Because Every Freaking Day For a Month is A LOT OF DAYS, YO

This is likely to be short and a little lame...it is already past bedtime and I hit a wall back around 2:30 PM that I haven't quite managed to climb, lo these eight hours past. You know when you get suddenly overwhelmed by a tiredness that is almost in itself relaxing? When your body feels almost like it does after a massage or (if you're a hair slut like me) after getting your hair brushed? It's a liquidy heaviness that saturates your limbs and slows your reflexes. You can still speak, but a little more slowly and a little less coherently than you can at the top of your game. It's the point where you can maintain a conversation, but find yourself needing to prop up your head on your hands, your elbows on your knees, your body on a table...yeah. I'm there.

So forgive me and I promise that tomorrow I'll write something a little more engrossing. For tonight, I leave you with the following installment of Preschool Kids with Special Needs Really Say the Darndest Things, So All You Typically Developing Kids Best Step Off:

Scene: social skills group, me and a particularly spunky 4-year-old

Me (flashing the lights): Clean up time!

E: But I wanted to flash the lights!

Me: Sorry, E, I didn't know.

E (with an almost frenzied reassurance, the way you'd try and convince a child to stop crying): That's OK, that's OK, I still love you.

Me: Um...good to know. Thanks. I'm glad you still love me.

E (matter of factly): Yeah. That's what I tell all my adults.


End Scene.

Mother's Little Helpers

So, for once, I had a topic all picked out for my daily blog. That family I mentioned? Today I attended a meeting with DHS and the other service providers (community health nurse, respite care, etc.) and we all shared our experiences with the family. And those kids may end up in foster care, in part as a result of this meeting. Which is...kinda heavy, really. Some people at the meeting were very clear and direct about their opinion about pulling the kids. I hedged a bit. For one thing, that's outside the scope of my job to express such an opinion, but for another, I found it hard to whole-heartedly endorse the trauma that will follow. Do I worry about the safety of the kids? Absolutely. Do I think pulling them from the home is the answer? Well, not a good answer, but short of inventing the ability to turn back time and re-raise their parents, I don't know what answer I'm looking for.

I guess it comes down to: I hate that this is where we are, but I would (obviously) hate even more for something to happen to those kids.

I tried to make it clear that, whatever happens, I think it would be good for the 4-year-old (who I case manage) to be able to continue attending my class. He's made such progress, and, while I fully expect regression if he does go into foster care, at least he'll have some consistency. It's not that he needs me as a teacher, that I'm some miracle worker, it's that I'm here. Day after day, trying to convince him that an adult can be trusted. And I think he might be starting to believe me.

So, anyway, I came home a little...pensive, let's say. And then, in fairly rapid succession, a number of events conspired to cheer me up:

1) Tankbaby smiling through the window at me as I walked up the front steps. You have to understand that I have produced the fattest baby in history, so when he smiles, you get, like 30 chins and cheeks that go up and out and threaten to eclipse his ears. I defy you not to smile back at him. He could cheer up Morrissey.

2) MOTH's executive decision that our evening dog walk should be to the Thai place, where we would pick up Hot Food Prepared By Others, one of my favorite meals.

3) Tankbaby crashing out on the boob while I listened to Aimee Mann and re-read Sundry's blog archives, hoping to be reassured that it takes a while to get the hang of this blogging thing (Instead, I just muttered to myself, "well, someone certainly never heard of humble beginnings..." Side note: She was writing about how, in 2002, she was late to the blog party. What does that make me?)

4) Pulled up my little zygote of a blog and found my first comment! The Absence of Alternatives likes me! She really likes me! Not only that, she reads me! There's someone out here! Hi!!! Hi!!! (waves frantically)

All in all, a lovely evening to put a balm on my morning.

Because the Idea of Coherence Makes My Head Hurt

If you are going to feed the baby prunes, you will need to remain within diapering range of baby for the duration of prune expellation.


I adore the person I met at a conference this weekend, who, when I attempted a sort of lame business card exchange in a furtive effort to maybe, possibly, start an interaction that could one day lead to coffee or something, said, "Hey, do you want to be friends?" and just took a much cooler short-cut around the awkwardness. So, now I have a new friend!


Also at the conference, we did this touchy-feely closing exercise where we passed a ball of string around a the circle. The facilitator chided us to get closer, until we were actually touching each others' shoulders. Many people laughed a little self-consciously and moved closer, because, as people who work with young children, we generally are folks who are used to physical proximity. Not so for the lone male participant: "Sorry, I'm an accountant."


Have you had a graham cracker lately? Because you might be missing out.


Always have your baby about 18-24 months after a friend or two has had their last kid. Our lovely friend Jo--whom I adore even though she ALWAYS, ALWAYS looks radiant and put-together, even at 9 on a Sunday morning after two weeks of house guests and with her 2-year-old in tow--brought over yet more clothes and baby equipment today. I literally don't know how we could have afforded a baby without the generosity of people like this. Well, the baby was covered by insurance (because I am lucky), but the baby-related stuff came from generous, done-breeding friends.


One of the things Jo brought us was a Pack'n'Play (or foldable playpen, for those of you kickin' it old-school), which I have begun to call Baby Jail. I am mostly being facetious, although honestly, I generally sort of hate the idea of plopping babies in little mesh cages. However, that being said, it was realllly nice to have a safe (i.e., void of power cords and slobbery dog maws) place to set the baby for a second while I printed some pictures to send to Grandma.

On Monday, Tankbaby started to crawl. While this was every bit as miraculous--Dig it! He's like a real baby!--and moving as the cliches would lead you to believe, I am now obsessed (OK, even more obsessed) with how fraught with danger my seemingly-pleasant, formerly-innocent little house is. Who built a house with all these freaking CORNERS? And why make the floors so SOLID? Who turned up the gravity in this place, anyway?


Attention, doctors and media and CDC-type folks: either the swine flu is a Really Big Deal and you encourage vaccines and then actually manufacture enough of the effing things or shut up about it. Because to encourage panic and fear and then have all of us scrambling to find a clinic that has the shots only to be denied them because we're not "priority," well...that's tedious. And it encourages people to take medical advice from Jenny McCarthy.

Rambling to Self, Part the Second

Where was I?

Ah, yes...so now I had this writer that I loved, but she couldn't write enough for me to spend hours at a time reading. But what's this? A little list in the corner of other funny, smart women writing! Whee! Who cares if I don't have cable?

And so I worked my way through Julia's list. In this way, I became immersed in the world of infertility blogging (so much so that, when we started trying to get pregnant, I was sort of convinced that we wouldn't be able to, just because these women with whom I so identified in other ways had struggled to conceive. And then when I did get pregnant right away, I felt like a traitor. Which is kind of insane, because...well, they don't know me, they don't care, even if they did, yadda yadda insanecakes). My husband would walk by and wonder, "Why are you reading about infertility? We're not even trying yet." And I tried to explain, it's not the topic, it's the writer. I would read these women writing about infertility, parenting, car repair, Middle Eastern politics, Dadaist art, library fees, honeybee mating habits...a good writer, to me, can make any topic interesting.

Then, by nature of the evolution of the bloggers' lives and by following more links, I started reading parenting blogs. But, of course, calling it a "parenting" blog is generally a vast oversimplification: these women wrote about their lives, and their kids were (and, um, hopefully still are) part of that.

So I come back to: do I need a niche? Does that make it easier for readers to identify with you? Or for other bloggers to connect to you? I do envy and covet membership in some of the wonderful communties of bloggers that I read about, but am floundering at the idea of trying to figure out exactly where I belong. I will certainly write about parenting. But I'm also a special ed teacher and feel passionately about that. More specifically, I work with preschoolers with social and emotional issues and I want to compare notes and share resources. I am the daughter of a woman who died of cancer and am now mothering without my mother. I want to connect with other people who are doing the same thing. I am writing just for the sake of writing, and want to hear from people who are doing that. So can I be this spread out and still find the community I seek? Is there an online network of blogging schizophrenics?

Hm. So much for getting a few more days out of this topic. Tomorrow, knock-knock jokes!

In Which I Link…and Link…and Link…

Recently the lovely Jo at Leery Polyp wrote about losing her niche. She started out writing about, among other things, her infertility. Now she has two gorgeous daughters and is, in her words, “blundering niche-less through parenting bloggery.” I, along with other commenters , hastened to point out that, niche or no, Jo is a wonderful writer and we’ll all read whatever she chooses to write about. And, lucky us, she agreed to do so.

Which begs the question, do you need a niche to be a successful blogger? (My immediate reaction is, no, but you do need to start blogging about six years ago.) And, if so, what’s mine? I don’t remember how I found the first blogs I ever read (Poundy and TranceJen). I read them in the months when I was in grad school, living across the country from my sick mom, and feeling bleh about one and horribly, unwaveringly miserable about the other. I loved these funny women, who were willing to be so open about their lives, who distracted me from mine. Coincidentally, they were both in Chicago, which nicely fed into my homesickness.

Then, I stopped reading. Probably because I got a job and some therapy and started leaving my apartment, you know…ever. A few years ago, while reading Salon.com, I just randomly clicked over to A Little Pregnant, and happened upon this entry. I laughed out loud, showed the entry to a dozen people, standing over their shoulders while they read it, and laughed out loud again each time. So I read the archives, mostly laughing, sometimes crying. I am, if I do say so myself, a ridiculously fast reader, and I always have a book going. But this? This was appealing in a whole different way. When I read a book that I enjoy, I always have one eye on the pages left, aware of the impending ending (hee). I loved the idea of reading excellent writing with no set ending. But then I caught up to her, and wondered, “What now?”

Aaaand…I’ll have to finish that thought tomorrow, because the baby is now awake. Also? If I’m going to post every day, there’s no point rushing anything. Maybe I’ll get two or (checks calendar, counts days) twenty-four more posts out of it.

Times Are Tough All Over

In the city where I live, it is quite common to see homeless people standing at intersections, at on- and off-ramps for the highway, etc., with cardboard signs, asking for money or food. This was odd to me when we first moved here. Not that Chicago doesn't have its share of homeless people, but a) they tend to work high-foot-traffic areas, like downtown, instead of car-traffic areas, and b) they usually skip the cardboard sign and just come out and ask you for change. Possibly with some colorful language, or, alternately, a compliment. There's enough variety to always keep you on your toes.

But here, it's a magic-marker-and-cardboard kind of city, apparently. Most of the time, the signs just read something simple and poignant: "Need food-God bless." "Can't work-need help." "War Veteran." Sometimes there is a refreshing directness: "Why lie? I need a beer."

Today, though? The kid on the off-ramp stood impassively in the drizzling rain, hood pulled up, shoulders hunched slightly, with a hangdog expression on his face. I couldn't read the entire sign as I turned past him, but caught enough to get the gist:

"Parents killed by evil ninjas..."

Not Included: Suzanne Vega's "Luka," Fetal Position

Today I went on a truly depressing home visit.

Home visiting is part of my job; kids 3-5 come to preschool groups, kids birth-3 are seen in their "natural environment," which is usually their home, or maybe their day care. I like the phrase "natural environment," though...it makes it sound like the toddlers are feral, and we're approaching them in the woods with clipboards and ID tags.

The idea about going to the home is that you get to work with the families as well. We only get to see kids for an hour, once or twice a month (due to budget and staffing constraints), so ideally, we are also teaching parents how to interact with their child in a way that helps them reach their developmental goals (the kids' developmental goals, that is...we're not responsible for the parents' development, but more on that in a bit). This process works fairly well when the child is in a stable home, with a motivated, committed parent who has the desire and capability to take in our instructions and apply them. I still wish we could give the kids more hours of service, but I don't mourn for them.

I mourn for this house I was at today. Four kids under the age of five, all of them with some sort of identified special need or delay. They are the product of multiple generations of poverty, mental illness, drugs, incarceration, abuse...and, statistically, they are likely to continue these cycles as they grow up.

It's easy (if not exactly pleasant) to think that the answer is to have the state pull the kids out of the home. Break the cycle, right? And that may be what happens in this case. I do fear for the children's safety, and have reported my suspicions to the state (as I'm mandated by law to do). But--ignoring for a moment the fact that the mom, as crazy and damaged as she may be, is holding it together as best she can for her kids and it would destroy her to lose them--the sad truth is that kids feel most secure with what they know, even when what they know is hell. And anyone who's read a newspaper knows that there's no guarantee that they'll avoid a frying-pan-fire situation by getting put into the foster care system.

Hoo, boy! Cheerful, huh? See how I lure you in with three days of cutesy posting and then: WHAMMO! LIFE SUCKS AND THEN YOU DIE!!! But, while I come home from days like today with slumped shoulders and extra-tight hugs for my own little boy, I also need to remember that, while I can't do enough for this family, I'm not doing nothing. Throwing one starfish into the sea, and all that shit. And my kid from that house? He's making gains. He is still a very angry boy, one who's still likely to greet any disappointment with "Fucker!" and a swift shove of whoever's nearest him. But he's seeking positive attention from adults and peers alike, which tells me that he finally is understanding that he is worthy of that attention. And I helped show him that.

So that's why I love my job. Well, that and the fact that I get to wear jeans and sneakers. Oh, and? All the Goldfish crackers I can eat, baby!! That's right, mama's got the real cheddar taste hook-up. Aw, yeah.