A couple of weeks ago, I dropped Soccer Girl off at a friend’s house so she could take the bus to school from there while I went to the gym.  I casually asked the mom if we needed to walk the kids to the bus stop.  The mom was a little shocked that I asked the question, because, as she jokingly said,  ”she’s your first born!  Of course you should be walking her to the bus!  My kid’s the third, so she’s lucky I don’t just leave her on the doorstep in the morning as I speed off to work.”

The other day, IT Boy started imitating me at the dinner table.  I was getting frustrated because he refused to eat, and to calm myself I decided to sit there silent.  I didn’t realize that my body language gave me away until Boy crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, just like I was doing.  We went back and forth in a little imitating game for a little while, and it was so much fun.  I practically put out a press release about the event, I was so excited. 

It often seems that I have the kids in reverse.  When SG was younger, people often remarked what a calm mom I was, and were surprised that she was my first born because I was so at ease with her.   When she would have a “first”, she had a first.  Good for her, but please people, she’s a kid, and that happens.  I would be proud of her, but I was NOT going to be one of THOSE PARENTS who go off the deep end and practically bronze their kid’s first diaper out of misguided love. 

Now, when Boy hits a first, it’s a much bigger deal, for many reasons, but namely because he has to work so hard to achieve them.  So I do get a bit more excited, but I sure as heck am not bronzing anything.  Maybe it’s also because I know he’s my last kid, and the firsts he hits are going to be my last first moments.  So I revel in them, and enjoy them, as any parent should.

This fall, IT Boy turns 2.  It’s also the time he’s going to start going to pre-school.  We signed him up when he was about 6 months, to get him a place in the wonderful nursery school that his sister went to.  It’s the place where I cried when I sent her on her first day, and I cried on her last day, because I adored it so much.  The teachers are great, it’s warm and nurturing, and it seemed like it would be right for him. 

At least that was the plan.  We’ve come to the realization that it’s not in his best interests to be in a program that caters to mainstream kids.  He’s walking OK, playing OK, talking OK, but certainly not at age level.  There are a bunch of programs, offered through Early Intervention, that will better serve his needs, and best of all, can accommodate some of his existing therapists.

I call this entry giving up the ghost, and not giving up the dream, as others might see it.  I don’t see it as a setback, merely a change of plans.  There are a lot of places out there, and just because he’s not ready for one, doesn’t mean he’s not ready to thrive and succeed at another.  Hopefully, we can find the right program for him – the search starts now.

Yesterday, I took the day off to watch Little IT at a swim meet.  She’s on a summer swim team that our swim club sponsors.  It’s a great thing for many reasons.  It meshes well with her summer camp, where they don’t really move or get out much, but since the club is located right next to the camp site, they walk the kids back and forth so they can do both.  It ends up being a free hour long swim lesson with some really good coaches.  It’s great for building confidence in the kids, and it’s super exercise.  I myself would jump at doing it if I was Little IT’s age.

Little IT, however, did not want to do it this year.  There were a lot of reasons given, none of them that really resonated with me.  I’m certainly not one to push her into doing anything, but I couldn’t see a downside to doing the team.  One of her big issues was missing time at camp.  Apparently, some other kids last year would complain that she wasn’t there for certain activities and would make her feel bad because she missed them.  She also brought up wordworking, which she could do for the first time, and would take place at the same time as swim team. 

I decided to try something different, for me at least.  I offered a bribe.  I even called it a bribe.  My feeling was that if she decided to go for it, she was ok with it and just needed an extra push of confidence to try it.  Sure enough, she jumped at the bribe.  I told her that if she lasted the 3 weeks of practice and made it to the first meet, it would be a go.  And she did.  She’s made it to 2 meets even.  Truth be told, the first week was the worst.  The brother of a friend of hers who swims competitively on a year round team told her that he dreads the first two weeks of practice each year because you’ve had time off, are not used to the sport, and have to, sorry, get back into the swim of things.  She stuck with it, and she’s gotten some 2nd place ribbons, which she’s very proud of. 

Am I advocating bribery?  Sort of.  If it’s something your kid is never going to want to do, like Lacrosse is for my kid, it’s not worth it.  If it’s to encourage the kid to do something that you’re reasonably sure they’re going to like, and it’s going to give them extra motivation to get through the task, yes, do it.  I have a neighbor who did the team last year and was bribed financially by his uncle – $5 for a win, $3 for second place, etc.  He applied himself, and walked away with a lot of blue ribbons.  I’m not sure I would have gone that way, but my kid is different.  If that motivated her, maybe I would have tried it.  Net net, she’s getting good exercise, improving her swimming, and most of all having fun.  And I get to see her swim – nothing beats that.

I’ve never claimed that I have the best memory for the important things.  I often walk into a room forgetting why I am there.  I sometimes run back into the house 3 times before leaving for work because I have forgotten _______ (insert “gym bag”, “sneakers”, “laptop”, “snacks”, “ID card”).  Mind you, I can tell you the b-list movie that guest star in this week’s “Law & Order” appeared in, but I can’t even begin to tell you where my car keys are most days.  Unfortunately, this is a condition that Little IT has inherited.

This morning was a sparkling example.  She walked into my room and saw her DS on my dresser.  “Oh!  There it is!” she exclaimed.  “Did you think you lost it?” I asked.  “Uh, yes,” she sheepishly admitted.  In actuality, we had left it there, wondering when she would notice it was missing.  It took a while.  She won’t admit when she loses something because it frustrates us me too much.

Then, as we were heading out the door, and I reminded her about _______ (insert “shoes”, “brushing teeth”, “tuition checks for after school care”, “lunch”) for the umpteenth time, she remembered she left the tuition checks and ran back into the house.  I was with some co-workers who were quite impressed that she remembered it.  I knew it was a once in a lifetime moment.

When we got to school, she ran out of the car clutching her breakfast sandwich and drink.  I realized she had left both her backpack and tuition checks in the car only once we were inside the building.  She had to go out and retrieve them, again with the sheepish smile.

Then, the piece de resistance.  I get a call on my cell as I am heading to the Lincoln tunnel.  It’s the school.  I listen to the voice mail (not while driving, of course, there are tons of stop lights between the West Side Highway and the tunnel) and it’s Little IT asking me to bring her violin to school.  I stop.  It’s Tuesday, not Monday.  Violin is Monday.  Why does she want it today?  I call the babysitter, but she doesn’t have a car, and I choose not to involve my mom in this production.

When I get to school tonight to pick her up, her violin is with her.  I figured the babysitter did go to the house to get it, but no, the story was better.  She went to dance on Monday and left it in the car of the parent who drove carpool to the dance studio.  That mom dropped it off at school today.  As I always say, it takes a village to look after Little IT.

Sigh.  No wonder I have no memory, I’m too busy trying to look after hers.  I’m probably harder on her than I should be, because as Mr IT points out, I see the traits I deplore in myself replicated in her.  But isn’t that what being a parent is all about? 

In the meantime, I’m looking for some ginko (I know I have some…somewhere) and I’m going to play the Memory game with Little IT.  If I can find where I put the game, that is.

Last week, we had IT Boy’s first collaborative meeting.  Due to be held monthly, these meetings are intended to bring everyone on “Team Boy” together to talk about his therapies and how best to work together to achieve these goals.  It was a bit daunting, this first meeting.  We had our service coordinator from Early Intervention there, although she probably will not attend in the future.  We had some spirited discussions where we debated who should take notes (coordinator said it had to be a therapist, not a parent; therapists said it had to be a parent), and how to place the meeting in the schedule (some had heard the meeting had to be on a day with no services, others said it didn’t matter), but not many about IT Boy.  For the most part, we were all on the same page about what kind of treatment he’s getting, what the philosophies were, and how best to work with each other to move him along. 

Some things the therapists agreed on, but Mr. IT and I did not.  For instance, they all say he doesn’t respond to his name.  We have found that to not be the case.  Au contraire, when we call his name, he turns to us and gives a little grunt that sounds to our ears like “Huh?”  If I was taking notes, I would have noted that. 

Next time, I definitely will take notes.  The service coordinator said parents shouldn’t do it because they can’t participate as well and think, but as a visual learner, my recollections are aided when I have seen something I have written down.  Maybe I’ll use different colors of ink, and channel my inner Jolene…maybe…

Thankfully, we did have progress to talk about…he’s saying his first real word of meaning (more about that in the next blog entry), he can take a half step between people (but no more!) and he’s getting even more curious about his world.  Some days we expect him to just get over the delays and wake up running around and spouting Kafka, but the progress, however slow, is welcomed. 

On Saturday, Little IT and I took IT Boy to a Valentine’s show at our local library.  It wasn’t quite a musical, not quite a theatre presentation, but a little of both.  When Little IT was a baby and we would attend these things, she would sit politely on my lap, clap her hands in time with the music, and giggle on cue, delighting those around her.  And if you had told me I would have a second child who was the polar opposite of her, I would have laughed heartily.  No, the little kids who crawled around, screamed and generally disrupted public performances like that were simply not disciplined.  It’s the parent’s fault, you know, that their kids are running amok.

Uh huh.

I admit it.  I WAS WRONG.  Oh so wrong.  Boys are different.  The more I looked around these days, the more I see the faces of the mothers of boys trying to keep them in line and out of trouble.  When I catch the eye of one of those moms, you can see it.  We get it, and we understand what the other is going through.  Because we have BOYS and they’re different.  I say this only sort of in jest - if you’re having more than one child, you should have the boy first when you still have a measurable energy level.  Which I don’t currently have and certainly didn’t on Saturday. 

Try as both of us did, Little IT and I simply could not contain the force of nature that is IT Boy.  He was fine during the first song, which was only to lull us into a false sense of security.  As soon as the music stopped, he screamed, squirmed, and broke free of our confines to start trolling the room.  I grabbed him and pulled him back as best I could, and for at time, I was able to keep him pacing like a caged lion in the back of the room.  I held him while everyone danced, which worked for a time.  Finally, when the performers announced last song, I allowed him to go native, whereas he crawled up to the performers and sat down at their feet.  The guitarist knelt down and sang right too him, and he bubbled over with delight, before he set about dismantling her music stand.  She laughed and thanked him for helping her pack up.

Did I think about taking him out of the room?  Yes, for a second.  But here’s the thing.  It’s a free show at the library.  And if there ever was a place to try and acclimate him to these things, this was it.  He sat for 2 out of the 8 songs, which is a new record.  But it’s 1.5 songs more than last time.  And for the most part, he’s really happy to be there.  He would just rather experience the event in motion, rather than comfortably ensconced on my lap.  So, we’re going to keep going to these things and who knows, maybe we’ll find someone who encourages little boys to run around during the performance.  That will be our watershed moment for sure.

IT Boy has started speech therapy.  Two months ago, his occupational therapist (OT) recommended that he be evaluated for speech delays.  Some of our shared concerns were feeding delays due to his hypotonia/low tone and his not pointing.  During his subsequent speech evaluation, I could clearly see that he had many more delays than just those, and not surprisingly, he was approved for therapy 2 days a week. 

Today was his second session.  His therapist uses the Hanen Program called It Takes Two To Talk. I don’t know too much about it yet, but it seems to mesh with how I want to communicate with the boy.  One evaluator we saw early on in the process discouraged me from anticipating his needs.  For instance, when he wants his bottle, I can tell because he goes “mmmmm” and flaps his hands.  The evaluator suggested that I wait as long as I can before I give him his bottle to encourage him to either point or “sign” a request for the bottle.  That seemed plain annoying to me.  I know he wants the bottle, I’m going to give him the friggin’ bottle.  R., his current speech therapist, said that when you show him the bottle, engage him in a conversation, however one sided it might be.  “Hey IT Boy, here’s your bottle…do you want your bottle?  Do you want to drink from your bottle?” and then give him the bottle.  Her techniques seem more flexible, and more in line with how I want to respond to the boy.  I’ll write more when I understand the method more (how ’bout Hanen For Dummies, anyone?) but for now, I’m happy. 

It’s so crucial to have any therapist working with your child clearly explain both her philosophies and techniques, but also to articulate her expectations for your participation, both during the session and as follow up outside of session times.  You need to continue and reinforce what’s being done in therapy for maximum results.  So many parents, according to my therapists, think it’s break time for them and don’t get involved.  Worse, they have no idea what’s being done, so they can’t replicate it later.   Also, you need to make sure your other caregivers, including your spouse/lifepartner/whatever (that’s you, Mr IT) are on board as well. 

The best part of speech today was unscripted.  Boy was playing with a tape dispenser, and R decided to use it as a problem solving exercise.  “The tape is sticky, how do you get it off your hands?”  Boy contemplated it for a moment, and flung it down the cleavage of his therapist.  Way to go, IT Boy!  That’s going for the gold!

Thursday night was not a fun time to be in the IT house.  On the way back from the market, Little IT mentioned that I needed to write a note for her to take to school tomorrow. 

“What kind of note?”

“A note that I couldn’t finish my skeleton for science project.”

“What science project??”

“The one that’s late.”

We went around that merry-go-round for a little while before figuring out this – two weeks ago, she was given an assignment.  For whatever reason, still unknown, she:

1. Didn’t tell us about it.

2. Didn’t make any effort to do it.

3. Lost the paper the assignment was on.

Now, if this had been the first time this happened, we would have dealt with it and moved it.  But it wasn’t.  More like the 5th time.  She’s been in the habit of doing piano homework right before the teacher arrives, which isn’t great, but she makes it work.  But now it’s spilling into school work.  First, she did her newspaper assignment the morning it was due.  Then, her math papers for 3 days were “lost”.  Now this. 

Perhaps the reason that both Mr. IT and I are concerned is that she seems to be becoming me.  I am the master procrasinator.  In school, I often did my homework in the girls bathroom in the minutes before class.  College time found me doing assignments in the lecture hall in the seconds before they had to be handed in.  Even now, I’ve been known to be writing my presentations on the dais moments before I’ve had to give them.  And for the most part I get away with it.  It’s life on the edge, as I see it.  Acceptable for me, but certainly a trait I would love to address at some point for improvement.  But for Little IT to be this way?  Horrors! 

She was with her sitter tonight and they finished the skeleton.  They used spaghetti and elbow macaroni, and it came out pretty great.  They also did the second project, nutrition label comparisons, for extra credit.  Good work.  Late, but really well done.

Me?  I’m working on the late thing.  I sent out our holiday cards three days after Thanksgiving.  Many friends remarked in a mixture of utter amazement and sheer horror that the IT Family card was the first one they received this season.  Every once in a while I have to pull something out of the hat. 

Susan Etlinger’s most excellent blog The Family Room has a great post about what to do when your child is not meeting his or her milestones.  It’s a horrible feeling for any parent to think that your child might have something wrong with them, but it can be made worse by well meaning others who tell you there is nothing to worry about.

I remember when Little IT was 2 years old and she had a vocabulary of about 5-10 words, which is way behind where she should have been at that age.  Everyone told us not to worry, she would catch up, there were no problems.  Even her pediatrician said there was no cause for worry.  It wasn’t until I talked to a co-worker who said that her son, born one day before Little IT, asked her why his babysitter didn’t come to his birthday party that I knew something was off.  Even if Little IT had been thinking that, and I couldn’t believe she did that kind of thinking, there was no way for her to express it.  I took it upon myself (well, Mr. IT did help) to call Early Intervention in NY and have her evaluated.  The evaluation came back that she did have a speech delay, but it wasn’t a huge one.  It was as if everything in her brain was working right, but when it came to sending it out through her mouth, it couldn’t make the connection.  She was borderline, but they approved services for her because they were concerned that if the connections were not made, eventually it could lead to huge frustration and delays that would present themselves in other ways.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am that this conclusion was reached.  Little IT received speech services for a year, and within that time caught up to and exceeded milestones for her age.  Could she have been just a late bloomer?  Would she have caught up anyhow without the services?  Maybe.  A lot of people, well meaning but ill informed, said that to us.  But here’s the thing – therapy wasn’t going to hurt her, and we benefited so much from having an advocate in our corner.  Someone to watch her and make sure she was developing properly.  Speech therapy was a win win for us, and I’m so glad I didn’t listen to the naysayers.  It’s what got us up and running with IT Boy as quickly as we did, and he’s certainly reaping the rewards that have come from his therapies.  Why, just the other day he started going into down dog position, while climbing the stairs.  It’s wreaking havoc on my sanity, but I’m loving every minute of it. 

About a month ago, Little IT came home and told us that she put her name in a hat to be selected as a reporter for the school newspaper.  The next day, she ecstatically told us that her name had been picked and she was indeed on the paper.  She was thrilled and so were we.  We later found out that there was no hat, and the teachers had selected her personally, both for her interest and her ability.  This as parents thrilled us even more.  It shouldn’t have, but yes, we do revel in our daughter’s successes.  Visions of mastheads dancing in our heads, and all. 

She’s been going for reporter training one day a week for the past 4 weeks.  Yesterday was her day to select what she would be writing for the paper (they publish one edition per year).  She told me she would be doing a review of a TV show.  Which show, I stupidly asked.  “Hannah Montana,” she replied.  Oh, of course.

I have to admit I was a mite bit disappointed at first.  She had a myriad of choices for stories, from an interview with the principal where she could ask pointed questions about how he feels about the search for a new superintendent, to a muck-racking expose of the cafeteria staff and how they aren’t living up to their ServSafe training.  But no, she picked Hannah. 

The more I thought about it, the more I came to accept it.  After all, she is in 3rd grade.  There’s plenty more room in the future for the hard-hitting investigative journalism that I know she is capable of.  She’s also following one of the most important rules in writing.  Write about what you are passionate about, what inspires you.  Sure, it’s not Upton Sinclair.  Yet.  She certainly has time for that, and if she can fulfill this assignment, she’s off to a great start.