Falling Down

Caroline loves to roller blade.

Most mornings she puts them on first thing and as soon as she is home from school, 

they are back on her feet.  

She's content to roll around the kitchen and living room in and endless loop.

She roller blades outside in the back yard.  

She insists that it is "blading" and always corrects me if I ask her to take her skates off.

She eats dinner with them on.

She does homework with them on.

She reads books or watches TV and forgets that she has something attached to her body.

She's a wee bit obsessed.

Her happiest time of the day is when we walk our dog, Buddy.

She can rollerblade through the neighborhood at supersonic speed.

She hunches over like a roller derby queen and speeds up and goes as fast as her risky self will allow --

which is awful fast to an onlooking mom.

She's gotten good...like I said, they're beginning to just be a part of her body.

She is now practicing tricks -- like jumping over cracks in the sidewalk, or doing the
ice-skating maneuver of the one-leg-in-the-air-glide.

She's confident and proud.

And then a tiny stick got in her way.

She loves this one driveway we pass each day.

It has a big U-shaped driveway and she whizzes up one side of the U and spins and
whizzes down the other the side at top notch speed.  

One time she did it 11 times back and forth...even I was getting dizzy.

And then the unthinkable happened...she bit the dust.

It wasn't a horrible wipe-out as wipe outs go -- but she got a sizable scrape on the side of her belly and nothing else...but a big ole sense of what just happened?

She was shocked.  Stunned.  

Mortified and mad.

She was quiet as she roller-bladed home -- defeated -- and I couldn't yet tell just how injured she was so I didn't push.

At the injury inspection I made a comment about how it wasn't that bad...but she couldn't even respond.

Big, heaving, gasping cries came over her.

Tears and more tears.

I tried to cajole her into the shower...no go.

Tried to be soothing and understanding...not working.

I tried the brush-off -- really, kid, you're good...complete flop.

Then I just picked her up and undressed her and plopped a wailing, inconsolable kid into the tub.

She resisted the water, not wanting her scrape to sting, but I insisted, 

which only amped up the situation.

I noticed her forehead...speckled with red splotches like she used to get as an infant after crying really hard...and I tried to tell her it was all going to be okay...back to soothing as an option.

Finally, she leaned back into the water and let it all comfort her and released that soggy sigh that all people release after that final burst of crying, but somehow with kids it tends to be the checkered flag.  We made it.

I tried to help her notice it..."Look, Caroline, you made it over the hump.  You're going to be OK."

A tiny voice and tear-filled bue eyes looked up, 

"I think it was a stick." she reflected.

"It might have been, baby.  But, you need to know that the reason you like roller-blading is partly because of this right here.  You enjoy it because you feel excited.  You know you could fall down.  You accept that part...and you love when you don't."

"But sometimes you do."

"And then, you just have to get back up...and try again."

She slowly got out of the tub.

I snuggled my fresh-from-the-tub-girl -- a treat that rarely happens anymore.

I held her for the briefest of moments and treasured this chance.

I'm so grateful to be able to help her up and comfort her...

I hate it when they fall...

any of them.any.time.

But isn't that where so much of the real learning happens?

We all fall down.

We must get back up.

There really is no choice.

We can cry and scream and blame the stick but it doesn't matter...we will fall.

It's what happens after the fall that matters.

He's Not Broken, Your System Is

"You are here to allow the divine purpose of the universe to unfold.  
That's how important you are!" -- Eckart Tolle

So, my kid is graduating 8th grade.
He's moving to high school.
Leaving the only school he's known for 9 years.

He's excited about it.
He's ready for an adventure and the thrills of high school that he has watched happen with his brother and sister: proms, dances, dates, football games, hanging out with friends --
independence.

His speech teacher that he has had since he was two said it best:
"He's excited because every change he has had up until now has made his world bigger and better."
He thinks change is good.

He's upset to say good-bye to his beloved friend and aide, Sarah.
He's not too sure of how to get to his new school...or what to do once there.
He's trying to picture it and he can't.
But overall, he's pretty excited for it.

Then we went to his first hour of formal testing...with a stranger...who gave him candy...and let him quit when he said he didn't know the answers anymore.
Would she let any typical kid quit??
Is that being nice...or is that having low expectations?
Is this test just a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Sure feels like it.

My kid needs to enter a system...a formal system that specializes in disability...a system that prefers to segregate...
and list all of the things Patrick can't do.

I look at all of the things he can do.

A system that wants to prove its value and needs to keep perpetuating this myth of can't.
The myth of "experts".

I'm the expert on my kid.

I don't need a special ed credential to know what's the right placement for him.
It's the one he's had since kinder -- fully included, with support, in his class with his typical peers,
100% of the time.
That's been working for nine years.

On May 1st, I'm going to sit in on a meeting filled with strangers...who will list all of the various gaps in my son's knowledge.

The gaps identified, by the way, from tests that are created for people with 46 chromosomes, not 47.
They're "standardized" but for what kind of kid??
Someone with autism, sensory processing disorder, cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome?
Is this a one-size-fits-all test??
If so, how can it measure anything meaningful?


They'll be overly polite.
They'll make comments about how charming Patrick is.
They'll smile...and act as if they know what's best for him educationally.
When they don't have a clue.

If I could, I would dismantle this system.

All children would start in their neighborhood school, in the typical classroom.

No one would have to earn their way in.

I'd train every single teacher in the country in good teaching practices...teaching teachers how to be engaging, how to mix up their class time with active/passive learning, how to monitor and give meaningful feedback, how to use technology to teach, reteach and assess for understanding.
I'd encourage creativity and cooperation and constructivist learning.

If every teacher knew how to extend a lesson and scaffold a lesson and offer support to all learners, we wouldn't need special ed...
which by the way, isn't freaking special.at.all.

Imagine all the money we could save if we didn't test and create goals and retest every three years.
Not to mention the time.
Precious time being wasted so the system can prove over and over how valuable it is...
when the results STINK.

75% of people with intellectual disabilities are UNemployed. 
--> 75% <--

Completely intolerable.

3/4 of the people in your system do not end up working...
hello...
why do you hold on to the outdated (and educationally false) notion that separate is equal??

25% of students with intellectual disabilities are fully included in school.
and...
25% of people with intellectual disabilities are employed.
Isn't that an amazing coincidence??

Does it take a graduate degree to connect those dots?

Why do we have this system again??

I know I will have parents tell me amazing stories of amazing special ed teachers doing heroic things...
even a broken clock is right twice a day.

There are good people...terrific educators...heroes...in a terrible system.

I don't want to dismantle the people.
Just the system.

I want to crush the oppressive bureaucracy of deficit thinking.

A system that itself is disabled --
blinded to the many things the student can do, in favor of underlining and in bold all of the many things the student can't do.

 I view Patrick as a violet living in a daisy world.

He isn't a broken daisy.

He's rare and beautiful and exceptional in his violet-ness, just hanging out with the daisies.
Our garden is better for the variation in the beauty.
Our world is better with it...it is the very definition of grace-in-the-ordinary.

Can you see his violet beauty?
Or do you see a broken daisy?
He's not the one who's broken...your system is.

"Peace requires everyone to be in the circle -- wholeness, inclusion."  -- Isabel Allende

Seventh Heaven

Little girls in a nutshell.

Giggle and laugh...got it down pat.


I've been hearing some new sounds around my house.
She whistles now.  Loud and clear.  Can even carry a tune.
I'll hear her whistling to herself...singing a song too.
It's breath-taking in its lack of self-consciousness.

She's seven.

And I don't care what people tell you about five, or six or even eight.
Seven rocks.

She is itching to play games.
She's an Old Maid card shark, that one.
I'd teach her poker but I'm pretty sure I'd lose my shirt.
She loves board games and counting up her money, saving up her get-out-of-jail free card and rounding the bend.

She's creative and sassy and funny and full of joy...bubbling, oozing, crazy joy.
She's tapped into that divine source, effortlessly, and I try to stand right by her just to rub shoulders with the source...
sometimes it works.

Seven.

A reader.
A thinker.
A curious cat.

Asking questions.
Yesterday's: "Mom, when you go on your walk with Buddy, can you pick up that litter?
Me: Huh?
"I want to have this...and she points to a sticker that says "pick of the litter"."
(Our world is so confusing.  How do I explain that this litter is good and that the "pick of the litter" is the best of the bunch, regardless of the word's proximity to trash?)

I smile at her and try not to snicker.
"Oh baby, you definitely have the pick of the litter.  Buddy's the best."
Careful, trusting acknowledgement.  She knows.

On Sunday, we had a few minutes together with no one else around.
I asked her if she wanted to go out to lunch...but the enthusiasm was lackluster.
Pause.
How about a tea party?

Eyes B.I.G.
Instant hug.

*Jackpot*

Houston, tea party it is.

So we made our egg salad sandwiches but improvised with tortillas -- we had run out of our delicious sourdough bread -- California problems.
We steeped our ginger peach tea.
We peeled baby oranges.
And found ourselves pausing and resting and truly being leisurely with our tea.

Must.do.this.more.

Seven.

It's a little slice of heaven.

So tonight I'm grateful for the dancing, singing, twirling little girl that graces my days.

Grateful for her exuberant love of living in our amazing world...

where shoes can get tied, mouths can whistle and little girls finally learn 

how to flatten the gum just right to blow a bubble.

There are so many tricks to know.  So many games to play.

May we always stop to dance and sing.

Spinning, laughing dancing to

her favorite song...

Eyes wide open

Always hoping for the sun

And she'll sing her song to anyone

that comes along.

Fragile as a leaf in autumn

Just fallin' to the ground

Without a sound

Crooked little smile on her face

Tells a tale of grace

That's all her own

Spinning, laughing dancing to 

her favorite song...

Seven Years -- Norah Jones

From Here to There

"Skipping is oxygen for the soul." -- Jessi Lane Adams

If you hang around young children, you get to see them skip...from Point A to Point B, skipping is most definitely the preferred mode of locomotion.  

Children can't seem to help it.  

The joy in having these amazing bodies, the zest for living each and every day in this land of wonder and amazement, the natural predilection for fun no.matter.what requires skipping.

The young child is proud of himself.  

It's quite an accomplishment to maneuver that body up and down in a dancing sort of way.  

Smiles just must accompany the movement.

But up around age 7, kids start to notice that adults aren't skipping much.

These readers, writers, monkey bar enthusiasts can't help but slow it down.  It's unintentional, of course, growing up always is...but the average 7 year old doesn't skip as often as her kindergarten friends...except on the soccer field, it seems.

Maybe it's the wide open grass, 

or the companionship of friends, 

or just the joy of a Saturday of exercise and cheering and fun --

I don't really know what triggers it but the skipping just happens.

I cherish the skip onto the playing field...because I know it won't last long.

This bridge from young child to older child isn't a long one and the skipping seems to slow way down as they move across it.

I mentioned it today as I watched my baby girl skip out onto the field after a quarter of rest.

I said out loud, "I love the skipping," to a mom next to me.

Her one and only child was right next to mine on the field.

She paused as if noticing it for the first time.

"I know," she said.  "They love to skip."

Her daughter's in third grade...that much farther across the bridge. I mentioned that it wouldn't last long.  That skipping was a territory in the Young Child Kingdom and that the Older Child Realm wasn't too partial to that form of movement.

As if seeing it for the first time, she pointed out the others.

Three kids from the other team skipped in a staggered line onto the field.

Another one of our little team-mates from the Blue Lightning skipped her way onto midfield.

On the field, impatient to get kicking, little girls couldn't help it...their bodies were dancing and wiggling and giggling and joy-filled.

This tiny window of time is so precious.

And such a reminder.

Our bodies are pretty damn awesome.

Why don't we skip more?

Can you imagine Obama and the rest skipping around D.C.??

Yeah, me neither.

Why??

They have sucked the joy right out of that town.

How about those poor people in Syria?

How about Putin?

Skipping is free.

It takes no equipment.

You don't need to be fluent in a language, literate or know any rules to the game.

You can do it anywhere -- although wide open spaces do actually beg for it.

So why aren't we doing it??

Because we're all a little weighted down.

You need to have a light heart, a real ability to live in the moment and a sense of joy.

Young children carry those things in their back pocket.

Adults, not so much.

So, today I'm grateful for the skipping.

Grateful to the young children who do it on a daily basis.

Grateful to be reminded that I have a healthy body, a joyful life and the chance to skip.

You'll find me skipping around the block and if I'm really brave, I won't even have a kid next to me.

Why not?

I could use the joy, the lift and the fun.

Who's with me??