More Candy Wrapper Wisdom

This morning Lucy came to me and said, "Hey mom, when I got my toothbrush out earlier I knocked Ben's into the toilet, but it's OK, I got it out." Maintaining my composure, I raised my eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously, "Hmmm... after you got it out, where'd you put it?" She took my hand and led me to the bathroom where the door to the medicine cabinet was standing open. “Right there,” she said, pointing to a shelf where my toothbrush lay…with Ben’s right on top of it. I smiled weakly, told her thanks for fishing it out of the toilet and that if it happened again, she should just throw the toothbrush away (all the while desperately trying to remember the order in which everyone brushed their teeth this morning).

In the small bathroom that the kids and I share, the medicine cabinet spans the entire wall above the sink and the toilet. Since moving to this house I’ve asked the kids easily a hundred times to keep the toilet lid closed to avoid the exact scenario that happened this morning, to no avail (obviously). When I sat down at the end of the night with a sizeable glass of wine, I unwrapped a Dove Chocolate Promise. I figured a day that began with a toothbrush in the toilet warranted a little indulgence. The advice dispensed on tonight’s candy wrapper couldn’t have been more fitting: “Set your goals high but not your expectations.” Who’d have thought at this point in my life, though, my loftiest goal would be a consistently closed toilet lid?

My roommate contends you must tell a child to do something one thousand times before they will do it without being told and she swears she has empirical data to support this contention. (I’m suspicious of her research methods, though – when questioned, she’s dodgy and vague.) One thousand times seems high to me, but what if she’s right? I estimate I’ve told those kids three times a day since moving in to close the toilet lid. At this rate, that toilet lid won’t be closed on a regular basis until sometime around August of 2011.

Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll heed the advice of my Dove Chocolate Promise wrapper and keep my expectations low.

Tomorrow I plan to stock up on toothbrushes.

Sometimes I Let the Laundry Pile Up

I sort, pre-treat, wash, dry and move it into a basket. But that's when it breaks down. I don’t always fold the laundry and put it away in a timely manner. The other night I tried to move a laundry basket full of clean, but not-yet-folded clothes off my bed so that I could go to sleep only to discover there is not enough floor space in my tiny bedroom to accommodate a regulation-sized laundry basket.

My room is small, there’s no doubt about that. But I’m not the least bit sorry I gave the larger bedroom to Ben – it’s what moms do. We do what it takes to make sure our kids have what they need. However, I’m one who craves the repose of home and cares deeply about the space in which I live. A true Taurus, I’m a nester who loves creature comforts and needs to feel at peace in my own space. It’s not about the size of the room or expensive things, it’s about how the space feels. And on closer examination a couple of weeks ago, I realized this space – my little room – felt sad.

To remedy this, I took a break from unpacking and organizing the playroom (a task that promises to take months whether or not I give it my full attention) to spend some time (and even a little bit of money) making my room feel better. I knew there was no cure for the size of the room, but there was most certainly a cure for the depressing feel of the room. We don’t have a lot of money and I felt guilty diverting even a small amount from other uses, but I know myself (I have many problems, but self-awareness is not of them) and I knew that making the little bit of space in this house that is 100% mine a place in which I’m comfortable was important.

So I put aside my guilt, ignored the voice in my head telling me it was frivolous and went to work decorating and organizing my room. An inexpensive new quilt, sheers to conceal my closet, cubbies from Target (requiring assembly, of course), pillows I sewed myself and a $20 package of thumb-tack-afixed wall-art flowers got me started. And a couple of little things like embellishing my plain window shade with a row of beads and adding pretty fabric to the bins that slide out of my cubbies made it even better. My room was beginning to look stylish and beautiful, but more importantly, it was beginning to feel cozy, comfortable and soothing.

But the best purchase I made for my room was a new light fixture. The old light was a dome fixture in the ceiling, butted up against one wall as if my room had been part of the one next to it at one time. It was odd, inefficient and unattractive. When my dear friend, Traci, won a $50 Visa gift card in a Halloween party costume contest wearing a costume I helped design, she gave it to me, asking that I use it to buy something special for my room. And I did just that. I bought a beautiful, hanging light fixture that I could center in the room with a ceiling hook. That light fixture added the perfect finishing touch to my lovely, little sanctuary. And the fact that it was a gift from my sweet Traci made it even better.

Last week, Lucy sat on my bed one night, examining the crystals, books, cards, kid-art and trinkets I’ve arranged on the shelves. She said, “It’s all about peace and love in here.” I smiled and gave her a big hug. She looked up at me and said “There’s a lot of happiness in your room, mom.” She had no idea just how right she was.

My little room is filled with peace, love and happiness, but no laundry basket of clean, but not-yet-folded clothes. Who cares, though, if there’s not enough room on the floor for that laundry basket? Maybe that will be the impetus I need to work on my laundry-folding procrastination problem.

I’m nothing if not self-aware.

Confessions of a Rule Follower

This may surprise you, but I’m a rule-follower at heart. Always have been. I respect rules and appreciate their importance in any society that strives for something better than complete chaos. I’m comforted by rules. They make me feel safe. I do choose, sometimes, to break the rules, but I always do so fully prepared to accept any consequence that may result.

In 1961, The Milgram Experiment studied people’s reaction to authority by ordering participants to administer an electrical shock to a subject failing to answer questions correctly. A surprising 65% of participants progressed through increasing voltage and what appeared to be increasing pain for the fake subjects (who were not, in reality, receiving electrical shocks at all) when they were instructed to do so by an authority figure. I would like to think I would have been part of the 35% who refused to deliver the final, massive shock. But, if compliance with authority is (as I’m certain it must be) a continuum, then I would fall solidly in the “rule-follower” section of that continuum. And while I strongly believe that my being a rule-follower has its advantages, it most assuredly has its pitfalls as well.

Years ago, while vacationing in Savannah, Georgia, my sister and I spent an afternoon at a swanky spa while our husbands golfed. The spa’s website touted a Scotch Spray among their signature services and this was included in nearly every spa package available. The fact that the website offered no description of this service should have been my first clue, but being the rule-follower that I am, I plodded haplessly along making my appointment. An appointment that included a Scotch Spray.

After a massage and a relaxing soak in an aroma-therapy hot tub of some sort, a spa employee came to collect me for my Scotch Spray. Dressed in only my fluffy spa robe, I followed the employee into a tiled room with several shower heads running the length of floor-to-ceiling pipes. The employee ordered me to disrobe and stand in an area surrounded by these pipes. An awkward moment passed while I waited for her to leave but then, realizing she didn't intend to leave, I obediently disrobed and stood among the shower-head-studded pipes. She turned a knob and I was pelted from all sides with warm water. I was thinking, “This isn’t so bad,” when the spa employee shouted an instruction that I was sure I’d misheard. I looked back over my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry… what?”  “Grab hold of the two pipes directly in front you,” she repeated. I looked back one more time, wearing my trepidation on my face like a mask, to find her standing there, holding what appeared to be a fire hose, nodding somberly. Knowing I was doomed to comply by a quirk of my personality, I hung my head dejectedly, turned around a grabbed the pipes.

What followed was not unpleasant, and I may have even enjoyed it if only I could have kept at bay the images that crept into my mind of 1970s women’s prison films. My one small victory against authority in this story came when the spa employee shouted for me to turn around and face her. While I’d like to tell you I said something flippant, sassy and defiant, the truth is I only managed an oddly apologetic, “No, thank you.” Yep, I really fought the power. Pretty proud of that.

Rule-following and compliance with authority has a place in my life and I wouldn’t want to change that… much. But maybe moving just a bit closer to “dissident” on the continuum of compliance with authority would serve me well. Perhaps being quicker to break the rules and more confident standing up to authority, especially when those rules and that authority threaten my happiness and that of my children, is something for which to strive.

So I've decided to stand up for myself, and for Ben and Lucy, in an effort to preserve our happiness and fight for a better life for all of us.  I'm going to break some rules if that's what's needed. Question authority. Move a step away from “rule-follower” and a step closer to “dissident."  Who knows, maybe I’ll even stick it to the man.

Or at least say “no” next time to a signature spa service disturbingly akin to an enhanced interrogation technique. That’ll show ‘em.

Every House Should Have an Extra Mom

I’ve been single for six years. For six years I’ve raised kids in a house where I’m the only adult. If I need to get a kid to gymnastics and the other one really doesn’t want to go along, there’s no option to leave that one at home. If I’m in the middle of cooking dinner and realize I’m missing an ingredient, I can’t run out for it without getting coats and shoes on two kids and loading them in the car (usually against their will). Or even worse, if a kid is puking his guts out with a raging fever, they must be dragged to the store when I run out of Tylenol. And if Ben is having a hard time, Lucy has nowhere to go to avoid it. And if I’m helping Ben, there’s no one else for her to talk to or play with.

This has been our reality for so long I had honestly forgotten there was another way. I’d say that it’s starting to come back to me, but truth be told, living in a house with another mom is a kind of support I’ve never known before.

The morning after we moved into our new house with our new roommates, we really needed to take the kids out to breakfast. Everyone needed a good meal and the kitchen was virtually inaccessible. Denny’s was most definitely in order. But Ben, already stressed by the chaos of the move, was not on board with our plan. It was Sunday and on Sundays we get donuts. I tried for just a few minutes to reason with him, but quickly realized it was a losing battle. My compromise was to take Ben for a donut and then meet the rest of the group at Denny’s. But my compromise fell on deaf ears because Ben was already past the point of no return. Feeling strongly that I needed to power through, I began to get him ready so that we could get his donut and then get some actual nutrition into his stressed little body. While I was struggling to put his shoes and coat on, I barked at Lucy to get herself ready so that she could come with us. Lucy was rushing about trying to help me when Maggie put a hand on my arm and said very calmly (but loudly enough to be heard over the screaming), “We’ll take Lucy with us.” It hadn’t even occurred to me that was an option.

So Ben and I drove to Krispy Kreme by ourselves, purchased a donut at the drive-through and drove back to the restaurant to meet the rest of the group. Ben screamed almost the entire time – close to 30 minutes in the car by time we accomplished our mission and made it back to Denny’s. He pulled it together enough to sit with the group and have some breakfast, but he was definitely on edge, telling us repeatedly to stop talking (something very difficult for Lucy, in particular, to do).

When we finished eating, Maggie and I both had errands to run before returning to the house but Ben looked at me and said, “Mom, I need to go home right now,” and I knew he meant business. I sighed, took a moment to resolve myself to not accomplishing what needed to be done and turned towards my car. Maggie stopped me and said, “I’m going to the grocery – give me your list.” I handed it to her gratefully and started to walk away with both Ben and Lucy in tow, Lucy’s face clearly registering just how difficult it would be for her to sit in the car in complete silence in order to keep Ben calm, and how sad it would be for her to get home and be ignored by her only sibling. But Maggie, seeing her face, stopped Lucy with an arm around her shoulder and said, “Why don’t you come with us, honey?”  Lucy's face brightened instantly and she trotted off happily with Maggie and the other kids.

Living in a house with another adult has opened up a whole new world for us and I believe that everyone in this house benefits. But perhaps no one benefits more than Lucy. And maybe that’s just as it should be. Maybe it’s about time that sweet child got a break from being a big girl all the time – a break from being responsible and helpful and always worrying about Ben... and me. Maybe it’s about time Lucy was able to just be a kid.

One might think that having an extra mom around would make the household stricter, but I think it’s quite the opposite. Having an extra mom around allows us the grace to be less strict, have more fun, be more present. And to take care of who needs caring for without feeling like we’re slighting someone else.

Maybe every household should have an extra mom. I’m certainly glad mine does.

No Lice In Our Pants

The Tooth Fairy historically has left $1 per tooth in the Heagler house – a single dollar, adorned with a shiny heart.  But last week, bolstered by her bunkmate, Hope's, recent success getting the Tooth Fairy to leave a pink, sparkly coupon for doll clothes, Lucy decided to shoot for the moon and wrote the Tooth Fairy a letter requesting a new Barbie.

Lucy and Hope worked together on the letter asking for the doll, permission to keep Lucy's tooth and requesting information, including the Tooth Fairy's age and real name.  And the Tooth Fairy (A 500+-year-old fairy named Fatina, apparently) did not disappoint.  The girls were thrilled that the she wrote back, answered all their questions, left the tooth as requested and even fulfilled the somewhat unreasonable appeal  for such an extravagant reward.  The Tooth Fairy is, indeed, magical.

I’m certain the Tooth Fairy can’t sustain the $10 per tooth price tag and will go back to leaving a single dollar under the pillow, but (and I’m just guessing here) probably not until Ben has had his pie-in-the-sky, magical, $10 Tooth Fairy moment.

I hope no one will be disappointed when she goes back to the single dollar adorned with a shiny heart.  I hope we can simply appreciate that for one night – one tooth only – the Tooth Fairy did something extra-special for us.  Something magical.  And wouldn't this world be just a little more magical if we could simply appreciate the gifts we have been given without expectation or entitlement?  As difficult as that is to do, it may be even more difficult to teach our kids.  But like anything else, I believe the best way is by example.  Who knows?  Maybe it’s the only way. 

Some time ago, a dear friend and I read a book about the Lost Boys of the Sudan.  We were both deeply moved by the personal accounts of these boys who suffered so much and persevered against all odds.  Since then, in the moments we are tempted to complain about things that are perhaps not so important in the grand scheme of life, we remind ourselves (and frequently our children), “At least we don’t have lice in our pants.”  Don’t like this brand of chicken nuggets?  Hair braids not exactly the way you wanted them?  Didn’t get to use the bathroom first?  Have a bedroom that's too small?  At least we don’t have lice in our pants.

Last night at bedtime, Lucy was feeling sad about all the things we’ve lost recently.  She was upset about how different things have become and bemoaning the loss of familiar things - the polka dots on the walls of her old room, my photography business, our cat, Chugger, and a host of other things that are gone.  I cried with her, hugged her tight and rubbed her back while she fell asleep, whispering to her over and over again that we have the most important things and those things will not be lost.  We have love.  And we have each other.

Today I will appreciate the many gifts I've been given and I will encourage my children to do the same, because today I don’t have lice in my pants.  Today the world is magical.  Today I am grateful, thanks to the Lost Boys of the Sudan.  And the Tooth Fairy.

Thinking About You Thinking About Me

Ben's been asking some difficult questions lately.  In any given weekend Lucy might go to a friend's house to play, attend a birthday party and have a friend spend the night.  Ben asked recently why he never has sleepovers and we he never goes to a friend's house to play.  I looked around hoping there was someone... anyone... to field this question for me.  Finding no one, I took a deep breath, put my shoulders back, got my emotions in check and forged ahead.  Like I always do.  We talked about forming frriendships, about fitting in, about being true to yourself and remembering to "think about you thinking about me."

Social impairment marked by an inability to take the perspective of another person is at the heart of autism.  This is sometimes called mind-blindness.  We spend a lot of time working with our autistic kids to help them consider what other people might be thinking and feeling, but only after first teaching them that other people even have thoughts and feelings separate from their own.  We do exercises and play games to encourage this type of social thinking which does not come easily for them.  We dedicate countless hours to helping develop what's called "theory of mind," something that comes naturally for typical children.  But with our kids, it's a process without end.  It's something with which our kids will likely always struggle and it's a thought process that will never be second nature for them.  So we talk about it.  We work on it.  We spend a lot of time considering what others might be thinking and feeling.

But what occurs to me tonight is that we neuro-typicals (typically developing or "normal" people) might do well to consider what our autistic friends are thinking and feeling.  They spend countless hours considering our thoughts and feelings.  Maybe we should spend just a few minutes considering theirs.  One in 110 American children is a lot of people on the autism spectrum.  Your kids go to school with someone on the spectrum.  An autistic person works in your office, your bank or your grocery.  Maybe if we considered - just for a moment - how hard they might be working to fit in with what our society considers normal, we might be a little more tolerant of comments that are a bit too blunt, conversation that seems one-sided and awkward, their failure to recognize our emotions and an impaired ability to regulate their own emotions.  We might be, quite simply... more tolerant.

I spend a lot of time teaching my Ben to consider what you are thinking and feeling.  It is my great hope that at the same time I might also be teaching you to consider - if even just a little - what he might be thinking and feeling.  My Ben and countless other kids like him.  Because one in 110 is a lot of kids.  Maybe we should get to know them.

Just the Right Size

The kids and I moved last week. We rented a house with another single mom and her two kids and we’re squeezing into this 5-bedroom house so that we can save money and enjoy the support of living in a two-adult household. It’s a little unconventional, but it’s going to work beautifully. Getting settled into the new digs is a bit of a challenge, however.


When we signed the lease for this house, there were lengthy discussions about who would have which bedroom. The girls agreed that they would share the biggest room in the house. Maggie and I each decided on a moderately-sized room and Dylan and Ben made their choices between the fourth, moderately-sized bedroom and the fifth, tiny closet-of-a-bedroom. The boy who took the moderately-sized room would have to be willing to give up said room when guests stayed overnight. Dylan selected this option and Ben opted for the tiny room with the benefit of never having to give it up for guests.

When it was nearing time to move, I went to Ben’s room to discuss what furniture we might sell to shoe-horn him into the 8 x 11 room he had selected (and that measurement includes the closet). He looked at me like I was crazy. He just wasn’t getting the concept that he and all his furniture wouldn’t fit in the new room so I got some blue, painter’s tape and taped out the size of his new room on the floor of his old, larger room so that he could see the difference. He nearly panicked, saying the room would absolutely not work - pointing out that he would never be able to have a dance contest in a room that size (for example).

I have no desire to live in a room that is roughly the size of a jail cell, but I looked at Ben and his near-panic and said, “You know what, Ben? You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” and agreed to take the tiny room so that he could have a room in which he could hold a dance contest, line up maps of all 50 states or stack an entire tub of action figures on top of a cup. Or whatever else his heart desires. Because Ben having space in which he’s comfortable and can do his thing should really be the first order of business in any Heagler house.

So, I’m cramming myself and my belongings into this tiny, little room. And trying really hard not to resent it. I’m not going to lie – it’s not been easy.

Our first several days here, Ben was incredibly stressed. He cried and yelled a lot. At one point he screamed at me until he was hoarse that no one ever thinks of him and that no one cares about him. It took everything I have not to tell him that I had thought very little of anything other than him throughout the entire move. From giving him the larger room, to staying up most of the night before move-day to make sure his room would be perfect when he arrived at the new house, I have considered Ben every step of the way. I know that he may never realize how very much I do think of him, how much I accommodate him, how much he enters into my decision-making in nearly everything I do. I’ve accepted that he’ll most likely never get it. And most days it doesn’t bother me.

But maybe I’ve been selling Ben short.

This afternoon he returned with Lucy from a weekend at their dad’s house. I worked like a woman possessed all weekend to make sure there was progress in the unpacking and that the house would seem somewhat less chaotic when he returned. I’m physically exhausted, my body aches and emotionally I’m quite simply spent. But tonight, Ben seemed considerably calmer and more relaxed. He smiled, laughed, told stories and hung out with us most of the night – only disappearing into his room for brief periods and not once screaming uncontrollably even when he did disappear into his room. Any amount of work I did, any physical exhaustion, any level of stress was absolutely worth it because tonight, Ben was happy.

When he went to his room at the end of the night, he asked if he could take with him a game we had been playing. The game has cards that detail historical events in several categories that players must put in chronological order in groups of five. We agreed to let him take it to his room and he barely let me tell him good night before he started lining those cards up on the floor (something that would not have been possible in the smaller bedroom). As I was walking out the door I said to him, “Ben, I’m really glad I gave you the bigger room,” and I honestly meant it. He stopped what he was doing, looked directly at me and even touched my arm when he said, “Thank you, mom.”

Maybe on some level Ben realizes and appreciates the things we do for him. Maybe the things we do are meaningful to him. Just maybe, Ben “gets it” more than I give him credit for.

Later, when I went to my room, I saw with complete clarity that a room sized 8 x 11 (including the closet) is precisely the right size for me. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.