Susan Senator

Hi Mom
How are you?
I am having a great day.
Today I went to gym class.
It was fun.
Love
Nat

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what one gets out of other people. For the longest time I think I have wanted to get essentially the same thing out of each and every person I know, subconsciously. Every friend I would make, I would try to get as close to as possible. I would want to know how they think, what they love, hate, what makes them laugh. Intensity + intimate sharing = love and happiness in my mind. Or it did.

I would also want them to know about me that way, and to care equally. Ah, therein lies the rub. This particular rub became apparent to me when I first started seeing Ned, in college. I remember asking him, “But do you love me as much as I love you?” And he would say, “How can I know what your love feels like in comparison to mine?” Which to me would seem like a no, and I would get mad and hurt.

Eventually I realized that Ned was right: you cannot expect to know that the other person will feel exactly the way you do about you that you feel about them. The more difficult lesson for me has been to understand that this is okay; that even if Ned did not love me as much as I loved him, it was okay for me to feel the way I did. There was still a worthwhile relationship. There was still love. And there was no shame in what it was. It just was. I learned that my old way of being was a useless, self-tormenting kind of exercise.

But I still sometimes wondered, and I still sometimes harbored this expectation of reciprocity in all of my relationships, not really aware that I did. Then, along came Nat. Nat has made me aware of this issue in a whole new way. I get an email like the one above, and I find myself sighing that they are so similar, his emails to me. They are “only” about some scheduling aspect of his day, and he always says it was “great.” They were not enough.

Today I thought a few things when I realized this. I thought that I was sad that I could not get deeper thoughts or feelings out of Nat. And when I realized this, I felt a burst of relief, actually, because I recognized this desire as a permutation of that same very old dynamic with Ned, whereby I wanted to know his every thought and feeling and compare it to mine and hope it was the same!

But I have learned that people just give you what they give you. They come into your life as they are. They are not as you are! They are just a gift, in the sense that a gift is given to you, and is not necessarily something from your wishlist. A gift is what that other person is giving to you, wholly from them.

Who says that I have to get something more, somehow, out of Nat? Nat, the whole person, truly exists, with or without my mind understanding his mind. He is not some two-dimensional being, simply because his conversation is spare and sparse. I stand next to him, and I can just feel the golden rays of his essence.

That may be all that I need.

A friend asked me to write something about Nat’s hygiene practices. So, I’ll tell you straight out: they are not the best. He showers independently, has for years. He does it all independently and yet, he is not thorough. There is a certain degree of stink in all young men of a certain teen-age; my Natty is as typical as they come in this regard. Sweats like a man. But, come to think of it, even the Wild Beasts in the family, who are pre-pubescent, have their moments of funk. It’s just a guy thing. Hormones run free in my house.

So what do we do? One of us is usually nearby when Nat (and Ben) goes to shower, just to hassle them a little about scrubbing. We remind him about deodorant; often I just slather it under his arms for him, which makes him laugh. He is not averse to becoming clean; it is just not a priority of his. Of course, we make his shower time extra fun by buying a lot of 99 cent shampoo that he can squeeze out to his heart’s content. I hear the “thunk” of yet another empty bottle of Suave in the garbage, and I know that Nat is deep into his shower.

Nat was never opposed to being washed or combed, or any of that. He’s just not that into it, though, and I guess it is not a huge priority in our family, either. We are not dirty or anything; just kind of scruffy, is all. Except for me, of course. I am considerably well-groomed. I’m the girl, after all!

I don’t have any words of wisdom about hygiene and autism. Or hygiene and boys. I take it a shower at a time, and I try to remember that “it’s only a phase,” whatever it is.

I remember when Nat was a baby, the first time I ran a comb through his cottony platinum locks, he giggled and giggled. Oh, Sweet Boy. Now he loves getting his hair cut, but that could be because Erin, his stylist, is such an adorable young woman.

Just yesterday I was noticing pink marks all over the woodwork and my new shower curtain from Restoration Hardware, in the bathroom. Later on at dinner I saw that Beast had drawn a pinkish-red crescent-like symbol on the back of his hand; some kind of Beastly fantasy or something going on. Instead of feeling any annoyance at the ruin of my lovely white bathroom, a wistful wave rose through me. I said, halfheartedly, “You know, when you draw like that on yourself, I wonder if there’s a way we could keep it from getting all over the bathroom.” But the truth is, I didn’t really mean it. I will truly rue the days when my bathroom and my sons are all at last completely clean.

An Egyptian Police Band gets off a bus in a sleepy Israeli town…

Sounds like the beginning of a good joke, right? Well, it is the beginning of a great movie! Ned and I snuck out tonight to see The Band’s Visit, a small indy film from Israel, chock full of good looking Semites, both Arab and Israeli. Wow. Not only is this movie easy on the eyes, it feels good on your heart. It is poignantly lovely to watch the dynamics as the few townspeople and this band of guys slowly warm up to each other. Hotheaded politics take a backseat here: it is all human interactions, awkward, sweet, disappointed, sexy, bored, hopeful. And at the end, some lovely classical Arab music, which made my hands start to move, Taksim-like and snakey, all over Ned, who nearly dropped his popcorn! (Just kidding, we ate it all during the previews.)

I swear I am going to learn Arabic – maybe even bookra!

Do not squander time, it is the stuff dreams are made of.
–The sign at Twelve Oaks, where Ashley lived.

These are the days of miracle and wonder…
–Paul Simon

Relentless aches and pains. Irregular cycles. Being blue for no reason. How do others deal with their own mortality and aging? I have to see my doctor today and I’m scared. I can no longer tell myself, “Oh, don’t worry, you’re young.” Because I’m not.

And with Max turning 16, and Nat moving towards moving out, I am starting to feel old. I find myself having thoughts like, “This is the best I’ll ever be, for the rest of my life!” This?! I’m never going to dance better, etc. I feel like I’m dealing with aging, and not very well.

It is hard when society makes you feel like the only people who count are under 35. The only ones having fun are twenty-somethings, the only way to be beautiful is to look under 35. And there’s no way you really can, unless you’re actually that age. I know in my head that that is not true, but it is hard to make my stupid inner self understand these things. My children have their lives ahead of them, God willing, and I wish I did, too. I wish I didn’t squander time when I was young. Youth really is wasted on the young. But here I am, squandering away, right now.

It is also hard for me when things start to feel very settled, and very linear, proceeding towards a certain goal. I have said before that I don’t like feeling settled, I don’t like feeling like something is resolved or over. I have a really hard time letting go. So now I’m supposed to let go of being a young woman, a young mother. And yet my grip is Gorilla-glue strong. I am not doing it very gracefully, I’m afraid.

A great day, except most of us are now sick (from overeating and/or colds)!

March 9 is Maxie’s 16th birthday; tomorrow. But he’ll be celebrating it today, all day. First, H is coming over, and then at 1 he is meeting about 8 friends at the movies, to see Jumper, and then back here for cake and pizza and a total Geek-out. We are moving his gaming stuff up to the third floor, where there is a large living-room and an equally large Oriental carpet from Grandma B (what would she think of us all now, all grown up? Ned’s Grandma B was quite the formidable woman, tall, white-haired, eagle-eyed. She adored the boys and always broke out the antique toys when we visited her in Westchester.)

Max has his eye on the third floor as a bedroom. I think it’s an okay idea, except I kind of wanted it for Ned and me. Ned wants to convert it into an office space. I just want a master suite with my own bathroom. It’s funny how you grow into a house. When we first moved in, we could not imagine using the third floor, and now there are three of us fighting over it!

All the party guests will hang out up there. I told Ned I’d have to vaccuum. It has not been cleaned in a while. He said, “Uh, yeah, right…we don’t want to expose teenagers to dust, after all.” Well, I don’t! I hope we don’t need to turn on the heat for them; I have not had a delivery of oil for years, not since we converted the first two floors to gas. We left the ancient boiler for the third floor — which, as I said, we rarely used — and now I am regretting not converting that one, too. Oh, well. There is always a never-ending list of house projects, of course. In fact, the entire third floor should be replastered and painted. And the bathroom up there… And I’m not entirely sure that the huge water stain up there on the ceiling is old. Every time I look at it I say, “Did it change? Is it getting worse?” Or was it always this huge, yellow, and ugly, like a map of some gruesome netherworld?

So, around ten teenagers here for dinner and third-floor gaming. And, of course, cake. We will bake the cake this morning, with Nat, and decorate it in the afternoon, with Ben. Nat will be out with his buddy from Northeastern University, and Max will be at the movies. Ned and I came up with the cake idea days ago, and we are all set. Cake pics tomorrow!

My friend Robert Parish, autism dad and documentary filmmaker, just published his book, Embracing Autism, (Wiley/Jossey-Bass) which is a collection of essays written by parents, professionals, and other folk in-the-know (autistics themselves). The book is meant for educators, primarily; to give them a feeling for the range and flavors of ASD. I wrote the foreword. Stephen Shore, a writer and speaker (and very good guy) with autism did an essay, as well as Autism Vox’s Kristina Chew, professor, autism thinker and Charlie’s mom; my unique and irrepressible friend Kim Stagliano, writer and mother of three girls on the spectrum; autism parent, law enforcement expert and entertaining speaker Dennis Debbeaudt, and many others, each very readable and out-of-the-box. Rob did a very good job wrangling so many different personalities for his book, as well as writing some beautiful and very helpful stuff himself. Go out and get yourself and your kid’s teacher a copy!

Here’s what I just sent to Nat’s team. This happened just now:

Hi —
FYI, We just had a pretty intense outburst here, right as Nat got off the bus. I don’t know what caused it; I guess because there were dishes in the sink. (?) Of course I immediately felt like I had to clean out the sink and empty the dishwasher, to keep the peace. So of course, I just reinforced his intimidating behavior.

Ben has a friend over, too. Nat was escalating, muffling screams and biting his arm, so I had to tell Ben and his friend to go upstairs to eat their snacks, which I never do, in order to clear the room.

I don’t know how many times I reset the timer to get Nat to calm down. He was throwing things in the livingroom and playroom. He threw a water bottle at me.

I managed not to get hurt, though. No one els got hurt, except for Nat, of course — his bitten arm. I gave him his afternoon pills and also a Klonipin, which is what we use for last resorts. I feel utterly beaten down and angry. I see that we are making the right move, when it gets like this. I cannot teach him anything new, I cannot make any demands on him. I forget how it can be. And I was feeling so bad about it, all day today. But now —

I can’t believe this is that sweet boy of mine. I am trying not to cry because all the kids are here.

Sue

My new George Abdo CD, from Ned’s mom, with classic bellydance songs, my Egyptian dress-style costume, and my sword, from Puerto Rico. Love the whole thing! This may be my best performance to date.

Take a look at the other things in my universe…

I’m sorry, darling.
I wish that my egg had not had that crack–
And yet that gave us you.
I wish that my brain knew exactly what to do
With everything that has made you struggle
I wish that my patience had been deeper, thicker, bouncier
So that I would have never yelled hurtful things at you
But I would have simply rolled with it all
I wish that my bank account had been endless
So that I could have bought all the help you needed,
I needed.
And that my days had been long enough to do it all.
I wish for us more time
And yet, I need it to be the way it is.
And I’m so sorry

But — if it had all been different,
Then so, my dear. would you.

We had our final visit from home-based services at Nat’s school, the last of a series of visits structured around the question of whether Nat could benefit from a move to the residences at his school. Home-based is a very small department at Nat’s school, and is supposed to be only as a consulting service to the family. The staff in home-based come to your house and discuss the problems you might be having in your home life, the challenges, and they help you come up with solutions, and then train you to run behavioral modification programs with your child. In this case, M was coming up with solutions as well as taking notes about the dynamics within our home around Nat.

M is one of the most competent people I’ve ever met, as well as one of the sweetest and sparkliest personalities. Nat’s school seems to attract quite a few of these enthusiastic, high-energy young teachers. My first experience with her was when I was particularly irritated over the Guardianship quagmire, and I called home-based and ranted into the phone at the first person who answered. It was M. She was wonderful with me. She made a bunch of calls there and then to get me some answers, and then kept following up with emails. She didn’t even blink from my yelling. She knew immediately that it was not personal and that I was simply a parent who was drowning in the state’s bureaucratic marsh known as Transition to Adulthood.

So you can imagine how thorough and responsive my home-based services pertaining to Nat’s aggressive and self-injurious behaviors have been. M was the creator of the ugly yellow token board, and other such magical tools for connecting with and teaching Nat. (That little yellow token board makes Nat sit up and take notice. It also makes him smile. Yesterday he earned his video, rather than just watching it. We played a question-and-answer game, and he seemed to be very curious about what I was doing, using that token board like he uses in school, and very eager to humor me.)

M came over Monday to see how I was doing. She told me that they were going to make the recommendation for Nat to move to residential education. I think she could see how this felt to me to hear this. At first I felt that same old feeling of failure, of having let Nat down. All his life we had heard of residential placement as being like the last stop, the place where you sent your kid if you couldn’t handle him anymore.

But she talked very candidly about Nat in terms of his being 18; of his many strengths, and how that kind of setting will most likely help him truly achieve his IEP goals, to generalize them into a home environment. This last goal, she pointed out gently, was not being achieved in our home. She talked of how Nat’s erratic behaviors and moods were one factor that kept us from following through with so many things. The chaotic nature of the household and the other boys’ needs were another factor. Frankly, there is just too much going on for us to be as consistent as Nat needs for his adulthood training. (And this, by the way, may add to his anxiety levels at home.) Couple all this with the fact that we have never been able to hire real behavioral experts to work with Nat in the home. The cost is exorbitant for these Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), and our school system refused us that service, other than to offer us four hours a month of a BCBA to train me. More consulting!

The fact is, I have been trained. Again and again. It is not about my training. It is about my being human, my being Nat’s mom so comprehensively. I cannot also be his teacher. It is not about money or effort. It is more than that, and less. It is our inability to consistently provide the right environment for Nat, and so he spends so much of his time on the couch in front of the television, not functioning at the same high levels he does at school. Not learning what he needs to know, not learning what his neurotypical brothers can pick up through breathing. This is not about Nat needing “down time.” He gets plenty of that, even in school! It is about so much unproductive time, when he needs to be growing and learning. I have paid out of pocket for so many people to come here and try to help Nat expand his leisure activities or his ADLs. I can only accomplish so much that way. And I want him to get his full education so that he has the best chance at being as independent as possible as an adult. Now is the time for education. We have three more years.

This is not a criticism of Nat’s neurology. I love Nat, and the way he views the world. This is about my job as his mother, and my desire to get him his full right to the fullest life possible. His right to have as much of his brainpower switched on, so that he has a good life, one that is not too dependent on others, or the state in the long run. The experiential, consistent, kind, and connective training his school gives him is the way that this happens for him. This is our Late Intervention, our chance to get him intensive training the way the 0-three year-olds do. Which Nat, by the way, never got, because no one except me knew that he needed anything until he was already 3. And he did not even get to to the right program until he was five. So…

(Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr look out, here comes the Mad Elephant Mommy)

Where was I? Oh, right. Because of M, I learned that residential recommendations are mostly made for very promising kids, who stand to expand their capabilities with IEP work 24/7. During the week, when Nat will live at the school, he will do things like create shopping lists, plan meals, shop for groceries, put them away. He will connect all the dots that I have not been able to do for him. He will learn through experience, through consistent and kind exposure to things.

And he will come home on the weekends, and whenever we want.

Ned says, “It’s kind of like college for Nat.” It is, and it isn’t. But one thing I am feeling, because of M and because Nat’s school has been so humane, all these years: is that it is not a sad thing. It is a positive move for Nat’s training as an adult living In This World.

Today I woke up instantly excited and full of purpose: it was my Baby Bellies’ dance recital. When I first walked outside, I entered a day that matched my mood: soft and warm. The air around me was like smooth palms on my face. Tiny green bulb fingers had poked through the brown pie-crust covering of leaves in my gardens overnight. “Ha-ha!” I said to Max and Ben as we opened up the car. “Spring is coming. Can you find some signs of spring?” Ben actually answered me: “There’s almost no more snow.” Max didn’t answer, but he seemed to be looking around, at least. I pointed to my sunny wall garden, where already the cerastium was greening up — it would eventually burst into the little white flowers of snow-in-summer, but not yet. “Look there for clues,” I said, “because that’s where it is sunniest and warmest.” Max nodded.

It is very important to me that the boys look around and notice things that they are not accustomed to thinking about. It is easy for them to get pulled into video game characters and technological wonders; but they need to let the basic human relief of early spring touch them, too.

I feel that I have succeeded in peeling back the Baby Bellies’ awareness of music and how different instruments feel like — and ask of you — different things. The Misirlou is a perfect way to teach this, because its sinuous melody seems to really call for the use of veils, of things waving around through the air. I tell the girls to listen for the flutes, listen for the rattle, and to make the movement that comes naturally when you hear them: pedal turn to the flute; shimmy to the rattle. Notice when a phrase is coming to an end, as your signal to shift from a line into a circle. That kind of thing.

I got to the theater early with my bag of shmattes leftover from my party, and started hanging veils all over the stage. I went backstage and found a few pieces of scenery to use: a lantern and a painted fireplace. draped my newest cossie belt over a stool for more color. I thought it looked great. This set design was probably the most fun part for me, other than the joy of watching the Baby Bellies dance so well.

Just about every mom showed up, and even a dad or two. The Extended Day classes came to watch, and one or two teachers who were around. Ben worked the curtains and Ned worked the camera. We were able to run through it twice before our performance, which we did twice, too, because it was so brief!

I had brought three bags of donuts and another mom brought a tray of cookies. All were devoured in minutes. I could tell that the girls were really happy with how they’d done. I was totally in a sweat when it was over, but I couldn’t have been prouder.

Watching Nat play basketball
Listening to Ned tell a story
Listening to Ned laugh
Watching my hair stylist do her fantastic blow-out on my hair
Watching B draw, with tip of tongue pressed againstteeth
Watching Max smiling the 1,000 watt smile at H
Hearing from a long lost friend
Finishing a 3-mile run in a decent time
Hearing the joyful “Nat!” greeting from the entire team when we finally arrived at the State Games today
Watching when B gets a sophisticated joke
Getting an idea and writing something great from it
Seeing how Max’s friends have grown up
Making a really great eggplant parmesan for a dinner party tonight
Having four gorgeous dresses to choose from for the Library Gala tomorrow night
Making Laura laugh
Being comforted by Mom
Hearing Dad say, “Proud of you, as always”
Realizing I really am a bellydancer
Anticipating my agent’s excitement about the new book
Hearing from the New York Times about a piece I wrote
Watching a movie that I like with my boys

Space: the final frontier.
–Captain James T. Kirk

Sorry, Trekkies everywhere. Kirk had it way wrong, in my opinion. The final frontier in my universe is Work. I think about work a lot these days, because I don’t have enough of it, because Max needs a summer job, and because I want Nat to be able to work as an adult.

It has been quite a challenge, getting Max to understand that he will have to work someday soon and that he probably will not love his first jobs. I have been very careful to refer to what I do as “work,” which it is, albeit piecemeal and strange hours. I’ll write intensely from 10p.m. until I fall asleep. Thanks to the the sleep guide I read I am getting better sleep but it’s difficult since I work all through lunch trying to sell whatever I wrote, but then sit around making meals, appointments, phone calls, conversation, and checking email while they’re all here. I don’t know if my boys understand that what I do is work and that if I did not, we would have to pay someone a lot of money to do it all for us. (My pay is a cossie a month and other perks, I suppose.)

Everytime I suggest various job possibilities to Max — tutoring my friends’ kids in computer skills, working at a game store, being a computer camp counselor — he makes that face that looks as though he smells something bad. I even suggested he get the same job in the same place as H, his lovely girlfriend, and he would not consider it, because it is something to do with gardening. (Oh, how terrible that would be, to spend your summer gardening for others…!)

Am I supposed to take that on, too? When I was sixteen, I remember getting my own damned jobs. I drove around to movie theatres and to Friendly’s, asked to speak to unhappy managers and tried to demonstrate my competence and capability at those crap jobs. It was hard, but I did it. Woke up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and wrenched myself into a God awful polyester blue checked dress to work the morning shift, making the salad fixings at Friendly’s, with a mean girl and her older sister. I stunk of pancakes and bacon.

Will Max do stuff like that? How were my parents that consistently tough with me? They were such total adults. I wish I were.

Sometimes I think maybe I save all of that kind of effort for Nat. I am going to have to become Hurricane Susan, plowing through any place that I think could possibly hire him, and explain him to them, and broker a job. Is that how it’s done? I can’t imagine that anyone out there would do it for him other than me. Once he’s done with school, once the entitlements end, it feels like we will be swimming in shark-infested waters.

Well, I’ll be damned if all of his years of hard work and education get him eaten alive. That just makes me see red. I feel a rage building up inside of me, that things are this way in this country. That people like Nat are viewed as lesser somehow, and undeserving of the extra effort it takes even to get to know them, let alone to help them work.

Then Ned says to me, “Why does he gotta work?”
And I say that he does, he does. It’s what I want. It’s what I always imagined, long after I gave up on other things. I want to see him going to a job, having that in his life.
Ned says, “Why can’t he just do what he does? Be a man of leisure.”
I don’t know, I don’t know. Stop challenging me, Ned! Because! Because if I let this go, it feels like giving up on something. Yet another thing.

Well, not while dere’s still bref in mah body…

I signed up for this. I am going to do a 3 minute dance with the Bellydance Superstars on June 1. OH. MY. GOD. Oh, oh, oh. Ned is very, very psyched, because the workshop and performance is with this lovely lady, Petite Jamilla:

Bellydance SuperStars
“Kami Liddle & Petite Jamilla”
Workshop,Performance & You

SUNDAY,JUNE 1ST,2008

V F W Hall, Post 1012, Mystic Avenue, Medford, Mass.

6 HOURS OF WORKSHOPS & PERFORMANCES
with KAMI LIDDLE & PETITE JAMILLA & YOU !
WANT TO BE IN A PERFORMANCE/
SHOW WITH KAMI & PJ,
HURRY,ONLY
****TWO DANCE SPOTS LEFT****

I wonder about some autism treatments, and the benefits they might have that no one talks about: the relief they give to the parent, which then translates to a more competent, confident, relaxed, and empathic parenting style.

We have been having our sharp ups and downs with Nat and his aggressive outbursts, for a while now. You could say that aggression is part of his profile, but I would be pissed at you if you did. Please do not label my boy. He can become very frenetic and aggressive if he is knocked off his center by various of life’s vicissitudes, but I would say that it is more accurate to call him a “highly-charged” individual with an affinity/obsession for things that fascinate him and/or bug him (same as his mother). You might think that I am being very P.C. here in how I ask you to speak of Nat, but that’s okay. Sometimes Political Correctness is necessary because it has a beneficial affect on how you think of someone. If you think of Nat as a Violent Autistic Person, you would be doing him — and yourself — such an injustice because that sounds scary. But if you think of Nat as A Guy Who is Very High Spirited and Strong-Tempered, you would have a more accurate perception. It’s just a bit of a mouthful, so how about just thinking of him as “Nat?”

So I was saying that autism treatments may actually be better treatments for the parents than the kids. I was given a token board to help strengthen Nat’s ability to follow directions. I looked at this bright yellow Velcrow-y thing on my lovely matte-finish black granite kitchen counter and thought, How am I going to fit this into my life? It does not even match my kitchen…

Nevertheless, I asked Nat to play a game with me, and came up with four other directions for him to follow, such as, 1) Get the game; 2) Play with me; 3) Take apart the game; 4) Put the game away; and 5) Answer the phone. I was told to do high-probability and low-probability directions with him. But Nat loves directions and rules, and so of course he did everything. He answered the phone by rattling off an entire conversation into the receiver: “Hi, how are you, fine, I played at school, I played basketball.” Or something like that. (Good thing it was Ned on the other end.)

I thought, How is this really going to help when things get rough? The theory being that we get Nat more accustomed to following our directions, so that even when he de-stabilizes, we can point him to an activity and help him channel some of that excessive energy, and then work with him on whatever it is that is making him mad.

And then something toppled out of the fridge onto his foot, and Nat hates when things fall out of things, and so he started biting his arm. I looked at New Yeller sitting on my counter and I felt calmer. I wordlessly put the stuff back into the fridge and repeated the directions to set the table. He ran into the livingroom, biting his arm. But I felt calm. Max said, “Uh, he’s biting his arm,” and I nodded, knowing I could not call attention to it or it would all get worse. I quietly explained that to Max. In a steady voice I reminded Nat about setting the table, and he came in and did it. A total de-escalation, and the whole thing lasted less than a minute.

Was it because I felt the calm that a new strategy gave me? And do other parents feel such relief when they find something that may help, that that is just as good medicine as anything you are actually trying out with your kid?

If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again,
I’ll never go any further than my own [school] yard…
–Dorothy Gale, and me

Here is what I handed out in my Baby Bellies class today:

And we practiced on the real stage! We are even going to open the curtain! (I need Ned to come do that. It’s a good way to get him to see the performance. Ssh, don’t tell him I don’t really need him, I just want him there!) I also have invited the principal, the office staff, and the Extended Day teacher and kids. My Baby Bellies are going to shine!

Ah, was that a great way to spend an hour! Those girls are working so hard to master our choreography. They even offer suggestions to how to make it more orderly (the 3-point turns are still a bit of a problem, bumping into one another, etc.). Now we are standing in line formation, shortest to tallest — you wouldn’t think this would be cause for debate-and-pout, but nevertheless… well, they don’t call them Baby Bellies for nothing.

I stand off in the wings and show them each move. There was even a new girl today, a friend’s kid, and she did great. I brought in gauntlets and other cossie bits for each of them to further adorn themselves; they were excited, until the stuff started falling off. D’oh! Everything I own is adult size, not Baby Belly size. Even the girl-size stuff I bought is a little big on some of them!

In a few weeks I will be doing my workshop in Walpole, for moms of special needs kids. I met with my friend Melinda who is doing the yoga part of the workshop. I took her class today: my second yoga class ever. I LOVED it. I think it was because of her; she explained everything and was just so soothing and philosophical. “Let go of this,” “check in with that.” I was very relaxed afterwards, so of course I got a coffee with her and got all charged up again — but in a good way.

And another studio asked me to entertain at their small party. I think this will be a way that I can begin to teach at that studio. I want to teach during the school day, like Melinda does. I felt so good in her class, that I realized I want to do this far more often (except bellydance, not yoga). I love being with other women and feeling the camaraderie and support.

The Baby Bellies have a little of that, too. They each show the other what they’re doing wrong, but they are never too mean. I like the way they try to help me, too, in figuring out our dance routine. I was never as confident as that when I was 8. It’s very exciting and inspiring to be among all these future strong women.

Ben watched the rehearsal. In the car ride home I asked him what he thought of our show. “Well, do I have to give an answer to that?” he asked.

A rave review!

I’m sending Nat to an Imax movie with his Northeastern buddy. I hope it goes okay. I don’t know if Nat has ever experienced Imax. This anxiety reminds me of the time we all went to the Atlantis on a January getaway, and the first time we all went down the giant tube slide. I don’t know why, but Ned and I did not go with Nat, on his tube. I went ahead of Nat, and then I think Max was behind him. When I shot out of the tube, I suddenly realized that Nat might be completely terrified and uncertain in that long tunnel, and he might panic. I had no idea, all of a sudden, what he would do. Would he scramble out of the tube, and drown? Would he somehow get stuck somewhere? How would we know, how would we find him? Why, oh why, did we send him alone down the tunnel slide?

And then, of course, Nat came shooting out, huge smile on his face, ready to go again. Just as Nat stores up a repertoire of experiences to draw upon and to understand the world around him, I build up a store of Nat-experiences to figure out whether he can handle whichever new even comes up. I learn over and over again that he is just a kid, a person with the ability to make certain leaps and conclusions, and also one who can see to his own calming and needs.

So today, it is Imax. I figure he won’t get nauseated, the way I did when I went with Ben’s class. But I think that rather than being too fresh and new, this happened because I am now getting old! I used to laugh at my mother when she could not take even the simplest amusement park ride. I thought she was kidding! But it was absolutely real. We just can’t take the Gs or whatever it is.

I am wondering, too, if this sensitivity will forever be in the way of my spinning. I keep practicing spins, because to me, that is one of the signature bellydance moves, when you want to go fast. You want to appear to be lost within the spin, head down, hair fanning outwards. But you also need to “spot,” to fix your eyes on one place in the room and keep returning them to it as you make your turn. This only helps mildly with the dizziness. I have also heard that some girls shut their eyes when they spin, which I have done successfully, but only for one or two spins (before you crash into something). One or two spins is not enough for the effect, anyway.

The little kids (Baby Bellies) simply spin and get dizzy, (unless I pin a sock to the fall and they spot with that) but the dizziness makes them laugh. Why is it so unpleasant a feeling to me, but so pleasurable to a child? What happened to me? And where, in this particular spectrum, is Nat?

Perhaps you have to view the dizziness in G Gordon Liddy terms, when he thrust his hand into a flame: The trick is not minding.

Here it is! Photos by Ned, of course.

I started making this costume last year, and today I finished it! … See my Tabblo>