Susan Senator

I had an idea for a new reality show, quite unlike what is out there. It would be an extreme makeover of a very different kind. I would call it: Extreme Breakthrough. In this show, there’d be no surgery, no new wardrobe, no makeup sessions, no dental work. The success would be based on how well the person does when bathed in praise and love.

The contestant would be a low self-esteem neurotic type, perhaps perceived as overweight or plain, or nebbishy, and for three months, she would be completely surrounded by positive energy and praise. People would talk to her about things she’s done and why they were good things. She would be encouraged and supported to pursue a project of her dreams (living in Paris for a month alone, painting on the Left Bank, perhaps, or setting up a home for battered women; volunteering for Special Olympics, helping out at a hospice, making a whole new garden somewhere, going to cooking school, whatever). Family members would be required to tell her she’s beautiful, that she’s got perfect this or the best that. They would have to exercise total self-control for three months around her or else they could not be around her. Strangers would open doors for her, bosses would compliment and praise, children would behave around her, and spouse/boyfriend would be under oath to do all kind things for three months: backrubs, orgasms, cooking, playing with her hair.

Nothing would need to be bought, except perhaps the people involved would get some kind of reward at the end of it: a happier loved one in their lives. Someone who has seen what it’s like to be loved and cherished for exactly who she is.

Went to a gala last night, the 40th anniversary of Special Olympics Massachusetts. Tim Shriver had invited me as a guest, and he was there to accept an award for his mom, Eunice, who, of course, founded the entire operation 40 years ago in her back yard (Camp Shriver). That still blows my mind, to imagine how incredibly psyched she must have been, looking around at their large yard and thinking, “Hmmmmmmm…. how could I do it? Could I? Really?” I wonder how many times she encountered self-doubt or skepticism from others. Apparently many family outsiders doubted this undertaking, but various Kennedy sibs always jumped in to say, “Maybe you or I won’t be able to, but Eunice will do it, trust me.”

This is what you need to succeed at something. A really good idea, that taps into an unmet need of a group, a circle of people who wholeheartedly support you, the unflagging desire to make it happen, and well, maybe a good connection or two. But it can’t be just one of these qualities: connections or money alone will not do it, nor will passion alone. You also need a great yard.

Seriously, I went to this thing held at Harvard’s Indoor Track, a gala billed as “black tie and sneakers.” Some people actually did wear sneakers with their finery. Not me. Never. Here’s what I wore:

While there I met some pretty interesting people. I heard a wonderful athlete make a speech that brought us to our feet. This kid is autistic, albeit fairly mildly, and he is now a champion golfer, got an 82 on some famous course somewhere, and the men at my table were all choking on their filet mignon over this great score.

Which goes to show you that we can’t make assumptio0ns about ability. I remember when I was on School Committee, and served as a liaison to the “Gifted and Talented Parent Advisory Board” I saw what happens with labels and assumptions. Many of the parents there were certain that there was a large divide between so-called “gifted” kids and so-called “disabled” kids. But very, very often, the twain do meet. In fact, probably always. You can, you are, gifted in some things and struggling in others. The lines should not be so darkly drawn.

Last night I met a guy who was director of a famous college program that served students with disabilities, a program I have long admired. I found that even he seemed to harbor these kinds of assumptions. He told me that he often steered his students away from Special Olympics because they tend to be “ringers.” Maybe he was kidding. But I felt a little bit punched. I thought of Nat, so swift and able on the track and in the pool. I thought of Tyler, who played that great game of golf. I thought of Sam, Chris, Emily, Scott, and for a moment I was speechless. That is my particular inability: I can’t always think on my feet (particularly when I’m wearing 3 inch stilettos). I let the remark pass, and I changed the subject.

But now I want to say what I could not say then: you never really know who is the ringer in a given activity or subject. And that is why everyone should be given the chance to find out. Let ability ring.

Yay!

After much anxiety about who could and could not make it to Ben’s 10th birthday party, we ended up with just about everyone we invited! Relieved and happy, we could set about the next very important task of the day, which was to make a fantastic cake, based, as always, on the current interest of the moment.   … See my Tabblo>

I am beginning to really worry about B again. I had to reschedule his birthday party for this weekend, because it was just a small number of boys, and half couldn’t go. Well, tomorrow, only two can really go again! I have called and tried to get the other two to come even for an hour, or for me to come and get them and bring them home if it’s hard for the parents, but this just breaks my heart. I don’t get it. I guess people make plans, get overwhelmed, but this is such bad timing for Ben.

It has been such a polarized year for him. Wonderful personal growth coupled with a terrible difficulty with the high-pressure fourth grade curriculum. That sounds like a joke, but it’s totally serious and pathetically so. I am getting extremely disillusioned with my “wonderful” school system, which is turning into the pressure cooker wet dream of the highly-standardized fascist/fetishist. What is with education today? Partly it is the economy, partly, the crazed, grasping mandates of No Child Left Behind. NCLB, the Bush-reauthorized ESEA, calls for mastery in both math and reading of all children by 2010, and most of the states in the country have designated their high-stakes exit exams to be the arbiter of mastery. This, in essence, removes most or all of the control over curriculum and graduation from local control (school boards and school committees) and gives it all to the state and federal government. Schools, then, are scared shitless that they are going to be deemed “failing” simply because certain of their populations cannot pass the state standardized exams. So now most school systems teach to the tests, drill and kill, and, in this era of tax cuts for the wealthiest and the least public funding of education in decades, they cut their “specials,” the arts, the softer subjects, the areas where alternative types like Benji may excel. All that matters, in so many school systems these days, is math and English, with maybe some science thrown in. Whatever is on the state’s test, that is what the schools will emphasize because they don’t want to be taken over by the state.

I’m serious. This is what No Child Left Behind calls for, ultimately: sanctions against “failing schools.” And the standard by which they measure our schools is most often one, high-pressure exam. Such legislation rides roughshod over Individualized Education Plans, or English as as Second Language-learners, or children who do not grow up in test-prep highly educated suburbs.

All in the name of preparing them for “the real world.” The soft bigotry of low expectations, my ass. So now what we have is the harsh bigotry of insane standards. There is such an insane drive to get kids to be able to succeed in the “real world.” But the thing is, the real world is our doing. We are the adults. The real world didn’t just happen in a vacuum. (Oh wait, the universe actually did begin in kind of a vacuum…or maybe it’s just going to end in a vacuum? Something like that. )

Sometimes the Real Worldniks remind me of that guy in Yellow Submarine, who sucks up everything in his path, and eventually, finding nothing else left to suck, he sucks up himself, and the entire picture, until you’re into a different scene altogether.

Frankly, I’m a little sick of the real world. Enough, already, as my grandmother would say.

Time for the winds of change to push the pendulum in the other direction. Or some such group of cliches.

Time to dance and be thankful for weekends. And hug my boy, if he’ll let me.

I have never thought of Benji as a Left Brainer, but that’s because I didn’t know much about it. This blog, “Out in Left Field,” by my friend Katie Beals, who has a book coming out on the subject within the year, is a new one in the blogosphere. I have already learned so much from it. I am struggling with this very issue, as Ben goes through school, because I see how much of a different thinker he is. I see the staff in his school jumping to label him as something, to get him whatever help they can offer, or to get me to do more for him. But it is currently a big swamp I feel stuck in. Once again, there is the Ben I know, with all this incredible academic and artistic ability, and humor, and the Ben the school sees, truculent, challenging, sometimes blank, sometimes brilliant.

So much of his success depends on the subject and also the teaching technique. And in an era where we are so standards-driven, so one-size-fits-all, from our body types to our classroom performance, I worry so much about how to get Ben through middle school unscathed and fully blossomed.

I only saw a few of the clips from Larry King’s Jenny McCarthy/autism show. My thoughts and responses were popping and bubbling like a freshly opened can of Sprite.

I understand that Jenny’s child improved in terms of his measurable skills. I am happy for her, and for the other children who finally do well in school and with peers. It makes your heart fill with joy to imagine that breathtaking moment when you realize that this is not going to be as bad as you thought.

I know, because I have felt that swell of happiness for my own children. Just yesterday Ned came upon the shower curtain, completely twisted, wet, and mostly detached from the rod. Nat had been the last to take a shower. Something irritating clearly had happened during Nat’s shower, and there was evidence of some struggle. But there had been no screaming, no biting, no jumping. No outburst at all. All Ned found was the curtain hooks jumbled but put back in some attempt to fix it. Ned was touched by this fumbling effort, and by Nat’s self-control and independence. He asked Nat, “what happened in your shower?” And Nat answered, “Shower curtain is tangled.” Ned and I both felt our hearts jump up to our throats at this beautiful, complicated sentence.

Oh, how Nat has grown and improved over the years! I have so many to thank: teachers who tirelessly teach him how to communicate his feelings, his thoughts. ABA for teaching us how to isolate occurrences and behaviors so that we can stay neutral and effective; Floortime for teaching us how to unite occurrences and behaviors so that we can stay connected to Nat; our families who love us and Nat and want only our happiness; a public school system that has paid top dollar for Nat’s education and never forced us to sue them; doctors for keeping track and titrating his meds to get them just right; Father Time, who has healed me in so many ways and answered so many questions I’ve had.

Not that it’s a competition, but I would go head-to-head with Ms. McCarthy any day to illustrate the growth and wonder that is Nat’s life of eighteen years. I would not measure his success with standardized tests, academic grades, number of vocabulary words, or reading level, however. I would, instead, go by the goals and dreams I have developed over the years for Nat, and see which have come to fruition. You see, that is one of the big differences between Ms. McCarthy and me: Nat is almost all grown, and we have come to understand so much about him and autism in this time. Her child is young. There is so much more life to life, God willing. Children grow and develop so much, in a matter of days, or years. We never really know what causes a burst in development. Was it the food he ate or didn’t eat? Was it a new medication or removal of that medication? Was it your new attitude of hope? Was it winter turning to spring, a shift in the light? Was it joining a team for the first time and understanding what friendship is all about? How do any of us really know? Take it from an old mother: we don’t, and it doesn’t even matter what it was, only what it is.

I and perhaps many other parents in the autism community do not think it is at all productive to fault, even by implication, parents who do not subscribe to the vaccine/mercury theories. Or whose autistic children have not “recovered.” If that is what Ms. McCarthy is doing, then that feels to me like a new form of McCarthyism, a la Senator Joe, or a new way of blaming parents, which is actually nothing new. (Thanks to Stacey Levin for pointing out this irony.)

It does not give me hope to read a book about such things; it makes my heart sink. Some kids do not “de-auticize,” NancyBea Miller’s wonderful word. Perhaps some original diagnoses were too mild, or too intense. My theory is that many of the kids who appear more typical as they get older may not have been as complicated as the docs originally thought. And vice-versa. As Nat grew older, the doctors kept adjusting his diagnosis to more and more autistic.

Ned and I have learned that growth is subjective, individual. That looking at your child as a sick person when what he has is a neurological disability was not helpful in our family. In fact, the moment that I let go of my sadness and fears about what was wrong with Nat, many things came right. Things were tangled. And now they’re not as much.

In this particular video, I really like how I’m dancing. But there are a few times when I lose my way, largely because my audience keeps getting up, walking around, and pursuing Joyous House Stompies/silly talk/self-stimulating behavior. Well, tough! I need to learn how to keep my cool performing under any circumstances!

The first time we ever gave Nat hot dogs, he was around 8 months old. After eating them, he crawled two quick laps around the kitchen. I remember the fast slap-slap sound of his little fat palms hitting the floor. Ned and I were so impressed by his feat, that we laughed and laughed about it, and we knew that this must mean he loved hot dogs!

The kitchen laps may have also been early stimming, the earliest form of Joyous House Stompies, which is the adult version of Hot Dog Delight. When I realized that, the other day, I had a little shiver, that old familiar, “Huh, little did I know what that sweet little HDD really meant…AUTISM” [cue minor key theme, Beethoven’s 5th or something] I’m such a drama queen! Why does every gorgeous little memory always have to play that particular tape in my head? Who actually gives a shit that this was early stimming? (Well, I do, because it is comforting to connect the dots, to put together images of the Nat I Know with the Baby Nat I Wondered About. But other than that comfort, I have a lot to say about this.)

Yes, it is important to recount those days, those moments, where something profound was happening, where your life changed forever. But it is also important for me to learn how to let that go. It gets to be like a big lump of undissolved sugar at the bottom of my cereal bowl: kind of intriguing and bad-but-good to dive into, but then, totally a downer. If you keep diving into that particular synapse stew, pretty soon that will be the only track your mind can take.

I was watching some of CNN’s Autism: Unraveling the Mystery this morning and I was thinking one thought nearly the entire time: “Can TV ever stop using the cliche of the mystery when it talks about autism?” No, what I was really thinking was for the parents on the show: “Give it time.” I found myself wishing that we could have been on that show — yeah, sure, it was fun being on CNN and the Today Show two years ago with MPWA — but what I really liked about it, was that they used the message of my book, of our family! They did not simply zero in on our grief or our expenses, but they looked at a family being a family, even with great challenge going on at times. (Don’t forget: Just A Family was my title of my book; it was my publisher who changed it to Making Peace With Autism, for better identification as an “autism book.”) For the Today Show segment, we had 15-year-old Nat running at the track, helping me bake cornbread. We had Ben on the computer and Max juggling. We talked about what was hard, and we also talked about how far we’d come — as a family, not as Nat’s Data Takers.

What I want for those young families just getting into the autism game is to understand that growth happens. For all of you. That eventually you will realize that you are a family with concerns other than autism, other than hoping your kid will “catch up” with all the others. There is a certain degree of living in the moment that occurs once you let go of some of that. And it is the living in the moment that gives you your sense of family, of having a life.

As Sigmund Freud may have said(?) “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And sometimes a hot dog is just a hot dog.

Being a Libra, the scales in the Zodiac, I am supposed to be in balance. Or is it that I seek balance? Or, perhaps I am fascinated by the concept of balance, but I also shy away from it because in balance you cannot have intensity. I need intensity. So, in my life, being in balance, in accord with most things, is extremely elusive. I find that most of the time, I am listing to one side or another, throwing the other things up in the air like a partially vacated see-saw.

Today I was either very active, or with Ned or Nat. I worked out at the gym for an hour: cardio and then resistance, and then at night I danced/drilled for about 40 minutes (still trying to achieve the perfect hip circle, both small interior, and grand. The full hip circle is such a quintessentially bellydance move because it is a sudden level change, but in an unexpected and sensual manner: you bend forward at the waist, straight-kneed, flat-feet, and completely flat-back, and you roll your torso all the way around in the opposite direction from your hips, butt out and in the air, arms crossed over chest. This is a move you would never see in ballet, for example. It is very earthy and womanly, seductive and chaste all at once.).

Because of my craving for worked muscle and stretched sinew, I was largely boy-free. At 11:30 Ned and I brought Nat downtown to see the Harlem Globetrotters, dropping him off with his Northeastern U. buddy and several of his pals from Friday night group. Nat had never been to the Banknorth Garden, Boston’s huge coliseum, and I worried about the newness of the place and the noise. But as soon as Julie came along with that sweet smile, Nat was all a-stimmy with happiness. So we left him there and didn’t see him again until late afternoon.

Ned and I drove from there to Cambridge to a Starbucks and sat in a sunny window and shared a little sweet treat. That was nice, but it also had that slightly illicit feeling, like we had forgotten something or someone or we were playing hooky. That kind of made it even more thrilling. After that we went home and he took Max and Ben to get books and I just worked on the school newsletter for a bit, and then changed into my bellydance gear for my 3:00 class in Cambridge.

It turned out we were bumped from the studio, so class was canceled. I got home just as Nat and Julie did, too. They had had a great time, of course. Nat disappeared to watch a movie and Max, Ben and Nat were upstairs doing something else, not sure what. I was mindlessly surfing around, looking at Bhuz.com and contemplating a lime green cossie. Eventually I needed to nap, which happens from too much Bhuzzing.

So aside from dinner, I don’t feel like I was with the boys much, but instead I was in my head and my body a whole lot. I wish it didn’t have to be that something always seems to lose out, even when I’m happy, but I guess that is what happens with a multi-layered life.

Here is yet another list of no-fail items or activities, things large or small, grand or mundane, that really do what they’re supposed to do every single time.
1) Pancakes for dinner. You can’t do it every day, of course, but once in a while it is just the thing. Especially because Ned does the cooking.
2) Nat going out somewhere with people his age. This causes JHS, or “Joyous House Stompies” in Nat.
3) Workout on a mat in a sunny spot. The sun makes my eyes close, and then I zone/zen out. All that I think about is the music in my head and repeating leg lifts with weights.
4) My black yoga pants with the sequined waistband that I got at the Wellfleet Flea Market. They hit at just the right angle so they are always flattering and they have just a little bit of bling so I’m always a bellydancer when I wear them.
5) 25 calorie Swiss Miss hot cocoa. Tastes a lot better than you might expect, a burst of hot sweetness at the end of the day.
6) My Cape Cod rental. It’s clean, bright, new, tastefully decorated and has a view of the salt marsh.
7) July
8) Joe’s low-carb pita pockets with flax and Smart Balance buttery spread. Can’t explain it.
9) J Crew’s Jackie cardigan. Always fits perfectly, comes in so many delightful colors, not too expensive, year-round fabric.
10) Nap on Ned

We ordered Indian take-out today, because I did not want to cook on a Saturday, and because Max was not home (Max is out at his very first job. He is babysitting for friends of ours, a few blocks away! He called on his way over there to get directions, but I think it was to tell me he was nervous. We are staying home tonight in case he has to call someone.) Max does not do well with other kinds of food (other than what I have been cooking for him his whole life.)

I did not say anything to Nat, about Max or about dinner. I did not have time to tell him about Max. Nat was out all day with one of his buddies, and I was raking, and by the time we all got back together it was too late to think about who needed what kind of warning. Nat loves just about any food put in front of him anyway, except for milk, cheese, and bread (he’s naturally GFCF!). So why not Indian food?

So, the food arrived and I was ravenous. Nat peered into the big paper bag, whispering stuff like, “salt and pepper, juice…” and suddenly started biting his arm, quivering with anger and frustration, the arteries in his neck as thick as fingers. He was jumping up and down, fully gone into an all-out rage.

Was it the Indian food? Ned and I looked at each other in total frustration and disappointment.

I knew there was no point in talking to him about what was wrong; this, by experience, only gets him angrier. I told him quietly to go sit on the couch for two minutes. I set the timer, and tried to go about the business of getting everything out for dinner. Out of the corner of my eye, Ned was watching Nat and Ben ran up the stairs, out of harm’s way. Nat continued to scream, kick the coffee table, and thrash around on the couch.

In those moments, I felt so angry at him. Why, Nat?
And I thought about September, and his moving out. This is why, this is why… I felt relief realizing that this was no longer going to be forever and ever for us. Chased by a twinge of sadness about the way things are.

I had to push the timer several more times, it took him that long to get himself together. I threw together an alternate meal, of turkey sausage and noodles. I called everyone down and we started eating, and the buzzer rang and in came Nat. Ned and I dove into that Indian food, barely stopping to breathe.

Nat ate happily enough. Ben chattered on. Nat even asked for the jasmine rice, and had Chicken Tikka Marsala. After two turkey sausages and a plate of noodles. Learn more here about best sausage!

We all cleared everything away as quickly as we ate it. Ben decided he wanted to try the Muppets in Space movie that Ned’s dad and stepmom bought him for his birthday. Nat agreed to watch with us. He seemed calmer, more his usual wired self rather than flames bursting from his head. As I watched him walk away with his puppet hand going wild, I knew he was happy again. I wanted to reconnect. I wanted to wipe away what had happened. I wanted to try to get him to understand, now that he was calm, that he could tell me next time before he got all mad.

I said, “Nat,” and he stopped and came over to me by the dishwasher. He looked at me expectantly. He knew, though. “I want a hug,” I said. He leaned into me heavily. I kissed his bearded cheek and whispered, “Next time, just tell me, okay? You don’t have to get so mad next time. Tell me what is worrying you.”

Nat said, “Worried about the glasses, the juice, salt and pepper, yes.”

Okay, got it.

So now that I know which song I’m going to do for the June 1st Bellydance Superstars show — “I Put a Spell on You,” Natacha Atlas’ version — I am working obsessively on the choreography. Here is what I believe I will do, and it is somewhat like what I did in the YouTube vid on the previous post:
Intro
1. Drum beginning: hands up over head, interior hip circle
2. Drum: repeat
3. Accent drum: sharp hip bump left, right
4. Drum: hands over head, interior hip circle
5. Strings: snake arms
6. Drum: hands over head, hip bumps
7. Strings: snake arms
8. String theme: medium hip circle and then classic Egyptian walk forwards and back
Song begins
I put a spell on you…: big hip circle walk to left
You better stop…: big hip circle walk to right
I ain’t lyin’: spin
I can’t stand it…: camel around yourself
Put me down…la la la la: full body wave downward, then reverse body wave upward to straighten up
A heartache: (Melina) hands from heart twice, go to one knee (?) Stand up, spin
Instrumental begins
Machine guns drums: flat hip 8’s, hands on hair
Ay-ya-ya-ya, (men’s chorus): 3/4 shimmy walk w/alternating shoulder rolls forward (count 8)
Sqeaky oboes solo: flat hip 8’s again, alternating hands
Wella, wella, wella (men’s chorus): hip click walk
Singing resumes
I put a spell on you: camel walk on toes to left, because you’re mine…then right
You better stop: Maya down with arms, and figure 8 up with arms…I ain’t lyin’
I love you: shimmy arms up and outward, joyously
And I don’t care: shimmy arms down, along bod
Right now: jump shimmy
I put a spell on you: snake arms and medium hip circle
Because you’re mine: deep hip circle, head down, flip hair, cross arms, finish

yay!

His mother saw that he was not lonesome, and because she was an understanding mother, even though she was a cow, she let him just sit there and be happy.
–Munro Leaf, “The Story of Ferdinand”

Sometimes I feel like Ferdinand’s mother. Although my boys don’t prefer to sit under cork trees just smelling the flowers, they certainly do not like to run and butt heads with the other bulls. They do their own thing, and sometimes — like Ferdinand’s mother — I worry about them.

Beastie’s birthday party is a good example. I invited 5 boys for tomorrow, only to find that just two could make it. There was just something about the way that the others were so iffy and vague that made me feel a little clammy claw around my heart, the worry about the social thing. Ned and I I.M’ed about it all afternoon, and we both felt it a little bit. As always, we took turns reassuring each other that it would all be okay. Sure, of course, it is all just coincidence, I have no evidence, but — Oh Beastie!!! Why is it so hard sometimes?

Sometimes I just want to build a huge fortress here and keep them with me forever. Forget the world, forget independent living and ADLs and social skills. Forget vocational training, college, etc. Just stay here and “be my pet,” as my Dad used to say when I was little. I totally understand, Daddy!!

But of course that is not the way of things. We don’t give birth to kids for our amusement — that’s only a fringe benefit. Our reasons are far more primal than that, and also more complex. Our little eggs hatch and become big clunky teenagers and they have got to go. But we fear for them, oh yes we do.

So I moved the blasted party to next Saturday in the hopes that no one would wiggle out of it this time, and I called everyone right away to tell them. I can’t be lazy, which is my natural state in terms of social things. I have to do it for the Beast! I love him so! I want him to have the happiest life.

I want that for all of them. So, just like Ferdinand’s mother, I might let one of them be carted off to the bullfight just to see what they’re made of. But in the end, I think it will have to be okay if they are all frequent visitors of the old cork tree.

Can I make yer garden grow?
–Led Zep

I’m much better today. I am taking action, going to have my situation evaluated, because I think that my mid-life hormones are just tormenting the crap out of me. It’s the Es-Trogen Wars!!

I met with a landscape designer this morning, a very crisp and smart woman. We saw eye-to-eye on so many things. She has a very good sense and knowledge of history, and of architecture, combined with a very Japanese, quiet, calm aesthetic. Rather than doing what everyone else does: holly or box hedge, grass inside, everything squared off, we agreed that the torn-up front yard (remember the sewage pipe debacle?) should have more of a green and stone kind of look, with natural-shaped large pale stones laid out in a curvy pattern, almost like a dried river bed, with evergreens and variegated ground covers edging and clustering, and then the stone pattern bleeds over into the other part of the lawn, which has grass, and fades into a stone path leading around the side under the large arbor. We would make the new front path out of cobblestone (real cobblestone, not that smooth fake granite stuff). I hope Ned agrees; cobblestone is a little hard to walk on. But it is so pretty!! And it would make so much sense, considering the natural stone covering on the other spots.

I was feeling so happy sitting there talking to Elizabeth. This was because the whole thing reminded me of my book, Dirt. I won’t tell you any more because I don’t want to spoil the ending. But with a title like, Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Midlife Crisis, you must realize that gardening figures into the story! But also, I felt happy to be making plans for spring planting! And, she’s a writer, so we were also trying to think up places for her to pitch her stuff about architecture and the garden.

Real spring is so close, there are sometimes even smells outdoors. Something kind of sweet and active. Even with 38 degrees and snow-like rain coming down, I won’t be fooled. I hear spring birds, I see fat rusty robins, I see yellowish green stems. I can pretty much say with confidence that we have kicked winter’s ass out the door. Flush March down the terlet already; we are talking real spring!

Why else would Natty be smiling so much?

Horrible, crying-all-day kind of day.

I missed my glorious bellydance class tonight, for the second week in a row. Black Wednesday descended on me early this morning. I had a feeling, after I came back from making the school newsletter, of big, bright emptiness opening up before me and I could tell I was going to fall in. I did my best to keep my head up, keep going. Try. Be High Functioning. I called a friend, made a coffee date, which I later blew off. I went to the gym. I heard from other friends on email, but I wasn’t my best with them. I ate a good breakfast. But then I ate more, way too much. Nothing felt right. My day was going to be a big, wrenching, unstoppable yawn.

There are some days that are like that. But I always forget that they are just days. To me, they feel like they are now the reality, forever, and then I feel even worse.

I kept thinking, Go to class, it will help. But every time I thought of how we were going to be learning more of that same choreography, for the recital, I felt my energy sink down. I felt I could not face it. I didn’t want to be in the recital. I just can’t seem to be in them. And then I feel even worse.

So I lay down for a while, and thought, You loser. You are napping your life away. And I tried to get up and then I noticed kids all over my yard. Plus a dog. This made me angry. Like I was being walked on, rather than my yard. But then I thought, You are acting like an old lady. It is nice that this neighborhood has come alive. Still, I felt anxious at the tableau before me, realizing that it was spring and I didn’t feel ready. I wasn’t ready for the noise, the warmth, the soft ground, the boys.

I did the token board with Nat, because I thought, Just because I’m having a bad day, why should he go without? So he helped me with the dishwasher, and I think that was my high point.

I cried a bit, wondering why I felt so hopeless in the face of so many nice things. I called Ned. He was coming home early, which was good. But I knew he was coming home early so that I could go to my class, which I was not going to.

Is it okay that I don’t want to share my lawn sometimes? Or work towards a recital? Is it okay if I ate ice cream for lunch to feel better? Is it okay that Ned came home early for no reason? Is it okay that I take my loved ones on emotional roller coaster rides?

Why does cake got to be so good?
–Eric Clapton, from Derek and the Dominos
Nobody loves you when you’re round and stout
–Eric Clapton

I woke up this morning with a fierce belly ache
I was feelin’ the effects of the B Birthday cake
I had eaten too much of that blue Baki
And now my debauchery doth mock me.

The problem at hand is the dread dinner hour
The mere thought of cooking is making me cower
I thought if I wrote something in a blog post
I’d get an idea that was better than toast.

But now my tummy is hurting real bad
Because of the little snack that I had
You see, 5 o’clock is my worst time of day
And that leftover cake would not go away

So I cut off a tiny piece, just a wee sliver
I dropped it onto my tongue — felt a shiver
Oh sweet delight, my taste buds awoke
My traitorous stomach said, “Illness? A joke!”

I swallowed it down, I couldn’t stop there
I scraped off the knife, then I sniffed at the air
I could smell the sugar, just feel it all ’round
Surely I could suck just a little more down?

And then I disappeared and a demon took over
She got out the frosting can, tore off its cover
And started to spread bits onto edges of cake
And shoved in great mouthfuls, till craven cravin’ was slaked

I looked down at Baki and the mess I had made
When Benji comes downstairs, all hell will be paid
I cleaned it all up, as best as I could
I threw out the frosting, oh demonic food

I came over here to recover a bit
of my sick little belly, my dignity, and my wit
If I’m to make dinner ‘ere the hour of seven
It had better be good — like Penne from Heaven

If I can trick the boys into liking the pasta
They maybe won’t notice the cake-like disastah
I’m afraid that I will just never learn
To shrug off the craving, to live with the yearn.

Ben’s birthday facilitated a creative cake, of course (see below), as well as some thoughts. Here are some things I’ve learned about life from cake.
1) Too much of any one color ruins everything (protect minorities)
2) Red dye is always pink and never becomes red, no matter how much you put in (know what is impossible)
3) Too much red produces bitterness (too much of a good thing ends badly)
4) Plan your cake well, but not too well, especially if you live with impatient people (take all styles into account)
5) Brownies make excellent building material (they just do)
6) It is very difficult to frost a Twinkie, but well worth the effort (hold onto your dreams)
7) Once you cut it, it is more difficult to work with (make only judicious cuts)
8) You don’t ever have to frost a chocolate bar (some things are perfect from nature)
9) Some people are shapes people, some are color people (know thyself)
10) Too much cake will make you sick (moderation in all things)

Today is Easter.
But tomorrow is Beaster! My little bunny is turning 10!
Shmutchie! Schmengie! Benj! Beast! Little B!
So little time, so many nicknames!

A year ago I would never have believed that we would have a day like this! This is the kind of day that makes me feel like I’m doing something right. Each child has activities they enjoy, with other people. It means they have learned how to go out into the world and be with others, happily and safely, and truly, what more could a parent want?

So packed with activities was our day, that Ned and I felt the need to write up a Nat-like calendar and divide up the shlep.

It started with needing to take Ben downtown and register him for the Anime Convention, which Max was taking him to for his birthday present (Beastie’s 10th birthday is Monday, the 24th, and so is my sister Laura’s, although it is not her 10th! Aries figures big in my family.)

So we took the car and drove everyone, including Max’s girlfriend into Boston. I drove back home with Nat, (I didn’t get lost coming back from Boston!) and we played a game and waited until lunchtime, when his buddy Julie would come to take him to lunch and something fun, also with his friend S and S’s buddy Christine. Nat and S have known each other for about 7 years and have played several sports together. S’s mom is a pal of mine and we thought the boys would do well on an outing together.

As soon as Ned came back from bringing Ben to registration and then dropping him off in Max’s care, he had to turn right back around and get Ben, who was done with the Convention. According to Max, many many people there thought Ben was so cute as a Mario ShyGuy, that they asked to take his pic and some even asked to hug him. I think this was not at all Ben’s scene, my little prickly darling!

And so Nat and I waited back home, while Ned went back to the Hynes Convention Center to get Beastie. Julie and company arrived around one, as the calendar indicates, and they all went off happily. Then I went to meet my friend for lunch and a good long gossip, and Ned and B waited until it was time to take B to an archery birthday party in Dedham.

I came back home at 2:30 and Ned took B. I hung around back here alone for awhile, waiting for Nat and Julie to come back from bowling and pizza. I did some reading and a little snoozing. I was awakened by footsteps at the front door; it was Ned! Not sure why he came in that way; we usually take the basement. I was all woozy from napping in as sunny chair and he laughed at me. We snacked a little and then he went up for a nap and I waited for — let’s see: oh, yeah, Nat and Julie!

Along came Nat and Julie, a full hour later than I expected them. They had had so much fun with S and Christine!! The boys had really bonded over their experience and Julie had a great time too!

Nat had a snack and a rest on the couch and I decided to blog this before I forgot everything. Thank goodness Ben is getting a ride home because I don’t think Ned or I could do another thing. And Max — who knows when he’ll be home, and whether H will be with him or not? She eats dinner here quite often, so I’d better get thinking of an idea. Argh, it’s already 5 p.m. and I don’t know what to cook. I hate that. All I really want is to eat my hamantaschen; there’s only 4 left, though and they are not low-carb…

And tonight, Ned and I will watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I think is hilarious.