Susan Senator

You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows.
–BD, (which, happily, also stands for “Bellydance.” )

This is why I don’t pay attention to weathermen.
All week I checked the little pun-laden upper right hand corner of the Globe to “make sure” that Sunday, the day of B’s moonbounce party, would be sunny. All week: “Sunday, mostly sunny, cooler.” Cooler sucks, but mostly sunny, Yay! Anyway, I never really pay attention to weather reports because I grew up in New England (and on a deeper level I don’t feel that anything really is what it says or stays the same, though I badly want it to). “You don’t like the weather? Wait five minutes! Hee Hee.” PUNCH

Oh Little B!!!! Can’t you get a break???? What is with these huge, wrath-of-God, Dorothy clouds???

Yesterday the morning was another difficult one for Nat (and Ben). At around 11 four of us wanted to be either cutting a keyblade for Max’s Kingdom Hearts costume, or pulling out the myriad maple seedlings that bloomed overnight in the yard. One of us wanted everyone inside, eating lunch, because that was “next,” the ambiguous kind of next. So Nat spent a half hour bellowing/howling/screaming/stomping and basically scaring the hell out of Ben. I kept saying, “Ben, it’s okay! He’s just loud. I am here. You can still do what you want,” but Ben wasn’t buying it. He looked at me and then ran down the basement stairs, where he then yelled at Max and Ned to come inside because, “Nat’s flipping out again!”

Oy, God.

I keep thinking, “WWLD?” What Would Lovaas Do? Because that is my basic training. I do not believe that tantrums should be rewarded. I understand and believe with all my heart that you must look for positive occurrences and reward those. You reward when the not-happening of bad “undesirable” things is happening.

And this last month I find myself also thinking, “Lovaas didn’t really know shit.” Did he have children of his own, or was he simply an ABA theoretician, because let me tell you, it is easy enough to come up with a theory based on observation. You just put your heart in a freezer and then you carry on. You know what? I think Lovaas and the fucking ABA-ists are the original refrigerator people.

The real question is, WWSD? What would Solomon do? Because only he could solve this, although, come to think of it, he was the Brain who came up with the solution of splitting the baby in half — but that was taking a gamble that the true mother would make herself known in time. Brilliant, but scary.

I’m tired of scary. I just don’t understand what has gotten into Nat or how to help him. It doesn’t help that at the Team meeting one of the evaluators came up with age levels for Nat, according to how he tests, and those very very young numbers keep rattling around in my head. What does it mean, that he’s such-and-such age really? Is that true? Or is it only partly true, and totally a lie in other ways?

I think evaluators, I.Q. people, etc., are like weathermen, actually. They look at their data from their safe distance and they apply some set of rules and then they come up with their predictions/conclusions. And then when real-life people hear about it, they feel good/bad depending on those words. They make plans, or they scrap plans. They maybe even convey their sadness to their children subconsciously.

Shit.

So things were looking pretty bleak for the Senator-Batchelder household yesterday around lunchtime, but then, somehow, the son really came out. I took Nat outside, spontaneously, to a little neighborhood party, a treasure hunt being run by one of B’s best friends and his family. Nat wanted to go, and went willingly. He was smiling softly the whole time, interacting with people or being quiet/stimmy, his old beautiful self. I hope Ben noticed and was soothed by it, but I don’t know. I was.

And then later, Nat napped and I weeded and planted. (Some stuff is really coming up, like my peonies from my neighbor’s garden that stalled last year, actually have buds, so come on, ants!) My wisteria is wisterical with blooms about to burst open (it is a huge arbor on the street-side of the house). My apple tree looks like a strawberry sundae.

Then I cooked a brisket. I don’t know why, probably because I’m reading Julie and Julia, about the woman who cooked through the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There’s lots of cuts of beef mentioned, plus I have a lot of herbs growing on the playroom window. I called Natty in and showed him how to peel potatoes which he did with total enthusiasm and no mishaps. Could a 3.7 year old do that? I think not.

It was, needless to say, delicious, if a little light on fat (I had bought a single brisket because it looked less disgusting than the double, fat-filled kind).

Went to bed completely satisfied with my family and my cooking and then woke up to this drek. Well, the moonbounce is coming at 10 a.m. and Little Beastie’s belated party is happening, rain or shine. We’ll bounce and we’ll eat and drink however we can. Because real life includes storm clouds and unsolvable tantrum dilemmas and playing by ear and by heart. Families are the real practitioners and let me tell you, we need better tools than balloons, radar, percentages, and M&Ms;.