Been there, done that, got the broken ribs

When, once upon a time, you took a path that led only to brambles and pits, you were muddled and confused while you tried to figure out what happened and how you got there. Then, a moment of epiphany came and you knew you had to get out. You spent some time looking around at how deeply you were tangled and then you went for it. You got yourself out, bloodied and bruised, but free. You ran the opposite direction. You spent time nursing the wounds and found you had some broken ribs and gave yourself time to let those heal.  Then, someone came along who decided that you needed to walk down that path again.  The difference this time was that you knew where it ended. You knew it ended with wounds difficult to heal and you dug in.  Oh, your new comrade tried to coax you into going, then that comrade tried to coerce you into going.  But you knew and you weren't going to land in the confused muddle again. So, you walked away. No one understood, but it was okay because you knew the end already. 

This is your brain on speech apraxia

When you have a child with any degree of learning disability, life becomes a challenge. There are roadblocks you have to navigate that the "average" child doesn't have to deal with. 

Sarah has apraxia of speech. As best as we can determine it is due to birth trauma.  She was born with very low APGAR numbers and she took a few minutes of intervention to perk up. Hers is not as bad as it could be. I am grateful for that. The condition brings things I have to figure out though.

If you research speech apraxia, you will find that it typically affects other areas of development. She's a little bit of an uncoordinated klutz and she is very picky about textures of food.

Through 4 years of speech therapy with some really great teachers, we got her past the worst of the speech issues. I don't believe you would ever know she dealt with this if you were engaged in casual conversation.  Unless you recognized that her hesitation in speaking to people she isn't completely familiar was more than shyness, you would think she was normal.  She doesn't speak to people much because her words don't often come out as articulately as she wants them to. When she's overly emotional, her speech issues show up again.

Last summer, she taught herself to swim--and she lost ground on her sounds. Her r's grew lazy again. She can't do all the things at once. She is very aware.

Now, we are facing a new issue. She has great ideas floating around in her brain, but her speech cannot keep up with those ideas and she is easily frustrated by her perceived lack. She feels stupid in this area and gives up easily. 

What's going on? She has to learn to write coherent passages. Getting the words in her head down on to the  paper involves mental acrobatics that just wear her down.  

I'm back to researching how to help her navigate this so that she can prove to the world that she is as smart as we know she is.  

We are all monsters

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a classic. It's a tale of horror. It's a tale of terror.  It's a tale of whining and moaning and groaning and complaining.

Victor Frankenstein is ambitious and arrogant. He cannot be taught by anyone that disagrees with him. (He sounds like so many college kids I currently know.) Those who disagree are pointless and worthy of nothing but disdain.  

He wants to create life because he wants to know, in his arrogance, how God feels. He works feverishly to accomplish this. It is only when he faces his creation full in the face that he realizes what a mess he's just created.  Instead of immediately fixing the mess, he flees.  Victor is a coward.

And he is weak for he falls into agony and illness as his horror looks him full in the face.

He spends and entire book whining about what a poor wretched creature he is; he brought it on himself by his refusal to take correction. (Proverbs 29:1) 

Now his brother is murdered and a young innocent girl is executed; Victor knows she did not do the deed but he opens not his mouth in order to save himself from being termed "mad." (Proverbs 17:5)

His monster then turns and demands what he wants in order to stop him from further murder. (The creature making demands of the creator?) When Victor finally decides not to give in to the demands, the monster murders more. 

Victor continues to bemoan his unhappy state--which he brought on himself.  

Then we hear the monster's side of the story. Let's be aware that the monster is as whiny as his creator. The monster began gently enough but humanity drove him from his kindness! Alas, the monster was forced to become wicked. Only wait a moment, the monster himself tells the reader that he chose his way out of anger. Yet, he feels he is not to blame because HE is the victim. No one can possibly feel as bad about life as he does. 

This book was horrible reading, and yet it sounds so much like America today. Everyone is a victim and no one is constrained to take personal responsibility. 

And one more thought, the monster is Judas Iscariot, though Victor is no Jesus.

An Odd Lot

The day was nice enough. It was sunny. The sunlight only served to invigorate us after days of El Nino had sucked our senses dry. We had chores to catch up on while our senses were enlivened by the warmth. In the middle of our busyness, BOOM! and everything went dark. (Yes, it was broad daylight, but my house eats light.) My firebug lit the candles, the other girls got out the board games. An odd thing these days, laughter. The girls sat around the candles and laughed and played together. The adults in the neighborhood all began to peek out.  "Lose power?" "Sure did. Did you hear the boom?" "Yeah. I think it came from the high school side of things."

Neighbors I've never seen came out of hiding. With no power there were no meals to prepare, no laundry to be done, no dishwashers to run. There were no imaginary internet friends to interact with. 

We all, rather stupidly, stepped into the sunlight. There was never so much block walking at once. One neighbor has a grandbaby I knew about but had never seen--before that day. We smiled at each other and waved. And we gawked while the power company sent their crews racing to restore us to normalcy. 

Truly, the explosion had come from the high school side as I thought, and the crew member who discovered the issue cheered. As did we all as we crept back into our caves. 

For a few strange moments, we all felt life.  It was if we, like Dr. Manet, had been "recalled to life." But, El Nino sent us more deluge and we all went back into our caves where the darkness sucked us dry again. 

What an odd lot we are.

IA:Initiate by John Darryl Winston

I have not been so struck by a book in a long time. IA: Initiate is set in the Exclave, the bad part of town. All the characters are there--the nuclear families, the broken families, the shop owners, the bullies, and the bullied. But Naz struck me.

I should let you know, in case you didn't, that I used to spend hours on Saturdays while I was in college in Glen Park which is a neighborhood in Gary, Indiana. It wasn't the worst neighborhood; it wasn't the best.  The thing I know is that I know Naz and Meri. I met them there in Glen Park. I loved them with my whole heart. Granted, Meri was only 3 and her name was Athena. But I can only imagine the spunk she had at 3 translated into "firecracker" by age 9. 

But Naz. Naz is so many of those kids. They were full of hopes and dreams and wishes and desires. The circumstances of their lives hadn't squashed all that joy out of them yet.  I don't know if they knew their lives were hard or not.  I can't say because they were happy.  

They had huge televisions in their living rooms but their coats were threadbare. They grabbed what they could to feed themselves and their siblings--often Twinkies or chips. Their mamas had been squashed and squished and their dreams were gone; but the kids' dreams lived and bubbled inside them. Their mamas hardly had a reason to get out of bed some days; but the kids could still dream.

As I read Initiate, I was back in Glen Park. I saw those kids again. And I wondered what ever happened to them. Did any of them have dreams survive? Did they become the hero that was inside their minds? Did any of them succumb to the same fate that squished their mamas? 

I'll likely never know. Where is Athena now? Did she maintain her spunk? Did she grow up and become a teacher? A mother? She had so much life in that little body. And my boys? What became of them? Did they excel in school? Did they get to college? 

When an author writes kids you know or knew once upon a time, and when he grabs your soul because you knew those kids, you know he's done a good job. 

WHY??

I have games on my phone. I have Kindle on my phone. While I'm playing games on my phone, no one has anything to say to me. As soon as I open my Kindle app, everyone needs me. Why do they hate me?

Confessions of a (formerly) fat girl

So, I keep buying smaller and smaller sizes. I am currently sitting here in a size 10 pair of jeans and I'm thinking they are a little loose. And I'm thinking that I don't think I look fat sitting here. But then I see myself in a mirror and I still see myself 30 pounds ago. I can still see the lumpy bumpy mess that I was.  Rod tells me he keeps doing a double-take because he has to figure out who I am. So, I'm obviously looking good, so to speak. But, not to me. Not really.

I guess it takes a while to get past that fat girl block. When will I see the me in the mirror that others see?

"You are looking really good." (Thanks, I guess. I'm wearing Spanx.)
"You are wasting away." (Well, I still have plenty of fat to lose, you know?)

Do we ever see ourselves how we are after weight loss? Or do we always see ourselves how we were?  I guess these remain to be answered. For myself at least.

BTW, I am in my goal size(s) but I still have 15-20 pounds left to lose.