I Know It When I See It

I recently submitted a piece to a literary contest in which I wrote at length about balance. In those ten pages, I wrote:

A friend told me recently that she likes what I’ve done with the thread I so often claim to be hanging by. She said my thread was multi-strand and colorful with a hint of glitter. I’m convinced it’s that hint of glitter that gets me through most days. The strands of my thread are most certainly my beautiful children, friends and family. But the strands of my thread are also the many facets of my life. My life is about I-love-yous written in the dust on my end-tables and the fairies who live in our garden. My life is about “I see the moon,” pick-me-up hugs and “Going Southern” on children who sometimes fail to mind. My life is about my beloved Boozy Mommies, the horrors of dating as a 40+-year-old single mom and drinking (a lot of) wine. My life is about lines and lists and songs on an iPod. My life is about love, hope, inspiration, magic and lots and lots of laughter. My life is also about autism and its impact on our family. My life, like yours, is all about balance.


And I maintain that realizing that elusive perfect balance – between being a parent and an educator, a mom and an advocate, between protecting and empowering, jumping in and letting things evolve, between head and heart, wine and coffee – is the key. To everything, really. Well, that, and celebrating your achievements – even when perfectly floppy bacon is the greatest among them.

(Obviously I’d opened the piece with my story about bursting with pride when I’d achieved perfectly floppy bacon.) But now it occurs to me that what I wrote is a lot of big talk about balance from a girl who’s never been particularly good at actively cultivating it.

I’m a pretty good photographer. I’ve always loved it - as a hobby, a passion and a one-time profession. But try as I might, I’ve never been good at creating beautiful lighting. I’ve experimented, taken classes, purchased equipment, tried and tried again but lighting has never been my strong suit. What I am good at is recognizing truly beautiful light when my subject wanders into it. And if I can’t create what I want, maybe seeing it when I stumble across it is the next best thing.

Maybe it’s the same with balance. Maybe I’m not particularly adept at actively cultivating it, but I’d like to think I recognize, accept and appreciate it when I bump into it.

I embrace the role a neighborhood dive bar can play in a life that’s sometimes isolating. I value the nearly medicinal qualities of a day of non-stop TV in a household where screen-time is monitored and limited. I see quite clearly when it’s time to have fun with my kids and when it’s time to get tough and “be mean." And I appreciate beyond measure the incredible opportunity to share a home with cherished friends who have become family and enjoy the countless benefits of our unconventional arrangement, not the least of which is the beauty of a house with two moms.

I may stumble around in the dark most of the time, but thank goodness I recognize the light when I see it. Maybe that’s the most any of us can hope for.  And maybe that's all that balance really is.

Sorry About Your Shoes, Mom

It’s been a long couple of weeks at the Crandler house. Maggie’s been preparing to start a new job, I’ve been putting together a ten-page piece for a literary contest, the kids hand-made more than 25 Valentines each for their school friends and nearly everyone in the house has fallen victim to an ugly stomach virus. With everything going on I haven’t posted here in nearly two weeks. So tonight I poured a glass of wine and sat down to write. Unfortunately, the only story that came to mind is about vomiting. Weird, huh? I’ll do my best to make it funnier than it is gross, but if you’re about to have dinner, you may want to come back to this later.


I’ve written about Ben’s sensory issues here before, as well as his motor-planning difficulties. But unless you live with a kid like this, it’s hard to understand how those things impact your daily life. Haircuts and toenail cutting – perfectly mundane parts of most kids’ lives – were both monumental obstacles to be conquered for Ben (the toenails took years).

Vomiting poses a unique challenge. Ben can’t stand to be messy. At all. He’s been known to leave the dinner table to change his shirt if he spills water on it. See where I’m going with this? Vomiting = messy. And gross. And not at all predictable. It’s pretty nearly Ben’s worst nightmare. In fact, it’s so upsetting for him, his motor planning tends to break down as well. If Ben is vomiting, it’s likely you’ll have to hold not only the trash can for him, but also his head in the right position to hit the trash can. Oh, and you’ll probably have to find a way to control his hands too so they don’t fly around and inadvertently knock the trash can across the room. Helping Ben vomit is not for amateurs. Or sissies.  You should have seen me trying to explain all this to Maggie the other day when Ben was sent home after vomiting at school.  Maggie is unflappable like no one I've ever met, but I swear I saw the tiniest hint of fear in her eyes.

But my favorite Ben vomiting story involves a spectacular rally right at the end. (That’s right – I have a favorite Ben vomiting story. Is that weird? It is, isn’t it?) So anyway…

This particular day, I managed to hustle Ben to a tiny powder room in my house when I could see he was about to barf. By “hustled” I mean I put my hands under both of his armpits, picked him up off the floor and carried him to the bathroom holding him in front of me at arm’s length (have I ever mentioned my freakish physical strength?). Once in the tiny powder room, though, we didn’t quite make it to the toilet. Ben started to vomit and lost all control. He threw his head back and pretty much sprayed the entire room (including me) with an impressive volume of barf. When I finally managed to reign him in I wrapped my arms around his shoulders tightly.  We were facing each other, foreheads together and I was holding his head down with one hand.  All he could really see was our feet. It was then that he yelled at the top of his lungs (any ability to regulate his voice or anything else at this point was gone), “MOM! I AM SO SORRY I BARFED ON YOUR SHOES!” And I burst out laughing. I was covered head to toe in Ben’s barf, as was the powder room, but all he could see was my shoes. So for him those shoes were all that existed.

Maybe this isn’t a story about barfing at all. Maybe this is a story about remembering not to miss the forest for the trees. It’s true that sensory integration dysfunction and motor planning problems still impact our lives after all these years, but that was an impressive show of empathy on Ben’s part. See how far we’ve come?

Forest vs. trees. What a spectacular forest.

Ben's Corner: Crandler Times - January 27, 2011

I’ve been asking Ben for some time if he’d like to write something to post here. He’s been enjoying creative writing in school and his teacher has been incredibly supportive and complimentary of his efforts.  I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve read and have asked several times if I could post something, but up until now, he had always said no. I’m still hoping to talk him into letting me post, “Halloween: My Favorite Holiday,” or, “My Favorite Relative is Uncle Kirk.” In fact, if you’re Facebook friends with my sister, you should check out the Uncle Kirk missive on her wall. Good stuff.

Last week, Ben disappeared into the office on Thursday afternoon and emerged with a newspaper he'd created called “Crandler Times.” All the Crandler news that’s fit to print. He printed five copies and left a copy for each member of the household on his/her pillow.  The image that follows is a photograph of the actual newspaper so you can see how Ben presented it, but I've typed the text below in the event the image isn't easily readable.  I added a little commentary - mostly for clarification.  I hope Ben won't mind.

I’m so proud to present Perfectly Floppy Bacon’s very first “Ben’s Corner.”

Lucy and Hope each received for Christmas a stuffed elf, "like Harry Harold, but not real like Harry Harold," that they could keep all year. Lucy's is Harry Holiday and Hope's is Henry Holiday. The girls are convinced these stuffed elves must be magic, just like Harry Harold, and their attempts to catch them doing magic are seemingly tireless...

Harry And Henry Blinked!
On Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Lucy and Hopes stuffed animals that Harry Harold gave to them when he left for the year, blinked twice.  "We had all the lights turned off and everyone was hiding when we saw them blink" said Hope and Lucy.

There has been much discussion about whether or not the kids should be allowed to watch "Mad TV."  Questionable TV shows can quickly become problematic given that Ben often quotes verbatim from TV and tries to pass it off as conversation.  Lately I've asked a few too many times, "Where did you hear that?" leading to the speculation...

Is Mad Banned?
Everyone is wondering is MAD banned???  The parents (Lori and Maggie) are talking it out now... the kids (Dylan, Ben, Hope and Lucy) are anxious to hear the results.  Here are everyone's predictions:
Lori:  I don't really know, after what the kids told us, we'll talk it out.

Maggie:  MAD.  Hmmm I dunno really.

Dylan:  I think they might let it slip this time.

Hope:  Probably, MAD will be banned.

Lucy:  I dunno, maybe they might ban it.

Ben:  MAD I think will be banned.

From my Butter My Butt and Call Me a Biscuit Southern Sayings Calendar...

Today's Southern Saying:
To a friend who loses his cool you might say... Don't go flyin' off the handle.


Book Club Meeting Saturday at 1:45 PM
Book club :-).  But,  Hope and Lucy don't have a book, so they might be in trouble... any who, the books are:  The Phantom Tollbooth, Bandits Moon, The Red Pyramid, Nerds, Guardians Of GaHoole: The Capture, Fable Haven, Holes, Warriors: Into The Wild, The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones and When You Reach Me.  The parents (Maggie and Lori) might be attending the meeting too.  Remember the rule, if you skip a book club meeting and you're not sick, you can't read another book club book until next week.  Speaking of books here are the stories we're reading:  Heaglers, The Name of this Book is Secret, Crandells, The Hobbit.

The Crandells have apparently set their literary standards a tad higher than the Heaglers.  Any who...

Other Activities:
Yu Gi Oh:  Patrick just set Dylan and Ben at least 1,000 Yu Gi Oh Cards.  Dylan's favorite is Thousand Eyes Restrict, Ben's:  Big Eye.

Thank you, Patrick.  And thanks Ben, for this first installment of Ben's corner.  I, for one, can't wait until the next one.

Goblins-Be-Gone

Lucy loved the Fairy House she built at our old house. She moved it here with Hope’s help and the girls expanded and improved it in its new location. The Fairy House now exists within a lovely Fairy Garden in the backyard of our new home. Of course, we couldn’t be sure the Fairies would come. One can never tell where you might find magic, or sadly, where it might be lacking. But fortunately, it seems we moved to a house with abundant magic right in the backyard. I’m thrilled the Crandler children have the imagination to accept, embrace and cherish that magic. And I’m so very grateful that the Fairies of this house seem to know when the kids are starting to scare themselves a bit with those powerful imaginations of theirs.

In the Fairy Garden this morning, Lucy and Hope found a note rolled into a scroll along with a tiny bottle that Lucy received in her Christmas stocking. On Christmas morning, the bottle held Fairy Dust which the girls pretty quickly powered through, but they’ve held onto the bottle in the hopes it would be replenished. This morning’s note read:

Dear Lucy and Grace,

We’ve refilled your jar with Goblin Repellent. This particular Fairy Dust is VERY powerful. Please only follow these instructions if you’re SURE you want the Goblins to leave. Sprinkle a very tiny amount of silver Goblin Repellent Fairy Dust in seven (and ONLY seven) locations in the yard. The first six spots are your choice, but be sure to spread them out. The seventh spot should be directly in front of our door.

Once you’ve done this, any Goblins on your property will disappear. And Goblins outside your property will never enter. Remember, only use this special Goblin Repellent Fairy Dust if you’re sure you want the Goblins to leave. The Goblins will not return.

We may not write to you again for a very long time so we wanted to tell you a few other things:

Eat healthy, go to bed on time, do your homework, never stop learning, help other people, be nice to each other, listen to your parents, run, play, dance, sing, laugh, create, imagine, love, dream and never stop believing.

The Fairies of 15227 Maplethorpe Avenue North

Fawn, Violet & Charity

Goblins forever banished and instructions for the kids to listen to their parents? Is this a dream? These Fairies are amazing!

Maybe next the Fairies will bring Bad-Date-Repellent, Leaky-Radiator-Repellent, Not-Enough-Money-To-Make-It-To-Payday-Repellent…or who knows? Maybe even Heartbreak Repellent.  Or Hopelessness Repellent.  I’m really warming up this idea.

With so much magic in our own backyard, the possibilities are endless.  We Crandlers are a lucky bunch.

Off My Meds

I suffer from depression. Deep, dark and chronic. And I have for most of my life. A recent study reveals that 40 million Americans sought treatment for depression in 2009. But most people don’t talk about it. Despite its prevalence, depression still holds a stigma and I’m afraid I’m guilty of furthering that stigma.

I’ll talk about autism until I’m blue in the face.  I've written about autism, about drinking too much, bad dates and my sometimes questionable parenting skills.  Hell, I've even had to explain what butt-beads are to my 70-year-old mother as a result of things I've written in this blog.  Yet I’ve never written about my depression. Most of you could probably guess that I suffer, but I’ve certainly never said it here. So here goes – let’s talk about the elephant in the room, shall we?

I can trace my first depression back to 8th grade. I went down hard – my grades plummeted, I alienated friends, lost interest in things that had once mattered to me. I had no idea what was happening. My parents and school officials assumed I was on drugs – the symptoms certainly fit. I was sent to a different school in the hopes that would cure me of having fallen in with the wrong crowd. I didn’t feel any different, however, so I simply began to pretend. I pretended to be happy, pretended to feel normal, pretended to care so that I could get along, fit in and fly under the radar. That first depression eventually lifted on its own and I was able to get back to something resembling normal.

But it never stayed away long.

Over the years depression has come and gone in powerful waves that crash through my life with wanton disregard for whether or not I feel up to surfing. I’ve been to therapy. I’ve taken anti-depressants. And when neither of these options is available to me (most often due to a lack of money) I’ve used my self-devised Just Keep Going Plan.

The Just Keep Going Plan has evolved over the years and has several components, but perhaps the most important part of the Just Keep Going Plan is to leave the house and go out where the people are. And not just go out where the people are, but talk to them. Look them in the eye. Smile at them. Ask them about their day. Tell them I like what they’re wearing. Engage them.

The Just Keep Going Plan has brought some wonderful people into my life. I occasionally get a beer with the checker at my grocery store. She has two beautiful daughters close to my kids’ ages. They’ve played at my house. Her husband bartends at a local restaurant I frequent. My kids hug her when we buy our donuts on Sunday mornings and we give her a holiday card every year. Kelly would notice if I failed to “keep going.”

The mail carrier at my old house has an adult son with autism. His son struggles mightily to navigate society as an adult and has lost jobs and been kicked out of schools. But he was recently accepted to a good college and is flourishing. We talk about his son’s struggles and the toll it takes on his family. My mail carrier once gave my kids a box of chocolates when we were walking home from the bus stop and then parked his truck to help me when Ben’s dropping them on the ground caused a tantrum that would have been difficult to handle on my own. Gene would notice if I failed to “keep going.”

Facebook has allowed me to "go out where the people are" in a slightly different way.  I went to high school with Deanna, but I hardly remember her from that time. When she sent me a friend request, I had to look her up in my yearbook. But the feeling of not knowing Deanna didn’t last long. She commented on my posts – always with the most encouraging and positive advice. I'd like to think I did the same for her. She had read about my Ben on Facebook and here in my blog and was raising a very similar son herself. She asked if we could talk on the phone about our boys and their unique needs and strengths. I said yes and a true friendship was born. We talked about our boys, to be sure, but we also talked about everything else. She shared my optimism when I was excited about a new romance and gave me wise and patient advice when that same romance went terribly wrong. And when she discovered she was ill, we talked about that. We talked about death. Her death. And what it would mean for her son. We even talked about God and her incredible faith and devotion, even though she was fully aware that my belief was shaky at best. She never preached. She never judged. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes I did too. I miss her terribly. Had she lived, Deanna most certainly would have noticed if I failed to “keep going.”

The Just Keep Going Plan is based, in part, on pretending. Not pretending to be better than I am, or someone I’m not. But pretending, some days, to be happier than I truly am. Pretending to be more hopeful than I actually feel. And just maybe helping others to feel happy and hopeful as a result.

It’s rooted in seeking attention. But not by behaving erratically, drinking too much, being promiscuous or engaging in other dangerous behavior. Seeking attention by offering attention. Noticing people, helping them feel good, thereby helping myself feel good.

Pretending, faking it, seeking attention – all things I did in negative ways when I suffered from depression in my teens – are now the same things I’ve turned to my advantage, and hopefully to the advantage of those who know me. Maybe it’s true that we should stick to what we know. But who’s to say we shouldn’t tweak what we know? Mold it, bend it to our will. Make it work for us?

A young friend who also suffers from depression said to me recently, "You're beautiful, smart, funny and have everything going for you and you're still sad.  What hope is there for me?"  I fought back the inclination to disagree with her very flattering assessment of me and told her there's hope for her because there's hope for me.  There's hope for all of us.

It’s not been easy, but I believe I am making it work for me - I believe there is hope for me. Day by day. Sometimes hour by hour. Even if I’m hanging by a thread, I have no intention of letting go. And while I’m hanging here, holding onto my thread, I notice you holding onto yours. And I appreciate you. And I can see that you matter.

And when I notice you and appreciate you and see that you matter, I know that I matter too.

Are We Having Corn Tonight?

When Ben was little his auditory sensitivity ruled our lives. Certain sounds were physically painful for him. The squeals of particular children, Velcro, thunder, fireworks, the vacuum cleaner, hairdryer, blender and coffee grinder would all cause him to scream and cry uncontrollably. And forget about smoke alarms or sirens. Sometimes it could take up to an hour to calm him. And even after he’d stopped screaming, he was often on edge for the rest of the day.

When Ben was three-years-old we lived in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The Navy flight demonstration squadron, The Blue Angels, perform at a Seattle summer festival every year and they would fly pretty close to our Fremont house during their practice flights. I tried to keep track of their schedule, but this particular day, the time of their scheduled practice flight had escaped me. I was upstairs when I heard the roaring engines approaching and getting louder. I yelled, “Ooooh shit!” in that stretched-out, slow-motion, action-movie kind of way and took off running. I knew Ben was playing on the back deck and I made a mad dash for him, but couldn’t reach him in time. When I got to him, the Blue Angels were directly overhead. The sound was deafening, but I could still hear Ben’s screams. The door to the house was wide open and only steps away, but he didn’t make a move towards it. He also made no move to cover his ears. We hadn’t taught him to do those things yet. He just stood there, in obvious pain and terrible distress, screaming uncontrollably. I scooped him up and ran into the house and spent the better part of the remainder of that day calming him down.

Ben’s autism diagnosis was new and I still had so much to learn. I couldn’t understand why he just stood there. I didn’t know about motor planning and executive function (or the fact that he had no command over either when he was in that much distress). The first goal we ever wrote for Ben at his first treatment center was quite simply for him to cover his ears with his hands when a sound was painful for him.

As is often the case with these kids, over the years, his sensitivity has changed and improved. While it used to rule our lives, now it’s an occasional inconvenience. And while I’m thrilled the improvement has been so dramatic, the unpredictable nature of the sensitivity that remains can prove challenging. We’ll go months at a time without a single sound setting him off. This afternoon an ambulance drove right by us on our walk home from school. The sound, quite frankly, hurt my ears, but Ben didn’t even flinch. I was amazed. But just a few hours later while playing with the other kids in the house, an innocent (albeit loud) squeal sent him running to his room screaming and crying. There is seemingly no rhyme or reason.

At a recent family dinner, the sound of forks scraping on plates more than usual when corn was served sent Ben over the edge. As soon as we figured out what was happening, we moved everyone's corn into plastic bowls and I promised never to serve corn on those particular plates again (our blended household has two types of plates and the ones we were using that night have a finish that is slightly less-smooth than the others making them somewhat louder when a fork scrapes across).

Ben sets the table nearly every night for dinner and every night since then, like clockwork, Ben asks if we’re having corn, even if it's completely illogical based on the other things we're serving (pancakes and corn anyone?). Sometimes with Ben and countless kids like him, progress doesn't look exactly like we'd hoped it would. Admittedly, there are still times when Ben forgets to cover his ears when sounds are painful. And one could argue that his asking if we’re serving corn night after night constitutes nothing more than a repetitive and ritualistic behavior. But I chose to call his repeated question progress in the area of self-management.

And progress is progress (no matter how strange it looks) so I’ll take it - even if I have to answer the same question every night for the next year... or two... or even ten.

No, Ben - we’re not having corn tonight. But I’m so proud you thought to ask.

Tweaking My Wine-to-Coffee Ratio

I’ve been feeling a little off my game lately. Still feeling a little blue from the holidays, unorganized, overwhelmed, a little scattered… just “off.” I was certain I would snap out of it at any moment, but then yesterday I had trouble parallel parking.


Parallel parking is my super-hero power. Seriously. I’m so good that passers-by have, on occasion, stopped on the street to watch this power in action, and on at least one occasion applauded when I exited my perfectly parked vehicle. But yesterday, the space was plenty big, I wasn’t rushed, my visibility was fine, I just couldn’t maneuver my car into the space. What was going on here?

Are the planets out of alignment? Is Mercury in retrograde (I hear that can cause all sorts of trouble). Is there a disturbance in The Force? Is my wine-to-coffee ratio out of whack?

Fortunately, it was Tuesday and that means Play Group with my Boozy Mommies. Anyone who knows me knows the the term “play group” is used very loosely here. But if you’re a new reader, I should probably let you know that in this context “play group” means moms sitting around drinking wine while our children run amok largely unsupervised.

So I shared a bottle of wine with my girls. I felt the planets realign.  They helped me remember that The Force is strong in me.  And (perhaps most importantly)... I tweaked my wine-to-coffee ratio. (As a friend recently pointed out, it’s a delicate balance. If it was easy to maintain, anyone could do it.)

The next morning I parallel parked like the super-hero I am.

Thanks, Boozy Mommies - those I see once a week, those with whom I share the occasional mimosa-phone-date, and those I’ve never even met. What would I do without you?