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Feb 9, 2012

Adventures in Social Skills

February 9, 2012 By

Yesterday at school, as reported to me by Cordy’s teacher:

Teacher: Cordy, what snacks do they have in Room 14?

(Note: Room 14 is the special needs class Cordy visits at the end of the day.)

Cordy: It’s a secret. If you want a snack, then you need to go home and cook.

Thank goodness her teacher has a sense of humor and found it funny. Although I’m not entirely certain Cordy meant it to be funny. If that’s the case, then I’m REALLY glad her teacher has a sense of humor.
Every social interaction is a learning opportunity, right?

Filed Under: Autism, Cordy, school


Feb 6, 2012

Early To Bed, Early To Rise

February 6, 2012 By

When Cordelia was a toddler, our friends and family marveled that we had her on such a great sleep schedule. Around 6:30 or 7:00pm each night, she would actually crawl (or later walk) to the stairs and point up to her room, letting us know that it was time for bed. We’d change her into her PJs, read her a book, and take her up to her crib. Then we’d place her in her crib and walk away. She’d often babble and talk to herself, but rarely did she cry or protest.

Comments like, “Wow, you’ve sleep trained her SO well!” were not uncommon, often followed by stories of how their child would fight bedtime, get up repeatedly, or cry at being imprisoned in the crib. It would be easy to pat ourselves on the back and take full credit for the amazingly peaceful nights we had with Cordy, but the truth is we had very little to do with it: Cordy was the one who determined her own bedtime.

At this point, you may still consider us the winners of the bedtime lottery. A toddler who goes to bed by 7pm every night, leaving you free to spend time with your spouse without interruption? We even had a period of several months where Cordy would sleep until 6am each morning. Yes, I’ll admit we were spoiled. (If you consider spoiled to also include a child who refused to nap during the day at all and had violent tantrums that we would later find out were symptoms of autism. But that’s not today’s topic.)

It did have its benefits, but there were downsides. First, she was always awake by 6am, meaning someone had to get up early with her. Second, her sleep schedule made it hard to do anything with her in the evenings, because no matter where we were, she was asleep by 7pm, and grumpy if moved. If we had a family gathering in the evening, we could count on finding her asleep on the floor long before 8pm.

Or asleep mid-cookie at Christmas (2007)

And then there’s one other problem.

While being asleep that early in the night is great for a toddler or preschooler, it isn’t as useful for a seven year old. To this day, Cordy still goes to bed early. It’s not a strict 7pm anymore, but she still has trouble staying awake any later than 8pm.

 Visiting friends 2 weeks ago, 7pm

The problem with this situation is that going to sleep so early makes it impossible to get her involved in many after-school activities, or even have a lot of time to spend with her family in the evening. She’s home from school by 5pm, does her homework, dinner by 6pm, and then it’s time to get ready for bed. We pushed bedtime back to 7:30pm (from 7pm), although there are still many nights when the clock has barely crossed into seven o’clock and Cordy is complaining that she is tired and wants to go to bed.

Occasionally we ask her to stay up late, and sometimes she can keep herself up until 9pm, but it takes a lot of effort. For New Year’s Eve this year, she was awake (although very groggy) until 11:30pm, but only because she slept for 40 minutes on our way home from the zoo that night.

New Year’s Eve

All of the advice books say to gradually step back the bedtime and in return the child will gradually start waking up later as well. Ha. Not this girl. No matter how late she’s up, her bedroom door still opens promptly at 6am and Little Miss Sunshine strolls down the stairs for the day. Only if we force her to stay up too late, Little Miss Sunshine turns into Little Miss Crabbypants quickly during the day, and keeping her up late again still does nothing to change her wake-up time. (But does make her progressively more grumpy.)

At this point, I don’t know what to do. I have the opposite problem of most parents: I want my child to stay up later! I’d like to give her the chance to take a class or be in a Girl Scout troop, but unless it’s offered on a Saturday it isn’t possible at the moment.

Anyone have any advice on how to convince a Sleeping Beauty to stay up later and enjoy the night?

Filed Under: Cordy, daily life Tagged With:


Feb 2, 2012

Dog Person. Sort Of.

February 2, 2012 By

When I was six years old, my mom adopted our first cat. From that moment on, we always had cats in our house. Sometimes it was just one or two, other times a pregnant cat would find her way to our doorstep and suddenly we’d have a house full of whiskers and fur. My mom has a soft spot in her heart for a sad kitty, and even if we had no room, she’d still take the cat in and then work to find it a good home somewhere else. (She still does this today. But now she lives on a farm and can let them be barn cats if needed.)

It’s only natural, then, that I’d be a cat person, too. While I didn’t always like some of our cats, I still enjoyed sitting on the couch in the evening with a cat curled up next to me, purring loudly. As I settled in to my first apartment after college, one of the first must-have things I needed to make it feel like home was a cat.

Dogs? Dogs were cute, but I wasn’t as attached to them. I’d never pass up the chance to pet a cute puppy, but I’ve always been a little more cautious of dogs than I am with cats. This is probably due to a bad experience with a dog owned by one of my mom’s friends when I was younger. She was a large doberman that we had to pass by in order to get into the house.

I understand now that she was just a happy, excited dog that liked to bark and jump on people, but that same exuberance, in the mind of a four-year-old, translated to dog-wants-to-kill-me-and-eat-me. I was terrified. And we lived with that friend for part of a year,which meant I had to get past that killer dog in the backyard on a daily basis.

Since then, I’ve lost any fear of dogs, but I’ve still preferred my cats. Even when we decided to adopt a dog last month, my first concerns were to how my sweet kitties would handle the stress of a dog in the house. Loving the dog wouldn’t be a problem, but my cats would always come first.

Now that Cosmo is here, I’m forced to confess: I’m a sucker for that dog.

Not that Cosmo has made it easy for me, though. He’s chewed thru nearly every toy I’ve bought him – some in as little as an hour – costing us a small fortune in dog toys. When I’m not looking he’ll try to chew Mira’s shoes. Not any shoe he can find – just hers. He likes to lick me, which I generally don’t care for. He drools.

While I expected him to be a decent-sized dog, I didn’t expect him to double his size in a month. He’s stubborn, refuses to give up sitting on the couch (a habit he picked up in his foster home – at least we have compromised to have him only sit on one side of the couch), and even at 55+ pounds still thinks he’s a lap dog. He knows his basic manners, but all that puppy energy means he often forgets his commands when excited.

And he burps in my face. Ewww.

Unlike my cats, however, there is this constant desire for acceptance in his eyes. Each time he wrinkles his forehead and looks to me, I can see his mind furiously working, wondering if I’m pleased with whatever he’s doing, waiting for the next command, hoping I’ll just scratch his belly or give in and let him lick my hand. I know if he’s done something wrong before I even know the details of the actual offense: it’s written all over his face. (The guilty dog look may just be one of the best dog traits ever. I wish my kids had that look.)

Cosmo hangs out with us while watching TV. He can go with us to the park, or walk around our neighborhood, or travel in the car to spend time with friends at their house. As much as I refer to my Siamese cats as being dog-like in nature, they still want nothing to do with the world outside of our house, and generally wander off if the TV is on. All the dog wants in life is some food, a place to sleep, and most importantly, to be with us.

So I’m a dog person now. Sort of, I guess. I still don’t like being licked, and I refuse to budge on letting him on any furniture other than one corner of the couch, but I love when he greets me at the door each day with that wagging tail and I am thrilled at how well the kids respond to him.

I continue spending a fortune on new dog toys to keep him entertained. We even enrolled him in a doggie daycare program to give him more chances to socialize with other dogs and run out some energy one day a week.

Doggie daycare…seriously. The old non-dog-person me is shaking my head in disapproval right now. But he’s a part of the family now, so we’ll take care of his every need, including his need for socialization when we have busy weeks.

And the former non-dog-person me admits it’s hard to say no to that sweet puppy face.
Filed Under: Cosmo, me me me, memories


Jan 21, 2012

What I’ve Been Up To This Week

January 21, 2012 By

It’s been a busy week for me. Aside from the normal work, kids, dog, etc., I also had a quick flight out to New York for one of those “is this really happening to me” moments.

Why? I’m now a brand ambassador for Slim-Fast for the next 4 months. I’ll be updating my progress on Losing My Hind and hosting some giveaways soon on Mommy’s Must Haves. But I’ll be sure to give you all a heads up here as well so you don’t miss out on a chance at some freebies!

Now just cross your fingers and hope that the winter storm heading our way doesn’t keep us stuck in the house all weekend. Because then I might have to resort to crafts or cooking or something to keep Cordy and Mira entertained, and we all KNOW that usually ends poorly, LOL!

Or maybe we’ll give this guy his first bath. If I can get him off the kids’ furniture.

For those of you in the storm’s path this weekend – stay warm and safe!

Filed Under: Cosmo, daily life, domestic zero, shameless bragging, shameless promotion, snow


Jan 16, 2012

Not So Funny?

January 16, 2012 By

I was reading through Facebook updates last week and came across an image shared by a friend of mine. Like so many of the word images shared on Facebook, I immediately laughed when I read it.

The image?

But more interesting was the commentary beneath it. My friend also found this funny, saying this was so like her. Another of her friends, however, replied that as a mother of a child with ADD, she didn’t find it funny at all.

Hmmm. It make me wonder if I should feel guilty for laughing?

Would this be considered making fun of a disability? I don’t know. I mean, for many types of humor, there is often a nugget of truth that is exaggerated for comedic effect, or a stereotype stretched to a ridiculous extent. If I was to be offended by any exaggeration of a personality trait, physical trait or behavior, I’d pretty much have to avoid every comedy club and never watch The Daily Show ever again. I’d really miss Jon Stewart.

But I don’t know if laughing at something like the image above is equal to teasing the kid who is different on the playground. My take on the image is also a little different because I actually have ADD. I read that statement and think, “Hell yeah, I’ve had days not too different from that!” Days when I’m in a full contact wrestling match with my mind to pin down a little focus – on any topic, I don’t even care which one – just for a few minutes.

So I read that and see the nugget of truth. It IS hard to focus with ADD. I’ve had moments where friends stare at me strangely because I’ve jumped topics in such a way that they don’t see the connection.

On the other hand, I can understand her friend not finding it funny. We all have our trigger issues that we don’t see any humor in. I’m certain her friend does have rough days caring for a child with ADD. As a mom of a daughter with autism, I get it. Years ago, when Cordy was newly diagnosed, I wouldn’t have found any jokes about autism funny, either. I can respect her view, because no one can tell someone else what is or isn’t funny to them.

For me, however, I do appreciate the humor. As long as it isn’t intended in a harmful or mean-spirited nature or intended to tease one person, poking fun at ADD, or any other condition, in a gentle way is fine with me. I even appreciate a good autism joke – Cordy and I have learned to laugh at some of the more silly aspects of autism, of which there are MANY if you look closely enough.

It also boils down to a simple mantra for me: laugh or cry. There are moments when I need, need, NEED to pay attention, to focus, to not screw up some important task that I must stay on track to complete. Sometimes I win out; other times I fail. I can either choose to cry in frustration at my limitations, or I can laugh at them and move on. One way is certainly less depressing than the other.

So I apologize if you read the above joke on ADD and are offended, because no offense was intended. (Whoa, that rhymed. Sorry, I tried writing that sentence another way and it didn’t sound nearly as good.)

I also don’t know if it’s more acceptable to laugh at an ADD joke posted by someone who has ADD, but if so, laugh away. I certainly did.


(PS – It took me a week and about a dozen starts and stops to write this post. Can you tell it’s been a rough week? See? This is me choosing to laugh.)

Filed Under: big issues, me me me, random