Some of you were kind enough to inquire after my poultry and home renovations. The chickens are doing well, though I think they’re sick of all the rain we’ve been having. Here’s one of my Australorps:
The crappy phone camera doesn’t do justice to her beautiful, iridescent plumage. She needs Tim F.’s photography skills, but she’s stuck with me. My Aussies aren’t laying yet (they mature more slowly than the reds), but I have four layers online who are far outpacing our egg needs.
We’re giving many eggs away to neighbors, friends and family and still have plenty left over for breakfast, quiches, etc. In fact, I think I have three dozen in my fridge right now.
Speaking of the fridge, aside from that appliance and its immediate habitat, the kitchen renovation isn’t nearly as squared away as the poultry project. Here is the current status:
It may look unchanged from my last update, but I did manage to get one and a half cabinets assembled. I’m hoping to make a lot of progress on it this weekend.
But I’m procrastinating on that right now, frittering away a rare gift of free time (acquired when my husband took the spawn to her athletic event), moping around the house and writing a depressing blog post. Why?
Teen parenting. Not as in TEENS being parents, but as in parenting a TEEN. To echo the plaint of the wife of a gazillionaire vanity presidential candidate in a different context, “This is hard.” Sometimes one wishes for an army of trained nannies to deal with it.
Lacking an army of trained nannies, one must sometimes turn to one’s own mother, who actually was a teen and a mom at the same time (thanks to one’s having been the proximate cause of a short-lived, shotgun marriage between a hippie and a redneck). The advice is always sage:
So one keeps calm and carries the fuck on, assembling cabinets, painting walls, tiling floors and raising the next generation of foul-mouthed, disgruntled, sarcastic slackers, so that they might inherit the earth.
What’s going on in your world this fine Saturday?
WereBear
I was convinced, at the time, that their brains didn’t work right. Science has confirmed that: their brains don’t work right.
We have actually stepped backwards from the sweet, helpful, thoughtful, and ethical creatures they were at 10.
So don’t think of them as pending adults. Think of them as the mental infants they are, once again.
raven
Feetballs
Arm The Homeless
Betty,
Can you disabuse me of the idea that farm-fresh eggs shouldn’t be kept in the fridge? I got brow-beat a few years ago by my roomy when I put a dozen fresh ones in the cooler.
Oh, yeah, GO NOLES!
piratedan
working away from home this week, so it’s virtual fishing, a trip to barnes and noble, reading balloon juice and lots of naps as there are limited choices here in deep red Topeka.
Desargues
Have you tried carrots and sticks?
hildebrand
Oktoberfest opens today – who wants to fly me to Munich?
Betty Cracker
Arm, you don’t have to keep fresh eggs in the fridge. And now all civilized discourse between us is at an end because I must add: GO GATORS!
Betty Cracker
@Desargues: On the teen? Oh mercy, yes, and rutabagas and twigs and celery and clubs and parsnips and branches, etc. I think to some extent it must just be ridden out. Le sigh.
Arm The Homeless
@Betty Cracker: Thats what I thought, but it was like i just pooped in her cheerios when she found out that I had cooled them.
Look at the bright-side, at least the Gators are still in the Top 25. LOLZ
Yutsano
@Arm The Homeless: They don’t refrigerate eggs in Europe. Just keep in mind that will impact their shelf life. If you do keep them in the chill chest they’ll keep for months. I stock up on eggs from home just because I can use them whenever and they’ll still be great.
cosima
Do I feel for you. When our oldest daughter (and only child at the time) was 14 I found out that I was pregnant. With another girl. I told my husband I needed to cry for a bit then I would pull myself together. And that’s what I did.
I would phone my mom to tell her how awful girl #1 was being and she would say “cut her some slack” “I’m sure she’s not that bad” blah blah blah. Then she came to visit us and said “what a $%^& brat, send her to her dad so she can truly experience the awfulness that she is complaining about.” Anyway, to make a long horrible story short, she’s almost 22 now and she is awesome. And she has long since realized what a horrible teen she was, and has come to that conclusion on her own. It took me much longer to look back on my own behaviour as a teen with more than a bit of chagrin (or shame, as was necessary many times).
Here’s the deal — she was so incredibly awful at making smart decisions about the small things. She really sucked. But about the big things she was pretty good, empathetic, not out doing drugs or getting drunk, not any overtly risky behaviour. Her first year of uni was a shitstorm of that stuff, but before that and since she was/is pretty sensible.
Much as I was tempted to clock her or scream at her or send her away (at one point my husband & I were looking through boarding school brochures) I bit my tongue and kept the lines of communication fully open on all subjects. I listened to a lot of back-talking b.s. and very rarely raised my voice — not much point in screaming when a “this conversation is over until you can conduct yourself with maturity and respect” will do.
It really really sucked. But it is great now. And I get to do it all over again in about 6 years. But I am enjoying the now of the little one all the more knowing that it will all go to hell in a handbasket in the blink of an eye.
Good luck to you and hang in there.
Jerzy Russian
Betty, have you considered hiring a professional? The home improvement projects I attempted myself always seemed to take longer than the later ones I hired out, and the professional ones seemed nicer. Also too, it became too hard on my body doing all of that bending over, kneeling, climbing, etc.
As for the teen, the date where she learns to “drive” is fast approaching. I am wondering if there is some very serious (but not quite fatal) disease I can get that would put me in a coma for the next 5 years.
Arm The Homeless
@Yutsano: Yeah, but they also drink room-temperature beer and have socialized medicine.
/waives ‘USA! #1’ foam finger
Jerzy Russian
@Yutsano:
This is true. I always assumed the eggs were sterilized in some way, but perhaps that is not the case.
red dog
Just find a handyman boyfriend with a teenage daughter so the gals can merge and your projects get done…peace will reign.
Yup, that’l work, he he he he.
Yutsano
@Jerzy Russian: Eggs are hermetically sealed packages. The only bacteria that can really get in are what was in the hen when the egg was formed, and if she’s healthy so is the egg. The process of rotting will happen eventually no matter what, but it seems the bacteria that cause this in eggs are very sensitive to cold. But even sitting on the counter they’ll be fine for several weeks. Not to mention room temperature eggs make all the difference in baking.
geg6
Having been the worst nightmare of a teenage girl that you could ever imagine, the most sensible decision I ever made as an adult was to not to drive myself insane or an early grave by actually risking ever having a teenage girl of my own. I now have a 19 yo niece and an 11 yo niece. I am the cool aunt to both and never once have they shown their smart mouths and eye rolling when I am spending time with them. I have never wanted to smack them silly or wished I could commit any sort of child abuse. I just enjoy every minute with them. But I also don’t regret my decision, especially after conversing with my sisters, their mothers.
Take heart, Betty. It could be worse. My mom had four teenage girls to deal with over the course of 11 years. It’s why I have forgiven her her many parenting sins. That’s enough to drive anyone insane.
kideni
I love that you can say “fucking” to your mother but not “god damn”.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Funny. My disrespectful urchins managed to turn their bedrooms into squalid dungeons all by themselves. Complete with bats, thought I reckon that was my fault for not patching the ceiling after I put the fan in. Who knew bats could find their way from the eaves to the inside of the house?
Anyway, my teens weren’t so bad. And now my oldest signs off his phone calls with “Love you, Dad.” Holy cow!
The middle school years, though. Ugh. Never heard so much back talk in my life.
Gretchen
I’d reassure you that it all passes, but my 31-year old daughter just told my 24 year old daughter that every time she -31- tries to have a relationship, she-24- does something to make her -31- hate her. So our teen years aren’t over yet. They all like me now, though, which is a pleasant change from 15. Maybe they’ll like each other when they’re in their 40’s and can tell each other “you won’t believe what Mom said to me”, as my sister and I did.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
One does not simply … renovate a kitchen.
ETA, thinking back, I’ve done that in all three houses I’ve owned. I musta had rocks in my head.
We learned you can live without a fridge and a stove (cooler, microwave, grill, Coleman stove), you can live without running water (bathroom sinks, water jugs) but you CAN’T live without drains.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
That’s probably the stage where I was muttering “VFMA, baby*” a few times a week.
*Valley Forge Military Academy
Gretchen
@geg6: I hope 31 will forgive me my many parenting sins, of which she has a list, when she has her own.
Anoniminous
Remember: Grandchildren Are Your Revenge.
In twenty years you’ll be able to buy drum sets, whistles, oogah horns, and and 6′ Chinese gongs for birthday and Christmas presents.
tern
Your message between you and your Mom is so hilarious, but so true. Yesterday at work, I was talking to a co-worker about kids and teens. His kids are 2, 5 and 7 while my boys are now 24 and 26. He was talking about how hard it is right now, so I regaled him with horror stories of teenagers.
The conversation started because my 24 year old stopped by our office to pick up some paperwork and I made a comment after he left about how proud I was of him, but that it was so rough getting him to this stage. I think the poor man was ready to curl up in a ball by the time we were done. I made sure to emphasize that it was worth it and I wouldn’t trade having my sons, but it was 6-8 years of h***.
I tried to make sure that we raised the boys to not blindly accept other people’s statements and directions – to think critically and ask questions. Now, it’s great seeing them stand up for themselves; their opinions, ideas and conversations are well thought out. The problem is that when they are teens, the people they most often stand up to and question are us – their parents!
Good luck and hang in there.
“Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.”
~ Ed Asner
“I tell my child, if I seem obsessed to always know where you’ve been, it is because my DNA will be found at the scene” ~ Robert Brault
“Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin
“Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.” ~Author Unknown
“Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young” ~Author Unknown
Bago
@SiubhanDuinne: @SiubhanDuinne: The set theory objection is as follows.
God is infinite.
With sets you can recursively and algorithmicly define sets, meaning you can have multiple infinities.
Having more infinities than god is blasphemy, ergo the maths are bad.
Argument from authority fallacy.
22over7
Werebear is right. Their brains are not yet fully formed, and combined with the hormones, they can get ugly stupid.
But it really truly does pass. Keep talking, keep the lines open, keep reminding them that, if they really screw something up, mom is their FIRST phone call (so it would behoove them to lighten up on her).
My 23-year-old daughter is the treasure of my life, and I’d have sold her for beer money ten years ago.
gnomedad
Romney Threw ‘Temper Tantrum’ and Forced Univision to Re-tape Intro
Schlemizel
@hildebrand:
You couldn’t pay me to be in München for Octoberfest. Thousands of drunken tourist, buying overpriced beer and puking & peeing where they stand(or more likely lay)
Its most unpleasant. Go before or after, enjoy some of the best beers you have ever had (although I have become hooked on Beligan wits and tripels) Be sure to try the dunkles and the hefeweizens – they are like nothing you get from the commercial horse urine pushers in the US.
JR in WV
Farm eggs are also a couple of months newer than grocery store eggs. And the yolks! my FSM, the yolks are spheres of sunshine-golden goodness. Never seen in a grocery store egg, even the cage-free organic eggs are nothing as compared to yard-birds.
Where we live, we could leave for a couple of days and the flock would be fine on their own, creek by their coop for water, amazing variety of seeds and bugs to keep them busy and more or less fed. Eventually the coop died, the chickens aged, and a barred owl began snacking on chickens roosting in a cedar tree outside the kitchen.
And fresh milk straight from a happy cow – cream floating to the top, skimming the cream off and still having rich creamy milk for cereal, baking, drinking, farm life is the best eating life there is. But a cow is a heck of a lot of work, every day. No vacations, no nights in town, got to be there for Molly the Holstein every day.
We did leave the calf on the cow, and so only milked once a day, 3 or 4 gallons every day. We fed milk to the pigs, the chickens, the neighbors, made yogurt and cheese and still sometimes poured sour milk away.
We do put fresh eggs in the fridge, they will last for a Loong time.
Schlemizel
@Yutsano:
Keep in mind that Betty lives in
heller Florida where 70 is a cool day.Betty – when we lived in Florida we had a real problem protecting the critters from virmine – do your hens have lice, tick or flea problems? If so what are you doing to control it?
Worst fleas I have ever had to deal with, it was part of the “plague of the month club” part of life in the toilet with palm trees.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
As they have shown, the brains of teens are rewiring, which means that they are essentially starting over. So what you have is a toddler with the ability to kill. My belief is that you have to set your rules, enforce them, and don’t hold anything against them when they break them. It’s not about you.
Arm The Homeless
So sorry, Betty.
Gators are getting off to a horrible start versus UK. it’s going to be a long season for you folks. On the bright-side, the FSU/UF game is in Doak this year, so if you decide to make a trip, I will buy you a tasty beverage
Gator tears sustain me.
raven
@Schlemizel: Sounds like what it will be like for tonight’s Georgia-Vandy game. The morons have been drinking for hours already.
raven
@Arm The Homeless: FACK the stinky Gators and especially that dick Moosechamp.
Arm The Homeless
@Schlemizel: 70 at 6am during January, if you’re lucky.
Maude
The Bronx Zoo Jumper told NYPD he deliberately jumped into the tiger enclosure from the El.
cosima
@Brother Shotgun
When #1 was younger — before she got to the stroppy age — my husband and I would read, out loud & in front of her, the adverts in the back of Sunset magazine for military schools, boarding schools for troubled kids, etc., and laugh ourselves sick. #1 has a pretty great sense of humor (mandatory at our house) that was more or less completely absent during the teen years.
Does Sunset still have those adverts? Amazing how many were in there given the sunny “my world is perfect and full of flowers & yummy food & vacations” vibe of Sunet.
Once #2 hits stroppiness we will have to adopt the “VFMA, baby” line. Or maybe there’s a kid’s movie or something that has a horrible boarding school whose name we can adopt. Or start singing “It’s fun to stay at the V-F-M-A…” So many possibilities. #2 is a little firecracker — in an excellent/hyper-intelligent & inquisitive sort of way — so it will be an interesting ride.
Arm The Homeless
@raven: Man, I am watching the Gators’ secondary just get embarrassed by the Cats. This isn’t Tebow’s UF.
Funny story, my fiance’s family goes to the same church as the Tebows, she used to babysit him and his siblings. Nice guy apparently, crappy NFL QB. But you knew this already
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@gnomedad: as a corollary to IOKIYAR, we need to start CYIIADHDT? Can You Imagine If A Dem Had Done That?
SiubhanDuinne
@Bago:
Thanks. And I read all those Slacktivist and BoingBoing posts about set theory vs Christiansm, but yours is as concise as anything I’ve seen.
::shakes head sadly:: Crazy, the whole fucking lot of them.
jeffreyw
Thinking about tacos for lunch, since my breakfast burritos did not automagically appear. Those bastards.
Schlemizel
@Arm The Homeless:
Only the savages in the UK and Ireland drink warm beer! The cultured continent drink mostly cellar temps, 55 maybe 60, cooler the further North you go.
The reason to drink 35 degree beer is because the cold numbs your taste buds – thats why the horse urine peddlers like Coors & Bud sell the idea of ICE cold beer
raven
@Arm The Homeless: He’s a bum.
Maude
@Jerzy Russian:
12 This project keeps the daughter alive.
WereBear
@Schlemizel: Yup. I’ve talked a few people out of retiring in Florida with two simple words: “wolf spiders.”
It didn’t help me enjoy my time there when it turns out that I have the kind of genes which reacts to heat and humidity with a vicious heat rash, swollen fingers, and the draining of my will to live.
22over7
@jeffreyw:
No tacos for me, but am making a whole bunch of burritos for supper. Will eat a couple, and the rest go into ziploc baggies and in the freezer for several meals to come. Nom.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@tern:
“Babies are so sweet you want to eat them up. And when they become teenagers, you wish you had.” – Chilean saying.
Violet
@Arm The Homeless:
It’s fine to put fresh eggs in the fridge or leave them on the counter, assuming your air temp isn’t uncomfortable for humans. The deal is, once you’re refrigerated eggs you need to keep them refrigerated. Getting fresh eggs, putting them in the fridge, then deciding a week later you want them on the counter is not a good idea from what I’ve read. Make a decision which way you want to store your eggs and stick with it.
Arm The Homeless
@Schlemizel: Yeah, dad used to work in the Golden Coors factory. I have pissed in their water source (North Platte River) many times in my own personal statement against the Coors family.
Cold beer is proof that Dog loves us, and wants us to be happy. Also, too, snausages
zoej
Give them 15 years and they will again be delightful people. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It is just a longways off.
raven
I love children
as long as they’re well cooker
WC Fields
Arm The Homeless
@WereBear: Screw the Wolfies, the Banana Spiders freak me the fuck out. I have walked into one of their half-mile wide webs early in the morning and thought I would stroke out. Not fun
tern
I now have an actual synopsis from yesterday’s conversation that I am going to start using when I get into discussions about parenting teenagers.
“The problem with raising your children to be critical thinkers and to question what others tell them, is that when they become teenagers their primary practice targets are us – their parents!”
Schlemizel
@WereBear:
I got used to the heat but the humidity was soul deadening. Lots of bugs I had never seem before. We had a mosquito there unlike anything I ever saw. Black with white stripes on the wings. Very muscular looking, not delicate like what you think of. Wind didn’t keep them down like the others & the bite was (mildly)painful. Lots of snakes – I am a really luck guy, I married exceptionally well – in addition to many other fine qualities my wife loves snakes & had no fear of clearing them from the home or garden.
One really interesting was the Kamikaze cockroach – Palmetto bugs. Two inches long and they fly right at you when you come across them
J. Michael Neal
Jesus. What is with the uniforms in the Maryland/West Virginia game? Did the ADs get together a couple of weeks ago and decide that, surely, the combined brainpower of these fine institutions could come up with something uglier than the Oregon Ducks wear?
oceanic dude
The plumage dont enter into it. Its stone dead.
Schlemizel
@Arm The Homeless:
Banana spider scared the crap out of me! The first time I saw one it had a web between the wires on the high tension pole, at least 6 feet across! People don’t believe me when I describe them. I can’t imagine walking into that web.
Arm The Homeless
@Schlemizel: As long as you’re ok with taking 3 showers a day, it isn’t all that bad. The heat here will suck out the will to live, but that’s when you have to strip and drink cold beverages on the couch.
The Palmetto Bugs are a special breed. I have gone 12 rounds with a few, but it never feels like a real win when you end up scraping three tablespoons of brown guts off your copy of the New Yorker.
cckids
@Schlemizel:
You can’t see it, but I’m shuddering in horror. We’ve got scorpions here, which freaks some people out, but they are SLOW & easy to kill. Flying cockroaches? Nightmare territory.
My sister lived in FL for years & loves to tell the story of being out with her son & their 9 month old cat; the cat found one of those 3-inch roaches & was batting at it. The roach advanced towards the cat, lifted its head & HISSED at the kitty; ready to fight. The cat retreated.
I swore then & there, FL is permanantly off my list. Yuck.
Arm The Homeless
Betty,
That was an ugly INT in the end zone. Driskal ain’t looking too good so far.
mike
helpful teenage points
1)teenroom totally off limits to parents…access only when there are no more dishes in kitchen.
2)if they can operate a game system or a phone or a computer
they can operate a washer/dryer and a stove or microwave, the sink or the dishwasher.
3)any kitchen mess can be directly deposited in their bed
4)all other OOPO…out of place objects can be (must be) bagged, dated, and held locked away for a week.
5)all other interactions are on the universally known barter system
6)establish rules, put all responsibility in their lap, never fold and keep communication open.
7)the biggest problem with teenagers is that parents continue to treat them like babies wiping their bums for years forgetting the purpose of the exercise was to foster total independent operation by the child unit…i.e. competent adulthood
note …failure is part of the process.
option number two
(i did this)
drag your 12 year old thru a third world foreign country for 4 months on a shoestring budget…virtually any life in north america looks then like uber luxury
quannlace
First day of Autumn. *Sigh* Where the hell did the Summer go?
And let me guess. The Farmers Almanac is predicting a HIDEOUS winter in the NE this year.
scav
I’ve read that for a lot of purposes eggs cook better if they’re at room temperature, so if you can set them out early before use, that might appease (some of) the fanatics.
SiubhanDuinne
@Maude:
I’m thinking … Darwin Award nominee.
catclub
@cosima: “But I am enjoying the now of the little one ”
Very Zen attitude. Good on you.
SiubhanDuinne
@gnomedad:
I sure hope somebody had a camera or at least an open mic to capture the Mittantrum.
Punchy
I used to think that nothing would get Ferentz fired, but down 9 to Cent Mich at half may do it…..
R-Jud
It’s just been confirmed that my daughter’s autistic, so her adolescent years should be a REAL hoot.
burnspbesq
You spend the first two years waiting for them to walk and talk, and the next 20 wishing they’d sit down and shut up.
Origuy
I seem to recall there are some Hugh Jackman fans here. He will be playing (and singing) Jean Valjean.
Les Misérables – A first look
J. Michael Neal
@R-Jud: Good luck.
Schlemizel
@burnspbesq:
I love when people are talking about some problem with their kid. I’ll ask them how old they are & whatever the answer is I’ll say, “Oh thats a tough age but don’t worry . . . it’ll get worse!”
I love my kids but some days it was touch and go if they would live and I’d get life.
The worst was our daughter. She shares a bad trait with her mom. Both insist that they have the last word in any argument. I learned years before to just let them have the last word and the argument would end. But when they got into it it often wouldn’t end because each refused to cede that final sentence.
Ruckus
@Schlemizel:
I thought 70 was a cold day in FL
R-Jud
@J. Michael Neal: Thanks. She’s been labeled “High Functioning”, so we got that going for us.
redshirt
I walked through a spider strand yesterday that was as thick as string – it was incredible. Took me forever to get it off too. Never felt such a thick web before. And it was in the middle of a wide open area – didn’t see the spider who made it, not sure I want to.
Older
@Arm The Homeless: Some years back, when we had an unusually hard working bunch of hens, my daughter and I decided to conduct experiments on this very topic.
We found that, so long as the eggs were not allowed to be in the sun, and so long as they were not washed (there’s an invisible protective membrane on them that is secreted by the hen) they kept for at least 90 days in any — that’s ANY — conditions. We kept them inside and outside, refrigerated and unrefrigerated, and after the first week or so were careful to use my grandma’s method of breaking each one into a separate dish before adding it to the recipe. But the first bad egg did not show up in any group until after the first three months. And then did not show up faster in any group. That is, a good many of the eggs lasted significantly longer than 90 days.
In short, keeping the eggs in the refrigerator makes them easy to find, and comfy in those little egg-shaped holes (if you have them) but otherwise, it just doesn’t matter. We did find that if we kept them outside, they had better be in one of our large collection of wire cages, otherwise our small furry neighbors would find them and eat them.
WereBear
@cckids: I was a teenaged baby sitter, sitting on the couch feeding the baby, when one of these giants approached, and I beheaded it with a thrown magazine.
Unfortunately, they take like three days to die without a head, and it kept appearing all night like the world’s lowest budget monster movie…
WereBear
@R-Jud: The times have never been better for geeky kids, even girls, than now. Nurture her friends now and they will help get her through school, I’m told.
R-Jud
@WereBear: Thanks. We’re working on getting her to talk a bit more first. She’s three and a half, very pretty, and happy to approach others and try to play with them (this is apparently a thing with autistic girls, where they are more capable of “passing” as social compared to autistic boys). However, her ability to converse is almost nil.
She’s a terrific mimic, can name several dozen types of marine animals (“Whale shark! Blue whale! Killer whale! Narwhal! Sea dragon!”), but after that initial smile and exchange of names, she doesn’t really know what to do.
WaterGirl
@R-Jud: That can’t be easy. Seems like the information on autism changes by the day — is high functioning autism the same as asperger’s?
Djur
@WereBear: Autism != “geeky”. I know that’s a common misconception but it’s a harmful one.
WereBear
@Djur: As R-Jud shared above, right now his little girl loves to name and know all kinds of sea animals; this interest in all kinds of minutiae is something the world thinks of as “geeky.”
I know it is an imperfect metaphor, but one I’ve found useful in helping others try to understand.
R-Jud
@WaterGirl: There’s debate about that. Both HFA and Asperger’s involve difficulty with socialization, sometimes odd rocking or flapping behavior (my kid compulsively flaps her hands and “twinkles” her fingers when she’s thinking about something or excited), frequently an extremely rigid need for routine.
But Asperger’s kids generally start out with above-average verbal development. HFA kids start out with a speech and communication delay but good cognitive skills otherwise. Our kidlet behaves like a four or five-year-old on visual, logical, and spatial tests, but like a two-year-old in speech.
Also, I am a lady. :-)
WereBear
@R-Jud: Catching it now is a great leg up for all of you, because proper coaching can do wonders for where she’s NOT ahead of the curve.
And I’m sure you’ll get inundated with advice, and I’m going to be part of it: doesn’t hurt to get her D level checked. It should be around 70. If not, supplementation is cheap and easy.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@R-Jud: Our grandson age 7) is high-functioning as well. Very verbal, loves all things mechanical (currently obsessed with diesel-powered RVs), and severe anxiety (which is further complicated by ADHD and hypoglycemia). No, it’s not easy – especially for him, but dear god, how we love him.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@WaterGirl: Our experience is, “Pretty much.”
And Another Thing...
My sister says the reason they turn into obnoxious teenagers is so that you won’t mind so much when it’s time for them to move out.
m-pop
Thank you. This was a very instructive post for me because I am dealing with two 10 year-old boys (my son and companion son) on a weekend trip to St. Augustine to see the Blondie/Devo show at the Amphitheater. Not having been a 10 year-old boy myself I am quite shocked.
R-Jud
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Bless him! May he make a mint as an engineer when he’s grown, and have friends who’ll go driving with him.
We’re very lucky, because Eve is cheerful and fearless, and doesn’t get bent out of shape over routines the way other ASD kids do. She has a blanket she has to have when she’s at home, and that she needs to formally say “goodbye” to when she goes to nursery school, but that’s about it.
This could prove difficult later– what will we do if she doesn’t get sarcasm or irony? She’s English, for crying out loud, that’s the only way they express themselves over here.
WaterGirl
@R-Jud: I don’t quite get the “lady” comment… did I say something that made you think I thought you were a guy?
I’m guessing that it might be a relief to finally have a diagnosis, even though you wish there had been no problem to be diagnosed.
Do you get the TV show Parenthood? The asperger’s character on the show has really brought asperger’s to life for me. I don’t know how accurate the portrayal is, but I can see everything you’re describing in that character. He is smart and interesting and charming and difficult. He’s a delightful child (though the actor is growing up fast!) and I think they do a great job of showing all the positives in addition to the things that are hard.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: My sister has ADHD, with a side of OCD, and oh my gosh has vitamin D ever helped her! None of the ADHD drugs helped her at all, and she hated the side effects.
But I got he to start taking vitamin D and she is doing ever so much better. (She asked her doctor to test her for vitamin D and she tested really low.)
I take vitamin D now, too (no test) and I find it helps me handle stress better, among other things. And last week I read that it’s really good for your teeth, too. Is there anything vitamin D doesn’t help? It’s amazing.
R-Jud
@WaterGirl:
Yes, @ 83:
.
Thanks for the advice re vitamin D; we’ll look into it some more.
WaterGirl
@R-Jud: That was WereBear at 83. :-)
WereBear
@WaterGirl: Ack, guilty!
Mr WereBear is taking Vitamin D3 (in oil!) and it has helped his auto-immune disorder. We both spent a number of our working years in basements and I am sure we had a deficit.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: I make wrong assumptions about the gender of people here all the time, just not this time! Did you miss all the conversations about babies between R-Jud and RedKitten? :-)
WereBear
@WaterGirl: Must have. But that’s the beauty of the Internet; it doesn’t always matter.
w3ski
“Rain, Rain, I ain’t got no stinkin Rain”
Where do the heck do you live lady , I would kill for a decent rain.
w3ski
@2500 feet in the Ca/Sierra foothills
Ruckus
@And Another Thing…:
As a teenager you should be able to tell you are being obnoxious because your parents ask you to move out. Now.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Nethead Jay
@R-Jud: and @watergirl: Generally, Autism and Aspergers, whether High Functioning or otherwise, is referred to as “on the spectrum”, related but not the same. R-Jud, here’s a link I hope you find useful: WrongPlanet. And when your daughter gets a little older, look into cognitive training. It’s helped me (Aspergers, Atypical) a lot, even though I had to find it myself as a young adult. Good luck with your daughter.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Jerzy Russian: Folx driving their Conestoga wagons across the plains to the California goldfields (or wherever) packed their eggs in flour barrels. I guess this acted as a kind of insulation because apparently they lasted for several months. I’ve got 9 doz in the refridge. They’ll be gone soon but they are still good after a coupla mos.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Schlemizel: In Florida “70 is a cool day?” Hell, 89 is a cool day. Re fleas and other vermin, I live along the coast (Terra Ceia Bay) and have dawgs and cats and other furry creatures, and have really had none of this. However, for a time I lived a few miles further inland, and they were everywhere.
WaterGirl
@Nethead Jay: I took a quick look at that website, and it kind of blew me away. What a hopeful place; it gives new meaning to “you are not alone”. I don’t personally know anyone on the autism scale, but I found it really touching.
So good of you to share this with R-Jud and the thousands of people who read this site.
Mnemosyne
@Nethead Jay:
Did you do the Cogmed program or was it something else? I’m in the midst of Week 3 of Cogmed, so I’m curious. I’m doing it for ADHD, not Asperger’s, but apparently my niece was just diagnosed Aspie so I’m wondering if it would help her as well. (Her parents claim there’s no ADHD after all (which she was originally being treated for) but I’m skeptical, frankly, since it took them so long to bother to get her diagnosed properly in the first place.)
Betty Cracker
Wow, a lot of outstanding parenting advice and company for the misery. Thanks, guys.
PS: Arm the Homeless — SCOREBOARD, mofo!
lectriclady
My final goal in life is to live long enough to watch my daughter interact with her own teenagers.
Nethead Jay
@Mnemosyne: No, not Cogmed, but I’m aware of it and there are certainly elements similar to it. I’m in Europe (though aware of general US environment) and my story is both a bit complicated and not the most typical. But with those qualifications, I can’t see any harm in taking a look at it for your niece, with qualified advisors in the loop of course.