When All Else Fails, Send 'Em To Bed

That's my solution.

Tuesday nights are always a bit out of sorts around here. Yukon accepted an adjunct teaching position at the University of Alaska Anchorage in their Master of Public Administration program, instructing 12 graduate-level students in the art of Introduction to Public Management.

As a result, he is off the family radar from Monday post-dinner to Tuesday post-bedtime, which is better than the first part of the semester, when he was on another planet altogether from Sunday morning through Tuesday night. Normally, Bear and I do pretty well, but tonight, oy.

Big OY. We hear that the 'flu is making its annual rounds through the schools of Anchorage, and if that is the reason for the wild behavior, I'll be glad to pin it on a microbe of illness. But after two days of defiant, tearful, obnoxious behavior emulating from my otherwise sweet and mild-mannered, albeit bossy kindergartener, I'm ready to blame it on anything.

It doesn't help that my brain is ready to emerge from my skull at any minute and I am in a writer's funk as deep as Davy Jones' locker. Part of me just wants to throw myself across my bed, sigh deeply, and moan, "What's the meannnning of it all?" The other part tells my psyche to suck it up and pour a glass of wine, already.

I did that, read Bear 'Georgie the Ghost to the Rescue', which through its nostalgic old-book smell and kind, gentle words returned some sense of sanity to my frazzled daddy-less world tonight.

Until Bear spit water all over the bathroom sink in a defiant gesture related to the brushing of his teeth.

He went to bed at 6:45 and was asleep by 7 p.m. and I'm not far behind. Maybe. There's still wine in the glass.

Nobody Used to Have Birthdays in October!

When I was a little kid, sitting around at recess with my gal pals talking about everything from Dryer's horse statues to the age of our dads (funny how the oldest dad was always the wow factor, haha), the topic of birthdays inevitably came up.

Not only did I have a goofy name (a first name nobody in the 70's recognized, and a second everyone did), I had a goofy birthday. Somehow it appeared in my mind that girls should have birthdays in April, May, or June to be able to warrant the outdoor-themed party. Sunshine, flowers, and little butterflies flitting about gracefully; you get the picture.

Thank goodness my mother had the creativity and patience to plan and implement birthday parties that kept a gaggle of girls busy and happy, minus the sunshine and flowers.

These days I pray for snow on my birthday. Go figure. Matches my graying hair.

Do You Really Know a Word?

A mini-van passed me the other day on a busy Anchorage road. Mom (presumably) and kids were chugging along and eventually passed me on a hill as I became stuck behind a city bus.

As traffic cleared and dirty white van moved right in front of me, I noticed a bland, black-on-white sticker in the middle of the back door. "Tolerance is for those with no conviction."
Huh.

I always think I know what words mean, yet these two, tolerance and conviction, combined in one sentence bugged me. Bugged me enough, in fact, that I went home and chewed on it before finally going to my big dictionary.

"Tolerance: Sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices conflicting with one's own. An allowable deviaion from a standard." I went one step further and looked up sympathy, even though Yukon and I refer to the term almost daily with respect to Wolf. "Feel loyalty, support, or sharing feelings of another's. Showing sensitivity to..."

Hmmm, so to be tolerant means sucking up one's own personal beliefs, understanding the feelings beneath another's, even if it conflicts mightily with ours? Heavy.

"Conviction: A strong persuasion or belief, in a state of being convicted, and compelled to admit the truth." Even heavier, man.

I was interviewed by PDX FM a few weeks ago and host Doug Zanger mentioned that my writing style is strongly formed through my convictions of raising a child such as Wolf. Truly I feel compelled to share a story not often revealed by most moms; a painful, gritty roadmap of the life as Erin Kirkland knows it, full of good and bad but ultimately real. In that respect I am convicted to admit the truth that in my heart I am not going to know it all.

But where does tolerance live? I need only to go to my last post to find that. As a follow up, btw, this morning little W. sat in the lobby of school, waiting while his parents met with the principal, nervously picking at his coat, arms resting on a too-big table. My mind drifted back to a similar scene almost 11 years ago when my own son sat waiting outside the school office while I negotiated his return to school after a "fight" that looked, I found out, exactly like the one involving my youngest son three days ago.

W. deserves tolerance, but also my conviction. Conviction to support, believing everybody deserves a chance given the right tools, and tolerance to help them achieve.

Am I weak for believing this? I know my analogy is not the meaning behind the bumper sticker I saw the other day, but it could be. I know politics and religion and morals and ethics take different forms depending upon one's beliefs, but in my opinion, starting with our own little stories of tolerance and conviction lead us toward the bigger ones.

And that, children, is how we are able to believe both. Of that I am convinced.

Maybe This is Why...

Yukon was part of the Federal contingent able to receive a Monday Freebie due to the Columbus Day holiday, so we enjoyed our all-too rare time together. Sleet and rain outside forced us to abandon our plans for a hike and instead we hunkered down at our favorite coffee shop, reading the New York Times and chatting about nothing in particular. You know those conversations, parents, ones that are about everything and nothing in that mature sort of way, offering opinions and insights that are near impossible with kids demanding every moment of attention.

It was clearly a day to be enjoyed. At least, until the phone rang and the principal's voice came over the line. Uh-oh. It seems our little kindergarten kinder got into a blow-by-blow knockout at recess and the principal wanted to let me know about it. Apparently, the other child had swung first, and Bear swung back. (Note to self: Do not allow husband to be around post-phone call, for his first words were "Where did he hit him?") Sheesh.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered who the other child was. I help in the classroom each week, and know the kids well, especially one in particular who we'll call W. Socially awkward, almost anti-so, hands groping and waving, speech difficult to understand, W. is the bane of kindergarten. He appears to be fixated on Bear, pushing and shoving not in an aggressive sort of way, but in a way I recognize all too clearly. I adore W.

This is my chance. I am now both the mom of W. and the mom of Bear, in a way, for I have been the mom on the other end of the phone call the principal made to W's, probably anticipating what was coming and yet wanting to defend her little boy at the same time. But I am the mother to Bear, too, with an opportunity to teach grace and compassion, even if it hurts.

Bear and Yukon had a man-to-man talk after school, and he understands as well as a five year-old could the need to use words instead of fists, caring instead of intolerance. Kindness is easy to give, Yukon explained. It's sometimes hard, as is the case with W., to receive.

A delicate moment. A precious lesson. One that, I don't think, was accidental.

Afraid, or Aware? The Choices of Family Travel

I've been asked by a few people my take on the recent State Department Travel Advisory for Europe. Rather than rehash what I already wrote this morning for AKontheGO, here is a link to the blog post.

For the record, since moving to Alaska five years ago, I am a much less fearful traveler. Read HERE to find out why...

From the Wolf Den: Breakdown, or Breakthrough?

Our family's journey through Asperger Syndrome and the ancillary issues of our son have consisted of single steps into and out of agony and ecstacy. We are up, down, sideways and ass backwards by turn, wanting to know and yet not know what lies inside Wolf's head. Therapy has, after two years, accomplished little. And we didn't know why. Until Thursday.

Therapist B had taken a new tack with his kids, appointing them as chairmen of their own family therapy, hoping that the sense of control would lead to a greater opportunity for sharing information and/or communication. Why not? Nothing else had worked to this point, Yukon and I figured.

Ever heard the sound of silence over a phone line 3,000 miles away? Let me describe it to you. Crickets. Buzzing. Fingers drumming on the table. We were going nowhere. I gritted my teeth and sucked down some more coffee.

At five minutes to the hour, when Yukon had gone upstairs to ready Bear for school and I was pacing the room, phone on speaker, ready to open my mouth and let loose the receiving end of two years of not-too successful family therapy. I was tired, I was ticked, and I was ready to throw up my hands and say the almighty What.Ever.

With a swiftness I could hear in the air sucked into his lungs, Wolf yelled something that took the air out of mine. "AM I A MISTAKE?!" But it was not directed at me, or Yukon. It was directed at his father.


Apparently there have been conversations, discussions to which I have not been privy, between the two. Promises promised, statements made, and disclosures revealed that are not appropriate for a teenager with impulse control challenges whose relationship with the man who provided DNA has been tenuous at best since infancy. A man who, we now believe, has similar issues to Wolf but has denied responsibility.


The one hour turned into two as I answered questions as best I could during the emotional storm that followed, knowing full well the time had come to collaborate with CHYC staff on any future communication with Wolf's dad.

It was a beautifully tragic moment. Tragic that our child feels such painful awareness of the abandonment of his biological parent. But beautiful in that Yukon is there to pick up the pieces and bind them together with grace. He is, in fact, going to take my place on this upcoming visit. Wolf needs his forever dad. And as much as I would love to hold my own son in my arms, I know Yukon's are the ones he needs more right now.

Not a breakdown. On the contrary, a breakthrough. A big one. No mistake.

I Have a Feeling...

Who read the "Little House on the Prairie" books? Remember the "Long Winter", where the family is held hostage by the most violent series of blizzards Minnesota had ever known up until that point in the 1890's? Good old Pa knew in his farmer bones that it was going to be a hard winter. He just had a feeling.

I have a feeling, too. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we woke up yesterday morning (that would be September 26th) to clouds, frost on the cars, and a suspicious icy fragrance in the air. Uh oh. Driving to church I thought I saw little things flying in the air, but since it was breezy, assumed it was just junk in the air. It was junk all right; the frozen, flaky kind.

Snow in September is not unheard of in Alaska; on the contrary, most sourdoughs I know were becoming worried that we had had little in the way of any precipitation, much less the white kind. But the way we arrived here was just just a bit drastic. Gorgeous, sunny, 55 degrees of wilderness Indian Summer to dark, windy, and snowy got to me.

Yukon and I chopped a bunch of wood yesterday, filled up the kindling bucket to the top, cleaned out the woodstove, bought new tires for the Expedition, cooked bean soup, switched summer/winter clothes in the closet, and had the insulation man come over to blow more whatcha-call-it into the attic so we don't freeze. I've got a feeling. I tell ya.

All seemed well today when I took some friends over to our beautiful Alaska Botanical Garden for a walk. We are babysitting a friend's little girl for a few days while they go fishing (yes, we still fish, right up to snowfall, mostly for catch-release steelhead and trout).

Such a gorgeous day, but chilly to the point where we had to wear hats and mittens. There's no denying, something's up. One day we're going to wake up to a white world, and I want to be ready. Like Pa Ingalls.