Blowing my cover with a massive brag fest

Shhhhhhh.

There something that I think is really amazing about children. Fascinating and interesting. Crazy cool. But don't go telling anyone I said this because it could shatter my image into the gutter (how big headed am I to think I have an image anyone but me cares about- ah well).

I think it is so awesome that a person can teach them stuff and they learn it.

Not me mind you. See, I can't teach kids worth a damn. People always told me they thought I would be a great teacher. They were wrong, wrong wrong. I worked with Teena and Genea all summer on educational whoosie whatsie stuff and neither of them learned a thing. Nothing. At all. ! . If you account for all the time Teena spent either a. talking or b. trying to do it all her own way that pretty much explains it. Then Genea spent all of her time being a. oppositional and b. deliberately inattentive so she learned how to do those things with greater persistence, but that was just not what I was trying to accomplish. Not was I was hoping for.

My kids have learned far more from PBS and DVD's than they ever have from me. And that is just fine (I just wish I would have saved myself the effort. And time! And oh my shit the hassle!). Teena just sucks in information from everywhere around her. Like if you are wearing black and every cat hair for miles scurries up and gloms onto your clothes forever. She learns just by being in the general area of something new. We were out at a restaurant when she was almost 2, a time when we were still counting her age in months instead of years, and she started pointing at a sign on the wall and yelling out the letters. How could she do that? M! K! A! Now, when we are doing Genea's math flash cards, she sits and collects the finished ones and has the answers memorized. Today she made word flash cards for herself, for fun, before school.

Now Genea is in school and is like a detached vacuum hose- where it flops and flips around sucking up little things from the whole room. It is just amazing, stunning, what she is learning and retaining. The Husband and I were watching something on TV the other night and Genea started pointing out- there is the White House, there is the Court with all the judges, and there is the.... the..... let me think..... (imagine 4 minutes going by so I can spare you) finally she says, OH YEAH its the tin can. Tin Can? Yeah, the Lin Can. The Lin Can? OHHHH the Lincoln Memorial? Yes Mama, that's what I said! She is 6 years old. It is just amazing to me what she learns and comes home and can tell me about. The Liberty Bell! England! She can read entire books in a sitting. Her reading is so good she is actually a few weeks ahead of her class on word recognition-- CRAZY COOL!

Not all is pretty yellow roses. She struggles in math enormously (like me) and spends 1-2 hours getting math homework done, one sheet. She has been unable to pass her first addition time test, on zero's, because she freezes up either from the testing situation, or the pressure of the timer. But she knows her zero's, so I am ok with it. I don't care about testing. The rest will come and the teacher is trying different things to help her through. GET THIS- her teacher gave her an area to work when she is feeling distracted and Genea goes there on her own when she needs to focus!

Oh yeah, and they can both imitate Cantonese!
*snort tee hee*

Random icks

Here is a gross picture of my thumb. Everybody say ewwwww! I scraped a layer of skin off on the plastic edge of a laundry basket right there where the cuticle meets the end of the fingernail. IT FREAKING HURTS! AND ITS GROSS!

Notice my pretty nail polish. Nail polish will not stay on my nails, it just won't. I know there are all kinds of things you can put on to make the polish stay more than through one shower but frankly, the amount of work required is more than I am willing to do. Like the color? I don't usually do this but.... I am copying a celebrity. I saw Heidi Klum flicking around with a medium gray color nail polish on Project Runway and I thought it looked cool. It is really hard to look cool when you are *ahem* my age, and all the cool stuff is designed for people who are *ahem* other ages. You have two choices, you can do the "mom" look, or you can look as if you are trying not to do the "mom" look but everyone knows you are one anyway.

Anyhow, the nail polish did NOT make me look like Heidi Klum and I want a refund. Even my hair is still brown! My disgusting cuticles are still disgusting too. I know there are things I can do about it but I tried them and now I am out of time.

Bad news, Cousin Una-bitch is coming to my parents house for Thanksgiving. I just realized today that I have been spelling her name wrong all this time, "Uni-bitch". *sigh* I just don't have time for all these details! I saw on TMZ this morning that Levi Ricki Hollywood Johnston was being compared to the Unabomber and I was horrified to discover I have been writing it incorrectly all this time. Cousin Unabitch got her name from the Unabomber (well, she got her name from me but that is where I thought of it) as she is a horrible person who drops these vicious nasty insults on people out of nowhere and she does it for fun. She is the type who then coo's at you "oh, I forgot you are so sensitive, here come give me a hug" when what you want to give her is a nice big shove down the stairs. One of these days when no one is looking......

Here are my girls being WAY TOO CUTE. See, they are wearing their fairy princess butterfly wings and repairing something broken with their tools. Hee hee.

They have not been getting along well lately so this was great! I don't know what is up, they last about 2 minutes then start screaming and howling. No middle ground with either of them. I think they have been peeing on their corner of the toybox trying to establish power. (NOT really, for once I can say.... no they are not really peeing on stuff lol).

The end.

Boring stuff

Seriously, boring stuff coming ahead. I have been reading and researching and have found some things out that I did not know. So I am going to share what I found because I thought it was significant to my daughters' circumstances-- Genea that is, not The One I Gave Up Caffeine For.

Start throwing your eggs.....now.....! I have always found neurology interesting. When I was in the 7th grade, about 100 years ago, I did a report on Autism. It was facinating to me that a child could start out with no problems and develop, for no evident reason, a disorder so severe it could cut off speech, interactions and interest in the world, after he turned 2. When I worked in a group home, there was a middle aged man who was "non-verbal". He had seizures a lot, wore a helmet and did very little other than sit in a daze. As far as I know, his whole life had been that way. Anyway, like I said, he did not talk at all. Made very little noise even, no grunting, moaning, laughing, none of it. But when this man had a seizure, he could speak in clearly articulated, grammatically correct, full sentences. "I would like a hot dog now, please" things like that. Then you have the stroke. Our wonderful child psychiatrist who had a stroke a few months back has recovered greatly (in another state-- booooo)but has not regained everything. Example, he can count as well as anyone when it comes to numbers on just about anything. But he cannot count change. Coins. He cannot add them up. Okay, so like I said, throw eggs at me if this makes me an egghead because I do think it is so interesting!

So I ordered this book, "Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple"- - HA, that is really the title so you can see where I might be drawn to it! By Stephan Goldberg, M.D. Since I think most of Genea's problems are in her brain, it seemed like a good idea to understand more about it. I have read so much research and so many books about attachment, bipolar in children, adoption etc and the thousand different problems that can come fully equipped on the child of your choice, and I have a good understanding of the "what" of what goes wrong, and the "why", but nothing on the "where".

Moving right along here, I came across a section about nerve pathways in the spine to the brain and here is what I found that was interesting- there are different paths for different nerves. There are 3 nerves that travel and cross over into the brain at a specific spot together. Those 3 pathways handle the specific information that Genea struggles mightily with every day, and there they are, climbing the jungle gym together! They are the main sensory systems here:

Pain- temperature. Feeling too much pain, or not enough. Feeling too hot, too cold, or disproportionate to the actual climate. Like sweating when it is 60 degrees out. Genea doesn't feel it when she gets overheated from too much activity, she just keeps burning and burning until she is physically stopped (well not that much anymore but for sure used to be that way) Genea only gets cold in extreme temperatures. She does not feel pain unless she really knocks herself into something, hard.

Proprioceptive- stereogenesis. Feeling where your body is in space, such as you know where your wrist is without looking for it. Stereogenesis is being able to tell what something is only by touching it. Genea is extremely awkward, clumsy and clutzy and I have often thought she looks like she does not know where her body is compared to where the furniture is. I don't know about her stereogenesis, I keep forgetting to check on it.

Light touch. Obvious what that is, but I never knew it was routed to the brain separately from medium or strong touch, or that it is connected to the other two pathways above. Genea will flip inside out if you lightly pat her arm or gently tousle her hair. But she will melt in front of you if you rub lotion on her or firmly massage her legs for example. I guess people who are paralyzed can sometimes still feel light touch but not strong touch for this reason.

Okay, so these three all party together (trying to make it interesting) and then twist around right before they shoot into the brain from the thalamus to the cerebral cortex with each other on board. This is what struck me, that the 3 are connected, a team, at this crossover point. That Genea has significant issues in all 3 areas.

SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???
I have no idea. But it jumped out at me and screamed.
It fits.

Does anyone have any idea's? If you can see that I misunderstood or got it wrong, let me know that too puuuuh- lease. Maybe everyone already knew this but didn't tell me?

Do other kids have the same combined problems in this area? Can you have a problem with one of these pathways and not the others? It is like having a key without having a locked door. I don't know what I don't know and that is a lot. It just struck me when I was reading- these things are connected. This is a piece. I think.

Rebel... with cause

My phone rang the other day. I am not a big phone talker. I think I used up my lifetime allotment of phone enjoyment from 8th to 10th grade when I could genuinely spend 12 hours talking to my friends. About what? Boys I'm sure. And if I was talking to a boy, it was probably about other boys. Anyway, I didn't recognize the number and let it go, then picked up the message right away. I wasn't doing anything else. Just waiting for effing bleeping Barney to be over so my life could continue.



Turned out it was THE call. The first call from Genea's school. I couldn't believe it. My stomach actually started convulsing like there was a Turbie Twist in there. It was a man mumbling, all I heard was "school liaison officer" and "return this call" and I am thinking, what the hell grade school has a police officer stationed in it? Oh great, the answer is my kids grade school! Let me tell you, nothing scrapes the "adult" off you faster than a call from the school. Suddenly, I am a teenager back in high school and in trouble for something I most likely did.



My first reaction is, omg, what on earth could she have done??? Something really bad of course, or the teacher would have called. Or the principal. Running through my mental list of Genea's known offences and potentially illegal activity, all I can think of is she must have stolen something expensive. She could have hit someone, but quite frankly if she were driven to that extent, well, the recipient would have been deserving.



My hands are shaking, literally shaking, and not from too much coffee. I felt genuinely nervous making the call back, which I did right away. Here is what happened. The officer told me that Genea was driven around the building to be dropped off at her entrance door for the start of school. When asked, Genea reported it was her Daddy that drove around. Driving around the school is not permitted as established by all the huge freaking signs everywhere and oh yeah, the blockades. But the officer was nice about it, and said Genea's Daddy probably just did not notice all the flashing lights, signs and machine gun toting service personnel (no not really but it adds to the story, ya' know) and cement barricades.



There you have it. Our first, dreaded call from the school was about Genea's Daddy. Breaking the rules. His excuse was he was late. Yeah.

Too True Tues #8

Wow, there have been 8 of these now! I want to let everyone know that I got to read every one's posts last time, but because I was out of town and on an alien computer, may not have gotten the chance to comment. But they were all great- hilarious how many people said they would either buy a new house/ vacation home, or pay someone to clean the house they have LOL!

This week I have a funny story, so I am going to wrap TTT around it. The topic is... a funny or embarrassing story where your kids have been the funny and you were the embarrassed.

This story did not happen to me. *ahem* It happened to some poor woman at the airport when we were on our trip last week. We'll call her, Some Poor Woman and just abbreviate SPW. She had a small child with her, about 4 years old and I believe her name was Schmeena. Yes, that sounds right. Schmeena.

So I guess that SPW must have been trying to relax for a single solitary freaking second when her daughter probably noticed and piped up that she needed to GO POTTY NOW! Then I am guessing, her other daughter piped up and said ME TOO, because her older daughter ALWAYS has to go as soon as her sister has to go. SPW was (apparently) so hopped up on Starbucks that the last time she peed, she actually could feel more pee processing and on its way as she was eliminating the original pee. That is a lot of Starbucks but folks, SPW was desperate, tired, and wishing she had an illegal drug habit. So she dragged her weary ass up off the crummy, crusty airport furniture, where she just wanted to rest for a second, to take Schmeena to the crummy crusty airport potty.

(Actually, O'Hare has awesome potties with rotating automatic plastic seat covers and you never have to touch anything with your hands so I am not sure what SPW was so bitchy about).

Anyway, in the teeny potty room, SPW let her daughter Schmeena go first of course. SPW realized that she had another shot of Starbucks refunding and decided to go potty too. As SPW was positioning herself and Schmeena was supposed to be paying attention to her own clothes, everyone in the bathroom, in O'Hare airport, and quite possibly all of Chicago heard Schmeena exclaiming at the top of her very loud little voice....

"Look Mama!!!! You have HAIR on your BUTT!!!!"
I can hear that poor SPW hissing at her child "be quiet! please! be quiet" to which the child replied....
"Why Mama? You didn't know you had hair on your butt?"
That poor SPW began to beg..... "please Schmeena please, yes I know, we just don't need to talk about it right now" at which point Schmeena stage whispered...... "Does all big people have hair on their butts?"
I can only imagine SPW trying to finish her potty and regain her clothing and composure without Schmeena commenting further. I have to imagine it, because like I said, this happened to Some Poor Woman and not me.

If that ever happens to me, I'll be more prepared. Maybe get me a Brazilian!

So there you go. TTT#8 is a funny story where your kids embarassed you. Or maybe Some Other Poor Woman. Here is the linky business:



Go forth and embarass!

Questions, incessant unending questions....

One of the first times I realized Genea might be having more than transitional issues, is when I read about RAD and the inclination to chatter incessantly. Nonsense question after nonsense question. AHA! Went my brain- we have that!
Of course, most children go through a stage where they appear physically unable to stop their lips from flapping like pancakes. It begins to feel like someone is slapping you up the side of your skull after a bit. *Smack* Smack* Smack* and your head is going *thud *thud* thud* and all you want to do is scream shuuuuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuuup! But, you can scream shut up all you want because it will not make a lick of difference. Yammer yammer.
I realized one day that there was an identifiable difference between Teena's unending senseless chatter and Genea's unending senseless chatter. Genea could stop. Without bribing and without threatening, if I told them to go sit on different couches and be quiet, Genea could do it, Teena could not. So I began to think, hmmmm, this appears to something she is far more in control of than I would have guessed.
Lately, Genea has been on a nonsense question streak. It always starts with Mama? Can I ask you a nonsense question? So it is a two for one. And the nonsense question is almost always a "no" answer. And I hate it. I feel like I am rejecting her 95 times a day because she asks these questions all day long and maybe 5 of them I can squeeze a yes into. I am being set up, 100 times a day and 95 of those times I am being directly led to a negative. It used to be that every. single. one. of the questions that was a "no" led immediately to the Wango Tango. That thankfully has lessened considerably. THANKfully.
I think this is Genea's way of connecting with me and her Daddy. If we are being forced into engaging with her, she is alive. She exists if we look at her and respond. She is not invisible or being ignored when she is hungry or needs a hug. She has someone who might take care of her if she can just force that person to acknowledge her in some way, any way. That is my opinion anyhow, I think it is an orphanage holdover.
A few months ago, I started answering a nonsense question with a nonsense question of my own. I have 2. I reply with "Is it dark outside?" when it is light, or vice versa or for some variety I might say "Is your hair purple?", both of which make her think, then say no, then she moves on. This has been moderately successful as it cuts waaaaaay down on the Wango Tango one can enjoy if one responds with "no" too many times.
So yesterday she came home and her friend had been absent from school. She asked if she could have some candy to make herself feel better (thanks you- know- who). Of course I said, no. We don't do snacks after school. I found last year that Genea would not eat her lunch (that costs 2 freaking dollars) if she had a snack to rely on, but absolutely would eat her lunch if she knew that was all she would get until dinner (rigid thinking ya' think?). A few minutes later she asked again. My phone rang, she asked could she get it for me (always no) and asked who it was before I even answered (again, not permitted and forcing my attention to her instead of the call). So I decided to try something I had been thinking about.
I pulled out a jar of these connecting blocks, as seen above, and counted out 14. Those 14 would be the number of nonsense questions she could ask for the rest of the day and when they were gone, no more questions. Regular necessary questions did not count, though only I would determine what was necessary and not. I thought, 14 nonsense question would leave her without any more questions right around 7:00, as it would be 5:00 when we started this, and she goes to bed around 8. See how I think these things through? So I could make my point and there would be a minimum of suffering. I just wanted her to get a sense of how often she really does this. How often she makes up a question just for attention. Just sheerly for the sake of making her Daddy or I stop what we are doing, shift our attention, engage and communicate and then create a negative atmosphere when we have to say "no" to something she did not want or need anyway. There would be no consequences and no rewards, nothing at all. Just to see.
She bawled. But she understood.
The picture on top is how many she started with yesterday. Yes, there are only 13 in the picture, I took it after she lost the first one.

It is now 3:00 on Saturday. We started yesterday.

She clearly has waaaay- haaay- ayyyyy more control over this than I EVER would have thought.

Ugh (warning, lots of whining)

It is 5:00 and it is totally dark out. It sucks that it won't get any better for another 2 months.

My cats were totally off kilter with us gone. One hid for so long we thought he might be either dead or gone. Turned out he was hiding behind the tv. Now he has diarhea. He is generous with it and has bad aim. Lovely.

I am left feeling stunned that there is a person in the world who would use my mentally ill daughter as the crux of her control battle towards me. Astounding. Disgusting.

Teena is sick. 5 straight hours of vomitting.

I am still sort of recovering from our trip. It was long. I am sure I will have my shit together soon (as good as usual anyway) but for now, ugh.

Oh I almost forgot, our furnace was broken when we got home.

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!