Ardenonia

Rare in the literature: a nuanced take on autism spectrum disorders! Rational discourse on this topic—even among academics—has been painfully rare and should be savored when found.

I’m beginning to think better of the DSM process—that the people involved in stratifying and classifying all our various mental quirks and frailties are doing their best.

Relevant quotes from the NY Times article:

Much of the growing prevalence of autism, which now affects about 1 percent of American children, according to federal data, can be attributed to Asperger’s and other mild forms of the disorder.

… “P.D.D.-N.O.S. [Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified], I’d throw in the garbage can.” …

One of the first recurrent tasks in first-grade reading has been to identify the main character in a story. A second topic, introduced in the last few weeks, has been to identify the main problem. The other day, I heard Arden in conversation with Bill. Arden asked jokingly, ”Who is the main character in this house?”  He realized this was a slightly silly question—real life isn’t a simple story. But then Arden asserted, “Mommy is the main character.” Bill and I immediately jumped in, “But what about you?/We are all the main character (at different times, for different story lines).” But Arden was adamant, saying that he and Bill are “supporting characters.”

I can’t think of any other person—grown-up or child—who would sincerely and apparently cheerfully not think of themselves as the main character of anything. This raises two possibilities:

-          Arden needs to have a stronger sense of self and his own importance.

-          Arden is a modest child.

Arden seems happy-go-lucky and cheerful at age six. I’m hoping this is his deep, underlying character and not a temporary function of youth. I hope and pray I’m not transmitting insecurities and negativity to him. I keep my fingers crossed that he’s not somehow on a path to unhappiness.

Arden’s explanation for why I’m the main character of this house appears sensible after further explanation: I work here, so I spend the most time here, whereas Bill spends most of his day at work elsewhere and Arden goes to school  and also spends time at his father’s and grandparents’ house. So Arden’s thinking may reflect more a simple matter of arithmetical awareness than either emotional insecurity or saintly modesty.

Whew.

What is it about bento boxes that does it for me? It's not the cartoon characters aspect. There's just something viscerally pleasing to me about a small rectangular container tightly packed with food. This is also why I am one of the few people I know who admits to enjoying airline food.

A modest bento effort:

• a clock
• HANGERS in the closet (I'm not moving in here. I didn't think I'd need to bring my own HANGERS.)
• counterspace in the bathroom, in case you're interested in putting down stuff on anything other than the toilet. Athough I guess I should be glad I have a private bathroom. (I am! I am! Please don't take my toilet and sink away from me!)
• lights in the hallway, unless you stand outside and wave your arms for a while (this is not so much a problem now that more people have arrived, but yesterday, when it seemed like it was just me, I had visions of my throat being slit in the night)
• incandescent lighting
• more than one towel
• any colors other than varying shades of beige and a pale blue sheet covering the twin-size bed--very reminiscent of my days in Green Hall, first year of graduate school. Same color scheme then!

• a shower curtain, formerly white, turned pink from mold (Bill gave me the impetus to ask for the shower curtain to be replaced this morning)
• matching pink mold in the shower stall (oops--forgot to pack flip-flops!). It's not really a stall though--it's a corner of the bathroom with a drain in the floor.
• a grimy telephone headset
• fluorescent lights

• a hot pot that boils water for tea in seconds!

This is a snapshot of our backyard. The morning is misty, and we’ve had daily storms with thunder, lightning, and sheets of rain. Waking up to another gusher, it feels like we live in a rain forest. To some extent, rain is nice for the garden; lazily, I appreciate not having to water. But it’s been so damp, some plants are rotting.

The profusion of trees in Garrett Park is largely a blessing. They’re beautiful, and mostly I love the coolness of the shade in the summer. But it was far easier to grow things—pots of herbs and flowers and the occasional vegetable—in our duplex in College Park where we had plenty of sun.

Shyness clusters in families, naturally, and kids predisposed to shyness are more likely to have this problem compounded by growing up with parents firmly lodged on the shrinking end of the sociability spectrum. Yesterday, I finally mustered up the courage to ask a woman if her son, a classmate of Arden’s, would like to come over to play after school. This is a woman I've seen all year when walking to school and with whom I’ve chatted a bit when the kids were in an after-school soccer class this spring. Her son has been sweetly friendly toward Arden too, yelling his name enthusiastically and running up to him if they’re behind us when walking to school. The mother eagerly accepted the idea of a playdate—for all appearances glad to get the kid off her hands. I say this affectionately. Playdates basically serve as a babysitting cooperative, as B. said last night.

Arden was a lovely host, clearly exerting himself to be as friendly and welcoming as he could. He chattered nonstop. The other kid was understandably quiet, but Arden burbled away—often in non sequiturs, but he was trying. When we got home, I gave the kids some ice cream—might as well get on their good sides. I was impressed when Arden also brought over a little bowl of almonds that was sitting on the kitchen counter. He brought out his big book of Thomas the Tank Engine poems and amiably recited the names of all the characters in it. The kids did ultimately play together—fortunately the other little boy likes trains, too—and Arden initiated most of the engagement.

Since acquiring a house and a husband last summer:

What I enjoy more than I expected:

• Weeding. Who knew? This seemed like the dreariest of chores, but I like pulling things out by their roots, imposing order on the landscape and claiming my domain. I always thought of myself as the who’s-to-judge type when it comes to deciding who should live and who should die, but it’s satisfying to have some sway somewhere on God's green earth.

What I enjoy less than I expected:

• Pets. In blending households with Bill, he acquired a son, and I acquired two cats. I thought that by living with animals for the first time in my life, I’d “get” what all the fuss is about. Frankly, I like them less now than when I just used to visit them. They smell. They shed. They track kitty litter into the corners of the living room. They scratch my rugs and furniture. They cost money. They lick their butts and want to lick my hands. You can't leave food or drinks unattended if you mind the idea of cat spit in them. And in return? They’re somewhat interesting in that their personalities are so different, but I knew that already. The shy, skittery housecat is touching in her restrained and regular habits—asking for little company other than a couple of hours on the couch in the evening. I suppose I should accept them as graciously as I can since Bill is doing a pretty good job accommodating Arden, who’s probably a bigger imposition. (Arden, an imposition? I’m joking of course.)

So since I got a too-cheap-to-resist offer about a year ago, I have a subscription to TIME magazine. One of their more prolific writers, who tends to be earnest, emotional, occasionally poetic, and decidedly middle-of-the-road in perspective, is Nancy Gibbs. I usually flip through TIME quickly and heavy-lidded. The magazine contains few surprises, but her essay in the May 18 issue made me laugh and nod. She wrote about “Do-It-Yourself Heroes” like Captain Chesley Sullenberger who landed a plane in the Hudson R, Captain Richard Phillips who let himself be taken by pirates, and Susan Boyle, who sang “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent (in case you didn't know...).

It became customary months ago for the hip, with-it science writers to say how it’s essential to have not only a web site, but a blog, a Facebook presence, and a Twitter account. Only 14 years late to the game, I’m thinking of at least maintaining a professional web site, probably using a blogging interface (maybe wordpress, maybe blogger). Meanwhile, I figure this Livejournal account is my alternative to Facebook, the place for me to catch up with my three friends. I suppose I could tell more of my friends and family about this site, but then I’d have to worry about what I was saying about them. From my admittedly obscured vantage, Livejournal is like Facebook for people who are paranoid about their anonymity, don’t go on-line that much, and don’t really do photographs. Of course there are subcultures--the fanfic thing notably--that are beyond my ken.

So, Citybumpkin, I hope you’re alive and kicking. Same to you, M. B is heading to Kazakhstan for a week, so I won’t expect any mash notes from him for a while.

While he’s not here, can I talk about him? How is it that I end up mating with financially irresponsible goofballs all the time? I'm clearly running away from my miserly father, but still does every man I try to forge a life with have to be a financial fuck-up who drains my life force with financial worry? Years ago, when I read Middlemarch, I was impressed that the novel dealt with financial worries, which are so prominent in so many lives and yet rarely dealt with in an honest, recognizably realistic way. Middlemarch did. I tried rereading it a few years back, but all the religious brush was too hard to whack through to get to the relevant parts.

A while ago, tired and cranky at bedtime, Arden pleaded in his cantankerous exhaustion, “Help me do what I’m supposed to do!” This comment struck me as a succinct and perceptive summary of a parent’s role – to help a child learn to do what he’s supposed to do, and then get on with doing it.

Arden lost his first baby tooth on Monday evening. It had been wiggling for three weeks beforehand. The wiggling initially disturbed him. But over the three weeks, he observed and thought about things and came to accept the change with equanimity. It helped that my reaction was effusive and excited – letting him know that this was a welcome sign of growing up according to plan. Arden also had time to notice the fact that other kids in his class were missing teeth. After watching Curious George on DVD, he remarked on Bruno the snake losing his skin, and he made the connection to his situation. Most reassuring of all, he could see and feel the nub of his adult tooth coming in just behind the baby tooth.

It’s all a bit bittersweet. Over the last week, he’s also stopped asking me to lie down next to him as he falls asleep at night, so in more ways than one, he’s suddenly, tangibly growing up. With all the focus on romantic love in our culture—all the songs, the movies, the novels, all the endless drama—the intense bond of parent and child gets short shrift. And motherhood inherently, in its natural course, is heartbreaking. You pour all this love and devotion, your whole focus and the best of yourself on a child, they are the most perfect and wonderful thing you’ve ever seen, and a young child adores you so much, and then after about 5 or 6 years, there begins this slow, protracted process of disentanglement, which is the healthy, normal thing, but no less painful for that.

Of course, people vary, mothers vary. Motherhood was the most basic binary choice of my life. And basically I always knew I wanted a child. All other decisions—marriage, choosing where to live, and most especially choosing a career—have been far more complicated. With having a baby, you say yes, and you get what you get. No choices on who you get and no second guessing. This is a rare and wonderful thing in a world with a superfluity of choices.

The boss at the office, inspired by Obama’s election campaign, is all into “Web 2.0” lately. She wants us to think about how to monitor, participate in, and take advantage of the brave new world of social networking. Maybe I’m doomed to have a technological mindset stuck in 1998, but while I see the glorious merits of the World Wide Web and the Internet, the “social networking” stuff generally strikes me as ho-hum, sometimes mildly useful but hardly a light-speed leap forward in life as we know it. (Also, RSS feeds are not revolutionizing my life.) 

  Instead of keeping up with venerable old magazines with on-line presences like Chemical and Engineering News and Science News, I’ve been asked to switch my attention to finding and monitoring “the most influential science blogs.” I’ve drawn up a list of a dozen so far that I’m monitoring, but I’m pretty sure their audience is smaller than those of the magazines I’m told are now old hat. 

  The social networking stuff mostly leads to, or allows, fragmentation as far as I can tell—useful for sure if you have a particular niche that fascinates you, but I bet plain old traditional media still outpace the coolest blogs in reach and eyeballs. 

  The one Web 2.0 technology that Bill and I feel most flummoxed by is Twitter. (“Damn kids and their transistor radios!” grumbles my fusty mate.) There was a rumor on one of my science writer listservs (another, blessed Web 1.0 application) that the Dalai Lama now has a Twitter account. This was odd but vaguely believable since apparently CEOs and politicians have accounts. Today, I hear that the Dalai Lama account was a hoax. The whole lingo around Twitter is so infantile (tweeting tweets) and the size limits on each tweet so small, I can hardly imagine we’re missing much. ... Maybe this is how out-of-step curmudgeonhood starts.

One of the benefits of modern times is being able to watch tv clips at will on-line. I was busy with Arden when 60 Minutes aired last night, but this morning I could watch Katie Couric’s interview with Chesley B. Sullenberger, the pilot of the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River last month. It was touching to see that he had grappled with how to respond to the outpouring of affection he’s received in the wake of the water landing in which all 155 people aboard survived. It was cheering somehow that while everyone was hailing his, and the rest of the crew’s, heroism, the pilot had actually been racked with self-doubt in the immediate aftermath. Instead of patting himself on the back, he kept obsessing over what he might have done to avoid crashing the plane in the first place. He said that initially he didn’t want to accept the hero label, but that he came to realize that perhaps he shouldn’t reject people’s rush of affection either. He concluded that perhaps people needed him to accept their goodwill because they’ve craved good news.

            The whole episode—the pilot’s skill in deciding what to do and executing the water landing, the flight attendants’ professionalism in evacuating the plane, the passengers’ orderly behavior in that moment of potential tragedy, the ferry crews’ quick response to lift everyone out of the frigid water—all that was enormously inspiring and still is when we (the ADD Nation, as someone said about this) still think about it. The thing that is most inspiring to me is the sense that—despite the “miracle on the Hudson” headlines—this was actually the opposite of a miracle, that it was actually kind of routine, that if this had happened to another crew on another flight, the outcome may well have been just the same: That there are, in the end, reservoirs of goodness, professionalism, and ability all around us that rarely emerge so dramatically, but that this great big reserve of decency and competence actually exists. It’s a slap in the face of easy cynicism. Maybe people don’t suck as bad as we thought! It makes you glow, it lifts your heart.

            Arden is taking Armenian classes at Vicken’s church on Sundays. Before dispersing to language classes, the children spend a few minutes in the morning in religious instruction with the priest. Parents, I have recently learned, are encouraged to sit in on the brief gathering in the church. At this point, I hardly think Arden understands enough of spoken Armenian to need an antidote to these lessons, but in time he may. A week ago, the priest started rambling about how people may seem nice enough when everything is going along hunky-dory but that in times of danger and chaos their scrambling, vicious, me-first nature emerges. And I thought, huh?? First of all, this is hardly the sort of thing I want children to hear about their fellow man. Second, it’s not even true. If people suck, in my experience they suck just as much in times of plenty as in times of hardship. And the report from the people who have experienced such extreme events as US Air Flight 1541 or the WTC catastrophe seems to be that people behave pretty decently by their fellow man in the most dire conditions. This is a good thought to hold close.

Yesterday, Arden and I had the day off and went to a Japanese market for a little shopping and a casual Japanese restaurant for noodle soup. After about 14 years of lusting after bento boxes, I finally gave in to the urge and bought a bento lunchbox for myself. It allows for a minuscule amount of food (with one 150 mL container and two 75 mL ones), and we’ll see when I actually use it. One of the reasons I waited 14 years to succumb to this bento box urge is I don’t really see them fitting in my lifestyle. But take a look at a masterpiece like this one, and tell me you don’t feel the love.

Sometimes, I have no memory of when or why I added a movie to my Netflix list. Maybe I read a reference to it somewhere or maybe the Netflix site recommended it, but for whatever reason, some months ago, I added “Agnes of God” to my queue, and having slowly percolated up my list, last week the movie ended up at our place, and B. and I watched it Friday night while Arden was at his father’s. The movie was gripping—theatrical but gripping, and different and earnest and interesting. It’s a 1985 film by Norman Jewison, a reworking of a play, and it reminded me of a fellow junior high school girl’s comment in the ‘80s about how she, being a sophisticated sort of person, preferred movies or books that didn’t end patly but instead permitted more than one interpretation. Now, two decades later, I can see that this was an idea for its time and now seems a dated notion. Shakespeare didn’t leave you hanging at the end of his plays—sure, there was room for interpretation but not about fundamental points of plot. This idea that it’s meritorious to leave a lot of how to construe a story to the audience was a common idea in my childhood/teen years, and now I see it was a fad.
    “Agnes of God” is set in a nunnery in Quebec in contemporary times, and the tension is whether a young novice is a nutso criminal or a modern saint performing miracles. Besides being so earnest and focused on religion, and particularly Catholicism, it occurred to me later that night that the film was also unusual because all the important characters were women.

So Arden is at an age when he's old enough to get Santa and old enough for us to need to be careful about talking about Santa and Christmas preparations so that we don't spoil the Santa magic for him. I don't go out of my way to concoct a lot of elaborate Santa discussion--I don't want to lie to my child in gory detail--but I don't want to be the one who stood between him and this little bit of childhood magic either.

Santa was a source of trauma for me, so I step gingerly around the whole topic. When I realized there was no Santa, at about 8, I thought, if this is a lie, what else? Maybe God is made-up too.

The last year I believed in Santa, I was I think 7. I believed in Santa the year that Santa didn't bring me a present because I had been a bad child. Several months before the holidays--it must have been that summer because we were home at midday on a Thursday--my parents discovered that I had flushed liver down the toilet. During my childhood, we had to eat liver every Thursday, and I couldn't leave the table til I finished my meals, so I'd often be at the table through the whole of the afternoon since we ate at midday when we were home. Until I cleaned my plate, I could only leave the table to go to the bathroom. So a few times, I flushed the liver down the toilet. When he discovered this, my father declared I was a bad child and Santa wouldn't bring me a present. When I was a child, we only ever got two toys a year--one from Santa and one on our birthdays. Months later, Santa indeed did not bring me a gift. My older sister got a dollhouse. I cried the bitterest tears of my life in the kitchen towel. We never had kleenex in the house either.

This makes me laugh now. As long as my loved ones and I don't die prematurely or suffer from serious illness or injury, as long as we are financially sound enough to keep this house, as long as my son grows to be a healthy, happy, responsible adult, I'm pretty sure those will remain the bitterest tears of my life. Which would not be such a bad thing.

• I celebrated it with a young child--my sweet, polite, kind son--in his prime magic years.
• My little family unit was together. And we were together in our house for the first time ever. And my little sister joined us as well. If my mother had been with us, it would have been even better, but it would have been hard to have my mother without my father.
• My father wasn't around to make everything all about him and to exert his sway by making everyone tense about the possibility of an imminent explosion or, even more likely, by outright exploding.
• We had good food; I cooked it so it was just what I like, a mix of nostalgic dishes from my childhood (e.g. the salad de boeuf my mother made at holidays) and cozy dishes from my Americanized adulthood (e.g. roast beef and roast vegetables).
• There was a pleasant bustle of activity in the dark solstice-approaching weeks beforehand--making December busy but not overwhelming. I'm pretty good about not doing what I don't want to do, so I haven't yet let holiday obligations drain the joy out of things for me. When it comes to the holidays, I figure, if it's not fun, it's not worth doing. But getting presents for my small family and sending out cards and decorating and baking and all that are fun.

• Christmases during graduate school when I visited my parents, where there was always the risk of a fatherly scene.
• Christmases in the days with V. when his extended family celebrated with multiple parties and many, many presents, and I was the daughter-in-law, treated generously but feeling the outsider. The D. family did a lot of things well--e.g. the cute, practical, slightly cheesy stocking stuffers. And I have adopted some of their practices in my post-D Christmases.
• Christmases split among groups. I've spent many Christmases on a plane flying cross-country.
• The farcical Christmas last year, when my parents visited, B. and I announced our engagement, and my father tried to throw B. out my house on Christmas Eve and then spent several days in my house not acknowledging my existence but enthusiastically eating the food I prepared and trying to rub in his displeasure by being more courteous than usual with everyone else. Oh yes, we did spend Christmas afternoon at my sister's apartment so that we could assemble her furniture. My mother and I went for a stroll at one point, and I led her to the grounds at Strathmore, which felt very isolated, dangerously so when an addled-looking man came around muttering angrily to himself.

Here is a tangentially related idea: With cameras standard on cell phones, I think one effective dieting technique would be to photograph what one eats before settling down to eat it. Cell phone photography is so discreet--you'd look like you were checking for messages. 

Here is a gingerbread bundt cake I've made a couple of times in the last few weeks. Arden loved the gingerbread men we made before Christmas, but I haven't convinced him that a "gingerbread mountain with snow on top" is worth trying.

Relief, satisfaction, happiness, hope have slowly been seeping in since Tuesday night. News coverage of how the rest of the world has responded to the election has been especially inspiring. A couple of quotes in the Washington Post yesterday, which sum things up nicely (Around the World, Obama's Victory Is Seen as a Renewal of American Ideals and Aspirations):

"I think this means the United States can go back to being admired as the country of dreams." - Terumi Hino, a photographer and painter in Tokyo

"The United States looked closed, stupid, xenophobic and aggressive ... By electing Obama, it looks open, diversity-embracing, humble and intelligent." - Joichi Ito, an entrepreneur/blogger in Tokyo

Yeah baby!

I can now laugh to learn that Sarah Palin had to be told that Africa is, uh, a continent and not a single country, feeling pretty safe that she and the people who think she's great and at worst misunderstood will safely decompose in the dustbin of history. Fingers crossed. God help us.