Birthday Shopping Spree

Our little Goldilocks recently turned 9. We opted not to stage a huge party, because that's the last thing she'd want. And her "friends?" They'd hate it too. So we focused on the important things: Cake (of course) and presents.

However, when a person's dream day involves a trip to the dentist followed by bloodwork (See Obsession Safety Checklist)....well, it can get tricky.

I previously wrote about this atypical parenting challenge here: What Does Little Suzie Want for Christmas?

So, here we go again. Of course we want to make the day special for her, but if we push our ideas of what she SHOULD want on her 9th birthday - even inadvertently - she'll only be frustrated and disappointed.

Do you remember your 9th birthday? Any of your childhood birthdays? The best ones were those where we felt special and celebrated. Sometimes that coincided with receiving a Barbie Dreamhouse. Or a Matchbox cars set. I posit that the warm memories remain not because we received an ephemeral gift, but because people listened to us, understood us, and cared enough to validate us with a gift that - at that age - meant the world to us.

So I dug around and was able to come up with a few toy-store sanctioned gifts that allowed us to advise doting grandparents and relatives, insistent on traditional gift items.

Mom and Dad thought we'd try something fun. We took her to Target (she loves it there - like the rest of us), and told her to pick something out for herself. Anything (well, almost anything.) She held my hand and led me around the store. The only somewhat typical choice - the red bouncy ball - came from the middle aisle as we brisked right past the toy section.

Sprinkle Once, Sprinkle Twice, Sprinkle (& Win) 'Chicken Soup For The Soul: Raising Kids on The Spectrum'

I'm a rabid reader. You're shocked, I'm sure, but it's true.

Growing up, weekly trips to the county library were a treat. And back then, we actually checked out books from the school library, too (something that all too quickly seems to be going the way of the Dewey Decimal card catalog system).

I have an indelible memory of actually crying in indignant shame when a school librarian wouldn't allow me to check out a book because "the reading level is too high for your grade." She wasn't censoring the (innocuous) content; it was the "reading level." (Oh, I'm sorry - are the big words going cause to an apocalypse in my young brain? Thanks to Mom and her indulging librarian intervention, the book came home with me the next day. Turns out, it wasn't very good, anyway.)

Like many readers, I go through genre frenzies and author binges. For example, I doubt I'll ever read a Danielle Steel again, but I greedily tore through her entire oeuvre available to date in my late teens. (My, she's prolific.)

So when my daughter was first diagnosed with autism, you bet I read everything on that parenting/special needs/autism shelf. Side Note: Have you noticed how that one, measly shelf has exploded into two bookcases these days? I don't have much patience/tolerance for those anymore. I live it and breathe it, and I've moved on to other Goodreads lists. Yet, there are a few exceptions and occasionally I crave a good autism cry (there a a few varieties ranging from the ugly cry to the battle cry.) Some of my favorite of those books are here.

And, if we're being honest, I am a sucker for an unopened, unread book of any kind - and I have way more of them hanging around my home than I have time to read them. I wish you were my neighbor and I could lend some to you and you could brew me a cup of coffee. Alas, we'll have to settle for a book giveaway. It's your lucky day, and I've rustled up a shiny, new book just for you. For keeps.




I had the wonderful opportunity to preview Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum. I didn't even groan once when I heard about it because it's got some great stuff in there - whether you're newly diagnosed or old hat.


The book, just published in April, is straight up "Chicken Soup"y, so there's no need to officially review it for you, as far as I'm concerned. It's an amalgamation of advice, inspiration, self-help, sympathy, empathy and love packaged into 101 personal stories from a variety of writers (mostly very good writers - including some of my own very talented friends). Of course, like most "Chicken Soups", it should be read next to a box of Kleenex and chased with something tart. Still, I only skipped over a very, very few essays and loved the rest.

To showcase this fine book, I was going to hit up one of the contributors to guest post/host this giveaway.* I then was going to interview them with all sorts of journalistic-y, revealing questions. Oh, and I was going to create a fill-in-the-blank contest where you were going to blind me with your brilliance and win the book on merit. Oh yes I was!

Buuuuut, if you've read my last post, you'll know I Lost Time - and still haven't found it. So for now, I decided to go with the never-fail approach of flashing "FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY" at you in hopes that I can reclaim your attention - and just hit "publish" already. So go ahead and enter. I promise it's just perfect for your grade level - whatever that might be. Take that, Madam Librarian!

HOW TO ENTER
1. Comment below by midnight JUNE 21, 2013 - be sure to login or include your email address so I can contact you if you win.
2. Winner will be randomly selected using highly advanced, sophisticated (or rather free, low-tech) web tools and will be notified by JUNE 24, 2013. You'll then reply promptly with your mailing address.
3. Book will be sent from publisher representative directly to winner. You'll love it!

*I'm totally going to hit them up for guest posts another time, I promise.

xoxo Maurice Sendak

I Lost Time

I logged out for a few minutes...and then it was June. I try to remember something remarkable that's happened since then, but really, I don't know where I've been or what I've been doing.

Have you ever seen Primal Fear? It seems like your garden-variety legal thriller circa 1996, but it sticks. Ed Norton steals the movie playing Aaron, a naive altar boy, accused of the violent murder of the Archbishop, who claims to have no memory of the incident since he "lost time." But while Aaron checked out, Roy - one of Aaron's multiple personalities - apparently took over his body. We see that Roy is a violent sociopath who proudly admits to the murder. (If you haven't seen it, it's an excellent film and one of the original gotchas...but that's not really the point of this post.)

Image courtesy of deviantART.

Like Aaron, I feel like I lost time. No, I can't claim any alter egos - criminal or otherwise. I just mean it seems like time passed and I'm not quite sure where it all went. (NOTE TO SELF: If I ever do take on another personality, it would be nice if she would handle the laundry and cooking.) 

It's like when you plan to play "just one game" of Candy Crush and suddenly it's midnight. Or you open up Pinterest. Or when you blink and your kid is a teenager...and you're in your forties. 

As we age, we realize that while time seemed to pass uber-slowly when we were young (especially during Calculus class), it zooms right by once you're older. All those little, old ladies who smugly told us to "enjoy it; it goes by so fast" when they saw us balancing screaming toddlers, strollers and diaper bags while double-fisting coffees - well, turns out they were right. (I still stand by my sleep-deprived, indignant glares, though.)

So, I lost time. I can't really account for it or explain it by citing anything remarkable that's happened.

Checklists slowly got checked. Or re-prioritized. Or forgotten.

No photos have been printed and put in albums; the laundry pile remains life-sized; the paper stacks have not shrunk.

The Power of One Word

"When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain."

So said William Shakespeare....and channeled by many a hopeful job interviewer, when they ask: "If you had only one word to describe yourself, what would it be?"

Follow-up question: Do you hate that question as much as I do? I mean, how COULD any one word sum up the complexities of an individual? And yet, ABC News listed it as one of the top 25 "great" interview questions.

I think, on the contrary, that one-word descriptions often do the opposite of describing a person accurately - they represent a stereotype, or a preconceived picture of attributes associated with that word.

Autistic * Jewish * Gay * Blonde * Russian

Each of these words likely will conjure a set of characteristics in your mind...characteristics that may not apply to the next person you meet who self-identifies with one of these terms. Okay, I know, in a job interview you're supposed to pick words like "resilient," "innovative" or "diligent." But still, why just one word? WHERE ARE THE OTHER WORDS, DAMMIT?