Garden Update (or, Manuel is my new best buddy)

I was GOING to do it all by myself, honest! These are my before pictures....

front yard....



wooded area in front yard....



side yard...



peonies, roses, and clematis in the back yard....



Other side of my house, standing under the plum tree...


But then when it took me 3 days to clear out one small patch of nandina seedlings, I gave in. I asked Manuel to pull weeds, put down weed guard under the Nandina, edge some of my beds, dig some sod, and mulch. And two days later, I am such a happy camper. Here are the after pictures...

Side yard under the plum tree...


Side yard bordering the woods....


Side yard facing the plum tree.....



Front yard, from my still unpainted stoop....



Front yard, facing woods...


Plant stand in front of my stoop....


BTW, the pictures were taken in late April, I am just getting around to posting to the blog...

Autism, Tae Kwondo, and other maternal musings

I just got back from my 10 year old son's Tae Kwondo orange belt test. My son has Aspergers Syndrome - long story for another post.

Anyway, I thought Tae Kwondo would be good for him, that it would help him learn self-discipline and improve his physical prowess, as well as give him something he could legitimately be proud of.



Today, however, my son had several meltdowns (a meltdown begins with a long, loud wail of frustration, followed by a weird, contorted grimmace of anguish with mouth wide open, and then concludes with flopping down on the mat fully prostrate) during testing. The incidents followed his failure to do something he thought he should have been able to do, and/or seeing his sister do something that he failed to do.

This was torture for me, because my first instinct was to go rescue him, preventing further meltdowns and my own personal mortification. But I stayed put, unsure of the protocol for walking out onto the floor, and hoping my son would rally. The Master would let my son flop for a minute and then tell him to sit up, and thankfully, my son wasn't so far gone that he refused to obey.

The last testing event was the board breaking with a side kick. My son tried twice and failed, and the Master moved on to my daughter who broke it, resulting in another meltdown for my son. After the first pass through the class, the Master went through all of the kids who didn't break the board the first time and let them try again. The first two kids succeeded.

My son got up and tried twice, failing. Then he tried a third time and mis-aimed his foot, scraping it badly on the side of the board. He collapsed with a really loud wail and burst into tears of pain at that point, and I stood up, but the Master did not catch my eye and instead encouraged my son to try again, and, unbelievably, my son did.

And then, miracle of miracles, he broke the board with the last kick -- injured foot and all! At which point I myself was unable to hold back my own tears. Tears of happiness and thankfulness that he finally succeeded, of relief that I hadn't "rescued" him and denied him this success, and of anguish because as far as my son has come, he still has so much further to go.

I am constantly surprised by these types of revelations, that no matter how much he learns to compensate and cope with his autism, that no matter how intelligent he is, autistic behavior will still spring up and make its presence known in such spectacular ways. As the mother of a child with an invisible disability, when things are good, I hope they'll STAY good. I guess deep down in my heart of hearts I still want to believe my child will "recover", regardless of what my brain tells me. That maybe it was all a mistake, a misdiagnosis, that my incredibly bright, sweet child will figure out how to live in the world and to enjoy it "like everyone else".

But I need to knock that off!! I can't put my head in the sand about his challenges, I've got to keep teaching him how to problem solve, how to adapt, how to get his brain to overpower his impulses. And he can do it! He's learned so much, against considerable odds. It took him 3 years of daily speech and behavioral therapy to teach him to communicate, but he did it! It took him 2 years of weekly swim lessons to overcome his fear of water, but he did it! I just have to stay patient and be willing to teach him compensating strategies, over and over again. He can get it! And the world is a big, diverse, place, and my son can still live in it, enjoy it, and grow in it, even if he's not exactly "like everyone else."

And as he gets older, society will be less and less tolerant of his idiosyncracies, his occasional lack of self-control. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see parents, aghast, as my 10 year old behaved like a 3 year old, over and over again. I didn't look at any of them, not being able to stand what must be going through their minds. They have no idea how far my son has come, they could care less. All they saw, all they judged him by, was the behavior they saw at that point in time.

Well that is the way the world works. I shouldn't even be thinking about those other parents. My job right now is to see that my son stays in Tae Kwondo, because it benefits him in countless ways. I'll visit the Master and explain about my son's autism. I'll have my son write a note apologizing. Perhaps in the future, I'll have my son belt-test in private. Perhaps I'll sign him up for more weekly classes, so he has better mastery of the moves.

And if there is another outburst, perhaps I will look at the parents. Maybe one of them was glancing at him with a sympathetic eye. Maybe one of them has a relative, or a friend, with an autistic child. Maybe they weren't all as judgmental as I fear. And if he has another outburst, maybe I should be honest. "This is really difficult for him, he has autism," I could say.

I don't know. And this is where, once again, I want to bury my head, "It WON'T happen, it WON'T happen, it WON'T happen again...."

Books, Books, and More Books....

Every month, I give away boxes of books to the Salvation Army, AmVets, or whoever shows up at my door to collect them.

Every month, I weed through our homeschool room and cull the books that weren't as good as I thought they'd be, or that my youngest child has outgrown.

And yet, bewilderingly, we are still quite over-run with books.

These four pictures of the homeschool room represent about 20-25% of the books in our home. There are multiple bookshelves in the children's rooms, in my bedroom, in our family room, in our basement, and in boxes in the basement - although I am seriously making an effort to get rid of the books in boxes because if they are in boxes, what is the point of owning them?

I remember when I first fell in love with a book. I was about four, and a visitor to our home brought me a beautifully illustrated book, "Snow White and Rose Red". My mother was too busy to read it to me, and I was tortured all day looking at the lovely pictures and wondering what the text said, waiting for my father to get home. That was also the day I decided I absolutely, positively, had to learn how to read myself. And I did so, in short order.

When I was a few years older, my parents divorced. My mother viewed books as clutter, so she didn't purchase them for us, but she took us to the library regularly, feeding my obsession with the written word. We spent weekends with our father, and he took us to Toys R Us twice a month to get a treat. Without fail, I always bought a book - first the Bobbsey Twins, then Nancy Drew.

And I've always considered it one of my prime responsibilities as a parent to turn my kids into bookworms. I'd say I've done a pretty good job; how many kids would read a book while they are blowing out their birthday candle?



As a homeschooler, I make it a point to use "living books" (appealing books that delight kids with new ideas and thoughts and ways of looking at or interacting with the world) rather than textbooks whenever possible.

As a homeschooler, I see exactly how books affect my kids, how my kids connect what they read to their lives. I see what resonates with them. I see exactly what interests them, and what arouses their curiosity.

And as a homeschooler, I have truly come to appreciate books as the profound gifts they are. Books are an irresistable invitation to experience the world through someone else's eyes; to be transported to another time, or another place; to learn about something, or how to do something.

Well anyway. Time to go figure out my Scholastic books order....

Learning All The Time Too

Spring is Busting Out All Over!!!

Well okay, just the forsythia and daffodils right now, but I am completely motivated and energized by the sight of those yellow blossoms.

I just love SPRING!

It's a good thing I feel so energized, because spring actually means a LOT of work around the house. For example, there is our front stoop, which desperately needs fresh paint, colorful potted plants, and a new welcome mat.

Then there is the front yard, in desperate need of pruning and leaf-clearing:

Another view of the front yard:

And yet another view of the front yard, under the plum tree:

And the overgrown nandina on the side, which also needs clearing and pruning:

This is the back of the house, more leaf clearing and pruning:

And this is my deck! Even more work, it needs to be cleaned, the new deck furniture I bought needs to be assembled, etc...

I am not usually one to be motivated by the prospect of hours, days, even weeks of work! So what is so energizing about spring? Honestly, I'm not really sure.

Spring is all about new life, regeneration, and beauty, and I just love being part of it. More than New Years Day, I have the sense of new beginnings. More than New Years Day, I commit to resolutions and follow through on them. I WILL make my deck an outdoor sanctuary. I WILL protect my peonies from powdery mildew this year. I WILL train clematis to climb up my arch. And so on.

And massive rewards are just around the corner! Look at this flowering plum tree!

Look at this grape hyacinth!

All around my yard, plants are pulsing with life, pushing their way though the dirt (how I love the red tips of my peony buds), ready to explode with color. The next two to three months will literally be a parade of blooms, and I can't wait!

Disney World, Here We Come!!

Okay, so we're not actually going for another 6 plus months. But I can't wait!

I've always been a little down on Disney, all that manufactured commercial 'fun', compared to say, the more natural wonders of playing on a sandy beach watching the ocean roll in, or hiking through national parks, or visiting foreign lands (theoretically at least - we've never been able to swing this).

My kids (10, 8, 6) are not actually very Disney-fied either. While they've been exposed to most of the animated feature films, they've never been obsessed. My daughter (8) never went through a princess stage, she has no idea what High School Musical is or who Hannah Montanna is, etc...

The first thing that made me reconsider was the fact that Disney is supposed to be so fabulous about food allergies. My daughter has life-threatening allergies to milk, egg, tree nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc...) as well as legumes (peanuts, peas, chick peas, lentils) and many seeds (sesame seeds, sunflower seeds). And, apparently, Disney chefs are well prepared to feed my daughter safely! Plus, our room apparently gets a special "peanut" cleaning, to make sure any families that stayed in it before us didn't leave residue that could harm B.

Usually when we go on vacation, I have to cook all the meals for B., or worry about being within range of a McDonalds, the only "restaurant" B. can eat at, given their separate fryers for French Fries and their standardized food production procedures. I have to bring all B.'s bedding, and my own stuff to clean down the room. I may do this anyway, but it is just very reassuring to know Disney has a policy in place that is intended to protect children such as B.

The second thing that made me reconsider was actually learning something about Disney! It is a pretty impressive complex, with four completely different types of parks, each containing a wide variety of attractions, rides, shows, meals, etc....

Furthermore, I take my kids to many "manufactured" experiences - zoos, museums, movies, amusement parks - and Disney just combines all of these things into one huge complex, with the aforementioned tie-ins to their movies.

But should I really begrudge Disney that? Disney is in the entertainment BUSINESS, Disney movies entertain millions of children (and adults), has done that extremely well over several decades, and, just happens to be a profit-oriented business. And if they are a massive corporate behemoth - well, it is precisely their prosperity and size that makes them able to accomodate my daughter on a scale unthinkable for most entities that deal with children.

We have reservations in a moderate resort, Port Orleans Riverside, which can accomodate our family of five. Now, given my daughter's food allergies and asthma, I do feel a little concerned about some of the on-line reports I've read that have indicated Riverside rooms are shabby and poorly maintained. But Riverside also has many positive reports, and if the room exacerbates my daughter's asthma, I have plenty of coping skills thanks to experiences in other hotels that exacerbated her asthma. Plus, Riverside is apparently being rennovated in 2008, so perhaps they'll be finished by the time we get there.

Learning All The Time