I couldn't get to one hundred .... yet.

1) I’ve always wanted to adopt four kids. Biological kids I could take or leave (easy to say if you’re not infertile). After I had one biological child with special needs, I wanted to adopt ten. I realized there are way too many kids out there that nobody wants. Since our second (surprise!) child also has autism, we are waiting on starting the adoption process until he’s a little older. I “borrowed” a third child from my cousin; she has lived with us since 2002.

2) I entered my forties with a whimper instead of a bang a couple years ago. I wish I could tell you that I think forty “rules.” When I told my pastor I was feeling old on my fortieth birthday, he said “I just turned fifty eight.” You gotta appreciate someone who helps you keep perspective at his own expense.

3) PA, DE, NJ, NY, MD, VA, WVA, CA, TX, AZ, IL, GA, MI, OH, OK, NM, NV, UT, ID, MT, MO, IN. I have been in 22 states that I remember. I have lived only in PA, MI, and CA. Most of the others I drove through on our way from MI to CA. I drove from CA to MT and back when I was 21. I wouldn’t mind moving down south because I’m sick of cold weather.

4) I am both the youngest of three and the second youngest of five. God bless blended families. I have full, half and step siblings. I also have an original mom, a stepmom, a foster mom, and a mother in law. Mother’s day is a bitch. I’ve got some great female mentors too.

5) My four siblings are all smarter than me. I think I was born with a reasonable intellect, they just have more. Well, I am better than my sisters at math, and better than my brothers at writing, so I guess I’m the happy medium. But they are all so cool. I hardly ever get to see them, and that sucks.

6) I have 35 first cousins. I couldn’t count the second cousins without getting out the family genealogy book. There are A LOT of them. And we all love to get together.

7) My grandmother and great grandmother lived long into their nineties. Here’s hoping.

8) I am a brittle diabetic. I found this out by having a mini stroke in 2007. This is the second time in my adult life that I have had a major illness to rehabilitate from. Whine bitch moan complain.

9) I love reading. Rather, I love reading GOOD books. Good is defined by my very subjective opinion. Books are like the air that I breathe. I love discussing books too.

10) I watch way too much tv, especially reality tv. I have wasted at least one lifetime doing this. It is definitely rotting what’s left of my brain. When I feel well, I don’t have time to waste on television. But I still love movies, in sickness and in health.

11) I was slow in embracing the internet; now I can’t imagine how I lived without it. I use it for shopping, research, socializing, self expression, education, entertainment and endless amounts of information.

12) I have always believed in eating well, exercising and medicating with herbs (legal ones). Even if I didn’t do it well, I believed in it. Now that I am diabetic, over half my diet is raw fruit and vegetables.

13) I am a closet Christian. I think I am a lousy witness, so I don’t do it even though I’m supposed to. Other Christians often annoyed the hell out of me before I was one, so I try not to do that to others. But my faith is very important to me.

15) I don’t believe in prayer in schools unless it is a private faith based school. I don’t want my kids to be forced to pray to Allah someday if the Muslims are in power, or some other religion that isn’t MINE. I don’t believe in making people of other faiths or non faith pray just because I want to.

16) I like to pray. A lot. I love reading scripture too, especially with an analysis guidebook in hand.

17) I think home education is the best option if you can afford it. Private school is better than public, but even I support basic public education with my votes. I think an educated citizenry is the only way to have and to preserve democracy. Too bad we suck as a country at public education. If you want to find out how to improve it, ask a teacher, not a politician.

18) My growing up life was rocky and stressful, but I thank god that my family impressed upon me the importance of higher education. Just getting my bachelor’s degree was a real struggle (even fully funded), but I have never regretted it; if I have the chance, I’ll still do more.

19) I left home at age 16 and went to college. Sounds tough, right? Nope, my dad paid for all of it. I didn’t even have a driver’s license yet. He bought me driving lessons too.

20) I started out in life as a blond. By age six, my hair had turned brown. I have never had the urge to try blond again, though I would like to get rid of the gray. I am too lazy/cheap to color my hair (so far). My hair is about two feet long now, at first I grew it to donate to charity, but now I’ve heard that they’ve stopped collecting it.

21) If I could have only one cosmetic procedure, my first choice would be to laser off all my excessive body hair. Hurray for genetics. The next thing would be my teeth, which aren’t in bad shape; I would just like them to be better. It would be nice to get rid of my stretch marks too, but I’m not sure anyone has perfected a technique for that. I would also consider a TINY tattoo if my little sister got one with me. But I might stop after the first touch of the needle, so I’d better go first.

22) As for NON cosmetic procedures, I have often wished my eyes could be corrected but I’m too scared to get the laser surgery in case it heals badly. There’s not really anything wrong with the appearance of my nose, but if I was brave and had the money, I would get that corrected too so I could breathe better.

23) I don’t do sports, I don’t follow sports. If I could correct the eyes and the hair thing, I would spend a lot of time in a swimming pool though. And I kind of like tennis. And ping pong. And basket ball. But I don’t do any of them anymore. I used to love cycling and roller skating too, though they’re not exactly team sports.

24) One of my favorite things about my husband is that he doesn’t follow sports, though he used to love playing volleyball and practicing martial arts. Another thing I love is that he doesn’t drink beer, or any alcohol at all. Another thing I like is that he is generally AWESOME. Of course, I’m not crazy about the asperger’s thing. But I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like my diabetes or fibromyalgia either.

25) I have fibromyalgia, which is basically a fancy word for really deep, sore muscle pain much of the time. It causes fatigue. It also has something to do with the “not interested in sports” issue. Any day in which I’m very active or even just do a lot of walking or driving, I really pay for the next day. But sometimes you gotta do it.

26) I was born near Philadelphia, and lived there with my mommy until I entered high school. Then I got shipped off to my Dad’s and spent the next twenty years in California. I developed severe hate for crowds and traffic. I am back near Philly now. I love all the greenery.

27) I had a chance to try both drinking and drugs in middle/high school, and I didn’t like them. I was offered cocaine in college, but I just wasn’t interested. I thank god I wasn’t inspired to go down that road. I had other vices, though, but to protect the innocent, I won’t discuss them.  But I am nonetheless a big fan of rock and roll.

28) I though about suicide in both high school and college during two immensely emotionally painful times, both before I was 18. I wish I’d known there was help available.

29) I wish I’d had a relationship with god long before I did, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. As my much admired Uncle said, “God’s timetable, not ours.” I’m so grateful that it finally happened. Consider me an eager consumer of the opiate of the masses.

30) Some of my favorite scripture, from the time I began my journey, was (and is):

he who has begun a good work in you will finish it

trust in the lord with all your heart, and rely not on your own understanding

I will never leave you nor forsake you

with god all things are possible

the joy of the lord is your strength

nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God

Don’t ask me which version. Pretty sure they’re not King James.

31) I love the Philly suburbs, but I really miss my people in Cali. My dream was to have an inexpensive home in each area, and I ALMOST made it happen, until the 9-11 recession, and we lost our Cali house. At least we kept our PA house! But our crisis was a lot less difficult than a lot of other people suffered at that time.

32) I have loved dogs since I was a little girl, and I still do. Cats are fun too; I’d gladly have both if I could.

33) I love playing the piano. I haven’t had one in my home since I was 16, I really miss it. Not that I have the room for it anyway. A cheap electronic keyboard is just not the same.

34) My biggest dream is to have a big house full of special needs children on a big acreage with an animal rescue. I’d also like to live not too far from a university so I can finish graduate school, and my dh could teach there.

35) We live near the border of Lancaster County (Amish territory) which is one of my favorite places on earth. We are impeded on car trips by horses and buggies quite often. If you have ever seen the TV show “John and Kate Plus Eight,” you will see a lot of the places we also like to go when they take their kids on local jaunts. It is also the location where much of the movie “Witness” was filmed. Sadly, we are also very close to the location where a gunman shot up a room full of Amish school children a couple years ago. I can’t pass by there without thinking about it.

36) My favorite color is lavender, followed by royal purple. My mother loves lavender too.

37) I stopped wearing jewelry during my first pregnancy, and haven’t done it since. Something about my body chemistry changed that made metal an irritant. I only ever really wore a watch and earrings, but I did love both, and now miss both. It’s hard for a control freak to live without a watch.

38) Snow is pretty but it’s really crap to drive in. I’m not a big fan of driving in the rain either. I’m not a big fan of driving PERIOD. My husband and I fight over who has to drive when we go out.

39) I love live folk music in coffee shops. I am also a metal fan, but only on my stereo. I don’t like to be in a crowd of metal fans. I don’t like to listen to classical music nearly as much as playing it. I’m embarrassed to admit that I like pop music too. I dislike rap though both my autie boys enjoyed it a young age. I love contemporary praise and worship music too, especially at my church.

40) I can’t sew, knit or crochet. I will sew on a button, but it will look cruddy. I wouldn’t mind learning, but it’s far down on the list. I NEVER iron, though I do most of the laundry in the house.

41) You know how some women collect shoes of purses? I have a thing for coats and jackets. I have no idea why. I hardly ever wear more than a few of them.

42) My second favorite hobby next to reading is taking pictures of people I know. I love to edit them and post them up to myspace, but I don’t keep it updated as much as I’d like. I used to love scrap booking before I had children, or I should say I love scrap booking and would still do it if I had the time and organization. A piano would surpass my camera for use if I had one.

43) I have been a big General Hospital fan since I was a little girl, but I haven’t watched it in like ten years. No time. I guess I could tape it and watch after bedtime; too much effort.

44) My first job was as a newspaper carrier at eleven years old for almost three years. I hated it. It taught me a lot of valuable lessons (I hate admitting my dad was right about that). Back in those days, we walked up to people’s doors and collected money, often going inside. NO WAY would I let my eleven year old daughter do that now. Not that I have one. But I wouldn’t even let my 21 year old daughter do it.

45) My next job was as a clerk in a low budget department store during my freshman year at UCLA. I hated that too, but it gave me a lot of motivation for completing college. I met lots of middle aged people there who hadn’t finished their education.

46) My third job was booking talent for children’s birthday parties and frat boy bachelor parties. Talk about interesting, weird, sometimes scary, and occasionally gross.

47) I transferred from the UC system to the CSU system after two years because I couldn’t stand the rich spoiled shallow students I kept meeting who were there to party. I should have looked harder for the ones who were serious about their education. I regretted transferring almost immediately after I discovered I was trading seventeen libraries for ONE. I should have tried hanging out with the graduate students instead. But the new program was practical and the students were serious and hard working, most with jobs. That part I loved.

48) I am not a gifted cook, and I don’t have the money for luxurious food anyway. Now that I have diabetes, our diet is more streamlined than ever. My poor family basically gets the same seven dishes rotated every week. But I get no complaints – I tell them they are welcome to make a pb and j if they don’t appreciate what I make. Well that’s not entirely true, my six year old usually complains everyday that he doesn’t like what I made, and then he eats it. He’s not a fan of pb and j.

49) My ideal decorating style would be plain furniture with massive amounts of filled bookcases and oil paintings of impressionist landscapes with lots of lavender and purple. I would have an entire large wall devoted to family and friend portraits though. The carpets and drapes would not draw attention to themselves. I love to decorate for holidays too. I really enjoy arts and crafty things that people make for me.

50) We consider ourselves very blessed though simple living is the name of the game. The only way I can afford to be a stay at home mom is to budget very carefully and balance the checkbook to the penny. We have lots of debt and no savings thanks to medical bills, a couple extended periods of unemployment and losing our first house after 9-11. Supposedly, we have GOOD health insurance. We both had plenty of school debt coming into the marriage. We have an extremely modest house (can be put on wheels) and two very old cars. But it’s worth any lack of luxury to be home with my asperger boys.


I don't really stop at fifty, I am a work in progress.....

Survey: appropriate education for aspie's

One very famous book author with asperger's syndrome, who I have already referenced in this blog, asked his readers to provide him with input for speaking to a group of educators concerned with increasing student achievement. Apparently autistic students aren't doing so well in traditional public schools. Is this a great surprise to anyone who has a child on the spectrum? Anyway, this was my suggestion:

I think the children's voices really need to be heard. Usually they are able to communicate, if not verbally, in other ways, what works for them and helps them to maximize their success. My guess is that most children with a spectrum diagnosis DO NOT appreciate mainstreaming, but why not ask them, or let them show you? And other volatile environments, like a school bus, hallways, or cafeterias, are often recipes for disaster because the stimulation is so overwhelming. When meltdowns happen, learning isn't.

Our state offers publicly funded cyber schooling, and that is a big hit with my aspie teen. Another cyber school we are considering has a large aspie population by default, this was a development the administration wasn't expecting. But one of their teachers told me that this appears to be a method by which aspies are able to thrive because it cuts out so many of the negative aspects of a traditional brick and mortar school for those students. It also utilizes "block" scheduling, which allows students to focus on fewer subjects in greater depth at one time. My son has asked me to transfer him to that school for that reason.

A venue for social skills is important too, critical even, but only if it's a POSITIVE experience for the individual. Negative social experiences generally lead to academic failure and withdrawal. Rarely in "the real world" is an adult forced to stay in a negative social environment. What educators often think should be a positive social environment is just the opposite for a kid on the spectrum.

My concern especially is those teachers who tolerate bullying, because the autistic person's behavior is considered purposefully negative, rather than typical or unavoidable for them. To me, this like allowing a deaf person to be ostracized since they are being "bad" for not listening. Note the teacher in Florida who had her students each voice how much they disliked their autistic classmate's behavior as a group to his face in a "Survivor" style.

Teachers who are expected to teach autistic children need to be specifically educated about it, no question. If someone used the word "unmotivated" to describe my child, I would tell them, "why would you expect him to be?" Those are not appropriate standards for our children, and the teachers need to understand that.

More than that, as the population of people on the spectrum continues to grow at an exponential rate, the other students need to be specifically educated about neurodiversity, and not just "tolerance", but acceptance. Especially in districts where mainstreaming is still considered the preferable method of education, the other students NEED that help in understanding their autistic classmates.