What Normal Isn't

Just a little melancholy... Derek's at work, Des is at her mom's for the weekend, Hunter's back in Wisconsin, and Allie's at the group home. I am alone, save for the critters -- and their fur. (I should vacuum, but that will wait.)

I am spending time reading all the family member blogs and looking at Destiny's Flickr page. It both helps and hurts to see all the kids there...

:sigh:

Allie turns 18 on Wednesday.

This is likely what all the fuss is about in my head. I told Derek I'd blog it out, but now that I'm here I am still resisting. It's hard to let go and just talking about it all makes it more real.

I know that most parents freak a little when the kids grow up and move out. Empty nest syndrome and all that. But this is different.

Allie is Autistic, and when you parent a special needs kid you are far more hands-on. Even at 5 days away from 18, and living away from me, I am more involved than most parents are with their kids who are say 6 -- or maybe even 12. I don't know. I don't know because I don't know what normal is in parenting.

Destiny's life is complicated. At nearly 11 she's dealt with more than the average divorced kid. She's got not one but two siblings with Asperger's. (Her half-brother and her step-sister -- boy do I hate those terms.) Her mom is a nut-job. And I'm not just saying that as the new wife talking about the old wife. I can't get into it all here... Or can I? But it needs to be said, spoken somewhere outside of Destiny's counselor's office. So let's just say that along with abandonment issues from her mother (and a few other incidents) Des has intimacy issues. Intimacy issues at 10? Yeah. That's true. Sad, but true. And her mom likely has Munchausen's Syndrome (and I'm not the only one to suggest it). Destiny's got complications, not normalcy.

Hunter, well he lives with his abusive father. (And there's documented proof of that.) Hunter's been safe physically so far (:knocks wood:), but emotionally, that's another story. It breaks my heart. Nearly 7, he's got to deal with transitions and problems past normal divorce as well as with his two complicated sisters. And a mom who lives so far away.

What's normal?

So when I contemplate Allie turning 18... Well, it's not just about her age, or the 18 years of work. It's about guardianship. Guardianship which is not mine.

Guardianship is an icky thing in general. It's not like when I first held her I fantasized about her future with others making final decisions for her. It's not like I rocked her to sleep (as best one can with an Aspie baby) with visions of her never marrying or having her own children in my head. Guardianship is horrific. Guardianship isn't normal. Guardianship is necessary.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

It's not that I don't want to be her guardian, but in long talks with the professionals in her life it just seems that the best thing for Allie, especially in the long term, is to have another person do this. Not just another person, but an agency.

The decision rested, finally, on three points:

A) When I die, Allie will not need to transition to a complete stranger. (The likelihood of both myself dying and her requiring a switch in guardianship staff is really slim -- even for a paranoid mom me.)

B) When I die, neither Derek, Destiny nor Hunter will be burdened with Allie's pleas to take her home with them. Hopefully the guardianship will buffer them all from the guilt as well as keep them, especially her siblings, from stopping their lives to take her in. (I'm hoping they'll all be family and visit each other, but no one should have to not have their own families because they've taken on the care of a sibling.)

C) This agency is well-connected and versed in legal and other practical matters which Allie will likely face. Housing will be an issue again at 21, and then there are the matters of Allie signing contracts -- contracts she legally may not sign, but which others may sue over or try to enforce. That's clearly above my head, but part of a professional guardian's regular experience.

The other professionals in Allie's life seem to think that having another guardian will make the relationship between Allie and I easier. I'll no longer be the 'bully keeping her from doing what she wants,' and just be mom. More like a friend. More like the independence most grown children experience from their parents.

I have no idea how that will work.

I mean I have that relationship with my parents, but to imagine Allie as independent? Independent from me? I have no idea what that would be.

While Allie no longer lives with me, I'm the first person she calls -- for nearly anything. I'm also the person school, the group home, the counselors, the doctor etc. all call. I'm deeply entrenched in her life...

And while there have been days, days I'm not proud of but will admit to, when I've resented my place, my role, the duties -- and the unfairness of this all -- I've never not been the go-to-girl for all things Allie.

When she moved out, when I no longer had the daily grind of parenting, I was uncomfortable. But between all the phone calls and the time spent with Allie, I still have that connection, that sense of, well, guardianship. Now, in less than two weeks, that will end. Or rather I should say that it's supposed to end, but I suspect it will shift somehow.

I imagine that the counselors and other professionals, and the school, will still call me. And I'll have new calls from the guardian. But my voice will not be the final one, The Law. After nearly two decades of advocating, fighting and explaining, of being the voice they must listen to (or making myself be taken seriously, as the case may be), I won't be it anymore.

That's a big adjustment for me. And right now I'm trying to help Allie with it, explaining what's going on and why, even if I've not processed it all yet myself. That's often the job of a parent, to help the kids first and then work through it on your own.

So at least that part's normal.

Dead Animal Art

Last Sunday, on our way home to Fargo from Wisconsin, we stopped at Georgine's and I got a pheasant. Not a live one, but a dead one. A taxedermied, mounted pheasant.

Now I'm fascinated with taxidermy.

I know, I know, after being so anti-anthorpomorphized animals how can I love taxidermy? I don't know 'how' I do; I just do.

Especially these Victorian taxidermy tableaus by Walter Potter.




But I do. Heaven help me, I do.

Note that the postcards are similar to the vintage animal cuteness. (Which means I may start collecting the postcards first for space -- and money -- reasons.)



While I may never be able to afford a Walter Potter taxidermy tableau, or even a fancifully grotesque anthropomorphic work by Tia Resleure (below), I am utterly smitten.



Since Destiny is in a black 'Gothic' phase (God, please let it be a phase!) -- and she just dissected her first frog yesterday (she waited all school year long for this monumental event) -- I figured she'd be all over this idea. Especially the creepy plush dolls with taxidermy innards (Tia's reliquaries). But Des didn't like them.

Maybe it's just because I like them. If I had wrinkled my nose or been repelled away from the monitor, I bet she would have loved them.

But I love them and I can't not let it show.

I'm sure my nose would wrinkle if I was involved in the process of taxidermy. I was the one who in biology did all the drawing while my lab partner did the actual dissection of our frog and the sheep's eyeball. :shudder: And I have thrown out entire chickens because while making dinner I couldn't get that bag of organs out easily and ended up with that organ meat under my fingernails.

I'd like to say that I'd get over it. But I might just be one of those who buys and doesn't create. The world needs this too, right? After all, someone needs to support the arts.

And then Destiny would likely fall in love with taxidermy. *wink*

Lessons In Walking

I was walking home from my counseling appointment last week and a man on a bike, who appeared to be related to Stephen Colbert's friend "The Professor", approached me.

He stopped at my side and mumbled something. He seemed to be talking to me, expecting a reply but I didn't understand him so I replied, "Excuse me... What did you say?"

"Do you know where Main Street is?" he asked looking a bit more upset at having to repeat himself.

I've lived here 4 years now, but I still don't have a clue. Prior to his question I was actually impressed with by myself for walking home by myself because there's a very good possibility that I'll get lost (if only due to nerves about putting myself in such a situation), but now I was embarrassed not to know directions for this man.

With all the stuff in my head the best things I could say was, "Sorry, I wasn't born here." (Well, "I'm not from around here" isn't true, and any other version of the truth would take hours from this man's life, so that's what I said.)

His response was to straighten up and pull away from me & protect himself from this crazy woman. As he said, "You're not from Fargo?!" his eyes widened with fear and he took off before I could say anything else.

In that moment I became the crazy one to be suspicious of.

Flash forward to this week.

Hubby is late to pick me up from the counselor's office, so I start walking home again down the same street where I met last week's Professor. Hubby drives down the street and toots his horn because he can't stop on the street, so I assume he'll drive around the block and meet me at next cross street ahead. As I approach the corner I look to my left, down the street, and I can just make out our van approaching.

A young man on a bike, clearly annoyed, yells to me, "It says 'walk.'"

"Congratulations, you can read," I snipe back without thinking.

Then it hits me, this young guy looks more angry and upset than the Professor did; perhaps my snotty retort isn't so smart... Sure, hubby's almost here, and the biker has continued through the crosswalk, but what if I were alone and he hadn't? Shouldn't I know better than to piss off some guy who already seems pissed off -- and who looks like he can do something about it?

Then it hit me, if things were to head down hill I can always just say, "Sorry, I wasn't born here," and let that put the fear into him.

(Image of Jimmy Fingers, The Professor, from The Colbert Report, © Comedy Central.)

You can take the kid out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the kid.

Sometimes, this is how I feel about where I live...



Photo via Malls of America.

For more groovy retro shopping stuff, see this post at Kitschy Kitschy Coo.

Dogs In Hats

Awhile ago I posted at the end of an article about old chalkware collectibles that I was looking for a little hat for the large German Shepherd dog vintage chalk statue... Well, we got one in a lot of dolls we bought at auction:


Mr. Schultz, the GDS, is quite happy to have his ravaged ears less noticeable -- tho he does hope for more of a canvas fishing number. It would be more masculine. But for now it does the trick.

Not only is it a perfect fit for the plaster pooch, but it fits Miss Toodles...



It's quite difficult to take a photo of her. Toodles "Squirrel Face" Davidson III, a Cairn Terrier, isn't the sit-still type. But we eventually got a photo that wasn't all a blur.


Toodles, aka Toodle-Oodle-Oodle-O's (and her Toodle-Oodle-Oodle-Nose) is really my dog Ween's dog. I'll have to share pics of him too -- but that's even trickier. Ween is a mutt, and apparently part Aborigine, for he fears the camera. He thinks that box will steal his sweet soul.

Homemade, On-The-Fly Greeting Card For Kat

My dear friend is so sad.

It hurts me so to see her sad.

What hurts me most is knowing that however unintentionally, I have a part in her pain.

I am truly sorry, both for your sadness and my part in it.

Perhaps knowing this helps. And if we could hug, perhaps I could be forgiven.

Maybe you'd even smile -- and mean it.

(Drawn & written in less than 3 minutes -- including using phone to take the photo.)

Protecting Our Kids, Literature-ly

While we are busy removing the cigarette from the author's photo (in our quest to remove smoking from our collective history, the publisher should also make the following changes to Goodnight Moon. *wink*

Who Doesn't Like Cute Animals?

I know I'm awfully biased since I interviewed the folks at Noah's Pals, but I have to say just how much I love their blog. It's full of cute animal facts (and images) and written so kids can understand it.

Autie Moms

Autie Moms on MySpace has a great blog on Autism resources.

I missed the Larry King show on the subject, but there's a transcript here. I did see the show that The View dedicated to Autism and was a bit upset by a few things -- such as celebs making this a cause du jour, and the fact that there was/is free help -- if your child is under 3 (mine is 17, so we missed that). I watched the whole show and broke down in tears afterwards for many reasons... I feel like a child screaming, "It's not fair!"

Give Your Mama a Llama

I not only am delighted by Noah's Pals, a new collectible on the market which is great for children and families, but I got to interview the owners!

I really like that generations can collect together as an activity, as well as learn about animals -- and the animals are affordable. (Thank heaven!)

What Are Webkinz?

Have your kids been asking about Webkinz yet? If so, You Are About To Enter The Webkinz Zone.

Happy Birthday, Cat in the Hat!

Inspired by the Life-magazine article Why Can't Johnny Read?, Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat turns 50 today.

To celebrate, you may buy the book -- but most importantly, spend some time today reading with your child. And if he or she is 'too old for that, mom,' spend time reading in front of your child so they know the love & importance of reading.

Last weekend, my six year old son read to me -- an entire book for the first time. (I did my best not to cry with happiness through the whole thing.) He only consented to read one book to me, but afterwards I made sure he 'caught' me reading myself. And then, something even more miraculous occurred: we had a conversation about a book. Our first real conversation about a book!

I was reading a a biography of Tiptree (a copy borrowed from Gracie, who finally did her review) and Hunter came in the room. He looked at the book and said, "There's no pictures in there." Derek laughed. And I showed him that there were indeed photos, and he asked what the book was about.

"A lady who, a long time ago, went to the deepest jungles of Africa -- at a time when no other white people had. Africa was so 'new' that there were no elephants or gorillas or lions in zoos and not many here had seen them. She was just 5 years old and had to be carried in a hammock-type sling by men who had never seen a little white girl. She liked Africa, but was angry she couldn't hunt like her dad -- and her mom. She grew up and became an author. She wrote science fiction stories -- stories about men & women who traveled in spaceships to different planets. But she couldn't write as a woman, so she used a man's name to write and publish her stories. She was a woman, but everyone thought she was a man."

"Cool," he said, with eyes as big as saucers. "Is she still alive?"

"No," I said.

"How did she die?"

"I don't know, I haven't read that far yet..."

"Will you tell me?"

"Sure," I said. My eyes welling with tears... We had had our first real book conversation. Now I know he understands the power of reading.

The sad thing is, now that I've finished the book and know how she dies, I am hoping he won't ask me. A murder suicide is not something I want to share with a six year old.