Autism Hunger Games

Do you ever feel like you're being tested? Like the universe has entered you into some kind of cosmic Hunger Games that you have no choice but participate in because you lost some crappy genetic lottery?

I imagine some game creators sitting up on high, planning my demise.

"Let's discuss our latest contestant, from the Silicon Valley sector. We've thrown a lot at her. She lost her only sibling to brain cancer, and yet she still managed to get married and have kids. She seemed happy."

"I know, let's make her kid autistic."

"Already did that. What else you got?"

"Okay, well, it's not enough that he doesn't talk. He's also a runner. She'll have to watch him every second he's awake. And speaking of that, he also doesn't sleep. He'll often be manic at three in the morning."

"She's still standing. Okay, let's throw some behaviors in. Now he pulls hair. And bites. Sometimes he'll attack her completely out of nowhere. And sometimes he'll grab the dog. She's already flinching every time the kid moves around the house."

"You'll love this one. I just gave her dog cancer. Skin cancer, you know, so the dog will need to have surgery and have an enormous incision right on her hip - the exact spot the boy likes to grab. This should be fun to watch."

"Nice job."

"Oh! And those stitches, they are prone to popping open on dogs who run and jump. So she'll need to always make sure to keep -- ohmygod I'm laughing so hard I don't think I can even get the words out -- the dog calm. At all times! Who wants to bet on when she starts taking the dog's Prozac?"

Note: This is just a tongue in cheek piece meant to illustrate how chaotic things are right now. It is not meant to offend and I promise I am not going to take the dog's meds. Yet.

Dogs Are Calming Creatures. Just Not My Dog.

Dogs are wonderful creatures. They heal, they love unconditionally. They can lead the blind, predict seizures, and smell cancer. Just not my dog.

My dog has issues. She is a compulsive licker. She pushes her food bowl around after we feed her, like she’s burying her food for later. Except she’ll do it until her nose bleeds. She gets so excited she whacks her tail against the wall until it bleeds. Doctors actually call this “happy tail.” I’m glad my dog isn’t the only one.

She is very, very smart, and when I had the time I took her to agility classes, and obedience classes and Rally-O and she always did great. We went through Canine Good Citizen training, and excelled, but failed the test because she was just too keyed up to behave.

She senses when there is tension in the house, like when Moe is really manic and I’m trying to calm him. But instead of using her powers for good, she has to be right in the middle of everything that is going on, in the most unhelpful, right underfoot way.

My dog barks when people come to the house. And when they leave.

My dog is on Prozac. It only helps a little.

Some dogs are amazing companion dogs. They can be really therapeutic for kids on the spectrum, help to bring them out of their shell, calm them, give confidence. My kids tolerate our dog. Moe likes the feel of her fur and Jelly likes to chase her around with her baby doll stroller. But Berkeley is anything but a calming influence in the house, especially for me.

But Berkeley wasn’t bred, selected and trained to be a companion dog. Some dogs are, and some people really, really want them. I recently read about a little boy whose family is trying to raise money to get him a companion dog. He is a wanderer, and these dogs can help keep the kids from getting lost. (This is something I’m definitely going to explore for Moe.) A few days ago, this little boy was badly burned when he pulled a pot of boiling water on himself. I can just picture Moe, just looking for his mac & cheese, doing this same thing, and it is so scary. To keep up to date with his progress and learn more about how to help, click the picture below.

Everything I needed to know about raising a child I learned from training my dog

When Berkeley was a puppy, we went to a puppy training class. She learned some basic commands, like "sit," "stay," "heel" and "come." I know what your thinking. If you've been following this blog or know us at all, you'll know that Berkeley isn't the most well-behaved pup. But she is extremely smart, and is very quick learner. If I have a clicker and a treat, she'll do almost anything. So she aced that class (and many others since), and one of thing most important things we taught her was her name.

Teaching a dog her name is simple. You wait until she is looking at you, then say the name, click (or say "yes!"), and give a treat. Soon you can say the name when she isn't looking, then if she turns to you, click and treat. Before long, you say her name and she'll come running for that treat. Eventually you can back off the treats. It is simple behavior training using positive reinforcement. During the training period, you also need to be sure to only use the name when you have a positive reinforcement (i.e. don't say "Berkeley, no!"). The name needs to mean good things.

You can then use this to work on the recall. Jeff would put Berkeley on a 50 ft. lead and I'd go to the other end. Then I would say "Berkeley, come!" If she came running, which she usually did, she got a treat. But she also had to learn that it was not an option to not come. If she didn't come running, Jeff would bring her over to me, and then she'd get the treat. Soon enough, we didn't need the lead, and we could actually hide behind trees in the park and shout for her to come find us.

Usually, you don't have to teach a person to respond to his or her name. You naturally say your child's name often and they pick up that it means something. It seems so natural that you turn your head when you hear your name that it feels more like instinct or reflex rather than a learned behavior. So what do you do when you have a child like Moe who doesn't respond to his name? Well, it's back to basics: positive reinforcement.

We've been working on a "response to name" program for a while with minimal success. So we're focusing on it more heavily now. I am supposed to say Moe's name only when there is a positive reinforcement available (treat, desired toy, tickles, etc.). We are not supposed to ever say "Moe, don't do that." And we are supposed to set up situations so that when we do call his name, he has to respond. If he doesn't respond on his own, a second person will walk him over. Even if Moe doesn't completely understand why he has to come or look at you when he hears his name, it can become a learned behavior.

Of course, it isn't as easy with a child. First, try not saying your child's name unless you have an immediate treat of some kind. Second, Moe isn't just motivated by a treat like a dog is. He has complex wants and needs and we don't always know what they are. He tires of the run back and forth to mom and dad game much more quickly than Berkeley does. And, like a lot of things with a two year old, when Moe doesn't respond, it is hard to know if he doesn't understand what is expected or if he just doesn't want to do it.

The good news is, it does seem to be working, though slowly. We've seen some very clear examples of Moe looking right at us when his name is called. Of course raising a child is much more complex than raising a puppy, but in the end, we humans are just animals and we like our treats (in whatever form) just as much as the next creature. I just hope and I can keep my kids off the Clomicalm.

...And it's only Tuesday!

It's been one of those weeks.

Jelly's first tooth broke through this weekend. I thought that was the reason for her recent night wakings, and it probably was at first, but now she also has a cold. It's a bad one. I have never seen so much snot in my life and neither one of us is too happy about it. The last few nights she has been getting up at 4am and the only thing that seems to help is a bottle (formula for her, pinot noir for me).

Moe may or may not be sick. He woke up yesterday and today with a runny nose, so I canceled his therapy sessions. But then he seems fine the rest of the day. Is he already fooling me into skipping school? He's actually taking a nap right now, so he probably is sick. I just hope I don't have to spend the next 4 days wiping his nose. Unlike Jelly Belly, he can fight back.

Then there's Berkeley. This week, we started her on an anti-anxiety medication. It's brilliantly called "clomicalm." So far, she does, in fact, seem calmer - mostly sleepy, but the vet said that was normal for the first few days. I'm not actually sure if her sleepiness is because of the meds. It might be because her tail is hurt. That's right, Berkeley busted open her tail. "How did she do that?" you ask. By wagging it. Berkeley gets so excited when anyone comes in the house that she wags her whip-like tail hard against anything in its path. Most of the time, that's the wall, and a couple of days ago she busted her tail right open. And, here's the thing: it's not the first time she's done this.

So today, Jeff comes home for lunch to check on everybody, and Berkeley goes nuts. Blood is spraying everywhere. Walls, furniture, the baby things I had all cleaned and laid out because I'm getting ready to sell them. It's unbelievable.

I just got an email asking for updates for my MBA class notes. Two of my classmates just got married. Another just published a book. I'm washing bouncy seat covers and cleaning blood off the walls.

Poop happens

Warning: this post is very mildly scatological in nature. If you'd rather avoid such topics, come back another day.

With all of the serious posts I've been writing, I thought I'd share some of the lighter side of my day yesterday.

Moe doesn't greet me when I get him up in the morning, saying "Mommy" or "good morning." I'm lucky if he even looks at me when I walk in. He's often singing or babbling in his crib, a place he definitely enjoys hanging out. But of course, I always greet him with as much enthusiasm as I can muster at 7am. So yesterday morning, I went to get him up. He looked me straight in the eye, and said: "Poop."

I have no idea why he said it. He had a clean diaper when I got him up. Maybe he had to go and wanted me to leave him alone? Maybe I usually ask him if he has a poopy diaper when I get him up? I don't know but it sure was funny.

That evening, Jeff was on the later side getting home since he had to get Berkeley from doggie day care, and I was starting to get the kids ready for bed. He came in while I was giving Jelly Belly her bottle. He looked in and said "Berkeley was in time-out today. I'll let you read about it." I immediately start to think the worst, that she's getting in fights and they're not going to let us send her anymore. And she has her evaluation for a new place on Thursday, and we want to maybe start sending her 5 days a week, and what will I do if she can't go?

So I finish with Jelly and go take a look at Berkeley's report card. The line says "I was in time out for...eating poop." Super.

And yes, I know. With day care, evaluations, report cards, and time-outs, Berkeley might as well be another child in the house.

On the edge

I'm pretty good with stress. Stress and I, we go way back. So when big things come along, I'm ready to take them on. What's our action plan? I'll make a spreadsheet! Do I need to order snacks? But I find that during times of stress, it is the little things that drive me over the edge.

My mom came up for the week to help with the kids, and probably to check up on me and make sure I'm not actually losing it. She arrived on Monday and I was hosting my book club that night. My plan was to pick her up from the airport and drive straight to pick up some cupcakes I ordered. Well, I took the wrong exit, and had to drive all around town to get back to the bakery. It wasn't that I was lost. I knew exactly where I was since I was headed toward Yogurtland. Anyway, at this point, I'm sure my mom did think I had lost it. But she kept this to herself. She was being kind. I think she feels sorry for me.

Later in the week, we got home from some errand and the dog had chewed my shoe. Not a Jimmy Choo or anything, but a very nice kiwi green leather flip flop that I quite liked. So I call Jeff, who says "why did you leave the dog in the bedroom?" (I should back up for a moment. Our dog chews things, so we have a long process of leaving the house which involves closing all of the doors. But because of a long story which I won't go into, I decided I would be nice and let her be in the bedroom while we went out.) Anway, back to my helpful husband. Thanks, Jeff!

Then the phones went out and I had to have the phone company come out "anytime between 8am and 6pm." And the kitchen sink is leaking. And we have a wasp nest on the front of the house. And why is it that all of these things are happening right now? Don't the gods of all the annoying shit that happens know that I'm dealing with something big and I don't have time for this? I know, I know, maybe life is trying to teach me a lesson about what is truly important, blah blah blah. And I get it. Sort of.

So what does any former project manager do when things get stressful? 1. Freak out and cry a lot about how everything is going to hell. Then, 2. Organize! I now have wonderfully organized dressers, closets and my entire office! Jeff is even in on it, installing drawers in our kitchen cabinets and shelves in the laundry room. I always could get those engineers to do what I want.