Planbust

Life is pretty much a succession of one planbust after the next.  Somehow we don’t get accustomed to plans being busted up though.  We so often resist the busting, throw tantrums at the busting, cry real tears at the busting.  We usually don’t smile, say a kind thank you and accept, say, a plate of $22 apple pie that was rescued from a tumble on the dirty ground.  That being said, not every hard knock in life is a planbust.  And there is some beauty in being able to separate the planbust from the bummers.

And so I bring to you the proper and improper use of the word “planbust”.

Planbust – The destruction of an intention on which action has been initiated.


Proper

• You scrounge, save and plan an amazing and expensive trip abroad a year in advance – the departure date ends up being your surprise baby’s due date.  Planbust.
• You neatly organize your children into the perfect private school of your choice.  And half don’t end up fitting in there.  Planbust.
• You  find the perfect home, strike a deal and the mortgage doesn’t come through at the last minute.  Planbust.  And crappy.
• You plan a night out and the babysitter's car is impounded an hour before your date.  Planbust.

Improper (aka bummer, this sucks and good ol' life)

• You dream of that new awesome Porche Roadster.  And don’t get it.  Not a planbust.  Just a bummer.  Or life.
• Your kids aren’t straight A students and aren’t interested in baseball as you had hoped.  Not a planbust.  Maybe just let them plan their own lives.
• You plan a night out and forget to book a babysitter.  Not a planbust but for sure sucks – next time use a list.

I recently, for a party trick, calculated the number of diapers used by my kids and when it exceeded 20,000 I quit counting and decided that the old adage is true – shit happens.  Whether it’s important and dramatic shit or whether it is everyday-type shit, it’s gonna happen and our ability to separate the two types defines how we parent, even how we exist and interact with our world.

Plans will be busted but those busted plans give way to new and unexpected joys – as long as we are open to them.

sOCD

I can’t be the only one who has seen after school specials (and maybe a little slice of the show Obsessed) about OCD.  Because I would have sworn 5 years ago that you have to wash your hands a jillion times a day to be actually diagnosed with OCD.  Now, though, we toss this term around so much that it’s another word for fastidiously tidy or full-of-habits.   Anyone who hints at rigidity is OCD.  I’m going to propose that we call these people (approximately 96% of us) sOCD (prounounced So-CD).  The small 's' is for “sort of”.  Because we all want to be OCD, it’s true, but you can’t always get what you want.

 

We could use sOCD like this: 

“Wow your desk is so clean – you are totally sOCD!”

“I am sOCD, I keep my kitchen spotless.”

“I am a little bit sOCD about where I keep my toothbrush – sorry!”

“My dad is sOCD that the bills in his wallet are organized perfectly in descending denominational order.”

See?  It works!  And while we are at it, we will together coin a new term that won’t trivialize or mock the agonizing anxiety disorder that is legit OCD.  

Recently I actually learned a thing or two about The Real OCD word.  I myself, through this experience, have realized that I just have sOCD by the way – sorry to disappoint for those who know me well.  I learned this on the occasion of my kid being sent home from school for barking.  In class.  And singing uncontrollably.  In the hallway.  The embarrassment and self-loathing that has been a hallmark of this child’s life because of the vast reach of The Real OCD is staggering.  

When we whisked this sweetie pie out of school and to the psychiatrist, the good doc asked this: “Have you ever harmed yourself or thought about it?”.  The silence that ensued was so lengthy that it dripped with meaning.  It was clear that the answer was yes.  And the answer was yes because apparently handwashing is just a teeny tip of the OCD iceberg.  There are mental obsessions and tics and rigidities and habits and fears and obsessive homework-checkings.  It is an anxiety monster unleashed with desperate tries at controlling anything that might be controllable.  And it is terrifying.  And real.  And not for everyone. 

So I am now completely sOCD about such activities as finding the right medications, the right therapists, and the best positive reinforcement system.  I am sOCD about making sure that the school bag is packed with 23* pencils before a school day launches.    

And that is all before setting off for work in the morning where I think I’ll start my day with a nice desk wipe-down.

*Number not exaggerated

The Internet is for WHAT?

We went to that adult puppet show play a few years back (that I’m  genuinely too lazy to google search the name of) and we left at half time.  Because we felt bored.  That “Internet is for Porn” thing was funny, but the rest of it just didn’t really do it for us and sitters are super expensive for 4 little kids.  So we decided to ditch it and go out for coffee and dessert instead.  We often do that – leave a movie or something early because it’s genuinely not worth the platinum kid-free moments that they take up. 

Anyway, the point is that we learned that the internet is for porn in this half-show that we saw.  And afterward, we discussed and rejected this idea.  See, I for one was confident that my children would remain innocent and pure for all eternity.   I, in fact, determined early in their lives that technology, for research sake, was an excellent tool with which I would equip them heartily.  History! World events! Important stuff is collected in this giant resource! What an amazing thing!  When the need for laptops arose (no doubt, a recommended accommodation made by the psychologist who did the Extreme Testing), I carefully set the three kids who have them up with timeforkids.com as their home page and neat parental controls and spy software and other things that you are supposed to do – not because I’m suspicious, but because I heard that was the stuff to do on some blog.

Looking back (only like 6 months back, by the way) I think it’s funny that I imagined a world in which parental controls and timeforkids.com might actually keep kids pure and largely puberty-free.  I forgot about school.  And other kids. And that was the naiveté of someone who didn’t ask anyone who had teenage kids.  Or tweenage kids.  Or just any kids with a pimple and 3 armpit hairs. 

If you have smaller kids you should for real take a deep breath at the idea that those perfect faces could be filled with pockmarks and that those edible thighs will be hairy.  It probably won’t happen in your case, so don’t worry.  In fact, none of this will.  So shhhhhhhh.  Maybe quit reading this. 

Back to the internet.   I plodded along in the fog of bliss and ignorance for quite a period of time.   One day I was helping with some homework and popped into some internet history.  In that history there was a search for the definition of a sex-related act which honestly I didn’t myself know how to define.  And which is also pretty hard to attribute to a spelling error.  The other searches were for various beautiful objets d’art from around the world – statues and paintings and such – all legit artists and all naked.  Probably coincidental.  And some youtube Minecraft stuff that isn’t about building anything other than a family. 

So what might one do, staring at their own child’s bite out of forbidden internet fruit?   I actually don’t know because whatever I chose wasn’t exactly a homerun.  There was a discussion and there were tears and there were hugs and reassurances and educational moments.  There was the exchange of a “your growing body” type book.  There was the requisite “there are creepy people out there so beware" warning.  There was even some promise I made (which has since been broken) to find some “healthy websites".

But that pesky internet is still out there and porny people appear to have predicted my parental controls and spywear and they, being internet people, are better at this game than I am.  I could spend my days scanning 3 tween computers for illicit history but honestly that seems just as creepy and also I don’t have that kind of time or energy. I am still standing here, mouth agape, blown away by what kids have access to and how differently they are growing up and how ill equipped I feel to guide them through this age of digital smut.  

And so my parenting innocence is destroyed and my kids stand on the precipice of knowing way more than I do and way more than they need to right now (or ever).  I guess I have to dive in and learn more about this scene.  Now I wish I had stayed at that puppet show for the whole thing – seems they were wiser than I thought - it turns out the internet may indeed be for porn.

Extreme Testing: 21st Century Edition

Once I took the SAT – probably four times but it was so long ago it feels like a “once upon a time” story.  I really sucked at it.  I think that everyone around me was embarrassed by my performance.  So I went to a place that taught me how to cheat a tiny bit on the test.  Then I did better.  Tests have never been my thing, but they say that knowledge is power and these days we have so many precise ways to judge that – there is your daily testing, your standardized annual capital-T Testing and the ever-looming Extreme Testing (ET), to give us what promises to be truly awesome insights and power.

All of these testings serve a variety of purposes — some completely non-sensical and some completely jaw-droppingly precise and awesome. But the chief of them all, the big kahuna burger, Extreme Testing (aka, the psycho-educational assessment) should really be making me feel the power in every vein just about now.  Four kids have been Extreme Tested (don’t calculate how much that costs - for the love of all that is holy, it’s at least 3K a pop). I have learned amazing things about each of the kids and, perhaps, about myself if I think hard enough. 

Five learnings:

1.     Dyslexia turns out to be genetic!  100% in this case!  Boom!

2.     Extreme testing uncovers non-academic things like mood and anxiety disorders!

3.     You aren’t limited to just one learning difference – it’s a whole smorgasbord!

4.     Things identified through ET are easier to address in younger kids.

5.     I missed the “younger kid” window.

As it turns out, Extreme Testing has no companion Extreme Answering.  No Princeton Review or Kumon, no simple outsourcing or offshoring.  I’m thinking like a Cosmo quiz that might point a parent in the right direction would be cool…  But, so far Cosmo has failed me.  Just this once - it happens. 

The tests were the inexpensive and gentle part.  The rest sort of has to be fumbled through and cobbled together.  There isn’t really a rx pad or an operation manual or a flow chart for this.  And even thought there were 5 pages of recommendations and accommodations on the back of each kids’  report, the charge of selecting and enacting those recommendations has become, for me, a bone crushing weight of responsibility.   The slow-burining question of 'So what now?' has resulted in my feeling myself fracturing into a teensy bit of a split personality – like this:

·      I am the parent-masochist.  I should flush the 32-page reports. Quit the meds.  Cease the tutors.   Millions of kids before survived and got all kinds of grit through suffering and toughening and teasing…    I’m not reading any of that new wave literature on learning disabilities crap.

·      I am the curative therapizer -  No child of mine will be teased again for thinking the sports channel is “EPNS”.  There will be tutors!  There will be summer intensives!  There will be brain training games on the internet!  I will read every single book on this topic.  This is our new age 21^st century parental imperative – fix it all.   And fix it I shall.

·      I am the zen parent - I cede control a tiny bit – the responsibility is far greater than my power and like curing cancer or world hunger, we can only do what we can do and we can only hope that it is enough to make happy, healthy kids who have the tools to create their future.

Turns out that sucking at the SAT was really not as dramatic as it felt.  Eight weeks of training and I was good to go.  For this kind of new age testing though, I just don’t know what the magical path is, only that somehow I have to pick one.  Well, four.  Four paths, in my particular case.  Since that isn’t at all overwhelming, let me consider the options a while longer while I take a quick 12^th mortgage out on the house.   And I appreciate you kindly ignoring my twitching eye.  It’ll go away.  

Girly Legos

I have to tell you right now before I lose my nerve that we have a lot of Legos (and among those are girly Legos).  Also known as Friends Legos, these little pink and oft sparkly gals are generally unpopular in the gender equality blogging world and are (massively popular) in my house.  Popular with a 13-year-old girl who doesn’t care for girly stuff or building stuff and is mostly into anime and comics.  And with a 5-year-old girl who is passionate about all princesses and pinkness that the world has to offer.   Actually, building girly Legos together is one activity that they can do together – and you have to know that 5 and 13 are pretty broad age gaps to fill.

The thing that perhaps I should also mention is that there is a certain 12-year-old boy in the house who adores all things pink.  Recently he got a sparkly pink cast on his arm and not a single person – family, friend, or school staff blinked an eye, they all know and love him.  He loves to build these little gal legos along with the Death Star that is a zillion pieces and is on month 4 of its treacherous build. 

I have read every single article about girly toys and girly legos and the pink aisle at Target.  And I totally get it.  Let’s not make our girls into some societally preconceived princesses ready to get plastic surgery at age 11 to look like Barbie.   Obviously.  But since I have a boy who wore a sundress to the park one day when when he was 6 and a girl who could not care less about plaids and stripes together – maybe I have a different perspective.   The issue isn’t, I don't think, that there are girl and boy legos - although it would be cool for them to be displayed together - just as the issue isn't that there are girl and boy clothing sections.   I don't even feel extra-offended by the pink aisle.  But the fact that we'd all rather fight the Lego company than our own gender stereotypes - that one's got my boxer-style panties in a wad.

Sex is binary.  And we shop for our kids and decorate their rooms and make silly plans for their lives that will never come true based on their sex - like as early as 4 seconds post-ultrasound.  Gender is what makes a kid's room (read: life) their own though.  From the toys that they choose in whatever aisle strikes their fancy to the stickers that they plaster illegally on their bedroom walls to the snugglies and sheets that adorn their beds -- gender is a completely separate thing from sex; unfortunately, we as a society really suck at understanding that difference perhaps because we don't have any idea what to do without a simple binary system or tidy labels.   It’s boy or girl, a 1 or a 0.  But what of my sweet pre-teen male who only recently started refusing manicures because the other boys started noticing his flashy nail fashion?

So gender is the big deal, not sex.  And my wish upon a star is that the girly legos weren’t the problem.  My wish upon a star is that my son could proudly walk up to the counter and buy a dolphin-watching ship and a nerf gun with his allowance and feel legitimately excited about them both.  Sans the shaming.  And then, while he is at it, I wish that he could grow up to be the most kind and empathetic soft-touch of a firefighter there is.  Or a bad ass tatted-up nurse.  Or whatever mix of whatever he wants to be.  I know that’s all a bunch harder of a wish than wishing away the pink aisle, but I think it's worth a quick noodle.  Let me know if you have a fairy godfather I can contact about it all.  

Tummy Time

Its strange feeling to have no infants now or predicted.  But I assure you I did.  I

know because I remain traumatized by a questionable innovation called tummy time.  It was also known as baby torture.  My Dad thought it was particularly evil.  He’s actually famous for the line “Pick that baby up right now.  There is no way that she is going up for her Bat Mitzvah without holding her head up”.  I’m sure you’ve heard that one, it has gained quite a bit of notoriety.  

I’m going to tell you right now that I have four children who are excellent head holder uppers and perhaps a total of 32 minutes of tummy time between them.  Because I think that anything that makes a baby scream until actual veins pop out of their actual heads, just probably isn’t right.  Obvious I'm not a doctor because I totally sleep trained kids by snuggling them until they were so drunk on sleep they didn’t care where they were.  And no one ever slept a night in my bed because that would have annoyed me too much.

This theory of “things that make them cry probably are dumb” appears to get harder and harder to stick with the older they get.  Is it universally true that hating to do something indicates its worthlessness?  Because after tummy time there are about 3,680,922 other things with which we torture our children.  Rites of passage.  That must happen “on time” and according to some master universal plan and aren’t available for thinking differently, they are requirements (which change annually). 

I have a son who walked at 16 months.  This was a HUGE and massive deal at that moment in history.  He walks just fine now at age 12, don’t worry about that, but between the ages of 13-16 months it was a big hairy deal.  He even landed himself in a pair of braces (that he chose to design with butterflies on them) because walking just wasn’t his thing.  I tortured him with that and I’m glad I did.  

Zero fourths of my children are any good at handwriting.  You can try to force a proper finger hold on any one of ‘em and still no amount of “Handwriting Without Tears” will make it better.   We have descended into dictation as they got older and my lifelong mantra of “what, so they grow up to be doctors” has now been heard by most every professional in the metro area.  I am unwilling to torture them for perfect handwriting – both because I’m a Jewish Mom and I’d be thrilled for them to be doctors and also because I’m sure that by the time they have a job there will be brain-to-page dictation.

Nutrition is a biggie around here.   One little man who resides within these walls is famous at the doctors office for eating only chocolate and bacon.  Of course he has added cereal and a few other things to his repertoire in the past years but it has been a sensory struggle that vein attempts at food training could not resolve.  Not caring to start off a life of food forcing and eating disordering, teaching this small man about food groups and how to make good choices has been quite a hassle in the castle. 

So – where do we draw these lines?  Snuggling is a yes. Walking is a yes. Nutrition is a yes. Tummy time, handwriting, pork chops are no’s.   I’m sure that the yes’s and the no’s have been crossed and somewhere I know that there is a therapists chair that will benefit, but thinking – really thinking about what matters and why - wins out in my dwindling days of parental authority.  

Vintage Blogging

I have become wildly fascinated by the increasing blog and list style rants about how life now isn’t what it was when we were kids.  Life today is different than it was when we were kids.  When I was a kid I didn’t live in a neighborhood, I played Frisbee with myself and we didn’t live close enough to a town to get cable.  That’s all.  And a book. 

All of the freneticism about our kids losing spontaneity, independence and free thinking – all of the hand wringing about becoming slaves to the screens…  Our world has changed immeasurably and the truth is that no one knows just what is right anymore.  I read that minecraft is a brilliant way to teach kids 400 different skills and I shouldn’t stress about them wanting to play it nonstop.  Then I read that computer games represent the downfall of civilization and the wreckage of our children’s minds.  

Our parents would have loved to have had a few opportunities to talk publicly about the demise of their children and the ill prepared losers that we would become if we continued the way that we kids were.  I could bet at five of the feature vintage blogs right now: 

Society has become far too overprotective.  We used to just jump in the car and go anywhere we wanted when we were kids.  Now there are seatbelts that we are supposed use and they are robbing us of our choices and spontaneity. 

The phone is killing social skills.  These kids talk for hours on the phone.  They are ruining my new 62 inch dark brown curly cord and losing social skills.  They can’t talk in person only on the phone!  

Clothes look terrible.  Jeans will be the demise of our society.  When I was a kid we dressed up every day and worked hard to look our best.  My kids look terrible and will never get a job or contribute to proper society.

 There is no discipline.  Not that I believe in hitting children for no reason but honestly, spare the rod spoil the child.  These kids won’t learn anything ever and will think they can get away with anything.

Kids don’t go steady anymore.  I mean, these kids are disgusting.  Making out at lockers – we never did that.  It’s robbing them of their innocence and childhood. 

Well, you get the idea.  Stop the panic.  There is no roadmap for a world thick with technology and awards for participation.  There is little predicting what the careers of the future will be.  Who’s to say that spontaneity and hours of sweaty Frisbee games is any better than heavily scheduled chess tournaments and mine craft.   

As much as we yearn for the simpler parenting days, they have never really existed.  It has always been a balancing act – preserving the past and embracing the future.  We humans innovate just enough to make it uncomfortable to parent the next generation – embrace the ambiguity and make your own way.

Momniscience – A Planbuster

I used to call this blog "momniscience" for a few  days because it was so insane to think that anyone could claim omniscience, it was funny.  But it turns out it was too hard to spell - for me.  You should know though that everything about having kids requires some sort of momniscience and will literally bust every plan you had.  Look at me, for example...

• I have four kids.
• Four kids is a lot. 
• I really love my four kids and spend most waking hours considering plans for them.
• All of my kids have between one and three learning differences.
• Two of my kids have psychiatric style disorders.
• One of my kids has a major developmental disability.
• We have a pill drawer.  Because that's how many pills we have.  And we don't believe in medicating children.  
•  We have been to 11 schools within the same metro-area trying to find something for everyone.  Currently we have 3.
• Also we see 322 specialists but know all specialists in our city.
• Sometimes you may find numerical exaggerations in this blog.  The point above this is an example just to prepare you. The rest is factually accurate.

That whole "humans plan, God laughs" thing may be true.  But in order to survive this grand adventure called parenting us humans need a little chuckle also.