I made a mistake and then I fixed it.

I knew not long into practicing law that I made a career mistake. But, I felt trapped. My ego, my financial situation, my student loans, my expectations of myself, the expectations of others — all of these things made me feel as though I had no choice but to make a go of it. So, made a go of it I did for 12 years. Hell, I knew I hated being a lawyer when I started this blog, but all you have to do is read the title I chose – ProfMomEsq – or the “About Me” page to see how I nonetheless wrapped up law practice into my personal identity.

It probably isn’t worth it to rehash all the reasons why I don’t like law practice. There are too many reasons, and I’ve written about it before. I suppose some of the reasons apply to lawyers in general, but many apply only to me. The truth – which took me a very long time to realize – is that the reasons I hate being a lawyer are neither “right” nor “wrong.” They just are. So, ultimately, I had only a simple choice: did I want to be happy or unhappy? Pretty easy, right?

Yet, it took me 12 years — 12 YEARS — to find the strength not just to say I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore but to actually do something about it. You know what I did? I quit being a lawyer. Friday is my last day. I sent my goodbye email to my colleagues yesterday. I start an entirely new, non-lawyer job on Monday. And while I am a little nervous, I am mostly so thrilled that I feel as though I float down the hallways of the firm now, leaving a trail of pixie dust and the vague scent of warm chocolate chip cookies in my wake. I keep looking at myself in the mirror with this feeling of relief and surprise that – yep – I still exist even though I jettisoned the bar card.

As sunshine-y and rainbow-y as I am for myself, I can’t help but be sad for the lawyers I’ve talked to this week – colleagues, opposing counsel, clients – who remark about how jealous or envious they are of my decision to leave the profession or how brave I am to take this step. It wasn’t bravery that got me here. It was desperation. And, the envy is wasted energy. I want to tell each of them to spend that energy finding their passions. But, I know that the words are not enough. Like losing weight, quitting smoking or ending a bad relationship, leaving a career takes will power, and it is so hard to find the will. This is true even if your head understands that the change would be “good” for you, because we easily confuse “good” the feeling with “good” the outcome. Eating chocolate cake feels good. The rush of nicotine feels good. The momentary affection of someone you desperately want to love you feels good. But, that kind of “good” works some mischievous chemical voodoo on our brains and hearts that makes what is truly “good” (e.g, healthy) for us seem less desirable – to hell with logic and reason.

I had to get to the very edge of my sanity to understand this and – more importantly – to do something about it. So, while I listen to the stream of lawyers expressing envy or jealousy at my escape from the billable-hours grind, my heart aches for them. The answer is so simple it is literally unbelievable: do something else. But, we humans are so good at “justifying” where we are when we believe we are stuck. I won’t make as much money. I still have student loans. It will be better when I make partner. My clients need me. I don’t want to waste my degree. My family/friends/peers will think I’m a loser/quitter/weak/stupid.

What I learned (thanks to the happy coincidence of meeting a social worker who “got” me) is to stop evaluating my life choices as “right” or “wrong” and to start evaluating them as “healthy” or “unhealthy.”

Well, hey there, you know what’s not healthy? Spending more time doing a soul-sucking job that you absolutely hate than you do with the family and friends you love. It makes you a surprisingly unpleasant person. Paradoxically for me, it also made me put up with a lot of crap that I never in a million years would imagine tolerating.

Many folks I know are fond of the expression, “God gives you only what you can handle.” I don’t think that’s true. I have complicated feelings about God, but even when I’m open to the idea of a supreme being who has a plan for my life, I would have to believe that God grossly overestimates my threshold capacity for stress if he thinks I can “handle” the competing demands of law practice, raising two children, being a wife, addressing financial setbacks and learning/navigating the ins and outs of special education in a public school bureaucracy. Rather, I think God/life/karma/the universe deliberately presents us with events we can’t handle as a means of getting our attention and forcing us to make a decision. If I really bought into the God-gives-you-only-what-you-can-handle philosophy, I honestly believe I would be dead. I would’ve struggled mightily to continue to balance all those things, and I would’ve had a heart attack – a literal, chest-crushing heart attack. Instead, I saw it (eventually and after a lot of therapy) as a message: decide what is most important and focus on that.

My children are important to me. My husband is important to me. I am important to me. Being a lawyer is not important to me. I don’t view working as optional because of our family’s financial situation, but “needing” to work doesn’t mean I “need” to be a lawyer. And, funny enough, there are actually other (better) paying and more satisfying jobs out there!

So … what’s my point? Don’t waste your life doing what you think is “right,” when you can dedicate your life to doing what is healthy. Don’t confuse what feels good with what is good. Start small – plan every day to do just one thing that is healthy for you, and watch it snowball. Two months ago, I walked into an intensive outpatient therapy group for my panic disorder, and I stunned a room full of people dealing with abuse, addiction, disorders and depression into absolute silence when I told the story of my life. Five weeks later, I left that group hearing the applause of its members when I announced I had a new job and was on the path to a new career. That happened because every day I had to commit to doing something better, and every day I was held accountable for it by others until I was strong enough to hold myself accountable.

I know a lot of you reading this are balancing or juggling your own competing responsibilities, so I challenge you to find one thing – no matter how big or small – you will commit to doing today to help make your life better. Not your child’s life, not your spouse’s life, not you parent’s life — YOUR LIFE. Then, feel free to share it if you want some accountability.

In the meantime, I’ll be over here, thinking up a new name for this blog.

Happy Birthday Sylvia Chauveneux, Love Cheryl Tiegs

Today is my little sister’s birthday.

I so wish we still had that crown somewhere. I’d make you wear it all day.

When I asked my sister what she wanted, she told me she wanted to be immortalized in a post on my blog. I was prepared to bake a cake, babysit my niece, maybe even buy some wine with an actual cork. I wasn’t prepared for this. This is a lot of pressure, man. This blog post can go only one of two ways: the feeling you get when you open the door and Ed McMahon is standing there with a shit-ton of balloons and a poster board check made out to you for an obscene amount of money, or the feeling you get when you open a gift of sexy lingerie from your weird aunt while your entire family is watching you and the room fills up with that awkward state between stunned silence and hysterical laughter when no one wants to be the first one to break.

I gotta say … I’m not really sure which one I’m going for here.

I have more than three decades of stories.  That’s an overwhelming amount of information to condense into a single blog post.  So, we’re going to do this photo-essay style.  I know, I know.  It’s kind of a cheap way out.  But, these pictures tell stories that my words cannot.

Look at that happy baby smile. I’m pretty sure my mouth is smiling here, but my mind is thinking, “Touch my toys, and I will eff you up, munchkin.”

My sister was mostly cool to have around.  I got a puppy out of the deal, so it wasn’t all bad.  Also, she was pretty entertaining.  She was born back in the days of televisions sets that had dials and rabbit-ear antennas, so it was her or Sesame Street.  I mostly picked her.  Unless Villa Alegre was on. Because ¡Villa Alegre!

Still, she was pretty cute, so she usually reeled me in.

Smile nice for the camera and keep quiet about my bangs. You’ll have the same ones soon enough, missy.

She was usually game for whatever I wanted to do. For example, if I wanted to play barber shop and I needed a model …

I warned you, didn’t I? Listen, I wasn’t the one who thought battery-powered Snoopy scissors were a good gift idea for a kid.

Or, if I wanted to play hours of kickball in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard.

It grew back. Sort of.

Eventually we were like peanut butter & jelly, a Caramello and milk, an Egg McMuffin with a side of syrup …

Aaaaaaand … there you have it. Exact same bangs, right down to the part. I think you should definitely sport that yellow yarn necklace more often. It’s a true statement piece.

We shared a lot of adventures.  This photo is possibly emblematic of our respective roles in those adventures …

(I notice I have a vague choke-hold on you in a lot of our photos. Weird.  Also, Mom must’ve been REALLY bored, because these are the best Halloween costumes I think we ever had.)

I think this photo captures the boredom that gave birth to Sylvia and Cheryl. I’m pretty sure there are no two siblings on earth who made up better, more involved, more dramatic games than we did. It might be because we watched hours of General Hospital and The Edge of Night when no one was looking. Just a guess.

Oh really, Sylvia? Well, my mother is the PRESIDENT of the company, so we’ll just see about THAT! Ha, ha, ha, ha, Cheryl! My mother OWNS the company! (Also, let’s just marvel for a second at how small and somewhat tan we were …)

My sister frequently shared the misery of the unfortunate fashion choices of some of the adults in our lives who shall remained unnamed here but who know damn well who they are.  (Yes, MOM, I’m looking at YOU.)  I mean – really?  Someone should be punished for this. This photo likely captures the moment my sister birthed and subsequently mastered the face that says, “My mouth is smiling but my eyes are killing you with daggers. Stab. Stab. Stab.“

What in the holy hell happened here? It’s like we got into a fist-fight with the remnants bin at JoAnn’s Fabrics. I can’t even …

Of course, turnabout isn’t just fair play in sisterhood, it’s a prerequisite to a lot of other stuff.  For example, if you cut off all your sister’s hair, you should expect her to wake you frequently at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday to play Barbies.  Or marbles.  Or to make her breakfast.  This can result in thrilling discoveries (e.g., brown sugar and cinnamon rolled up inside Bisquick dough is freakin’ awesome) or slightly less thrilling discoveries (e.g., napkins can, in fact, catch on fire).

This is only fair, I guess.

This photo says:  ”Yay! Barbies! Marbles! I knew you’d see it my way!!!” (It also says, “I’m gonna take a Sharpie to your mother-effin’ Barbie coloring book, biotch.”)

The next time either of us thinks we’d look better with bangs, let’s please look at this photo.

Sisterhood also means putting up with a special brand of crazy core meltdown that occurs nowhere else in nature.  To the average person, this photo says, “Look at that sisterly love.”  To my sister and me it says, “I don’t care how much you hate your hair or your shirt or how fat you feel, get in the goddamned car and let’s go, or I’m telling everyone about that time I caught you picking your nose.”

It also says, “You better enjoy that sweater, you early-Christmas-present-opener-terrible-rewrapper-person.”

This photo says to the casual observer, “Awwww.  Sisterly love.” To my sister and me it says, “Thank god I didn’t let her pluck my eyebrows this time.”

Alright, seriously? Who would’ve predicted we’d grow up into this?

I jumped forward a whole lot of years – mostly because I need get some sleep before the next generation of 6:30 a.m.-get-up-and-let’s-play appears at my bedside and literally pries open my eyelids. (And people don’t believe in evolution. Pfft.) I think you get the general idea though.

Sylvia Chauveneux – The Next Generation. Except, her mother probably WILL own the company.

Happy Birthday, “Sylvia”

I leave you with this one final thought:

Love always, your sister “Cheryl”

I Got Yer IEP Right Here: A Survivalist’s Manifesto

Recently, my husband and I went through a long IEP (that’s “individualized education plan”) process for our daughter. You’d think that, having done this a few times now, we would know what we were doing when it came to the IEP, right? Well, for reasons like stress, fear, worry, ignorance (but not the willful kind) and avoidance, it took us a (long) while before the light bulb in the attic finally flipped on. It also took the advice of some wonderful, giving souls who had walked in our shoes once, too. And, I promised each one of those wonderful souls we would pay their good deeds forward. So, here it is: Things You Should Know (and DO) Before Your Student’s IEP Meeting.

Educate Yourself

The IEP process is daunting to parents and caregivers for lots of reasons, but two big ones stand out for me. The first is that the IEP process is psuedo-legal. There are a lot of legal rules for what can and cannot be done to create, implement and change a student’s IEP. It is very important for you to know these rules. Make sure the school district provides you with the required IEP procedural safeguards for parents, then read it! But, don’t rely solely on district resources. Consult other reliable, parent or student-focused resources as well. I recommend the advocacy series of books written by Pam and Peter Wright. A student has certain rights, parents/caregivers have certain rights and school districts have certain rights. Every IEP team member also has obligations. Make it your business to know what those are.

The IEP process is daunting also because it involves making decisions about a student’s educational needs. If your student is newly diagnosed with a condition necessitating special education or learning accommodations, you may still be orienting yourself emotionally and intellectually. When IEP team members start talking about “generalizing” skills to the “mainstream” curriculum, using “reinforcers” to motivate performance, the “common core standards,” or providing a “slant board” for writing to assess “visual acuity,” this new, important-sounding vocabulary may reinforce feelings of inadequacy AND give the speakers an aura of trustworthy expertise. Don’t let this one-two punch take you down for the count or lull you into a false sense of reliance. There are many, many reliable resources out there — resources that don’t require a degree in cognitive psychology to read — that can help you become conversant in the vocabulary of special education and be an effective advocate for your child.

Plan Ahead

Ideally, a student’s IEP should be the product of a collaborative effort by the IEP team members. But, too often, a school-side team member hands the parent/caregiver-side team members the proposed IEP – already drafted and right before (or even at) the meeting. That doesn’t launch the IEP meeting on a collaborative note. I can’t say there aren’t circumstances where this is done deliberately. My experience, though, has been that a late-delivered IEP draft is the product of a lack of resources (read: only 24 hours in a day and too many IEP meeting clustered together). So be proactive and plan ahead. Tell your student’s classroom teacher that you want to help draft the proposed IEP, and set a meeting date to do that a couple of weeks before the IEP meeting. Come to this collaboration meeting prepared with a list of the things you think your student is doing well and things you’d like to see him/her work on. Then roll up your sleeves, open your mind and get to work. Be prepared to have divergent experiences when it comes to your student – you and the classroom teacher each see your student in a different environment for a good deal of time most days. This is also a very good opportunity for you to see and ask questions about the data your student’s classroom teacher, paraprofessionals and therapists collect over the year to determine your child’s present levels of performance. The data should objectively support the classroom teacher’s goal assessments, so it’s a good double-check against biases (good or bad / yours or the teacher’s)

Oooooh. Whole IEP. I thought you said whole PIE. My bad.

Care About the WHOLE IEP, Not Just the Services Part

For the first two years our daughter was in special education, my husband and I worried only about the part of her IEP that listed where she would be placed and what type of services or accommodations she would receive (e.g., self-contained classroom, speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc.) – the FAPE part. (That’s free, appropriate public education. Welcome to the land of alphabet soup …)

The “Present Levels of Educational Performance” (or some such variation) and actual goals/objectives section of the IEP barely registered with us. We figured that as long as our daughter had the services she needed, we’d leave the implementation to the professionals. This year, though, we knew our meeting wasn’t going to be about our daughter’s services, because those weren’t going to change. So, we finally sat down to really read the goals in her IEP. Imagine my horror when we realized we had it all WRONG. FAPE is important, but the most important of part of the IEP is the assessment of your student’s present levels of academic and functional performance, because that assessment determines the goals, and the goals (more specifically, the benchmarks for progress toward goals) determine the services.

With that wake-up call and the profoundly important support of my fellow IEP-meeting survivalists, here’s my best advice for scaling Mount IEP:

• Read and scrutinize the Present Levels of Educational Performance (PLOEP) section. Identify each skill described (good or bad) in the PLOEP, and write it in a separate line of notebook paper or type it into a line on a spreadsheet. When we did our daughter’s list, we typed progress in green and not-so-much progress or regressions in red. Then, analyze the list to determine whether it paints an accurate picture of where you believe your student’s educational performance is. (Trust me, you are absolutely qualified to do this.) if there are things missing, add them. If you disagree with parts, highlight those for discussion. If your student is old enough and capable / interested, get his/her feedback, too, and incorporate it. The abilities and skills identified in this section of the IEP are the foundation on which the goals are built and the services or accommodations needed to meet those goals determined. It is the first most-important part of the IEP. If the entire IEP team is not in agreement on the PLOEP, you cannot move forward. So, don’t stop until the whole team green-lights this section.
• Read the Goals and Cross-Check against PLOEP, SMART, Strangers and Dead Men.
  • PLOEP – Review the list of abilities and limitations the team agreed on in the PLOEP. Then draft or double-check that there is a goal in your student’s IEP to address each area of need. If the abilities your student demonstrates are improving but still not at grade level, is there a new goal that challenges your student to reach a little higher? If your student is missing an important functional skill, is there a goal to address it? There must be a goal to address EVERY area of need. For some students, that may mean 2 goals. For others, that means 32 goals. There is NO rule regarding how many goals an IEP requires except that the goals must address every area of need.
  • SMART, Strangers and Dead Men. Okay, not real strangers and dead men. First, goals should be SMART. Yes, they should be smart as in a good idea. But, SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic and time-limited. A good goal should meet each of these criteria. My husband and I created this chart to assess our daughter’s proposed IEP goals (or the ones we offered to the IEP team as alternative goals). The chart explains what each of the SMART criteria means:
    

• The chart also explains the Stranger Test, the Dead Man’s Test the Relation Back Test and the Educational Progress Tests. Any of these will help you determine whether a proposed goal is written clearly enough for ANYONE to follow it. (Except the dead guy. If the dead guy can meet the goal, no bueno.) Don’t underestimate the importance of this. Turnover for paraprofessional staff in special education classrooms is high, and unexpected events happen. Last year, our daughter’s classroom teacher was in a terrible auto accident that kept her out for a month. You want to be sure that the substitute (or substitutes) can read and immediately understand how to implement your student’s IEP. A month is a very long time when your student’s been around for only 48 of them. For a great primer on how to write meaningful, clear, SMART IEP goals, I recommend Barbara D. Bateman and Cynthia M. Herr’s book, Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives.
• Determine Services based on the Goals. Once the team agrees on the goals, the services and accommodations nearly select themselves. Still, there may be accommodations or interventions your student needs beyond what is specifically identified in a goal. When looking at the goals, ask yourself what accommodation would make it more likely your student will accomplish this goal. For us, this was one of the more difficult aspects of the IEP, because we didn’t really know what was available. Call on every resource you have: your pediatrician, your outside therapists, your Regional Center case manager, other parents, social service agencies in your area, the Internet (cautiously), the bookstore or library. Think about the types of assistance you provide to your student at home and how that might be incorporated into the classroom environment. I found two books especially helpful: School Success for Kids with Autism by Dr. Andrew L. Egel, Dr. Katherine C. Holman and Dr. Christine H. Barthold and Understanding Motor Skills in Children with Dyspraxia, ADHD, Autism & Other Learning Disabilities by Lisa A. Kurtz. (P.S. If you’re in the bookstore, check the children’s book section for books such as these. Last place I would’ve looked … )

Don’t Be Afraid

It’s an unfortunate reality of the IEP system that it’s designed more to be antagonistic than to be collaborative. But, it is truly meant to be a project for the entire IEP team. YOU can make that happen.

1. Make nice. Make a point to learn something about your student’s teacher, and let your actions show him/her you remember it. Did he mention a summer trip to India? Pick up a paperback travel guide and give it as a “just because” gift. Did she mention orange as her favorite color? Have your student make a special project and frame it in orange-painted popsicle sticks. You get the idea. Send a message that says, I value you as a person and teammate.
2. Communicate early and often. Nothing is harder than getting through an IEP meeting with a room full of strangers, because you are forced to talk about emotionally charged issues. Don’t let this happen. Collect email addresses, telephone numbers and office hours information for all the members of your student’s IEP team – then USE THEM. If your student has a communication folder (s/he should!), read the notes that come home and RESPOND to them, even if it’s just to say “thank you.” Ask for advice. For a while, our daughter was “chipmunking” her food in her checks. I wrote her OT a note asking for her thoughts. She was thrilled to respond to me, and she had some great advice. Send a message that says, I value the experience you bring to this team.
3. Assert yourself, but keep an open mind. Collaboration means there are not “sides” in an IEP meeting. As soon as you start to view the IEP meeting as a win/lose or us-versus-them proposition, it doesn’t matter how you score the meeting results – your student loses.. Without collaboration, your student doesn’t benefit from group’s collective wisdom on how to create the best environment for access to educational and functional skills. My husband and I went into our daughter’s last IEP meeting in agreement that we would demand and get a one-to-one aide for her, because we believed she needed one. We didn’t didn’t get one, though — not because we “lost” the argument — but because after two hours of discussion, we had a much better understanding of why our daughter was experiencing classroom anxiety, and we realized an aide might actually make it worse. If we hadn’t been willing to listen, we may have pushed hard for something believing it to be right for all the wrong reasons.
4. Don’t judge based on a first (or even second) encounter. You may not realize how often a teacher encounters a parent/caregiver who is very angry and embarrassed by his/her student’s need for accommodation. Remember that a teacher’s seemingly callous or cavalier initial approach to you in fact may be apprehension. Some teachers are really open and relaxed around kids; not so much around adults. Give him/her the benefit of the doubt until you get to know one another. Also, pick your spots. Don’t spring involved questions or start what should be a confidential conversation with your student’s teacher while she’s trying to corral the kids onto busses and can’t give you her undivided or personal attention. And don’t sandbag – as soon as you feel like something merits discussion, discuss it. Don’t hold on to “little” things until you have so many you just unload. Give team members a chance to address your concerns before you assign fault. By the same token, be prepared to swallow just a little pride when it comes to your student. Nobody is perfect. (Except my kid. She’s totally perfect. *ahem*)
5. Bring a comfort object and a support person. You thought comfort objects were only for our kiddos? Nope. When I go to my daughter’s IEP meetings, I bring coffee in a mug my older son made for me many years ago. It helps me visualize how the IEP meeting would go if we held it around my dining room table instead of around a U-shaped table outfitted with chairs about 10 sizes too small for grown people. That mindset helps me feel less like arguing and a lot more like listening — after all, that’s what I do at my dining room table over coffee. You may also bring anyone you’d like to an IEP meeting to act as a support person or an advocate for you. I highly recommend this. Even if your IEP meetings go smoothly, a trusted friend can take detailed notes for you during the meeting so you can give the team members your full attention. And, even if your student can’t really participate, bring him/her to the meeting. At one recent meeting, I brought my daughter due to lack of child care, but having her in the room really kept us on our best behavior, because her presence was a constant reminder that we were there for the best possible reason and with the same ultimate goal: her success!
6. Listen to your instincts. There are a lot of experts in the room during an IEP meeting, and that includes YOU. YOU are an expert about your child. So, if you’ve tried everything you can to set the tone for a successful, collaborative meeting but the process breaks down (or never really gets off the ground), call a time-out. Take a 15-minute break or a 15-day break. You never have to sign an IEP with which you do not agree, and you can leave the meeting at any time. It took FOUR separate meetings before our daughter’s IEP team finally reached consensus on her goals, and there was definitely some butthurt along the way. But, at the end, I believe our daughter’s classroom teacher, her speech therapist, her occupational therapist, and the principal shared our feeling of an enormous sense of accomplishment. We all feel invested in her success now, and we will all feel a lot less defensive if her next round of assessments don’t show as much progress as we’d like. It’s called buy-in, and its value cannot be underestimated. If you can’t get buy-in from where things sit at the moment, take a break, come back with a fresh perspective and try again.

I’m sure there are other things I’m not mentioning that I should. So, here’s a list of other blogs you might want to visit for more on the IEP process:

IEP Season, at Anybody Want a Peanut?

Ways to make your next IEP awesome!, at Mostly True Stuff (when you need a little comic relief from IEP season … and you will)

Are you new to autism? and My child needs an IEP, at Yeah. Good Times.

Pretty much anything ever written over at snagglebox.

IEP without Tears, at Pancakes Gone Awry

One Inch Closer, at Both Hands and a Flashlight

Integration – Why is it needed, and why is it so hard?, at Autism from a Father’s Point of View

The M-word, at Autism and Oughtisms (the m-word being “mainstreaming”)

Dear School District: My Son is Not Just Another Brick in the Wall, at The Connor Chronicles

Flashback Friday, at This Side of Typical (lots and lots of fun new vocabulary!)

What are IEPs made of?, at Maternal Instincts

I know there are more, and I will try to add to this list as I locate them. In the meantime, keep your head up. And, remember: just like every student is unique, so too are IEP meetings. Take every story of failure and success with a grain of salt. You will learn to cull from them the cautious optimism that will get you through each IEP season. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

It Takes a Village and ALL the Villagers, too.

When my son was born, I was the first of my friends to have a child.  I spent a lot of time reading books about parenting, because it is my nature to research the crap out of stuff.  But, there are a lot of details the books don’t cover.  So, when Nate was about a week old, and I took him on his first shopping trip to Target, I called a girlfriend to come with me.  I had no idea how I was going to carry him in his car seat and push the shopping cart.  My girlfriend, being childless, thought helping me sounded like a great idea, because - yeah, how are you going to handle the cart and carrier by yourself?!? So, there we went, wandering through Target, Nate’s auntie dutifully carrying Nate, shielding him from all potential harm, while I pushed the shopping cart.

If you’ve cared for an infant, you’re laughing at me now.  And, in retrospect, it is kind of funny.  But, you know what saved me from my ignorance about how car seats actually fit into and lock onto shopping carts?  Another mom.  One afternoon, I was struggling to manage Nate in the car carrier and a cart at the grocery store when a woman cautiously approached me.  She apologized for “intruding” but said it looked to her like I was having a hard time, and she asked if I knew the car carrier would lock onto the cart.  In my desperation and surprise, I handed this complete stranger my new baby and let her show me how to do it.  And then I cried and hugged her.  She didn’t laugh at me.  She didn’t make fun of me.  She didn’t think I was a terrible parent or an awful person.  She didn’t suggest that I wasn’t qualified to have a child or that I was abusing my son with my ignorance.  All she saw was a new mom struggling with the figurative weight of her world and an opportunity to lighten the load.  Maybe she even saw a chance to pay forward the help she received.

So, when the roles in my life reversed, and I had a child on the verge of becoming a young man while some of my friends and family were birthing or adopting their own kids, I fielded a lot of questions and cautiously offered advice.  Not everyone took my advice.  Some made decisions for their kids that I wouldn’t have made for mine.  Funny enough, we’re still friends and family.  These people even leave me alone with their children, and I leave them sometimes with mine.  Because – at the end of the day – we all have one thing in common:  a deep and unconditional love for our kids, no matter how they get from uterus to adulthood.

If I learned anything from my experience raising Nate, it’s that raising a child by yourself is not just hard – it’s impossible.  There are no instructions, there is no user’s manual, there’s no troubleshooting guide or index.  When you leave the hospital with that brand new life, the hospital will make sure you installed your car seat right.  The rest is completely on you.  It is – to put it mildly – overwhelming.  Because of that, I asked people I trusted for advice.  I asked people I trusted to pitch in.  I asked for help.  Why?  Well – try as I might – I couldn’t be in two places at once, I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, I had only two hands when I needed three (or four), and I did actually need some sleep to remain a relatively sane person.  Unless you can simultaneously sleep, shower, and prevent a toddler from coloring on your walls while eating a house plant, it will, in fact, take a village to raise your child.  (Also, call me.)

As many of my readers know, my daughter is autistic.  Sometimes, I write about my experiences as a parent of an autistic child.  When I write about my experiences, I’m motivated by two things:  receiving advice from others and sharing so that others can benefit by trying something that worked or avoiding something that didn’t work.  These are the exact things that motivated me to seek advice about or help raising and caring for Nate.  And, I feel the same compulsion to pay forward the great advice or lessons I learned along the way.  The only variation between the story of raising Nate and the story of raising Helene is the degree of challenge.  And, yes, raising kids is challenging.  There’s nothing wrong with saying that, and it doesn’t mean I don’t love my children.  Marriage is challenging – especially the sharing a bathroom part – but I love my husband.  ”Challenging” is not a euphemism for “I hate it/him/her/them!”  The word actually means (among other things) “invitingly provocative.”

The varied reactions people have to the statement “raising kids is challenging,” exemplifies the lightning rod that is child rearing advice.  Folks tend to have pretty strong opinions about what’s “wrong” or “right” when it comes to child rearing.  In the abstract, this makes sense to me.  As I pointed out earlier, the kiddos do not come with instructions — not even those crazy IKEA drawings.  Opinions will vary far and wide.

With isolated exceptions (are you mom enough?!), I’ve never experienced such outright hostility toward and among parents than I’ve seen within the autism community.  It feels to me as though there is a growing movement among people who identify as or with “autism self-advocates” to silence parents of autistics, and I truly don’t understand why.  I’ve heard these proffered explanations:

• Neurotypical parents are privileged and, therefore, should not complain about raising an autistic child who is not similarly privileged.
  • It is true – as far as I know – that I am neurotypical and my daughter is not.  But does that make me “privileged”? One of the chief arguments I’ve read advanced by autistic self-advocates is that autism is not a “disorder” but an innate part of the person’s being, like a personality trait.  The self-advocate embraces her autism.  Does not then the assertion that being neurotypical is a privilege contradict the assertion that autism is not a disorder?  I’m not asking facetiously.  I’m truly trying to reconcile these arguments, and that does not seem possible to me.  ”Privilege” connotes a special right or advantage that others do not have.  If the autistic self-advocate rejects neurotypicality, how is it a “privilege”?

• There are “too many” parent resources out there, and those voices are drowning out autistic voices.
  • I don’t understand this at all.  I’m pretty sure the Internet is big enough for us all.  I’ve yet to come across a parent blogger who advocates, encourages, condones or otherwise expresses a desire to silence autistic voices.  Yet, I’ve encountered several parent bloggers who actively work to silence other parents in some very petty, juvenile and counter-productive ways.  As a parent sharing my experiences, I’m trying to amplify the conversation about autism to increase awareness, acceptance, resources, and inclusion so that those things might be my daughter’s reality when she is old enough to start making decisions for herself about education, relationships, work and self-care.

• A neurotypical parent cannot understand an autistic person or see life from his/her point of view; therefore, anything the parent says is inauthentic.
  • If I wrote a blog about what it feels like to be autistic, that would certainly be inauthentic.  I can form an educated guess, having talked to autistic adults, but I’ve not experienced and cannot experience it first-hand.  But, I don’t write a blog about what it’s like to be autistic.  I write a blog about being the parent of an autistic.  More to the point, I write a blog that’s sometimes about being Helene’s mom.  And, you know what?  No one can tell me I’m wrong about that, because I am the only person in the world who is Helene’s mom. That’s a biological fact, Jack.

• A neurotypical parent who “complains” about raising an autistic person does not love that person and is actually “abusing” him or her.
  • Do parent bloggers “complain” about raising kids?  That’s probably a fair perception of some blog posts, perhaps even some of my own posts.  It’s hard to be excited and upbeat about negotiating a child’s public meltdowns, attending IEP meetings that are a constant battle of resources and personalities, staying on top of therapy providers who don’t return phone calls or show up on time, losing or purposefully jettisoning “friends” who just do not get it, feeling like you never know enough or do enough, and balancing a job that earns you enough money to afford insurance coverage and therapy co-pays while still maintaining some degree of presence at home for your kids – autistic or otherwise.  So, if I occasionally write a blog post that portrays my life as a mom as less than sunshine and roses, that’s a comment on my life.  It is not a statement about my feelings for my children.  I mean – for the love of Target gift cards and baby wipes – who would volunteer to become a parent (special needs flavored or otherwise) if there wasn’t a huge reward for your effort?  Scraping poop out from underneath my daughter’s fingernails is a very small price to pay for the sound of her voice saying, “I love you,” or the feel of her hand holding mine of her own volition.

So, here it is.  I am an unapologetic neurotypical mom of two great kids, one of whom happens to be autistic.  I write about my experiences as their mom in the various contexts of my life.  If what I write offers you some advice you can use, some insight you value, a laugh you need, or a shoulder to cry upon - great.  If you have constructive words of wisdom to share about your own experiences — as a mom, as an autistic person, as someone who just wants to help, I want to hear from you.  In case I wasn’t clear:  I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!  

If you cannot relate to my experience or have nothing helpful to say because you aren’t neurotypical, or you’re not a mom, or you’re not a woman, or you’re not a wife, or you’re not a lawyer, or you’re not one-quarter Greek and a potpourri of fractions of something else, or you have bad grammar, or you don’t like coffee, or you can’t stand people who actually value reason and common sense, or you think it’s okay to tell someone how she should feel, please go read a different blog.  That choice will be better for us both in the long run.  Why?  Because no matter who you are or what group you identify with, you and I have something very important in common:  a need for respect.  I respect the authenticity of the voices that speak from experience without dictating to others what his or her experience ought to be.  In turn, I speak from my experience, which is equally deserving of respect.  If we cannot find common ground there, I wish you well on your journeys elsewhere.

 

Has It Really Been a Year? Happy Birthday, ProfMomEsq!

It does not seem possible to me. At all. But, there it is.

I started this blog on my 40th birthday as a present to myself, so I think my blog should have “birthdays” and not “anniversaries.”  I mean, it’s not like my blog and I are dating.  It sprang forth from my soul!  (Or, at least, my Mac.)  So, Happy Birthday to my blog!

[INSERT YouTube video of (a) The Beatles singing You Say It's Your Birthday; (b) 50 Cent *ahem* singing In Da Club; or (c) some furry looking animal creature singing one or the other of those songs in a weird, squeaky voice while popping out of a cake.  You decide.  They block my shit at work ...]

When ProfMomEsq was born, I had no idea where I’d go with it, or where it might take me. Frankly, I was thrilled I came up with a blog name.  Do you know how HARD that is?  It’s really, really, really damn hard.  It might’ve been harder than naming my kids.  And can I just tell you how pissed off I was when I went to set up a YouTube account for the blog and someone ALREADY HAD MY BLOG NAME as her user name?!?!  There is no freakin’ way someone else thought of that.  None.  Zero. Zip. Nada.  *glares at audience*

Truly, I expected to spend a lot of time talking to myself here.  I figured I could just barf up whatever word vomit I had in the pit of my stomach, and it would sit here in this little corner of the Internet, collecting dust bunnies and supporting spider webs (ha!) and yellowing a bit at the edges.  I had not even the first inkling of the amazing, funny, smart, wonderful people I would meet each time I pushed the magical button.

I think it’s safe to say that the last 365 days truly changed my life.  I accomplished much more than I dared hope.

71 posts written

32,282 views (and 8,199 of those came in one day!)

924 comments

Most frequent search terms: “garden gnome” and “flipping off.”  (Right.  I don’t know either. But, you people have issues.)

Second most frequent:  Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stuff.  Now, I KNOW what this is about, and all you kids trying to use my blog to do your English homework, GET OFF MY LAWN!  Also, go hug your English teachers for assigning that shit, because s/he’s much cooler than mine ever were. And for fuck’s sake, READ IT!

204 people who think I’m worth following around.  (Right.  I don’t know either. Did I mention you people have issues?)

One post Freshly Pressed.  (Thanks, WordPress!)

Some awards. (One of which I shamefully have not blogged about yet.  Sorry, Joy at I Can Say Mama!)

Most viewed:  this one.

Most comments:  this one.

My favorite post of the year:  this one.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but no one blogs alone. So, this seems like a really good time to say, “Thank you.” Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a read, introduced him/her/itself, left a comment, linked back or helped me pimp this sucker.  Thank you to my adoring husband, who proofread and approved most of my posts.  (But, the typos are all mine – don’t blame him.)  Thank you to my beautiful daughter, who is the frequent and involuntary subject of many of my posts but whose life I gleefully, proudly and lovingly share.  Thank you to my son for being the background music for many of my writing sessions and for not being utterly embarrassed by me even though I’m a dorky mom who says “yo” a lot even though it’s not cool.  Yo.  Thank you to the rest of my family and to my friends for your support of this project in ways big and small.  I love how much more connected this makes us … in a slightly ironic way.  ;-)

I’d like to especially thank the people who – wittingly or unwittingly – helped me get started in the blogosphere and kept me going:

• Heather at Between the Covers – you are my most regular commenter and always quick with a RT.  Thank you.  I’m so happy to know you. My bookshelves are all the better for it.  ;-)
• sj at Snobbery – thanks to you, I have some nifty pictures on my blog and lots of new fun tech toys, like Jing and Goodreads and Spotify and Storify. You introduced me to some great people through the LOTR read-along, too!  Thank you for being nice to an old lady.
• George Kinnard at Coalescence – I don’t know how you found me, but you did, and you offered me some wonderful words of wisdom and support for which I am terribly grateful.
• Rose at Love Many, Trust Few – my fellow autism-mom halfway across the world. I’m still reading along with you, even though I’m not as good about the commenting as I was.
• Amy at Lucy’s Football – I still cannot believe you blog every day.  You were certainly an early inspiration for me!
• Jillsmo at Yeah. Good Times. – you are the reason I know that the people in my computer are (sometimes) *real* people. You also were the catalyst for meeting so many of the awesome people I now know.  You also helped understand that IRL friends are not necessarily from Ireland.  I <3 you.
• Jim at Just a ‘Lil Blog - mostly because you introduced me to Lexi at Mostly True Stuff, but also because you’re a pretty cool dude, no matter what Lexi says. That, and you wrote one of the funniest blog posts I’ve ever read.  (HINT:  clam/shazam!)
• Elizabeth at Muse~ings – for helping me keep my chin up by agreeing to my New Year’s Eve “Jar of Success” blog project. I can’t wait to open our jars!

Finally, I want to thank an extraordinary group of mostly women and a few very gullible select men who write blogs for the autism parenting community.  You know who you are, but I hope you also know I think you are all incredible, remarkable, inspiring, marvelous, ridiculously funny people.  And you all smell suspiciously of bacon.  I’m hugging you all now, and you feel weirdly boxy and kind of cold.  Also, why do you keep beeping like that?

Happy First Birthday to ProfMomEsq.  YOU – yes YOU (Quit looking behind you. There’s no one there, and people are staring.) – are the best birthday gift I could receive.  Let’s see if we can make it another year, no?  Word!

2013: Resolve to be Successful

2012 was a rough year – a bitter presidential election that divided the nation; financial calamities as the housing and job markets continued their rollercoaster rides; continued war and unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Africa and China; senseless losses of beautiful lives to the twin tragedies of gun violence and mental illness; an angry and petulant Mother Nature, unleashing Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Bopha; the Costa Concordia accident. There was so much negativity. We hope to leave negativity behind as we look to 2013 for a fresh start.

Normally, I am not one for New Year resolutions. I think that’s mostly because I never seem to keep them. But, this year, I ran across an idea on Facebook that was just too good. I shared it, and my fellow blogger and friend Elizabeth (Muse~ings) said she’d join me. Then we thought, what if everybody joined us? The thought was so tickling that it brought us to the idea to not only do the project, but to blog the results.

The concept is simple. Keep a jar some place handy. When a good thing happens in your life, write it down on a strip of paper, and put the paper in the jar. At the end of the year, take out all the papers and read them to remind yourself of the wonderful year you had.

Elizabeth and I have our jars ready. Here’s my jar:

Here’s Elizabeth’s:

By year’s end, our jars will be filled with scraps of paper describing moments from 2013 truly worth remembering. On December 31, 2013, we will open our jars, read the scraps of paper and post the contents on our respective blogs. Then, we’ll get to spend the rest of our day reading through all the blogs of those who join us.

Yes, that’s right! We want you to post, too! Resolve To Be Successful by clicking the button below. (Thanks for the beautiful button, Elizabeth!!) Follow the directions to join the blog hop, then get yourself a “Jar of Success.” Any old jar will do; you can decorate it or not, make it big or keep it small, fill it yourself or have family and friends join you; you can even go high-tech and keep your “jar” in your iThingy. Just make sure your “jar” is always handy so you don’t forget any of your moments of joy, love, happiness and – above all – success.

If you link up with us, post your jar’s contents before midnight on December 31, 2013 and spend a blissful day celebrating all the wonderful milestones that paved our way to 2014. And – HEY! – if you link up, you already have something to put in your jar: you wrote your last blog post for 2013 way ahead of schedule.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing in your success! Happy New Year!

A Holiday Greeting from ProfMomEsq

Wishing all of my wonderful readers a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa or just a plain, old terrifically awesome day.  I thought I’d celebrate by sharing a little art gallery of the holiday projects my marvelous kids have given me over the years.  Happy, merry, jolly!!