It Will Be Alright

I keep telling myself, it will be alright. I keep caressing my son and telling him, it will be alright.

My son has a shy streak, the same streak that made me, as an infant, scream bloody murder if a stranger approached me. The same shy streak (and then some) that makes my dad a shut-in, refusing to leave the house for days, afraid of human contact. The same streak that started with my son playing coy, hiding behind his hands at about eight months old.

I thought it was a stage. I read books and blogs and found out that some children go through a shy streak at that age. I assured myself everything would be fine. it is just a stage. But then he began to shy away from anyone but myself or my husband. He would scream bloody murder if his grandma, someone he was once very close to, tried to hold him. Friends would reach out to hold my child and he would do a death grip onto my chest, bury into my boobs, and wail. It's just a stage, I told myself.

He is nearly two now. I got so used to his shyness that I didn't really notice it. I'd tell myself that he doesn't freak out when strangers approach him, like I did, just when they try and hold him. I'd push the thoughts of, "but wait, he is shy and scared around relatives and familiar friends" away, and just think, my little boy is perfect in every way. 

This last week, his shy streak became blatantly apparent. I can no longer ignore it. He went to daycare for his first time (sure he has been with grandma for a few hours here, gym day care an hour or two there...) and he failed, An epic failure. 

He got dropped off before sunrise, and cried and screamed past sunrise. Past snack. Past lunch. Through nap-time until my husband got a frantic call, "umm, please please pick him up. Now." from the daycare provider. That was day one. I figured, sure, separation anxiety, a new place, it is expected. 

Day two, hubby drops him off later and I get him in the afternoon. I can hear him screaming from across the street. I go in and he is a mess of tears and snot, blotchy red, and miserable. He didn't eat. Or drink. Or poop. Or pee. The daycare provider says, "yeah umm, he ran into walls. And the gate. And tried to escape out the door. He ran into everything. Repeatedly. He is going to be bruised all over." Now most moms would see this as a red-alert, that he is being abused or something, but I already am working with him on anger management. Instead of tantrums, he bumps his head into the wall. He's done this for a few months. But bumps all over? This proves he is quite unhappy at day care. But I've nowhere else for him to go, so daycare it is.

My sweet little guy, no matter what

Day 3, 4, and 5 all kind of blend in to one another. When being dropped off, he shook violently and looked distant. Afraid.  He again didn't eat, drink, pee, or poop. Just screamed. And cried. And bit his arms and his cheek until it gushed blood and he got sent home. By day five, he heard me walk in the door and just sobbed for ten minutes straight. I caressed him and whispered, "it will be alright honey. Mommy loves you. Mommy's here." till his sobs subsided and a smile began to appear.

I can't ignore it any longer. He just might have some kind of social anxiety problem. Like his grandpa. Like his mommy, You can't really diagnose, treat, or counsel kiddos this little so you just make do, and make adjustments. We are trying a co-worker's home later this week. Just my son, a baby, and my co-worker. A smaller, quieter environment  I feel bad, knowing what hell he might give her. I know I will be judged as the mother of that crazy baby no one can deal with. I know it could interfere with my career, meaning I'd have to quit my job that I just got after 17 months of unemployment, to stay at home again to raise him.

I pray that I'm over-reacting and he will be okay in a smaller environment. Yesterday, I called my best friend of life to give her my sob story, and to soothe my fears. She has worked in day-cares and social services and has a child with an anxiety disorder. While supportive, she said things I didn't like. Special needs daycare. How he never socialized with her or her son when we visited. How his language is a bit delayed. How he seems extra clingy.  How I'd get through it, but I'd better start now. Early intervention is key. Words like autism, developmental delay, panic attacks circled in my head.

I closed my eyes and thought. whatever it takes. It will take more day-cares and babysitters, days of no eating and head-banging. Coaxing and caressing, and lots of patience on both our parts. You can't explain anxiety to a 22-month old, you can only give support and understanding. You can only do, through trial and error, and lots of patience and time, what is right. I can come to accept that shyness is okay, anxiety isn't the end of the world, and that my boy is still perfect. Perfect for me. God gave me a boy that I can understand and support, even with a few bumps in the road or on the head. Whatever I do, it will be what is best for him. I wouldn't have it any other way but I went to bed full of worries.

Today, I toured a daycare facility. My stomach was in knots and I dreaded the visit all morning. We pulled up and I immediately tried to find thing I didn't like, or that my son would hate. I was greeted by a quiet, sweet woman holding a baby who whispered, "c'mon in." It was quiet, low natural lighting, and two one-year olds were playing with toys. The day care gal introduced me to a little girl and said, "she is very shy and cries around strangers or loud noises and is very clingy. She is over-sensitive." I felt like a weight had been liften from my shoulders by golden angels. This little girl acted like a mirror image of my son, She happily toddled around and began sharing toyd with my son, who would not leave my lap. He cried, but did not shake violently, and quietly bserved his surroundings. Right before we were about to leave, he left my lap and walke two steps to accept a toy from the little girl. He smiled. I smiled. The day care gal snuggled a little boy and offered my son a second toy. No crying. No shaking. No head-banging.

I found a place today that means the world to my son and myself. A place that works one-on-one with highly sensitive children, and doesn't just leave them to cry and harm themselves. A place like home away from home.

So anyone struggling with the placement of their child, or with a child with special needs, know where are angels among us.

 

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My mother, the stranger

My mom on the right, at about age 30

One might think I was scared to go to Hawaii in the spring of '45, with the war still raging in the Pacific. One might think I was crazy to leave to a foreign island at age 20, pregnant, alone. But who cared? My brother was in Europe and had survived the war and was already liberating some Jewish prisoners or something, helping rebuild Europe and the like. And I was the unwanted child, adopted and with a feeling I was the second-favorite child. Time to lead my own life as a grown woman! I was going to see my fiancé (he was in the Coast Guard) and have my sweet baby in Hawaii like a proper lady should do. I certainly was not going to do it at home, with my parents, and get judged the whole time.

Hawaii was under martial law, swarming with US military personnel , shipping out soldiers towards Japan and bringing their bodies back, dead or alive. But I didn't think of it that way; instead, that I was to start my life in Hawaii, if only I could get there. Unless you were a military person or family member, Hawaii was off limits.. It looked like I might have my baby in my childhood bedroom after all. No thank you.

One evening, my cousin who was a Lieutenant in the Air Force, came to dinner. I whispered to him, "Can you get me to Hawaii?" And by gosh, he did. Hawaii needed a troop transport plane, and I was the sole passenger surrounded by jumper seats. I even got to steer the plane for a moment, as it soared over the blue expanse of the Pacific. I thought that was quite swell, and I didn't even get queasy, which was a surprise for my pregnancy.

My husband and stayed at some simple hotel next to the stately Royal Hawaiian, both used for military housing. Nearby was a restaurant catering to the more elite men and their wives of the military, the expats, the few wealthy Hawaiian natives, and they were hiring a cocktail waitress. I had never worked before, yet I was bored sitting in a hotel all day while my fiancé did whatever military men do all day. I decided to apply and got offered the job on the spot! While I was too young to drink, and pregnant to boot, I enjoyed the fun atmosphere of the bar, with people winding down and letting loose after all Hawaii had been through, Pearl Harbor and the like. The military men came in crisp and fresh and left giggling, the elite women with their bouffant hair and pearls sipped drinks and disappeared into the night, and I served drink after drink until my shift was up. It wasn't anything too special, living in Hawaii. Sure, I had some fun, but I was to be married and have a family, so I had to act my age, I just worked, went home, slept, and repeated the process. Little did I know, Hawaii would matter to me again.

In summer, I married my fiancé in a simple ceremony at the hotel, with lots of servicemen in attendance. I knew very few at my wedding, surrounded by men in white uniforms. I didn't even write my parents, what with my brother coming home, and me, the second-best child, the Hawaii runaway, pregnant out of wedlock, I was on my own. 

Back in California with my first baby

My husband and I remarried in the states and set up home in California and raised three daughters. When my mother passed in 1977, I decided it was time to find my real mother and father. The Hall of Records was about to close for lunch, and an intern was there who illegally let me look up my birth. I jotted down names, went from library to library, and pieced together my mother's life. She was a social butterfly of the high society, all over the newspapers for being the belle of the soiree so to speak, a woman surely held to too high of esteem to have had little old me. I found the phone number of her best friend of decades, nearly dialed her number, and got scared, Call me chicken ,but after a lifetime of being teased for being "unwanted", I now feared speaking to my mother. My daughter got the guts I lacked, and called, and through the grapevine she found my mother. We spoke on the phone once, and sent a few letters to one another, but after a lifetime without her, what do you even say? Where do you even begin? We kept our letters brief, small talk and simple pleasantries, not like a mother and daughter relationship should be. She was kind of cold and business like, yet took the time to send me a photo of her and return my letters. It wasn't until I penned my second letter to her that the address looked familiar. I racked my brain and was struck with the answer. Her address was a block the restaurant I worked at in Hawaii. Being a social elite lady, I surely can say she came to my restaurant, as it was the place to be in Waikiki, a kind of place she meant to be seen in. But with three decades come and gone, I could not say if I remember her at all. I was young, naive, busy working and planning my life, so the patrons' faces looked all the same. Would I remember a woman with my grown daughter’s frame, my color hair, a familiar giggle? Would she have recognized me, as someone vaguely familiar, maybe reminding her of her sister? If so, she never mentioned it. I likely served her many times, touched my birth mother's open palm to accept a tip. I bet we looked each other in the eye at some time and never knew. Perhaps we were not destined to know, to meet, and to find one another. 

join us at the speakeasy...you know you want to!

perspective: exersize and what you can/cannot do

My husband's best friend was in the special forces andcwas injured by an ied, and has some metal plate in his neck. No, he does not get radio signals.So there was this Ride 2 Rexovery bike ride from San Francisco to Santa Monica this week. The news loves a creepy, sad, gruesome story so it kind of escaped the radar. Injured vets were sponsored to ride bikes...bicycles..from San Fran to Sants Monica, a 450 mile journey in a week.

Today sucked

It sucked hairy rocks.
It sucked goat hairs.
It sucked suckier than suck.

My son only ended up in daycare half the day yesterday, Hubby had to pick him up, he was beyond inconsolable.
I ended up taking him to the doctor,'/s and he was diagnosed with thrush.

So today sucked cause my son was in daycare from11-4 and cried basically the entire time. When not hysterically crying, he was clicking things to escape or body slamming things. He seriously is covered in bruises and it breaks my heart. So I researched the issue and the trusty Internet is all, some kids just never adjust. They just can't be in daycare. Great. No one ear can watch him.

So work....really sucked. It began on and then the students enter the room. We begin note taking and the laptop freezes. Then the projector overheats. 30 minutes wasted. No alternative assignment cause I had to teach that topic today or else, and I do not have a textbook or any materials yet. So it was PowerPoint or nothing. So the students are then crazy afterwards cause its all, hi I am your new teacher and hey look at that umm...since noting works, and I cannot give other work , sit there for a half hour.

So I am beginning to learn names but with up to 38 per class, yes, 38, and kids purposely tricking me and switching seats, I am f&ked.

So then we have another class. A little better except one kid will not sit down. With absences and the like, he is one of three names. He won't tell me which is his and no one else will. He refuses to take out the note book. I can't sent him elsewhere or write him up since I do not know who he is.

Everyone talks over my voice or any student presenting anything.

They only get grades for tests and essays and even then, specific ones so I can't give a pop quiz or essay or other shut up assignment. Cause they won't do it.

So then there's a fire drill with a confusing map. 2,000 students or mor plus staff exit two doors. It is a log jam situation and classes separate due to simple physics. My class loses me and vice versa. In the swarm, I have no clue who my students are since I have seen then twice before, and am still unable to differentiate "hey are you in my 3rd or 4th per class? Or do you just really look like Billy?" Any student from another. I maybe recognize 1/3 of my class plus others from other periods. I think. Maybe.

So then we are lost and the map is oriented incorrectly and we line up in the wrong place. We are the last to line up and it is obvious. We are to line up somewhere between the 30-40 yard line but it is all full so we go to he 20th, as my. Line screams, new teacher over here, confused, wrong I every way, fire her.

Then we wait. We are to sit in single file line by classroom for an hour and a half. No potty breaks or talking to a friend three lines over or any activities or anything. Yeah freaking right. Add in an at risk population and voila recipe for disaster. My students won't sit. Without a seating chart, I only know maybe 5 names. I can't give them any "punishment" and they know that. No one can give referrals in the drill and cut isn't like you can give them work, call home, or anything. So kids begin to wander and not just my class. Two students went missing between the class and the field. My roll is taken away and I am sure the principals are gong over, yup she lost two kids who could lose two kids in the funnel two exits 2000 kids on their first official day? Geez, I mean anyone could keep track of 38 strangers on a field of 2,000 strangers, fire her!

So more wander. Again they're mostly strangers to me and so my line of 30-something is more of a clump, being the last line, unbound by the divisors of other classrooms. I keep the same basic number of kids but lose some and accumulate new ones. We're to have a buddy teacher, but no one knows who mine is. No one comes fort roll. Other teachers tell my students (or whoever they belong to) to sit down in a line and where is your teacher. Even kids I can assuredly tell you aren't mine point at me since I am new. I decide to spend our pointless time just making sure whoever is in my line, well, clump, is safe. If they leave it, not my issue because I cannot leave my line to chase after them and I can't call their names since I don't know them.

Finally the bell rings.

I nearly rolled into a ball and wept.

The first teacher quit after a month. Then there was a sub till a teacher void be found. Me.

I hope I last. Breaking a contract is like...suicide. You will never get a job again. Ever. But today sucked. If my son can't do daycare I will have to quit. If tomorrow isn't any better at work.....

Grr. I have taught before and it hasn't been the bad. Only when I was a sun with no power was it like this.

Oh And my pay, I get paid a certain yearly total divided monthly. Lets dream here, 120,000 yr or 10000 month. Since I didn't work for two, wasn't hired yet, my total is 100,000. 10,000 month. So the payroll tells me you won't be paid till December and then you get $5000 .
Huh? I get paid a month late for half if what I earned?

The Sweet Sounds of a Chainsaw

I am serious when I say the whirr of a chainsaw is soothing. I have thought as much since I was three, when my mom silk screened STIHL (a chainsaw manufacturer) on a tee shirt for me, and dyed it pink. Cause just like my newly spray-painted trucks, pink marked it as "girl". My dad didn't have any boys, just a tomboy girl, his little shadow and little mini self. At that young age, he was not just my dad but my best friend and idol, so I wore my STIHL shirt with pride, a little girl, her dad, and his chainsaw.

My dad suffers from sociophobia, so holding a regular job has never been practical. He loves to be outdoors, one with nature, so when I was an infant, he became a freelance forest entrepreneur. Yep. He cut down dying trees and sold firewood along the highway. He made a small seasonal income, babysat me, and taught me all about the dozens of tree species in the forest.

From what I piece together from vague memories, photos, and stories is that my mom worked full time and he was a stay-at-home dad at the time. He'd rope me into the front seat of our jeep truck (don't fret folks, this pre-dated seatbelt and child seat laws) and we'd drive along dusty forestry trails for what seemed like hours. We would find our "spot" and I'd be gently set onto an old blanket atop the pine needle strewn earth with our dog by my side, as my dad went off, within seeing distance, and chopped down trees, shorn off stumps, dragged already downed dead limbs towards the truck. I would sit quietly and pet the dog while watching my dad, the birds, the clouds in the sky. I was always and still am a quiet, introspective, nature loving girl and I am sure these experiences helped shape me. The whirr of the chainsaw, the scent of pine sap, and the gentle rays of mountain sun filled me with a quiet joy.

Being a man of nature and a Native American culture nut, my dad felt it was wrong to take down trees, even dead ones, for they housed little creatures and created loamy soil for the wildflowers. To show his respect, and to give back what he took, he might place a raven's feather at the tree site, or scatter a handful of wildflower seed on the fresh earth.

A sprinkling of feverfew in bloom by the creek, a cedar with his and my initials carved into the trunk, a rock we climbed for a view of the ponderosa pines below...every corner of the forest reminds me of my childhood and of my dad, the nature man.

New job jitters

I have a new job! I am responsible for directing the lives of the youth! No. You do not need to hide your children.

After 17 months of no job and basically no hope, I got a job offer. But not having worked for 17 months, not having taught since May 2010 I feel like I am entering the workforce for te first time. I have first day of school jitters. I know I am competent am awesome and bla bla but I'm anxious dammit.

I voiced a teeny bit of my apprehensions and questions in an online forum. BIG MISTAKE. Here I get to put on my big girl panties and I leaked. Figuratively. Apparently, us teacher folk are omniscient and perfect and while treated crappy, we are led to super human status.

So this post is to say, if you have a day of pre-work jitters, you are NORMAL. Okay?

But my jitters might verge on an anxiety disorder. Yeah it runs in the family so what?

I wanted to know when I started. Sure, I was told by HR, show up next Monday. They have like 40 schools so they don't know when I show up. I contact the school to no avail. First impressions are much too important, and I didn't want to be "that annoying gal that kept calling us" so I sought some advice. This meant, to the super kind forum folks, that I lacked common sense, problem solving, intellect, or stability. Dude, seriously?

So again it is ok to have questions and concerns.

But yeah then my mind starts going. Like a kid the week summer is ending, I am freaking. How will I get used to waking before dawn? How do I set an off-day alarm on y iPhone? What if it doesn't go off? What will traffic be like and will I get there on time? How much time do I give to drop my son off for his first week sniff sniff of full time day care? Who will be more of a wreck from the separation, me or him? What if he gets sick or goes feral? What I there's a wreck on the way there? What if my room key doesn't work? I suck at using keys! The contract said temporary leave replacement so do I lose my job when whoever comes back? I have had over a dozen jobs in under a dozen years, often I am rid of due to the seniority I lack and can't get, will it happen again? Will I get along with my co teacher? Cause I am a nice girl but if my experiences with college roommates are any indication of sharing with people... Crap will I suck l, having not taught for so long? How will the students trick the new ie teacher? Will the staff like me? How will I balance work, grading, meetings, half hour or so commute each way, family time, me time? Will I love my job? What kind of school culture will they be? Will I say something stupid? Will I dress wrong!

The World is on its Elbows and Knees

I awoke to the jarring sounds of my phone ringing.
"Hello?" I mumbled, nearly interrupted by my normally stoic mother's voice, yelling frantically, "get out now, the mountains;" her screams became sobs as she whimpered out, "something's wrong, it's all over, the world,they-" and the line went dead. I didn't try to call back, I just grabbed my keys and ran to the garage, didn't close the door as I pulled the car out.

The city streets were nearly empty, being three in the morning and all. Nothing looked awry but my mother meant business, that much I knew. I had never heard her cry before. I began to worry, would I find my parents? What was happening? Would they even make it to- my thoughts were interrupted by a bright flash and I instinctually pressed the accelerator, red lining to the hills, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing.

The first light of dawn greeted me as I bear right, down a dirt road into the cold winter forest. I piled some brush around the car, keeping an eye on the road. I sat inside and prayed, and no one came. After two days, an old diet coke under the seat was not enough sustenance. I had to go to the city.

I left on foot under the protection of the night; I could barely see to make my way but I hoped the invisibility would protect me. Sore from walking, dehydrated an exhausted, I collapsed under a bridge in the outskirts of the city, the babble of the city canal putting me to sleep instantly.

It was the smell that woke me. Putrid, earthy, alarming. I looked to the river and it looked off color, sort of red. Thinking of the saying, "red sky at morning, sailors take warning", I looked to the sky but saw only gray. Horrified, I looked down to confirm what I saw and it was worse. The red river churned and in it, bloated corpse bobbed. A haggard looking man was walking along the sloped canal wall, dragging a moaning body. In the haggard man's other arm was a bloodied leg, of which he took a grisly bite. I was scared stiff and his eyes began to scan the horizon hungrily, approaching my direction. I bolted, the sounds of banshees crying and thousands moaning filled my ears.

I saw a large silo with the door ajar, and figured I had nothing to lose. I went in, shut the door, and was in a stories tall large room, nearly filled with some fine sand like substance. It was quiet. The screams by the river could not be heard. I hid in a corner as an unmanned train car approached the top of the building. The train car dumped more sand in towering pile. The train seemed to be somehow sentient, searching for something, scanning. I held my breath until it passed. Whenever I heard the ghostly rumble of the train, I held my breath.

The silo has no other sounds, no smells, no real color but shades of gray. I watched the sand pile up like a sand timer and felt utterly alone. I shivered in the cold as an indescribable desolation came over me.

That's when I realized it. I somehow knew I would be the last. The last human on the planet. Absolute despair overcame me and I closed my eyes, letting death overtake me.