Brilliant … But Bouncy

Everything You Said Has Already Happened.

This morning, I left a copy of Dylan’s semester contract on the breakfast table. I highlighted the part that said, “Be downstairs at 6:45 – not 6:50.”

A few minutes after he came downstairs (still five minutes late), Dylan said, “Stop being so smart!”

I wasn’t talking. I was making his lunch and had my back to him. “I didn’t do anything!” I wailed. “And I’m not all that smart.”

“Yeah, but on here you were,” he said. I turned around, and he was pointing to his contract.

“Oh good,” I said. “I like to be smart.”

“I don’t like it, but everything you said on here was true,” Dylan answered. “The first time I read this, I didn’t even pay attention to the part about consequences. But now that I’m looking at it again, I realize that everything you said has already happened.”

“You mean, now that you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, things have changed?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“So what does it say?”

Dylan read:

You will be labeled “dependable” again. You will be considered “mature” and “responsible” (even if you are still your regular, playful self). Teachers will develop a new respect for you and your intelligence. People will start to recognize the kind, funny, genuine person you are, and your attitude toward people could improve. You will recognize your own self-worth. You will realize how much you can do, once you decide it’s worthwhile to actually do it. You will realize the Tortoise had it right, and the Hare … maybe not so much.

Your stress levels will actually drop. Your grades will improve. Your GPA will go up. You may even find a teacher by the end of the year who is willing to write you a letter of recommendation for college. And you might even turn around the beliefs of your drama director, who could give you a larger role in the musical next spring. You will prove to them what we always knew: that you can do it all, if you take it one step at a time.

“And all of that has happened already!” Dylan said, with genuine surprise.

“That’s awesome,” I said. “And you’ve only been doing this for a few weeks. Imagine what will happen if you do this until the end of the year!”

There was a flicker in Dylan’s eyes that made me realize I was pushing my luck.

But hopefully, he’ll keep going anyway. It’s amazingly wonderful to see.

He Cheated!

Shane started playing league ping pong a few weeks ago. I watched while he was in a match with a much younger boy.

I didn’t like what I saw.

Shane made a shot and the kid slammed it back, completely missing the table. “That’s my point,” the kid said. “It hit the table.”

“What?” Shane asked, perplexed.

“It was my point,” the kid said again. “The ball hit the table.”

“Okay,” Shane said.

That ball never hit the table, I thought.

They played another point. Shane hit the ball back and it hit the net, then fell onto the other side of the table. As unlucky as it was for Shane’s opponent, legally Shane should have had the point. But…

“That shouldn’t have gone over,” said the kid. “I get that point.”

This went on and on and on. Shane kept shrugging, confused, but accepting the kid’s word as if Shane had no idea how to play ping pong.

He’d never met a cheater before. And though Shane was five years older than his opponent, he had no worldly wisdom on which to draw. He simply gave away point after point after point, until the kid had won the match.

Afterward, the boys had to write down their scores.

“He cheated!” I said, looking at Shane – but loudly enough for both boys to hear. The kid looked at me guiltily. “You cheated!” I shrieked. I started to nitpick about each point that the kid had stolen from Shane.

The kid’s dad came rushing over. He didn’t look at me. “You won the game,” he said to his son. “You won the game so you write that down.”

“He cheated the entire time!” I shrieked.

The father ignored me. He didn’t defend the boy’s actions – but he certainly condoned them.

Ten minutes later, that same dad was watching his daughter play ping pong. He was berating her for every point she lost. She was older than her brother, and cringing at every word he said. In fact, it looked as though she didn’t want to play the game at all. She struggled through, clearly not wanting to play, and lost the match.

I realized quite suddenly that their dad was the problem – even more so than the cheating child. He was raising kids to win at any cost. And as a result, he was raising a cheater and a quitter.

I was disappointed that Shane didn’t stand up for himself. We talked later about how to do that. But I was proud that he hadn’t sunk to the boy’s level, tried to steal points, or given up on himself.

Shane was raised to be kind at all times. The Golden Rule is still the most important one we have.

And Shane lives by it, wholly and well, every day and in every activity. And while he may have lost that ping pong match, he will go much farther in life, and be much happier, than that cheating ping pong player – or the cheater’s father – ever will.

We Prepare to Kill Before We Listen.

Like most people, I am horrified about what’s been happening with guns. Last week, I told my kids not to run if there’s a shooting, but to fall to the floor. I hoped it would increase their odds of survival. I can’t believe I had to tell my babies what to do “in case” someone opens fire with an assault rifle. But I did.

And when something violent hits as close to home as it did yesterday, I jump way beyond “horrified” to “utterly terrified.”

Yesterday, my dad was driving down the street, thinking about doctors. My dad’s body isn’t cooperating with him lately, since he’s 75 and hasn’t stopped moving since someone handed him a basketball in 1955. So he decided to call his doctor, and picked up his cell phone to find the number.

I am not condoning using a cell phone while driving. In fact, it’s a horrible idea. But he wanted to call the doctor, and that’s how he was going to do that.

A policeman saw my dad, phone in hand, and assumed he was texting – which is highly illegal in our state, as it should be everywhere.

So the policeman hit the flashing lights. My dad, who would never text and drive, pulled over immediately. Wanting to explain the situation, my dad started to get out of the car.

And that’s when the policeman pulled out his revolver, and aimed it at my dad’s head.

My dad froze. His life flashed before his eyes. One second he was driving down the road and the next, he was at gunpoint. My dad is a 75-year-old white man. If he had been black, he might already be dead.

Instead, eventually, the gun was holstered and my dad was allowed to drive home.

But just as quickly as my dad realized that he shouldn’t have gotten out of the car, he could have been killed.

My dad shouldn’t have gotten out of the car. Anyone who has ever seen an episode of Law and Order knows that. But my dad made the grave error of assuming that the policeman was a civil human first, and an officer of the law second. 

In this instance, there was no room for civility. And this is our society today. We prepare to kill before we listen.

I have spent a lifetime reminding myself that people are inherently good and that I don’t have to be so afraid all the time. But the media is constantly cajoling me to believe otherwise. And this policeman obviously was trained to expect the worst, all the time.

Sadly, this is a lesson I now have to convey to my teenagers.

Kids, I will say, for your own safety, I need you to know: you can’t trust anyone, not even a police officer, to be rational. So you always have to be the rational one.

They already know not to use their cell phones in the car. But now I have to also explain that if they are ever in the company of a policeman, they should not even move. Be respectful, yes. But also be still. Be very, very still.

This isn’t what I wanted to teach my kids. I remember my childhood as all about bicycles and ice cream. I thought policeman were like Andy Griffith, and guns were those green plastic things we filled with four ounces of water.

Whatever happened to that world?

It Was My Life.

On the way to Dylan’s IEP meeting, I had one clear, repetitive thought:

This is my favorite thing to do.

And this year – Dylan’s junior year of high school – was my last year to do it. Next year, we’ll meet to discuss Dylan’s transition to college, hopefully. But we won’t need to meet and rebuild the 39-page document that we started building when Dylan was in second grade.

A meeting like this should not be my favorite thing – for so many, many reasons. I mean, who wants to have a kid who has such specialized needs that his teachers and administration have to meet with his parents every six months for years?

Yet, I do. I like my kid having these particular special needs. I am sorry it has been hard for him, and I am sorry it has been hard for us, and I am sorry for all the things in the future that will be difficult in his life because he has such serious ADHD.

But I wouldn’t change him for the world. And while researching ADHD at home has kept me busy – quite literally – for years, having this IEP has given me a glimpse into the school environment – the one place that I wouldn’t have been able to really know without it.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know all of Dylan’s teachers. They’ve all been such unique personalities, and so many have taught me things about how to deal with (and not deal with) Dylan. I’ve learned a lot about what really goes on in the classroom, how Dylan handles it, what he does to cope, what he does to distract himself.

In a way, I guess, the IEP has kept me in touch with my son’s world. And going to the IEP meetings every year has given me a chance to voice my observations, my concerns, and my opinions, even if most people didn’t want to hear them.

Over the years, I’ve offered input on so many, many, many ADHD-related topics. I mean, it was my life – my life, even more than Dylan’s. Since that first month of first grade, when he wrote “I hate school” in his reading journal, finding ways to help Dylan has been my entire life.

But this year’s IEP meeting was brief. Whereas our first IEP meeting included a principal, vice principal, special education coordinator, speech therapist, case manager, counselor and a teacher, this year only Dylan’s case manager showed up. Two teachers stopped in for five minutes. Dylan’s counselor came by for less than a minute. And a vice principal showed up just as we were wrapping up.

But mostly it was just the case manager, Bill, Dylan and me, chatting about how Dylan should prepare for college, what classes he should take next year, and how he should continue his exemplary behavior for the rest of this semester.

And then we all went our separate ways – as usual – Dylan back to class, the case manager on to another student. We smiled and shook hands and said, “Take care.”

And no one else seemed to notice that it was the last time we’d be doing this. No one else seemed to care.

But I started to cry.

Will He Continue To Do It?

After a few weeks of his “last chance-last semester” contract, Dylan is still working hard to make sure nothing is missing.

He checks with his teachers every day. He does homework at home. He tells me what needs to be done, sometimes, almost as a way to remind himself. (I don’t remind him.)

Dylan gets up for school on time, except for one day – mentioned in a prior blog – when he didn’t. None of his teachers are complaining. I am still getting emails from them, saying he is doing well.

He missed a class because of Ski Club one day, and his classwork was “missing.” So he did it, and turned it in right away. He even made sure that the teacher emailed me to let me know that it was in.

We have an IEP meeting scheduled for Dylan soon. I am wondering what to discuss at that meeting. Do I judge his behavior by the past seven years, or by the past 20 days?

Dylan’s case manager said, “We’re probably not making any changes to his IEP this year, so we can spend some time discussing his schedule for next year.”

We surely won’t need to make any changes to his IEP this year. In college, there will be no IEP. There will be extra time allowed for testing, probably, but his professors aren’t going to allow for “extra time” to get things done. Now that I think about it, maybe we should explain the concept of “extra time” to Dylan now.

Dylan obviously can do it. He knows how to do it. He is able to do it. At this point, it’s just his choice. Will he continue to do it, to ensure his own future?

I am just sitting on the sidelines, like I’m watching a really close-scoring game, and holding my breath.

I Walk Through the Familiar Front Door.

Sometimes I work as a substitute teacher at my kids’ former elementary school.

In a way, this is fun. I know my way around the school, because I volunteered there so frequently. I know a lot of the staff and teachers, some who have been there since long before Dylan started kindergarten. The school has a lot of good teachers, and it’s a generally positive environment.

But in another way, working at their old school is not fun. In fact, it sometimes strikes me as devastating.

On the short drive to the school, I don’t have to think. I drove that path so many times, I know it by heart. It was a drive I treasured, because I had chattering kids in car seats in the back of the van. There were sippy cups with chocolate milk strewn about, and purple-crayon-scrawled pages on the floor amidst stray Goldfish snack crackers.

Now the car is clean. The ride is silent.

Turning on the radio doesn’t help. There’s nothing to replace the sound of little kids being little kids.

So I get to school, and I park in the lot. I used to drive through the drop-off line, along with the other parents. I see the other parents now, and I remember the time I dropped off Shane on Dr. Seuss day, dressed as “Thing 2.” Except it wasn’t Dr. Seuss day at all, so six-year-old Shane felt completely out of place and rushed after my car in the parking lot – but he was too late. I got a call from the office asking me to come back and talk to my sobbing child. He was the saddest “Thing 2” in the whole world.

Then I walk through the familiar front door. I walk into the office and greet people I know so well, who don’t remember me at all.

Day after day, I would walk into that office and call Dylan out of class. I’d feed him a handful of almonds and go outside while he ran around the perimeter of the entire building. Exercise and Omega 3s, I’d read, were helpful for kids who needed to focus. I did this for a few weeks, until the principal found out what was going on and put an end to my “ridiculous” behavior.

“We can’t have parents coming in here and disrupting the school day,” she reprimanded.

Once, she appeared in a BMX bike show in the school gym. I took toddler Shane; Dylan was in kindergarten. The principal sat on a raised wooden platform while a BMX bicycle literally flew over her head. Everyone was awestruck.

That principal was all about test results and government funding. She retired way, way, way too late.

But now they have a new principal – a great one, who was the vice principal when my kids went there. I remember turning to her when we had real problems, and she always got results. She doesn’t remember me.

I can’t count the hours I spent pushing a breakfast cart for staff appreciation days, chaperoning field trips, running back and forth from the stage during school talent shows, volunteering at lunchtime, and watching school assemblies. I helped with so many room parties, I can’t count them all.

Now my boys are teenagers, and there are no room parties. Assemblies and field trips are rare. My boys listen somewhere while a teacher lectures. The good teachers find ways for the kids to actively learn – and my kids still have some good teachers.

I try to be a good one, too, even as a substitute.

Even though I am sad.

Do You Have the Dogs?

Since Shane was very small, he’s been a pug fanatic. I don’t know how it started or why, but he absolutely loves those pudgy, google-eyed dogs.

I don’t want a pug, but I found a way to (occasionally and temporarily) get some pugs for Shane. We transport rescue pugs for a local pug rescue organization.

Recently, we had the opportunity to drive three pugs from a small town in Virginia to a foster home in Maryland. To make Shane happy, I volunteered. We would be picking up the pugs about an hour from home, from another driver, and taking them to their final destination – a foster home, about another hour away.

According to Mapquest, the entire trip should have taken less than three hours.

But it was dark and raining, so the traffic was awful. It was like rush hour (on a Saturday evening) and our “highway” speed averaged a mere 30 mph.

We were only a few miles into the trip when I had a quick flash of flu-like symptoms, and determined that I was having a heart attack. What I actually had was a little wave of nausea, probably since I’d had a slight fever the previous day. But I went into a full-blown panic attack and started teaching Shane how to drive, in case I should suddenly pass out behind the wheel.

After a quick stop and some fresh air, I felt perfectly fine.

We arrived only 15 minutes late for our pug pick-up.

I picked up my phone to text the first driver, and got a barrage of group chat messages:

My GPS won’t work. Can somebody email me directions?

I sent directions.

Where are you now?

I am still here.

Do you have the dogs?

I don’t know where I am.

Uh-oh.

There was no explanation as to why the first driver wasn’t at our meeting place – or if/when the dogs would arrive.

We would have to wait.

So Shane and I had dinner and waited – a substantially longer time than it would have taken for us to pick up the pugs at their original location. We stood in the rain for almost two hours.

The first driver never arrived.

We eventually drove another 20 miles to pick up the pugs in a completely random location. There, the first driver offered no more than, “Sorry.”

We loaded up three pugs’ worth of stuff. Shane got in the back of the minivan with the dogs; then we drove them another 70 miles to their foster home – and then another 40 miles back to our house.

All of this happened in a steady rain, on unfamiliar roads, with huge patches of fog that never lifted. But we helped the dogs.

They hadn’t had any water, so we pulled over – in the downpour – and tried to get them to drink. Holding three dogs is no easy task, and these three constantly pulled and snorted and snuffled about. Only one of them drank water.

The dogs smelled so bad, we had to open the windows while we drove. They obviously hadn’t been bathed – maybe ever, and the smell was amplified by their wet fur. When we finally dropped them off, we raced to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts to wash.

I’d left the windows open so long that I had to mop the door wells, which had collected half an inch of water.

So it wasn’t a perfect evening.

But when I looked in the rearview mirror, as we were galumphing down the road with three pugs, Shane was smiling amongst those smelly dogs, utterly elated.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

I Am Not Afraid Right Now.

One morning, during the new semester in which Dylan had been doing so well, Dylan didn’t wake up in time to catch the bus.

I left his breakfast on the table, and packed his lunch box. I fed Shane, and packed Shane’s lunch box. We both waited patiently for Dylan to suddenly leap out of bed and come thundering down the stairs, but it didn’t happen.

Usually, I go straight to the gym after I drop off Shane at school. Instead, on this day, I put the dog in the car so that I would have to drop her off at home before the gym.

So I came home. Dylan was still asleep. I left him a note, and I went to the gym.

Before I even got to the gym, Dylan woke up and started texting me. He expected me to blow up, to be furious, to tell him how irresponsibly he was behaving.

“You’re just going to tell me I’m not responsible and take back all you said about how good I’m doing aren’t you” – he texted.

But I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even think it.

I thought, He really should use that new alarm I got for him a month ago.

“No,” I texted back. “Get yourself a backup plan. This is not the first time this has happened, but it doesn’t change what you’ve done so far. In fact, you should get up and get ready for school, feed yourself … and then start working on pre-Calc because you are going to miss that class.”

“Yeah I totally blew it you don’t think I’m responsible anymore” Dylan responded. He shot me three more texts, beating himself up even though I wasn’t berating him for anything. “I really hate myself right now,” he said.

“Stop hating and start doing,” I texted. “You only have to worry about right now.” I was in the locker room, just waiting for him to relax.

“If I do this with a job it won’t matter what you think they’ll just fire me,” Dylan said. “You always told me the future is the main thing I should worry about. You told me I’d never get into college or keep a job.”

He’s right, I thought. I did say that. And there’s a pretty good chance that I’ve been completely wrong with my approach. I was just so afraid ….

So that’s what I told Dylan: “Yep. I did. That was my fear. I am not afraid right now. Get up and do math. Read half a book. Be ready to go when I get there.”

Then I went to the gym. An hour later, I wrote a quick, truthful note to hopefully excuse him from missing his morning classes. Then I took him to school.

“Why did you excuse this?” he asked me. “Why are you being so nice about everything?”

“Dylan, you are old enough now to handle this on your own,” I said. “You’ve missed three classes, and you will have to face the consequences of that. You will have to make up that work. And you should figure out an alarm system that actually works. But it is not my job to worry about this. It’s your job, and you’re doing great.”

I kissed him on the head, like always, and told him I loved him.

Then Dylan went into school, just as the bell rang for fourth period.

I Wish I Could Remember All of Shane’s Quips.

One day, I whined about something via text to Shane. He texted back to me: 2bad. He was being funny – I mean, he wasn’t really being cruel and saying “too bad” because he didn’t care. But he was also being clever in using the number “two” for “too bad.”

The next morning, on our way to school, Shane said, “Three bad.” This was at least 14 hours after the initial text, which we’d never even discussed.

“What?” I asked, completely confused.

“I said, three bad,” he told me. “I thought you would recognize it after my text yesterday.”

Later, I was trying to get the germs off of my hands. “I need some serious hand sanitizer,” I told Shane.

“Well, I didn’t think you wanted the sarcastic hand sanitizer,” he said.

Both times, I laughed – because sometimes Shane takes me completely by surprise, and whacks me with this weird Shane lingo, that only Shane would invent – like sarcastic hand sanitizer. And I can’t help but suddenly wonder, without even a moment’s hesitation, what the personality of hand sanitizer might be.

I wish I could remember all of Shane’s quips, because it is very consistent fun. His taking things literally plays out in such interesting ways! I find myself laughing out loud more at Shane than I ever expected to – especially given his serious facade.

But sometimes, I am honestly confused. I can’t figure out how he got from one thing to another.

So one morning, when I was contemplating all of these crazy little quips, I said, “You know, Shane, sometimes you can be really hard to follow.”

“Hard to follow?” he repeated with a drawl. “I ain’t even going nowhere.”

Great News!

The first week of the semester is officially over.

Dylan started with a bang – being downstairs for breakfast on time almost every day, and doing work at home even though he’d been at school all day. He worked on assignments early, finished homework and turned it in when it was due, and finished at least one paper a full week early.

We were all rather astounded, although we’ve known for awhile that he could do it. We’d just never seen it happen for any length of time.

By the end of the week, I’d received not one, but two emails from his teachers. One said:

“I just wanted to let you know how much more organized Dylan is this quarter. He is asking me for assignments before they are due and turning in work early! I’m so impressed.”

The other one said:

“Great News! Dylan has been AWESOME during class.  He has done all his work. On Monday – he did his homework due Today, Tomorrow, and Friday!  3 homeworks were done early!!! WOW! He looked up the formulas and did it on his own. Nice Job Dylan!”

I nearly fell out of my chair. The promises we’d made in the contract were already coming true! Teachers are getting a new respect for him!

By Friday, it seemed as though he’d worn himself out. And maybe he had. He went skiing with the school ski club and slept long and hard Friday night. He had a long day singing on Saturday, and a full day with a friend on Sunday.

On Monday, I was worried that he might start off the week with a slump and a whine.

But no… on Monday, he got up and went to school ready to do it again! As usual, we shall see….

I hate to even admit it, but I am seriously hopeful. I feel good about this semester. I think he’s actually going to stick to his plan, and follow through, and do what he needs to do.

And we’ll be there praising and supporting him the whole time.