From the Wolf Den: Quick Update

Today was Team Treatment Review Day, where I sit on one end of the phone lines and listen to the Team, and Wolf, talk about his month's progress and goals.

After a pretty smooth few weeks, I was interested to see how things had progressed, especially since Yukon was present for family therapy last week while I was at a meeting.

Wolf has reached Level II at Mountain High Facility, big time cool! He has done extremely well, reached his goals between 80-98% of the time, and seems to be happy. Yes, friends, Wolf is happy. Whoa. He's worked really hard, so Yukon and I are planning a trip at the end of April to see his smiling face and buy him a graduation present to satisfy his voracious reading appetite.

Any guesses?

From the Wolf Den: Educating and Graduating, or Not

I've spent the day on my laptop, clickety-clacking away in the hope that someone in the Alaska educational field would be able to tell me how to graduate my kid.

Wolf has successfully (or, almost so) completed his credits for high school. A decided advantage to having a child in residential care is the commitment to year-round schooling, because these facilities (as opposed to mainstream school districts) know structure is master where education is involved. So, even though Wolf has had myriad false starts on many a school day, he nonetheless has gathered up enough credits at various residential institutions to, in theory, graduate. But there is one problem.

Alaska is a state with an "exit exam" that actually proves a student's aptitude. While I have many reservations about the whole program for a number of unrelated reasons, I also have several specific questions about how a child who has never attended an Alaskan high school could possibly be expected to take a test about which he knows nothing. Or, at least, not what other Alaska kids have been tutored to pass.

Wolf left the Anchorage School District in 8th grade; moved to a parochial school, he attended September through May, then moved down to CHYC in Utah; after which began the second tier of behavioral health madness.

Nobody seems to have an answer for me; Wolf continues to be the conundrum of education, just as he was for state behavioral health social workers.

Perhaps by the time he is 21 we shall have an answer.

Perhaps.

Just Another Winter's Day in Alaska

For some reason, December seems to be flying by faster than a Canada goose on its way south. Wasn't it just November last week?

Normally by this time I am fretting and fussing over the decrease in daylight; today, for example, the sun set at 3:30 p.m. and things were pretty well darkened up by four. Which means, for those of you in the Lower 48 regions, that kids in Alaska get up and go to school in the pitch darkness of morning, and return home again just as the sun sinks behind the Alaska Range.

Reflective tape, blinking lights on backpacks, and a whole lotta warm stuff encasing those little bodies makes for a more pleasant walk to the bus stop, or, in Bear's case, for standing in line outside of the school. See, our kids have returned to the good old days when parents walked three miles uphill in the snow barefoot to school. Perhaps ours are not as drastic as that, but schools in Alaska keep kids outside as much as possible, knowing, wisely, that too much indoor time makes for cranky children and teachers. So, out they go for recess and lineup times unless the temperatures are -10 F. I love it.

I try every day to get outside, myself. Not much running this week with the chilly temperatures, but a brisk hike through a snow-covered trail dressed in snow boots, two pairs of long underwear, Carhartt pants, and a down parka can make anyone break a sweat. The Dog accompanies me too, and it is quite something to watch his little whiskers freeze up after a few minutes frolicking outdoors. He has booties to wear when the temps drop below 10 above or so, dogs in Alaska get sore feet rather quickly with all the ice-melt, gravel, and dry snow mixing with their tender paws.

Today Dog and I went out from our house, south along the Fort Richardson boundary. Many in the neighborhood use these trails, including the resident moose population, so hiking around there requires the utmost in vigilance. Sun shining, snow squeaking beneath my feet and Dog sniffing everyplace for evidence of other living creatures, we headed out and up.

I thought I was watching; thought I was paying attention to the signals from Dog that something was lurking around in the willows. Certainly there was enough sign of the big ungulate beauties that hang around the trail, tracks and such; but I didn't see anybody. So I thought.

Walking through a shady section of the trail I happened to glance askance to my left. Out of the very corner of my eye, I saw her. A big cow, resting quietly in the snow and partially obscured by a few willow sticks. She was so close I could see hear breath and swear if I had reached out an arm, I would have touched her fuzzy ears. (I must state at this point that Dog still had not noticed her, duh.)

We stared at each other for a few seconds, she twitched an ear, I twitched an eye. "Oh, no," I breathed to myself (actually it was a different word).

As quietly as I could, I inched up the trail sideways, keeping one eye on Dog and one eye on Moose.

Then we went on our merry way.

Just another day in Alaska.

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.

Who Would Have Thought...

I'm up late preparing for a workshop tomorrow at Campbell Creek Science Center called 'Bear Safety for Families'. Designed to help parents feel more comfortable recreating in the great Alaskan outdoors, it really is being held for me. Those who know me know my particular outdoor phobias, and bears top the list. Always have. Well, bees, too, but bears are #1 these days since they live right out my front door and seem to manage to be in places I want to go.

Didn't occur to me until just now that while some parents in the Lower 48 are educating their kids about stranger danger and proper etiquette while riding bikes, I'm preparing a class to teach moms, dads, and kids what to do if a bear charges. Whoa. Amazing. Intriguing. Incredible.

Five years ago I was living in a prim and proper South Carolina neighborhood worrying about the obnoxious boys living across the street and how much Diet Coke cost at the Piggly Wiggly. Funny how perspectives change, isn't it?

Doing it for a Pal in the Army

Well, that pal's family, at least. Here are the youngest members with my Bear on a hike we took yesterday in the Campbell Tract of trails near both our homes. Cute kids, yes?

I received one of my many weekly updates from Alyeska Resort around 9 p.m. last night announcing Military Appreciation Day for all active-duty personnel and their families. Normally I am not a playing-hooky sort of person, but a free day of skiing, plus rentals and lunch thrown in seemed a bit too good to pass up for my friend J and her boys, both of whom have been bugging her relentlessly to do some skiing. J's husband is an Army Chaplain currently serving in Iraq, and the guys really, really miss doing outdoor father-son stuff together. So I thought a day away at a ski resort would be just the ticket.

I offered to watch her daughter (Bear's Girlie) and another child J keeps after preschool, she packed some snacks and the outdoor gear, fueled up the Suburban, and off they went. The boys so far are enjoying an afternoon of ski lessons while J is recharging her mom-batteries in the presence of gorgeous scenery.

Conversely, the scenery is less than gorgeous at my house, where three preschoolers have taken possession of the downstairs, removing every single dress-up item from its trunk and using every last sticker from the art box. Oh well, at least they are busy and the stickers are going on their intended paper targets. Two of three children ate lunch, but now all are snacking on popcorn and avoiding the dog while watching Pocahontas since the one child who did not eat lunch began whining she was hungry and well, you know what that led to...

It feels good to give J and the boys a day away together while Chaplain T is still in Baghdad. We're making them some spaghetti for dinner, too, just so she has a full day of non-mothering duties.

Christmas Cheer and the Skunk

For your viewing pleasure...
The Skunk was a big hit. All told, the Nativity featured a dog, a cow, the Skunk, and a ladybug. Everything went well even though the ladybug had to leave mid-show to go potty...

Merry Christmas!

Update From the Wolf Den

To our son Wolf...
Wishing you a Silent Night filled with Peace.

Love,

Mom, Dad, and Bear


This photo is one of Wolf's favorites. He is pictured with our favorite friends here in Alaska, who have provided us with blessings of friendship and love. I know he would like this photo posted tonight...

Grand Fun

After months and weeks and days of waiting, Bear finally has his Oma and Opa here to help him "do Christmas". At 80 and 92, it is no small feat to ask grandparents to come to Alaska during the cold and slippery wintertime. But they did.

Flying into Anchorage in the middle of the night, during which time Bear tried in vain to stay awake to go to the airport, Yukon's parents arrived Friday and have since spent many hours of quality time with a four-year-old who assumes they have nothing better to do than amuse him.

Bear wants to wake them up in the morning, wear their shoes, play in their suitcases, and talk their ears off. Much to their delight, I might add. Ah, grandparents, the magical people who give treats, read stories, and make glorious exclamations of praise for any little thing.

Doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Taekwondo Triumph

I'm not one to make small children into little martial artist wonders, but Bear had been pestering me to take classes at Wolf's former studio. I almost avoided it, but we ran into the instructor at Costco and she caught me off guard. So Bear attends two days a week at a cost I am afraid to admit.

Last night the toddler class had the opportunity to try to move from White to Yellow belts. The event was akin to herding wet cats. When not sticking their fingers in each other's ears or making faces in the mirror, they were forgetting everything they had learned these past few months. Such pressure.

Master Yu: "Why do we bow in taekwondo class?"

Bear: "Uhhhhhh" (while sticking the end of his belt in his mouth and dancing in place)

At the end of their displays of taekwondo knowledge, consisting of kicking, punching, and a series of movements called Forms, the students had to whack a board in half. All of them.

Bear marched over to his instructor with his balsawood pseudo-board, and received his instructions on what to do. When told he had to really punch it, he resisted, announcing "I'm not allowed to punch anything!"

But he did. And he broke the board on the first try. Won't big brother be proud...

Dan'l; Unscripted

"Daniel Boone was a man.... yes, a Big Man." If you haven't listened to the theme song.

Anyone over 50 enjoyed Bear's costume this year, particularly since we were attending the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra's Halloween Night Concert. Very fun, lots of candy. Old Betsy in between Yukon and me.

Six Degrees of Desperation

When the thermometer says 'six', it means discovering new and creative ways of amusement around our house. Hence the Daddy-Bear-Doggie-in-the-Tunnel game.

Then came the Pile Up Game, part of 'horsing around' as Bear refers to the chasing, tickling, and general male behavior that happens all too often around here.

I need a latte and a spa. With soothing music and no testosterone, human or otherwise.

Fab 4 Day

It's another birthday today! Little Bear is quite pleased to be turning four and "not a baby anymore".

We began our celebration last night as he helped get the cupcakes ready for his preschool party this morning. After some discussion about the girls in his class perhaps not liking spiders on his cupcakes, we compromised on gummy bears and sprinkles.

Bear's favorite present was his "Daniel Boone Gun". As you can see. He is ready to fight the bad guys, his favorite play these days. Dan'l Boone is also the theme of his Halloween costume. Not too bad, this two-fer.

Four already. Time needs a tail so I can grab it to slow things down, just a little.

First Fiesta Pics

The highlight of the 'Four Fiesta' was certainly the pinata. As the weather got pretty chilly, and the sky dark faster than we had anticipated, the stuffed star was hung in the garage. I would not ordinarily show anyone the interior of my garage, as it is a continual source of embarrassment, but necessity won out in the end.

Bear got to go first, and needed a bit of explaination to clearly understand that it was okay to hit the star with the baseball bat. Our friend T., who happens to be a former baseball star and now coaches his sons, manned the pinata and gave Bear some tips on whacking the thing.

You can see that there were a bunch of kids at this shindig; nothing makes me happier than to have a house full to the rafters with people having fun. And we were. Yukon's mexican menu wowed folks, his margaritas even more so (berry), as did his musical creation of '80's Special Songs'. This was made even more special due to the fact he knows little of hot songs listened to by high schoolers in the 80's.

More pictures will be coming soon; my friends took most of them while we socialized. God bless them, for there should be some good ones. A big thank you to everybody who attended, helped, and shared this special day with us.

Yukon and I took advantage of our leftovers last night to sit at our bistro table downstairs (brought inside for the party), sharing a huge pile of nachos made with his left over shredded beef, avocados, tomatoes, and black beans. I knew I liked him!

With the Cold Comes the Croup

After a valiant effort by Bear at the Tuesday Night Race Series, at which he ran a tough up-and-down course through the woods for a mile, the little soldier is now down and out with croup. It has been an interesting few days, with more barking around here than the dog pound. All indications are for a smooth recovery however, despite a shot of steroids to open the breathing passages and make life more comfortable. Fortunately, Yukon walked over from his office to the pediatrician's and was the Bear-wrangler for that.

I don't actually mind a sick child sometimes; long nights and clingy-ness notwithstanding. It gives me pause, to have to remain home with no agenda but that which I plan out from the kitchen table over coffee. Catch up on laundry, clean out under the bathroom sink, cook a chicken.

At least the weather is still nice; crisp and cold but clear. Might change tonight as snow/rain showers could be making their way over the mountains.

Bear and the Beetles

While helping Yukon clean out the garage on Saturday, Bear wandered out to the front yard's lone birch tree. Wanting to climb it, he was deterred by a colony of unusual lady-bug type beetles that came streaming out of a cut in the trunk.
This captured his attention for the rest of the afternoon, and the procurement of a small magnifying glass just added to the excitement of looking at the "lady bug village".
We're not sure if the beetles survived our hard freeze last night, so our experiment today is to see if they are still wiggling.

Update From the Wolf Den

Roadblocks to success. The boulders, gates, whatever-you-want-to-call-them that prevent people from accomplishing something difficult. They exist in our minds as real as a barbed wire fence, and are just as painful to crawl through.

Power and Control over people or situations

Fear of our emotions

The innate Need to be Right

Wolf is standing today about two feet from that fence, and can't decide whether or not he wants to go through. As the folks who are waiting on the other side, Yukon and I are becoming a teensy bit impatient and frustrated with this pacing and posturing that doesn't get anybody anywhere. But then, it isn't about us.

Asperger Syndrome forces children to utilize unorthodox defense mechanisms as a measure of protection. Even the most benign teasing, to a child with AS, means confusion and a rush to defend themselves. Then, when other people begin to notice that he or she is easily set off by such comments, those roadblocks go up, and stay up. Having control over something, anything, even in a negative way means the AS kid can survive, however tenuous this may seem to the rest of us. Emotions are "useless" to someone with Asperger's; they get in the way because they are hard to manage. At least, according to Wolf.

There is the merest whisper of change in the air. Calls home are less about trivial things and more about status at school. Levels of anger are rising, at peers, at staff, at himself, leading us to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, the Ah-Ha is coming.

We can just pray that he carefully navigates that barbed wire instead of crashing through it.

"Real Pre-School, Mommy"

There is just nothing like the first day of school; new clothes, new lunchbox, new attitude. Little Bear, not so little anymore, took his first day of "real pre-school" in glorious stride. He had attended the little, one-room Lutheran preschool last year, but only since Januray, so today was indeed a milestone.

Very proud of his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack and fire truck lunchbox (not necessary for 2 1/2 hours of school, but obviously very important), Bear talked up school to our houseguests and marched into the classroom with all the confidence of one much older.

Yukon had the day off and was able to witness this display of independence, whereby we were dismissed with a "I don't need anyone to sit with me right now" statement.

So we grownups went to breakfast at our favorite weekday joint, the Snow City Cafe, where we drank coffee, ate breakfast burritos and generally enjoyed a slower morning than usual.

The air smells like back-to-school; crisp and leaf-y. Bear's new Keen hiking shoes will undoubtably be scuffed by next week from using his toes as brakes on the scooters, but they will be as comfortable as he is in his "real school" experience.

As for me, I finally can get back into a writing routine that was disrupted by so much over the summer. A welcome feeling.

Voting, Bear Style

I took Bear with me to vote this afternoon in Alaska's hotly contested Primary Election. Whoohoo, it's gonna be a late night in front of the telly to see how things shape up.

Bear was a little unsure of which process we were undertaking, calling it "going boating" instead. I clarified the word and he asked what "that voting thing is". For lack of a better explanation, I told him voting was how we decide who is going to be in charge.

He replied, "Mommy, I already know who is in charge. You."

At least now I know some of what I tell him sinks in.

Got Berries?

I skipped out on my Sunday afternoon run in favor of pursuing the first real berry picking expedition of 2008, finally. With our cloudy and cool summer weather, there was some doubt as to the fate of the berry season at all, but we trundled up our buckets, bug dope and goofy hats and drove up to our favorite berry location.

Arctic Valley is Anchorage's very-berry playground. A small ski area in the winter (Alpenglow), the valley entertains hundreds of berry-seekers young and old in the latter part of summer.

Almost immediately upon veering off the main trail, we discovered our cache of crowberries, the little, dark and not-very-sweet berries that I find make the best jelly and syrup. Bear brought his army trucks and amused himself quite well among the little trails and byways nearby. We didn't have to worry about real bears up this high; they are all down near the salmon streams, so it was a relief to let him wander with relative freedom.

My biggest asset (besides the endless energy of Yukon) is the berry catcher, a handy scoop with tines on the end that makes berry picking a thousand times easier. We collected almost five quarts of berries in our short visit and I am now cooking down a quart of them into juice before I go to bed. A lot more to do tomorrow. The juice will be made into syrup and jelly in time for our trip down South in a few weeks. Yes, I am indeed funneling syrup into a beer growler. It was handy and just the right size.

After such a stressful week, the berry ambiance was exactly what all three of us needed. The air smells like autumn, the laughter of kids traveled down the mountainsides, and berries plunked into our buckets (like my Easter Bunny one?) with confident "plops", noisy at first, muffled later as we filled up.

So Alaskan, so good.