Insomnia Haikus

Loki is the cat
Coco and Jackson are not
Rabbits don't like cats

Why am I awake
I think something bit my hand
bed bugs worry my brain

Dissertation Woes
Methodology sucks ass
Please let me be done

Piss,Piss,Piss,Piss,Piss
Litters must be cleaned again
Why is this my job?

Phi Delta Badass

So, I was at this conference this past week - and it was OK. By that I mean that I didn't attend but one of the talks, and got so quickly freaked out, horrified and vaguely distressed that I fled the venue and retreated to my room to listen to the dulcet sounds of the union protesters picketing out front.

I also got fairly inebriated two of the three nights and met some lovely bloggers who may or may not know my policy of imprinting:

Once Dawn has decided that you are "good people" you will be placed in her internal friends column. This may occur with little to no effort from you. Unless like poor Palinode, she announced the policy to you - in between her detailed description of various graphic novels and 1980's alt bands - after her fifth glass of white wine. She may also just give you her debit card and tell you to go get more money for booze.

While I did not interact with more than five or six people that I can recall interacting with ...and lets just say that it is safe to assume that after my 4th gin and tonic I don't really recall, especially when I am not wearing my glasses in order to make my mask fit better and seem like everything was in a vaguely sexy myopic fog.... I DID come up with a good idea.

It was during the talk I visited for a little bit. Also, it was my general feeling being surrounded by polished Mom type people with shiny boots and carefully done makeup...Myself in my Rocket Dog Skull sneakers, black skirt and variety of T-shirts (zombie avoidance, Mother Daughter Fight Club/Book Club shirt, RavenClaw and old skool Green Eggs and Ham), no makeup, with bound copies of  The Walking Dead I had found at a bookstore for $9.90 (SQUEEEE!!!).  Also, at no time was I looking at my Phone in order to tweet, text or otherwise engage in phone based social media.

So, Ok. I didn't much LOOK like them.

And my kid - she's cute, for sure..but she is also six months from being a teenager.  I have been blogging since she was 5, so I got no cute baby to coo about, or funny toddler or even endearing kindergartener. I got the hard core parenting shit going down here. The truly UN-Glamorous end of parenting. I have to discuss really difficult things with her, as the protection I can offer her from the world at large is so thin that  it is translucent.  She is closer to leaving me than coming From me.

Not alot of parenting commonality there.

Finally, I care fuck-all for being a "brand". Just the fact that I just used the word "fuck-all" lets you know that I am not looking to be a brand, because I suspect one of the unspoken rules is try to not swear too fucking much in your fucking blog.  HAH! I love to swear. I love the feel of swears rolling off my tongue and fingertips. It remains as delightful now as it did when I was 14 and said "bitch" in front of my mother with no repercussions.

I also like sex - and like to talk about sex. I love my Penis Blog and have never hidden that it is mine. I love that it is popular in alternative sex communities.  Ribald and Bawdy make me laugh. I also like to eat and occasionally get fat. I have never been skinny and even at my thinnest am not considered skinny. I am, in every way, a woman out of the Renaissance - lush, sexual, well educated, and in love with the sensual gifts of the world.

So where do I fit in, amongst this community of Women? Amongst this community of Parents? Amongst this community of Bloggers?

I am not Club. I am not Yummy, I am not Bad.

I am, however, a Badass. Phi Delta Badass, in fact.

So - I am starting  my Own space, called Phi Delta Badass, where Moms and Dads and in-betweens or No, Thank You's can mingle.   I've got some sketched out ideas about how I want it to be, and I have purchased the domain and email and blog space.  In rough draft, I want it to be a place for Me - a place where I am not looking to get a book deal, or lure advertisers to sponsor me or Brand anything. An Authentic Space. An occasionally raw and raunchy space. A space which promotes and explores fashion and beauty in a way that is less conventionally polished, but still utterly beautiful.

So this is what is rolling around in my head. I can't promise anything will come of it. It is all still very much an embryonic bean of an idea, so I have set a space aside for it to see what it will become.

What do you think?

Play Mobility

Emily has had a long standing and intimate relationship with Playmobil. It was the first toy that "clicked" with her. I tried Brio trains, I tried Lego, I tried Fisher Price, I tried Polly Pockets,  I tried Groovy Girls....and she only had eyes for Disney Princesses.  My feminist cred was deeply damaged. How did I end up with a girl who ONLY liked a bunch of princesses. 


It wasn't until she encountered Playmobil in Ms Deb's Kindergarten that she found her love. 


At first I wasn't sure what to make of it. Ms Deb's classroom had a Playmobil police station, which Emily and Sarah promptly dis-assembled to make into a house.  For the girls, I think it was the ability to recreate the desired play space that was most attractive. They were imaginative enough to be able to fully discount what they Saw, and recreate it into what they wanted. 


For that first Christmas, I presented the Modern House, with attachments and furniture. I vaguely expected her to discard it the same way she did the 1200 dollars worth of Brio Trains ( which later got gifted to Ms Deb's classroom) to have it sit in buckets in the basement for eternity. 


To my shock and delight, the House was consumed with such relish and delight that Terrance and I were more than stunned. This child who was to be diagnosed with ADHD later that year rarely, if ever, spent more than 5 minutes with ANY toy.  Now, she was sitting with and actually Playing. As in Making Up dialog and arranging and rearranging scenarios.


Since that first gift of the Modern House in 2002, Emily's Playmobil collection has grown and grown. Arctic Explorer, Shopping Mall, Grocery Store, Hospital, Fairy Set, A good portion of Pirates, Wedding Sets, Farms, The Rabbit Easter Sets, Egyptian Sets, and every year a new advent calender, which is later lovingly repackaged and stored with the others.


One of the things I loved about the playmobil figures IS the non-specificity of Gender. In many cases, a simple change of hair styles can adjust a male character to a female. I didn't have to contend with the overt gender messages that Barbie and her cohorts were promoting.


I did notice, and was concerned with, the lack of diversity in the figures. She had LOTS of white people, which in New Hampshire was the norm. It was then that I sought out and bought the African- American and Hispanic American family sets - 2 of each - to blend into her ever growing milleau of people. 


That action met my need for Em to have dolls that represented her family and she mixed and matched to her hearts content.  One of the many things I have loved about my daughter is her ability to simply accept - she is a kind and generous soul. She has never questioned why women might marry women, or men might marry men, or people of different ethnic backgrounds might marry. In her world view, it is just how it IS.


This has been reflected in her imaginative play as well. It is not uncommon to see a variety of figures standing in a variety of roles in her play scenes. Pirates may be paired with the Rabbits, and The Doctor might be riding the Red Dragon on any given day,


A recent post at another blog sent to be by Mayumi set me to thinking. Had I noticed this issue of African representation? Why hadn't I noticed this? What did I think about this, given Emily's long standing relationship ( and my many thousand of dollars investment) in/with Playmobil? 


I think the overall criticism is valid - Particularly given the Western world's relationship with Africa as a paternalistic colonizing force. 


However, in some ways I wonder about any toys ability to authentically depict ANY culture. The culture represented by Emily's basic Modern House is certainly that of a Western upper middle class family. However, the House wouldn't even neccessarily reflect a family in Japan of similar economic status.


The stores (butcher, bakery, ice cream shop) are staples in Our current neighborhood in Montreal- but are certainly not something one would see in every neighborhood.  


My next question  then becomes more paramount: "Is there an acceptable level of political incorrectness we are willing to tolerate in order to allow our children to fantasize/engage in imaginative play?"


This is a tricky one. And I admit I don't have an answer with which I am entirely comfortable.


In the world in which we currently live ( Montreal), Emily knows people from all around the world, including Africa.  She is cognizant that representation does not equal reality - particularly as an American living outside of her own country. 


(In writing this, it occurred to me that she has been formally educated in Quebec for longer than she had been in the US at a ration of 2:1. Wow. )


She has now experienced kids telling her that she is "not black" as she is not African. Emily and I had a discussion last week at our local grocery in which the man who helps put the produce in our green bucket told us that the young girl at the cashier told him he was "too black". They are both of Indian descent and he is much darker skinned.  I replied that it all depended on where you were - that in the States I would not define him as "black" and that also in the States, my daughter is defined (legally) as "Black". The cashier and older man were shocked - She wasn't Black! Emily laughed and said "Oh! I am definitely Black!"


So I return to my question - 

"Is there an acceptable level of political incorrectness we are willing to tolerate in order to allow our children to fantasize/engage in imaginative play?"

And I guess I am. 

Em knows that all Scandinavian peoples aren't vikings, just as she knows all Africans aren't in animal skins with a spear. She knows not all Moms cook and not all Dads coach soccer. She knows that First Nations peoples and Native Americans are not represented fairly in many venues, film, books, legends, and that one persons "discovery" was another persons theft.

However, this is because Terrance and I have made a point to Talk about these issues, constantly, with her.  Rather than boycott Playmobil, I prefer to talk with her about what images may be trying to say and if it is an accurate or fair representation - and Why or why not.

For our family, finding a toy with which Emily could unleash her imagination and focus her attention was paramount. I am willing to do the other work around the bits and pieces we may find troubling or disquieting to preserve that refuge and imaginative space for her.

No Magic Bullet

So how do children move from being unable to control their body movements and functions to reading and writing in five to seven years?

If you look at it purely like that, it is a spectacular feat that we witness within every child - the development that occurs within the brain, and acquisition of enough knowledge and cultural information to begin to join a larger society as a functioning Literate Member.

One of the first things babies notice - and react to - is patterns. We are wired, as a species, to notice patterns. From the mobile above the crib, to the repetition of words in Good Night Moon, we instinctively seek out patterns. They please us. They make sense. They are also laying the foundation for literacy and numeracy (thats math in fancy educator speak).

Honestly, all curriculum areas,  reading, writing, math, science, music, art - they all come down to patterns. Patterns recognized, Patterns decoded, Patterns reversed and solved.

Some of these are things we seem to do intuitively with children. We describe the rhythms of their day, which we try to keep as routine and predictable as possible. We read the same books over and over ( and over and over until you are compelled to hide the damn book because you simply can not take it ANYMORE), and listen to the same music tapes. We do finger games with rhymes like "5 Little Monkeys".

We recoil in horror when our child begins to shout out things like "McDonald's" or "Ben and Jerry's" - but really they are just expressing what is called "Pre-Literacy" skills. In other words, they are decoding the common everyday things they witness. They can look at a Cheerios Box and tell you it has Cheerios in it. It is indeed a type of reading.

Between ages 3 and 7, children start to become aware of - and then decode the symbols we have designated as "Letters" and "Numbers".

Now here is where I want to point out that while this system may seem perfectly logical to You - literate adult - it is , in fact, really Random. Someone, thousands of years ago, decided that certain scribbles equated to specific sounds or specific amounts.  That these scribbles, when lined up with other scribbles make a specific word - which is meant to project a specific image in the contents of your mind.

So Cat becomes not merely the word Cat, but the specific sounds "C", "A", and "T" - and that "C" and "A" can have different sounds depending on what other scribble next to which  they are lined up. Furthermore, Cat becomes both a genre of animal of the feline family, but also individual types of Cats - pets, family friends pets, pictures seen in books, animals seen at zoos etc. One word is allowed to stand it for a vast amount of information.

Pause. Extrapolate this out into every word and concept we expose our child to on a daily basis. Think about how much they are storing and retrieving and testing out and discarding in any given day. This is one of the reasons we must protect their sleep so zealously. We are finding, through research, that it is during a child ( and later, teenagers) sleeping cycles that this information is "cemented" into place. One of the reasons teens start to require so much sleep is because they are experiencing the second and final massive brain development phase before adulthood.

Here I will admit that I am a biased teacher. I was trained in both Phonics based and Whole Language based language arts teaching. I prefer Whole Language. For about 75% of children, it is what I saw as working best for their development as readers and writers. A Whole Language Classroom, rich in words, writing, reading and language surrounded the child in a environment where language WAS everywhere. This being said, I do recognize that for some children a phonics based system works better. They need to learn the structure and rules of grammar in a different way - a way which a Whole Language classroom does not always address specifically.

So, you have a child heading into a Kindergarten Classroom. They may know their letters (alphabetic principle), but they may not. They may be able to tell you what sound each letter makes (phonemic awareness), but they may not. And it's OK.

A child's experience in Kindergarten should be one of playing with these concepts with Peers and Trained Adults.  They should be read aloud to frequently, and have their attention drawn to "sight" words - small words they can pick out on "sight" in any given text. Teachers should be exposing the children to concepts about print, as in, some books give us information ( non-fiction) and others tell us stories. Books open a specific way and we read the pages from left to right. They should be exposed to the Sounds of language (linguistic awareness) through songs and fingerplays.  Sensory input should be used. Drawing letters and numbers in sand, for example, provides a different feedback to the brain.

{An aside - I used, and later her teacher adopted the Handwriting without Tears curriculum for help with the sensory processing end of how to write. It was developed by an Occupational Therapist for children with fine motor issues and is a tremendous way to help ALL children learn to write letters. Emily still uses it for cursive!)

Teachers should be introducing unfamiliar words to encourage vocabulary development. For instance, I had a group of K's who loved talking about each "Hypothesis" they were making.  I had another group who could map the Protagonist, Antagonist, Setting, Problem and Resolution  for each book we read.  I knew when one Mom came to me and told me how her daughter had overheard the television news the night before about a war and asked who was the antagonist and who was the protagonist that they had the concepts down pretty well.

What shouldn't you be seeing? Worksheets. Drills on letter sounds/letter naming. I am particularly disdainful of the "Letter of the Week" approach. In my experience, it really doesn't help a child understand the concept of a letter, but provides the teacher with an easy out for his/her curriculum planning.

A more thorough read is the National Association for the Education of Young Children Position on Learning to Read and Write. On pages 15 and 16 of the document, it lays out specific goals, determined by age, as to what teachers and parents can do to assist their child

It lays out all the things I have talked about here ( and more) with the research references to back it up. NAEYC also points out that learning to read and write go on well into Grades 2 and 3.  In fact, in some educational systems, children are not asked to academically begin reading/writing until Age 7. Of course they are exposed to language and literacy well before then, but they are free from the pressure to perform that Americans often place upon their children.

And Guess What? Those places have literacy rates Americans could only currently dream about.

On pages 15 and 16 of the document, it lays out specific goals, determined by age, as to what teachers and parents can do to assist their child. I only copied the K portion, but the recommendations go on into Second Grade:

Phase 2: Experimental reading and writing (goals for kindergarten)

Children develop basic concepts of print and begin to engage in and experiment with reading and writing.

Kindergartners can

• enjoy being read to and themselves retell simple narrative stories or informational texts

• use descriptive language to explain and explore

• recognize letters and letter-sound matches

• show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds

• understand left-to-right and top-to-bottom orientation and familiar concepts of print

• match spoken words with written ones

• begin to write letters of the alphabet and some high-frequency words

What teachers do:

• encourage children to talk about reading and writing experiences

• provide many opportunities for children to explore and identify sound-symbol relationships in meaningful contexts

• help children to segment spoken words into individual sounds and blend the sounds into whole words (for example, by slowly writing a word and saying its sound)

• f requently read interesting and conceptually rich stories to children

• provide daily opportunities for children to write

• help children build a sight vocabulary

• create a literacy-rich environment for children to engage independently

in reading and writing

What parents and family members can do:

• daily read and reread narrative and informational stories to children

• encourage children’s attempts at reading and writing

• allow children to participate in activities that involve writing and reading (for example, cooking, making grocery lists)

• play games that involve specific directions (such as “Simon Says”)

• have conversations with children during mealtimes and throughout the day

Everything's Lello

Tell me if you have had this thought:

"OHMYGOD MY CHILD WILL NEVER LEARN TO READ AND WILL THUS BE RELEGATED TO LIVING IN MY BASEMENT AND TAKING WORK AS AN ASPIRING SERIAL KILLER IF I DON'T GET HIM/HER TO RECITE ALL THE LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET IN THE PROPER ORDER AS WELL AS SPELL HIS/HER NAME PROPERLY"

Yeah, I thought so. Now it will surprise none of you that Emily has been learning avoidant for the entirety of her life. I like to think it is her special way of sticking it to her parents, the over achieving and overly educated. I truly think she gets a kick out of answering "I don't know" in a plaintive voice when asked simple everyday questions.

When she was 2, I asked her teachers to assess her for color blindness. Yes, it is rare in girls, but this child answered "Lello" (Yellow) to every color question I asked for a solid year. I became convinced she couldn't see color.

"No," her teachers told me, "She pointed to the correct color blocks when we asked her to help us get them. She knows her colors."

Later, it was days of the week. Emily refused to tell you the days of the week.  Now, I do know that when she feels pressured she does experience a strange type of aphasia - her brain shuts down and she blanks out. During these times, information retrieval is a moot question. But this was simple refusal to play our little game. Nope. She wasn't interested.

Letters and Letter sounds have proved challenging - even to this day. If she is rushing - and her brain is constantly rushing - she doesn't slow down enough to hear the sounds in words. If you try to get her to slow down, she just starts throwing out random guesses as to what letters are in words.  This means her spelling is atrocious. Even words we know she KNOWS are habitually misspelled.  Part of her early issue, of course, were the chronic ear infections. During the first 18 months of her life, she heard everything as if she were underwater. Knowing what I do about brain development NOW, I would have pushed for the tubes to be placed Much earlier than 18 months.  That was 18 months of experience and synapse development she will never get back and once the window on some of these fundamental senses (hearing/sight) close, there is no recovery.

However, she is a great reader and her comprehension is through the roof. Her issues have remained in the "mechanics" of writing.

So, why I have provided a synopsis of Emily's development as a reader/writer? Partially to show you that development will not be rushed, regardless of what a parent or preschool or kindergarten teacher can do. There is no magic bullet to reading and writing except that of Time.  There is no magic curriculum that will teach your child to learn to read before they are ready (and I am going to address this issue too - Readiness).

Getting your child into the right program, or the best program or the most exclusive program means very little in the larger scheme of things.  Sure, they may have a bigger variety of experiences to draw from (which is ow we increase knowledge) but there will be no acceleration in ability - just like baby walkers don't teach a baby to walk.

(I am halting this post here, and will post the second part tomorrow)

Twaddle

Dear Twitter,

I wish I could feel more - well, warm and fuzzy-like about you. I tried, I honestly did. I tried to make it a habit to go on once a day and "tweet" something. I know all the "big" bloggers also have crazy twitter followings and we should all be "tweeting" everything, all the time.

I also saw too many bloggers with Blackberry devices in hand at Blogher, staring glassy eyed into the screen as they made half assed conversation and scrolled frantically down screens to keep up with god knows what in the "Twitter-verse".

Of course, my long standing dislike of the Phone means that I don't like my phone, much less want to stare at it to get information.  Terrance and I fight about my habitual inability to Charge my phone, much less turn it on.
Give me an Aldus Lamp - Now THAT takes some skill.

My room in hell will require me to talk to people all day on the phone and use a tiny phone keyboard to send messages about my activities, every 10 minutes.

I thought "Maybe I just need to DO it, and then I will like it".

You aren't the first thing in my life with which I have used this approach.

Some examples:

Step Aerobics: I tried, really I did. I bought a step, and fancy step Reebok shoes and some exercise tights - but for the life of me, I never enjoyed this. My normal state of coordination is that of a drunken toddler, so the addition of complicated moves was a nightmare.  I had a similar experience when I tried running. Let's just say that there isn't a sports bra strong enough to eliminate the horrific bounce-back. I am not kidding when I have said that if you see me running, you'd better haul ass since something real bad is right behind me.

Nirvana: Although I graduated from College in 1992, I never understood any of this. Not Pearl Jam. Not Nirvana, None of it. I later tried to listen to some Nirvana and "appreciate" it.  Um, Nope.

Lima Beans: After a serious childhood adversarial relationship with the bean, I tried again in adulthood. An Adult gagging on a lima bean is just not cool.

Scrapbooking: Again, I think I thought that if I produced works of art dedicated to my child that my mothering sins would be forgiven. Or at least I could fool a majority of people by seeming to be uber dedicated to Child. In hindsight, I think my friends should have taken this little "hobby" as a serious cry for help.

Jelly Shoes: Hard Plastic on my feet? Yes, Please! Only to be followed by Granny boots.

So, Twitter - I've tried you.  I felt like I was standing in a party where everyone was talking - too loudly - but not listening to anyone else in a manic attempt to be the center of attention. I don't need to be ignored - I have two rabbits, one cat, a daughter and a husband who do that just fine, right here live and in person.

So, I've made room for you on my shelf, in the basement - next to the Step, the nirvana mp3's, a can of Lima Beans, and all the scrapbooking shit. But hands off the Granny boots. They just might make a come back.

What should you look for in a Kindergarten?

This week, two different people asked Me for opinions about Kindergarten. And by Me, I mean Actual Living Me, the person they know in real life.  Because Real Life Me is occasionally distracted or at a loss for words, I sometimes don't answer a question as fully as I would like. Given a few hours, my brain starts to overheat and think of all the things I wanted to Say, but forgot, or got sidetracked or overheated in my opinions about something else. If you are my best friend, I start to get upset FOR you and the words "Bullshit", "That's a bunch of bull shit" and "Do you want me to drive down and go to this conference with you? Because this is BULLSHIT"  starts to overwhelm the conversation.

I am, if nothing else, a passionate person.

So, I thought I would write this down for posterity.

Now, mind you, I have a very specific philosophy about education and children. It is Child Centered. By this I mean, I consider the needs of the child as primary to any decision about their education.

"Sure", you may be thinking, "We all think about the needs of the child"...But do we? Do we really? Because I would hazard that No - a good 90% of educational decisions have nothing to do with the needs of the child.

The needs of the teacher? The needs of the parent? The needs of the school district? The needs of the tax payers? The needs of  companies that develop textbooks and "curriculum's"?

I would hazard that this is what drives a majority of decisions about a child's education. Ergo, this combination tends to leave out the most important person in the mix - the child. I guess it is because they are small and can't vote and don't have disposable incomes or the adults around them believe they can't be trusted to have an opinion which should be honored that they get the shortest end of the stick.

In my time as Validator for the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the question that I repeatedly came back to was this: "Would I want to be a child in this program?"

That question broke down further to several other questions:

"Would I feel Known as a Person in this program?"

"Would I feel Known as a Learner in this program?"

"Would I feel safe with the adults in this program? If I was crying or hurt, would they know how to comfort me?"

"Is there time for me to play and talk - fully play and talk - with my peers? Is my play valued AS education and not slotted between other activities as filler?"

"Is my body respected - as in, can I use the bathroom and get a drink when my body tells me I need to?"

"Is the art that I see produced by Children, or is it a bunch of photocopies that everyone is told HOW to do the same thing?"

"Are children being asked to sit and do worksheets which have no intrinsic value other than something that fills time?"

"Are portfolios of children's work being collected which represents authentic learning?"

"Are adults in the program doing  ongoing and meaningful observation of children? This does not mean sitting down to assess with a worksheet - but sitting and doing anecdotal observation of the child at play?"

"Are child getting outside - EVERY DAY - except in severe weather ( as in below zero or heavy rain)? "

" How do the adults in the program communicate with family? Is there frequent personal communication?" How? Can parents easily reach the adult/teacher if they need to discuss something - or is there a ton of obstacles between the parent and the school?"

"Are there enough materials in this classroom so that children can explore and use them without worrying they won't have enough?"

"Does the adult in charge of my education understand and honor Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum as well as fully understand the developmental stages in which children learn subjects like math, science, and acquire literacy skills? Can the teacher tell you where your child is in those stages and how he/she is planning their curriculum to meet those specific needs?"

These are the questions I would arm parents to walk into any Kindergarten and keep in mind when assessing if the program will be a good fit for your child. These are the questions I would tell parents to walk into a conference with a teacher and ask.  Parents are always the best advocates for their child and just because a teacher has been "doing it this way" for xx years doesn't mean he/she should not be challenged or questioned about teaching practices. Tradition can easily be a code word for laziness.

There is no mystery in curriculum, and a parent should never feel bullied by the word, or by a teacher wielding the word. Parents must be fully prepared to be active and questioning partners in the education of their child. No one gets to sit on the sidelines, or rest on their laurels.

Education is constant motion.

My "I don't have pneumonia just a terrible chest cold" television review

I had nothing to write about over the last few days. I have been recovering from that hellish chest cold...

{Terrance: Please go to the doctor. You sound like you have pneumonia
Dawn: I don't have pneumonia, because I have had pneumonia and while I am coughing, I can still breathe. It just sounds like hell as I cough all this shit UP, so stop telling me to go to the doctor. Because I am not going}

So I have been sitting in bed, catching up on all my shows - Season 8 into Season 9 of Spooks, a BBC spy  show I just adore.

Dawns Thoughts:
Excellent choice of adorable British Men that I have fan-girl crushes on. Lots of fun Geo-political information.  Made me remember that Russia is a "threat" - as well as laugh at my own American-centric view of the terrorist threats of the world that go far above and beyond what has captured USA Today's attention. But stop killing the Awesome Female leads.

(P.S. Spooks producers? That person playing the American Spy? She has an accent out of 1930's New York.  I mean, seriously. It bugs me)

First 4 episodes of Supernatural...

Dawns Thoughts:

Well Played writers of Supernatural. I was really uncertain how you were going to dig yourself out of that Season Closer. I mean, it did seem pretty final and all. And thanks for bringing  back Castiel. His smolder is distinctly different from My beloved Dean. Also, Sam has clearly been hitting the gym. I am curious as to how you explore the new family dynamic there.

First episode of Sanctuary:

Ok....Not so impressed. You are going to have to step up your game here - cause that Kali story was just too, well, ridiculous. And that is coming from a show which has at its premise that there are special places for the "ab Normals" run by a couple hundred year old Doctor who had a (test tube) baby with Jack the Ripper and made some kind of cabal with Nikola Tesla and the other guy I can't remember right now. So pick it up.

And for the piece de resistance today I watched the 1 hour and 7 minute glory that was the premiere episode of AMC's The Walking Dead

Now, given my serious, serious love of the comic, I had very high expectations. However, I also understand that a comic can never be fully realized as a television show. The mediums can reference one another, but you can never achieve the detail and nuance conveyed in a graphic form when making a television show.

There are so many reasons I love this comic - the stark writing, the black and white format. The unapologetic killing of characters. Its just so unsentimental.  Of course, in the comics - now well into 70 plus issues, Kirkman develops characters in a way which is both spare and full. The comic emphasizes that it doesn't have time to fully vet every member you meet. You don't get rich back stories to understand how people ended up making every decision  you witness.  Kirkman also never makes the story morally easy - and it gets more and more difficult as the comic progresses. No character is allowed to remain wholly likeable - NO ONE.

So what did I think of the premiere episode?

Brilliant.  They could have made the beginning scenes too rushed - or somehow cut out the way Rick wakes up after being shot in a police operation (He's a deputy sheriff) - after the zombie apocalypse has occurred only to wander out to a world in which the dead are walking and there is no explanation. They could have rushed him starting the search for his family, or cut out the meeting of the first survivors that he encounters who teach him what they know about what has happened.

They could have cut out the small nuances, like Rick walking up to the farmhouse to find the corpses of the farmer and wife, victims of murder suicide rather than face the word changes ( although the comic scene had children lined up on the couch, but I will forgive that)

And while the initial approach into Atlanta was a little too "I am Legend"ish, I forgive it for the scene when he corners the street and into the horde of dead. That was brilliant. Hold back until the end. Give him the full scope of the hell that has been opened.

And kudos for making the zombies both terrible and gruesome, but not silly. These zombies are as serious as a heart attack.

So Kudos, AMC. I can't wait to see the next episode.

And You?

My Morning so far:

12 half assed attacks on the rabbits launched by psychotic cat stuck inside because of rain

1 attempt made to clean up the rabbit piss all over the floor, most likely associate with the above "attacks"

2 arguments between Terrance "Birthday Boy" and Emily "Faking Sick" about brushing her teeth and combing her hair

1 attempt by husband to be funny as I was bending over to sweep up rabbit poo and clean piss. This attempt involved grinding in simulated sex motion on my bent over ass while I attempted to corral the stray poos.  Attempt was greeted with these words "This has got to be the least erotic thing you could do at this moment".

4 mentions of how sick each other member of the family felt, while holding a body part to emphasize said "illness"

1 realization that husband had thrown away all extra newspaper used for attempting to deter rabbits from random pissing on sides of litter box since the cat - so recently saved from the icy clutches of Stray Cat Doom at shelter - has decided to terrorize the rabbits by leaping into the room to watch them flee.

0 - awareness of how much food there is to eat in house, not counting the sad apple left in the fruit bowl which everyone has avoided for some unspoken reason.

0 cups of coffee

5 ibuprofen

Artful Dodger

Terrance just called me Typhoid Mary - which  might be accurate, except that I believe Her Royal Majesty TM was healthier than I am, currently.

This is before he gleefully forced me to drink a medicine cup full of Buckley's cough syrup. For those of you not familiar with this brand of Canadian cough syrup, I can only describe the taste as mentholated sperm.

Yep. Spunk with camphor.

The taste is so bad that as you are swallowing it, you reflect on the foulest blow job you have ever given and think "Well, at least it wasn't menthol tasting too." 

In a show of confidence, Terrance also lay a bucket next to my throne of disease.  This is not, for the record, my throne of lies - which smells like beef and cheese.

I've been sick for a couple of days. It wasn't until my coughing reached violent gagging that Terrance was prompted to look up and say "Wow. You are sick." 

And of course, I am on the third week of the new depression medication.

After deciding it made me fall back to sleep within 2 hours of my taking it, we swapped it to night time.  This has helped with the passing back out at 10:30 a.m.  - or the "Hi, my name is Dawn and I am not a narcoleptic, but I play one in real life" syndrome.

The shingles broke out too. A little added "HA-HA" from my body's immune system to me. 

So I have acquiesced and decided to go back to therapy. Real Therapy. The therapy I have been avoiding for nigh unto two years.

Physician, Heal Thyself! you may all be shouting at me. I know. You can play hella phone tag for two years, if you work hard enough at it -and I am, for the record, an expert Dodger. Artful, if you will.

The last time I had this kind of collapse of physical health? The end of the manic episode of 2006-2007. Before that? My first diagnosis of the clinical depression with panic attacks.

My body, in a last show of desperation, has broken.  It think it figures if this doesn't at least flag me off to the side of the road, nothing will.

So Ok. There are lots of monsters that have been pushed into my closet for the past two years that are howling to get out. Rather than to pretend to not hear them anymore, it is time that I invite them out to smite them, one by one. 

It's not going to be pretty.

Blissdom Canada

Did I mention that I signed up for this, oh ages ago?

And Yep, I am completely dragging my utterly sorry ass out of my house and going.
I even just booked the train tickets,so there is no turning back.

I may be depressed, but I HATE wasting money.

And I hear there is going to be free wine at the first party, so we all know that I am all about the free wine.

I may even be forced to come up with some kind of costume for the final party, although I am not sure the Blog World is ready for me as "Naughty Nurse" or "Beer Garden Girl"....

Godot

This medication change is rather kicking my ass.

The prozac is most likely fully out of my system now - a month of no Prozac means that half life has worn off and that I am only on this new med - Pristiq.

I felt good for a couple of days. A little more energy, and I slept almost through out the night like most normal human beings. I felt hopeful. Didn't feel too bad, and no obvious crying or other lethargy.

Then my period arrived late last week and my whole bio-chemistry collapsed.

When Terrance arrived home last night at midnight, there I was - weeping in my bed. At first I think he just thought I was being moody and temperamental and tried to cajole me out of a "mood" - until I snapped.

I suspect there is a tone in my voice. I can't verify that because I don't exactly hear it, but I think he must. His instinct is to comfort me, which I want, but I don't. Isn't that a bitch? I want to be held and comforted, but I can't stand to be touched. The very thing that is soothing me makes me want to wrestle myself away from you and lock myself in a dark place. The more I am touched, the more I want to rage against you.

The poor man came home bearing gifts, for today is our 14th wedding anniversary. I was curled into a sobbing ball,  daring him to touch me. The glory of marriage, folks.

A couple of weeks ago I asked him why. I asked how. How can you love me? Why have you not left my crazy ass? I can not see the benefit to him at these times. I do not cook. I rarely clean. I am frequently completely self absorbed in the cavern of my own mind. I can be miserable and sexually withholding.

"I just do", he said.

And so I cry and cry and cry. I feel worthless and unworthy of love. I sleep but am exhausted and fall back to sleep after waking up. I can pull myself together for long enough to emerge from the house every few days, before I sink back into my refuge.  While I don't want to kill myself - my survival instinct is far greater than nearly every other impulse in my brain, some kind of safety valve placed in me at birth that dictates that I MUST KEEP GOING - I do want to disappear.  While I feel desperately lonely, I can not bear to be in anyone's company. Both of the edges of the sword are cutting me while I watch dispassionately at my bleeding.

The small, logical Dawn remaining pipes up to say the medication needs more time to work. That switching over can take a couple of weeks to truly filter through the brain and see if this will all be set to rights.

Self critical Dawn? She steps in during this time too. This is her heyday, her shining moment. She tells me how self indulgent and lazy I am. That I am choosing to be upset. That if I put my mind to it and got busy than I would be fine, but no. You are too lazy and selfish and self absorbed to even try. That when Terrance does leave - as everyone always eventually does leave me - it is because I deserve it. I further deserve it for stopping a medication which wasn't entirely working, but was working better than this. See? Change is Wrong. Change is Bad.

And so I wait. Small. Exhausted. Lonely. Angry.

I wait for medication to stop this coup in my brain.

I might actually sleep well tonight

Emily was moved into a brand new classroom today, with a new teacher.

Can you feel my relief?

An Ugly Truth

There is very little that I keep from Emily.

Oh, that is not to say that I allow her access to what I consider to be Adult worries or information. My own mother with her non-existent boundaries taught me that my child was not my friend and confidant. I had that role. I hated that role. I will not be repeating that particular role with my child.

I do my best with discussing the issues around her body changing and the changes she notices and feels. I won't pretend that it is easy or comfortable. There is a part of me that wants to run into my closest and close my eyes and LA-LA-LA-LA it until she has moved out. However, that role has currently been taken by Terrance, so one of us has to buck up and get out there and provide some guidance. Tonight, I read her an article by the fabulous Dr. Lissa from the BlogHer feed about what vaginas should smell like....and while she was vaguely horrified at my use of the terms "Fish Taco" , "coochie" and "pussy" ( and perhaps the ease in which her mother allows such terms to roll of my tongue) she was also curious and attentive. Par for the course in our house.

Nearly three weeks ago, however, I broke a barrier with her that I have held back until now.

Suicide.

My sister has made two suicide attempts. The first one, the tester one, was minor as these things go.  Em knew that I went to my home town and that her Aunt was sick....but nothing more. She knew that her grandmother and I had progressed to a fairly spectacular argument that sealed my decision to keep my mother at arms length. However, since we still encourage Emily to call and chat with her grandmother...as well as occasionally spend some vacation time with her ( all done without me being involved in transport or drop off/pick up) she doesn't think to dig any deeper.

I have not kept my own mental health issues from Emily. She is aware, for instance, that I am currently changing medications. That this may mean that I am slightly crabbier (or not) as I feel out the changes in regimen.  She understands that I manage depression. That I take medication for depression. She has known what the pills are and look like and that they are Not candy and Not for her.

I have always wanted her to know that Yes, Depression is real and it can be managed and that it is just a part of life for some people.  I wanted her to know that My depressions have nothing to do with HER, are in no way her fault and should not be held inside her as some kind of criticism of the wonderful person I know her to be. She also knows, from my comments, that depression is something that my "runs" in my family.

I have always been frank with her because I wanted her to be aware of  a predisposition within 50% of her genetic makeup towards major mental health issues. Mental Health issues that I know, from the copious research available, start to emerge in the age 14 range for many teens.

We were at a breakfast place with the television on in the background. I wasn't listening terribly closely, as I was waiting for my cup of coffee. She must have heard something on the television, however, which prompted the question.

"What's suicide?"

Unlike the inherent weird freaked out feeling that your child asking about sex gives you - like OH MY GOD THEY KNOW THAT THEIR FATHER AND I HAVE DONE "IT"!, this question sends a wholly different feeling through you.

Fear runs through you. Deep, Deep Fear. The same fear you felt when you were five and realized that your parents could Die.  That your force of will could not stop something from happening...that your existence in the world could not wholly protect people whom you loved.

Looking into your child's face; The person who makes you both crazy and utterly joyful and reaching for words to explain the urge to extinguish your own life? The desire to simply brush the question away with a deflection or a "You don't have to worry about that" is profound.  As is the desire to start to cry.  Which would be it's own type of deflection. For it is in those moments, I think, the moments when you sense your own parents discomfort that foundations of future trust are built or eroded.

And I want Emily to trust me, implicitly, for I know it is not going to get easier as she moves further and further beyond my influence.

I started plainly. Suicide is when people decide to kill themselves. Not by accident, but by choice.  This led, predictably, to questions about WHY anyone would want to do that.  Emily remains in that sweet spot of 12 when she is both old enough to understand some things, but still impervious to some of  the sorrow of being older.

I did the best I could, explaining that sometimes people feel that their problems are too large, that they are too sad and worn out to feel like they want to keep being alive.  That this can be caused by lots of different problems - Drugs and other addictions....and mental illnesses, like depression.

In a voice filled with incredulous indignity Emily said, "Yeah well YOU'VE Never wanted to kill yourself...."

I admit I couldn't fess up to it to her. I couldn't tell her of some of the worst parts of my depressions.  It simply isn't for her to bear at this point, just as the details of abuse at the hands of my biological father is not for her to bear.  Know someday? Yes. Burden her with it now?  No. I couldn't.

Instead, I told her the story of my sister. She remembers when her aunt was in the hospital?

I told her how she had drank antifreeze. How this had very nearly killed her and how she had to be air lifted to a larger hospital, dying at least twice before being put on dialysis to cleanse the poison out of her blood. I explained how her aunt had to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks to recover and get her medications to a place where she was well enough to come out.  How all of this was due to the depression that we - as a family - must manage.

Emily was shocked. Her aunt, the aunt she loves and adores, the aunt who is bright and smart and young and beautiful....THIS aunt tried to kill herself?  She didn't want to live?

Yes, my beloved. Depression is a terrible illness and it can trick you into believing things that simply are not true.  I tell you this not to scare you, but to arm you against an enemy you may have to face someday. You may not. You may be  protected by some combination of genetics and luck....your uncle seems to have escaped unscathed to date....

But most importantly - MOST importantly, there is nothing that is so terrible that it can't be shared. That there  is nothing that she can tell me which would make me love her less or run away from her.  That everything changes in time - even things which feel unchangeable and insurmountable.

I explain that I tell her this not to scare her, but to let her know that I am willing to face anything with her.

Anything.

Boogie all night long to the sounds of Pristiq!

And here is where the camera would pan away to the dazzling outfits of the girl band, (ala Labelle)

while a heavy funk groove begins.

So, I am switching medications after 9.5 years on the Prozac-tacular Prozac. of course, I am worried because the LAST time we messed with my medications?

Oy Jesus. Bad Moon Rising.

But my sleeping is way out of whack and I am needing increases in doses with a greater frequency to keep the depression at bay - and I have now been off the Prozac for 2 and a half weeks and while I am not in full withdrawal mode, I can feel the difference.

So I am willing to try it, even with all the crazy shit about it being a derivative of Effexor and will it help, or won't it help, or will I need to go back on the Prozac in a low dose too to make my brain function in some vaguely human way?

Because sleeping for 13 hours a day and still feeling exhausted is no good. Especially when you then are awake until 3 a.m.....so you then feel more exhausted.  Its a lottery where the continual payout is more shit.

But like all people with messed up brain chemistry, you just want it to WORK. NOW.
You want to wake up in the morning and think "Hey. I feel pretty good - Lets get going!" rather than this sloggy feeling of being in opaque water.

So I will either feel better, feel worse, or feel nothing. I'm not loving these odds, I must admit.

"I'll take Parental Guilt for 1000, Please"

When I made the announcement at Mother Daughter book Club last night, the last thing I expected was to be awake at 4 a.m., later that night, in full panic attack mode, envisioning my daughter as a destitute crack whore living in the crevices of St Catherine.

Now in my defense, I have been off my meds since last week when I ran out.  Since I couldn't see my doctor until this coming Monday, I have been crazy Med free for nearly two weeks..... for the first time in more than 10 years.

 (And don't get me started on how the pharmacist wouldn't refill and the doctor couldn't be gotten to fax a script in to refill and me, off meds and getting increasingly angry with myself for not being more on top of things and thinking vaguely that I DESERVED withdrawal, but I increasingly digress as the symphony in my head gets louder and adds in more critical voices )

It was the utter silence, I think, that unnerved me.

In choosing books for the upcoming months, and trying to work schedules etc, there was a sudden uptick mother voices talking about the high school entrance exams and how they aren't sure if they are going to be able to make the October meeting because everyone has eight billion entrance exams scheduled. Now, this isn't just for private schools in Montreal. Oh, No. They do this shit for the "better" public schools too.

Me being Me, cheerfully announced that I opted Emily out of ALL of that - that our stance was it was all Bullshit, and we weren't going to put Em through it.  "No reason", I said. "The tests are meaningless. She has two parents with PhD's in education, she is going to be just fine."

I might as well have announced that I had conceived Emily through Alien anal probing. (although god knows, Terrance does try every now and then)

Silence.

One of the Moms who knows me a bit better smiled at me. I am the quirky parent after all. Who KNOWS what Dawn is going to say.  Sweet Dorothy even said "Well, that is really refreshing!" I know she was sincere. I am sure it WAS refreshing. I may have been the first parent in the history of English Montreal who made that statement in a public room with other parents present. I may as well have said "I hope for Emily to be a stripper in one of Montreals various skin clubs. Maybe a stripper with Herpes. And a Meth addiction."

In that moment of silence, the panic saw it's opportunity and nestled itself in my reptilian brain.

In the light of the day, I can look at that panic. I know it well. It was the same panic that came to stay when her brain injury was first diagnosed and I envisioned her, 32, living in my basement and walking to her minimum wage job. No college. No marriage and children. Nothing.

And it was my fault. Me. Her mother. I didn't do something right. I was depressed. I drank coffee during my pregnancy. I put her down too hard in her crib one night. I didn't love her enough and I ruined her life before she could even escape me. It is part of that panic that whispers to me to have another baby, you know. Have another baby and prove you can do it better. Be absolved.  Which is ridiculous. And uber Crazy.

In the space of hopelessness it feels like something. Something I can do. Prep her for a test. Make sure she gets into the best high school, make sure I am doing everything right so if it goes wrong, I can be held blameless.

It is our collective parental nightmare. Our moments of indecision, of selfishness, or disinterest or sheer exhaustion in parenting are going to revisit us. They are going to sit in our kitchen and stare at us with dead eyes and accusing words.

When Terrance found me flighty and sleepless this morning, I garbled all of this out to him.

"We are doing the right thing, right? It will be all right, right? This is the best thing for her and she will end up in a good school? She will be happy? Should we start looking to see if she should take these tests?"

He soothes me. This episode was small compared to the panic after the diagnosis when I curled in bed and sobbed for my daughters imagined future. Professional Dawn has taken a powder break and left the Uncertain, anxious, parent in her place.

He holds me. "Dawn, if there was ever two parents who can exert sheer force of will, it is you and I. She will be fine. This will all be fine. We will find the right place where she will be happy and succeed, we always have..."

I hold the panic at bay.

Testing for Kindergarten? I Call BullSh*t.

Yesterday, Professional Dawn opened her email and saw something which made her so angry that she sputtered and choked her way into the University where she is a PhD candidate, and then proceeded to sputter and choke about what she had seen in her email inbox to her PhD partner in angst.

What could have caused Professional Dawn this type of reaction?

An invitation to a chat with an "expert" in Kindergarten Testing.  An "expert" with no actual degrees or experience TEACHING children. An "expert" who has written a book and is trying to sell it to worried parents afraid their child is going to be left out of some thing that , if only they bought the book, would solve the problems of getting their child into that exclusive preschool, or Kindergarten. This will, of course, lead to your child being prettier and popular and eventually getting into Harvard with a full scholarship.

I call Bull Shit. Do you need me to CAPS that statement?

I CALL BULLSHIT.

Professional Dawn has, of course, TAUGHT kindergarten. Professional Dawn has degrees in Education (Both Early AND Elementary) and Child Development and is in process of her very own PhD in said Educations. Professional Dawn is a Mom too.  A Mom with a child with a variety of diagnosed learning issues.  Professional Dawn is married to Professional Terrance , a man who did his PhD in Psychometrics. Do you know what that is?

Here, let me give you the Wikipedia fast and dirty definition:

Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the construction and validation of measurement instruments, such as questionnaires, tests, and personality assessments.


OH SNAP! We have a REAL education Expert AND an Expert in EDUCATION TESTING DESIGN in the same house!!! You can see why we may make a fearsome parental duo.


And do you know what we two experts KNOW about the designs of all of these tests?


They don't measure shit.  Not your child's intelligence or interests or ability to succeed in life. Not who you will marry or how happy you will be later in life. They are arbitrary tests which give institutions a Number in order to control the supply and demand of any given product, in this case, Education. 


Alfie Kohn calls it "a way to separate the wheat from the chaff children", and you know what that is veiled code for right? Rich and Poor. White and Non White. Haves and Have Nots. 


These books - these programs to "prep" your child for anything? Lies. They do nothing. 


Do you know what does help? Reading to your child. Talking to your child. Taking your child on walks around the neighborhood and discussing what you see. Listening to music with your child. Cooking with your child. Laughing with your child. 


I can tell you that the brain isn't fully developed until about age 21 when the pre-frontal cortex comes fully on-line. This is why teens have such crappy decision making skills, they are still growing the part of the brain that is needed to MAKE decisions. I can tell you that until age 7, the true Concept of Reading is not really accessible to most children. Sure, they can repeat words. They might even be able to sound out letters and sounds if you drill them enough....But the mystery of Decoding for information? Comes on-line about the time they move into the Piagetian "Concrete operational" stage.


I can tell you all sorts of things about children and learning and brain development. I can tell you that a healthy diet and protecting uninterrupted sleep  is as important for brain development as reading to your child. I can tell you it is the Quality of experiences and not the Quantity of experiences which shapes brains and intelligence. 


I can tell you that if Parents were to refuse to allow their children to participate in these tests that the Institutions would eventually stop demanding them - JUST like most schools no longer require GRE scores for Graduate schools. If you have no test scores to arbitrarily assign value to, then how are you going to Know a child as a learner? Maybe watch them? Get to Know them? Talk with them?  If you've got no test scores and no parents willing to comply with providing them, then your product (the school) becomes devalued. You are then forced to change your metric of admission. 


I can tell you that Anybody can slap "expert" next to their name and talk about things they have no right to be talking about as "experts". 


I can tell you that these books, these programs, do nothing but take your money and stress your children out. 
As Alfie Kohn says more eloquently:


"And once you realize that the tests are unreliable indicators of quality, then what possible reason would there be to subject kids – usually African American and Latino kids -- to those mind-numbing, spirit-killing, regimented instructional programs that were designed principally to raise test scores? If your only argument in favor of such a program is that it improves results on deeply flawed tests, you haven’t offered any real argument at all. Knock out the artificial supports propping up “Success for All,” “Open Court,” “Reading Mastery,” and other prefabricated exercises in drilling kids to produce right answers (often without any understanding), and these programs will then collapse of their own dead weight."




However, until PARENTS stand up and say "Absolutely Not, there is no basis or reasons for this" OR Schools come out and simply honestly say "We are trying to keep THOSE children out of this school, you know, the poor/black/stupid ones..."  this nonsensical hamster wheel of ridiculousness will continue. 


And it makes Professional Dawn crazy mad.

Final Straw

I had resigned myself to living with that awful teacher for 2 years by the end of last year. My only hope was that she was smart enough to NOT harass my kid, given that I had no problem rolling into the principals office, the school board, the parent representatives, the Education professors at McGill or You, the internets to voice my concerns.

Of course, she just HAD to shot one across my bow with the "Only Child" comment. She just H-A-D to do it.  Couldn't help herself.

Ok. I will let that one go. Chalk it up simply to her being the incredibly miserable human being that I know her to be.

But it was when Emily came home the following week and shared with me the way this hag decided to completely humiliate a boy in front of the rest of the class, that was when the final straw was placed.

Em's school has uniforms. No big deal, white shirts with the crest and navy blue pants. The shirts run between 22 and 30 dollars a shirt. Which isn't a huge deal...except when you have a crazy growing kid, OR one who is especially hard on clothes OR one of the billion other weird and unexpected scenarios that any parent has come to understand as Shit Happening.

While this is a public school and we are in a solidly upper middle class neighborhood, the school attracts children from a variety of backgrounds and socio-economic strata. Which we like. If we wanted Emily to be surrounded by  a homogeneous group, she would go to one of Montreal's MANY private schools.

Now, I know this little boy. He is, in fact, a bit of a hellion. I have watched him since he was in kindergarten in this school and he has remained a bit of a rambunctious badass boy. It doesn't help matters that he is TALL. As in "looked like he might be 11 when he was 5" Tall. So you have a boy who has always looked like he was MUCH older acting like a normal boy of his age, but drawing attention because he looks like he is old enough to know better.

He is the oldest of three children. His family is not one of the ones who lives in one of the big houses around the park, but I see his mom walking he and his sisters to and from school nearly everyday.

So what was this boys great crime? His mother, in what I can only guess was an attempt to stretch the money spent on uniforms, cut the crest off of an old shirt and sewed it onto a plain white shirt.

Mrs X felt the need to bring that to the attention of the class.

"J", she called out, "Why aren't you in your uniform?"

The boy, according to Emily looked a bit confused. He was IN the white shirt and blue pants like all the other Cycle Three kids. He responded that he WAS in his uniform. Mrs X was not satisfied.

"That isn't the correct Uniform, J. Do you not HAVE an official uniform?"

The boy remained perplexed.  Mrs X circles in for her kill.

"YOUR shirt has the crest on the RIGHT side of your shirt. The official uniforms have the crests on the LEFT Side of your shirt - did you not notice that?"

According to Emily, this is when J - and the rest of the class - figured out what was happening.  The boy does his best to refute the teacher, "My mom must have sewed it on the wrong side...."

Mrs X isn't done. "Yes she did!  You need to tell her to put it on the left side of the shirt so it will be a proper uniform shirt. She needs to correct her mistake...."

The boy, according to Emily, simply doesn't respond. Mrs X lets it linger and moves on to whatever new torture she is devising for her students.

When Emily tells me this as she debriefs her day, I fight the urge to either burst into Tears, or run into the school and punch this bitch directly in the face.  I am somewhat speechless as I look at my daughter. My kind and compassionate child who would never have known that J's shirts were not "correct" had it not been announced by this sorry excuse for a human being.  I ask her what J did afterwards. She shrugs.

"Nothing"

I didn't sleep that night. I also didn't tell Terrance about it. I just lay in bed thinking and thinking and thinking about what I could do - what I was supposed to do - what I had a responsibility to do. To tell you all that I literally lay awake with this chewing at my guts is in no way an understatement. People who bully children based on Financial status? On the actions of their parents?

I simply can not abide it.  Simply Can Not.

By the morning, I was ready to tell Terrance. His reaction was similar to mine.  The phrase "I am going to go kick this fat bitch in the ass" may have been uttered by Him. While he continued to digest the horribleness of the action, I had already decided I needed to go in and speak to the new principal.  No matter that the action was not directed at my child, I had an ethical obligation as an educator, as a Mom, as a human being to speak up about this.

So I did. I told the new principal everything. I gave her the card for my blog and encouraged her to read the stories about this teacher. To ask other parents who have suffered through this sadist's reign of terror over their children. I explained that Terrance and I had both worked for most of our professional careers for equity  in educational opportunities for ALL children, but particularly children from low income families.

I told her that No child - NO CHILD - should be made to feel less than anyone else because of a SHIRT.  That if the teacher had a true concern, she could have written a note in the agenda to the mother rather than draw the whole classes attention to this Boy and his shirt.

And Finally I said: "We want Emily out of that classroom."

Twelve

Yesterday - after the visit to the Cat hospital to visit Loki, the newest and therefore immediately sick and needing serious medical attention member of our family - Emily and her father had their First Annual "Arguing over homework" fiesta.

It ended, predictably, with her in tears, Him yelling and her retreating to her bedroom.

However, there is a change. She shuts her door now.

The child who refused to shut her door for the past 12 years - to the point of screaming and vomiting and writhing around on the floor-  has suddenly discovered that Shutting her door = Being Left Alone.

I had noticed this earlier in the summer, but kept quiet. She IS 12, after all. Her life is rightfully changing into Hers... in a way that does not privilege Terrance nor I. Stronger Boundaries are being built - Delineations between Her privacy and what she wants to share.

Its funny being on the outside looking in at her. Logically, I know lots of things about this stage in her life. Logically, I know that her need for privacy is right and good. That I am raising a healthy, strong girl, and that part of that means separating her identity from mine, from her father. I know that there will be more secret keeping and that I will have to negotiate access in a very different way in order to make sure that the balance between healthy secret keeping and bad decision making is attained.

When Terrance heard the door shut, he immediately came into the hall. "Emily? Is everything Ok? Are you OK?"

He opens the door and looks at her. She is sitting in her bed doing her homework.

Her tone is that of an exasperated teen. "Yeah Dad - I'm Fine. I'm just doing my homework."

He closes the door and walks into my bedroom. I meet his eyes.

"She's 12", I say.

"I forget she is 12", he says.

"There is no forgetting. ", I say.

Our baby bird is building her own nest.

Opening Volley

You know, I try. I honestly do. I don't ever start out as a raving lunatic. But People, certain people, well they just PUSH ME OVER THE EDGE.

One of those being Emily's Teacher. For whom I have many private names,  none of which shall be shared publicly.

Yep. Against all hope, meditation, and small animal and child sacrifices, her teacher did not retire over the summer. The Same teacher from last year is with us again this year.

With a summer away from this miserable specimen of humanity, I had almost forgotten the brand of craptastic crap she can say in any given day.

So, we sent Em off to school on Tuesday. All seems quiet. There is a new principal who seems fresh and no-nonsense.  Perhaps this year will be smoother. Perhaps this teacher has learned from the fury I visited down upon her Last year to Leave This Mother Alone. Do not throw rocks in the direction of this Mother. Do not poke this mother with a stick to see if she will open her eyes. Do not taunt or otherwise wave obvious battle regalia in front of the mother. Do not give weak explanations for stupid decisions you can not back up, because THIS mother...she is smart. And she does not suffer bullies well.

Today, I pick Em up. It is a hot day. All this week, they have been going swimming and taking field trips to ease everyone back into school. No homework has been assigned (not counting the thesis-level-stack-of-forms I have to fill out).

Em hops into the car, and immediately starts reminding me that we have to buy her exercise books. You know, those little papery composition books? Apparently they were on the list, and I forgot to buy them. No big, I think - we will pick them up on Saturday. Everything else that was on the mammoth sized list was sent in on Tuesday.

I turn to Em and say "Emily. You have already reminded me about those books. I told you we would pick them up on Saturday. What is the big deal - you don't have homework, do you? And have we EVER sent you to school without the supplies you need? Ever? In all of your life? "

Em pauses.  She says "No....but...."

"But what?", I say.

"When I told Mrs X that I didn't have the books yet and I was going to get them on Saturday, she said  "You're an only child, right? Didn't your parents have all summer to get the things on the list? Its not like they have six other kids to take care of before you....""

It is fortunate that we are now a good ways from the school, since I most likely would have had to speak with Mrs X about this little comment had we been within a 2 block radius. Of all the rotten, shitty, bitchy ass things to say to a 12 year old!

I simmer. "Did you tell her we were too busy sending you to camps and wonderful vacations BECAUSE YOU ARE AN ONLY CHILD?"

Emily giggles, softly.

"How about this", I say,"My parents just took me and my best friend to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for 10 days BECAUSE I AM AN ONLY CHILD!"

"Yeah", Em says, "I wanted to say "Hey - "we were kind of Busy", but I didn't want to aggravate her, so I said nothing."

"Lets just get through the year, sweetie - then we never have to see this Hobgoblin again."

Cat Days of Summer

School is back in session and Terrance and I have too much time together again.

This morning he left for yoga, while I was doing my morning nap.

I arose at noon and began to get my tasks underway. Litter box cleaning for rabbits, then cat. Washing floor of my room with vinegar for rabbits have indeed decided to urinate wily nily to express their displeasure with being boarded for 10 days AND the appearance of the feline.

Then washing of the throw rugs in vinegar and hot water to kill the scent of rabbit urine so I can place them back down on the floor. Rabbits and hard wood floors = funny but irritated slipping rabbits.

After I took care of the rabbits, I began to search out the cat. He is 2 days post neuter and I wanted to give him a once over look. He has only used the litter once since we brought him home Monday night so I want to make sure his incisions are not bothering him and therefore keeping him from using the box.

Can't find the cat.

OK. Cats are infamous for finding obscure spots and hiding. I look everywhere else Loki has declared to be His spots. Nothing.  I call him. Nothing. I shake the treat bag. Nothing.  Hmm.

My first thought was that Terrance let the cat outside. Terrance is itching to let the cat outside. He hates litterboxes with a passion and the fact that I have brought in a cat who will HAVE to use a litterbox, at least for the near future, galls him.

The more I think about it, the more I am sure. He let the cat outside. Which now means the cat will disappear and I will be left to explain to the inconsolable 12 year old that the cat ran away. Which also means I am out 125 bucks for the adoption fee. This pisses me off not because I resent paying an adoption fee to the SPCA, but money is tight and school has begun and I have a series of cheques to write to the school totaling @500 bucks. Its the time of year when I fear looking at my chequeing account balance.

I open the linen closet to get a towel since I might as well shower if I have to go roaming the neighborhood shouting a name at a cat who doesn't know his name.

Loki is sitting there looking at me.  Terrance had locked him in the linen closet on his way to yoga.

Phew. I give him a rub and shoo him from the closet. I take my shower.

As I finish, Terrance comes home.

Wrapped in a towel, I say: "honey - you locked the cat in the closet.- remember to look for him before you shut doors."

He immediately becomes defensive. "How do you know I did it?"

Um, Ok. Is this how we are going to play this? Really? I pause.

"well, he was with me after Emily left when I was reading, and then I fell asleep and you got ready for yoga and when I woke up and started to look for him I found him Inside the closed linen closet...." I trail off. I mean, do I really have to go balls to the wall legal defense for this question?

"Huh. Ok, Maybe it was me. But I want you to get dressed and march out to the car because there is some candy bar melted in the drivers side mat and it is a mess, it is never going to come out. There is caramel which is stuck on the mat. I think we are going to have to cut out that section of the mat"

I stare at him.

Several things flit through my mind:

1. I KNEW I dropped that damn candy bar. I just couldn't find it again after I was done swearing at the other drivers.
2. Yep. Totally my bad.
3. Cut out the section of the mat?  Its a CANDY BAR, for petes sake. It has no industrial powers of adhesion. How hard can this be? Sugar dissolves with hot water - let alone the tropical rain forest heat we are enduring at the moment.
4. Why did I marry the man with some anal fascination with the state of the car mats?

Terrance is seething. Quietly , but seething. I give what I think is the least offensive answer.

"Ok - I'll get dressed and go take a look."

I have exhibited none of the shame I was supposed to display. I mean, in Dawn world - It's a Candy bar. It is summer. It can be washed off.  Really, no big deal.

In Terrance world, it is one more example of what is wrong with Dawn. Her utter lack of attention to the niceties of life, including things like clean houses and clean cars. Her trifling , nasty whiteness.

He begins to expound on the insolvable qualities of the caramel until I finally snap.

"IT IS A CANDY BAR! It doesn't need to be cut out of anything, It is CARAMEL - not a Greek tragedy!"

"Well, I touched it and it didn't move..."

Now I am pissed. Really pissed. I storm out to remove the offensive 2 ounces of chocolate and caramel which has so enraged my spouse. I grab the mat from the car. The candy bar falls off nearly in its entirety.

You have got to be %^$%$#$ kidding me.

I march into the house and into the kitchen. I run some water on the mat and in less than 30 seconds, the mat is candy free. Not a speck of the offending caramel remains.

I run into his bedroom and hold up the mat: "See! Good as new. Cut out the section? What is wrong with you? "

His response: "You didn't water-log the mat did you?"

To my credit, I DID not throw the mat at him, although I sorely longed to do so.

Nope. I placed the mat in the sun to dry and came in here to write all of this down.