February drags on

So we continue with February, the month of pink things and chocolate. This wasn't a good week for me, I must say. Oh, nothing bad happened. In fact, it was kind of dull. The first few days were part of the Presidents Day holiday, and then the kids went to school Wednesday through Friday. No one is sick. There were no appointments. 

Mostly it was a bad week because I'm in sort of a fragile state right now and things set me off. So. 

I don't feel bad today. Last night we ate at the restaurant at the golf course, and I had a delicious salmon dish (blackened salmon with mango salsa, sauteed spinach, lemon white wine sauce, and jasmine rice) which later made me feel like throwing up. But I managed not to! And today I feel pretty good, perhaps because I had such a good dinner. Also: got a good night's sleep, have already done some homework with both kids, laundry is in the dryer/hanging up, dishwasher is running, brownies are in the oven, we've done our Starbucks run, and I'm writing this blog post. 

I do still have to clean the litter boxes. But there's always something like that lurking in the wings.

Yesterday, Teen B, Rocket Boy and I went to Costco. I hadn't gone in maybe a year and a half, let my membership lapse a year ago and all that. But they're always happy to have you back. I really wanted to get a special lantern, as recommended by both our nextdoor neighbor and someone in my book group, to have in the event of a power failure. But we couldn't find it. Someone said it was probably seasonal. I thought, February is still power failure time (actually, every month is power failure time). But it wasn't there.

Still, they had all sorts of other things I needed. Brownie mix, for the brownies I am making right now (that have to be delivered to the school tomorrow). A giant tub of sour cream, a giant tub of guacamole, and two large bags of shredded Mexican cheese, all of which I have to bring to the school on Friday. I will have to go to the regular grocery store to buy the ingredients for fruit salad (Tuesday) and lemon bars (Wednesday), but that's OK.

I also bought a big jar of jelly beans (Easter is coming), a three-pack of Poopourri, a lifetime supply of Sensodyne toothpaste (four tubes), and a big package of tissue boxes (Teen A goes through tissues like water), and Rocket Boy got two big boxes of granola bars. And we got a lot of vitamins. And RB chose a fancy tuxedo cake that we did not need. Maybe there were other things too, I don't remember. But the total, OMG. Almost $350. Later, when we spent almost $150 at the restaurant, RB announced that we had spent $500 that day! Not quite, I said. But yeah, just about.

And today I found the lantern on the Costco website (for $30) and ordered it. If you add that to yesterday's purchases, plus what we spent at Starbucks today, yep, it's over $500. Money just doesn't make any sense anymore. Fortunately, we have plenty of it.

After Rocket Boy's job ends, whenever that is, and we have to depend on Social Security and distributions from our retirement accounts, we'll try to spend less at Costco. But for now, I figure might as well spend the money and enjoy it. This reminds me of what my parents used to call themselves: "The last of the big-time spenders." They really weren't -- they were fairly frugal. But my father bought himself new books and records, and we always had nice clothes, and they ate out once a week, and many of my friends' parents didn't spend money so freely. So, whatever. 

When we're spending vast sums of money on not much, like yesterday, I always think about what it was like ten years ago, when the twins were in elementary school and we were living on my part-time teaching and going on and off reduced-cost lunch. It would have been so nice to have more money back then. 

Right now it seems sort of unimportant. I guess it's good to be able to buy the twins things they need for school this year, like their "senior jerseys," and the "graduation swag" that I really didn't need to buy. And Teen A's suit for prom. That was fun to shop for.

Next year, when they're in college (maybe, maybe), we'll start spending their college funds. That will be interesting. I don't even know how to access that money. But we will learn. 

So, the week ahead. A lot of food preparation for the dinners at the school, but less so at home. Teen B doesn't have to go to practice tomorrow, and he's requested tacos for dinner, so I'll make those. Tuesday through Friday, he'll eat at school, so Rocket Boy and I (and Teen A, but he only eats with us now and then) can have something Teen B doesn't like. Maybe we'll have fish a couple of times, or, I know, potatoes! Teen B has a weird aversion to potatoes, so I never get to make potato dishes. I should do something with potatoes this week.

Other than that, I think it will be a quiet week. I do have to go to the Social Security office in Louisville, just to drop off the forms, so I'll call on Monday and make an appointment. But that's about it. Hope it ends up being as quiet as it looks right now.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's over, of course, but it feels like Valentine's weekend is ongoing. Tomorrow is President's Day and my niece's birthday, and Tuesday is just an extra vacation day for the kids (Rocket Boy will go back to work), when we can catch up on homework. But it's also Lunar New Year and the first day of Ramadan, and then Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, none of which we really celebrate, but I like to acknowledge them anyway. 

This should be a pretty easy week, I hope. Just three days of school. Rocket Boy made his famous mac & cheese last night for dinner, and there's plenty left over, so we'll also have that on Monday. Tonight we're going to eat out somewhere. So I don't have to cook until Tuesday, and I already know what I'm having, a lemon tofu dish over rice (nice for Lunar New Year). Then I'll just have to figure out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Sigh. Sometimes I think about ALL the cooking I'm going to have to do, in what's left of my life, and it is rather horrifying.

On the other hand, after Rocket Boy cooked last night, the kitchen was an absolute shambles. I think he used almost every large pot we own (all of which have to be washed by hand). I worked and worked to do the dishes this morning. When I cook, it's not quite so horrible afterwards (usually).

The week after this one is "Tech Week" rehearsals for the musical, so I have signed up to bring something each night (since Teen B won't be eating with us). Brownies, lemon bars, fruit salad, a vegan casserole, and then on Friday for Taco Bar Night just some add-ons (guacamole, sour cream, shredded cheese). Last year I signed up to bring 10 baked potatoes on Baked Potato Night, and then I got sick and it was a disaster. So I'm bringing simpler things this time, except for that vegan casserole, which worries me. But it'll probably be fine.

***

This past week was pretty intense. On Monday night we went to our last parent-teacher conferences ever, which brought a tear to my eye (well, kind of). Both Teen A's math and physics teachers said he's doing better this term than last (when he got D's in both classes). Paying attention, asking questions in class, that kind of thing. Hmm. 

Teen B's math teacher insisted that he was doing great. Teen B thinks he's failing, keeps asking if he can drop the class. I think the truth is somewhere in between. 

We told two of Teen B's teachers about the autism diagnosis, one of whom had helped by filling out questionnaires. (We didn't tell the oblivious math teacher. No point.) I still haven't figured out who else to tell. His counselor? Probably. His doctor? Probably. Maybe I'll work on that this week.

While we were talking to Teen A's "Interpersonal Relationships" teacher, the teacher sitting next to her overheard us mention that Teen A wants to study aviation science at Metro (maybe). This other teacher had gone to Metro, said it was a great school, and also mentioned that his daughter was trying to become a pilot, but she was having trouble passing her FAA Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) test, which you have to do before you're allowed to "solo," because she has ADHD and at one time took medication for it. You have to be able to prove that you don't need medication to function. The medical examiner found out she has ADHD because she's been on an IEP and it mentions ADHD on the form. Of course, Teen A has also had an IEP and a 504, and both mention ADHD as a reason. He only took medication VERY briefly, back in 2018 -- we didn't even finish one bottle of it (I still have it). But according to the teacher, it can be hard to prove that you stopped taking a med. We may have to provide years of medical records.

We did not know about any of this, so it was good to hear about, though worrying. The teacher also said that the dyslexia diagnosis may be an issue. I had wondered about that. We'll just have to see.

Tuesday night was the Synergy Concert, which I love. All the different musical groups at the high school perform together in various combinations. I really liked one piece the choirs did, called "Golden Field," and also a jazz piece called "Walking by Flashlight." The younger band and orchestra played Prokofiev's "Montagues and Capulets" from "Romeo and Juliet," which I love, although Teen B told me they did a terrible job of it compared to when HE played it, two years ago (sitting up in the balcony, I didn't notice). And then they finished with the advanced band and orchestra and all the choirs doing some of the "Polovtsian Dances" by Borodin, which was a favorite of my mother's and which I love love love. 

After this, how many more performances do we get to attend? The musical in early March, and then the spring play at the other high school in April, and then the final band, orchestra, and choir concerts in late April/early May, and then graduation in mid-May. And then it's over.

I will try to go to everything.

My book group met on Thursday, finally, after much rescheduling. We read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which I liked but did not love. The member who listened to the audiobook loved it, and she played some of it for us so we could hear. There was a different voice for each different character who wrote a letter, and I could see how that made it better. 

Next month we are going to read Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I suggested Hamnet once before, but one member strongly nixed it because it sounded sad. This time I had it on a list with five other books and she picked it out and voted for it strongly. I'm happy -- it sounds like a good book. I am #71 out of 75 on the waiting list at the library for it, but we don't meet until March 24th, so there's a good chance I'll get it in time. And if not, I'll buy it, no big deal. I bought The Correspondent, but I don't really want to keep it, so I gave it to the member who listened to it, to give to her partner, and I told her he can pass it on to someone else.

Finally we got to Valentine's Day. It was a sweet day. Everybody slept late, which was nice. We worked on the TAXES, which I have been stressing over, and we actually finished them! All I have to do now is get Rocket Boy to sign a form, and then I'll scan it, and then I'll just wait for our tax preparer to "open the portal" so I can upload everything. Our taxes seem terribly complicated this year, but at least we don't have to file in MISSOURI.

Rocket Boy and I exchanged cards. We are always amused by how our choices seem to dovetail. This year we both got cards that said that the other person was our "better half." I'm not sure Rocket Boy really is my better half -- I think we work together pretty well, and I do not leave my towel on the floor as my card implied -- but because we both said the other was our better half, it seemed fair.

Rocket Boy mailed my card to Loveland, so it could be stamped there, which I thought was so sweet. I'm not sure I'm capable of being moved by things like this, the way I would have been moved if he'd done it 20 years ago. But I still thought it was sweet. I'm going to save the envelope.

I was more moved by the fact that he agreed to cook dinner. We did a Trader Joe's run to get the cheeses and such beforehand, and the whole store was full of flowers. He asked me if I would like some -- which I think might be the first time he has ever offered to buy me flowers, he doesn't like cut flowers, thinks it's like somebody killed the flowers -- but I said no. I appreciated the offer, thought it was very sweet of him, but I think I'm just a little too sad these days to get joy from flowers.

The house is filled with sweets, still. Candy, cookies, one last doughnut, half a pie that we bought at the bake sale after the concert on Tuesday. It's funny -- earlier in the week I made a batch of sugar cookie dough, except I ran out of flour, so I added things like dry milk powder and flaxseed meal to get it to solidify. It looked really strange. I put it in the fridge, planning to bake heart-shaped cookies later in the week after I bought some flour that I could use to help roll them out. And I never did. The cookie dough is still in the fridge, in a bowl, and when Rocket Boy goes back to work on Tuesday, I'm going to transfer it to the compost bin (along with the really old frosting left over from Christmas and the weird "Thai pesto" that I made to go with a weird soup that I made last week that no one liked). 

It's OK. We had all these other sweets and some other year I can make heart-shaped cookies. It's just that this is the last year of high school and it seemed like I should make them. But I didn't. 

Coming to terms

This was a hard week, but I'm coming around. Last Sunday I wrote about how we'd learned that Teen B has autism and how bad I felt about that (for so many reasons). I spent much of Monday crying, some of Tuesday, a little of Wednesday. But I'm feeling better now. This is why:

1.  So many things are making sense now, as I look back. Of course he's always been autistic. It was masked by Teen A, whose dyslexic/ADHD behavior kind of drowned out Teen B's autistic behavior, but it was there.
2. Clearly, things got worse/changed when he hit adolescence. For years now we've been blaming his brother, Teen A, for being mean to him and somehow changing him from the sweet little boy he was into the difficult teenager he is now. Yes, Teen A was mean to him, but I don't think that had anything to do with the change. It's a known fact that adolescence can make autism more obvious. People with autism can also "regress." I think some of that is what happened. It wasn't anybody's fault.
3. Knowing he's autistic means I don't have to get upset when he acts weird. It's just the autism. Every Sunday when we go to Starbucks I wonder, why can't he order for himself, why does he have to whisper his order to me so that I can repeat it to the counter person? But knowing that he has autism I can just let that go. He (thinks he) wants to go to CU next year, and I look around at all the CU students in Starbucks and think, really? He's going to fit in here? Now I know that he probably won't, because of the autism, but he won't be the only autistic kid, and maybe there will be a place for him. I don't know.
4. I've joined a subReddit called "Autism_Parenting" which is incredibly depressing because most of the parents have level 3 kids. But it reminds me that I'm lucky I only have a level 1/2 kid. Plus, it's a community. I've joined a community. Not a community I ever wanted to join, but still. Here I am and it's nice to have "people."
5. Regardless of the autism, I still love him a lot and I've always loved him. In fact, I feel even more loving towards him than I did before, because now I know the weird behavior is just autism. 

Last night I tried to remember odd behavior from his childhood. Did he do X or did Kid/Baby A do X? Or both? Like the time that we went to Marina and Gabor's in SLO and one or both of the kids wouldn't stop opening and closing the sliding glass door. But I can't find anything about that in my old blog (I'll keep looking), so I can't remember who was responsible. Definitely it was Teen B (Baby B, Kid B) who loved elevators, who couldn't get enough of them, wanting to go up and down over and over.

In March 2010, right before their second birthday, we went to Joshua Tree and they were incredibly bad in the hotel.

Within minutes of our arrival, Baby A discovered the phone and pressed the button to call the front desk. A moment later he did it again. So we put that phone in the closet and unplugged the other one... Our room had a little kitchen attached to it, and the second night we were there, the boys decided to bang the cupboard doors open and shut over and over. Then the phone in the closet rang: it was the front desk: someone had complained about the noise! At 8pm! This morning RB let them ride in the elevator (just for fun -- we were on the 1st floor) and Baby A pushed the emergency phone button which calls the fire department. 

Normal two-year-old behavior? Or the joys of ADHD in one twin and autism in the other? I think on that trip we were definitely blaming Baby A for most of the trouble. Baby B was just going along with it.

A few months later we went to the California Living Museum in Bakersfield, and Baby B ran away from me, twice. Once, another family returned him, but the second time... 

Baby B's path went over a tiny bridge above a stream, and instead of crossing it, he sat down on it, and then suddenly lowered himself into the water! RB and I both screamed and ran to snatch him out. He was soaked and filthy -- the water was muddy. And I hadn't brought any extra shoes and socks. I led him over to a grassy picnic area, pulling him on his leash instead of carrying him so I wouldn't get muddy, but I felt terrible because he was crying all the way.

Normal two-year-old behavior or autism? No way to know. It could be normal. Two-year-olds do a lot of goofy things.

Here's a time we tried to go to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound's Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, when they were almost five. Both kids were bad and wouldn't follow the rules.

Baby B continues to yell at me about how he wants to go on the rock, and then starts kicking the fence around the cats' cage, hard. Everyone is staring at us and the cats are getting more and more agitated.  I give up, pick him up, and carry him out of the park, still screaming. 

It took forever to calm them down enough to get in the car, and Baby B screamed pretty much all the rest of the way to Palmdale. He kept saying "I wanted to see more CATS!!!" It was horrible... In Palmdale, Rocket Boy and Baby A shopped at Kohl's, while I stayed with Baby B, who was too freaked out to leave the car. 

Normal five-year-old behavior? Or an autism meltdown? You tell me.

I also remember all the times he threw fits (after we moved back to Boulder) because something about his routine changed, or something happened that he wasn't expecting. It all makes sense now. I mean, it made sense then, but after Children's Hospital told us he didn't have autism (when he was 8), it didn't make sense, for a long time. Now it makes sense again.

Now I have to figure out what to do next. Do I tell his counselor? Do I tell his teachers? Do I contact the Special Education department? This would be a lot simpler if the parent support group that I used to be in was still running. I guess I could still email the person who ran it (she's retired now, but still keeps in touch) and ask her what she would do if she were me.

***

Well, other than ASD, the week was pretty quiet. My book group rescheduled to this week, so there weren't any weird nights. However, I didn't feel at all like cooking, so it was kind of hit or miss. Rocket Boy brought takeout one night. I forget what we did the other nights.  

One fun thing: on Friday night, Teen A and I went suit shopping (for him to wear to Prom). We went first to Macy's, and they had some nice things, but there was not a soul in the department, no one to measure him, no one to help. So we left and went to the Men's Wearhouse in Boulder. I'd read that their suits are of lesser quality, but not so bad if you aim for the high end. We told the helpful man there that we wanted a dark gray suit, and he showed us a beautiful Calvin Klein suit, charcoal gray with tiny white stripes blended in. He said it was a sharkskin pattern. I'm not quite sure about that, because I thought sharkskin was shiny and this suit was not shiny. Anyway, it looked so good on Teen A, that after we saw that, there was no reason to look further. They didn't have the pants in his size, so we ordered those. We came home with the jacket and a white shirt, we'll get the pants later, and we still have to think about a tie (maybe with pink in it, to match his girlfriend's dress). He wants to wear it with his black sneakers. Fine.  

Today, our big achievement has been to put the Christmas boxes in the basement. It's only February 8th. But Christmas is GONE from our house (except for a few stray items -- there are always a few stray items).

This coming week is terribly complicated. Conferences Monday night, Teen B's concert on Tuesday night, and my book group on Thursday. I have no idea what to cook this week. Oh, and the power's supposed to be turned off at some time tomorrow, anywhere between 8 and 5 pm. Maybe I will spend the day in bed, reading.

I'm trying to get back into walking, after a couple of weeks of being really lazy and sluggish. Yesterday I was out walking and I thought -- there is nothing to look at! Nothing growing, hardly any birds. Normally in February, there's ice and snow covering things, but now it's all exposed and bare -- and there's nothing. Well, I told myself, the earth is resting. Don't worry about it. Think quiet thoughts. I tried. 

Hello, February

Well, goodbye, warm sunny January, hello, warm sunny February! Our weird winter continues, and meanwhile it's freezing in Florida. Think of all the birds that have gone down there for the winter -- what will they do? (Do any birds overwinter in Florida? I assume they do, but I don't know for sure.)

But here it is sunny and warm. No food sources, except feeders and such, so there aren't a lot of birds. It's quite barren outside, just like any January, and we do still have patches of snow left over from last weekend. But it's warm, in the 60s. Sunny. Weird. 

This was a hard week for me. I didn't get enough sleep, as usual, and that meant that I was very low energy on some of the days. Teen B had a haircut appointment at 8:30 am on Wednesday, which meant no late start for us, no sleeping in. I only managed to go on one walk all week, on Friday, and did not lift weights at all. Oh well. Maybe this week will be better. 

Friday was an odd day, because of the "National Shutdown." The kids asked if they could have the day off from school, and I said yes, because BVSD was saying it would excuse all absences and both boys were good and didn't "ditch" on Senior Ditch Day a couple of weeks ago. Rocket Boy went to work, because a top secret government job is not going to look kindly on participation in a National Shutdown, and anyway, he likes his job. I don't usually shop on Fridays, nor do we usually eat out, so it wasn't a problem to stay home and work on stuff instead. Teen B wanted me to take him shopping but I said no, obviously. There was a student-organized protest that I drove by that morning -- it looked like a huge, enthusiastic turnout. I honked at them.

Saturday was the official adult-organized protest, from 1 to 2:30 downtown, so Rocket Boy and I went to that. It was the biggest protest I've ever seen in Boulder, looked like thousands of people. We walked from Arapahoe to Pearl, saw people all along the road there, on both sides, plus people stretching down Canyon and maybe Walnut, can't remember. 

I heard the protests in Denver were huge too. It's interesting -- you'd think people would be getting tired of protesting. I'm certainly tired of it. But I keep going out, because, you know, it's important, and what makes me happy is that more and more people are joining the protests. Lots of young people, too! They're waking up to what's happening. That's a good thing, although the fact that they need to wake up is a terrible thing.

When Rocket Boy and I were standing on the street with our signs yesterday, at one point he turned to me and said "I'm glad you want to do this too, that you feel the same way I do about political things" (or something like that). I said, "I wouldn't have married you if we didn't feel the same way! I wasn't going to marry some stupid Republican."

I wonder if that's true. If I had fallen hard for some guy whose politics were questionable, would that really have been a deal breaker? I'm not sure. It's easy to say it would have been, now, but I don't know.

***

Well, we got some sad news on Friday. I don't know if it's really sad, or bad, because we were expecting it. I met with the psychologist who did Teen B's neuropsych testing back in October, and he said that yes, Teen B does meet the criteria for autism. The autism spectrum is defined as having three levels. Level three is people who are really bad off, who end up being institutionalized. Level two is people who you can tell have something wrong with them, but they're a little more functional. Level one is people who just seem socially awkward, but can kind of blend in with neurotypical people, sort of. Teen B is considered level one, but actually the psychologist said he's kind of on the border between level one and level two. He read me some of the official descriptions of the two levels, and I voted for level one, so we're going with that for the official diagnosis (which we should have in a week or two).

So, ten years after being told that Kid B was completely normal, no signs of autism, now Teen B is officially level one, but close to level two. The psychologist explained to me that Children's Hospital used a different test with him back in 2015, one that's good at identifying kids with severe autism, but that often misses kids with less severe versions of it. For example, they told us that he didn't have autism because he could make eye contact. That's not a definitive sign, I know now, but we didn't know it then.

We knew something was wrong, back in 2015. I remember the Children's Hospital psychologist telling us that Kid B showed no signs of autism and I said, "Then what's the matter with him?" She looked at me like I was crazy and said "Nothing. He's normal." But he wasn't. And so we've gone through ten years of meltdowns and various types of weird behavior, telling ourselves, "Well, he's odd, but at least he's not autistic."

In part, I'm angry! Angry that we could have done things differently all these years! I don't know what we would have done differently, exactly, but I'm sure there were things. We could have had different types of interventions. He's about to graduate from high school! All these years, we could have had different types of support. And we could have not felt so bad that we couldn't seem to deal with our odd child.

I'm also relieved. Relieved that I can now acknowledge that there's a problem, that I'm not somehow causing him to be odd by treating him cautiously, walking on eggshells around him. Autistic people require some eggshell-walking. They have meltdowns. Weird things set them off, and they are not fun when they are set off. Through the years many people have told me I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that, I shouldn't be so accommodating around Teen B, I should make him stand on his own two feet. Now I can say, to those people, "He's autistic," and maybe they'll stop criticizing me. Maybe. 

I'm also sad. Sad because now I know he isn't suddenly going to get better. I've known forever that he was different, but I thought maybe he was just taking his time growing up. Eventually he would work out how to be an adult, how to live on his own, how to have relationships. Now I'm not so sure. He may be living with us as long as we live. Maybe not -- but maybe. I have to allow for that possibility. I also have to allow for other possibilities. The psychologist and I discussed college and agreed that it was best to follow Teen B's lead on that. If he wants to go away to college, live in a dorm, let him. Maybe he'll rise to the occasion. Maybe he won't (probably he won't), but OK, then we move on from there. Don't be surprised if things don't work out, but don't shut him down, give him a chance to try.

But I'm not going to do his college homework for him. Not not not.

We'll see. I have a lot of learning ahead of me, to try to understand this world we're now in (that we've always been in, but didn't know it). 

*** 

Now it's February, so I am taking down Christmas. I've got all the ornaments off the tree and packed in boxes (except the one that's hiding, that will be discovered after everything else is packed away -- there's always one). I took the decorations off the wreath and it's lying on the compost bin, waiting for me to cut it out of its wire backing. I packed up the stockings and the Christmas tree skirts.

There's more to do. I like to have everything put away by Groundhog Day, which is tomorrow. I may leave the lights on the tree for one more night, and then take them all down and pack them away tomorrow. Rocket Boy likes the lights, especially in the morning. I like them too. But I don't like the tree, because it sticks out so much that I can't easily get around it, and I have to go around through the kitchen to get to the dining room or the garage. I want my living room back.

Last week was a decent cooking week. I made sweet potato hash with tofu on Monday, onion soup and turkey & cream cheese sandwiches on Tuesday, coconut cauliflower curry with rice and naan on Wednesday, and Mexican lasagna on Friday. Thursday, Rocket Boy brought home a container of potato salad and we had that with boca burgers and mahi mahi burgers. The potato salad was horribly vinegary, but it was nice of RB to help out.

This week, since it's now February, we'll have Brenda's sticky tofu (which Teen B asks me to make practically every night, but I only make once a month) and I don't know what else. It'll be fine. My book group is supposed to meet on Tuesday, and other than that I think it's a quiet week. Maybe I can do some cleaning, get some exercise, all that good stuff. Maybe make valentine cookies.