Blog Archives
Expanding Our Horizons
I signed Lily and myself up for a Saturday workshop at a local university. It was called Expanding Your Horizons, sponsored by the American Association of University Women. www.expandingyourhorizons.org
It’s intended to introduce middle-school girls to possible careers in mathematics, engineering and science. Lily would attend 3 short classes led by women… ‘Using Scientific Tools to Study the Solar System’, ‘Wildlife 101’ and ‘Transportation Engineering’.
I would attend 3 parent classes, the most intriguing called, ‘Paying for College’. The title was just so tempting… like, maybe Oprah would show up and give every parent in the audience a big wad of cash. What I really expected was bad news, which is definitely what I got, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the workshop really helpful.
The speaker was excellent… very efficient. She was an ‘educational consultant’ and got right to the point. There was none of that incredibly tedious workshop read aloud a handout b.s. that I can’t tolerate. This woman knew all the ins and outs of admissions and applying for financial aid and she packed as much information into the hour as she possibly could. It was terrifying, but really great information.
The other 2 workshops were also outstanding, both of them more on the behavior of middle-school girls. I actually felt like I learned something at the workshop and enjoyed myself too. Lily had a great time also, and was bubbly when I met her afterward.
Of course, the drop off wasn’t without a little drama. Most of the other parents just dropped their girls off and left, but Lily was close by my side, mumbling, “Just take me home. I don’t want to be here. Let’s just go. Let’s just go.” I tried to calm her, but it just agitated her. I finally used the daycare method and did the… ‘say goodbye and go’. Lily told me later that after I left she’d hung back so far from her group that they hadn’t seen her and left without her. A volunteer spotted Lily straggling and helped return her to her group. Argggh.
I know it’s good practice for Lily to have to deal with new situations and the anxiety that comes with them. I also feel like it’s important that she have frequent exposure to a college environment, all the better if it has to do with math & science. So, definitely, for both us—horizons expanded.
Long Time-No Post
I knew this would happen. Events, evaluations and emails about my twice exceptional daughters fly back and forth so fast between me and both schools that I can barely keep up, let alone blog about them.
Just getting Lily clothed and fed is a major undertaking, never mind helping her keep up with school. But school seems to be going well lately. More on that later.
When I told her tonight that I want to start writing the Brainhugger Blog again, she said, “Why, because I make interesting fusses about things that you want to tell people about?” Well, yes.
Shower Power
I’m sitting here at the computer and keep hearing an alarm going off. I can’t figure out what that beeping noise is. Lily opens the bathroom door, damp, wrapped in a towel, carrying her alarm clock. She turns it off. I ask her why the alarm was beeping. She tells me breezily that she set an alarm for herself, so she’d know to get out of the shower in 20 minutes. She skips her naked, skinny self out of the room. It takes me a second to absorb what she just said. I replay it a couple of times in my head.
Only certain people will know why that little scene is completely amazing. I didn’t have to remind my twice exceptional ADHD daughter that it was time to get in the shower–7 times. I didn’t have to make my voice sound sharp the 7th time in order to spur her into action. I didn’t have to poke my head in the bathroom door and tell her that it was time to get out–3 times and 45 minutes later. I didn’t have to finally go in the bathroom, push the shower curtain aside and find her squatting on the shower floor, captivated by how the water runs down the drain. I didn’t have to remind her again that she needs to get out, so she’s startled out of her zen world of water rivulets and insists that she WAS getting out.
No, she brought her alarm clock down to the bathroom, set her alarm, got in the shower, washed herself, got out of the shower and dried off, before her alarm went off—all on her own.
How did that just happen? Did her frontal lobe just suddenly have a growth spurt. I have this strange feeling, like this weird recognition of a foreign world.
When you live with a kid like this, sometimes you don’t realize how much different daily life is. You just know that it’s hard. What? You mean, other parents don’t have to tell their kids the exact steps required for a task 20 times and then follow up to make sure that they’re actually starting the steps, continuing the steps and completing the steps?
As far as the magical shower alarm incident goes, my mind wonders if that’s how ‘normal’ kids act. Is that how much easier things are for the parents of ‘normal’ kids? Wow, it feels so light and airy and effortless. She has the idea that she should take a shower, she plans the steps and completes the steps, ALL BY HERSELF? I want some more of that. I’m still replaying it in my mind and I’m amazed by the ease of it. I don’t want to let it go, I guess because I know that moments like that are, right now at least, a special treat.
Fostering a souffle in your home.
Our local GT association and the school district’s ‘Department of Diverse Learners’ are sponsoring a GT seminar tomorrow night. The topic is ‘Fostering Autonomous Learners in Your Home.’ I won’t be attending. I’ll be too busy fostering autonomous learners in my home. Seriously, the kind of GT/twice exceptional learners I have, I don’t have time to attend seminars. I’m too busy helping them with their homework every night.
I’m not saying this seminar is an example of this, but I usually feel like most seminars, classes, workshops, etc don’t offer me much useful, day to day, in the trenches information. They all seem to be about 2E theory. I need practical, concrete steps on how to help my twice exceptional kids with daily living skills and school work.
Here’s a story that Lily and wrote together… the first chapter of her “Me” book at school.
Lily Souffle
I love cooking. I spend long hours in the kitchen making up my own recipes. Most of them are pretty good. I love mixing flavors to make something new. If there was one recipe that probably best describes me it would be a soufflé.
A soufflé is a light and fluffy baked cake that can be made savory or sweet. It’s a complicated dish that is difficult for even a French chef to master. Like me, a soufflé is not a simple recipe to create.
A soufflé is sophisticated and delicate. It’s hard to keep puffy outside the oven because even just a loud noise can deflate a soufflé. Sometimes I feel like I’m the same way. I can be sensitive to my surroundings, and I can be easily spazzed out by loud noises. But, if all the conditions are right, I can rise high.
A soufflé is a unique dish, devoured by young and old. I’m not saying that I’m devoured by young and old, but I do think that I’m definitely out-of-the ordinary. My ideas are marvelously strange.
Even though making a soufflé can be a bit of trouble, the delicious results are well-worth it. Eating a soufflé is quite an experience. It’s a fun dessert that can make people happy, JUST LIKE ME!
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