Huh, I was just realizing that the Zombie Apocalypse and Christ's Second Coming could be one in the same thing....
"The dead...shall rise..." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Where Have You Been Miss T?
Yes. It's been a while, and I can't promise you there will be subsequent entries to follow this one, such is the spastic nature of my creative inspiration. My life has been in flux for the last couple of years or so. The quick update: I have moved into an apartment with my son. We have been there for almost 2 years now. Of course, the logical conclusion to that statement is I am separated. Yep. I am one of the fallen, stumbling off the tracks of happily married bliss into the abyss of (not single, not married, but) "divorced." Well, we're not divorced yet. Dave will likely never be the one to file, and I haven't found a good enough reason to as of yet. It's a very long and sordid story, the details of which I may someday divulge when I just don't give a rat's hind-end anymore. (I'm thinking that will be sometime around the age of 75. That is also the age in which I will quit submitting my body to unspeakable acts of torture in order to maintain a shape that I just naturally achieved through a largely sedentary lifestyle and a diet of eating doughnuts at the ripe old age of 22.)
Let's see, what else, oh Vaughn was diagnosed with ADHD in the last few months, which explains a whole heck of a lot, in hindsight. I KNOW, "Yeah right! EVERYBODY's got ADHD." I find my life has been a series of back-handed slaps to my younger, more self-righteous face. You, up on the high horse, be warned. It feels a lot higher going down. I was also a vocal critic of those parents who hauled their kid off to the doctor the minute (I thought) they started having difficulties in school. I then blamed the schools for ineffective teaching of young boys (well, I STILL blame the education system for its inadequate teaching methods for those with a different learning style), and barked about how they just wanted to teach zombies. After Vaughn's first year at his new school, the following years his behavior and grades declined. Interestingly, the first year at the school his 3rd grade teacher asked me at a parent-teacher conference if Vaughn was on an IEP. I puzzled over that for several days, thinking what an odd question it was to ask. Vaughn has always, academically, done well in school, so I couldn't understand where this was coming from.
After we separated, I got him into counseling just to head off any possible upcoming behavioral issues surrounding the divorce. After about a month and the counselor forgetting Vaughn's name in one of the final sessions and having really no comment on Vaughn's state of mind, I decided I would wait until a problem arose, which it did in 4th grade. Off to a different counselor, who suggested we entertain the possibility that Vaughn had Asberger's. After a few months with him throwing out formulaic responses that I had already read in dozens of books, we moved on to yet another counselor. This one, after a few sessions, asked if Vaughn had ever been diagnosed with ADHD. Now, this is something that had occurred to me back when he was much younger, before he started school, but since there were certain things he seemed to have no problem focusing on (things that interested him), he didn't have any learning difficulties, he wasn't bouncing off the walls, I ruled it out, thinking he simply danced to the beat of his own drum and was a complex child. After reading several books on ADHD, it all fell into place. I was still reluctant to put him on medication. We had him tested by a person that specialized in ADHD testing and confirmed what the counselor had thought (and what his teachers had been hinting at, but to their credit, never outright stated what they obviously suspected). We met with a prescriber that specializes in ADHD, who explained things in such a way that it convinced me medication was the way to go. I have still vacillated on the medication issue, but after having the prescriber tell me that I would see a big difference in Vaughn's handwriting after being on the medication for a while, and then witnessing it for myself, it pretty well convinced me this really was, largely, a brain chemistry issue. His handwriting has always been atrocious, virtually illegible (well, MOSTLY illegible), with us constantly on him about doing better (the anthem of the ADHD child: You're just not trying hard enough). Then I recently saw a few samples of his writing that came home from school and I was blown away. Absolutely fantastic handwriting. It was like night and day. I couldn't believe it. One chemical exchange in the brain and "click" the gears start churning smoothly. A good many of the problems we had with him from a behavioral standpoint have also resolved themselves. Vaughn is a fairly introverted child, but his dad and I used to joke about how he was completely incapable of being quiet, not making a single sound, for even 5 minutes. We would challenge him to be quiet, no sounds, for 5 minutes (seeking a relief from the constant playing of the Vaughn soundtrack). Inevitably, after about a minute, some noise would come out of him, with him being completely oblivious to the fact that he had made a sound. Now, when he's on medication, you can have pleasant conversations with him and long stretches of peaceful silence. I had started becoming so accustomed to this new state of affairs, I had forgotten just how draining the incessant babbling could be until he was off medication one day and there wasn't a single second that wasn't occupied with some kind of sound.
Anyway, yet another reason for my empty blog is that my main subject was Vaughn, who STILL provides endless opportunities for exploitative writing. Unfortunately, he has come to the age in which he doesn't want others to know I have any association with him, much less WRITING about him. He is always certain to head me off at the park (we live right across the street from a park) when I'm coming to get him, lest people suspect I'm his mother, and by association, subject him to unspeakable humiliation.
In conclusion (I know, this is longer than my usual posting, but hey, cut me some slack, it's been over a year. Just take an extra 5 minutes on that "work break"), I am now resigned to writing about MY life, which is far less interesting without the Vaughn component, so maybe you will be seeing many more entries about Walmart and Winco customers, who, thankfully, provide an endless supply of writing material.
Let's see, what else, oh Vaughn was diagnosed with ADHD in the last few months, which explains a whole heck of a lot, in hindsight. I KNOW, "Yeah right! EVERYBODY's got ADHD." I find my life has been a series of back-handed slaps to my younger, more self-righteous face. You, up on the high horse, be warned. It feels a lot higher going down. I was also a vocal critic of those parents who hauled their kid off to the doctor the minute (I thought) they started having difficulties in school. I then blamed the schools for ineffective teaching of young boys (well, I STILL blame the education system for its inadequate teaching methods for those with a different learning style), and barked about how they just wanted to teach zombies. After Vaughn's first year at his new school, the following years his behavior and grades declined. Interestingly, the first year at the school his 3rd grade teacher asked me at a parent-teacher conference if Vaughn was on an IEP. I puzzled over that for several days, thinking what an odd question it was to ask. Vaughn has always, academically, done well in school, so I couldn't understand where this was coming from.
After we separated, I got him into counseling just to head off any possible upcoming behavioral issues surrounding the divorce. After about a month and the counselor forgetting Vaughn's name in one of the final sessions and having really no comment on Vaughn's state of mind, I decided I would wait until a problem arose, which it did in 4th grade. Off to a different counselor, who suggested we entertain the possibility that Vaughn had Asberger's. After a few months with him throwing out formulaic responses that I had already read in dozens of books, we moved on to yet another counselor. This one, after a few sessions, asked if Vaughn had ever been diagnosed with ADHD. Now, this is something that had occurred to me back when he was much younger, before he started school, but since there were certain things he seemed to have no problem focusing on (things that interested him), he didn't have any learning difficulties, he wasn't bouncing off the walls, I ruled it out, thinking he simply danced to the beat of his own drum and was a complex child. After reading several books on ADHD, it all fell into place. I was still reluctant to put him on medication. We had him tested by a person that specialized in ADHD testing and confirmed what the counselor had thought (and what his teachers had been hinting at, but to their credit, never outright stated what they obviously suspected). We met with a prescriber that specializes in ADHD, who explained things in such a way that it convinced me medication was the way to go. I have still vacillated on the medication issue, but after having the prescriber tell me that I would see a big difference in Vaughn's handwriting after being on the medication for a while, and then witnessing it for myself, it pretty well convinced me this really was, largely, a brain chemistry issue. His handwriting has always been atrocious, virtually illegible (well, MOSTLY illegible), with us constantly on him about doing better (the anthem of the ADHD child: You're just not trying hard enough). Then I recently saw a few samples of his writing that came home from school and I was blown away. Absolutely fantastic handwriting. It was like night and day. I couldn't believe it. One chemical exchange in the brain and "click" the gears start churning smoothly. A good many of the problems we had with him from a behavioral standpoint have also resolved themselves. Vaughn is a fairly introverted child, but his dad and I used to joke about how he was completely incapable of being quiet, not making a single sound, for even 5 minutes. We would challenge him to be quiet, no sounds, for 5 minutes (seeking a relief from the constant playing of the Vaughn soundtrack). Inevitably, after about a minute, some noise would come out of him, with him being completely oblivious to the fact that he had made a sound. Now, when he's on medication, you can have pleasant conversations with him and long stretches of peaceful silence. I had started becoming so accustomed to this new state of affairs, I had forgotten just how draining the incessant babbling could be until he was off medication one day and there wasn't a single second that wasn't occupied with some kind of sound.
Anyway, yet another reason for my empty blog is that my main subject was Vaughn, who STILL provides endless opportunities for exploitative writing. Unfortunately, he has come to the age in which he doesn't want others to know I have any association with him, much less WRITING about him. He is always certain to head me off at the park (we live right across the street from a park) when I'm coming to get him, lest people suspect I'm his mother, and by association, subject him to unspeakable humiliation.
In conclusion (I know, this is longer than my usual posting, but hey, cut me some slack, it's been over a year. Just take an extra 5 minutes on that "work break"), I am now resigned to writing about MY life, which is far less interesting without the Vaughn component, so maybe you will be seeing many more entries about Walmart and Winco customers, who, thankfully, provide an endless supply of writing material.
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