We write to heighten our awareness of life...We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in introspection... We write to be able to transcend our life.  Anais Nin

Statistics, Money and Teeth

Well it's the final day of August.  I can blog tonight and improve my average from about one in 3 days to about one out of every 2.7 days.  I just love statistics. 

August has been an amazing month.  I'm not sure where it's gone.  I've been in Colorado now for six weeks.  Wow.  I love my new home.  It's beautiful here.  I'm working now on the search for employment.  Any prayer you would care to offer on my behalf would be much appreciated. 

We've had some illness in the house.  When there are seven kids and two moms, illness is a major problem.  We were rocking along there for a while.  But over the weekend, I got sick.  A sick me is a sad me.  I have not much tolerance for noise when I'm sick.  So I spent my time lying on the couch and giving orders.  It works on multiple levels for me to do that.  Chores get done, and busy kids are quiet(er) kids. 

I've been paying for chores.  It's something that I've resisted doing, but I decided that I've been wrong.  It's not that I pay for any and all chores.  If it's a chore the kid does that primarily blesses himself, well, no pay for him.  But I've decided that a kid who will do a chore that benefits the group is deserving of a wage for his labor.  So when Tucker cleans the bathroom that we all share, I pay him 30 cents.  ( He also uses a dollar's worth of Scrubbing Bubbles every time he does this chore so it's costly in materials even if the labor is cheap. )  If Michael vacuums our living area, I pay him 50 cents.  If the kids help with laundry, it just depends on how much they do how much I pay. 

Now my cousin, Eliza, is a wise woman.  She pays for chores as well.  But her kids have been much more consistent and motivated to do the chores on the list.  Here's her trick.  She operates a store.  She takes her kids shopping and allows them to choose something that they really really want.  Then that item comes home and goes into a closet.  When the kid has earned enough money to buy that item (including tax) the item is redeemed.  It's working fabulously.  So I decided that I would try this. 

I picked up some small items, a few medium priced items, and one nice big $9.73 item.  The biggie is a Play Doh farm.  Oh, it is nice.  The barn doors are molds that create eggs and veggies and other farm-type items.  Both Michael and Tucker got a gleam in the eye when they saw that toy.  They started out in competition, "I'm going to buy that one!"  ... "Oh, no you won't, I'M going to buy that."  Well, they started to work.  Only after three days, they had earned a combined $2.35.  They took stock of their resources and their options.  They decided that if either of them were ever going to play with that toy, they were going to have to work together. 

It took them almost three weeks to earn the money.  They didn't do chores every day.  And sometimes they didn't do a good enough job to be paid for it.  (The first day they thought they had it ALL worked out, Tucker was all ready to clean the bathroom three times until I told him that I would only pay once per day per chore.)  But finally, at the end of last week, they saved enough money to buy their toy. 

That Play Doh farm is a treasure that they are treating better than any toy I have ever given them.  It's amazing. 

***

In a related note, Michael has lost another tooth.  I'm starting to suspect a racket here because this kid has been losing teeth at the rate of two per week for the past three years!  Where all all these teeth coming from?  After he lost this most recent tooth, he prepared an argument for Ms. Tooth Fairy.  See, my kids put their teeth in an envelope to make them easier for the tooth fairy to find.  And they write on the outside of that envelope.  On the outside of this one, Michael wrote, "Dere Ms. Fary, you may notise that this is a relly relly big tooth.  So I think I should get relly relly big mony."  (Spelling is not his strong suit.  But you know, I think Ms. Tooth Fairy got the point because she brought him 2 whole dollars.  He was thrilled.  I was thrilled until I noticed that he was sitting there working to loosen up another relly relly big tooth.)

Upside Down in a Skirt

Okay, not really, but Lucky asked me last week to please say I didn't do that and it was just too good a line not to use again.  I've been having another of those up and down weeks and I'm starting to feel like that book I remember from elementary school.  I think it was called "Fortunately, Unfortunately" and it was a story that was all reversals of fortune.  A man had to make a trip and fortunately found a direct flight, unfortunately he had to sit in the worst seat of the plane, but fortunately he was next to a beautiful model, who unfortunately had a virulent flu, fortunately he brought a parachute and jumped from the plane, unfortunately the ripcord didn't work properly, fortunately he landed in a haystack ....

Michael is doing better in school and his teacher and I have had several excellent conversations so I'm comfortable that we are on the same page working with him.  Unfortunately the guidance counselor is scheduling things according to some obscure formula that makes no sense to me so it's looking like sometime in October before we'll be able to get a team meeting together to construct an IEP.  Fortunately, I can get testing done outside the school system that I'll share with the classroom teacher so I don't care about the counselor's little issue ...

Unfortunately, we had no phone service this week because we reported a problem so Qwest took three days to work on the line, fortunately they fixed it, unfortunately an hour later the neighbor had a mishap and cut the line, fortunately they fixed it again, unfortunately the little box that blocks our number from showing up on caller ID caused the new line to short out, fortunately they figured that out, unfortunately they didn't know how to get hte DSL back up, fortunately I know how to reset the modem ...

See what I mean?  It's been this way ALL week. 

And then when I was walking home this afternoon, I had my head in the clouds thinking happy thoughts when I stepped on some sand and my foot slipped out from under me.  Now I have the boo boo of the week award for the scraped knee and accompanying road rash.  I know one thing, job interviews or no job interviews, this gal is NOT putting on pantyhose, even the really really good ones from Dillard's that I've fallen in love with.  Fortunately, I'm short so all my skirts are really long.  And that brings me back to Lucky's comment on my hanging from the monkey bars ... which unfortunately I haven't made time to do this week.   

Two Steps Forward

After my last entry and up until this afternoon I've been on an emotional rollercoaster like you would not believe with some extreme highs and frightening lows.  I'm not even sure where to start to talk about all that's happened in the last 48 hours.  So I think I'll begin with a high.  I had the opportunity and privilege yesterday to meet two Xangan's I've been reading for a long time.  Jason was one of the first Xangans who "discovered" me and encouraged me here.  His wife, Maria, is a newer Xanga acquaintance, but I've found her to be an encourager as well. 

Meeting them in real life was simply fabulous.  We got together for lunch and spent our time laughing, talking and sharing information about living in Colorado and getting help for our special needs children.  They are several steps ahead of me in that process and have provided me with names and phone numbers and a great big shot in the "I can do this" arm which was beginning to feel a little emaciated. 

Maria had to go back to work but Jason and I took another hour to walk around the Outlet Mall in Castle Rock.  Yes, I DO love an Outlet Mall.  And while I'm on malls and walking, I have a tip for the pantyhose wearing folks amongst us.  Dillard's Silk Elegance pantyhose, the Barely There version.  Wow.  See, I'm not used to wearing pantyhose all that often.  For that matter I'm not used to running around in high heels.  Both of which I was doing yesterday.  By midafternoon, I didn't care if I ruined my hose, I was done with the whole pain in my feet thing.  Jason, bless his heart, didn't bat an eyelash when I kicked off the heels and walked around the mall in stocking feet.  Here's the reason I mentioned the name brand of those hose.  When I got home and took them off, they had NO noticeable damage even after an hour of that abuse.  And this is an outdoor mall, so I was walking on asphalt and concrete, not carpeting and smooth tile.  So maybe I'm just out of the pantyhose groove, but I was very impressed. 

Okay back to Jason and Maria, they were just wonderful.  And I have to tell you this about Jason, when he married Maria last year, he also married her four kids.  As he talked about them yesterday, the love and commitment that he holds for each of them lit up his face.  There are few things that touch me more deeply than seeing a father's heart for his children and Jason revealed his tenderness over and over during our conversation.  I am really looking forward to my next visit with this couple and next time, we plan to bring all the kids!   

This morning I had a meeting with a counselor talk about issues I've been wrestling with.  She talked with me about the full range of my concerns including my hopes for employment.  I am very impressed by the way that she dealt with my practical needs as well as my emotional and psychological needs. 

There are days, more often than I care to admit, when I feel a lot weaker than I care to be.  As much as I don't like it and struggle with it, I have to say that I'm learning from it.  The first thing I'm learning is that no matter how weak I feel, my feelings on the matter aren't reliable.  And the second thing I'm learning is that I am surrounded by fantastic people.  After living for so long in a place where there was literally no one I could call for a cup of sugar much less ask to meet real needs, I'm now in a sea of support.  It's unlike anything I've ever imagined and I'm frequently brought to tears by my gratitude to my friends and family who are getting me across this ocean in style.  No dinghy for this chick, no sir, on the sea of life, I have been upgraded to a first class yacht. 

Oh, and this afternoon, I had to wait for Michael while he finished up some testing that wasn't completed last week.  I played on the playground.  I swung in the swing until my feet touched the sky.  And it was good..

Two Steps Back

One of the things that I've talked about so often that it's become the mantra I live by is that no matter what else is going on, the kids come first.  I do everything I can to see to their sense of stability.  And I've been congratulating myself that they seem to be doing really well.  Only then I had to live through Friday.

At Michael's school they give assessments at the beginning of the year.  The literacy test he took had a cut off of 600 for "at grade level" and Michael scored a 595.  That was close enough that it was a judgment call for his teacher whether she would schedule him for a more comprehensive literacy test.  But she wanted to talk to me, so we received notice that we were scheduled to come in at 2:30 Friday afternoon. 

Michael can read.  I should step back a little bit because most of what I'm thinking now took place in the year before I started blogging and since almost no one read this site for the first year I was writing it, even if I talked about it back then, I don't expect that you would know this.  When Michael had his fourth birthday, he had not spoken a single coherent word.  We were in a panic and having him tested at the very best center in Minnesota. 

A year an a half later we had him retested in Indiana by the school system's recommended psychologist.  At that time we were told that he would not be able to learn to read, that our expectations for this child needed to be adjusted to conform to the reality of his potentiality.  I figured that if the school system couldn't teach him to read, I could do no worse than that, so I started schooling him at home. 

In all of the testing we had done the word "autism" came up over and over.  But the way that a diagnosis is made, the tester looks at ten different markers.  The child has to have 6 of the ten in order to be labeled autistic.  Michael has 5. 

He's been displaying all five of those markers in a rather severe way at school. 

And of course, because everything is always about me, I went into a real tailspin thinking what should I be doing?  what COULD I be doing to help my child?

And I still don't know.

Okay, here's the ticket, I can use images I've already uploaded, but I can't upload a new one.  Think maybe my box is too full?  LOL.  Usually by this point in the summer I've had beach time.  And as much as I'm loving the mountains, there is a part of me that's longing for the sand and surf.  I don't want to be in Florida today, but surely there's a beach somewhere ...

Oh, the rhythm of my heart
is beating like a drum
with the words "I Love you"
rolling off my tongue.
No never will I roam,
for I know my place is home.
Where the ocean meets the sky,
I'll be sailing.

Happy Birthday

To My Very Good Friend

"I got a note ..."

He looked worried, "Mom, my teacher gave me a note, and I don't know what it says.  I know I was really really good today, ALL day long ..."

The note turned out to be from the Speech/Language person who will be evaluating the boys for possible therapy this year.  Tucker's speech isn't too bad, Michael can be difficult to understand and he has some language issues.  But Tucker wasn't thinking about that, he was worried that he was in trouble. 

On Friday he reported to me that he had to sit at a separate table by himself because another child said that Tucker was "poking" him.  So I asked, well were you poking?

"No way, Mom, I was just touching him kind of hard ..." 

SO far, I haven't heard any reports that he's mooned anyone.  Let's keep our fingers crossed that situation doesn't change. 

Michael likes the short cut MUCH better than the long walk to school.  But this morning, I cheated.  It was cold and wet.  We had a storm last night that dropped golf ball sized hail on us for at least 20 minutes.  Pounded the daisies pretty hard.  So this morning, I walked outside and said, "whew, we're driving..."  Yes, Momi is a wimp. 

Twenty Minute Mile

I walked the kids to school this morning.  It's a pleasant walk through a quiet neighborhood, just about a mile.  (And I followed the sidewalks between the houses on my way back and discovered that there really IS a shorter way to go.)  Michael didn't make it more than a hundred feet before the complaints began, "how much further, do I have to..., are we going to do this EVERY day?  why can't you just drive us ..."  Finally we were almost there and he said, "My legs are really really tired."  Tucker had just about enough at that point, he answered, "Are you sure it isn't your mouth that's getting tired..."

Complaining is tiresome as a dripping faucet.  I'm trying to figure out how to help my child learn to be more appreciative of the opportunities he has to do things, less focused on the negatives he sees all around.  Tucker and I played the "glad" game, looking for things to be glad about.  I'm glad that it's the season of the year when summer flowers are in full bloom.  I'm glad that I can see the mountains the whole way.  I'm glad that I have strong legs and lungs.  For every "glad" we came up with, I swear Michael had two complaints. 

I love my child and ordinarily, (by which I mean days when I don't have to walk anywhere with him) he's quite pleasant.  He has an aversion to physical exercise though that's going to be a real detriment to him unless we can turn that around over the next several years.  I'll be working on that, pointing out how GOOD it feels to be jumping on the trampoline, how relaxing it is after the pleasant walk, what fun it is to feel the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, and I'm hoping that he'll come around.  Little by little, day by day, twenty minutes at a time, we'll cover those miles. 

Personally Political

We have a new baby in the family.  After two boys, Dahlia and Yoni have a baby girl.  (Don't be surprised if you don't know these names, I don't see them often so I don't talk about them much.)  Dahlia was telling us all about it today.  They still don't have a name for the baby even though she's three days old.  They have until the eighth day when the naming ceremony takes place to decide, but they are starting to sweat. 

The hospital where Dahlia delivered houses patients in wards, so she shared a room with three other new moms.  The one across from her was conspicuous in the amount of attention she received from the hospital staff.  Huge bouquets of flowers, visits from off duty nurses and doctors, and congratulations on the birth of her son poured in.  Finally, Dahlia asked if she worked in the hospital since so many people there seemed to know her. 

No, she didn't work there, but her sister was a head nurse and so many of the people knew of her through that connection.  But she went on to explain that the reason that so many were giving her special attention was because of her story.  See, last year, just days after she learned that she was pregnant, there was a knock on the door.  When the door was opened, a man with an automatic weapon opened fire into her home and her seven month old baby girl was killed in the attack. 

The woman described her anguish in the death of her child and the nights she woke in a cold sweat from fearful dreams about this child she had just birthed.  You may have guessed if you've been a long-time reader that Dahlia is my cousin in Israel.  The woman across from her is nobody, a woman whose family was targeted by a terrorist simply because they are Jewish.  These things happen in Israel so often that they don't make the news here.  Hundreds of ordinary Israeli citizens are gunned down, kidnapped, tortured, knifed ... murdered ... every year.  In terms of the percentage of the population, they lose more people in any given six month span than we lost on 9/11.  Its been happening for a long time, it happens every year. 

It's hard for me with family in Israel to listen to news reports that castigate the Israeli government for their handling of suspected terrorists.  I think that if we faced the threat they face, we'd be doing the same thing and probably worse. 

So the next time that you hear some politician condemning Israel I hope that this woman's story pops into your mind.  I hope that you ask yourself what action you might be willing to take if you knew that it wasn't just that one seven month old baby, but scores of men, women and children lost every month.  How far would you go to try to locate and stop the killers?

(PS - if you ever consider a tour of Israel, Yoni is an incredible guide.  The last time he was in the States about three years ago, word got out that he was going to be in a particular area of Texas.  People who had participated in his tours asked him to speak.  When he arrived, over three thousand people, most of whom had been with him on tour, and many of whom had travelled in from other states, were waiting to hear him again.  He isn't just a tour guide, he holds degrees from Hebrew University in studies of the first century/second temple era history.  When I have a question about Hebrew language, or Biblical archaeology, I call Yoni, but not many people have his number, I'm special.  )

*****

     In a second bit of political rumination, you probably know that Colorado Springs is a big military place.  We have Fort Carson (army/infantry people), NORAD (the North American blah blah Defense something - I'm not good with acronyms), and we have the Air Force Academy.  The other night at the kids' elementary school open house, Michael's teacher asked by a show of hands how many students in her class had a parent in Iraq, at least a half dozen hands went up.  The Walmart here has photos on the wall of local people who are serving now, and a special section for local people who have died there. 

     I had opportunity to hear a man speak who is here briefly before he will be returning to Iraq.  He had an account that was amazing of a very close call when a bomb exploded near the vehicle in which he was a passenger.  He said that he was using his laptop with a satellite link at the time and he was fussing and fretting about losing his internet connection until he realized that the particular type of bomb that went off was one that should have incinerated everything within a hundred yard radius.  You guessed it, he was well within that hundred yards.  Suddenly the internet connection wasn't quite so important. 

   He was telling us about a particularly unpleasant part of his job, which is to indemnify Iraqi citizens for casualties.  Yes, the US government pays an inusrance-type benefit to the families of those people injured or killed even if it's from terrorist activity.  He said that one of the heartbreaking things he has faced is the attitude of the people toward women and female children.  If a man, or a son is injured, they will accept payment.  If a woman or a little girl is injured or dies, they consider it an insult to be offered payment.  See if they accept the money, they have to admit that women have value.

   Political discussions usually sound very different when we're talking about abstract ideas like freedom and justice and when we have faces we can put onto those ideas.  Suddenly the pain in those eyes makes our abstract discussion seem trivial and silly. 

   I've weighed in very little with politics, especially considering that this is an election year and I feel very strongly that we have an obligation to inform ourselves, to debate the issues, and to make the best decisions we can possible make.  I'm not weighing in now with an opinion for or against a particular candidate.  I'm just sharing a couple of the faces that have been haunting my mind today.