Seven

Seven years ago, on this day, I was introduced to my beautiful daughter, Cordelia, and to motherhood.

OK, she was a little grumpy, too…

She was determined to destroy any pre-planned ideas of how I wanted motherhood to go. I wanted to have a natural labor – she remained in a difficult breech position that required a c-section. I planned to breastfeed – she refused to cooperate and fought me to the bitter end. I dreamed of quiet moments gazing into her little blue eyes or napping together in the afternoons. Instead I was given a colicky baby who cried day and night and forced us to bow to her whims of being in constant motion.

And yet she still charmed me and forced me to fall madly in love with her.

When she was a year old, I thought the worst was behind us. The unhappy baby had been replaced by a smiling, giggly, curious toddler with enormous sapphire blue eyes and the beginnings of golden curls.

 And a talent for stacking Diet Coke cans…

Never did I imagine the struggle we’d endure together two years later through a diagnosis of autism and the uncertainty of what the future would hold for our Amazon Warrior Princess.

Which brings us to today. Seven years old.

When did she grow up & why didn’t I notice?

Cordy is now in first grade and for the first time she’s spending 95% of her school day in a mainstream class. Her teacher tells us she’s adjusting beautifully and is held to the same behavior standards as the rest of the class. She complains that her spelling list each week is too easy and has already befriended the school librarian. We can’t keep her away from books – she has books in her bed, in her backpack, and even at the dining room table.

It’s been a year of big “firsts” for Cordy, too. First attempt at sports. First roller coaster. First real haircut (that wasn’t done by me when she wasn’t paying attention). She even let me paint her fingernails for the first time last week!

Riding Cedar Downs
 Conquering her fears of the unknown at Cedar Point

I don’t think any of the experts that evaluated Cordy at three years old would have imagined that she’d be doing so well now. She has friends, she plays with other kids on the playground at school, and while she is still rigid, demanding, and quirky, she’s learning that she can often get what she wants if she plays along with the social scripts society demands of her, no matter how silly they seem to her.

But seven years old is also scary to me. She’s reaching an age where I can no longer protect her all the time. Kids are going to be mean. The social demands of her peer group will get exponentially harder and social missteps will be judged with more severity. Cordy also wants more freedom, but I’m afraid she’s not ready for that freedom and will only put herself in the path of danger. She’s too trusting and too unaware of her own surroundings to stay safe.

Those same traits that scare me are also some of the best parts of her. Cordy’s innocence and sweetness are unending. She still has that ability to charm everyone just as she did as a baby.

And just like when she was that not-so-tiny eight-pound infant, screaming in my arms, she’s still proving that I have little control over the direction motherhood will take me. I’ll continue to love and protect her the best I can, while she will continue to grow and amaze me in ways I never thought possible.

Happy birthday, Cordy. And thank you for letting us sing happy birthday to you this year, even if you still covered your ears.

Cordy's Seventh Birthday


First Grade Homework Is Killing Me

I knew that with the start of first grade, homework wasn’t far behind. I’ve seen other parents on Facebook and Twitter talking about how young they start kids with homework now, so I was prepared. When the homework folder arrived in Cordy’s backpack for the first time, I turned off the TV and sat at the table with Cordy to help her complete her homework. It took about 20 minutes for her to do all of the worksheets, which seemed like a lot of time to devote to homework each night for a six year old.

And then I found out that was her homework for the entire week. Oops. Ah well, at least she had several days off from doing homework, right?

This week, though, one of her worksheets stumped me. I knew that someday she’d ask for help with homework and I’d be unable to help because I would have forgotten advanced algebra or the process of photosynthesis because they just aren’t practical in my everyday life and my brain cells needed room for more important things, like the bajillion passwords I have to remember for every online account or the lyrics of Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night. I never thought I’d be unable to answer a question about first grade grammar.

The worksheet had several sentences on it, with the instruction, “Write the naming part of the sentence below each sentence.”

Wait – the “naming part” of a sentence? WTF?

“Uh, Cordy, I’m not exactly sure what you’re supposed to do for this worksheet,” I explained. “Do you know what the naming part of a sentence is?”

“No, mommy. I don’t know.”

Well…great.

I turned to Twitter, where I was mostly met with silence and the one suggestion that maybe it was the noun in the sentence. Apparently most of Twitter has forgotten their first grade grammar as well, which made me feel a little better. Unity in cluelessness.

I then turned to the all-knowing Google, where 90% of the links agreed that the “naming part” of the sentence is its subject. 

Obvious response: so why not call it the SUBJECT then?

Dear textbook editors: I understand that writing new versions of the same, dry material can be boring. But syntax naming is not an area for you to flex your creative muscle in order to freshen up the lesson. You’re confusing the hell out of us parents and making us look like we couldn’t pass a basic elementary school standardized test. Also? What’s wrong with “subject?” The “naming part” just sounds babyish. Stop dumbing down my kid’s lessons!

I’m sure this won’t be the last I see of these changes, but I really hope I’ll be able to translate her homework in the future. Next thing you know she’ll have to find the “doing-stuff part” of the sentence.

(OMG, please don’t let that be on next week’s homework or I swear I’ll homeschool her with my 1980’s curriculum, when we actually had to know the real names of the parts of a sentence. And use non-safety scissors to cut things. And walk uphill in the snow to school. Both ways.)



Dealing With A Hairy Situation

Cordy has beautiful hair.

She has hair that movie stars would kill to have. Shimmery, fine golden strands, and a mighty-thick head of them. It’s nearly impossible to find her scalp under all of that hair. Some hairs curl, some are straight, but all of them work together to create a lot of body.

And a lot of knots. As in, her hair can be perfectly combed and all she has to do is turn her head to the side to look at something and suddenly it’s tangled again. Laying down at night leads to matted hair, and even putting it in a braid overnight still results in knots. It seems to have an affinity to tangle itself without the slightest provocation.

After trying to get a wide-tooth comb through Cordy’s hair while she screamed, cried and fought me last week (a regular occurrence around our house), I decided that the time had come: we were paying a visit to a hair salon.

At nearly seven years old, Cordy has yet to visit any professional to have her hair cut. When she was younger she wouldn’t let anyone touch her gorgeous curls without a lot of screaming. It took nearly a year for her preschool teacher to let her put her hair in a ponytail. I combed her hair after a bath only by first putting on a favorite TV show to distract her, and even then she’d still cry and fight me. When I tried to cut it, she screamed that cutting her hair was hurting her. (And with her sensory issues, it probably was.)

We got by with me providing the occasional sneaky trim until last week, when I couldn’t take it anymore. Cordy’s hair is thick and needs the hands of a professional. It needs to be shorter and with layers in it to lighten the weight. This isn’t an issue of finding the right comb or the right conditioner or detangling spray – we’ve tried many and nothing works well. Until she’s able to comb her own hair or let me comb it without crying at the slightest tug, it has to be shorter and easier to manage.

So I made an appointment for Cordy on Saturday at a local salon focused on kids. I was worried that she’d have a meltdown or lash out at the stylist, but hoped she could hold it together enough to let them get a basic cut in. We washed and combed her hair right before we went in the hopes that it would have few(er) tangles in it when the stylist started combing it.

(And of course, Mira asked to have her hair cut, too. She wasn’t about to miss out on a little pampering.)

Here they were before going inside:

Before the haircut
Cordy’s face is slowly being swallowed by her hair.

Cordy was up first, and asked to sit on Clifford instead of in a big-kid chair. Hey, if it helps her cope she can sit on whatever she wants, right? I warned the stylist about her sensitive head, although she still was a little more rough than Cordy liked. I stood next to Cordy and held her hand, soothing her when she started to get worked up. She spent most of her time watching Backyardigans, but occasionally the hair tugging would get to be too much and she’d get upset and beg to leave. I’d calm her down, and then she’d get upset again – repeat X too many times to count.

Getting a haircut
Trying to hold it together
Honestly? It was exhausting for me, but needed to be done. And Cordy did better than I expected. For all of the whining and begging and occasional tears, she still remained in her seat for most of it and followed most of the directions the stylist asked of her.

Mira? Oh, she did fine. The worst part for her was that she wasn’t able to watch herself in the mirror while getting her hair cut. Vain little creature.

Serious about her haircut
she’s sneaking a glance in the mirror to the side

Finally they were both done. Mira had a cute curly bob that evened out the area where she tried to cut her own hair last year. And Cordy had a shorter, layered cut that will (hopefully) result in fewer tangles and feel a little cooler on her head.

Cute hair
Cordy is smiling because the torture is over – and because she was promised a balloon

We could have gone shorter, but I don’t know if Cordy would have tolerated another minute of it. So it’s good for now, and we’ll re-evaluate in the months ahead if we’ll attempt this again anytime soon.

Or maybe I’ll just improve my hair-cutting skills.



Wait, How Is It September Already?

Back to school is always a busy time of year, but this year seems extra busy for some reason. The changes that have been happening around here in the last two weeks have left me underslept and overworked. I’m running on caffeine and willpower at this point, and I’m nearly out of willpower. I spent all of yesterday convinced it was Thursday only to find it was actually Wednesday, and yes, I really do have to go through the REAL Thursday now.

Let me back up for a minute.

First grade is still going well for Cordy. Amazingly well, in fact. Every note home has been a positive one, with the teachers praising how well she’s adapting to her class. She brought homework with her on Monday and then quickly completed it, only to learn the next day that it was her homework for the entire week. When I asked her to practice her spelling words, she rolled her eyes at me and told me, “these words are too easy!” And then she spelled every one correctly.

The only issue we’re having at the moment is Cordy’s transportation. Her bus route for the ride home has her on the bus for nearly two hours. That’s a mighty long time to be trapped on a bus when you’re six years old. I’ve been appealing to the transportation office for a change to her route, but have so far been ignored.

Mira started preschool this week. She attends a half-day Pre-K class in the morning, and then attends a different half-day preschool class in the afternoon. This is similar to last year’s arrangement, allowing her to get speech therapy from the afternoon class while still getting plenty of academics from her morning class. Mira loves it, as it gives her twice as many people to perform for.

The afternoon preschool didn’t start until yesterday, though, which left me awfully tired on Monday and Tuesday. I had to take her to school, then come home for a few hours of sleep, then go get her again. After a few days of less than four hours of sleep, you can now understand how I thought yesterday was Thursday. I was delirious from sleep deprivation.

And then there’s Aaron. Three years after being laid off, after working several contract jobs that didn’t fit his interests, paid little, and/or weren’t long enough to turn into real jobs, after dealing with the depression that comes from feeling like his job skills were inadequate, he finally got his reward.

On Monday he started his new job – a real, permanent job, that requires a skilled employee, with a salary that isn’t insulting. He now has benefits that we haven’t seen in a long time – paid time off, holidays, and the holy grail of benefits: health insurance. We’re paying quite a bit for it, but it’s a decent health plan and I’m thrilled to have anything that doesn’t exclude every symptom of any illness I’ve experienced in the last thirty-five years.

Even better (to him, at least): he gets to work from home a few days each week.

So…yeah. Busy. The three of them have all of these changes happening and I’m in the center, playing ringmaster to it all and trying to keep everything running smoothly while also working my 42.5 hours each week. (It’s actually more than that, but I don’t bill for hours I spend at home worrying about work.)

My job hasn’t changed much; I still work third shift as a contract RN/manager, and most days I enjoy what I do. If I could change anything about my situation, it would be to have benefits, followed by working daylight hours at some point. Not sure if or when either of those might happen, but I hope for one of them someday.

By next week I should be able to get six hours of sleep on most days again. Maybe I’ll even try to clean the house a little? (Ha.) Or maybe I’ll just sleep even more.

Despite the constant rush of these new routines surrounding me, I’m still very happy for all of the changes. Aaron’s new job, the girls doing well in school, having health insurance again – I’ll willingly trade a little bit of my sanity for all of these things.

But I also wouldn’t mind if the weekdays would speed up and the weekends would slow down. I’d much rather repeat a Saturday than a Thursday.



Be Proud!

Yesterday was Cordy’s first day of first grade. We visited her school the day before that to help prepare her for what was to come. She saw her special needs teacher and reacquainted herself with the classroom. Then we went down the hall to meet her first grade teacher and tour the room.

Cordy was shown where her desk is in her new classroom, as well as where to hang her bag and where the computers were located. (The computers were of highest importance to her, of course.) She noticed her name was left off of a list of names on the chalkboard, and promptly asked her teacher to correct the error.

Then yesterday came, and Cordy picked up her loaded backpack for her first bus ride of the year. There were no tears or hesitation – she happily jumped on the bus and kissed Aaron and I goodbye.

And then I waited, hoping for no call from the school.

To my relief, the phone remained silent. Cordy arrived home in the late afternoon, looking far less put together than she did that morning, and clearly tired from a busy first day.

Beautifully disheveled

I tried to get information out of her about how her day went, but of course she refused to cooperate, only stating that it was “some good, some not so good” and ignoring my more detailed questions. Not knowing the real story, I could only hope that the day went well for her.

After dinner, I then saw an email from her special needs teacher, with the subject of “Be Proud!!!” The detailed story of the day was that Cordy did very well in her first grade classroom. She had an aide with her for most of the day, and required some prompting to get started with tasks, but she completed all of her work and remained in the class all day. Even when the aide wasn’t in the classroom, she held her own.

I’m incredibly proud of her, of course. I’m thrilled she had a great first day and hope she continues to impress and amaze her teachers throughout the year. I may never know what’s fully going on in her mind, but I’m so thankful she’s coming out of her little world to share her bright personality with all of us.

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