervous. “Maybe,” she admitted, probably just accepting the idea herself. I assured her that all she had to do was give it a good try, to do whatever her best work is, and that just doing it was more important than her grades. I also explained that she couldn’t make airplanes instead of doing her work. Even if she got an F on a final exam, I explained, maybe she’d get 50 points out of 100, which is so much better than a big fat zero. I think that made sense to her.

Maddie spent the day wearing her parka and hanging out in bed watching TV.  Mostly she looked sad and pitiful when I checked on her or brought her food. The only thing I required of her was a shower. She didn’t argue, fortunately, although there was bargaining, as usual. I shampooed her hair, the promise of which seems to be a big relief to her . We blasted music (“Fergilicious,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” etc.) and danced, she in the shower, I on the other side of the shower door. We danced and laughed and made funny faces. That put us both in a good mood, after a stressful day for, apparently, both of us.

“I have to go to school tomorrow,” she says now. I nod in agreement. Today I think she had talked herself out of that idea. Today wasn’t an official final exam day. But tomorrow is. I am optimistic at the moment. We shall see. We shall see.

 

Trip to Party City

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach1 Comment

Today I drove Maddie across the county to her current favorite store, Party City. I hate that store. I hate the Target/Costco shopping center in which it’s located. It’s a madhouse, particularly around the holidays. I don’t like driving up there–ever. I prefer to live my life as locally as possible, within a town or two. I never go to Trader Joe’s because it’s twelve minutes away. Target is 20. So forget it.

But I had promised Maddie I would take her there. It was part of the campaign to get her to join us for Thanksgiving. The following two days I didn’t feel well; plus it was Black Friday and whatever Saturday was, so there was no way I’d go anywhere near that massive retail development. That left today, Sunday. I promised her no matter how bad I was feeling I would take her. So I did.

We agreed we would leave around 1:00 p.m. She had some RPing (role playing) to do online in Minecraft before we went anywhere, and that was fine with me. Just a few minutes after 1:00, she appeared in my room, fully clothed with a hat on.

“Uh, you have to put regular pants on,” I said, referring to her baggy sweats. “And a bra. And you have to brush your hair.” She wasn’t thrilled.

“This is fine,” she insisted.

“Well, I want you to put pants on and a bra. You also smell a little bit.”

“That’s just my deodorant,” she said. “Trust me.”

So just as we all did with our babies’ diapered butts, I shoved my nose into her armpit to check the smell. “No, that’s straight up BO. You need to wash up and change your shirt.”

She informed me it didn’t matter, but for once I had the upper hand. “Well, that’s what you have to do if I’m taking you,” I said.

And, for once, she accepted her fate and turned around to take care of business.

Once she was dressed and ready to go (this time in shorts even though it was about 50 degrees today, what I call “California cold”), we hopped in the car. It was an easy drive, thankfully. And to my surprise, the shopping center parking lot wasn’t especially crowded, considering the day. At first I had planned to do other things while she shopped (Sephora is nearby, and I’d much rather try on lip gloss and eye shadow in that nice store than hang out in Party City), but I walked in with her and decided to stay for a bit. The store was nearly empty, as opposed to the day before Halloween, which was the last time we went, when the line inside went across the front and down an aisle all the way to the back of the store.

“What are you looking for?” I decided to ask. I came to wish I had asked her long before we left because although she had spent some time preparing, her “list” consisted of images of characters of which she wants to create costumes for herself. So each item she wanted still required a bit of consideration. Oh boy.

After about 30 minutes in the store, it occurred to me to ask, “So how many characters are you working on?”

She didn’t have an immediate answer for that question, but after thinking about it she answered, “Seven. Well really more. I have pictures of seven but I know there are a couple more. I just can’t remember what they are.”

Ugh. Not only did she want to shop for parts of costumes for SEVEN different characters, the items she needed were mostly not going to be readily available at Party City. If it had been before Halloween, we might have had a more of a chance to find whatever she wanted, but all the Halloween stuff was all put in boxes and the Christmas and New Year’s stuff was going up. The boxes crowded the back of the store where we were spending almost all of our time.

I tried to help her get through her sort-of list.

“What else do you need?”

“A yellow belt. And yellow boots…Hey maybe I could get this furry skirt and make it into a belt.”

I could see where this was going. One of Maddie’s greatest gifts is her resourcefulness. Another is her determination. But sometimes those combine to result in some ridiculous and unworkable solutions to problems. For example, making that furry skirt into a belt. It was $20, for one thing. And it would be a lot of unnecessary work for probably a pretty unsatisfactory if not absurd outcome. I talked her out of it. I assured her we could find something better. Furry leg warmers also seemed like a good idea for yellow boots. I shot her down gently. Sometimes I have to save her from herself.

This kind of thing went on for awhile. I helped her find a few things. I talked her out of a few. I also mentioned several times that their supply of of costume-related items would be limited right now, but that Amazon would probably have much more because its merchandise isn’t so seasonal. She understood that but really wanted to maximize her Party City experience. I preferred the idea of sitting comfortably at home, with more pleasant lighting, searching the internet. That just sounded so nice.

After an hour or so, I felt the bad florescent lighting doing its dark magic on my migraine-susceptible brain. Plus I was just tired of being in that store, looking at crap. I asked Maddie to please try to wrap it up, but she had a bit more shopping to do. Since she had brought her own money, I excused myself and said I’d be waiting outside.

After another 20 minutes of waiting outside, I had run out of patience. I needed to get out of there. So after looking around the entire store, I finally found her hunched over a box gleefully looking through whatever merchandise was in there.

Shortly before I had gone outside, she has spotted a couple swords in one of the dozens of boxes that were packed up and ready to leave the store in exchange for the seasonal stuff moving in. Apparently her discovery led her down a slippery slope. One box led to another box and another and another. The entire time I’d been outside, she was opening boxes and searching through them for who-knows-what. She sure was enjoying herself!

But I was just done. So I told her to wrap it up. It was time to go.

“No!” she exclaimed happily. “I need to look through more boxes!”

“Maddie, it’s time to go.” No response.

“Maddie.”

“Maddie!”

“Madeline!!!” I finally shouted. “We need to go NOW!” I found myself getting a little loud at this point. I didn’t want to, but she wasn’t hearing me and I was getting increasingly desperate to end this little excursion.

Fortunately Maddie got the message. I grabbed the Cart o’ Crap and pushed it quickly to the checkout counter at the front of the store. Maddie stood there and looked at the clerk. Finally she put one item on the counter, at which point she felt she needed to explain that item to the cashier. And then she just stood there, staring blankly.

A migraine was becoming almost inevitable. I had to get out of there. I grabbed all her stuff and shoved it onto the counter and told Maddie to get out her money. Thankfully the cashier was efficient and soon the transaction was over and we could leave.

I did it! I took Maddie to Party City and I lived to tell the tale! I didn’t even cry once! I didn’t end up with a migraine (close call!) and Maddie was happy with her various wigs, streamers, a yellow cape, and some other random crap (as Maddie would say).

 

I’m pretty sure my Mother of the Year award will arrive soon. I hope it’s made of chocolate. Or jewelry.

P.S. On our way home, traffic came to a stop. I was distressed. I knew it would be a bad day to travel, but I still didn’t expect that. As it turned out, though, holiday traffic wasn’t to blame. The delay was due to a terrible crash. As we passed the scene, I saw the cars that had been involved. One clearly had rolled once or twice. The other was demolished in the front. I had a bad feeling. There was a good chance at least somebody didn’t survive. I just learned I was right. One driver lost control, spun and became airborne. And she died. The other driver isn’t in good shape either.

So now, thinking about what I considered a difficult, stressful couple of hours seems but a trifle. So I had to go to a store I hate and stay longer than I wanted. So what? I have a cool, interesting kid who fully embraces her nerdiness. And she is happy and healthy and safe. All is well.