When we moved into our current home, our next door neighbor was a retired couple. They were sweet and quiet and, many years later, they downsized and moved away.
The house was sold to a couple who have so many kids, I can’t count them all. I know there are at least four, and one of them was still in the womb when they moved in. Instead of a lovely garden outside, now there is a swing set, a trampoline, a huge swimming pool, and – oddly – a refrigerator. There are balls and toys littering the yard. They also own 200 cars, all of which completely blanket the street and their driveway at night.
Okay, 200 cars might be an exaggeration. But they do have lots of kids.
Yesterday, I came home and two of their children were racing up and down the driveway, a five-year-old boy on a scooter and a younger girl yelling, “Goggy! Goggy!”
When I looked for a goggy, sure enough, the tiny person was chasing an even tinier dog.
It’s a cute dog. It’s actually the kind of dog I might want, if I decide to get another dog. It’s brown with wavy hair and looks nothing like my dog, Xena, who is no longer with us.
In less than the time it took me to register the word “dog” in my brain, I wanted to cry. But it wasn’t just the new puppy reminding me of my loss. I saw the little boy on the scooter and the little girl running after that dog and without forming the words, my brain tossed out the idea: Not mine anymore.
I looked down my own long, empty driveway. There are no scooters, no balls left outside, no puppy chasing the children. There’s no one playing basketball under the rusty hoop, no one romping through the yard, no one squealing with delight for no apparent reason. Our trampoline is covered in leaves and debris, and no one can be bothered to clean it off, even for a few minutes of fun.
My kids are grown; they’re leaving home. They spend their afternoons without me, preferring the company of friends in a chat room to board games with their old mom. They’re heading for a new life, one that doesn’t include me, one that doesn’t include running and romping and jumping.
And in case that were insufficient reason to be melancholy, eleven years ago, we got a dog. My boys ran and played with that dog in the yard nearly every day – rain, snow or sun – until their little legs were too tired to continue. We took her for car rides, walks up the street, hikes in the woods. We took her camping and boating. We took her to the store, the library and school. She rode with us to two different elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school.
She was even show-and-tell at Shane’s preschool.
And now Shane is in high school. Dylan is on his way to college. And our beloved family pet is just gone. For me, those days are over. My time as “Mom” is dwindling down, and my neighbors are just starting up.
They have no idea how fast it will go, even if they try to hang on with every fiber of their being.
Dylan has never turned in a school form on time in his life. Since the days when his teachers physically removed parent permission forms from Dylan’s little red folder, no important school document has been turned in without great aggravation.
Until today.
This week – which has totaled only three half-days of school, thanks to snow and below-zero wind chills – Dylan had no trouble turning in his form.
In fact, he got the form, brought it home, made sure I signed it, then took it back to school, and made sure both his vice principal and his case manager signed it. Then he turned it in to his guidance counselor.
It was the permission form so that he could drop those extraneous three classes.
I just got a note from his counselor saying that, starting Monday, Dylan will be done with school after Period 4. He will take Radio Production with his brother, then AP Psychology, then his required math and English classes. And then he will be done for the day.
I guess we will not be discussing this next week at the IEP meeting.
Dylan is so incredibly happy. He feels like an enormous boulder has been lifted from his shoulders.
So I am happy for him. A little wary, but happy for him.
Dylan’s final – forever – IEP meeting is next week. One more semester until graduation. It’s very hard for me to believe.
The new semester started yesterday – a half-day, followed by a full-day school closing, thanks to snow. Dylan has had each of his seven classes for exactly 20 minutes.
And he wants to drop three of them.
Dylan came home with an idea – one that he’d already discussed with his school counselor. He believes that if he drops his electives, he can focus wholly on his academic subjects: math, English, AP psychology and radio production. He already has three of his four academic classes before lunch, so he wants to leave school at lunchtime.
“I wouldn’t have to focus for seven whole hours,” Dylan said. “I would only have to focus in the morning, and then I could get all my work done in the afternoon.”
He thinks having a half-day would be mentally and emotionally cleansing. He envisions working ultra-hard all morning, then relaxing and listening to – or making – music all afternoon.
But Dylan got a lead role in the school musical. Since he has play practice almost every day for the next two months, he would have to go back to school – or stay at school – to be ready for rehearsal. And he doesn’t own a car. Someone would have to drive him both ways.
I will not be driving him both ways every day for two months. I have a job.
So Dylan said, “My counselor already said that I can stay in the counseling office and finish my work whenever I can’t go home.” And there are places within walking distance (on days when it’s not so cold) that would allow him to sit and study.
If he were actually turning in his work on time, I’d be fine with him doing whatever he wanted in that time period. But I am still waiting for the evidence that the work will get done. ON TIME.
A shorter class schedule, of course, is more like a college schedule. Will this be representative of what he can do in the future? Or will it just be a way for him to do less in high school?
“I think it would really help me to concentrate on what I need to do, and get it done on time,” Dylan said.
Dylan is often inspired at the beginning of a quarter. And he is very inspired by this option.
Since he started taking high school classes in middle school, Dylan doesn’t need any extra credits for graduation. His GPA is up, and he’s already been accepted by several colleges. So he doesn’t need a full, seven-class plate.
What he needs are study skills and organizational skills. He needs to know how to force himself to get through his work, even when it’s boring, even when it’s not what he wants to do. He needs to develop the skills to carry him through college. He needs to know how to be responsible for himself and his work.
So we have some T’s to cross and some I’s to dot, but we are going to discuss this option with his IEP team. We’re going to figure out if this will be in his best interest – or detrimental to everyone’s sanity.
I keep expecting that I will feel better with time. Dogs die. It happens. Time will pass and I will feel better. I will feel happy about the time we spent together.
The other day, I was feeling so much better that I forgot, momentarily, that Xena wasn’t here. I looked around and said, out loud, “Where are you?” As if she might suddenly appear.
And then I did the unthinkable. I answered myself the way Xena would have answered.
I responded as if I were Xena, in that silly voice I’d used for ten years to “be” Xena, to represent her thoughts. It was the voice I used when the boys were little, when they needed to understand how a dog might feel if you pulled her tail. It was the voice I used when we were riding in the car, when she had her head hanging out the window, “showing” the boys what was out there while they giggled in the backseat.
It was the voice I used when Xena was excited – as she usually was – to express (and add to) “her” excitement. Eventually Xena learned that when I used that voice, it had something to do with her – and it always made her tail wag.
“Where are you?” I asked, moving “her” pillow on the couch, so she would have it where she wanted it, just as soon as she returned.
“I’m right here, Mama,” Xena said, out of my mouth, before I realized what I was doing. “I’m always right here.”
Because that’s what she would have said, if she’d been here. Because she was always right here. Right next to me. ALWAYS.
And now she’s not.
And then I broke down sobbing again. Because she’s not here. She can’t be here anymore. And she belongs here.
Today my baby turns 15.
When Shane was born, he cried so long and loud, he popped a little hole in his lung called a pneumothorax. They had to rush him to the NICU at the hospital and plonk a pacifier into his mouth so the little hole would heal. Conveniently, the birth had been so traumatic for both of us that I was allowed to stay in the hospital for three whole days, healing with him.
I remember the first time Shane heard my voice, how his eyes got huge like blue saucers. He knew me. He knew who I was. That simple fact made me ecstatic just to be alive.
When Shane was in preschool, he was sweet and quiet and content. But one day, the teacher pulled me aside after school. She explained that Shane had spent his recess with his head inside a giant dollhouse – the rest of his body didn’t fit. She couldn’t get him to come out of the dollhouse, so she thought we might want to talk to him and see if anything was wrong.
We talked to Shane and indeed, something was wrong. A little girl had told him he couldn’t go down the playhouse slide. Rather than standing up for himself and sliding, he stuck his head in the dollhouse. That very day, we started to spend more time with Shane, working on social skills and getting his needs met. I, especially, gave him as much positive encouragement as I could. Until that point, he’d seemed so content, we thought he didn’t need it.
When Shane was in kindergarten, his teacher noticed that he wasn’t looking at her during carpet time. He would yell out the answers to questions and always knew what was going on, but he sometimes sat on his head instead of “criss-cross applesauce.”
He’d sat on his head his whole life, I told the teacher. Even when he was a baby, he’d put his face on the floor and his diaper in the air. He seemed perfectly content, like he was soaking in the music of the world. The teacher thought we should have a meeting with the special ed team, just in case.
Thank God for that teacher. Shane had a vision processing disorder and couldn’t focus visually on anything. He spent two years in vision therapy, which allowed his vision to catch up with his other, exceptionally alert senses. Without vision therapy, Shane would never have been able to read.
When Shane was finally able to express himself, he discovered magic and became a performing magician. He loved acting classes and the science museum and writing stories and songs. He adored his few close friends and idolized his big brother. Shane was always interested in numbers and cared more about how many pages were in a book than what the story held.
He is sensitive and sweet, yet ultimately cool. He’s so laid back, sometimes you have to guess if he’s paying attention. But he soaks in everything around him, like a giant, happy sponge, and uses it to his advantage – often in increasingly humorous ways. Shane is incredibly funny.
Shane has been a delight in my life for the past 15 years. He’s made me realize that being slightly off-center is not just a good thing, but a wonderful and exceptional part of being real. Shane has made me appreciate the way I am, just by being who he is. And “who he is” is so incredibly special, I can’t even begin to put it into words.
Happy birthday, Shane. Thanks forever for being you.
After Dylan’s disastrous attempt at turning in his school work on his own, I emailed his teachers. My email went something like this:
In order to prepare Dylan for college, we are trying to allow him to complete and turn in his own assignments ON TIME, without any “encouragement” or “help” from us. If he doesn’t know how to turn in high school work on time, he will never be able to keep up with the work in college.
Dylan has assured me that he has turned in ALL of his missing work. We are just trying to determine if he’s actually turned in his work, or if he’s still completely unaware of which assignments are missing. We just want to know if there is any hope for a collegiate future.
His teachers’ responses were completely unexpected.
“He is still missing four assignments,” one teacher said. “A fifth one will be due today. He is usually aware of what he has not completed and turns it in as soon as he’s aware.”
I wasn’t sure what to think of this. Dylan is missing four or five assignments – but he’s turning it in quickly? According to what I was seeing online, Dylan was missing 15 assignments in this class. Maybe what I was seeing online wasn’t all that accurate.
A clue came from another teacher, who said, “Dylan is caught up on his work; I just need to grade it and put it in the grade book. He’s been very good this year about checking in with me without prompting and making up his work before I’ve even had a chance to ask him about it.”
Without prompting? Briefly I wondered if this teacher knew my son. But this is actually the second time he has had this teacher. I guess he’s improved tremendously since 10th grade!
The most telling response came from Dylan’s AP teacher – where he is doing college-level work and, apparently, doing it quite well.
“Dylan has turned in all of his late work,” his teacher said. “He has been verbally proving himself in class each day. The information is in there! I truly believe he will do well. He is so insightful and has so many brilliant moments in class that I believe he really is pulling it all together now.”
Dylan is pulling it all together. The disorganized, late, confused, frustrated son I’ve seen at home is pulling it all together at school! Insightful. Brilliant. THAT is the Dylan I know from childhood! He’s emerging!
We still have months to observe his behavior. We still have months of prayer. But we may have to pay for college after all!
Every day after school, the boys come home and go straight up to their respective rooms. They shut their doors and I don’t see them for hours.
Sometimes I whine during dinner. “Nobody talks to me anymore,” I say. Or, if I think about it, I ask if anyone will ever play a board game with me again. The kids will talk during dinner. Mostly they make fun of me for being … well, me. This is a great source of amusement for them.
So I drive the kids to school in the mornings. This, I think, is an opportunity for me to bond with my children, stay connected, find out what’s going on in their lives. I also throw out reminders about what they should think about, you know, during their day. The reminders are probably unnecessary and I can guarantee they are unappreciated.
Mostly, I just want to have a conversation – any conversation – with them. I want to know how they feel about things, what they’re thinking about, what songs they’re listening to with those earbuds shoved into their ears. So on some mornings, I try to talk about my feelings.
Like today: “I had a dream about Xena last night.”
No sound from the backseat.
“Well, I guess trying to talk about my feelings is getting the same results as saying nothing at all, so I guess I will just talk to myself,” I said.
Shane piped up. “I said, ‘uh.'”
I didn’t hear “uh.” But truthfully, that is about as much as I get from them these days.
I feel bad that I didn’t appreciate their incessant talking, singing, humming, and maniacal laughter when we drove to elementary school. I kept telling them to tone it down, be quieter, blah blah blah.
What I wouldn’t give, now, to relive the insanity of their childhood.
It is snowing. There’s at least a foot of snow on the ground.
It doesn’t snow much where I live, so snow is always a time for celebratory sled riding. It’s also a good time to stay indoors, and cuddle up with a nice book.
Since they were tiny, little boys, I’ve taken the boys out sledding – even on tiny, little hills. The thrill of rushing down that hill in the cold is like no other. Even when they were toddlers, we bundled up for 45 minutes and drove out to the nearest ten-foot drop. It took longer for us to get dressed than it did to ride down that “hill” a dozen times.
As the boys got older, we found the biggest hill in the area: an enormous, whale of a hill that takes almost a full minute to descend. The walk back up is always a chore, but it’s worth it – just to do it again and again.
Last year was the ultimate. The boys were both old enough to tackle the hill completely on their own – and for the first time, I was able to ride down the hill with my dog.
Xena loved sled riding – and I didn’t know it until last year. She loved being in my lap and flying down the hill. She loved running back up the hill. At the age of 10, she was an expert sledder. She sat very still until we came to a stop, even when we slid 300 yards. And when we finally got to the top of the hill afterward, Xena could hardly wait to get back on the sled again.
So the boys went sled riding without me this year.
This year, I couldn’t go. Instead, I wanted to cry all day. I wished I had tried to put her on a sled much sooner, so she could have had that fun with us every year. And this year, I didn’t feel like having any fun without her.
Maybe I made the wrong decision. Maybe I should have enjoyed the little time I have left with the kids instead of worrying about the time I don’t have with Xena.
Either way, the snow day came and went, and I am still without my dog.
Dylan spent most of Quarter 2 “on his own,” doing what he does best. Unfortunately for all of us, what he does best is not school work.
By the time I checked his grades more than halfway through the quarter, Dylan had so many E’s and Z’s for missing work, I briefly wondered if he had actually gone to school. He had more than a dozen missing assignments in his AP class, another ten or so in his math class, and he didn’t have anything turned in at all in his digital art class. He was even missing two assignments in English, which he’d kept current for the entire first quarter.
“Your dad and I have decided that we are not paying for college,” I said to Dylan one day. “Obviously, you can’t get your worked turned in at school. And college is school. So I hope you can understand that we are not going to be able to support you if you decide to go to college.”
“What do you mean?” Dylan asked, actually perplexed.
“I mean, we’re not giving you money for college. We’re not paying for you to go to college. We’re not giving you money. We’re not giving the college money. I mean, we’re not providing you with the deposit. This was your chance to show us you could do it, and you haven’t done anything at all.”
“I still have two weeks before the end of the quarter!” he wailed. “I can catch up! I got a 4.16 last quarter!”
“I don’t care about your GPA,” I told him. “We don’t need you to ‘catch up.’ We needed you to turn in your assignments on the days they were due. You didn’t do that, so we are not paying for college. Maybe you can afford community college, if you want a degree. But we’re not paying for you to keep doing what you’ve done all along. We just can’t afford it.”
I left the room.
About fifteen minutes later, Dylan found me folding laundry. “Question,” he said. “Is this like, the way it has to be no matter what? Or if I can show you that I can get everything in, is it possible that you can still help me with college?”
“I don’t know, Dylan,” I told him. “You haven’t been able to show us anything new in 12 years. If we’re going to change our minds about paying for college, we need to see some actual changes in your behavior. And right now, I’m not convinced that kind of change is possible. You’re waiting to hear from all of the colleges, which should be around March 1. I suppose if you get no missing assignments between now and then….”
“Well I can’t guarantee no missing assignments, I mean….”
“See, Dylan? It sounds like nothing is going to change,” I said. “In college, you need to have no missing assignments.”
“I will. I just haven’t been that motivated in high school. But I know I can get everything done on time,” he said.
“We’ll have to see some seriously noticeable improvement,” I said. “But I am not holding my breath. Your dad and I have waited years to see changes, and you’ve said all of this before. We just can’t afford to invest in someone who isn’t invested in himself.”
“Okay,” he said. “You will see.”
So far, I haven’t seen anything at all.
When I was first learning to understand Dylan’s screamingly strong personality, Kirk Martin’s program, Celebrate Calm, changed my life. I bought all of the CDs I could find, and heard Kirk Martin speak at least half a dozen times. I discovered that frustration and heartache are normal when raising a child like Dylan. Better yet, I learned (and re-learned) how to focus on Dylan’s strengths and encourage his successes.
I left each session with renewed hope for Dylan. But one question was constantly nagging, somewhere in the back of my brain. So one day, I asked Kirk Martin if he could answer it.
“What can I do for his little brother?”
Shane was in second grade. Whereas Dylan endlessly careened, Shane was laid back, quiet. “Children are all different,” Kirk Martin told me. “And not all children require the same types of parental guidance.”
Our house was chaotic. Even while practicing “calm” techniques, there was a lot of yelling. We didn’t do anything perfectly. Dylan and I argued for at least half a decade. Frustration levels still run high quite frequently.
Shane, though, sits on the sidelines. He is rarely involved, but he is almost always within earshot.
So a few years later, when Shane was 10, I asked a psychologist: “I spend so much time worrying about Dylan, arguing with Dylan, obsessing about how to help Dylan. And Shane is so laid back and quiet; I worry that he’s suppressing everything.”
After asking me a handful of questions about Shane’s behavior, the psychologist said, “It sounds like he’s handling his feelings in a pretty healthy way.”
Now, a few more years have passed. Life is less insane. Dylan has outgrown some of his rebellion; I’ve learned how to respond less explosively. But Shane is always nearby when the levee breaks.
Nowadays, Shane spends a lot of time in his room with the door closed. He wants only to eat junk, watch TV, and play video games. His room so messy, it’s almost uninhabitable.
Still, Shane does his homework; he gets good grades; he hangs out with his friends. He chats, texts and posts stuff, like every teen.
But I am worried about Shane. He hasn’t required the kind of parental guidance I’ve given Dylan for so long. In fact, he’s required almost no parental guidance whatsoever. And Shane still appears to be handling his feelings in a pretty healthy way.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what “healthy” looks like. I’ve handled almost nothing – my whole life – in a healthy way. And I wouldn’t recognize a normal, healthy teenager if one bit me in the face.
(Well, I suppose if one bit me in the face, it wouldn’t be a normal, healthy teenager. But that’s beside the point.)
I don’t know if Shane is okay. I’ve talked to Shane – about his room, for example, which looks like a hurricane just blew through. “I’m just lazy,” he said. But is that all there is to it?
Shane hoards things – and not in a compulsive, organized fashion. Is this a sign that something’s wrong, that he’s afraid to let go of his childhood? Or is this a sign that he’s a teenager?
He grunts at me now. He doesn’t hug me back. Shane is the kind of teenager I thought they made up for television shows and movies. He disappears even when he’s right in front of me.
I keep waiting for him to lash out, argue, self-destruct, or go into a rage. But Shane is still laid back and quiet. Maybe this is all perfectly okay.
How could I possibly know?
