Hanging in....

I am hanging in there with fingertips grinding blood into the volcanic ash turned rock turned mesa. OOOOOH, my.

Shit has hit the fan. It splattered all over the walls and into the lighting fixtures. There have been blatant attempts to give my daughters an eating disorder. Obvious, in my face, using the phrase "I'll say what I want to say". Despite my husband and I asking my mother in law several times over the past year to stop trying to control, manipulate, guilt and shame our children into eating their food, our words have wafted into the wind. Deliberately and specifically making an issue out of the food they eat over and over.

Sadly, I just cannot cope in a passive aggressive world. I am unable to make those sly nasty comments the older generation is so prolific with. That way of insulting the crap out of you while smiling and using nicey-nice voice. Unfortunately, I am a direct and to the point sort of person. So I have been. Direct. To the point. It seems my skill for clarity is just not appreciated. I don't know why.

Anyway, there will be no further attempts to give my daughters any type of eating disorder. So far, since 3 days ago, it has held.

In other news, it has been cold here in New Mexico but pretty. The girls are doing fabulously. Some kids like Genea freak out when on a trip away from home. If there is a background of trauma, especially trauma in primary caretaker, the kids can really flip out when going to another house. Other houses in the past have resulted in new parents. Genea is the opposite. She flipped her lid before we left. Oooooh my. She held a refresher course for us in every single gross and obnoxious behavior she ever invented. It was nice to be reminded how far she has come. So, once on the plane to leave for our trip, here comes Uber Genea! The best, most calm and pleasant and helpful, well mannered, thoughtful, kind, quiet child you have ever met. I believe this is to ensure we do not leave her anywhere. Look how great I can be! Make sure you keep me! In fact, I have a backpack puppy leash for Teena and Genea made me go get her monkey pack leash out for the airport. I am serious, it is so cute. She is 6 for crying out loud! She can take it on and off herself! She hands me the leash every time it leaves my hands for whatever reason. I had expected to get some rude comments from people since she is obviously so big so I had a response all ready: "Listen lady/mister, you have NO idea what you are judging here" etc. curse, etc, but no one was rude! Several people said, what a great idea, and a few even asked politely where they could get them. Unreal! I could have used to go off on someone. Why does the world conspire against me?

Teena is of course fine. You could drop that child into the rain forest without shoes and she would manage. She would talk with the parrots and take a nap with the iguanas. I have said this before, I know, deal with me a minute. I am so proud of her confidence and independence. I love that she has always been safe and secure and is so capable and adventurous. Then, when she stays overnight at her grandparents house and we go to get her the next day, she barely flicks an eyeball to us before going back to her fascinating activity, without even saying hi. Little shit.

I went yarn shopping in Taos at http://www.lalanawools.com/ . Get a bucket out first for your drool so you don't short out your keyboard. Their website is a little janky, but if you can find it, check out their Forever Random colors. Then, go rob a bank so you can buy some. I blew my whole yarn budget so cannot go yarn shopping in Sante Fe. However, I did not tap into my handbag budget at all, nor my Liz Claiborne budget. Wheeeeeee! Going tomorrow to the fancy outlet stores. Although last year, Liz had clothes surely beat by the ugly stick so I am not going to get my sorry little hopes up. Cut price, seconds and returned items at Coach will more than make up for the sad Liz clothes.

This has been my first chance to get to the computer for some time. I have been reading blogs in my minutes of free time and keeping up with everyone by reader but have not been able to get into comments as my time is being sucked into a vortex from hell (yeah, no I have no idea what that means but it sounds really bad which is my point).

I'll be home in a few days. I have a LOT of great stories, one that includes Genea being so brave she decided she never needs to be brave again. She has done it. LOL!

Ding ding ding

Genea found out when we are going on our trip to New Mexico.



All my own fault. She and Teena were watching tv for 5 minutes so I could talk to my mom on the phone and I told my mom when we were leaving and I heard Genea hollering "Yay, we are going on Wednesday Teena, YAY!!!". So for the past several days we have been dodging the Molotov cocktails hurled at us with a lot of different emotions. However, now that we are at a point where Genea has a half second of control, the half second to think before the action takes place, now we can get in there in that half second and get down and funky with it.



At dinner the other night, here comes Genea to the table sporting Look #3 all over her beautiful face. Not the dissociated look, and not the incessant crying look (numbers 1 and 2). Number 3 is the half awake dopey regressed sort of look. Where her tongue hangs out of her open mouth and she looks like she might have just woken up, if that were true. Her eyes are dull and mildly vacant. She climbs into her seat and starts off- loading Crazy immediately.



"Ewwwww, I don't like thisssssssss". Sigh. Yes you do, you have had it 100 times but that's okay just don't eat it then.
Genea 0
Mama 1

(for the record, she ate it)



Interrupts thru dinner, pouts when reminded. Chews with mouth open etc. Drinks out of her cup and dribbles an entire mouthful of milk down her chin and onto her clothes as if she were vomiting. Why?

"It tastes spicy and I don't like it". No.

"I always do that at school". No.

" I was trying to get the milk into my bowl". Nice try Genea. Are you trying to make us mad? (NO!) Are you feeling nervous inside and so you are trying to make things nervous on the outside too? (NO!) Well, it won't work. We are not going to get mad at you.

Genea 0
Mama 2



Here comes Look #2, also known as Cry Face. Precludes all crying but does not necessarily lead to crying or meltdowns anymore. Shoots out the elevated frustration sound with scrunched down eyebrows and cramped up mouth, ehhhEHHHuu WAAAAH uuhERR ehhhhh! Continues with dinner.



*COUGH* choke HOOwah *GAG* Genea chokes on her milk and spurts it all over. Sigh. Genea, are you still trying to make us mad at you? Do you want us to yell at you? Because we are not going to do it. Sometimes you act like this when you feel nervous but everything is okay and we are not mad at you.

Genea 0
Mama 3

Cries.

GENEA. Are you serious? You are going to sit there and cry because no one will get mad at you??? Here, hold my hand. Come on, give my hand a hug. You will feel better. Come on, don't just leave my hand laying here looking all silly alone on the table!

Genea 0
Mama 4

Genea. Why are you crying. Tell me why.

Because I want to sit on your lap and I cahaaahaaaaan't.

Okay, we can fix that. I can move my chair back. Done.



Now, it rarely works out like this. In fact it warrants its own blog post and a scorecard because I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever really fought off The Crazy combined with an incoming Wango Tango and come out ahead. In our house, this was a massively successful but hard fought battle!!!!

Will it happen this way next time? I hope so. Is there a good chance Genea will expand on her repertoire and come up with new stuff? Oh yeah. Do I hope like hell that we will get the chance to divert it all? Oh YEAH! I know she was not crying because she wanted to sit on my lap the whole time. She is still a little girl and a lot of times she does not know why she is upset and will just think up something random to hang her feelings on. However, it is a huge sign of progress in my mind that she was able to express and ask for something that would help her to feel better!

In the past few days that she has known when our trip would be, she has also been back up on the toes. She has been sleeping a lot more. Last night she developed a rash on her back, neck to butt. And of all the dreaded, dreaded activities of stress, she pee'd on herself during the day. The first time that has happened in at least 5 months. Ever since Potty Boot Camp back in the spring, she has been dry as the desert on a hot windy summer day.

What's funny, funny odd, not funny haha, is that she has been otherwise delightful. Pleasant, nice, polite. Definitely fits of demanding and the usual incessant unending nonsense questions thrown in for reminders sake. (Mama? Is this the table you want me to clean? Mama? Should I use a towel to wipe this? Mama? Which towel? Mama? Do you want me to wipe up this pile of goo? Mama? Where should I put this garbage?). But generally cooperative and calm. Enjoyable and enjoying herself.

Less Crazy, more Genea. Woo Hoo!

In the Great Land of Undiagnosed Aspergers

We are here, with the in-laws.

And I have to give credit where it is due, the girls were absolutely great, both of them, with the travel. We left our house and took a cab to the airport. Then we flew to O'hare, had breakfast, and got on another plane. Then we took a bus to the car rental place and picked up our family minivan and drove a long way to our hotel. Except for refusing to sleep the entire time, the girls were wonderfully behaved. Through all the changes, and boring parts, they were great. It helped I think, that I put them both on those cutesy animal- backpack leads from Wal-mart. They kind of had no choice in the airports.

We had to wake up the girls early in the morning to make our flight. We had to wake them. I get a great pleasure out of that! Both kids are dreadfully early morning people and many a war has taken place over their morning behavior. Genea cannot stand to be alone and will go to extreme lengths to get someone to wake up with her. Now, mind you, she shares a room with Teena who is also a morning person. So she wakes up Teena if she is not already up then the two of them proceed to be pains in the butt and destroy the house if someone in charge does not get up with them to take names.

Never one to let an incidental learning opportunity pass by, I asked them all day how that felt. Was it fun to get up before you were ready? NO? Why not? Hmmm, how do you think other people feel when you wake them up.
So, was it fun when you had to get up early? Hmmm?

Where the in-laws live, is a place I like to call Aspergerburbia. It is a small town where everyone knows everyone and then some. There are a few places in the United States where the most scrambled of all the Egg-Heads gather and this is one. My fil is a nuclear physicist and mil teaches music here.

If you have ever heard of Tony Attwood, he is an expert in Aspergers Disorder, which can also be called high- functioning autism. He is a great researcher and educator, I have seen him speak. This quote is directly from his website to describe what makes an autistic person a person with Aspergers:

"The person usually has a strong desire to seek knowledge, truth and perfection with a different set of priorities than would be expected with other people. There is also a different perception of situations and sensory experiences. The overriding priority may be to solve a problem rather than satisfy the social or emotional needs of others."

When I went to his seminar in Milwaukee a few years ago, he started with a funny story. He said, he plays a little game of picking out the Aspie in a crowd, with ranking and points etc. Then he said, when he is with a group of scientists/ accountants/ engineers the challenge then becomes to pick out the person without Aspergers. It was really funny the way he told it anyway.

So to summarize, I am visiting with a pair of people who don't have 2 social skills to rub together to make a fire. And no one else here does either. And no one thinks anyone else is...off center. They live with their own kind here in what they call "academia".

Lest anyone think I am being mean, or making this up, or exaggerating I will give you an example. One mere hour into this visit, my fil brought up the future love making abilities of my daughters. Yes, yes he did. At dinner, the mil brought up her problem bladder infection, how she got it, and then discussed her subsequent yeast infection. At dinner.

But actually I enjoy brief visits with them. The mil is the type that scoots around telling you all day how she just wants to make everyone happy, which is code for I have to control every single facet and its possible outcomes or I will die. So, that can be fun. Did I mention the OCD yet? There are no strangers to pharmaceuticals here! So really, we fit right in.

There are a few things I want to do here. First, I must go yarn shopping. I must knit, knit, knit like the wind! Second, I must go to the Coach outlet and Liz Claiborne outlet. Third, I want to go to the church with the Holy Dirt.

I'm gonna assume the first 2 are self explanatory.

I am totally cranked up about the chance to take Genea to visit the Holy Dirt, and Teena too. There is a church where a miraculous event occurred a bazillion years ago. Water appeared as a stream or something, and then disappeared, leaving just the dirt. People who visit this spot have reported medical miracles, there are braces and crutches lining the walls with little stories about how people were healed. I am not trying to be disrespectful in my description, I just don't remember all the details, it has been more than 10 years. Anyway, I cannot wait to take Genea there. I am going to bring some dirt home too, just in case it doesn't take right away. And Teena, I think I will set her right into the hole (in the ground where the dirt is) and tell her to sprinkle it over herself. In the olden days when this was discovered people would eat the dirt, but I will save that for an emergency.