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Nov 14, 2008

Haiku Friday: Blocked

By ·
Crushing heaviness
weighs on my heart and yet my
fingers can’t type it

I’ve got writer’s block
not for lack of subject, but
far too much to say

Soon I’ll find a way
to get past this, but til then
I must beg patience

Have you ever had so much going on in your life that was so intensely personal that you couldn’t get it all out if you tried? Yeah, that’s my life at the moment. And as a result I’m having trouble writing about anything else. It’s so frustrating. So please bear with me as I work through this. I’m hoping to find a way to get it all out on the screen next week. Then I can purge it from me and find my writing spirit again.

(Sorry for the downer this week, everyone!)

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. What’s a haiku, you ask? Click here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON’T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will delete any links without haiku!

Filed Under: Haiku Fridays, me me me ·


Nov 11, 2008

After The First Time, It’s Not So Hard

By ·

It’s been just over a year since we took Cordy for a developmental screening and started the process that would provide us with words like “autism” “spectrum” and “PDD-NOS”. Going to that screening is probably one of the best things we could have done for Cordy.

So today I’ll admit I was a little nervous when we carried Mira out of the car, through the cold parking lot and into that same developmental screening.

I have absolutely no reason to think Mira has autism, and that wasn’t the purpose of the visit. Instead, it was to evaluate her speech. At nearly 18 months, Mira still can’t say one intelligible word. Well, one intelligible word that someone learning English as a second language would understand.

We’ve come to understand and translate the few mangled words she says. “Aaaiii” is “hi” or “bye” depending on the inflection. “Aaa-ooo” – a phrase which she uses regularly – is “thank you”. There is no “mama” or “dada”. There are no consonants, really. Her speech sounds like someone talking underwater. Other than those few words, everything else is just random babble.

The evaluator began with a test of social skills. Mira happily played along, while also checking out everyone else in the room. Always the socialite. The evaluator asked her to feed a baby doll with a bottle, and with only a little prompting she did so. (Oh yeah, 18 months and already well ahead of her 4 year old sister in that skill.)

Next up was the ever-popular stacking blocks skills test. Mira could stack two, but each try to get to three ended with a crashing tower. Still, for her age that wasn’t bad. She also had a good throwing arm when it came to throwing a ball, but refused to kick a ball.

Finally it was time for the speech test. We were asked several questions, and based on our answers and the evaluator’s experience with Mira, she failed that section of the test. A child this age should have a minimum of 5-10 clearly spoken words, including saying mama or dada. They asked if we wanted her hearing checked, and we agreed. She passed for her right ear, and failed for her left ear. That doesn’t indicate a long-term problem – she’s had a cold recently, and it could mean she has a little fluid in her ear. We’ll take her to the doctor to have that ear checked out.

So with her first F comes a follow-up developmental evaluation and a planning session to determine what, if anything, we will do about this. Honestly, I’m not all that worried. Mira is brilliant, filled with the guile and resourcefulness of James Bond and MacGyver combined. She’s already learned how to push or pull a chair to where she needs it to be in order to obtain things out of her reach. She may not say much yet, but she understands every word said to her. And even if she never says a word, I know she’ll still charm the world with her sly smile and expressive eyes.


It’s really true that you’re more relaxed as a parent the second time around. My second child isn’t following the traditional pattern of development. Her speech is a little delayed – eh, I’ll deal with it. I’ve been through worse.

(And it was amusing to find out that Cordy is still remembered by the screening staff that saw her over a year ago. She had that effect on people, with the screaming and the head banging and the hiding under the table. Somehow I think they’ll be telling stories about her for a long time to come. I only wish we could have brought her today so they could see how far she’s come.)

Filed Under: big issues, Cordy, Mira ·


Oct 31, 2008

Haiku Friday: Halloween!

By ·
It’s Mira’s second
Halloween – this year she will
go trick-or-treating

Last year she cried out
“Help me Obi-Wan, and get
me out of this thing!”

(Best photo)

This year a rag doll
Again with a hat because
she still needs more hair

(Cutest costume under 2)

The one with curls, though?
She wants to be a robot
now. Where’d the bat go?

Too bad for her, ‘cuz
if she wants candy then she
will be Super Girl.

(Cutest costume over 3)

Tonight is trick-or-treat, and this is the first year both girls will be coming with me to get candy. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to keep track of them both without losing Mira to some welcoming house. (You know she’d do it, too.) Wish me luck, and have a happy Halloween everyone!

(Photos above are included for the Parent Bloggers blog blast this weekend, and are labeled for their costume contest, sponsored by Blurb. You have until Sunday to enter this blog blast with pictures of your kids’ best costumes as well.)

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. What’s a haiku, you ask? Click here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON’T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will delete any links without haiku!

Filed Under: Cordy, holidays, Mira ·


Oct 29, 2008

I’ve Been Tricked By My Four Year Old

By ·

For a reason I’ll never understand, Cordy likes to make people think she’s incapable of doing anything. Ask her to lift something? She’ll strain and grunt and exclaim, “It’s soooooo heavy!” when five minutes before I watched her lift something three times as heavy without any effort. Ask her to count to 10? “I don’t know how” she’ll say even though she was counting to 30 earlier in the day. Ask her to kick a ball and she’ll make a large effort and miss the ball, falling to the ground in defeat, even though she’s an expert at kicking our soccer ball into the net.

Anytime she’s asked to perform on cue, it seems that she suddenly forgets how to do whatever it is you ask her to. This can be a real pain, especially when it comes to cleaning up her toys.

Every Wednesday I volunteer in Cordy’s preschool classroom. I like to help out her teacher, and it gives me a chance to see what Cordy’s doing at school, too. Recently they’ve had a student teacher helping out, and a few weeks ago she asked if she could do a full evaluation on Cordy to gain the practice she needs at this task. I agreed, but warned her that Cordy often likes to underperform.

As expected, Cordy tried to underperform on the first part of the evaluation. When asked if she knew her own name, she sighed “I don’t know” and continued the chain of “I don’t know’s” through the first several questions. Her preschool teacher, a woman Cordy respects, overheard this and sharply told her, “Cordy, you know your name! Answer the questions, you turkey.” At that point Cordy began to answer properly.

This week, the student teacher needed to do the other half of the evaluation, and this time she brought in candy as a reward. For each section Cordy completed, she was given a piece of candy. I watched her evaluation out of the corner of my eye while I helped the other kids with their art projects, wondering if the reward would convince Cordy to cooperate. From what I could tell she was answering most of the questions and doing what she was asked to do.

After I cleaned up, I wandered over to the corner of the room and stood out of Cordy’s sight to watch the remainder of the evaluation. At this point the student was showing Cordy a page words – all of them the names of colors, but all of them in black lettering, so there was no clue to the color name written. She asked Cordy to read each color’s name, and I immediately thought, Wow, she’s doing stuff way over Cordy’s head now…

Imagine my surprise when Cordy looked at the words and started naming them: “Red. Blue. Green. W…w..white. Bl…black. Pink. Yellow.” After naming nearly every color without any help, the page was turned and another page of words greeted her – each was a number spelled out, and they weren’t in order. Cordy got one without any problem, but then stumbled on the next one, because she expected two. She was getting tired and losing focus at this point, but she did manage to name about a third of the numbers with a little help.

Afterwards, I walked over to Cordy’s teacher and said, “I had no idea Cordy could read the names of colors! When did you teach her that?”

Her teacher also looked surprised and said, “We’ve never taught that yet, so she didn’t learn it from me.” We both laughed. “You know,” she added, “I think Cordy can read all of the days of the week, too. I’ve seen her looking at them and pointing to each one as she says the word. She knows a lot more than she lets on.”

The teacher’s aide overheard us, and said, “Just yesterday she read a word on another kid’s shirt. She pointed to his shirt and said ‘trouble’, which was the word written on his shirt.”

Apparently my daughter is starting to read and hasn’t bothered to tell anyone yet. We read books together every day, and I always point to words and ask her what they are, but she never knows. Why she would choose to be so secretive about this skill is a mystery to me, but she proved today that she can read several words, and she is pretty good at sounding out words she doesn’t know, also. The student teacher said she did great on all of the exercises – she’s a smart kid.

Now I wonder what else she knows that she’s holding back from telling us?

And I thought she was just looking at the pictures…
Filed Under: Cordy, school ·


Oct 26, 2008

My First, Slightly Neglected, Children

By ·

Long before two wild daughters came into my life, I had slightly smaller, furry children. One of the very first things I did when I moved out on my own after college was adopt two kittens from the local shelter. One of those two was a Siamese, and since then, I’ve loved the breed and now have two Siamese cats.

Siamese, if raised properly, are actually very sweet and affectionate cats. They’ve had a lot of bad press thanks to Lady & the Tramp, and while they do like to get into everything, they aren’t mean. They’re like the dogs of the cat world – they love their people, they need to be around people, and if left alone they quickly become depressed and bitter.

Our two cats (we actually have three cats, but the third is like a ghost – we know she’s here, but others often don’t see her) and our two kids are usually friendly with each other. Dante, the older Siamese, has been with us since before Cordy was born. He was a little unsure of her when she first came home from the hospital, but after he got used to her they were always together.

Cordy and Dante, 2004

Kit, our younger cat, didn’t come along until Cordy was just over a year old. Siamese often like to be in pairs, and Dante was a little tired of having to share my attention with Cordy, so we found another Siamese for him. Kit is more high-strung and energetic (psycho kitty is what I often call him), but he’s also just as sweet with the kids. Mira pulls his tail all the time, and he generally doesn’t mind unless she tries to lift him by the tail. Even then, he doesn’t scratch or bite – he only tries to get free.

Cordy and Kit, 2005

Both cats do more than just tolerate the kids – they genuinely enjoy being with them. Some nights Cordy insists that he come into her room with her so she can sleep, and he willingly goes in and lets her shut the door behind him. Hours later, when she’s asleep, he’s meow at the door for me to let him out. When she’s awake in the morning, he’s often the one to let us know by meowing at her door. And Kit will often position himself next to Mira or Cordy in the living room, knowing they might pull his tail, but they might also pet him, too.


They’re attention whores, so they’ll take any attention, even if it’s a one year old pulling a tail.

And when they’re sick of the kids, they retreat to a high perch to cuddle together for warmth.

All together now: aww…

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

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Filed Under: Cordy, daily life, Mira ·