Summer's here and the time is right for......doing family things?

OK ... so maybe that isn't the way the Stones wrote the song, but Mick and Keith are both grandparents now, so they would understand. Of course, their summer escapades include visits to exotic beaches on faraway islands while ours are to the local park pool. C'est le difference!

The "park pool" today is not like the one I grew up going to, an Olympic-size pool surrounded by concrete and a wire fence. Our local "Aquatic Center" has three different pools, a fountain garden, slides and lots of grass and shade. (Surrounded by a chain link fence ... some things just can't be improved upon.) Elijah loves going there and has graduated from the zero-depth entry to, as he calls it, "the big pool." With his life vest on, he fearlessly paddles out to where Dad has to bounce on his toes to keep his head above water (and no, that's not in four feet of water!).

Here in the Midwest, Memorial Day is the opening of summer, and Elijah and I were at the pool the first weekend. With the temperature just barely reaching the high 70's, the water was a bit cold. How cold? As I waded in, this was my first thought:

But wade I did as the little guy, with his life vest on, took off for uncharted waters. His laughter and joy helped warm the water (but not that much!).

Memorial Day weekend included not only a dip in the pool, but also a family outing to a free symphony concert and fireworks show at a local landmark. Elijah staked out his seat early for the show, but as you can see it was right in the middle of the walkway.

With some (ahem) coaxing, and the promise of shared frozen custard with Dad, he relented and moved onto the lawn with everyone else.

The next weekend we all went to a street festival in a historic district near us. As with other carnivals and fairs, Mom volunteered for Ferris wheel duty while Dad gladly took pictures from the ground. Elijah loved the rides, especially the variety of moonwalks available. All in all, a happy day for the family.

Which brings us up to last weekend. On Friday, the yearly Jazz Fest (which is held in a wooded area that houses a corporate park) was our destination. Although music filled the air, all Elijah wanted to do was go on the variety of moonwalks that were there....over and over and over again. After that it was time to cool off in the fountains, where the music finally caused him to have a case of "happy feet."

All of this was just a prelude for Elijah's birthday party (the first of two, his camp is giving him one this week at Chuck-E-Cheese's, limo ride included) which was a huge success. Sarah agonized over what kind of party to have and decided to let our health club sponsor it (it's a great facility with a great kids program). Neighbors and friends from school (well, they want to be his friend, even though Elijah ignores them most of the time) ate cake and ice cream and then went swimming in the large INDOOR pool. Yes, even though we had scheduled the party to be at the outdoor pool facility, the staff thought it would be too cold and moved it indoors. Since I was one of the parents in the pool, I was not entirely opposed to the decision (see earlier mention of pool temperature in this post).

Elijah loved being lifted up from the water and the air was filled with lots of kids screaming in delight. In fact, bouncing with Elijah in the pool and all of the kids in the water having a great time, it felt as if summer had really arrived.

An (almost) acquired taste

So here we are, midway through week two of Elijah's eight-week summer adventure at Camp Kidz Rock, a day camp for kids on the autism spectrum.

And what a summer it is shaping up to be! I was determined to find him a place that would be what summer camp is supposed to be: Active, outdoorsy, engaging and adventuresome. A place that understood autism and its limitations but was not encumbered by those limitations. A place that would mix him in with "typical" kids, without expecting him to BE a typical kid. A place that would never use the words "computer" and "camp" in the same sentence. (Really, that ought to be against the law.)

It appears that we have hit the jackpot. Already, Elijah has played kickball, T-ball, tag and Red Rover. He's had a skinned elbow, a sweaty forehead and grass-stained knees. He's learned new songs, tried out several musical instruments and gone on multiple field trips. He's learned about teamwork and sportsmanship. He'll be going to a minor-league baseball game this week. And he always has a smile on his face when I pick him up in the afternoons.

Most notable, though, is the fact that the camp therapists have actually coaxed him to eat foods that are outside his list.

If you've ever been a parent, or have even spent much time in the vicinity of small children, you know what I mean by the "list." It's that limited number of foods that most small children will eat -- pizza, chicken nuggets, that sort of thing. I remember being a fanatically picky eater as a child (and frankly, I still am), and I don't know a mother anywhere who hasn't pulled her hair out over the refusal of her little darlings to eat anything "normal." Many young children will eat only beige food, or go days or even weeks eating ONE food only (mac and cheese -- which of course is beige! -- seems to be the most common obsession of these one-dish diners).

Elijah's list, on the other hand, is fairly broad. He'll eat several types of protein (hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, milk, cheese and eggs) as well as two vegetables (carrots and broccoli) and a smattering of other things, mostly sugar-filled. Granola bars are one of his favorite foods, and if you think this is a good thing, you obviously haven't read the nutrition and ingredient labels on granola bars lately.

But his list has not changed one iota in nearly four years. And when you are not yet six years old, that's quite a while.

Of course, the parenting "experts" of the world have all sorts of theories about why kids like Elijah (along with about 80 percent of his age cohort) are such picky eaters. They write entire books about it, and from what I can tell by reading the dust jackets and book reviews (which is as far as I will go), they cast blame squarely on the demise of the "family dinner hour."

The what?

I don't know about you, but the family dinner hour has never been much a part of my life, or the lives of most people I know. I did an informal poll at work, involving everyone who happened to be within earshot on a recent evening, and we are all frankly stumped about this "family dinner hour." One co-worker theorized that it was something that occurred back in the immediate post-World War II era, just before the invention of TV dinners. Another was convinced it was a complete fiction invented by previous generations to be used as a tool to heap guilt on working mothers who couldn't possibly get home in time to fix dinner and sports-obsessed fathers who kept their kids in organized youth activities well into the evening all year long.

In any case, even those co-workers who are well into their 60s suspect that this family dinner hour thing is a myth, because they have no memory of it, either as children or during their child-rearing years.

Perhaps it should be noted that this poll was underway at approximately 7:30 p.m., which would be ..... the family dinner hour? Beats us.

But Elijah is now learning all about family-style dining. That's because his camp takes place at a campus shared by a Montessori school, where family dining is the rule. The "campus" is actually a group of adjacent cottages on a quiet residential street with a very cozy, homey feeling. The campers eat with the Montessori kids, out on big picnic tables underneath gigantic oak trees on the school's playground.

The point, I've surmised, is to teach table manners. As in, pass the potatoes, please. May I have some more roast beef? Would you like some green beans? Thank you for the apple slices!

You'll notice I didn't put quotes around those words, because I myself have never heard them spoken by our little camper. Yes, we have the "please" and "thank you" thing down (we are not total cretins, after all), but .... roast beef? Green beans? Apple slices? These are nowhere near Elijah's list, and neither are most of the other things on the menu (things like "lemony pasta salad," for instance).

But through extensive coaxing and bribing, the camp staff have persuaded Elijah to eat two bites of a turkey sandwich, two bites of corn, three bites of cheese quesadillas and FOUR entire bites of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- a miracle I personally witnessed on a "family day" field trip to a botanical garden (Which also featured a lovely performance by professional harpists at a beautifully landscaped clearing in the woods. Elijah is absolutely captivated by stringed instruments.)

So far there has not been any consumption of fruit -- a food group that apparently affects Elijah the same way seafood and organ meats affect me. As in -- forget it.

Every day since he was born, he has seen me eat fruit -- I LOVE fruit -- and we are now approaching his sixth birthday without any interest on his part in the myriad varieties of fruit I put on his plate. (True quote from his pediatrician: "Sometimes, it takes up to 20 tries before a child is willing to put a new food in his mouth." Yeah, right. At this point, we have reached well over 1,000 tries. Thanks, doc.)

The camp staff have gotten as far as having Elijah put a bit of strawberry in his mouth, which he spits out as soon as he is allowed to. But still, this represents progress. And progress is a very exciting thing.

Next up: Elijah's birthday! The camp will be celebrating it, as it falls within the "parties and celebrations"-themed session, which begins next week. And of course, we have our own party planned for him, with about 10 or 12 young guests and their parents, poolside at our health club. In addition to an hour of pool time, there'll be plenty of pizza, cake and ice cream.

And, since it's HIS day -- not a bit of fruit in sight.

Dinners of the damned

You hear a lot these days about layoffs and what they are doing to workplaces. Low morale, heavier workload on those left behind, survivor's guilt.

I can relate to the lowered morale and the heavier workload, but survivor's guilt? Sorry, can't go there. I've worked past midnight and every weekend and pretty much every holiday for too many years and am simply too exhausted by my schedule (and the fact that I haven't had a week off in nearly a year) to feel survivor's guilt.

Don't get me wrong -- I am very grateful to have a job at all in this economy, and I intend to do my best at that job as long as it is there for me. I have no choice -- our household depends on two incomes. But reading all these articles about post-layoff workplace issues has me wondering if those who write them have any clue what they're talking about.

Take the office refrigerator. Please.

No one ever seems to write about this, which is why I'm convinced that the layoff stories I read in newspapers are written by free-lancers who never actually set foot in a newsroom.

I've never been unfortunate enough to actually be at the office as co-workers are being told that their services will no longer be needed (one of the few good things about working nights is avoiding these scenes, which generally happen during "regular" hours). So I don't know exactly what people do in those minutes between the time they are informed of their layoff and the time they leave the building.

But I can tell you what they DON'T do -- they don't take their food out of the refrigerator.

The results are predictable, and when I read a Chicago Tribune article a couple of weeks ago about an office refrigerator whose fumes actually resulted in several people being hospitalized, it didn't take much for me to imagine how the situation had developed.

It's been more than two months since the last round of layoffs at my workplace -- and it was a huge round. So you know where this is going.

Yes, the food is still there, festering. No one wants to touch what one of my fellow night-shift workers refers to as the "Dinners of the Damned." And who can blame them? I'm certainly not volunteering for the task. And whoever was disgusted enough to post the aforementioned Chicago Tribune article in the kitchen area of our newsroom apparently didn't volunteer, either.

I haven't given a lot of thought to what I would do if I were laid off. It's unlikely I'd have what it takes to launch into one of those philosophical speeches that movies are made of, or to make a dramatic exit that is forever enshrined in newsroom lore.

I admire those who do make a memorable exit, though. Like one former co-worker who, on layoff day, got "the call" to please come up to the publisher's office. Sure, she said, I'll be right up. Rumor has it that she immediately headed there, where her supervisor and other bureaucratic types were waiting. But instead of taking a left and going up the stairs at the end of the hall, she took a right -- straight down the stairs, out to the parking lot and off into the sunset. (On behalf of beleaguered worker bees everywhere, here's to you, G.B.!)

I hope the layoff scenes are over. But if I should get the ax, you can bet I won't take long to pack my stuff. I won't scream, cry, throw a fit or launch into a soapbox rant about the disintegrating morals of corporate America. I'll probably just quietly fade away.

And I'll take my dinner with me.

What have you done for me lately?

It's been awhile since our last post, so here is a quick up-to-the-moment report. Sarah still hates the hours of her job and is tired all the time. I'm still employed, but it is a struggle to earn what I did previously. And Elijah .... well, he's growing and making progress, sometimes in big steps, other times at a snail's pace, but still moving forward.


As an example of progress, he now greets other children and looks at them when he does it. This is a major breakthrough, and though it's not 100% of the time, it's often enough to, as Elijah puts it, "make Daddy very happy."

On another front, after a spill in some mud, the bike-riding was, to say the least, not a high priority. But the discovery of a bridge over a creek at a local park (we refer to it as "Goose Poop Park" as it has many deposits left by our feathered friends) had rekindled the excitement of riding. The routine is to ride to the swings, play on the equipment and ride back to the car, making both Daddy and Elijah very happy.

Along with all of the good, there have been some problems. "Blue's Clues" and its numbing song patterns have been, on some days, the only basis for Elijah's conversation. I guess I should be happy I haven't had him watch the Sopranos, as that rote speech would be difficult to explain to teachers and strangers. He also has mastered getting on the computer and going to a web site that has all sorts of speech and spelling games, turning up the volume full blast and clicking on the same icon over and over again. Again, I should be happy he hasn't discovered some of the web........no, I don't want to go there.


But what really has been happening around here is the marginalization of Mom. As Sarah has posted previously, Elijah has requested that "Mom go to work" and leave him to run amok due to Dad's lack of discipline. Be it going to the store, bike riding or just a walk around the block, Elijah has told Sarah, "Don't want Mommy to come with us. Just Elijah and Daddy." All this is in addition to Elijah's absolute consternation whenever Sarah goes to bed early, gets a good night's sleep and appears in the den during our morning routine (that would be Elijah having milk and a granola bar while sitting in a chair watching television, while I do the crossword puzzle). "WANT MOMMY TO GO BACK UPSTAIRS AND GO TO SLEEP" is the plea (command) which greets a blear- eyed Sarah as she sweetly says good morning. Talk about a tough crowd!

Other instances of his unappreciative nature: Whenever Sarah disciplines, him Elijah always responds the same way -- not with an apology but with a "Where's Daddy?" If we take two cars anywhere, it's always "Want to go with Daddy in the gray car" as opposed to riding with Mom (who is a much better driver). If it is one of the nights we are both at home, it's almost always Daddy he wants to be the one to read to him and put him to bed. And the list goes on and on.

Now I haven't installed a "nanny-cam," but I'm pretty sure Sarah isn't beating Elijah with a ruler, putting his feet in scalding water or forcing him to listen to '80s music, so why is our house a "Daddy's home"? My guess is that Daddy -- and Sarah will agree with this -- is just more fun than Mommy and allows the little tyke enough rope to hang the both of them until Mom gets home. As Sarah points out almost every time this topic comes up, I'm just a child of the '60s who doesn't believe in discipline, and I let the inmate run the asylum.

All I can say is yes, I am guilty, but the punishment of having my little boy saying "I love you so much, Daddy" is a whole lot better than lethal injection. I know I'm being played like a fine instrument, but I waited 50 years to be in the orchestra, and Mommy is a hell of a conductor.

Not-so-easy rider

I must confess, I didn't think the Little Guy had it in him.

As I've noted before, Elijah is not exactly athletically inclined. Unlike most American parents, though, I'm fine with this. I can think of few things I enjoy less than watching team sports, and I certainly have better ways to spend the next decade and a half of Saturday mornings (and weekday evenings and Sunday afternoons) than schlepping my kid to a soccer field or baseball diamond or whatever to watch a bunch of overinvolved parents scream as their hyperscheduled kids chase after a ball.

But I'm a huge fan of fitness, and of unstructured play and being outdoors and running barefoot in the grass and getting knee scrapes and bug bites and maybe even the tiniest bit of a suntan.

And I'm a believer that being a kid in the summer should include bike riding. That's why, way back when Elijah turned 2, we dutifully purchased a classic red-and-white Radio Flyer tricycle. Better not wait any longer, we thought, because he's already big enough to wear it out in a single summer. And soon he'll be moving up to bicycles.

Anyone want a like-new Radio Flyer tricycle?

It's still sitting in our garage, this pristine piece of Americana. It's virtually unused, although finally, at age 5 1/2 or so, Elijah did actually get the hang of pedaling it.

Now that he's nearly 6, he at last seems to be enjoying wheeled toys (his made-for-toddlers scooter is his favorite). And he's been making progress on physical skills in general, which means we have arrived at what the developmental professionals would call a "teachable moment." This became obvious to me a few weeks ago at Target, when I pulled a small, training-wheel-equipped bike off the display rack and plopped it down in the middle of an aisle.

"Hey, Elijah, want to try?" I said in my highest-pitched, oh-honey-you'll-just-love-this mommy voice. (It's the same voice I use to try to get him to eat healthy food, which is why I wasn't expecting much in the way of a response.)

Never underestimate the speed at which a novice bicyclist can pedal down the aisle of a discount store. Stunned at the fact he could even stay upright, I caught up with him just before he would have knocked down a display of fully inflated beach balls.

I thought perhaps it was a fluke, but when we repeated virtually the same scene a week or two later in a Wal-Mart, it became clear that it was time to brave the bicycle world.

The story of how we came to purchase a top-notch bicycle for a relatively bargain-basement price is long enough for an entire blog post in itself, but I'll spare you. Let's just say it involved a dedicated daddy who shops the clearance sales, knows which stores stock which items and never neglects to use the coupons in the Entertainment guidebook. And it did NOT involve any discount stores (which is good, because we just might be on a list of banned customers after those in-store pedaling escapades!).

So the bottom line is this: We have achieved a bicycle as well as a little boy who is already enjoying it despite himself (in the presence of the bicycle, he goes through cycles of excitement and apprehension and fear and joy faster than those spokes can spin). And thanks to the fact that we live in an area laced with paved trails that go through woods and alongside fields and over creeks and to parks and school playgrounds and even swimming pools, I think we have this summer-fun thing in the bag.

Here are a few shots of Elijah's first time out on his new bike:

Getting started ...


On a roll ...


A decision looms as a fork in the path approaches ...



... and failure to navigate the turn leads to a tumble and tears.



Overall, though, it was a very happy day in the life of a little boy.

Is there any room left on the Susan Boyle bandwagon?

If so, I'd like to squeeze on.

Usually, I'm skeptical of YouTube crazes, Internet celebrities and social networking fads (OK, yes, I did the "25 Things" meme on Facebook, but that's it. Honest). I haven't even signed on to Twitter yet, so I'm obviously not a jump-on-the-bandwagon person. (If you don't know what Twitter is, you will soon. Trust me on this.)

So when coworkers began buzzing about the Susan Boyle performance more than a week ago, I tuned it out. Exaggeration, I thought.

I was wrong. So please forgive me for being the 1 millionth (or is it 10 millionth?) blogger to post a link to this. You may well have already seen this, or at the very least, read about it. But I suspect there are maybe three or four regular readers of this blog who have not (I won't name names here, to protect the pop-culture innocent). Even Elijah was absolutely captivated, and I think it's safe to say that performances of music from "Les Miserables" by middle-aged women don't typically captivate 5-year-old boys.

So please, if you haven't yet seen Susan Boyle's performance on the April 11 broadcast of "Britain's Got Talent," click here. Read the article first, then watch the video.

It is one of the most uplifting things I have ever seen, and it will change your day. I promise.

This is just to say ...

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

If you ever sat through a high school English lit class, you probably remember that poem. And if you went on to a liberal arts college, you probably did everything you could to forget it after an hourlong deconstruction of it. (Short version: Three stanzas, 12 lines, imagist, concrete picture, deeper meaning, unanswered questions, sensory language, domestic relations, nature of forgiveness. See? I've just saved you thousands of dollars in tuition.)

I plead guilty to being one of the millions who rolled their eyes every time a WCW poem came up in class. Who cares who ate the plums in the icebox? And honestly, does so much depend upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens?

At the time, I thought not.

Over the years, though, I came to appreciate Williams' poetry. I chalked this up to maturity, to the deeper appreciation of language and imagery that comes with age. No one, I thought, really cared much about poetry in his youth.

Then came Elijah. And once again, I am forced to reconsider what I always assumed about little boys.

Yes, he's rambunctious, and fidgety, and often downright squirrely. Then, out of the blue, he'll stun me with a surprisingly sophisticated drawing or a request for me to read him poetry or to put on the HBO "Classical Baby" poetry show.

Which is how I came to find these on the refrigerator door one morning:





Don't those plums just look delicious?

So sweet, and so cold.