At Last..Second Grade and TJ's

Excitement (as least for Mom and Dad) has been rampant here as both school and Trader Joe's opened their doors these past weeks. Trader Joe's has been all that we remembered it to be, good food at a good value. They also have discovered how to cover every possible edible item known to man in chocolate and package it in huge quantities at a ridiculously low price. Is there any doubt why I am now on a bullet train to obesity?

School has been very good so far. Unfortunately, Elijah's summer friend Janey is not in his class, but many of his previous classmates who have befriended and looked out for him are. Sarah's efforts at "Mom School," though frustrating at times, will prove to be a great aid to Elijah as he navigates his classwork. Among one of the amazing aspects of Elijah's brain is his uncanny ability to remember names. As I walked the hallways with him the first day of class, I was struck at

how he greeted everyone he saw by name. Be it a teacher he has never had, a custodian, librarian or aide, he knew everybody's name. What warmed my heart though was that they all knew his name as well. There can be no better

feeling for a parent than to know the environment at their child's school is so open and warm.

So school is off to a good start. Piano lessons, after a month's hiatus, will start again in September. A social skills group is being formed with Elijah as one of its members. And every day as school lets out, he insists on hugging at least two classmates and talks excitedly about going back to class the next day. We know it is going to be a journey with Elijah, but he appears to be raring to go!

Doing the Elijah Cha Cha

Living with Elijah is like a day at the dance studio. Two steps forward, one step back. As long as the movement is always forward we can do the shuffle, but while it can be exhausting, it is never dull.

On Super Bowl Sunday, a friend of Sarah's came by with her two children. Elijah eagerly awaited their arrival (this was the same family who visited us for fun in the snow -- see the previous blog), and he happily played with the boy, Quinn, for quite a while (step forward). When Quinn and Elijah started to play a video game that Elijah hadn't played before, Elijah got frustrated and announced that he was going to his room (a step forward and also a step back -- the retreat to the room was bad, but the fact that he felt embarrassed by his inability to play the game was an emotion we had never seen and was actually a good sign). A few moments later, Elijah emerged from his room and continued to play until our visitors went home.

That same week, a parent-teacher conference yielded both good and not so good results. Again, all the people working with Elijah at school told us how much they loved him and what a incredible little guy he is. (I'm not naive enough to think that ALL the parents aren't told that, but with his joyful personality and his love for school, I think there is a lot of truth in their feelings.) In terms of his work and where he stands with his peers, Elijah appears to be all over the place. Sometimes his assignments and journal entries are correct and proper, while other times what was asked of him and how he responded have absolutely nothing in common. Yet, unlike many autistic children, he constantly seeks to interact with peers and teachers (on his terms, of course), so it appears that his socialization skills are at least moving in the right direction. Also, his memory for detail is another source of wonder, as his teacher and specialists marveled at his abilities to remember every announcement, incident and object placement in the classroom. The cha cha continues!

Last week at a classmate's birthday party, Elijah happily greeted and interacted with classmates and climbed the rock wall at the facility. Since we have never seen him even attempt do this at our fitness center, both Sarah and I were very happy and looking forward to the fact that he would have the opportunity to show off that skill the next night as we would be taking advantage of our club's "Parents Night Out" to see a movie while leaving Elijah at the club to play, swim and climb. After dinner and the show, we returned to pick up Elijah and were told that the swim time had ended a little sooner than expected because someone had decided to use the pool as a toilet -- and our little guy had happily volunteered that he had been the culprit.

Needless to say, the ride back home was a bit tense until Elijah realized what he had done was wrong and wasn't something to laugh about. But then, the next day, after we had gotten a written apology from Elijah for the club, the story changed. Elijah told us it wasn't him, that he had just said that because .... well, just because.

You may think he was just trying to shift the blame, but a similar incident occurred a few weeks back. An employee from the club's child center came to get me from the workout floor because Elijah had insisted that he had soiled his pants. When I got there and checked him out, it was obvious that wasn't the case. When I asked him why he had said that .... well, I still haven't gotten an answer. My guess is that he wanted more attention from the girls working there and knew this was a way to get it.

It's been years since he's had a verified "accident," and he always announces to everyone and anyone that he needs to use the restroom, so I really don't think he was the culprit. A step back, at least in terms of his ability to communicate accurately.

A more positive moment occurred just last week. Elijah has been working with a graduate student at the University of Kansas as she, for her advanced degree, is teaching him math as part of a research project into how best to teach children with autism. (In a prelude to this, the teacher, "Miss Nikki," taught Elijah about vegetables, so he now can point out artichokes at the grocery store with great excitement.) The sessions were held here at the house, and Elijah always looked forward to Nikki's visits, asking, "Is Miss Nikki coming today?" and always smiling broadly when the answer was yes.

Then we found out that the music therapist who runs Elijah's summer camp had an opening for piano lessons -- on one of the days each week that Miss Nikki visited. We've been trying to get him into piano lessons for a long time, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity. This led to a farewell to Miss Nikki, and it was sad to say goodbye. Piano lessons, step forward .... losing Miss Nikki, a step back.

Then the challenge became finding a piano or keyboard that the little guy could practice on.

The music therapist advised against using the small electric keyboard we have, because it doesn't have "weighted" keys -- no matter how hard or soft you hit the keys, the tone is the same. For someone on the spectrum (and maybe for everyone) the need to hear the difference in sound by the force of the key being struck is very important.

Incredibly, Sarah found someone willing to give us a piano, which was moved to our house today. And we received an e-mail from Miss Nikki telling us that after speaking with her advisers, she had received approval to continue working with Elijah on a different schedule, so piano lessons could be accommodated. At the first lesson after Miss Nikki returned, Elijah got, for the first time, 100 percent correct on the teaching portion of the session. BIG steps forward!

Another first came last week, as Elijah put on roller skates for the first time at an after-school skating party -- an event that in the past might have caused some anxiety for the little guy. But as I have mentioned earlier, his class seems like a pretty special group and once he saw his classmate Sofia, all was well. (Although Sarah realized that ice-skating expertise does not transfer into roller-skating skills, even if you were a great roller-skater in your youth. Her time on the rink was very limited.)

The little guy is very excited about his upcoming lessons -- he wouldn't even wait for Sarah to clean off the piano before he sat down and tried it out. And who knows? Eventually, maybe he'll be able to produce his own soundtrack for his ever-changing dance steps. Hopefully, they'll all be forward!

A Lost Tooth, but Not a Lost Cause

It has been a very exciting couple of weeks here as Elijah has FINALLY lost his first tooth, waiting until he was 7 years old. After a few days of pushing against it with his tongue, the big moment occurred while he was at school, which meant he not only lost a tooth, but also gained a certificate, signed by the nurse, announcing the occasion. That night the Tooth Fairy, taking into account the rate of inflation and the tough economic times we are in, replaced the tiny tooth with two dollars and a note telling him to spend the money on anything he wanted. Elijah, being Elijah, used the money to buy a clipboard on which he has been practicing his spelling test words for school. Practical and educational...that's Sarah's genes, not mine!

Losing a tooth was not the only notable event that occurred at school recently. Sarah, concerned that some children were making fun of Elijah, wrote his teacher about it. Since bullying is such a hot-button issue at schools these days, his teacher suggested that a way be found to educate his classmates about Elijah's autism. She asked if there might be a book she could share with the class and help them understand why Elijah acts the way he does sometimes.

Dad took to the Internet and found a couple of titles that could be used. One of them, Looking After Louis, was a perfect fit. The main character, Louis, who is autistic but still mainstreamed at a public school, had many characteristics that were similar to Elijah. Louis has an adult sit with him in class, mimics the teacher and has wonderful artistic skills. He wants to play with the other boys but doesn't seem to comprehend how to do it. The narrator of the story is a little girl who is a classmate of Louis and wants to be his friend but can't understand why the rules don't seem to apply to him. At the end of the story, the children begin to see, through his art, how special Louis is and play with him like they would any other classmate. As a father of a little boy with autism who hopes each day that his son will be accepted by his peers, I admit the ending brought tears to my eyes.

But what would Elijah's classmates think? His teacher, with the assistance of the school counselor, read the book to his class while Elijah was out of the room. (His absence was not an unusual occurrence, as Elijah, who reads at a very advanced level but has trouble comprehending what he reads, goes to a reading skills room at least twice a week.)

According to the teacher and counselor, the class really seemed to understand and wanted to help. (I must give praise to Elijah's teacher whose incredible enthusiasm is only equaled by her and the counselor's empathy for Elijah's situation. They are both doing a wonderful job.) A sign-up sheet was posted for members of the class to be Elijah's "recess buddy" (it would involve playing with Elijah for the first 10 minutes of recess) and it looked like every one of them signed up to do it. Not only that, at the school book fair, at least four of his classmates made a beeline for him to say hello, with one little girl insisting that her mother, who was volunteering at the checkout area, stop what she was doing so Elijah could be introduced to her. And each greeting to Elijah was returned by our little guy with his eyes looking at the person, and if it was a female classmate, a smile from ear to ear.

Sarah and I have often said that we are lucky to have Elijah in the school system he is in, and his progress has borne that out. When we drop him off in the morning and he gets out of the car with a huge smile while running for the front door, sometimes laughing with another student, he looks like any other typical first grader. What more can a parent ask for?

Hold that Tiger

Just like the proverbial Jewish wedding, Halloween seemed to go on forever this year. Because parent-teacher conferences were scheduled for the end of the week, Elijah's school costume party and parade was held on the Wednesday before Halloween. Usually Elijah's costume is something that is bought at the last minute because of a complete lack of interest on his part. Since Star Wars and ninjas are as foreign to him as they would be to a child in a Third World country (no, that's wrong -- a child there would be more likely than Elijah to know who Luke Skywalker is), the costume-selection process this year seemed destined to be futile.

But that wasn't the case. As we went costume-hunting, Elijah shocked me by saying, "Daddy, I want to be a tiger." This was a first. Not once had he ever WANTED to be something for Halloween. My excitement was tempered, however, when I discovered that the only tiger costumes available at any local store were for either infants or women with very small waists and very long legs. Thank God for the Internet! A Google search found a costume store in New Jersey with the perfect tiger outfit, and a delighted Elijah soon had his costume, which he loved wearing and which was big hit with other felines in his class.

That was just the first time that week he wore the stripes. On Saturday, the day before Halloween, our health club held a "Spooktacular" that had all sorts of activities (including face painting, a bounce house, pumpkin decorating and pony rides) for kids. The little guy had a great time.

At last the big night arrived, and after some hugs from a very cute "Cat in the Hat," Elijah was ready to collect candy. Trick-or-treating with Elijah used to be a very quick experience. The first couple of years, it was two or three doors and then back to the house. Then last year, he realized that the more houses he went to, the more candy he would get, so we would go door to door until he would get a large candy bar (usually a Crunch Bar), and then he'd want to go home immediately to devour his gains. This year was different. He was on a mission to get candy, and lots of it.

As I tried to explain to Elijah, first you ring the doorbell, then you say "trick or treat," then allow the person to put some candy in your pumpkin (bag). You don't grab. And you thank them. Well, even the best-laid plans ....

At the first house we went to, our neighbor told Elijah to "grab as much as you want." Though he didn't do it then, the thought stuck with him, and it was a constant battle at every succeeding house as his hand reached out for the bowl brought to the door and he tried to grab a handful of candy. That was the only real problem of the night (if one doesn't include the fact that Elijah would ring the doorbell and say "trick or treat" at almost the same time, which led to many awkward moments of silence when someone finally opened the door. But at least he always said "thank you.")

We went up and down the blocks in our neighborhood and collected lots of candy before the little guy announced he wanted to go home and eat some of his stash. The first thing he devoured when we got home was a large Hershey Bar given to us by one of our neighbors, who also happens to be our dentist. Do you think there is a connection there? As Elijah's chocolate- smeared face shows, it was a good night to be a tiger.

Monkey See....

As you can see by the picture to the left, taken on the first day of class, Elijah is happy to be back in school. Outside of a couple of problem days early (without going into detail, let's just say I curse the person who thought automatic flush toilets were a great idea for children under 10!), he seems to be moving forward. At the two birthday parties that have taken place so far this school year, he has recognized and greeted classmates, laughed and played WITH them and has been asked by a female first-grader to "tell me I'm gorgeous." Pretty typical behavior, and that's all one can ask for.

Those of you who bought wrapping paper, cookie dough or something else that you probably didn't need are aware that the major fundraising event of the school year is now over. And yes, Elijah did qualify (thanks again to all those who sacrificed) for his backpack monkey, but the story doesn't end there. From the very first day he saw it, Elijah wanted the "big monkey with the blue eyes." I knew that the backpack version of Max was a gimme, with grandparents and aunts willing to contribute, but the "big" monkey was given only to those who sold at least one hundred items. Needless to say, that wasn't going to happen, yet every day, Elijah would ask if I had brought the big monkey home.

So, being the manipulated father that I am, with Elijah's happiness my only concern, I contacted the company that was running the sale and got the local representative's name and number. I then called her, explained the situation and asked if I could buy a large monkey for my son. Yes, she did have a monkey available, and she would be happy to sell it at cost. For a mere $8.50, Elijah could reach the nirvana that only a large, blue-eyed monkey could bring. When I told Sarah what I was doing, I was somewhat surprised she didn't put up more of a fight, but instead agreed that this was a small price to pay for childhood bliss. A check was sent and arrangements were made to have Max delivered to Elijah's school.

It turned out to be a HUGE success. When Sarah went to pick up Elijah at school and presented him with the monkey, his smile was truly from ear to ear. When he walked out of the school with the "big" monkey, other kids were in awe: "Elijah got the big monkey! Elijah got the big monkey!" Of course, the little guy was oblivious to this adulation, as he doesn't have the gloat component in his DNA, but Mom made sure that the truth was known as she told the other mothers that Daddy had bought Max. But the little guy didn't care. He had his big monkey with blue eyes, which he now has named George, and it has been his constant companion since he brought it home. I guess money can buy happiness, if it comes dressed up as a four-foot monkey with blue eyes.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

The title of this post has three meanings. First, as a homage to one of my all-time top three favorite television series (the two others are "Taxi" and "The Larry Sanders Show"), which returned to the air this week.

Second, for those of you who read and enjoy this blog and want to know why it isn't updated more often, understand we love the fact that you read our meanderings, but with both of us working and taking care of Elijah, the time left for creating these short masterpieces is limited.

Last, the title of this post is what I want to tell Elijah whenever Mary Poppins or an inflated moonwalk is available ...

With that out of the way, I will now bring you up to date.

As Sarah has mentioned previously, Elijah has started kindergarten, and it appears he is doing pretty well. He seems to enjoy his class and the after-school care program he goes to three times a week. Fortunately for us, most of his odd observations and behavior seem to be confined to our home.

As an example, Sarah mentioned to me that one day he announced he had to go to the restroom. Nothing wrong there, but when she thought he had been gone too long, she opened the door to find him standing on the sink looking at himself in the mirror, completely naked except for a strand of Mardi Gras beads around his neck. New Orleans, here we come!!

The bathroom seems to be a source of constant material for the little guy. Another day he told Sarah that the shape of the toilet looked like an arm on each side, which meant the bowl would be the person's head, when one lifted the lid, they would go "pee pee in that person's mouth!" Who knew? And I won't even get started on Elijah's fear of loud toilets, in which a Wendy's restroom off the interstate is in his mind is as horrible as Jason, Hannibal Lecter and Al Capone combined.

As I mentioned earlier, Mary Poppins is more popular around here than ice cream, with Elijah singing and dancing along with every song in this two-hour-plus opus.

(By the way, I didn't remember that there was a song or dance every five minutes of the movie, which is important only because Elijah insists we dance with him. Talk about an aerobic workout!)

His fascination with words and a certain song in the movie is evident here and was also written on a blackboard in a classroom at a temple we were attending for a special-needs program. The rabbi was so stunned she took pictures to show the congregation. (The printing on the board was much neater and in a straight line, which made it even more impressive.)

Elijah's love of this movie knows no bounds, and he expresses it in many ways. To mimic the "penguin dance," he will pull his pants down (just like Dick Van Dyke) as well as dance on his knees. The rooftop dance scene with the chimney sweeps is another favorite, with Elijah doing high kicks and a balancing dance step that would qualify him for a role in "A Chorus Line."

But his artistic side is also inspired by Mary. The following are just a few of his drawings from the film:

The hat rack Mary pulls out of her suitcase...

The lamp Mary pulls out next...

and his drawing of Old Man Dawes, who died laughing....

A short time later, another drawing appeared in our den, which I thought was also inspired by Mary Poppins. When I asked Elijah if this was his interpretation of the dance sequence "Step in Time" I was told no, that this had nothing to do with the movie.

"So what is it?" I asked.

"He's going to the restroom!" was the reply, and if you look closely, you can definitely spot the anatomy needed and the action occurring.

But it hasn't all been nothing but "a jolly holiday with Mary" around here. As I mentioned, we attended a program at a local temple with the preparation for the event stressing out Dad as he was trying to get the little guy dressed and ready. And because the little guy loves to remember and repeat songs and phrases that he hears, I probably shouldn't, while frustrated in getting him ready, utter the phrase "God damn it". (Yes, I know that seems mild, but just the previous week, without any warning, Elijah let loose, in an matter-of-fact way, a profanity-laced tirade dealing with spilled coffee. Since neither he nor I drink coffee or work at a Starbucks, it is quite obvious whom he heard it from.)

Sure enough, later that day at the grocery store, Elijah was riding in the large part of the cart drinking some water after his usual free cookie from the bakery, when Dad banged the cart against a display case (please no comments about my hitting stationary objects, even with a shopping cart). That action caused the following reaction from Elijah; "God damn it .... the water's cold!" Now mind you, this wasn't shouted in anger, but said in pure disgust with the situation. And as if to show that this wasn't a short-term memory situation, it repeated itself two weeks later. While he was eating a bowl of carrots in the back seat on the way to the gym, the bowl fell to the car floor as I took a corner a little too fast. "God damn it, the carrots are on the floor!" was Elijah's understated response, and though I know I shouldn't, I had to smile just a bit.

Interesting observations have become the norm for Elijah lately. A couple of examples: One day last week, completely out of the blue, he mentioned to Sarah that "somebody had two babies and six babies on 'Jon & Kate Plus Eight!' " A couple of days later, noticing the difference in height between Sarah and me as we were all walking down a hallway, he commented that "Daddy needs to be taller."

He also is greeting people with his killer smile and saying the right things. (Upon seeing a classroom assistant from a previous semester, he hugged her and said, "Hi, sweetie.")

All in all, it has been a great summer and a good start to the fall. As Sarah mentioned earlier, he loves school and he has already charmed the Y-Care (YMCA after-school program) people and the new therapists he is working with. He is talking more and wants to play with (or at least alongside) the neighborhood kids. There are festivals aplenty coming up in the next few weeks, all of which involve moonwalks, so he should have that big smile on his face for quite awhile. (The picture at the top of this post was from one such festival this week.)

Lastly, as a point of parental privilege, I have bought the items needed for his Halloween costume this year. Just like his daddy was 45 years ago, he will be the chimney sweep from "Mary Poppins." When he puts on the hat and starts to twirl the broom, all I can say is, "God damn it, he's cute!"

All aboard for kindergarten!

My, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Does it help that I have an excuse or two -- or 10 --for not posting anything lately?

If you're one of Elijah's grandparents, who at last count accounted for approximately 80 percent of the readers of this blog, I'm guessing the answer is no.

But I'll try anyway: School has started (five dropoffs and pickups a week), I'm in physical therapy for a knee injury (two therapy visits a week), Elijah is seeing both a speech therapist and an occupational therapist (two therapy visits a week), and I'm temporarily working full time again (five round-trip commutes to downtown each week, arriving back home at 12:30 a.m.).

Technically, there are also bills to be paid and rooms to be cleaned and laundry and yard work and grocery shopping to be done, though as you might imagine, I'm not quite keeping up with it alone. (Thank you, Jeff, for being a fantastic dad and husband and mower of lawns and washer of clothes and grocery shopper!)

On top of it all, there are various houseguests on the way in the next few weeks. You all know who you are; please forgive us in advance for the state of the house. We actually do look forward to having you here, but you can't say you weren't warned.

(An aside: How do households with two full-time workers and more than one child manage to maintain their sanity? I simply couldn't do it!)

Kindergarten seems to be going reasonably well for Elijah. It's too early for parent-teacher conferences, although we have already had back-to-school night and parent information night and some other night whose purpose I can't even remember. Many other such nights are scheduled throughout the year -- book fair, curriculum night, and on and on, making me wonder how I made it through 12 years of public schools with nothing more than the occasional "open house." (Just fine, actually.)

So far, kindergarten has held no surprises -- Elijah's still ahead of the curve on academic stuff and behind on everything else.

That's why he's in occupational therapy, which focuses on getting him to follow instructions, work as part of a group and pay close attention to the behaviors, moods and words of others. We're hoping it will help close the gap between Elijah and typical kindergartners.

That gap is sometimes literal. When lining up to go somewhere, which appears to constitute a fairly big portion of a kindergartner's day, Elijah is always the one wandering off, or slowing down as the line makes its way down the hall -- to the point that children behind him are pushing him and begging him to get moving along. He doesn't seem to have much interest in moving along, preferring to wait until a teacher or aide takes him by the hand and speeds him up. I've always found it perfectly acceptable to pull him around from place to place, but of course the teachers at school have better things to do -- this ain't preschool!

And that's the shocker for him. After four years of preschool, he's become rather accustomed to being in a sheltered environment. Those classes consisted of a few kids with "special needs," like Elijah, and a few "peer models," who were chosen on the basis of personality traits tending toward the calm and quiet. And several adults were in each classroom.

But now he's in the rough-and-tumble of a mainstream kindergarten, where the girls talk nonstop and the boys roughhouse nonstop. Being not much of a talker and not much of a roughhouser, Elijah is a bit taken aback by it all, but he's doing well (with the help of an extra adult in the classroom) and seems to like it just fine. His skill with academic tasks when compared with the other kids gives him a bit of confidence, which helps. (He's been writing complete sentences for several years now, so this week's homework -- a worksheet on the letter "C" -- is not exactly a challenge.)

I don't really have time for much more of an update, but I'll try to sit down in the next week or so and share the (surprising) tale of what appears to be Elijah's favorite class.

Hint: His favorite color is now "rouge."

Au revoir ......

Woe is not me -- yet

OK, so it's been awhile. I haven't subjected any of you to my ramblings lately because, well, I can't think of anything new to ramble about. Which is good, because I have finally reached the age where the phrase "no news is good news" actually makes sense.

But the thing is, there's always news. This week's news is that I have started taking what is likely to be a long list of classes to upgrade my skills in preparation for a new career. I'll admit that I put this off for a long time, not because I didn't want to go back to school, but because I hate having only one night a week at home. (Elijah doesn't mind it at all, given that any night Mom's gone means he gets to eat dinner in the den with Dad and make all sorts of disgusting bodily noises. Mom tends to take all the fun out of things with her insistence on sitting at the table and not belching. Or worse.)

So now I'm taking an HTML/XHTML/CSS class on Monday and Tuesday nights, then working Thursday nights through Sunday nights. With any luck, I'll develop enough skills in Web site architecture that I can go into the underlying code for this blog and make some changes to the template, such as getting the title to be in proper uppercase and lowercase letters (those trendy all-lowercase things drive me insane.).

More importantly, of course, is the fact that I'm in the job market, which, as you may have heard, is not a real great place to be right now. I technically still have a job, although it could evaporate this week or next. (Yes, it's layoff time again -- the fifth round of layoffs/buyouts at my company in the past 14 months.)

Got a fork? Stick it in some newspapers. They're done.

So I'm trying to keep in mind the GOOD things about a likely job loss. For me, it means eight hours of sleep a night. No more getting home from a commute downtown at 12:30 or 1 a.m. No more going to work on Friday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday nights, holidays, 52 weeks a year. No more snapping at Elijah because I'm exhausted. Mondays are especially bad, which doesn't bode well for learning computer code from 6 til 9:30 on Monday nights.

If you happen to be someone I work with -- or one of my bosses (yeah, I know I sent you an e-mail from home and forgot to delete the link to this blog in the tagline), please keep in mind that I do not WANT to be laid off. If given the option, I'd probably stay til the ship goes down, simply because I'm a stay-til-the-ship-goes-down kind of gal. (Plus, so far I haven't been able to find another job.)

Sorry for the cliche (the kind of thing I get paid to take OUT of other people's writing), but the ship is indeed going down -- you know it as well as I do.

I thought about posting a bunch of links here to various articles and blogs about my industry's demise, but those of you who care probably have already read all you can stand to read about it. I'm just hoping I hear about any layoff involving me BEFORE my name gets posted on one of them. That's a lousy way to learn about your job loss, although only slightly lousier than getting the news in an e-mail, which seems to be a growing trend.

I will say that I understand why no one wants to read newspapers anymore. Nobody sums the reasons better than Will Bunch on the Huffington Post site. Click on that, read it and watch the Jon Stewart video. It's a scream.

And sometimes, screaming is all you can do.

School days

It has occurred to me that I have neglected to inform those of you who are interested in such things (granted, this is relatively few of you) how Elijah's school year is going.

It's going quite well, particularly since we switched him from the afternoon class to the morning class.

Normally, the morning preschool classes are the biggest. But for some reason, this year's crop of parents mostly wanted their children in afternoon classes, so the school tried to oblige to the extent practical. I'll admit to being one of those whiny parents who really, really did not want to drag myself out of bed early enough to get my child fed, dressed, toothbrushed and out the door in time for the morning session. This was partly because at the time we registered, I was at work until well past midnight, all the way downtown, five nights a week. There was a bit of a more selfish motive, too -- the ice rink where I skate only has public sessions in the afternoons, and trust me when I say that taking Elijah along for a skating session is not the most productive way to spend time or money.

But after observing the classroom situation when I dropped him off every afternoon, I decided to switch him to mornings. The afternoon class had 12 kids, and while about half of them were typically developing "peer models," some of the others had fairly severe special needs and quite clearly required a great deal of individual attention from the teacher, paras and therapists. Plus, it was a noisy bunch, and Elijah is most assuredly NOT a noisy kid.

So I asked the teacher if she would like me to switch him to mornings, and she practically dropped to her knees in gratitude. It turns out that there were only seven kids in the morning class, and of those, just one was a special-needs kid. So, with the addition of Elijah, that makes for a classroom with just two special-needs kids and six -- count 'em, six! -- peer models. And they are a very quiet group, much more suited to Elijah's personality.

You almost can't beat this level of individual attention in a public school setting. When you count the teacher, two paras, a rotating speech-language pathologist and a rotating occupational therapist, there are certain days of the week in which the morning class has a nearly 1-1 ratio of students to teachers. Not a bad deal, especially considering that it's all free! (At least it is for us -- the parents of the peer models have to pay.)

Still, though, Elijah is less than forthcoming about what his day consists of. If it weren't for the information sheets that are sent home with him each day, I'd have no idea what he did for those three hours every morning. His language skills just aren't there yet.

I do know that today he served as Helper of the Day, which apparently involves things like assisting with the calendar, holding the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance (which he is just learning for the first time and loves to recite) and leading the line when the class goes to other parts of the building and out to recess.

These jobs, his teacher assures me, are "very important leadership positions." (I'm beginning to suspect that she was part of John McCain's vice presidential search team.)

So, in a nutshell, the school year is going great. And with his love of the Pledge of Allegiance and his experience in "leadership," our little boy may one day be a presidential contender. In fact, if I can't work up any more enthusiasm for either of our current contenders, I might just put him down as a write-in candidate this year.

Anyone care to start a petition drive?