"Can We Turn on the Radio...PLEASE?!"

A strange phenomenon occurs shortly after we all get loaded in the car and the engine starts.  Like clock work Hannah (14 yrs old) speaks out loud and clearly, “Can we turn the radio on?”  This is significant for many reasons not the least of which is that Hannah, when she speaks, which is not that often, is usually too quiet to hear. 

Mariah almost pummeled a young man at church who asked her, quite innocently, if Hannah was mute.  We had been attending there for about 3 or 4 months and no one had heard Hannah speak during that time at all.  Mariah, being the defender of the under dog and especially of family was out for blood.  Remind me and I will tell you later about Mariah and the caterpillar killer sometime.

When Hannah first started making this request I just thought that she was being more like a teenager than normal.  I was pretty excited.  Hannah (our only non-ADHD child) is very mellow and pliable; she rolls with the house and its intensity.  When she was in the 4^th grade she had a friend who looked at her one day and said, “Hannah, you are perfect and that is just not normal.”

I am often concerned that she is too willing to back down and let it all wash over her.  Not willing to make some waves of her own. Consequently, we work hard to make her come out of her shell and stand up for the opinion we know is in there. So, when Hannah says radio I get kind of excited and say what channel.

Hannah has developed her own set of coping mechanisms to handle the stimulus that is constantly around her.  For one thing, God has blessed her with an un-natural ability to block out the world.  When she was little she was so focused on whatever she was doing that Mark would come say goodbye to her before work and give her a kiss; with in about a half an hour Hannah would be tugging on my shirt asking where daddy was. 

Sometimes she and I sneak away for a non-ADHD day.  A day filled with complete thoughts and uninterrupted conversation.  A day to catch up on peace and balance.

What I didn’t realize until this week was that the radio is Hannah’s car coping mechanism.  It is very hard to separate yourself from all the stimuli in the van, even though it is a big 15 passenger monster van. 

When things start getting loud with multiple conversations, people touching each other, people mad because people are touching each other, Rachel singing, and Mariah on a comedic rant Hannah says…  

“Can we turn on the radio?”

...Then she employs that God given talent and blocks the craziness out.

Bits and Pieces, Odds and Ends

 OVER THE HILL

Is it wrong to have a over the hill party for a young woman turning 18?  Our oldest, Rachel, is about to turn eighteen.  For most young people this would be an exciting landmark birthday.  Not for Rachel.  She has been torturing us with this impending birthday for years, escalating daily now as we approach what surely constitutes the end of the world.

"I'm running out of time!" has been her mantra.

She has tried to stop time by refusing to grow up, she didn't date until this last spring, she still hasn't got her drivers license or permit and I am sure her love of fairy wings is interwoven in there somewhere, not to mention a couple of other undesirable behaviors.

For some reason Rachel thinks that all life and hope and youth will end when she turns eighteen.  Among other things, once she turns eighteen,  she will no longer be able to pursue her life long dream of being a rock star. This by the way is a totally self imposed deadline.

I keep trying to explain to her how much easier it will be to pursue her dreams, especially this one, in that sweet spot of life after you are eighteen and before you are an obligated adult.  She even said yesterday morning, "In a week I will be eighteen - my life will be over - but at least I am not the oldest in the band - Cameron is." (side note..all four current members of the band are on ADHD meds...gotta love it)

How sad...for me...for all of us over eighteen ...how bleak.

My hope is that Rachel will wake up the day after and realize that the world has not stopped turning on its axis, that hopes and dreams are a life long pursuit not just available for realization to those 18 and under.

In the meantime she is holding onto her one and only itty bitty light at the end of the 18 year old tunnel; ordering from an infomercial on TV...must be 18 or over to purchase...on her birthday.

 DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that there is a Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica? Mariah (16yrs old) is very excited about this new discovery and has been sharing it with anyone who will listen for the last week.  She has been a little surprised by people's reactions including her principle who chuckled and indicated...

"She was a little on the odd side!"

 THE LIMITS OF SPEAKER PHONE

I spent all day taking Hunter to the doctor, it is funny because every time I say I am taking someone to the doctor most people I talk to assume someone is sick.  Grandparents, family and friends register appropriate concern.  No, I answer, I am taking him or her to the psychiatrist.  I love our psychiatrists (that is really another story).

This story is about what happens when I am gone.  We live in the foothills and have an hour plus drive to civilization. It means that every trip to the doctor is a day in town.  So, right around lunch time, Mary who is home, calls with a lunch emergency.

Jaren wants pizza.  Well, wanting and getting are two different things.  There is no freezer pizza, I tell Mary, and I am not there to make pizza dough, no pizza for Jaren.

Mary responds, "It's okay, Mama, I have speaker phone."

 Maybe it took me so long to figure out where she was going with the whole speaker phone thing because Jaren was in the back ground...bah bah  bah-ing a tune. "Mary, is Jaren bah-ing the Darth Vader theme song?"  Yes, yes I clearly hear Darth Vader's theme song.

Yes. the phone has speaker phone on it.  Ohhhhh...it clicks...you want me to walk you through making pizza dough ...with yeast...over the cell phone...while I am driving and running errands.  Ha ha ha...NO.

 POOR HANNAH

When Hannah was little Mark and I were talking about picky eaters at the dinner table.  As cute as a little 3 year old can be she piped up, "I am a piggy eater!" and made little oinking noises. 

As time has gone on she has developed the most interesting eating habits.  I guess you could say she is a picky eater, though for the most part she eats fairly healthy with a love a fresh vegetables, a desire for only egg whites, a distaste for mayonnaise, and a moderate desire to eat meat.  Her great downfall would have to a passionate love of white bread and carbs in general. She is definitely a general in the white bread army (see Bread Wars).

 Hannah's first real sentence, "I WANT CHOCOLATE!"

Poor Hannah was recently diagnosed with anemia - it is recommended that she eat an iron rich diet in addition to her iron supplement.  Hmmm...let's see liver, beans, whole grains, tofu, egg yolks, sea food as the list goes on, let me tell you, Hannah is not happy. She is not a piggy eater anymore.

By the way Hannah (our non-ADHDer) has always been mellow and pretty quiet - she was about 2 and still speaking very little.  One day we were driving and out of the blue Hannah spoke, rather forcefully, her first real sentence, "I WANT CHOCOLATE!"

 READY SET GO

We were getting ready to leave for church on Sunday.  Getting everyone dressed and out the door on time is always a challenge.  This would be that point in the week where I feel my sense of urgency to be on time is generally dismissed as a silly "mom thing".

I am running back and forth from one end of the house to the other and Hunter calls out from the front door that he is ready and going to the car.  Here is where the definition of ready really comes into play.  Hunter's definition is clearly looser than mine.  To Hunter if the clothes are on his body and he has shoes in close proximity (regardless of socks) he is ready. (look at the earlier post "The Picture of ADHD")

My definition is much different - I want the clothes on right-side-out, front in the front, back in the back, buttons buttoned, zippers zipped, and socks (not Mark's big and tall size 14 socks). Though sometimes socks seem like the cherry on top - a wonderful addition that I don't always get.  I know, I know, my definition of ready demands a lot - ridiculously high standard.

As he called out that he was ready I paused in my running to and fro to take in the sight.  There he stood looking a little like Bud from "Meet the Robinsons".  His bow tie almost sideways, sweater vest on backwards, hair uncombed.  He was just missing the smiley face on the back of his head.  It certainly broke the tension of the morning - I couldn't help but chuckle...tell him to wait right there...and go grab the camera.

Come to think about it our house has some striking similarities to the Robinson family in Meet the Robinsons.  If you haven't seen it our family highly recommends it. In fact, we love it so much that everyone has taken a character from the movie as their own, the one they identify with the most.  I think I may be the T-rex, "I have a big head and little arms and I'm not too sure how well this plan was thought through!"

What Box? Where?

This weekend has given me more material for this blog than I really care to admit.  After all, do I want the world to know that my 11 1/2 year old son, Hunter, tried to flavor his bath water with lollipops.   For that matter do I want the world to know that the summation of the experience was that he thought he really needed more lollipops to make it successful.

Ironically, Mark and I had been discussing our families inability to think inside the box, in fact, as we were reviewing a few experiences it became clear that we are far beyond the notion of 'thinking outside the box.'  We are somewhere around, "Box?  What box?  Where?"

Some people would definitely have issues with our embracing our uniqueness so wholeheartedly.  I am sure that some of our extended family question our tactics, feel that we should conform more.  Teach our children not to embrace who they are and what they are but squash it as much as possible.  As if it could or should be willfully set aside.

I want to be clear that we are not saying we or our children should act any way they please anywhere they please.  We have standards we expect to be met and consequences both good and bad.  We encourage choice with the understanding that they make their choices but do not choose the consequences. We, Mark and I, feel and have tried to teach our kids to embrace their uniqueness while respecting others and the boundaries of the situation they are in.

Boy that sounds simpler than it really is, it is a lot of constant work teaching them to recognize and establish boundaries.

For example, we went out for Chinese food for lunch on Saturday.  Our favorite family owned restaurant, The China Garden (in Fresno, CA).  Hunter's medication was clearly wearing off, actually that was a common problem at the table, and he was getting more and more hyper.    His hyper is not running around jumping on things hyper, his brain speeds up, he will sit in the same spot but is very fidgety and talkative, usually obsessively about one subject. He spent a great deal of time turning straw wrappers into a surly disguise while repeatedly asking Fernando, who is like a big brother to him, about a certain aspect of a video game.

Here is where my standard were enforced.  You can use all the straw wrappers on the table, no matter how embarrassed we get.  You have to stop driving Fernando crazy, and instead of your volume getting louder and louder you need to tone it down.

Fernando had asked him to stop because he was in public, to Hunter he was not in public, he was in a restaurant we always go to.  Hunter's world and perspective had shrunk to the table we were at with family and friends.  I turned him around and had him look at the other tables, "Hunter, this is the public, the other people around you."  Ahhhhhh...public.

So we are adding a sidebar box called Box? What Box?  Where? to illustrate the rather unique thought process and perspective that flows so freely in our house.  The perspective that leads a little boy, Jaren, in a new ninja suit to offer a sweet and humble family prayer asking for protection and safety for his family, say amen and then add maniacally - "protect them except from me." Then strike a menacing ninja pose.

Or to come up to me this morning with these little toothbrush shaped erasers that his sister got for Christmas and tell me that he wanted  his own set of toothpaste and toothbrush erasers so he could draw a picture of nasty teeth and then clean them.

But why encourage that mindset? Mark said this morning, "Our imagination is fed by what others see as impossible because it lies outside the boundaries of their own BOX."

We feed it because on the other side is art, music, humor, literature, film, acting, science that might never be dreamed of or created if we never got outside the box.  I feed it in faith because I am more of a why person than a why not person like my husband.

Yesterday it was a most painful rendition of Phantom of the Opera by a 6th grader that was just beginning to sing, sung over and over and over again. It was her sister who cried because she couldn't read music after her first music lesson but was reading it two lessons later. Today it is Border Patrol sung by those same young women who now have a message to share and the voice to move it forward. (www.blissmethod.com)