In Memoriam

Graciella Maria McKenney was born and died last Wednesday, May 24th, 2006. She was the daughter of Matt and Ursula McKenney, and the grand-daughter of Wayne McKenney, my mother's husband.

Graciella's twenty week sonogram revealed that Graciella was developing without a skull--an extreme form of spinal bifida--and would not survive outside the womb, if she survived birth. Still Matt and Ursula chose to keep Graciella and to carry her to term. In spite of strong feelings against this decision from some family members, Matt and Ursula felt it was the right choice. Now Graciella has come and gone, but the memory of her and the choice her parents made will remain.

I am grateful that we live in a place that does not demand abortions, even if we can get abortion on demand. Others disagree. "Selfish" is what the pragmatists say about keeping a fetus that will not survive: it drains money and resources from other mothers, other babies who will more likely live healthy lives; it sucks at the emotions of those who live in the circle of mom/dad/baby; it's an un-necessary pain with no reward for the waiting. It's foolish.

Oh, I could play with this idea for awhile, as unpleasant as it is.

What if? I ask. What if, after careful actuarial research on the matter, Mom A and Mom B are awarded services based on their prospects for delivering healthy babies... What if Mom B got the best care and Mom A got the second best? Then what if Mom B and baby were killed by a drunk driver two days after coming home from the hospital? And Mom A had an unforseen complication in the delivery that would have been easily handled if she'd had Mom B's 'best care'? All those careful calculations couldn't plan for every possibility, could they? And yet, if the pragmatists could follow their noses, they'd end up here, in as big an emotional morass as ever.

I'm grateful that Matt and Ursula loved Graciella for as long as they could and gave her the dignity of dying at the hands of Practical Nature rather than at the hands of 'Pragmatic' Man.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, except that we are all fools about something--or someone--parents, particularly. I want my daughter to know that I was a fool for her, and I hope that when I'm gone she'll say that I loved her as best I could, for as long as I could, in my own foolish way. Thank you, Graciella, for that precious reminder. You were aptly named.

If you're the praying sort, please pray for Matt and Ursula--and Wayne.

Edited 5/31: Please pray for reconciliation and peace for the whole family, as well. Thanks.

Last Day-First Day Happys

This is the last morning of preschool and the first day of our summer. And in honor of this once-a-year occasion, I am having a breakfast of mint gelatto and a macchiato at my favorite coffeehouse, Nordaggio's. (Ah, the privledges of adulthood!)

Summer doesn't usually make me happy. In fact, summer is my least favorite season, not only because the bugs and the heat drive me crazy, but because (as Garrison Keillor once said) it's the season that exposes my weaknesses: run, jump, skip or hop--I ain't good at any of 'em and summer is nothing if not about running, jumping, skipping, or hopping with unfettered joy. In short, I'm a geeky clutz who flees (gracelessly) from the words "team sports" and "sweat."

My only hope and source of summer pleasure is a pool. So this summer we've joined the neighborhood pool and I plan to spend a ton of time down there with Tesla. This makes me happy.

I hope this makes her happy, too, because we're just plain stuck with one another the whole summer long--and the pool will be one of our few outlets for killing time. After last summer, I decided signing Tesla up with a Mother's Day Out program wouldn't work: it's a pain to have to train another teacher to work with Tesla, and half the time I had to pick her up early because they didn't know what to do with her if something went wrong. Sigh. So it's just me and she this summer, baby.

But I am incredibly happy and grateful for the teacher we've had this year: Mrs. Kathy Davis. (Big hug out to you, babe!) Kathy is dually certified in special ed and early childhood, so when she approached me about putting Tesla into a regular preschool classroom instead of a special needs class, I did a little happy dance. Of course, we would!

Kathy is a pioneer in our district because this route is definately the road less travelled, but we are all more grateful for it. Not only has Tesla been able to adapt to a room full of typical sensory challenges, but she's been able to grow, academically, and develop many social skills we could have never taught her here at home all by her lonesome. She's a much happier kid and that makes parenting her that much easier and rewarding. And Kathy's had the pleasure of proving to herself and others that higher functioning kids with autism CAN work well in regular classrooms.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to stand in during a school assembly. When I did this before, months ago, Tesla spotted Randy and I and ran to us, couldn't stay still and couldn't easily orient herself to the situation (one of those typical autistic-y 'can't see the forest for the trees' modes). This time, however, Tesla sat in the middle of the line with the rest of her classmates and remained in her place. Even some squirrly boys behind her didn't get her off focus. I watched with amazement as she turned around to see what they were doing, evaluate it, and then turned around and focused back on the speaker. Holy Progress, Batman! And this week, Kathy proudly told me, Tesla got to be line leader, a job she took very seriously by pushing Kathy behind her and telling her to hold her hands behind her back. (Big puddles in my eyes, folks.) She's with us--not 100%--but she's is with us, working in our world and with our language!

So even though these are the last few minutes of my 'free time' this school year, I am so very, very happy.

A Room of My Own

It wasn't until I hit 30 that this idea made sense to me. I was always on the move until then, barely surviving with enough money for a car of my own (which is absolutely necessary here in the wide-open plains), much less a ROOM of my own. But now that I'm married and got the kid, the mortgage, and the thousand sundry tasks of a middle-class chatelaine, I understand what it's all about. Yes, Virginia, I do believe I'll take that room.

A room of one's own is so much more than just a place to dump one's junk; it's the outward ideal of the inner person, and much more so than any other mode of personal expression like clothing. (The GAP and I parted ways a few years ago, and anything I'd want to wear--read will flatter my figure--I can't afford. So that's out.) Ideally, it's a cozy haven, an inspiring space, a place for me to be me when the rest of the world wants me to be them. And best of all, I wouldn't have to toss it out with last year's fashions, or if I gained ten pounds.

My room would have to be a studio. I've been working towards this ideal for some time now. After my years working in theater (not many, but the hours were long and I was a deeply impressionable lass), I know that my studio needs to be more than a little set piece tucked away in the corner of the den. My studio's got to rock. It's got to be practical and roomy, a place where I can really get my groove on. Preferably with northern light, and room for all my writing/sewing/crafting/scrapbooky-graphic arts-calligraphy needs.

Is that too much to ask? Maybe. I've claimed the spare bedroom. It does have northern light, but windows are late 60's suburban--too small and too high, like looking out a minimum security prison. But I'll work with it. We may also have to throw a couple of twin beds in there, as the room occasionally does double duty as a guest room. We'll see...

So having been inspired by the studios of great creative women, such as Alicia at Posie Gets Cosy and Ali at Ali Edwards Design, I'm finally getting My Own Room.

Last weekend I painted the walls. They're yellow. Winter is tough on me, and I needed someone around here to always have a cheery face in mid-February, so it might as well be my studio walls. Wanted a mellow lemonade yellow, but I got it wrong and didn't have time to correct my choice. Sunday I thought it looked like an overdose-on-vitamins-urine yellow. Now I don't think it's so bad.

What do you think?

The IKEA shelves are showing up this week, so Memorial Day weekend may be mostly about putting those buggers together and getting 'em in. We moved from an old house with tons of built-ins to this suburban place with no shelves, so my half my clothes and 9/10ths of my bookshave been in boxes for a year, folks. The shelves may be Scandanavian Surprise, and they may have cost me my whole summer's budget, but dang, I'm gonna have me some storage!

More to come...

Baby Got...Book?

Thanks to Mark Bertrand, I now know what I'm missing.

Before I became a Christian I had no idea how many different kinds of bibles are out there: red letter, blue letter, lines in the margins, lines in the gutters, cross-references in the center or below, commentary for new believers, commentary for old believers, AMPLIFIED...the choices are myriad. (Or should I say 'legion'?) Then there's all the translations, paraphrases...the optional apocrypha...slim bound, gift bound, leather bound heritage version...

The options just boggled my mind.

Worse, imagine coming upon a well-informed fellow Christian who's got an issue with the format you're holding in your hand. (Apparently format wars sputter all over the internet; their combatants seem to be those peace-makers-in-training, bible college and seminary students.) Yes, aesthetic snobbery is alive and well in Christian circles, but often you'll find the sniffing is only over bindings.

All this, and we've yet to read a single word.

Now don't get me wrong. I love the feeling of lovely, quality leather--the suppleness of a thousand pages that flow almost organically as I thumb over them and then lay the book flat on my table. No sound of cracking, no fighting pages that pop into my face as they resist their purpose. I wish I could afford something so lovely. Until then, I'll have to get my Bible jones fix down at Mardels, and hope that the staff doesn't catch me pawing on one of their finest like some tortured soul who was never allowed the comfort of a soft pet in her childhood.

Or I could just laugh along with this video about Bible obsession.

This is for you, Mark.

Computer Free Fridays

Tomorrow is Family Free Friday. Yup. I'm not sure whether to dance a jig or get all teary-eyed at the idea, but tomorrow my dear Randy will pack up the girl and head to Missouri to visit his family and celebrate his niece's high school graduation. And I'm staying behind.

I've been making wishlists in my head for months now, should this kind of freedom present itself, and now I don't know where to begin...

Blair, at WiseCraft, posted this button a few months ago and invited her readers (who are mostly arty moms) to take a once a week break from the little glowing screen. After all, we DO live with other creatures in our homes, and they deserve at least as much of our time as our 'net pals. (See why she named her blog WiseCraft? Such a preceptive one, that Blair...)

So with Blair's encouragement and example, here's the current big weekend wishlist.

1. Stay off the computer Friday.
2. Paint the guest/sewing room lemony-yellow Friday.
3. Eat sushi w/Rach on Friday night (?)
4. Spend the rest of the weekend in front of little glowing screen.
5. Write, write, write. (see #4)
6. Ok, maybe take a couple of breaks and watch Battlestar Galactica from Netflix...
7. Write, write, write. (see#5)
   
8. Ok, maybe take a couple of breaks to sleep.
9. Church.
   

Now if I could only figure out how I wouldn't have to eat, drink, or use the toilet all weekend, I'd be totally set.

Time Waster #2

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

What, Me Worry? Part Two

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be
institutionalized.

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup!"

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

I want a bed near the kitchen.

What, Me Worry?

Mother's Day at our church isn't about baby's breath corsages or crocheted crosses, thank goodness. Nor did we didn't get any comforting thoughts about how God loves mothers and will give them a special star in their crowns of motherly martyrdom when they arrive in heaven.

No, we got a message about worry. Ha!

And, funny, worry is all about the need to control--mostly other people--mostly our kids. The busybody mom, the guilt-trip mom, the stage-manager mom, the obsessive mom--these moms are pretty funny on the TV screen, but not in my kitchen. And certainly not in my brain. Yet I know that my thoughts often follow the path of the women who went before me, some of whom were Professional Worriers, aka Control-Freaks.

I don't want to be one of those moms. Do you? Are you, and you don't even realize it? Take a gander at the list below and see if you need to let something (or someone) go.

Ten Revelations About Your Worrylife

From Matthew 6: 25-34. It's a famous passage about worry.

1. v. 25 Worry is a preoccupation with physical provision at the expense of the eternal value of the inner person.
2. v. 26 Worry tears away and destroys the value God places on a life.
3. v. 27 Not only is worry worthless, it's a liability to what God wants to build in our lives (our reputations of character).
4. v. 28 Worry is blindness to all God has created and maintains.
5. v. 29 Worry limits us from experiencing God's best by focusing on man's best.
6. v. 30 Worry is ignoring and discarding all God has done and wants to do in my life.
7. v. 31 Worry is to be controlled by the present.
8. v. 32 Worry is a condition that reveals either trust in God or man
9. v. 33 Worry is a result of seeking what I want, rather than what God wants.
10. v. 34 Worry is the expectation of trouble.

So, moms, what's worrying you today?

Mother's Day Mail

The "Tesla Doll" is leaving today for my mother's house. It should have taken me three days to create, but no, with all my interruptions, it took a week. I hope it arrives on time.

I got the idea from wee wonderfuls. Hillary is making baby prezzies for some friends, and of course I thought the idea was just wee wonderful!

My favorite bit is the addition of Tesla's favorite lovey since the age of four months--Bunny. Bunny doesn't look this nice anymore, so the image is rather idealized. But hey, that's what artistic license is all about, isn't it?


I also added a pretty long satin ribbon so she can hang it somewhere away from the curious Shelties. Hope she likes it.


Poor Tesla. She sees all these projects and gets excited and names them after her...and then they go away. In fact, poor Mommy. I get all excited about these things and make 'em and send them away. I need to make something all for US now.

Ha.

The HOV lane to Hell

The worst medical care bureaucracies can offer us is a cot and a cloth in which to lie and wait for death. But is it care, or mere expediency?

I read this article and thought about our own kids in the US and elsewhere, kids with autism--thousands and thousands of them--who will probably be institutionalized for life. I am profoundly grateful that our girl will not be one of them. But then we never accepted the standard 'solutions' to her care. If left to the advice of the standard solution, we would mostly like still have a child who was still non-verbal and constantly angry.

While I'll never say that vaccinations are the cause of the increase in autism, I do stand-by the belief that the current public health policies for vaccinations favor expediency over common sense and convienence over individualized care. Some bodies can handle the onslaught of vaccinations "required" by these policies in the first two years--even the first two hours!--of a childs life. Some bodies cannot.

Look around you and listen to parents. Everywhere I meet families forever changed by autism. Most folks know nothing about treatment beyond ABA and speech/occupational therapy. They don't know that their children need healing, not simply reconditioning. And their children become part-time wards of the school system, deferring the day when the kids will become even greater challenges to our state and community governments because they are incapable of living independent lives. There are many of them out there, and no one yet knows the cost we will all pay for the expediency of public health policies.

This summer Tesla will once again participate in a two-week morning "Autism Camp" that will train teachers and other school professionals how to work with kids on the spectrum. The camp is open only to elementary aged kids (up to 5th grade) in our Tulsa school district. Last summer over 50 kids attended this camp. Tesla was three years old and (because of a state early intervention program) the youngest child there. I was thrilled the district recognized the practical need to help teachers prepare for this generation of ASD kids. But I was even angrier at the number of kids who needed that help. This should not be.

Think again whenever you can when someone presents you with a simple solution that theoretically suits millions. Expediency, folks, is the HOV lane to Hell.

Score!

Well, sorta.

I powered up my 'puter this morning and toddled over to my usual blog sites...and found I'd been blogged! Or linked...or whatever they call it.

As some of you know, I've been involved in this little discussion blog on the book, The Pursuit of God, and my blog post over there got some attention.

Made me want to dig my toe into the dirt and waggle it around as I said, "Aw shucks" and blushed.

Some of you may find it interesting; for others it'll be a big yawner. I had fun looking up the portraits, though.

Cute City: Art Swap #1

Here it is! My first ever art-swap contribution...and isn't it just irredeemably CUTE?

The theme was 'Hope' and we were allowed whatever medium we'd like. I chose fabric because I've got a ton going to dry-rot back in my craft room. Then I ended up with these particular fabrics because I didn't have what I wanted, but did have these. And they coordinated.

Coordination is an important cute factor. So are tiny, embroidered sugar cubes--dancing and smiling, preferably.


And of course, I designed something with my current favorite addiction, espresso. Randy makes me one every morning, and (I am ashamed to say) it gives me great hope. I count the coffee bean as one of God's blessings, a mercy to sleep-deprived parents and over-acheiver types everywhere. And thus, His mercies are new every morning.


This pillow case (with a little extra fabric as a bonus) is going out to one Abby Hogarth in New South Wales, Australia. (Tesla calls her "the Abby lady.") It's springtime here and I thought the colors would be wonderful summery fun, but ooops! it's fall in Oz, so perhaps Abby can stash it away until August rolls around.

Hope you enjoy it, Abs!