Domestic Psychology

college freshman reboot

// August 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // aspergers, school, teenagers

Today was Tommy’s first day at Pellissippi State. We’re treating it like his freshman year of college, even though he spent a year at LMU. Well, Tommy is treating it like his freshman year. Everyone else in the family is prepared for one very exhausting semester of push, push, pushing Tommy to act like a student. Last year, Tommy ended up hiding in his dorm room all day and playing video games all night with the other not-going-to-class freshmen. It was a very expensive year of the summer camp Tommy never experienced. Tommy made friends and had a great time. I saved a message in my phone from one of the many days when I sent him a message to check on him. “I’m good. Normal. Happy.” He was happy because he was hiding in his room instead of going to class. This summer, he spent an entire day at Vocational Rehabilitation for aptitude/career testing. The results said he would be good at picking locks. Umm, I don’t think so. So, we’re trying college again with a much, much shorter umbilical cord.

During registration, Tommy constantly pointed out the students that he recognized from his high school. After freshman orientation, he told me a dozen things that his guide had told him about the school. When we met with disability services, baby geese waddled by the office window. All last week, we talked about being a good student. Last night, he went to bed early. This morning, he got up and ate breakfast cheerfully. Everything looked promising. After dropping Tommy off for his not too early 9:30 class, Doug and I tersely snapped at each other all day.

I picked Sarah up at the high school and headed to pick Tommy up from the college. Sarah was in an unusually good mood and her details about her day distracted me from my anxiety. We arrived on campus and Tommy texted that he didn’t want my help in the bookstore. I understood that, but sent Sarah in to check on him. They returned to the car and I asked Tommy to tell me about his day. Tommy talked the entire ride home. He told Sarah and I ALL about the cafeteria choices and the quality of the food. It did not fill me with confidence.

odds & ends

// August 30th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // knoxville, local, people, school

Since High School Tour 2009 will be published Tuesday morning, here is some of the stuff that won’t be included in the print or online versions of the tour.

While I sat in the school office, woman number one pulled out her cell phone to call someone and get copies of paperwork needed to complete the registration process. When she didn’t find the phone number on her SIM card, she asked the two women on the other side of the desk if they had a phone book nearby. The woman seated behind a computer, looked in all the drawers of her desk before mumbling that she couldn’t find her copy of the phone book. At the same time, the other woman looked away from the computer where she was typing and pulled a very nice smart phone out of her purse. “What number do you call for information?”

In another school office, on another day, a vice principal re-enacted a scene from “Pump Up The Volume.” I’m sure I didn’t have a p-p-p-poker face reaction, since she looked at me and declared that “they make us be this way.”

In yet another school building, a teacher actually wept for a student who made a series of bad decisions that led to a tragedy.

• One principal didn’t get the e-mail about my visit, but dropped everything on his schedule to spend more than an hour talking to me.
• All but one school spent over an hour talking to me and showing me the highs and lows of their facilities.
• The principal at a school my children have never attended, remembered my oldest child, despite having taught 1000′s of students over the years.
• One SMART principal told me exactly what her school needs first and what it already has second.
• Knox County Schools’ teachers spent their summer vacation painting, scrubbing and landscaping their schools.

The high school tours and the time I spent with school administrators was one of the best experiences of my life. I highly recommend that anyone who “hears” this or that about a school, call and schedule a visit to see and hear the truth.

Saturday night

// August 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // flickr

Warning: this is a poop story

// August 27th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // preschoolers

I’m not joking. If you don’t have small children and bathroom functions are not a constant topic of conversation for you, look away now. I am going to talk about it. Really. Are you still reading? Okay, here goes:

As I looked out back to peek at Amy and Evan jumping on the trampoline, I noticed the goofy dog eating something in the yard. The raccoons haven’t been in our trash lately, so I complained to Doug that Dharma might have raided the neighbor’s trash for a snack. I realized the trampoline was empty and went out front to see what the children were doing. At that moment, Evan trotted up to the house smelling extremely ripe. I asked him if he’d had an accident and he insisted that he hadn’t pooped in his pants. I tried checking, but he repeatedly scooted just out of reach while his voice became increasingly hysterical. “I didn’t do it. No poop in my pants!” Amy became the third person in our odd little musical number with her sing-song voice chanting, “E-van sti-inks. E-van sti-inks.” Eventually, Evan dodged left when he should have dodged right and I caught him. There was definitely some poop gluing his undies to his skin. I took the screaming objector in the house to begin the hazmat procedures.

After a completely disgusting clean-up, Evan recovered from the indignity of it all and happily played with the five thousand toys accompanying him in the bathtub. I started in on my tired, old ‘poop goes in the potty’ routine. Without even looking up from the shark that was eating the pirate duck, Evan repeated his story. “I did NOT poop in my pants.” But then, he added a new detail. “I pooped on the tree.” Now, I admit that we have ignored Evan’s obsession with peeing on trees, because, well, a tree is better than wet undies. Somehow, it never occurred to me that the child who hates sitting on public toilets would try to poop outside. I called Amy in the room to tell me her side of the story.

“Amy, did Evan go poop outside?” “Yes. He was jumping on the trampoline and then he said he had to go potty, so I told him to pee on the tree and he got off the trampoline and he pulled down his pants and then he bended over like this and he pooped on the tree.” At this point in the story, you have to imagine five or ten minutes of stunned silence as I just stood there, slack jawed. Evan doing belly flops that sent actual waves of water across the bathroom floor, shocked me back to reality. The flood was mopped and the clean child chose space monkey pajamas for the evening. I went to report the incident to Doug.

“He did WHAT?” “You heard me. He did that thing a bear does in the woods.” Doug tilted his head to dislodge the image or maybe he was trying to shake a thought free. “Soooo, he did just like the bear in the Charmin commercials.” “Yes! It was exactly like that!” A slow grin spread across Doug’s face that revealed something wicked was about to be said. I tilted my head down and looked at him through my eyebrows, anticipating something wildly inappropriate. He leaned back in the chair and spoke slowly with the grin never leaving his face. “I know what Dharma was eating.”

Northshore

// August 26th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // child welfare, school, travel

This picture was taken three years ago, on Northshore. This is what Northshore looks like on winter mornings around the same time that the elementary bus arrives. It is a dark, dangerous road that has a roadside memorial every few yards. Some of those memorials are recent enough that it is still painful to see them. The traffic is heavy and the drivers exceed the speed limit. Driving home from a meeting one night, I witnessed an act of road rage on Northshore. A car deliberately rear-ended the car in front of them and then they dashed around their victim and sped away. The car that had been bumped, took off in hot pursuit. It was an ugly thing to watch and although I reported the incident to the police, I did not “follow them” as the 911 operator suggested.

Despite the nearby businesses that my older children love to frequent, I don’t allow my teenagers to walk on Northshore. It is just too dangerous. I don’t walk on Northshore. I would call the man around the block who runs a taxi service before I would venture out on Northshore on foot. Why would Knox County Schools think it is acceptable for elementary age children to stand on one of Knoxville’s most dangerous roads? How can they possibly justify putting children in harm’s way on a bus route that begins at 7:10 and ends at 7:13, with the excuse that they don’t have time to add three minutes to their route? This is unacceptable. Knox County Schools need to do the right thing and move the bus stop back to where children have been safely waiting for the past few years.

Update: Knox County Schools has returned the spot to its’ much safer location. Thank you!

first day of preschool

// August 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // flickr, preschoolers

Last year, Evan’s preschool asked parents to create a collage that would introduce their child to the teachers. This was our first attempt:

This year, for an assortment of reasons, which actually include a crazy stalker, we switched preschools. The new preschool asked for a family picture. We don’t have an official family picture, so we made a new collage.

We should do this for each child. Don’t you think the high schoolers would like to turn in a collage with their fees and permission forms? Oh. Well, I’m still going to send one with Evan to Kindergarten next year.

rhetorical questions – back to school

// August 24th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // kid quotes, school

“Do you really think you are going to wear that?”
“Was I supposed to bring that home?”
“You weren’t going to eat that, were you?”
“Are you sure you need this today?”
“You washed my ___ last night, didn’t you?”
“Can you write another check?”

household math

// August 23rd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // clothing, home

SAT prep math problems of the day:

If a bedroom closet is 5′ x 8′ and your clothing occupies 18 square inches of that space, what are the odds that a minor flood will get your clothing wet?

Estimate the length of time that will elapse between a declaration that the laundry is done and a household disaster or illness based biohazard which instantly creates a week’s worth of dirty laundry.

one-dimensional

// August 20th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // blogging, people

One dimensional people are perfect. They must be perfect, because aside from the results of their “What Muppet character are you” Facebook quiz, the way they present themselves in public is more filtered and phony than the SEC could ever dream of becoming.

One dimensional people never talk about what a married couple does when they have ten minutes alone. They don’t voice opinions that are different from the people around them. One dimensional people don’t take risks or change their plans. They never need anti-depressants. One dimensional people are more interested in how they appear to others than in how they feel.

One dimensional people’s children never have bad skin or psychological growing pains. Their children may be six or seven years old, but they are handsome young men and mature young women. One dimensional people’s children never do stupid stuff. Their children are the very best at all academic and athletic endeavors.

Our family is composed of real, 3-dimensional human beings. People who know our family in real life know that we are a big,*loud, messy family who love each other completely. We learn from our mistakes instead of denying them. We care about our schools, community and world. We don’t ignore the things that are broken. We share opinions and ideas in an effort to cooperatively make things better. We are able to laugh when we fall down and kick ourselves if we don’t get back up again. Being the same person when someone else is looking, as who you are when you are alone, is quite liberating.

When I hear about one-dimensional people intimidating people who are speaking out to make things better, it makes me angry. The courage and conviction to speak will do far more good than superficial pretentiousness. Don’t hide yourself from the world. One-dimensional people have equally flat and phony relationships with others. One dimensional people want to flatten you into a cartoon caricature of a person. They want you to be one-dimensional. You’re better than that. You have opinions and ideas and a desire to grow as a person. You care about people other than yourself. You have a real personality. You are 3-dimensional.

*Some of us are louder than others.

Evan the Menace

// August 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // kid quotes, preschoolers

“Evan, I am walking downstairs to put clothes in the dryer. Please behave.”
“No. I gotta be BAD today.”

I really wish his preschool had an opening in the three half days a week program. Two half days doesn’t seem like enough time to get the bad out of his system interact with peers.