Make A Wish

I don’t know what she wished for, but when I asked Cordy if we could sing Happy Birthday to her on Saturday and she said yes, I got my wish.

Cordy’s Fifth Birthday from Christina M on Vimeo.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much progress is wrapped up in that one little song and her reactions to it. It was the main topic of conversation among family for the remainder of the party.

(And this year’s cake was different, too. We avoided the usual cake, filled with artificial ingredients and enough artificial dye to turn the Scioto River red, in favor of an organic cake, with real buttercream frosting, no artificial ingredients, no HFCS, and dyes make from all-natural sources. For the first time at a birthday party, Cordy didn’t get sick or have a meltdown after eating her cake.)

It was a great party.



Five

Five years ago, you were somewhat of an abstract being to me. I had no idea what was coming, and no matter how many babies I was around, it couldn’t have prepared me.

My first impression of you was the angry baby being carried past me in the operating room. Your face was screwed up in an awful expression, angry at what you considered an untimely birth, angry at the doctor who pulled you out of your warm comfortable home into the bright, cold world. You spent the next six months angry at the world, and it took every ounce of strength and patience from your father and me to calm you, comfort you, and show you that life wasn’t as bad as you thought it was.

Each subsequent birthday has presented us with a different child. Your first birthday, you were the girl who loved all the attention, but loved the cake even more as you attempted to eat the cake without hands by face-planting into it.

At two you shunned the crowd and most of the presents in favor of the safety of my lap and a few selected toys.

Three was a child who howled in pain when we sang happy birthday to you, hiding under the table to escape the auditory assault, only to later reappear and gorge yourself on the cake frosting.

Your fourth birthday was filled with balloons and friends, and this time you took notice of the friends around you, although you still didn’t want to share your balloons. We knew you didn’t like singing, so we settled for all saying “Happy birthday!” in unison, at a loud, but not-too-loud volume for you.

And now you’re five.

At this year’s birthday party, I expect to see you playing with your friends and if not enjoying the small crowd of people, at least tolerating your guests. You will tell me or your father when you feel overwhelmed, and even though it will likely come out as, “I’m scared of presents” or “I want to stay in my house forever,” we will know what you mean. You’ll eat your cake, and if all goes as planned you won’t suffer from a tummy ache or a behavior shift thirty minutes later because this year’s cake won’t have any artificial dyes or corn syrup in it. We now know what you need to be happy.

I still can’t believe you’re five. Five feels so much older, as if I somehow missed that transformation from baby to big kid. I watch your concentration on puzzles, and I swear I can see your mind working behind that furrowed brow. When did you learn to concentrate? I wonder what happened to that goofy toddler I remember, counting everything in sight.

And I’ll confess I don’t wonder much about what happened to that sensitive, hair-trigger tempered preschooler and the screaming meltdowns that occurred on a regular basis. Some things are better left in the past.

I’m pretty amazed at the awesome little girl you’ve become, Cordelia. I can’t wait to see who you’ll become in this next year. Happy birthday to my Amazon warrior princess.



Wishful Thinking

As I was kneeling down in front of Cordy yesterday, talking about some topic I can’t even remember, I noticed her eyes suddenly fixed on mine.

Eye contact is hard for her, so I was amazed at how intensely she was looking into my eyes. For at least 15 seconds she was staring directly at me while I talked to her.

OMG, she is making so much progress! I thought. I was thrilled that she was not only listening to me, but looking at me while I talked to her, a task we’ve tried to get her to do with limited success.

I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “Cordy, I’m so proud of you for looking at me while — “

“Mommy! I can see myself in your eyes! I see Cordy!”

Oh.



First Day of School

Waiting for the bus:


At the end of the day:


Still smiling.

Her teacher reported some rough moments during the day, including at least one time out, but overall Cordy had a good day. She says she wants to go back tomorrow. (And hopefully that will hold true tomorrow morning.)

So it seems that the only fallout we had on the first day of school was from Mira. I had to spend the day with a grumpy two year old who was pissed off that she didn’t get to ride the bus and go to school like her sister.

Now I only need to figure out why Cordy barely touched her lunch? Normally she’d take off someone’s arm before they got between her and her Annie’s fruit snacks, but the package wasn’t even opened today. And the sandwich and Goldfish were half eaten. Weird.



Another Autumn, Another School Year Begins

School starts for Cordy on Wednesday, and this year will be very different for her. For the past two years, she’s attended our district’s special needs preschool, a half-day program. She’s had the same teacher, a woman to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude for all she’s done for Cordy. But Cordy turns five in a few weeks, and is really too old to continue in the half-day program.

Cordy’s preschool teacher pulled a lot of strings to get Cordy placed in a special needs pre-K classroom on the other side of Columbus. We all agreed she wasn’t ready for kindergarten, and her teacher assured us that this class was the perfect fit for Cordy. We got to meet her new teacher a week ago, and while Cordy was very hesitant to meet her, it was a pleasant meeting.

Her new classroom is twice as large, with additional resources like an indoor swing and a trampoline. She’ll still have one teacher, but now two aides in the classroom, even though the class size remains at eight kids. They work closely with the kindergarten class, and should Cordy show a lot of progress in the first half of the year, she might get to visit the kindergarten for a few hours each week in the second half of the year.

Ms. K seems like a great teacher. She’s thrilled to have a girl in the classroom this year, and I heard one of the aides already contemplating buying hair ties to play with Cordy’s hair. They’re also open to parents volunteering in the class. I’m planning to volunteer when I can, depending on my work schedule.

I worry about how all of this change will affect Cordy. I hope for an easy transition, even though deep down I know the chances of any transition being easy for her are slim. This will be a new school, a new classroom, new friends, a new teacher, a new routine, and a new bus. Unlike last year, she’ll be there for a full school day, too. She’ll also be riding the bus for an hour and a half each way, meaning she’ll be spending 75% of her awake time away from us during the week. That’s a lot of time away.

I’m preparing for epic bad behavior from her in return. On the upside, at least we only have to see it 25% of the time, right?

My real hope is that her adjustment period is shorter than it has been before. That she quickly adapts to the new routine and is happy with her class, her school, her teacher and her new friends. I want her to come home each day tired but happy from learning new things, being pushed just-far-enough, and enjoying her class.

And one small confession: I’ll admit to being a little relieved at full-day school. Cordy is a joy to be around, and one of two small-yet-brilliant lights in my life, but she can also be trying. Very trying. I appreciate our time together, but I also appreciate our time apart — needing that break from the daily juggle of giving her what she needs while trying to meet the needs of everyone else in our house, too.

She’ll be fine. It’ll all go well. (And yes, I know starting school is hard for many kids, but like everything else, Cordy seems to take the transition far harder than the average kid.) We just need to get through the first hard days.

And thank you all for your comments on my health care reform post. I’m thrilled that not a single comment was negative. (Proof we can have civil discussions about health care, or were the opponents just busy last week?)

For those who support charities, I wanted to let you know that I’m once again participating in Walk Now for Autism, and this year I’m hoping to raise twice as much money as I did last year for autism research and education. If you’d like to donate to my walk, you can do so directly through the Walk Now website.

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