The Po Show

And a Happy New Year...

Ooookeeeee, can't end the year with a post entitled "Snot," so I will post again before taking off for CA. I wish everyone the happiest of holiday*s* (screw you, Bill O'Reilly!) and a wonderful 2006.

I've been rushing around like a maniac for over a month now, shopping for shit to ebay, packing up packages, running from store to store for stuff for my own kids (HOW many times did I go to TRU and Target? I can't count!). I've been exhausted. And in the midst of it I haven't had time enjoy the season, which happens every damn year.

I LOVE Christmas. I LOVE decorations and all the corny trappings. I LOVE seeing lights on people's houses and even the incredibly cheesy lawn decorations that pepper the landscape around here. I LOVE shopping for the perfect gifts for people.

Somehow I always get in such a tizzy that I don't get to enjoy it. One big problem is that every year we're coming from someplace else to CA, so it's like things are on hold till we get there, and then it's just a day or two till Christmas, then it's over. I don't get my Christmas season. And this year I was just way too wrapped up in ebaying.

But yesterday, as I rushed around for the last time before we leave, something happened. I was running to Office Max to get Matthew's teacher a gift card, then running to the bank to get cash and deposit the last money order I received, then I realized I had like 20 minutes before I had to leave to pick up Tessa. Hmmm, free time? What the hell is that?

So I wandered around a bit, looked in Barnes and Noble, looked at the decorations around the stores. And I entered this brief, blissful state, in which I felt SO HAPPY that there were shiny gold and red balls on a big fake tree, and it was warm inside and smelled like peppermint. Being completely non-religious, this is what Christmas means to me. And I felt it.

So Happy Holiday*s* to all, and I'll see you on the other side of the new year.

Snot

How's that for a title? Okay, back from the allergist: Tessa has yet another sinus infection. That's two sinus infections and two ear infections in the past three months. Yet another round of Augmentin for two weeks. I did find out there's a chewable Augmentin though, which is great, as Tessa has been totally despising the liquid crap. (The other great thing is that it's on our insurance formulary, so it's $25 instead of $50 for a prescription!) It was really getting hard to make her swallow the teaspoon and a half of the liquid crap twice a day for two weeks, so we had to bribe her with candy. Just swell for the girl who has had 10 cavities and 11 fillings.

Anyway, I'm really getting bummed about the constant infections. She's on two different meds (another $50 a month) for her allergies, but still constantly snotty. We're running air purifiers, encased her bedding, but she's still snotty. I irrigate her nose with saline (which makes her hysterical), but she's still snotty.

The allergist said that if she gets another sinus infection soon, we have to go to an ENT, to talk about having her adenoids removed. Ick.

Add this to the NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOUR DOLLAR utility bill we got this month (our radiator TOTALLY sucks!) and I'm not too thrilled about being on the east coast right now. Yeah, she's allergic to dust mites and mold, and we have those in CA too, but the cold wet weather just exacerbates her symptoms something awful. Well, we'll be in CA in two days :).

A Tale of Two Conferences

Last week was school conference week for both kids. My expectations for what was going to happen during those conferences was spot on. I approached the two conferences completely differently, and they gave me, I felt, a window into our future that sort of disturbs and saddens me.

Matthew's conference went very well, but in his case "very well" means hearing how much he's improved behaviorally, from the very dismal state things were in a couple of months ago. I mean, it truly is great how much his behavior has improved, but it sucks that we have to start from the bad place. It comes out like, he's not as horrible as he was! Yay!

This gets harder and harder to deal with as he gets older, which is ironic since he's gotten better and better over time. But the kind of things that are not so terrible, if not really acceptable, when a kid is four, become really really unacceptable at eight. Other kids become less and less forgiving of "weird" behavior; teachers naturally have higher expectations for daily behavior.

I just fear that this is our pattern, and it's going to continue for the rest of his childhood. The prospect of starting every single school year with a bad period, when he's tantruming in the classroom, and totally losing control, and making his teachers freak out about what to do about him, and *totally* screwing himself with the other kids so he'll never have any friends, is absolutely unbearable to think about.

And juxtaposed with Tessa, whose teacher, as expected, raved about how wonderful she is. The teacher went on about how she wishes she had 18 kids just like her, every year, and how she's not only excelling academically, but that she is a responsible student and a good friend to all the other children. I mean, I'm happy Tessa is so obviously suited for school and social life and being in the world, but at what point does it start to be painfully obvious to both Tessa and Matthew that they are worlds apart in their relations to other human beings? When does he start to feel left behind (as Tessa attended yet ANOTHER birthday party for a classmate today)? When does she start to feel embarassed by him (even more than the usual amount sisters are embarassed by their brothers)?

We used to joke that Tessa would always take care of Matthew, that he could live in her basement. But it's not funny anymore, as I watch the divide start to gape. When my expectation going into school conferences is that Matthew's teacher will talk about how he's improved from having been really difficult, and Tessa's teacher will talk about how she's just doing great, what does that say about my expectations for their futures in general?

I guess the rest of this post has already answered that.

Snow Day

It's the first snow day of the year! We got our first real snow (maybe 4 inches) on Sunday, but today it is SNOWING. School closed, the whole nine yards. It's been snowing for about 7 hours now and the tires of the car are more than half buried. I don't think we're going out today...

I got up at the usual time this morning and stumbled out in the usual way, careful not to wake Tessa next to me (despite the fact that she kept me up much of the night tossing and flailing, also as usual). Matthew was still in bed, but wide awake, and we moved to the livingroom together. I flipped on the TV, clicked to the school district's public access channel, and there they were, the magic words: "SCHOOLS CLOSED TODAY DUE TO HAZARDOUS WEATHER."
"Okay Matthew, no school today," I said. He was thrilled, as was to be expected.

I grew up in Cali., read about snow days, saw kids being thrilled at having snow days on TV. I never knew that thrill, the feeling of reprieve, like getting the call from the governor. Tessa doesn't care all that much, but Matthew is so happy to be still in jammies and playing video games and running around the house, on a school day. I'm just wondering how we'll survive the day stuck inside the house!

I did tell Tessa we'd go out and play in the snow when it finally stopped snowing, though I'm going to have to struggle out to the car and get her snowpants and boots, which are in a bag after having gone to nursery school with her this week. Who knows when it'll stop anyway, as it's still coming down hard, in those tremendous, huge flakes that look like feathers.

I'd just as soon stay inside. I love love love a thick blanket of snow, covering the trees, burying the sidewalks, looking so pristine and beautiful. As long as I can look at it from our big picture window, and not have to get all cold and wet. Me and Matthew, we're the California kids still.

Add to the list of what I'd do if we had more money...

Get some great social skills training for Matthew.

Yeowch! I found a great social skills class at the JCC in Scarsdale, two hours every Sunday, in which they do all kinds of cool activities like sports and computer stuff and music and art. Two hours a week, 10 weeks. All for $1,200.

Okay, no fricking way we could swing that.

I've been completely lame in finding some kind of group class for Matthew, who desperately needs it. My heart keeps breaking, watching him try to play with other kids, hearing his (incredibly infrequent) stories of attempting to play with other kids. He was sad today, I could tell, that Tessa was going to her second birthday party in two days (third for the school year). He's been invited to one classmate's birthday party, at the beginning of the school year, and if this year is like the others, it may be the last for the year. We were at Madison Square Park a few weeks ago, and Tessa immediately hooked up with a little girl. Matthew cheerfully observed "Tessa made a friend!" then his face fell and he asked "Why is it so hard for me to make friends?" It was the verbalization of what's he's been feeling for so long.

I've been horribly deficient in setting up playdates and all those things I'm supposed to do to help him foster social skills. Being socially phobic MYSELF these days, it's just too hard to approach moms, to make calls. He does have a new social skills pull out at school, but it's just him and one other boy, whom he doesn't particularly like.

So he needs outside help. I need to find outside help. I need to find him a therapist too. I need to consult someone about his anxiety and tantruming in the classroom, explore the possibility of meds.

I think it's going to have to wait till after the holidays, though that's probably just a delaying tactic on my part. My poor boy :(.

On Blogs and Blogging

I've started to read some of my friends' blogs again (periodically Mozilla decides to trash all my bookmarks and I don't go back for awhile) and it has made me think about blogs.

I wish I was a more avid blogger. I went into this posting several times a week, and now it's not unusual for me to go weeks without a post. I skipped the whole summer practically (well, I was in CA with no internet access for five weeks!). When I started Le Show de la Po, I was working full time, in a job in which I was the only person in my entire building wing for *much* of the time, so I had a lot of personal time.

Then I went back to the full time SAHM gig, and time melted away. So did many of my friends who were reading, as is perfectly understandable. (Not that I think that many people were reading to begin with, mostly a few August List friends. And that was absolutely fine with me. I never had any aspirations of being the type of blog that tons of people read.) Mostly I just wanted a place to blow off a little creative writing steam every now and again.

That steam has been sadly lacking. But then, I think, many many people don't find it necessary to create artistic tomes every time they blog. They just share what's going down with them during the day, the night, the weekend. So what's my problem?

I think a big part of it is that for some reason I *do* feel like if I'm going to blog, it should be on a noteworthy topic. And though I'm as much in need as many of the kind of cathartic emotional sharing that a lot of bloggers produce (AKA spewing your personal shit so ya feel better), so much of what has driven me insane is still classified under Not for Public Consumption, so I'm stymied there.

So what, I talk about the kids, I talk about the weather. And I occasionally rant. But it feels lacking, and so I don't do it often.

But I'm going to attempt a lil attitude adjustment with myself, and try to remind myself that this blog is not for the ages. It's for me :).