Love Always

To Calvin’s Angels (on the auspicious occasion of his graduation from at-home therapy this week...and kindergarten just breaths away...)

There's a word for someone who comes into your life, who comes into your home, right when your heart’s at its most broken, your mind all places at once, and nowhere.

You didn't see it coming, but you have this little guy, and at two and a half he's not speaking, and not pointing at things, and not looking most folks in the eye (except for mommy, the last one to notice, and don’t think for a second she won’t torture herself over that, time and again, for years upon end).

So this someone, she comes to the rescue (yours? his?), swoops into the house with her songs, with her puzzles, with bubbles, with toys...the awesomest, awesomest toys...

Elsewhere they say (through white coats and small minds and 15-minute appointment slots):

How discouraging, not making the progress we'd hoped. Well, I guess you could try these here drugs, or those ones, and assume it’s as good as it gets…Next…

But in my home it goes a different way, something more like:

Aha, ok, so I'll teach him like this, then like that…alright, now it’s time for this other way. (There’s always, ALWAYS another way, by the way.) We’ll all sit together, we’ll meet and brainstorm, and just see what he’ll do, where he’ll go, how he’ll learn.

So one day he spells his name (and your jaw hits the floor), and another day he knows the name of his town, and what month it is, and how old he is, and the days of the week, and he marches, and dances, and loves to play drums, and sings favorite songs.

One day he even comes right up to you, looks you straight in the eye and says, "I want waffles." (And you hold yourself back from toasting up every last waffle in the freezer for him…because somehow you have to make sure that he knows just how brilliant he is and how proud you are, unspeakably, unfathomably proud.)

Another day his big sister comes in for a hug, and instead of his usual push, he takes hold of her arms and wraps them around himself, grinning with glee. So that next she gets bolder and grabs hands for a game, and they spin and they squeal, and he’s looking right at her, and deep belly-laughing, and all you can do is sit back, watch, and breathe, eyes wet, face hurting from smiling.

So much of the world sees only the damage, and so many "friends" see only the damage. You see it there, written boldface in their eyes, so scary it is that it could have been them, so glad that it isn’t, so relieved they are that what’s happened to yours hasn’t happened to theirs.

But that's not what you read in the eyes of the one who's come into your life, who's come into your home. Her eyes hold a different story altogether, one that you recognize like some strange déjà vu, wonder why so familiar, then it hits you.

Her eyes look at him like your eyes look at him.

Melt-your-heart kind of tenderness shines out her eyes, just like you'd expect when she looks at her own, her own little love, waiting for her back home. She says with her eyes, and her smile, and her words,

What a mush, such a love, I could just eat him up! Here's my great Calvin tale of the day.

They each have their own private jokes with your boy, their own games, their own language, and you grow to love it, you love how this…this coven of enchantresses has entered your life to share this new world, to fathom its mysteries right there by your side.

It could be so lonely, scary as hell, unnavigable, chaos…but it’s not, not so much.

Not with such hands to hold on to.

Because little by little the glimmer that’s there, in and behind your little one's eyes, your little one's smile, grows brighter and brighter, and crisper, and lighter…until one day you realize, how dazzling!

Yes, there's a word for this one who comes into your life, who comes into your home, as little by little your heart begins stitching itself back together, your mind quiets down, the gifts this child brings coming sharper in focus, more known to you now.

Some call her a teacher. Of course that’s what she is. Me, I prefer angel. And family forever. And friend of my heart. The breath of fresh air that came through the front door, and the hope that blew right on through with her.

But whatever I call her, I’m grateful forever. All my love to you, ladies. Always.

Please Pass the Tylenol...

Do you know what sciatica is? I'll tell you what sciatica is. This is the official medical definition, I can assure you:

"sciatica (n): condition that causes unceasing, unrelenting, never ending (yeah, I'm being repetitive, wanna make somethin of it?) intractable pain at the top of one of your ass cheeks, pain that ricochets randomly all around all points south of your ass cheek, pain so maddening that you find yourself fantasizing about committing the most violent crimes you can think of just because you've run out of other distractions."

That, my friends, is motherf-ing sciatica.

To the ladies who've squeezed fully-formed humans out through your angry, angry lady parts, remember how you started screaming when it got to be too much even though you swore you weren't going to be like those wusses on TLC's A Baby Story because you thought yourself so much more highly evolved than those losers? Remember the moment right before you gave in and started screaming? That very moment is where I've been all week, a week that has included an 8-hour road trip across the entire breadth of our great state of New York.

I've had it, people.

How'd it happen? I don't frickin know but I have a guess. We were visiting relatives in the Buffalo area, the kids and I. Husband wasn't in town yet, still working and following a day later. I was sleeping on an air mattress per usual. No, now don't go blaming the air mattress, I love air mattresses, I love all kinds of mattresses, and couches, and chaises, and carpets with nice cushy naps...and I can sleep like a drunken homeless person on any of them in complete and utter bliss. But this particular time something unusual happened. (Yeah, get comfortable, grab your coffee...I'll wait for you.)

It was the wee small hours of the morning, and the whole wide world was fast asleep...all except my sweet boy Calvin. He was up. He'd been sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bed right next to me. I'd pulled the air mattress right up next to him just to keep him close by. We've done this tons of times. Never even think about the top bunk, never use it for anything but stacking up some clothes, wasn't even sure how you were supposed to get up there. Calvin decided to find out. I'm starting to figure out how he does it. It must be that he watches me sleep, waits for rapid eye movement so he knows I'm pretty well under, then makes his move. Carpe diem!!! And this, my dear friends, is a photo re-enactments of how I was awakened that morning:




Imagine my surprise! How many of you have been ripped out of a dead sleep quite that way? And what to my wondering eyes did appear but Calvin "Superfly Snuka" Stroh-Simon, belly flopped on top of me, giggling ecstatically, smiling his glorious billion watt smile into my face, my groggy shocked face, as if to say, "Was that not AWESOME, Momma? Shall we do it again?"

The good news is that there's been no evidence of internal injuries to my person. The not-as-good news is that later that day my neck and shoulders started to feel like I'd been smartly rear-ended at a stoplight by a monster truck. And by the next morning, the ass pain commenced, that condition whose official fancy pants name I defined for you above.

It's not all bad, really. If I'm standing up perfectly straight or lying down perfectly flat, it doesn't bother me much. But I had a little setback yesterday because, well, I've done horrible things in this or some other lifetime and karma is karma. I was taking Grace to her first day of summer rec camp, pulled up to the curb in front of the school, no hurries no worries, summertime and the living is easy...but as I'm a little compromised with the ass pain thing, I must not be lifting my feet up high enough when I do things like step up onto a curb.

And so, I face-planted.

It felt very slow motion, like I could feel as each part of me hit the pavement within the split second it took for me to bite the dust. So weird. And the inner dialog went, "left hand, palm down...smarts but probably not broken...right knee...hmmmm that's going to leave a mark...right shoulder...owie, even bigger mark...NOT THE FACE NOT THE FACE!!!!!"

Know what the hardest thing about the fall was? THE CONCRETE! Hahahahahaha!!!!! No, I jest, the hardest thing was having to limp into the elementary school with my child, me looking like I'd come from the wrong end of a street rumble or maybe caught some shrapnel on my way in from the parking lot. Teenager counselors looking at me like I must be the mother who eats vodka jello shots and OxyContin for breakfast. "We have a first-aid kit, ma'am" says one of the vibrant, fresh-faced, excrutiatingly young and beautiful staff members. She was only trying to help. So I refrained from beating on her even the littlest bit. I know, my self control is awe-inspiring.

That little incident was yesterday, and I'm much better now. I hurt all over and I have the oozing scabbed face of a meth addict...but I've been able to sit here long enough to write you this post without having to throw a lamp across the room.

But I'm going to stand up now, we're running low on lamps.

And I could use a snack...there's always room for Jello.

Sleeping Dangerously

I know he's not so much trying to kill me but...

Bad night sleep last night for Cal, which means for me too. But he mercifully drifted off into nappyland some time mid-morning, and he looked so comfy there on the couch that I decided to snuggle up with him, rather than just collapse where I stood.

I should tell you that I sleep very soundly. If someone is hurt or about to vomit, I snap upright like a dog when someone's blown one of those whistles that goes at a frequency only they can hear. Otherwise, so long as neither life nor limb is in jeopardy, forget it. Ask my husband, who wakes up if you look at him too hard (this got to be a fun game once I got the hang of it). He's threatened to steal my blood in the night so he can infuse himself whatever hormones I have that let me sleep like this.

Yes, it's a very nice ability to have, being able to sleep through armageddon and such (especially since I've heard it may be coming Saturday, everybody mark it down on your i-berry-droid-o-phones). But don't think I don't pay for it. Has it ever been said that no mother's nap goes unpunished? Or is that just how it looks from my neck of the woods?

Cal woke up first. That's why it got ugly. I don't know how long it was before I came to, but let's just say it was long enough. Have you ever seen footage of what bears do to a campsite? Or maybe there's been a time when a family of nearly-starved raccoons have visited your yard the night you put all your trash out for collection. Either scene, my friends, is a two-page glossy spread in Country Living compared to what happened in my home this morning.

It could have been worse. Because the lucky thing is, the boy decided to climb into the washing machine and turn it on. This is a potentially dangerous situation, particularly once agitation sets in, so my internal "somebody-may-need -a-bucket-or-an-ER-visit" siren went off so I could save the day. My first reaction: "What the...I didn't start a load of laundry yet today..." Second reaction, beeline between the couch and the laundry room leaving a cloud of dust like right after you hear the Road Runner go BEEP BEEP.

After the extraction of my 60-pound preschooler from the washer (not a high-efficiency machine, I might add) and my return to normal waking non-emergency consciousness, all I could do was stare, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as I scanned the disaster area.

The kitchen was ground zero. We have a lock on the refrigerator. HAHAHAHAHA on us. The first thing I noticed was the broken eggs. Unfortunately we'd just bought an 18-pack of those (a little later I'd start finding bits of shell that made it into the livingroom). String cheese everywhere like it's been sprayed out of a can on Halloween. All his pull-up diapers, that he for some reason loves to play with, arranged all over the floor like stepping stones. Extra-large economy-sized can of coffee, almost full...do I even have to say it? Don't make me say it. Oh, there were also the red grapes he loves so much. Well, perhaps in homage to his dad's new career in wine sales, or his mom's love of classic I Love Lucy episodes...yes, there was stomping. Stomping.

But hey, I'm a glass-half-full kinda gal, y'know? (Even as we speak, I'm sitting here with a glass half full of something, if ya know what I mean). The upside is that the kitchen is cleaner than it's been since before I made Christmas cookies. You could eat off the floors for probably five more minutes, because I'm sure any potentially remaining salmonella bacteria from the raw eggs is history. I may have had to search high and low for a mop...and heavy-duty germ killing cleaning solutions...but dammit, I found em, and waged war on the whole everloving mess.

Because that's what I do.

But I may never sleep again.

The Peril...Oh the Peril!

Ok, first grade? Seriously? Barely seven years old? Come on! I thought I had a little time before I had to deal with this.

There is a boy in Grace's class she calls her "boyfriend." She's crazy about the little...guy. I won't use his real name, let's just call him "Trollface," shall we? So, the story goes that during Rhombus Group (not sure what that means), Trollface made fun of Grace for working too slowly, and then called her "F-A-T." She spelled it out, not sure why, but maybe because Trollface's tone made it sound like a mean, hurtful word that shouldn't be uttered aloud, instead of just a plain old everyday adjective.

That's not even the worst part. Sorry, not even kidding. The worst part is the part that made her face crumple, which was when she told me that Trollface is treating another little girl like she's his girlfriend instead of Grace. (We'll call this other little girl "Skankette.")

I'll let this sink in while you take a moment to look at a few pictures.

I don't think I need to add anything. Ok, I will anyway. She's really so beautiful she makes your heart ache. It's not the pretty-little-girl package I'm talking about either, that's a slippery slope to navigate. What she's got, and what tends to come through in her photographs, is a light inside that shines out so that you can tell just looking at her picture that she's someone you want to be around. Yeah, I'm one of those mothers...but facts are facts and I'm just telling it like it is.

I found myself feeling relieved that she didn't get hung up on the F-A-T part. That she related it like it was just tangential--and to segue into telling me that another little boy (we'll call him "Lancelot") told the teacher what Trollface said. And when Trollface started whining over being tattled on, Lancelot reminded the group that "it's not tattling when someone is being a bully and saying something hurtful to another person." Three cheers and a loud "huzzah" for Lancelot, that's what I say.

First grade. I didn't even know what it was like to be called "F-A-T" until fifth grade when a boy (we'll call him "Doucheface") called me his "Fat Secretary" in front of the whole class, which broke out into thunderous laughter, applause, and all-around agreement. Through the hot humiliated rush that made my vision blur and constrict and my hearing get echoey, I remember people shouting out things like,"Yeah, she really IS fat!" and "Better stop getting that ice-cream in the lunchroom!" Isn't that just the sweetest thing? Adorable.

It appears I had become pre-pubescence chubby, something I hadn't noticed until that very moment...but from that moment on, for a very long time, I looked in the mirror and saw a hungry-hungry-hippo (with the biggest potamus you've ever seen), a thing unfit to share the planet with non-disgusting people unlike myself. And just to give you the abbreviated version of the ensuing Lifetime Movie that was my life, it was only a matter of time before I spiraled into the mother of all eating disorders that out-Karen-Carpentered Karen Carpenter. The only difference between us (I've even been told our singing voices are similar), was that she died. In the midst of my very own bulimia nightmare, she died. You might think I'd take it as a cautionary tale and a wake-up call, and I did. But it didn't matter, couldn't stop the insanity, all it meant was that I became more consciously terrified that every new day could easily be my last. Good times.

But somehow, I did NOT die. Imagine that! It's a fact that amazes and mystifies me to this very day. If the walls in Clara Dickson Hall, dorm room number 3517, and the Cornell University health center could talk, they'd have some pretty grim stories to tell. Dangling by a thread, various organs threatening to call it a day, all very dramatic. We'll blog more about that some other time, but suffice it to say that my non-therapy induced epiphany and recovery has been my own personal "nothing is impossible" story. And to be now walking around in a body that not only survived but has cooperated in ushering two of brightest lights on the planet...well, that's just the angels showing off. (Special thanks to that crew of mine...really can't say it enough...)

Ok, so enough about me, back to Grace's story. Yes, I felt some relief that being called fat didn't seem to faze her. But the other edge of the knife is what really seemed to really sting--how Trollface had chosen Skankette instead of her. To be his girlfriend. That and how she was being abused by the rest of Rhombus Group for working too slowly. That "hurry up" thing seems to be a theme in first grade, by the way--gotta move your asses kids, step up the tempo, time's a wastin. What I want to know is, where's the goddamn fire? Are they tracking down cancer cures and male pattern baldness remedies, or learning frickin "math facts" and "sight words"? Can somebody clear up for me why my seven-year-old child, kind and smart with nice manners, is stressed out at school because it takes her too long to write out her words and arithmetic problems...while at the same time it's emphasized that her printing should be neat? I was little Miss Brainiac in school, pre-k through my masters...but with this kind of pressure I would have needed a thermos full of vodka kool-ade just to get through till recess...which by the way my daughter sometimes misses, entirely or in part, because she needs to use recess time to finish her work.

Have I lost my everlovin' mind, or is there something amiss here?

Then on any given day she comes home from school, off the bus into my waiting arms, and proceeds to participate as we all turn cartwheels because her 5-year-old special-needs brother sat long enough at the table to eat an entire cookie and not try to escape to the couch so he could eat one half and bury the other. Or maybe he requested juice with words instead of throwing his cup at Mommy's head. Or did number 2 on the potty without getting it anywhere else. Maybe he even volunteered a hug, and really really meant it. And don't get me wrong, Grace applauds as loud as anyone else, she GETS why his triumphs are so meaningful, and she GETS that his rules are necessarily different from hers.

But still I have to hold her and wipe away her tears when he pushes her away one time too many as she's trying to connect with him, to play with him, to just be with him. And I don't even get to be the smart, wise old mother hubbard who says "there there" and explains all the whys and wherefores of this rejection. Y'think there's anything I can tell her she doesn't know already? Forget it. She knows. It just hurts, and makes her sad, so she cries.

Just like I do, sometimes.

But I won't leave you this way. Because y'all know how it goes. Sure, we're kind of blue and maudlin for a bit, then somebody does something like strip naked and pee against the windowpane (I won't tell you who, let your imagination take it from there), and before you know it we're all falling off the couch in hysterics, laughing til we can't breathe except to hiccup. And if Grace goes up to her brother, says "Hey Cal, gimmee a lipper," and puckers up, 9 times out of 10 he's all over it and all is right with the world.

And betcha there will come a day when the Trollfaces of the world will think twice before they hurt my baby girl's feelings and make her face do that crumply thing that makes me feel like I've just taken a stomach punch from Mike Tyson...because they'll have had a look at her "little" brother. Don't mess with The Calvinator, my friends. He'll tear you a new one.

I should know--I'm his trainer.

l

"C" is for Calvin, that's good enough for me!!!

Today is the first day of Advent 2010, and Calvin decided to mark the beginning of the season by giving me an early Christmas gift. I don't know how to present this to make it have the magical effect I want it to have, so I'll just go ahead and say it.

I found out today that my son knows how to spell his name.

My 4-year-old, who has autism and therefore doesn't have the easiest time getting out all that he knows and feels on the inside, has shown me, clear as day, that he can spell his God blessed name.

I'm still in wonderment, still processing this, but come along with me and I'll tell you how it went this morning.

At the end of his first 2-hour therapy session of the day, his teacher and I were debriefing as usual. But then she got kind of a "special" look in her eye, and it was like she was trying to find a way to tell me something, something really good, and wasn't sure how to put it out there. What she finally said was something like, "Has anybody pointed out that...I mean, it's really awesome...well, did you know Cal can spell his name?"

I kind of blinked at her like she'd asked me if I knew that Cal had learned how to split the atom.

She wondered aloud if he'd do it again. So I told her that while I totally take her word for it, I'd love to see it live and in person. I grabbed a pad and pen.

We sat down next to him on the couch where he'd retired with his trusty sippie cup. She started him off with the first letter, wrote it down, and said something like "Ok, Calvin, let's spell your name!"

"C!" he began, cheerfully.

Then, after a pause but unprompted, and with nothing but the first letter, "C," written down on the paper in front of him, he said...wait for it...

"A."

I started getting a little dizzy.

She wrote down the "A," then he said to us, all smiles, "L."

She wrote down the "L," and then he said, through a sip of juice and melt-your-heart grin, "V."

You see where this is going. And so on, with "I," and finally, "N."

I might add that he twinkled as he spelled his name. Because he did.

So...as his big sister, my big girl Grace, has become fond of saying, "What the...?"

Sure, I know the members of his wonder-team have all been working on the letters of his name. I know that we have some of those handy flashcards in his at-home classroom and on our bulletin board with his name printed on them. I know that we help him collect his other little cardboard thingee with his name on it when he gets to preschool. I know all this.

But holy shit, Calvin spelled his name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was I crying, you ask? I was too stunned, almost disoriented. His teacher left and I walked around in a literal daze for a while. Then I noticed my boy standing in front of the open refrigerator and trying to chew through the plastic wrapper on a piece of American cheese. Such a trooper. That snapped me out of it. I said to him, all apologetic, "So sorry baby, you really want that cheese, let me help you with that."

He giggled up at me and said through the giggle, "Yeah." A chortly little "Yeah," with undertones of "You silly Mommy, I love you so" written all over it, and then I was undone. Blubbering mess. And incidentally, I'm very lucky he didn't pick that moment to tell me that he would like a fully-loaded replica of Lightning McQueen for Christmas, because I would have sold all my superfluous organs on the spot, cleared out the garage, and put in a special order. Done deal.

When I'd pulled myself together and mopped myself up off the floor, I got to thinking those thoughts again--those thoughts that all of us who've gotten to know autism so intimately think day in and day out. Thoughts that go, "What else does he know...what else is locked up in there...what else...what else...what????

I mean, listen, I look into this beautiful boy's eyes every day, and every day I see brilliance shining back out at me. But it's not the kind of brilliance that can be marked on a score card or measured by a testing instrument or tabulated on a grid. It's a quality that has nothing to do with quantity. It's a language that sometimes sounds like unvisible pianos and violins...and tastes like your first M&Ms...and can smell like that time last summer I got caught in an out-of-the-blue rainstorm during a powerwalk. It takes on shapes like the snowflakes that were landing on my black coat one crystally morning over a decade ago when I was waiting for a train and was startled to see that they were shaped like...well, like snowflakes.

Know what I mean? I feel like you do.

And then, in the midst of all this mystery (which I pretend to be getting used to but you never do), he goes and does something like spell his name. With giggly glee, just like any time he finds a treasure like a hidden stash of toothbrushes to play with...or a fleshy belly to bury his face in...or someone who's willing to pick up his 50-plus pounds of everlovingness and spin him around like a planet.

I'm so bewildered.

But it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

He Had to See a Man About a Horse...

One thing I should probably never do (but I do it all the time anyway) is let myself keep dozing once Calvin wakes up in the morning. Because when he's left to his own devices, lots of things can happen. You've all heard about some of it here, particularly the times he's used the contents of his diaper to decorate the house (Poop-casso!).

He's got lots of other interests too. Some days he climbs up into the bathroom sinks in order to get into the cabinets way up high. He thinks he needs a shave, apparently, because that's where the disposable razors are, as high up as we can get them. Or if the mood strikes him, he might empty out a tube of hair gel or a bottle of hand lotion, that's always a real nice treat to wake up to.

Sometimes he just makes off with all the toothbrushes he can find or takes a footbath in the toilet and we get off easy, but you can't count on it.

So the morning in question, my eyes snapped open and my 6th, 7th, and 8th senses told me that the boy was up and ready for action. Better haul ass.

"Cal! Cal!!!! CAL!!!!" Room to room I go, mentally steeling myself for what could have happened in those 2 or 3 minutes I let myself go unconscious knowing full well he was up and around...bad mommy of special needs child, bad bad BAD!!!

But when I arrived in the master bathroom, what to my wondering eyes should appear but...wait for it, wait for it...

My son, sitting on the toilet bowl, pajama pants and diaper off, on the verge of doing the very thing you'd want him to do on the potty, and only on the potty. I'll let you fill in the blanks.

This means so many things. It means he had the urge and recognized what it was all about. It means he went with purpose into the bathroom for something other than a search and destroy mission. It means he had the cognitive wherewithal to take off all the clothes that needed to come off, right down to the diaper. And, maybe best of all, he knew to look at me with a little self-satisfied grin that said something exactly like, "Yeah, cool huh? I knew you'd be SO diggin this."

My reaction was exactly what you'd expect. I sat down on the floor next to him and cried, while I praised him to the moon and back about what a brilliant, beautiful, gorgeous, shining light of a genius he is. Grace came wandering in by and by, curious about what all the ruckus was about, and she got right into the thick of the celebration like I've come to expect of her. "WOW, Calvin! Yer doin it! Yer such a good boy, look how yer learnin! Mommy's eyes are just wet cuz she's happy, right Mommy?"

Right as rain, baby girl.

This latest experience has me thinking (there I go, thinking again). I get to experience pure, unbridled, unfettered, unencumbered joy without leaving my bathroom. I am so not kidding. I only say that I am so not kidding in order to be perfectly clear because I know I can be a little sarcastic, and I'm becoming increasingly aware as I continue to grow up that sometimes sarcasm has no place. Dorothy said it well just before she clicked those fabulous shoes together three times:

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I don't have to look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with."

I used to think that was a little wimpy of her. Come on, Dot, live a little! Your own backyard? In brown-and-white Kansas, seriously?!?!? What if Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn thought that way? Or what if Alice had said, so it's a talking white rabbit, big deal, ho hum, I think I'll just stay here with my boring sister and make my daisy chains and let someone else jump down that hole after him. What if Frodo had never left the shire, fer Chrissakes?!?! Horrendous!

Now I don't quite see it that way. Who gets to say which experiences are worth having and which ones aren't? Who gets to pick whose exploits are valid and whose are meaningless?

There are all kinds of adventures out here in wild and crazy real life, and all kinds of triumph, and all kinds of joy.

Here's to all of them.