special ed parent…and the olympics

Is there anyone who isn’t overwhelmed by the awesomeness of Michael Phelps? How amazing is it to watch Olympic history, to know that we will probably never see the like of him again? Aside from his swimming prowess, I’ve learned that Michael has ADHD. Like my son, he struggled in school and needed behavior modification techniques to manage his outbursts. When I told my son, his face lit up. It’s difficult sometimes to get through to him, so it was like seeing a ray of hope. I could have done a victory lap around the pool or, more realistically, a happy dance around the room.

And I have to say I’m thrilled to see how well the U.S. women did in gymnastics. I think what I appreciate is that they look like women, not girls. Even Shawn Johnson, tiny as she is, looks athletic, not like a nine-year-old girl. There’s been a lot of second-guessing over the ages of some of the Chinese gymnasts. My feeling is that it’s not age that’s so important, it’s that these athletes should at least be allowed to reach whatever height their DNA had in mind and go through puberty, for chrissakes. I don’t care if an athlete is fourteen as long as she bears a resemblance to what a typical fourteen-year-old is supposed to look like. It doesn’t do these girls or their bodies any good to be under such stress that they don’t grow or develop normally. And after all, the sport is called women’s gymnastics, not girls’.

But, hey, even “girls” is better than “babes,” which is what the women are starting to look like. As my daughter put it: “Have you noticed the beach volleyball guys look like gangstas and the women like hos?” We were stumped when we tried to name one event where the women’s butt cheeks weren’t popping out of their bathing suits, leotards, short-shorts, what have you, while the men are clad in baggy shirts and bike shorts. The only answer we could come up with was swimming, now that everyone’s wearing those high-tech full-body suits.

Trauma Teen

My daughter is sixteen, and she hates me. People tell me it’s just her age and she’ll get over it and come around, but it’s hard to believe at the moment. Everything I do is wrong. I actually expect her to pick up after herself, do something useful and productive once in a while, get out of bed before noon, don’t pick on her brother, who is five years younger and has so many more problems than she ever did, and actually earn her own money (gasp!) rather than bitch about all the things she doesn’t have, but it’s all a waste of time. I don’t know why I even bother breathing in air and formulating words and moving my mouth–what a waste of energy.

Lately I must admit my entire family is driving me nuts. I know living alone can be hard, but sometimes when everyone’s around, I must fight the desire to close my eyes and imagine myself far, far away.

I am listening to Chopin’s Nocturnes. How beautiful, how full of love and longing and tears. They seem like the songs of middle age, when you realize life is just getting through the days, surviving the disappointment, trying to grasp any bit of beauty you can because Death is hovering by your side, not taking you yet, but the time is drawing nearer.

I’ve also been reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” What a marvelous piece of writing. People are capable of great but also terrible things when they band together.

It reminds me of the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics, all those dancers moving as one organism. Interesting piece on the subject in the New York Times, about the difference between individualistic and collective societies.In China, a little girl is told she should be proud that her singing was used even though another little girl lip-synced to her voice because she was supposedly cuter and therefore more worthy of representing the motherland. Is this the direction of the future–the end of Western cultural dominance in favor of something else? It’s all very Borglike (i.e. Star Trek).

Perhaps we can feel less alone when we are part of collective, self-sacrificing whole.

Special Ed Parent from Hell

If I am invisible, my son is not. That would be too easy. That’s because he is weird. And I mean, obviously different. He technically has ADHD and an autism spectrum disorder. He is kind, polite, interesting, but just a little off in his vocal inflection, body language, and facial expression. It’s very subtle, but the other kids KNOW. They can sniff it out, like the nasty little birds of prey so many of them are.

I like kids, I really do. I usually prefer their company to adults, in a totally platonic, nonpedophile kind of way so get your minds out of the gutter! But since he was about eight I’ve felt like our lives have become more and more Lord of the Flies. How do the kids know how to behave like such survival of the fittest, we’d better weed out the weak DNA or we’re doomed as a species alpha-males and -females? Easy. They learn from their moronic parents who think that their children must be friends only with kids who are destined for success, meaning good grades, athletic, or popular, preferably all three. Freaks, dorks and other misfits need not apply. So my son has no friends, aside from another ADHD type boy who’s already been suspended for writing in a notebook the names of the kids he’d like to see dead. That’s not good, say school officials. Never mind once questioning why he’d like to see these kids snuff it. Meaning, hey, guys, maybe he’s actually being bullied! Maybe kids are mean to him! Why not ask them and maybe, just maybe, get them to stop?

But even Notebook Boy has been keeping his distance. Or maybe his parents are telling him to keep his distance because better to be a future homicidal maniac than a weirdo dork kid who can’t pay attention in school but can tell you the title of every episode of Doctor Who from Season One (with Christopher Eccleston) to Season 4 (David Tennant, and can you believe they wiped out Donna Noble’s memory? More on that later).

Oh, and there’s also his friend ADHD Girl, but Girl is the opposite of my Boy. Where he is withdrawn and spacy, she is talkative and in your face. Where he is analytical but has no common sense, she is sensible but doesn’t have an analytical cell in her body. But at least they both like Lego.

My son is eleven and just had his last two baby teeth pulled. The permanent teeth were pushing and poking through the side of his gums, and those baby teeth wouldn’t budge. So the dentist said they had to go and out they came. We brought them home and my son put them under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Yup, still believes in the Tooth Fairy. And Santa Claus. I drop hints that maybe they’re not real, and it’s not so bad because people who love you and are willing to go through all this crap to make you happy are and isn’t that lovely, but he’s not letting go. I’m not sure if he really doesn’t get it or just doesn’t want to.

So I took my last two Sacajawea golden dollars procured specially from the bank for just such occasions and put them under his pillow. And I am very sad that this is the last time I’ll ever do this, ever. Unless of course the dentist was mistaken and overlooked another baby tooth.

After trying Adderall, Dexedrine and Metadate, I finally fulfilled a prescription for Strattera. It’s our last hope for a drug fix to help bring him into the real world. Can’t say I blame him, though. Why join the real world when you can live in your own head?

The Big Debut

Well, here I am, doing what I’d vowed I’d never do: start a blog. I never understood the point of blogs. Why read someone blah-blahing on and on about their pathetic little life when you can read a book or newspaper or something actually worth reading?

So here are my reasons: one, my friend, an avowed technophobe and Luddite, is having trouble getting a book deal. Publishers are interested in her book proposal but she’s just a lowly writer, not an expert, so no deal.

But wait, I tell her. If you have a blog, you have prestige, street cred–you’re an expert! You’re somebody! I should know, because I’ve edited books written by bloggers who do nothing else. But they have a blog, so that means they exist, sort of like “I blog, therefore I am.”

So we are going to make big money blogging. Yeah, right…when pigs fly!

Which makes me think of Pigasus. For those of you who don’t know, Pigasus was invented by Ruth Plumly Thompson, the writer who took over the Oz books after L. Frank Baum died. Pigasus was, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, a pig with wings. And when you rode on his back, you spoke in verse. I was looking for an image of him from the Oz books when I found out Steinbeck apparently invented his own Pigasus and used him as his own personal stamp to symbolize “earthbound but aspiring.” Coincidence or copyright infringement: you decide. Here’s Steinbeck’s pig. I wish I had the Oz Pigasus to show as well.

But I digress. Since I mentioned she is not into learning any type of technology, I told her I would try blogging and report on how easy or frustrating it is.

My second reason to blog is because I used to write in a journal, but I’ve noticed my prying teenage daughter looking in it too many times. So I figure perhaps it makes more sense to hide in plain sight, so to speak.

I guess my third reason is that I am convinced that I am one of the world’s Invisible People, or those who are there but other people, those more substantial types, barely notice us. So this blog should prove that once and for all.