Kids and chores

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/teenangst/archive/2008/08/28/kids-and-chores.aspx

Toothpaste saves the day

      So on Sunday night my husband and I were watching "Mad Men", that magnificent AMC show set in a 1960s' Madison Avenue advertising firm. (If you haven't seen it, start -- It's the best show on television)

     Anyway, as we're watching scenes with a light background we noticed something funny on the TV screen. Lines of red magic marker. Four of them. GASP! This is our new flat-screen TV.

     It's not like we have three toddlers. We have three teens. Who put them there? As of this writing nobody yet has fessed up, but the more immediate issue was, how would we get rid of the marks.

     We wet a paper towel and gently rubbed the screen. Nothing. We tried a little natural cleaner. Nothing. It looked like the ink was deeply imbedded in the screen. Yikes!

    My husband angrily stomped upstairs to bed.

     When in doubt, I Google. The solution, it turns out, is toothpaste. Dab a little regular toothpaste (not gel) on the lines. Wait a few seconds and gently rub with a moist towel. Voila! They vamished. I couldn't believe it.

      I just had to share this tip. And from the length of responses on a Web site I found, we're not the only ones who had children who tried to express their inner-Picasso on their parents' LCD computer screens or flat-screen TVs.

     Do you have your own tips on how to get rid of magic or permanent marker on TVs as well as other surfaces? Please send them along.

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When is your child ready for that next step?

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/teenangst/archive/2008/08/22/when-is-your-child-ready-for-that-next-step.aspx

A Splash of Freedom

“Ducks!” Sam said, and rushed to the side of the little pool.

Yellow bathtub ducks were circling in a blue plastic pool. The water was a worrisome gray-green color, and the ducks looked a mite moldy themselves. Sam didn’t care; he grabbed one of the floating toys, shouted “duck!” (which could have been either description or warning) and fired it back into the water with a splash.

“How about a prize for the little guy?” the carnival barker said. “Everyone’s a winner.”

Sam grabbed again, shouted again, threw again. The barker leaned in conspiratorially, as though Sam would understand what he was saying. “Basically, it’s how much you want to spend,” he said. “The prizes hanging up” – there were inflated plastic bats and figures and whatnot clipped to the pole in the pool’s center– “are $5 and the ones in the bin” – a wire mesh cage on the ground – “are $2. They pick a duck, and they win.”

I pondered. Should I just say “no,” or should I launch into a diatribe on my philosophic objections to the Barney-ized, self-esteem-driven “everyone’s a winner” approach to life, which has yielded a generation which believes the world owes them a car, a cell phone and pocket money?

Then I realized I hard a better excuse. “I don’t have any money,” I said. “My wife has it all.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I have a wife too.”

Sam was still throwing ducks, crying out in triumph at each splash.

“You mind if he plays with the ducks?” I asked.

“No, that’s fine. Maybe it’ll drum up business.”

So for the next 10 minutes I stood watching humanity stream by in its bulgy, sun-burnt glory while Sam threw ducks and celebrated. And it did seem to drum up business, with other children wondering what the curly-haired not-yet-two-year-old was up to.

It was, in a way, an act of surrender.

My wife and I had taken Sam to the fair with visions of him laughing through the kiddie rides, petting bunnies and horsies and goats, bouncing on one of those big inflatable moonwalk things, and generally soaking in the sights and sounds.

It had not quite been so.

He tolerated the carousel. The bouncy moonwalk thing cost extra, and I’m cheap. We did, however, buy him a pony ride for an extra $3. He tried to escape halfway through, clinging to me as I tried to hold him on the saddle.

So we headed toward the animal barns, only to be waylaid by a display of tractors. Sam climbed on a little John Deere and perched in the bright yellow seat. “Tractor!” he said, bouncing, then clambered back off to climb on a bigger John Deere.

I could have stayed there a while, dreaming of a beasty little tractor with a front end loader and a backhoe – toys for boys, I’m telling you – but my wife was committed to the bunnies/horsies/goats vision, so we dragged him off toward the barns.

Now, the barns at the fair are mostly long low sheds, designed for single rows of cows. The cows are tied facing in toward the feeding troughs. So when you go “see the animals,” what you mostly see is row after row of cow derrieres.

Ick.

The horse barn was a bit better. Sam got up close with a couple of noses through the bars of the stalls. Then he apparently startled a big draft horse, which spread its lips and bared its teeth. It’s lips were about the size of Sam’s entire head and its teeth were all yellow and crooked and horror-movie-looking, and that was the end of the horse barn.

He was briefly intrigued by a caboose sitting on a stretch of rail. “Thomas!” he called out. But the caboose lacked Thomas the Tank Engine’s gentle personality, and that didn’t last long either.

Finally, realizing that I could not predict what would catch Sam’s fancy, I just put him down and followed him while my wife was off in search of funnel cake.

He wandered through the crowd, staring up at people and sometimes saying “hi!” It was fun to watch them laugh, then look around for the attending parent. Seeing me, they would laugh again.

Then Sam found a dusty driveway, sat down and started pouring dust on my shoes. That got boring (for me) after a few minutes, and I nudged him along until he found the ducks.

I got different looks from other parents at the duck pool. They would watch Sam splashing in the water (he was soaked when we finally left), then look up at me with an expression of vague disapproval.

Then they would hand Willie (by this time we knew the barker’s name) their $2 or $5 and send the children off to choose prizes. Sometimes they did not even bother with the picking-up-a-duck part.

Then off they’d go, with the children looking back at Sam with expressions that said, “I’d rather be doing what he’s doing.”

And it struck me as I stood there that maybe in my desperation to keep Sam happy I had actually done the right thing. Rather than buying him a prize, I had let him enjoy himself. Rather than forcing my idea of fun on him, I had let him show me what his idea of fun was. And rather than reflexively saying “no!” to the splashing, and I had asked instead what harm it could do (other than exotic diseases from the water, of course).

And you know what? Contrary to what the T-shirts say, in this case freedom really was free.

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/burghdad/archive/2008/08/20/a-splash-of-freedom.aspx

Laughing with my child

I am told that when I write about my son with special needs, people get all teary-eyed.

Well, now. I do have to correct that.

Yes, there are many challenges in raising special children. But there are also many opportunities to laugh. And there are many times when he leaves me just smiling at the touching things he does.

My 11-year-old son leaves me laughing several times a day, as his observations and struggles with language sweetly bump together.

"Is it constipated?" he asked me the other day when I was putting a hot pack on my sore arm. "It's not good for your body to be constipated."

"That's right," I said. "But my arm is not constipated."

"Does it have an eye infection?"

When my husband left the bathroom fully dressed except for his shirt, he was greeted by our son in the hallway.

"Why are you half-naked?" he said to my husband, somewhat angrily, showing he felt some modicum of decency was being violated.

"I miss you so much I will blow up with gas," he wrote to me in a note while I was at work one day.

In another: "Mom + mom = kiss."

With a little heart next to it.

He loves hearts; in fact, expressing his love of all things is one of his hallmarks. His teachers tell me they have rarely met a sweeter boy, a compliment I cherish even more as he moves into his teens and kids get sometimes not-so-sweet.

I returned home from work one day to find the refrigerator door covered with dozens of tiny hearts he had drawn on computer paper and cut out. Each heart said something like "I love you moon." "I love Pennsylvania."

"I love New York."

Recently, I had to confiscate his beloved GameCube because he refused to adhere to bed time rules. I told him once he regularly stayed in bed all night, he could have it back.

One Monday morning he greeted me early and said, "Can I have my GameCube?"

"No, you didn't stay in bed," I said.

"FINE!"

He stomped back upstairs.

He came down 5 minutes later.

"It's Tuesday morning. I slept all night.

"Can I have my GameCube?"

We have some idea of the things that make him burst into laughter. Frequently they are sight gags. He adores "SpongeBob," and the more visual the story, the more he laughs.

He laughs hardest at a silly Looney Tune in which Daffy Duck does a take on Carmen Miranda, dancing and gyrating around the cartoon room with a fruit basket on his head. Daffy's funny, but nothing's funnier than my son giggling so hard he turns red and nearly falls off his chair.

Unless he is singing. He's head-over-heels with female singers, such as Carrie Underwood, Natasha Bedingfield and Leona Lewis. His iPod is loaded with their hits.

One day recently I went to check on him in his room. I could hear him singing in there, one flat note after another. I think it was Lewis' "Bleeding Love." He seemed to have his iPod and ear buds on; I could hear tinny music.

His door was locked.

I knocked. The singing stopped. He unlocked the door and peeked out through a crack.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"I don't know."

"Ok."

He shut and locked the door. The singing resumed.

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Imperfect parenting

The other week I had a dream, one I've had for years and years. It's not a nightmare exactly, but the dream is always the same: I'm about to graduate from college, but somehow, through stupidity or laziness, I have neglected to amass enough course credits to graduate.

A rush of voices crowd into my dreaming brain, urgently asking: What am I going to tell my parents, who spent so much money on my tuition? What am I going to do without a college degree? How am I going to get a job? Why can't I talk the college dean into letting me take summer school? What will become of my life? Will I ever amount to anything?

The voices become louder and louder until I wake up, shaking, and suddenly, in a warm rush of gratitude, I remember: I am 54 years old. I am married. I am gainfully employed, with a job that I like very much. I live in a nice house, with a nice garden I made myself.

And most of all, I have three teenagers.

This last fact is the most important part you need to know about me in this blog. I have 16½ -year-old twins (one boy, one girl) and a 14½-year old daughter. They are less exhausting than when they were 2 years old and a newborn, but they make me worry more. They do, however, provide me with priceless material every day for this blog - as do all the wonderful publicists out there who keep sending me free books on raising teenagers and calling me with story pitches.

Yesterday wasn't a very teen-age-ish day on the free book front. I did receive one in the mail titled, "The White Trash Mom's Handbook: Embrace Your Inner Trailerpark, Forget Perfection, Resist Assimilation into the PTA, Stay Sane, and Keep Your Sense of Humor," by Michelle Lamar and Molly Wedland (St. Martin's Griffin, 240 pages, $13.95)

Besides the annoying title - just one more way to poke fun at people who live in mobile homes - its parenting philosophy is right out of the "Slacker Mom" school, and a clear reaction to my baby boomer generation's obsessive parenting style. Nothing wrong with that, of course. In fact, I recall writing about a similar book just two weeks ago, Anna Johnson's "The Yummy Mummy's Manifesto," which basically told new moms to relax and chill... while hanging on to one's sense of style, chic, and playfulness.

This book, the - um - "White Trash" one, says moms need to relax and chill, too, but don't worry about looking good while you're doing it. It's really less a parenting guide than a document on the ongoing class war in this nation's elementary schools between the "Muffia" - perfect moms - and women like author Michelle Lamar, who says in an excerpt published on Amazon.com's site:

"Look at all the moms in the parking lot every day. Perfect hair. Perfectly dressed. And then look at us. Well, you look pretty good...most of the time. OK, now look at me. I take my kids to school in my pajamas every day. I'm lucky if they get there on time.... It's about being imperfect as a mom and being OK with that. Embracing it! And to hell with all the perfect moms! As if!"

OK! Point taken.

There are some funny bits in it ("Do Chores Like a Teen: Load the dishwasher with only the glasses and dishes that are in the sink. Load up the dishwasher and start to run the dishwasher with only five dishes in it. Act surprised and shocked with parent stops you from completing your chore.").

But there's another book that also came in yesterday that looks a little more my speed, as the confounded mother of a 16-year-old boy: "Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men/ Understanding the Critical Years Between 16 and 26" by Michael Kimmel.

You mean I'm facing 10 more years of this?

Stay tuned.

The parent pariah

"Drop me right at the stairs. When you run, go on the back trails. Don't run up on the track or around the Oval. And then sit in the car and wait for me. Don't come up looking for me - stay in the car."

Thus were the instructions from my 14-year-old who asked that I drive her to the Schenley Oval for an evening cross-country practice ....but insisted that no one see me with her.

Yikes!

So as she bolted up the stairs to the track, my son and I headed to the park's shaded back trails for a two-mile run. Of course, my son insisted on walking several feet in front of me so that if any of his friends saw him, he wouldn't be seen with ......his mom. How mortifying.

Double Yikes!

The poor mom: adored by her younger kids as the "mostest specialest person in the world", then reviled by her teens.

Of course I remember doing the same things a zillion years ago when I was a child. If I was standing with my Sunday School class at church and my parents passed by, I'd look the other way. And I'd make my mom drop me not one, but three blocks from school.

I figured this was an American phenom until a friend of mine who was hosting an exchange student from Japan was ordered to drop her off a block from Winchester Thurston School each morning.

But sometimes kids will surprise you

A couple of years ago I helped my oldest, now 16, carry into school her snow skis because the kids were heading off to Seven Springs that afternoon. After I put down the skis in the corner of the multipurpose room, she gave me a big hug good-bye. Right there in front of everyone -- with kids and teachers all around.

Just as she put her arms around me, another parent walked in.

Triple Yikes!

How mortifying to be seen with my child!

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The R word

Oh, the uproars, the uproars! Here they come again.

The latest is over the movie, "Tropic Thunder," which liberally uses the word "retard."

It’s a spoof, but I can’t image many who advocate for the disabled are getting many laughs out of the use of "retard."

Just before this one, national radio show host Michael Savage created a outcry by saying that autism is the "illness du jour" embodied by "a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out."

How stupid is this man? Stupid enough to be called a "retard"? Gee, let’s hope only he would be mean enough to use that word.

I’ve been in the newspaper business for 28 years; I’ve been the mother of a child with special needs for 11. Pulling both of those roles together over the subject of semantics has not always been easy.

My professional training is to cut to the chase, make sure meanings are on the mark and tight headlines fit. Toss in years of working on news side, rather than, say, features (where I mostly work now), hobnobbing with grizzled veterans and I’m often enough on the block for an attitude correction. No more so than when I had my son and my smug little way of thinking that my kids would be perfect got upended.

I hate to think of years when I may not have been so sensitive. But I am also smart enough to learn, and use, lessons. Early in my career, I covered a school merger done for integration purposes. That opened my mind up to a whole other way of looking at things, not all having to do with race.

So did the first time someone explained "person first" language to me. Saying "a person with disabilties" rather than a "disabled person" shows you think of the subject as a person first, disabled secondly.

That lesson was underscored for me as I pushed to have my son mainstreamed, making sure others don’t bully him because he doesn’t always assimilate, making sure they don’t know that what he is isn’t an act at all.

I have over the years tried to make sure that when I write, when I edit, when I talk and when I observe, I am as sensitive as possible.

My career also means I respect freedom of expression. So dear old Mr. Savage has every right to be stupid as a mossback fence post. The makers of "Tropic Thunder" have every right to spoof and use a word that will make some of us shudder.

And the Arc, advocates for the mentally retarded, has every right to issue a statement against "Tropic Thunder," which its Greater Pittsburgh office did yesterday:

"In our culture, words such as ‘retard"...carry a lot of baggage from the days when people with disabilities were institutionalized...These hurtful words also create negative stereotypes that lead to discrimination and often times abuse.

"Today, children with all types of disabilities are included in all types of schools. People are included in all types of jobs. They work, they vote, they pay taxes."

I want to see "Tropic Thunder." Some of it sounds pretty funny (there’s a character called Alpa Chino, and the sendups of the movies sound delicious).

I also want to see if the use of "retard" bothers me. I’ve got to think it will.

But I have the right, too, to walk out.

And I have to right to applaud Arc, and to say, never use the word ‘retard’ around me or my son.

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/specialkids/archive/2008/08/14/the-r-word.aspx

Thunder over the 'R' word

Oh, the uproars, the uproars! Here they come again.

The latest is over the movie, "Tropic Thunder," which liberally uses the word "retard."

It's a spoof, but I can't image many who advocate for the disabled are getting many laughs out of the use of "retard."

Just before this one, national radio show host Michael Savage created a outcry by saying that autism is the "illness du jour" embodied by "a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

How stupid is this man? Stupid enough to be called a "retard"? Gee, let's hope only he would be mean enough to use that word.

I've been in the newspaper business for 28 years; I've been the mother of a child with special needs for 11. Pulling both of those roles together over the subject of semantics has not always been easy.

My professional training is to cut to the chase, make sure meanings are on the mark and tight headlines fit. Toss in years of working on news side, rather than, say, features (where I mostly work now), hobnobbing with grizzled veterans and I'm often enough on the block for an attitude correction. No more so than when I had my son and my smug little way of thinking that my kids would be perfect got upended.

I hate to think of years when I may not have been so sensitive. But I am also smart enough to learn, and use, lessons. Early in my career, I covered a school merger done for integration purposes. That opened my mind up to a whole other way of looking at things, not all having to do with race.

So did the first time someone explained "person first" language to me. Saying "a person with disabilties" rather than a "disabled person" shows you think of the subject as a person first, disabled secondly.

That lesson was underscored for me as I pushed to have my son mainstreamed, making sure others don't bully him because he doesn't always assimilate, making sure they don't know that what he is isn't an act at all.

I have over the years tried to make sure that when I write, when I edit, when I talk and when I observe, I am as sensitive as possible.

My career also means I respect freedom of expression. So dear old Mr. Savage has every right to be stupid as a mossback fence post. The makers of "Tropic Thunder" have every right to spoof and use a word that will make some of us shudder.

And the Arc, advocates for the mentally retarded, has every right to issue a statement against "Tropic Thunder," which its Greater Pittsburgh office did yesterday:

"In our culture, words such as ‘retard"...carry a lot of baggage from the days when people with disabilities were institutionalized...These hurtful words also create negative stereotypes that lead to discrimination and often times abuse.

"Today, children with all types of disabilities are included in all types of schools. People are included in all types of jobs. They work, they vote, they pay taxes."

I want to see "Tropic Thunder." Some of it sounds pretty funny (there's a character called Alpa Chino, and the sendups of the movies sound delicious).

I also want to see if the use of "retard" bothers me. I've got to think it will.

But I have the right, too, to walk out.

And I have to right to applaud Arc, and to say, never use the word ‘retard' around me or my son.

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Learning to know what you want

It happens almost every day.

Sam sits in his high chair, ignoring the food on his tray. He looks up at the cupboard, stretches out his arms and utters his first and best sentence:

"I want!"

 "What do you want, Sam?"

 "Pleeeeaasssse?"

"But I don't know what you want!"

"Pleeeaaassse?"

 At that point we begin grabbing boxes and bags and pieces of fruit. "You want an apple?"

 "I want! PppllllleeeEEEAAASE?" he says, and starts pumping his arms in demand.

"You want a piece of cheese?"

"PLEASE!" And he starts to cry.

Most times, we never do figure out what it was he wanted. We end up giving him a handful of peanuts or pretzels or blueberries, and he'll look at them with an expression of surprise. It's clear that the peanuts or pretzels or blueberries were not in his mind, but he likes them. And he eats them.

Personally, I don't know that there really is anything specific he wants when he does that. I think maybe it's more a statement of being, his ultimate expression of self. It reminds me of Rene Descartes, the French philosopher who demonstrated his own existence in unforgettable words: "I think, therefore I am."

Sam's version would be "I want, therefore nothing. I just want."

He wants his toys, wants books, wants berries and soap bubbles and Teletubbies, wants to throw balls in the yard and pebbles in the creek, wants his diaper changed, wants us to leave his diaper off mid-change, wants to climb up stairs, wants to climb down stairs, wants to be picked up, wants to be put down, wants to cuddle, wants to be free, wants to make us laugh, wants us to make him laugh, and when he doesn't know what he wants I think he has a logical fallback: He starts wanting to know what he wants.

It all sounds terribly selfish, and sometimes, as his father, it feels that way too. He wears me out with his wanting sometimes. And if he were an adult or even an older kid, it would be selfish - don't we all know a few people who simply pursue what they want, with thoughts only of how to get it? And aren't they horrible?

But he's not an adult or an older kid - he's 20 months old, and is only now putting together the building blocks of language and concept that are necessary to transcend the state of pure wanting. And that makes it OK. A starting point, to be sure, but OK.

The fact is, sweet and cute and innocent as infants are, they only know how to want: They want to be fed, want to be clean and dry and warm, want to be held and rocked.

Do they think? Surely their brains are in hyperdrive, processing like mad - but they have no language, no symbolism, no tools to form connections, nothing to define the jumbled mass of sensation that floods them constantly. They utterly lack the mental capacity to separate their actions from their desires.

I look at Sam now, and absolutely marvel at what he's learned, how far he's come from that state. He will stand in front of us, looking all serious, then just let his legs go and collapse on the floor. "Funny!" he says from the floor as we laugh.

How did he form the concept of "funny"? Surely that qualifies as thinking, the way we adults define it.

He knows to say "please" for what he wants. He's even able - with great effort - to stop fussing and use it. He's learning that sometimes we simply say no to what he wants, and that he's not going to change our minds. He can accept it, though it generally takes a while.

That all takes thought. Descartes would recognize it.

And armed with such simple thoughts, I think he's already taking the first tiny steps on the lifelong journey we're all making - a journey which is, essentially, away from wanting.

Sam's little mantra - "I want!" - has really gotten me thinking. How much of the trouble in our lives, the struggle, comes from wanting? We want big houses, European cars, flat stomachs, full heads of hair, perky breasts. We want Caribbean vacations, sons who are quarterbacks, daughters who are Homecoming queens. We spend a whole lot of time working to get those things.

And we want more mental things too. We want self-fulfillment, want to experience joy, want to be moved, want to be liked, loved, respected. We want some poorly defined state called "happiness."

But are those things we can achieve? Can we stretch our arms toward the cupboard, say "I want!" and get love, respect, happiness? Or are we, like Sam, really just wanting to know what we want?

Pondering this brought me to one of the most famous "wants" of all: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

I always took that, line, the beginning of the 23^rd Psalm, as meaning that the Lord would provide for me, give me what I needed if I would follow him, let him take care of me.

Perhaps, though, what it really means is that if I let the Lord be my shepherd, he will help me to "not want," that rather than satisfying my wants he will help me stop wanting, help me stop ceaselessly seeking things that are not and to instead enjoy what is.

And perhaps, if I can grasp that, I can help Sam with his own journey. I really want to do that.