Fashion Sense and Sensibility

When Declan first started getting particular about what he wore last year, I pretended that I minded having to buy him a whole new wardrobe of plain long-sleeved shirts and button downs, but secretly I was thrilled that my son was so fashion forward. Shirts with giant pandas on them are for babies, I thought to myself, and smiled proudly when Declan went off to school each morning, hipster that he was.

Note that I said "was."

Declan is still as fashion conscious as ever, but now he insists on wearing all his shirts tucked in, his pants hiked up to his nipples. The button down shirts on which we conscientiously taught him to roll up the sleeves are now buttoned tight at neck and wrist. He wants to wear a tie.

Who is this kid? Where does this come from? I didn't really care where he got his fashion know-how before, since I found it so gosh darn cute, but now I'm getting worried. Who is teaching my son to dress this way and why won't he stop?

As a measure of precaution, I've moved his clothes into my room and keep them under lock and key, doling out the necessities each morning. When Declan objects to the outfit I have painstakingly put together, Matty holds him down while I force him into it. (It's kind of like dressing a Build-a-Bear.) He'll get used to it.

Okay, I don't do that. But don't think I'm not tempted. I try to gently encourage him to dress in the manner that I prefer (Declan, rugby shirts aren't really supposed to be tucked in so tight), but he always makes the final call. And every day after he gets dressed, he poses for himself in the mirror, does a little dance, and asks me, "Do I look handsome?"

No, I think to myself. You look like Urkel.

"Yes," I say to him. "You always look handsome to me."

TB or not TB? That is the Question

When our mother quit smoking around Thanksgiving, just a few weeks after her yearly chest x-ray, we suspected the worst (though of course Mom denied it). And when I got back from Ireland a couple of weeks ago, those fears were confirmed: a small malignancy was found on her lung. After 53 years of smoking, this was hardly a surprise. But it was a surprise when doctors removed the upper left lobe of her lung and discovered that she didn't have cancer after all, but rather a "smoldering infection."

Since her surgery just over a week ago, my mother's condition has changed on a daily basis. Last Wednesday they thought it might be tuberculosis. So we all panicked and thought about the TB epidemic that Mom had brought to our neighborhood. Friday they were pretty certain she didn't have TB. So we stopped worrying about Aaron's nagging cough. Saturday she had it again. And now? Probably not.

Mom's still in the hospital, so I'm here in Florida trying to keep her occupied. She should be home later today or tomorrow, and Amy will come down tomorrow so we can both help her out at home. Whether or not Mom has tuberculosis, she did have her chest cracked open and still needs time to recover.

When I first saw Mom in the hospital, I couldn't help but picture myself in her place, my own kids coming to see me. "Did it seem like just yesterday that I was 4?" I asked her, and she smiled and nodded. Everyone always tells me it goes by so fast, one minute they're toddlers and the next they're getting married. Soon, it will seem, instead of getting the call that Molly won't take a bottle, I'll be getting the call that Molly's going into labor.

That scares me a bit, thinking that before I know it, my kids will be helping to care for me rather than the other way around. That Declan and Ronan and Molly will have to carefully coordinate their schedules as Amy and I have done, to come care for me as I recuperate from something. And that in the blink of an eye, I may not be able to care for my kids as I have for so long.

But what encourages me, what keeps me going, is that when I cannot rush to Ronan's side when he breaks his leg in a skiing accident, or when Molly has her appendix out, or when the TB Declan contracted when he was 4 becomes active, when I cannot be there, someone else can. With our combined 8 kids spread across the nation as adults and parents, there will always be someone there to help you when you're down.

And isn't that why we're doing this? To give our kids the support we all so desperately need, to insure that they never, ever have to be alone if they don't want to?

Milestones

(Spoiler alert: if you don't know how Marley and Me ends, and don't want to know, then read no further!)

I couldn't tell you the first time any of my kids smiled, rolled over, or took their first steps. But today is a day I will always remember. I came into Erika's room to kiss her goodnight, and she showed me that she had finished reading her edited-for-young-people version of Marley and Me. I told her that yes, we could go see the movie, as I had promised her, and I tucked her in and turned off the light. Then she broke into tears: "It was so sad when Marley died at the end," she sobbed.

It was the first time a book made Erika cry.

That's a big step, when you learn that not all books have happy endings. Most of them do, when you're in second grade. They're happy stories about girls and their horses, and girls and their puppies, and girls lucky enough to have puppies AND horses (at least, these are the books Erika tends to bring home from the library).

I was just excited for Erika to discover the intense emotional relationships you can form with certain books. I've been a passionate reader my whole life, so for some reason I just assumed my kids would also be big readers. And although Hilary does recluse herself in her room with a book on a fairly regular basis, Erika's reading has mostly been at my urging. She's a good reader, and she likes books well enough, but she'd usually rather hook Gretchen and Declan up to a cardboard box and play dog sled team. Because, let's face it, one disadvantage (if you want to call it that) of living in such a big, chaotic household is that there are so many kids around to play with, the environment isn't that conducive to more introspective, solitary activities like reading.

I hope this is just the beginning for Erika. Because, although I can't even remember most of the books I read last year, I remember in great detail those books that moved me as a child: The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. The Shoes series by Noel Streatfeild. Judy Blume. The Black Cauldron. Maybe, when she's grown, Erika will feel the same way about Marley and Me - that it was the start of a lifelong love affair with reading.

Happy New Year!

Whew!!! We made it! Christmas vacation is now officially over.

When I was a kid, I had no idea how much most parents dreaded Christmas vacation. Now, I know. It's one thing, I suppose, if you have two well behaved children who are in elementary school or older, and you can all get on a plane and fly to Vail - or even better, someplace warm, like Turks and Caicos (both places where families I know traveled over the break), but when you have an autistic child and two-year-old twins, there's very little incentive to take the show on the road. Which means entertaining the gang at home for two weeks. Two cold, rainy, icy weeks - so icy, in fact, that Andy had to deliberately crash our minivan into a post to keep us from careening down the ice slide that was our driveway on Christmas Eve Day.

Just spoke to the body shop, by the way. Apparently, the car requires 40 hours of labor to fix, and will be out of commission for a good two weeks. 40 hours! I feel like I could build a car from scratch in that amount of time.

Well, maybe I couldn't. But I feel confident that other, more capable people could.

That was a definite low point in the break. But there were many good parts also. Andy was off for almost the entire vacation, which was a huge help and enabled us to take some fun trips, like our outing to Hershey Park's Winter Wonderland, which we make every year. We usually try to pick a day with warmish temperatures, in the 40-50 degree range, but this year we had to go on a cold, drizzly night. Although I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, it worked out great, because there were no lines for the rides. We also took Jonah, Erika and Hilary to the Poconos to go dog sledding. I was so excited to give Erika a chance to do that, because she's been obsessed with sled dogs for years now. I thought Jonah would love it also, because he typically likes speed and cold, but he was having a difficult time that day, and was agitated and upset most of the tour. Which was too bad, because it really was a thrill. Arctic Paws is the only dog sledding tour (so they claim) that lets you be the musher, so Erika, Hilary, Andy and I all got to stand on the back of the sled and control the brake.

Then there was our annual New Year's Eve party, which expanded from four families last year to nine this year. Our theme this year was balls - get it, a New Year's Eve "Ball"? Everyone brought food shaped like a ball - which might not sound that appetizing at first, but which actually yielded awesome falafel, lamb balls, shrimp balls, cheese balls, rum balls and peanut butter balls. It's always a happy way to start off the year, with the kids bouncing around, absolutely inflamed with sugar, camraderie, and the excitement of staying up past midnight - which Ronan did no problem, although Jonah and the twins conked out.

I know most people go into the new year with high hopes, but last year really was a tough one for us - with Jonah in the hospital for the bulk of it, and Andy so unhappy at work as the finance industry was just crushed - so we definitely could use some good news. Here's hoping that 2009 is a great year for everyone!!!

Spoiled American

Never before have I felt as spoiled as I do now, sitting in my father-in-law's house on Sherkin Island off the coast of West Cork. This small island (population: 100) is a short ferry ride from Baltimore (the original Baltimore, in Ireland) but is a completely different galaxy to Villanova, Pennsylvania.

To be fair, island living is simply different than mainland living. There are no garbage trucks to collect waste. There's no gas station, no Home Depot, no store at all as a matter of fact, unless you count the few necessitites like milk and bread sold out of the pub. So of course certain allowances must be made. But Matty's father takes it to a whole other level.

Take the trash (please!). There's a plate for the birds and a plate for the compost. Paper goes into one bin to be recycled; plastic is washed out carefully and placed in another bin. I've been coming here for 10 years and it's only this visit that I can actually remember what to do with everything; in the past I would simply hand my plate and/or trash to Matty to dispose of.

Matty's father is a recycler, through and through, and not just in the commercial sense. Last night he literally took Declan's Hanukkah present out of his hands so her could carefully remove the wrapping paper to save for another gift. Declan was too flabbergasted to protest. (Granda knew better than to try this with Ronan. He might have lost a finger.)

Everything in the house is turned off and unplugged when not in use. Matt Sr. doesn't even use the dryer, though it's been plugged in for our benefit (his clothes are laid out to freeze, er, dry on the bushes). Hot water doesn't actually come out of any of the faucets; there's a special box heating system for the shower. The oven is tiny and the fridge resembles the one from my dorm room in college.

Don't even get me started on the heat (or lack thereof). I can't tell you how many times we've been visiting some family member for a few hours, shivering in our flimsy American clothes, when our host will suddenly catch herself and say, "Oh, should I turn on the heat?" Turn it on? It's the end of December! Of course you should turn it on!

Worst of all, there's no such thing as Tivo here. Every time I turn on the TV Declan asks me to start the show at the beginning, and whenever there are commercials the boys point and stare as if the box is about to explode.

Okay, that's not really the worst of it. But it does make me realize how spoiled the boys, and I, have become.

Don't get me wrong. I don't actually have a lot of techie toys at home--our DVD player cost about $30, our television is shockingly thick-screened, and I have an Ipod shuffle only because Amy bought me one on the occasion of Molly's birth. But our lives do revolve around the technology we use: we're on and off the computer at home all day, keeping up on news both pressing and frivolous, trying to work, etc. Here the Internet connection is shockinly slow, so surfing the Web becomes more like a rough dog paddle. And at night, there's nothing I like at home more than collapsing into bed and watching the previous night's The Daily Show. Without commercials.

I'd like to say that being here will make me a more careful consumer, will make me appreciate all the luxuries I take for granted in my day to day life. But I'm sure I'll be blithely dumping unsorted trash before I've been home a week. And though Matty swears he'll never complain again about Andy keeping the heat so low in the house, I'm sure we'll start inching it up once Andy heads to NYC for the week.

The truth is, I am a spoiled American. At least for most of the year. For two weeks, I can be a careful-living islander.

But just for two weeks.

Independence Day

I always thought the reasons I enjoy communal living so much were due to the more positive aspects of my character: namely, my flexibility, calmness and generosity.

Now, having spent last week with Keri, Matty and crew in Ireland and Andy in New York City (where he now lives during the week), I'm beginning to suspect my affinity for our living arrangement has much more to do with what I've recently accepted as a staggering degree of helplessness.

Case in point: the heat stopped working. I thought the heat was only working poorly, which isn't that uncommon with a furnace that for all I know may be as old as our house, which was built in 1924. But when Andy came home from NYC on Thursday night, he confirmed that, although the pilot light was on, the water was at room temperature.

????????????????????

Me (huddled in front of the fireplace, from which I had refused to move all day): Should I call Oliver [our heating/cooling company] to come out for an emergency call?

Andy: Nah, I'll figure it out.

It took Andy two expeditions to the basement to discover that a circuit had blown, and with one flick of the finger we were back in business.

It never would have occurred to me to check the circuits. If, say, the Apocalypse had come before Andy came home and suddenly there was no Andy and no Oliver and it was up to me to fix the heating - well, all of us would have spent the winter huddled in front of the fireplace. Which - given the incredibly minor degree of difficulty involved in this particular repair - is pretty depressing.

Second case in point: our neighbor left us a voice mail a couple of days ago, informing us that he and his family were heading out of town for the holidays, but he had connected the snowplow attachment to his pickup truck and left the keys inside, since snow was in the forecast (we live at the top of a big hill, with a quarter-mile driveway that actually belongs to the neighbors, and they typically maintain it). I believe Andy and Matty both know how to work the snowplow, but I've only driven our little tractor snowplow, and feel supremely anxious at the prospect that our ability to leave our house next week might depend on my ability to figure it out on my own.

Our friend Polk said, "There's probably just a lever to move it up and down. You can do it."

Which I've come to understand is a very male attitude. My thoughts were, "What if I damage it? What if I scrape up the driveway? What if I wait until there's too much snow and crash the truck? And so on and so forth.

I've always considered myself an independent person. I've lived alone, and I enjoyed living alone, but that was when I was in graduate school and only had to maintain a little one-bedroom apartment. Now, I look around my house - at the wireless network, the entertainment system, the heating system, the hot water heater, the plumbing, all of it - and all I think is, I couldn't fix that.

Which brings me back to why I like living communally - chances are, the more people around, the more likely it is that one of them will know how to fix whatever happens to break.

But, since it's unlikely the kids will set up such enormous households for themselves when they get older, I feel I should be more proactive - especially with the girls. Whenever Andy or Matty sets to tinker with some failing system, I should just follow them. Maybe then all the females in our household might end up more like my friend Lauren, who knows how to fix lots of things, especially technological things. And I know it will be more of an effort for me to learn, because I have no natural interest in technology, whereas she always has, but I suspect it will be worth it in the end. Because I can't stand the image of myself as Scarlett O'Hara, fluttering my hands and waiting for some man to save me.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old...

Our houseguests are gone. Mostly. We had to kick them out of their room when Jonah came home and a few dozen relatives descended for Thanksgiving. Now they just come here to eat and do laundry, since their house has habitable bedrooms but no working kitchen or laundry. It was great having Patrick, Rhea, Jazzy, and Sophia here, and not just because Patrick did the dishes and Rhea made kimchee fried rice for us.

As expected, Jazzy and Erika spent all their time together, in the room they shared at home and in the class they shared at school. What I wasn't expecting was that Declan and Sophia would become such fast friends. The two of them were thick as thieves, disappearing for hours on end to play elaborate games of make-believe or stare at picture books in Declan's room.

Unfortunately, Declan spent so much time with Sophia, he never had time for Hilary. Though Hilary didn't seem to mind--she seems to most enjoy playing or reading by herself in her room--I was sad that the two cousins weren't spending more time together. Now that Sophia is ensconced in her own room a few blocks away (where, I should add, she woke up the first night wailing that she was, "so lonely!"), Declan and Hilary are back to being best buds. This past weekend Matty took Declan and Hilary to the Please Touch Museum, and last week we took Hilary with us to the zoo.


It's been interesting to see the path of Declan and Hilary's relationship, and I'm happy to see we've just about come full circle. When we first moved here almost 3 years ago (gulp!), 18-month-old Declan and almost-3-year-old Hilary were inseparable. But after a while, they fought more than they laughed, and soon they rarely played together at all. Now that they're 4 and 5, they seem to have found their rhythm. Of course they still fight, like any brother and sister. But now it's the exception rather than the rule.

Next year, Hilary will go on to elementary school and Declan will stay at preschool, and I wonder how their relationship will continue to change. Will the two grades that will separate them drive them further apart? Or will they see so little of each other during the school day they'll seek each others company at home at night?

I can't wait to find out.

Holding Down The Fort

In case I needed another reason to be happy Keri and Matty live with us, Andy resigned last week from the job he held for the past 17 years to join the wildly successful venture his two best friends are running . . . in New York City.

Which means that, from Monday to Thursday, he'll be staying in New York.

You might think this means I'll cherish the adult company Keri and Matty provide even more, as well as their cooking, driving, cleaning, and conflict resolution skills - all of which means I'm not captaining this chaotic vessel on my own. And that's true. But what I'm really so very glad about, more than anything else, is that they're here at night.

People generally perceive me as a pretty laid back person. And I really don't worry much about things like, where I'll sleep the 10 extra people coming in for Thanksgiving, or whether my house is spotless when guests arrive, or whether the pressure in my tires is low. But I have been known to worry about completely improbable scenarios, such as how I would get all my kids out in the event of a fire. Or what I would do if a homicidal maniac broke into the house.

A historically-minded person once told me that the layout of my house - in which many of the bedrooms are connected by interior doors - became popular after the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, so parents could lock the hallway doors to their children's rooms and still be able to move between rooms to check on them.

Thanks a lot, whoever that was. Now there's something else to lie awake at night thinking about.

But I don't lie awake at night. Because with Keri and Matty here, I feel safe. If there were a fire, I wouldn't have to get all the kids out myself. And if there were an intruder, he'd have to fight off all three of us (with all our mad skillz).

So, Andy, if you're concerned about how I'll get on while you're gone, don't worry. I'll miss you, but we'll be fine.

Thanksgiving

Two weeks later, I can finally write about Thanksgiving weekend without feeling exhausted. Our first visitors arrived the Tuesday prior and left the Monday following. In between, eight of our cousins passed through the house, and one night 13 kids sat down to dinner (pizza, of course; I'm not crazy enough to actually cook dinner for 13 children). It was a wonderfully hectic weekend filled with family and friends, ending on Sunday with a bris hosted for our friend Lauren, who welcomed Henry Eliot to her family.

I was a bit worried about how Declan would fare over the weekend. All the visiting cousins were older--between 8 and 11 years of age--and, save one, female. As I've written before, Declan keeps one foot with the younger kids and one foot with the older ones. I had no doubt that with all the big cousins around, Declan would prefer to hang with the older crowd; but would they want to hang out with him?


I needn't have worried. Though 8-year-old Justin, the lone male cousin over the age of 4, didn't always get on well with all the girls, Declan proved to be a popular kid. I guess I underestimated the cute factor. Girls love cute little kids. Both Declan and Ronan fell in love with their cousins, especially Megan and Brooke, who live in Ohio. We're hoping we can make a trip out there in the spring so the kids can see each other again.

The whole weekend made me realize how lucky we are to have all the kids living together. I wish Megan and Brooke lived closer, so Declan and Ronan could spend more time with them, and so I could get to know them as well as I have gotten to know Jonah, Erika, Hilary, Aaron, and Gretchen. The thought of Ronan and Aaron only seeing each other a few times a year, instead of being the constant companions they are now, makes me sad.

As warm and fuzzy as I felt about seeing all the kids together, I'm sure it was nothing compared to how my great aunt Rose felt. Aunt Rose lost Uncle Bob, her husband of more than 70 years, last June, and this was her first visit up North since then. She couldn't stop telling us how happy she was, how she would remember this weekend forever.


I'll remember it too, because I'm sure it won't be long until Declan tires of being an adorable playmate and decides it would be more fun to tie Brooke's bra to the balcony railing or steal Megan's diary and post excerpts on the Internet.

Hopefully, the adorable playmate thing will work for a few more years.

Thanksgiving: The Menu

So what do you feed 30 people for Thanksgiving dinner? Here's what we served:

Smoked Turkey (above, perched in Patrick's Big Green Egg)
Roast Turkey
Grilled Leg of Lamb
Chestnut Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Brussels Sprouts with Turkey Bacon
Glazed Carrots
Challah

And for dessert...
Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Bourbon Pecan Pie
Maple Walnut Baklava
Pumpkin Pie
Aunt Rose's Mandel Bread
Barbara's Brownies and Peanut Butter Cookies
Andy's Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

Jonah's Home!!!!

After ten months and fourteen days, we finally brought Jonah back from Kennedy Krieger yesterday.

We admitted a child who was plagued by constant chemical surges in his brain that made him agitated, aggressive and sad. When he was discharged, Jonah's disruptive behaviors in academic settings had decreased by 99.7%. His rates had dropped so low that his psychiatrist determined there was no need to try adding a new medication, as was the plan the last time I posted an update.

As you can imagine, it was a very emotional day. Not quite as emotional as the day we dropped him off, but pretty close. I cried, Jonah's aides cried. We videotaped fond messages from everyone on his team and snapped pictures of him being hugged by his speech pathologist, his behavior therapists, his psychologist, and his aides.

It's hard sometimes to figure out what Jonah's thinking, but I'd say he was pretty happy. He wasn't thrilled that we had moved his room while he was gone, but once we showed him all the markers in his cabinet, he adjusted fairly quickly. Today, he started his new school, and we started re-adjusting to life with Jonah. And it will take some adjusting, even though we're all, down to the two-year-olds, absolutely thrilled to have him back. This morning, for example, was pretty frenetic. You wouldn't think getting eight kids up and ready for the day would be that much more work than seven, but it is. Especially when you have to make sure that eighth kid eats his medicine-infused peanut butter sandwich and doesn't take advantage of his new freedom to fall back into old habits, like writing on the walls.

But, if there's one thing I've learned as the parents of a child with a disability, you can adjust to anything. I adjusted when my beautiful baby grew into a toddler, then a boy, who would come after me every day in a blind, unreachable rage: biting, punching, scratching, grabbing, then five minutes later crawl into my lap for a hug as if nothing had ever happened. I adjusted when he stopped eating anything but pretzels and peanut butter and had to spend a month as an outpatient at CHOP's feeding clinic, where I watched therapists force feed him, after which I was taught to force feed him myself. I adjusted when my nine-year-old son went to live in a hospital two hours away, and now I get to adjust to having him back. I think, now, there is nothing that could happen to me that would simply stop me in my tracks.

And I don't mean to suggest there's anything special about me. I think, for the most part, people cope. Period. That's why it always bugs me when some well-meaning acquaintance says something like, "I don't know how you do it. I could never handle it." I think most parents in my position feel similarly: none of us thought we could do it, but we did it. We do it. And if you had to do it, you would too. I'll never forget something Andy said once, about seven years ago. Jonah hadn't been diagnosed yet, but the writing was on the wall, and one day while we were riding in the car, Andy said, "It would be okay if we had a special needs child." This was Andy talking, super over-achieving Andy, who had already decided that all our kids (3 out of 5 of which hadn't even been born yet) were going to go to Penn and become investment bankers. But what he was really saying was, "I love Jonah. Nothing can change that."

But, hopefully, all that bad adjusting is behind us, and we can look forward to more good adjusting: adjusting to a child who's finally thriving in school, who can carry on a conversation, who plays with his siblings. Jonah's teachers had always said that once his behaviors were resolved, there was no ceiling on what he can accomplish. Now, after a seven-year-struggle, we're so excited to find out how high he can go.

Marathon Day

The Philadelphia Marathon is today. And I woke up at 5:00 in the morning, just like many marathoners, whose anticipation, excitement and anxiety kept them from sleeping.

Which would make sense if I were running today. But I'm not.

I trained for the Marathon. I logged training runs of 15 and 17 miles. But I kept putting off registering - I was pretty sure I was going to run, fairly certain I would be ready, but what was the harm in waiting? After all, I had run the Broad Street Run (10 miles) and the Philadelphia Distance Run (a half-marathon) this year, and both times I had signed up at the Expo the day before. That way, I could check out the conditions - after all, I wasn't one of those running nuts who would slush through 13 miles in a downpour.

Then, about three weeks ago, Keri told me that she had heard from a friend that the Philly Marathon was closed. They weren't accepting any new registrants.

I couldn't believe it, but it was true. Apparently, there are a lot more people in town who can run 26.2 miles than I had ever assumed. So, no marathon for me.

It serves me right. I've noticed this tendency in myself before - to have an idea, a plan, but not to commit to it fully. I always like to leave myself a back door. I could very easily have had a tubal ligation when the twins were delivered by C-section, for example, but I chose not to. I mean, five kids is more than enough by anyone's standards, and I honestly have no desire to have any more (and would probably have a heart attack if I somehow found myself pregnant, like what happened to Keri) - but I guess what it comes down to is that I don't trust myself not to change my mind.

Which is a shame, because I can't help but feel my life would improve enormously if I could throw myself into projects with reckless abandon. Instead of working in dribs and drabs on the novel revision that my agent has been waiting on for the better part of the last two years, what if I had stayed up all hours of the night, or gotten up at 4:30 in the morning on the days Andy went to work early? What if I hadn't spent so much time surfing the net or playing games on the computer or even blogging for Strollerderby (which I just recently gave up, recognizing it as the time-sucker it was, instead of the paying, identity-affirming, writing gig I liked to think of it as)? What if I had been able to eat healthily on a consistent basis, instead of constantly undermining myself by eating four bowls of Andy's homemade oreo ice cream? What if I had set aside the time every night to help Erika with her math and help Hilary practice her reading? Maybe by now, Hilary would be able to read to herself instead of just being able to read out loud - a mysterious gap in her skills I can't really explain.

On the one hand, I understand that kind of intensity is not really part of my personality, and in fact runs counter to the laid-back, flexible attitude that keeps me sane amidst all the chaos of my life right now.

But on the other hand, there's no reason I can't turn up the heat a little bit. So, there's my New Year's resolution, a month early: sustained commitment. My buzz words for 2009.

Decalin

I'll always wonder what Declan would be like if he had grown up as the oldest child of three, rather than the middle child of eight, as he is here. Older children are generally higher achievers than their younger siblings and, from my experience, tend to have much stronger personalities. Younger kids tend to be pleasers, as I can attest.

But every time I lament the Declan I'll never know, something happens that makes me realize the benefit of having older siblings around to look up to. (No, Erika and Hilary teaching Declan to dress up in princess dresses was not such a benefit.) And right now, it's homework.

Declan is obsessed with homework. He sees Erika, Hilary, and Jazzy doing it each day after school and so desperately wants to be a big kid like them. So I printed out some worksheets and have him practice his letters in a spiral bound notebook. He does his homework each day like the older girls and beams with pride when he learns a new letter. He's getting better and better at writing his name, though yesterday he wrote "Decalin" at the top of his worksheet. That actually impressed me, because that's how some of his friends say his name and it means Declan might actually be sounding out the letters in his name rather than just copying.

Would Declan be so driven to learn if he didn't have his older cousins to mimic? I don't know. Perhaps he'll tire of the homework when he's actually required to complete it, as Erika has. But until then, I'll enjoy the huge smile on his face when I congratulate him on the proper execution of a "C" (it's harder than you think) or a careful printing of his name, all the letters in the right order ("I ran out of room," he says, when I question why he sometimes puts the "N" in front of the "D").

One Big Happy Family

Being part of a huge blended family means that people tend to only see you that way: one big family of 12. Sometimes it feels like we've lost our identity as a nuclear family of five (or seven, in Amy's case). And while it's wonderful to be part of such a warm and loving group, its not ultimately what defines us.

Because of our branding as "that crazy Lutz/Fisher/Murphy family," no one ever invites us anywhere. I think many people assume that inviting one of us means inviting all of us, though of course we don't feel that way. There have been times that Amy and her brood have gone to parties or dinners at friends' homes that we haven't been invited to, and this coming Friday, in fact, Matty and I and the kids are having dinner at the home of one of Ronan's friends. But these outings are few and far between. We're much more likely to host our friends at our house.

It makes sense; there are a lot of us and we have a big house, so inviting another family over doesn't really put us out. And I realize that most people would feel slightly claustrophobic inviting four more adults and eight kids into their home.

But I hope our friends know that though we live as one big happy family, we're really two separate families that try to maintain our single family relationships. We try to schedule individual family outings on Sundays, and sometimes even leave all the kids with a sitter so two separate couples can go out with two separate sets of friends.

We've tried hard to instill in our kids the distinction between sibling and cousin, parent and aunt/uncle, and it seems to be working, as we've written about here . Now if only we could get everyone else to see the same distinction.

We Want to Live in Your House: A Guest Post from Rhea

Everyone thought we were crazy. You really want to live with two other families???

Well, yeah. We have nowhere else to go! It was just perfect. Close to our new house, same teacher, class and bus for Jazzy and Erika, two chefs. Why not? Patrick and I are good sports. We can do this. It should only be for a few weeks.

Well, it has now been over two months and it looks as though it will be just a few weeks more. All in all, things have been good. Here are some of my deep thoughts, reflections and comments about communal living.

“Who the f--- is crying now??? It’s f’in’ 7am on a Saturday!!!”

Everyone (even Marina) is a little bit scared of Gretchen. (And you thought Imelda had a temper and a shoe fetish.)

We only get to watch TV on a 3” screen and only political shit since Matty has a coronary if we change the channel. The BIG TV is reserved for Eagles games and they won’t show us how to use it.

What the…? Where’s RoNo??? He is just the sweetest thing….

“Is Amy dressed to go out in public?”

“Molly spit up on me again.”

Hilary is a very WHYs child.

Iwanbeer actually means “I want my bear.” So should I not have given Aaron a beer? I put it in a sippy cup…

Thai hairdo’s are no-do’s. But the food is delish.

Andy can buy ANYTHING in bulk.

Erika totally gets her money’s worth from drama class.

Naked boy! is always followed by another Naked boy! and then another Naked Boy! and then a Naked Girl!

“Must we eat steak, again?”

Depo makes babies who have very sweet demeanors.

ALL men have the same sense of humor and only ONE topic of humor.

It takes a village to buy a boat.

“Someone’s crying.”

And those a just a few thoughts off the top o’ me head.

Two Angels, a Mouse, a Pirate, a Ladybug, Rapunzel, Tinkerbell, a Grey Furry Baby, and Robin Hood Walk Into a Bar...

Update on the Uber-Commune

I got an email from my friend Sarah last week, expressing mild shock that after more than two months, our mutual friends Patrick and Rhea and their daughters were still living with us, and everyone was still happy with the arrangement. Which reminded me that I hadn't posted any updates on that situation since Patrick and Rhea moved in.

In case you haven't been paying attention, here's our current head count: 3 moms, 3 dads, 9 kids, 2 kid helpers. When Jonah comes home at the end of the month, that will make an even 10 kids.

And I have to say, I love it. I think I was just meant to live on a commune. I love that my children are always occupied - Erika and Jazzy (Patrick and Rhea's older daughter) are in the same class at school, share a room, and are rarely apart; Sophia (their younger daughter) has formed a sweet bond with Gretchen. I love having even more smart, interesting adults around with totally different skill sets than mine - Patrick, who's an architect, has helped us immensely with the townhouse we're in the process of buying down in Atlantic City, and Rhea makes a completely addictive kimchee fried rice.

And of course, it's no small benefit to have more people around to share the chores: packing lunches, doing dishes, driving to school. I can honestly say that it's less work for me personally having Patrick and Rhea here.

What they think about the whole thing, I'm not sure. They haven't fled screaming to their shell of a house, choosing to live without a kitchen or working bathroom rather than stay here, so I guess it's not too terrible! Look for a guest post from them soon.

Politically Incorrect

We're all fairly political. Not that we all agree—Matty is just left of center, while Andy is just Libertarian—but we always have the news on in the kitchen, where we tend to hang out in the early evening as Matty or I prepare dinner. So it's not surprising that most of the kids in the house know that there is an election going on, and those above the age of 4 can even identify the candidates. (Declan, however, misidentified the gentlemen on a recent Newsweek cover as Barack Obama and John McCain (it was actually Joe Biden), but who can blame him? Old white-haired guys all look the same to a 4-year-old.)

Erika, recently asked Andy a question about Obama, and Andy replied, "Barack Obama wants to steal our money."

Matty was appalled. "Andy, you can't say that," he urged.

"Okay," Andy replied. "John McCain also wants to steal our money."

Needless to say, this did little to calm Matty, who, rather than say something he might regret, scooped up the boys and retreated to our bedroom. Where, I should point out, Declan asked plaintively, "Why does Barack Obama want to steal our money?" I lied, "Uncle Andy was just joking."

Matty wasn't mad about the affront on Obama, but rather the overly simplistic and completely inaccurate characterization of both candidates. Kids are literal. They know what stealing is. People who steal go to jail. Collecting taxes isn't stealing.

Later, I heard him telling Erika that Obama and McCain were two different candidates with different positions on many issues and that some people liked Obama and some people liked McCain, just like some people like McDonald's and some people like Burger King.

Clearly, we want our kids to share our values and beliefs. And I sympathize with Andy, the lone Republican-leaning Libertarian in our liberal-leaning household. But painting our politicians as criminals is not the way to do it. Painting them as fast food franchises is a much better option.

I'm not being glib; a 7-year-old child has no concept of real politics. But she does know that Chicken McNuggets are better than Chicken Tenders, but that Wendy's burgers are far superior to McDonald's. In other words, she knows that there are some great things about each fast food outlet, but none of them is perfect.

As parents, all we can do is present our kids with the facts as they can understand them, and know that as they get older, they will make their own decisions and form their own opinions. Maybe they'll agree with us. Maybe they won't.

A few days later, Erika told me at breakfast that she didn't support Obama because he wanted to take her money. I started to correct her but she interrupted me, "I know what it is, it's called taxes." But what does a 7-year-old know of taxes? All she knows is that if she can't keep her money, that's one less Webkinz she can have.

Amy thought we should keep the TV news off in the kitchen when the kids were around, at least until the election is over, but I think that misses the point. Now is the perfect time to start exposing our kids to politics, in any way they can understand. And if that means a few more visits to Wendy's, that's fine with me. (It's much better than McDonald's, anyway.)

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Sid and Nancy, 2005

Bee-ing There

I like to think that I would do anything to protect my children, that I would sacrifice myself and my well-being to prevent any harm from befalling Declan, Ronan, and now Molly. I like to think that.

But I'm wrong.

Since Declan was born, there have been two instances where I feel that I have completely and utterly failed him as a parent. The first was more than three years ago, in Ireland. I was carrying him down some stone steps, lost my footing, and fell the last three steps to the concrete floor. I landed hard, with bruised knees and ego.

And I dropped Declan.

He was fine, a bit scared, and cried for a few minutes. But I was horrified. Here, when my son needed me most, I failed. My instinct should not have been to put out my hands to break my fall, it should have been to wrap my hands around my baby and hold him tight.

Then, last year, I was in the kitchen with Declan, Matty, and Andy, when there was a small explosion on the stovetop.

Did I throw myself on top of Declan to protect him from what turned out to be an exploding gas lighter, or dive to push him out of the way? No.

I ducked behind the sink.

I think that is in these moments, when pure instinct takes over and we cannot obsess or analyze how exactly to react, it is then when we see our true nature. And my true nature is clearly trying to tell me something.

I have my moments. When Declan was a newborn, some horrid creepy crawly thing darted into his carseat (with him in it), and I didn't run screaming in the opposite direction or call Matty and insist he come home from work straightaway. I calmly scooped out the bug and then washed my hands 17 times.

This past weekend, we took the kids to a birthday party at Linvilla Orchards, a favorite spot for pick-your-own fruit. Last year we picked apples on a particularly hot September day, and Declan got stung repeatedly on his wrist by a very angry wasp. Since then, we have picked peaches and blueberries, and even tiny plums, but each time Declan announced that he would not go apple picking.

The day of the party was very sunny and brisk, a bit cold for bees, I would think, but once the pizza and cake were served, so were the bees. They were everywhere, crawling into cups of lemonade, hovering over pizza crusts and resting hungrily on cake crumbs. Declan was literally shrieking with terror.

Now I must confess, I am terrified of bees and wasps. Not allergic, just really, really scared. Years ago, when I lived in Florida, I had to call a friend to let me into my house because there was a beehive over the door and I simply couldn't walk under it (she let me in the back door). So I know where Declan's coming from. And I can't say I was too happy at this party either.

But I didn't let Declan know any of that. I stood with him among the bees and stayed calm. And though my instinct was to scoop him up and hide in the car, I stayed strong.

If I can handle bees, I can handle anything. I hope.

No Riluzole Miracle For Jonah

It's official: Jonah's Riluzole trial is over. The new, $13/pill drug that so drastically transformed two other patients on the unit had virtually no affect on Jonah's lingering irritability and SIB (self-injurious behavior; Jonah often bites his hand when he's agitated).

It's pretty disappointing news. It took half a bag of chocolate chips and an afternoon of mindlessly trolling the internet before I felt like talking to anyone again.

To be fair, Jonah was not in the same kind of desperate predicament those other children were in when they were prescribed Riluzole. Jonah's behavior, since he was placed on lithium shortly after his admission, has been pretty good - much, much improved over how he was before he left home.

But Jonah's doctor feels she can do better.

Which means another new drug, another trial - another few weeks, at the very least, until Jonah can come home. And it's hard to get excited about the new drug. Instead of something cutting edge, something experimental, Jonah's doctor is going old school, prescribing a tricyclic, which is a family of anti-depressants developed in the 1950s whose popularity with doctors has been eclipsed by the development of SSRIs.

On a more positive note, Andy and I had an amazing visit with Jonah this weekend. It was just us and him, no other kids, and he loved having our undivided attention. We went to Target, as he's been asking to do the last few weeks, and stocked up on markers. We had dinner at Chili's, where he was perfectly well behaved. (I can say with absolute certainty I would much rather take Jonah to a sit-down restaurant than I would Aaron or (especially) Gretchen.) We even got his hair cut, without a single protest - although, historically, haircuts have often required martial-type headlocks from Andy in order to get through.

So, our weekly treks down to Baltimore will continue. I have to say, I am so weary of making the trip. It didn't bother me that much for the first, oh, say, eight months of Jonah's admission. But all of a sudden, I started hating it. I can't wait to be done spending four hours in the car every Saturday, splitting up the family for the day (or listening to the twins scream in the car, which we do about a third of the time), feeling more exhausted on Monday morning than I did on Friday night.

But I guess I'd rather Jonah spend a few more weeks in the hospital, if it enables his doctor to find the perfect pharmaceutical cocktail. Because this is something I never want to go through again.

Fun

I honestly feel that I could once again inhabit the mind of a child, and truly experience the wonder and mystery of childhood that I have long since forgotten, if only I could appreciate the joy of running in circles, the thrill of jumping down stairs, and the precarious pleasure of balancing on . . . anything.

We have a carpet in our foyer that I believe is about 10' by 14'. When Jonah was two, he loved running around the border of this carpet, and when he was diagnosed with autism, I figured this was just another stimmy behavior, like lining up his magnetic letters or flapping his hands. But every one of the kids has spent hours running around that carpet. Most nights, after dinner, someone turns on the CD player, and Aaron, Gretchen, Ronan and Declan (and sometimes Sophia) chase each other around and around until no one's really sure who's trying to catch whom.

Stair jumping is also very popular, even with the older kids. I've caught Erika leaping from the first landing to the floor below - eight steps down. The little guys test their bravery by escalating from the first, to the second, to the third step - we don't let them jump from any higher. And I have to say, the practice makes them better jumpers. I wish I had video of Gretchen when she first started trying to jump off the first step - it was about as graceful as falling face-forward. But Aaron could do it, and she was determined, and now she has perfect form, like a skier about to launch down the ramp: knees bent, arms back, chest out.

Sometimes, I feel as if I haven't aged at all, that I'm the same person I was when I was much younger. But then I realize how much I have changed. Hilary asked me just a couple of days ago, "Why don't you have any toys?" I thought about my iphone, and my ipod, but realized she wouldn't consider those toys. So I said, "Grown-ups don't play with toys the way kids do." And she said, "So what do you do for fun?" I thought, poker is fun. Tennis is fun. Running around in circles is definitely not fun. At that moment it seemed there was no greater divide between my young self and myself right now - or between myself and my children - than my definition of fun. And it was a little sad, because I can't even remember a time when running around in circles was fun. I wish I did.

Metaphysical Conversations With Hilary

Hilary: I don't want to be a vet, because then you have to take care of dinosaurs.

Me: Actually, dinosaurs are extinct. That means there aren't any alive anymore, and there haven't been since before there were people on the planet.

Hilary: What happened? A giant rock hit the earth? [We had discussed the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction with Erika on a previous occasion.]

Me: Some people think so. Maybe a giant rock hit the planet, causing it to become really cold, and the dinosaurs died because they couldn't find any plants to eat. [This is me bullshitting my way through the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction. I'm actually not sure whether a colossal impact like that would cause severe climate change, or clog the atmosphere with dust, or maybe some other fatal consequence altogether.]

Hilary: What happened? [Repeating questions is definitely her m.o.]

Me: Well, we don't really know. But we do know there are no more dinosaurs.

Hilary: Is Uncle Bob extinct?

Me: Well, we don't really use the word 'extinct' to talk about individual members of a species, more like the species as a whole. So, Uncle Bob is dead, but the human race is not extinct.

Hilary: And that's why 'Tom and Jerry' is so funny!!!

Yet Another Reason It's Great to Live in a Communal Household

You always have back-up for removing stubborn splinters...

What's Brown and Sticky?

From what I can gather from Erika, my source for the current state of school affairs, the popular kids at school these days are the funny ones.

When Erika was in kindergarten, all the girls wanted to eat lunch with Kyle, who made the girls giggle so hard they snorted their milk. Now that she's in elementary school, Erika has no interest in Kyle—he plays with the mean boys, she says—and has moved on to David, who seems to be the apple in many 2nd grade girls' eyes. At the back-to-school picnic, Amy spotted David easily by the half-dozen girls surrounding him like a pack of hungry lions. I couldn't help but be surprised at how smug Amy was that Erika got the first play date of the new school year with David last week.

If David is any indication, my boys are off to a good start on the road to popularity. Even though they're just toddlers, they've already mastered…

Dry humor:
Me: Goodnight, Ronan!
Ronan: I not Ronan, I Declan! (rolls around bed laughing)

Slapstick humor:
Ronan: Getchen, look at me! (Smacks self in head and falls on floor. Gretchen laughs. Repeat.)

Sarcasm:
Me: You can play for 5 minutes before bed.
Declan: 5 minutes? Wow.

And, of course, political humor:
Me: Who do you think should be the next president, Obama or McCain?
Declan: Blabii da da goo goo! (drops to floor in fit of hysterics)

Humor plays a huge part in our household. The one joke Matty knows is a family favorite (What's brown and sticky? A stick!), and Andy begins teaching each of the kids jokes as soon as they can talk.

A three-year-old trying to tell a joke is always funny. Even if she can't quite tell it right. Actually, especially if she can't quite tell it right. Which is what happened at Thanksgiving four years ago, when Andy whispered a joke into Erika's ear, and she stood up at the head of the table to repeat it:

Erika: Two penises were walking down the street…

Stunned silence.

Andy: No! Two PEANUTS were walking down the street!

I'm not sure which was funnier, that Erika yelled "penises" in front of two dozen family members, or that each and every one of those family members believed Andy would actually teach her a joke that involved said penises.

Either way, with role models like these, I think Declan and Ronan are well on their way to popularity… or the principal's office.

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

Erika wants a sleepover. With a boy.

So far, I've done a good job of deflecting the issue. When I picked her up the last time she had a playdate with this particular boy, and she asked, "Can David and I have a sleepover?" I responded, oh-so-smoothly, "David has an electric scooter? That is so cool!"

What I really want to know is, why can't she? Erika and David are seven years old. Their friendship is completely innocent, and based - as far as I can tell - on the kind of shrieking, chasing and general roughousing Erika's girlfriends are not typically interested in. Our houseguest, Rhea, asked Erika what she liked about David recently, and she said that he was funny, and "a weirdo, just like me."

So romantic.

Still, I can't shake this feeling that it's somehow wrong for a boy and girl to have a sleepover. Am I really afraid of what they'll do when the lights go out? Not really, despite the fact that Rhea also told me about another friend who found her young daughter in bed, under the covers, with her clothes off, with a boy who was visiting. Frankly, if that's what Erika and David really wanted to do, they'd have plenty of opportunities during the course of a regular, non-sleepover playdate.

Is it the where-do-you-draw-the-line issue? That is, if I let her have sleepovers with boys when she's seven, will I have trouble telling her no when she's nine, or eleven, or thirteen? I don't think that's it, either. I mean, there are a seemingly infinite number of activities that are appropriate at different ages, and kids understand that. Just because it's okay to shower with Daddy when you're four, doesn't mean it's okay to do it when you're fourteen. Just because it's okay to run naked on the beach when you're two - etc., etc.

So, although I'm probably not going to let Erika have her sleepover, I can't help but think that by doing so I'm sexualizing her to a far greater degree than exposure to Bratz dolls or "High School Musical" could ever do. And teaching her, from the beginning, that friendships between boys and girls are different, and more restricted, than friendships between girls. As if she won't learn that lesson soon enough.

A Question of (Preschool) Ethics

Declan's recent birthday party presented me with two moral dilemmas. The first centered around the gift of a picture book. We already had a copy, but it was well-loved and well-worn, so we were all happy for the second copy. But when Amy opened it to read to Declan after the party, she found a very moving inscription... to the child who gave Declan the book: To "Pat," with love, Grandma and Grandpa.

Amy thought I should call the offending parent and innocently mention her "mistake," in the guise of wanting to return the treasured book. But I felt that any mention of her misstep would be extremely embarrassing. Matty agreed, and we kept the book.

The second dilemma was over the insane amount of toys Declan received. As you can imagine, in a house with 8 (10 for now) children, there are a lot of friggin' toys. So really, the last thing we need is another toy. Of course, Declan loves toys, and what else are you going to give a 4-year-old? Theater tickets?

After he opened them, I packed up Declan's presents and doled them out one at a time, so he wouldn't lose them all instantly to the general chaos of the house. Some of the presents, however, were remarkably similar to one another... and some of those same said presents had convenient gift receipts attached. Would it really be so horrible to return some of the presents and get Declan some shoes?

I hope I don't sound ungrateful. Declan truly loved all his presents, since almost all of them featured a pirate in some form or another. But even as we opened them, I couldn't help but take mental note of the tiny swords or gold doubloons or pirate hats, knowing that as soon as they came out of the box, they would most likely be lost in the void.

With preschoolers, moral dilemmas are made all the more difficult (or perhaps easier) by the fact that A) they have short memory spans, and B) they don't have a truly developed sense of morality yet.

I have the same quandaries about lying to the kids, even over ridiculous things (no, Declan, I'm certain you can't bring toy swords into the Renaissance Faire). I remember when Declan was just a baby and we were having brunch with another family. The father went out to the car to retrieve a few things and forgot to bring back his son's treasured bunny (or bear, or some other cuddly animal). When his son called him on it, Dad told him that Bunny was tired and just wanted to rest in the car. His son was momentarily placated.

I, however, was horrified. Why not just tell the kid you forgot? Tell him he can have it when they get back in the car? Why on earth lie to him?

But now I do it all the time, and I'm not really sure why. Sure, I could have just told Declan that I didn't want him to bring his toy swords (all 87 of them) to the Faire, since he'd likely lose a few and end up fighting with his brother and cousins over the ones they managed to hold on to.

Declan went through a phase recently where he would run up to tell me about every little transgression; this after I praised him for telling me the truth about a fight with Ronan.

"Ronan took my sword so I pinched him like this," and he would hold up his hand like a claw.

"Hilary wouldn't share the horse so I took it and threw it in the family room."

"Gretchen hit me so I took her baby away and gave it to Aaron."

The only problem was, Declan expected exoneration in exchange for his confessions. Once I explained that he would be punished for his crimes, regardless of whether I heard about it from him or the offending party, the admissions of guilt ceased.

Which I suppose is a lesson to be learned myself: Just because I am aware that what I am doing is wrong, doesn't make it any less wrong...

...no matter how badly I want him to leave the damn swords at home.

There's Something About Molly

I knew this would happen. Even as I wrote about my ambivalence toward my pregnancy, even as I moaned about the failure of my superdrug, I knew that once I saw her sweet, sweet smile, once I watched her fall asleep in my arms, I would be hooked. And I am.

But there's something different.

I am in awe of Molly. I can't look at her enough. Every smile is mentally recorded, every move fussed upon. I don't recall things being quite this way with my boys. Of course I loved them, but their babyhoods were more of something to be endured to get to the good stuff--the toddlerhood, the point where they became their own people. I was never much of a fan of infancy; I find babies to be boring to the extreme. Especially my own. But Molly is remarkable.

Is it because she's a girl? Because she's my last? Or perhaps because her being is so improbable?

I won't deny that she's an incredibly good baby: she sleeps 12+ hours each night and rarely cries unless she's hungry or very tired. She's happy and laid back, and doesn't mind being carted around on my schedule and catnapping when given the opportunity. She'll swing happily for hours while I develop recipes in the afternoon, and can fall asleep with The Colbert Report blaring while I nurse.

But it's not just those things...

I can't believe how close I was to not knowing Molly, to not having her in my life. I can't believe I thought my life was complete without her. I can't believe that Ronan almost missed out on being such a loving big brother, or that Declan might not have gotten the chance to "help" me with his baby sister.

There's something about Molly. Something that makes me feel wonderfully lucky.

Jonah's Miracle?

The very first book we read about autism - back before we got the official diagnosis, but knew it was coming - was Karyn Seroussi's account of how her son was cured of his autism through the implementation of a gluten-and-casein-free diet. So, for the next four years, we put Jonah on the same regimen: no milk or wheat products at all, which meant we had to buy special breads, pastas and pretzels made with rice or soy.

But it didn't cure him. It didn't help much at all.

There are many miracles in the autistic community. Kids have lost their diagnoses after being treated with vitamins, or chelation (a controversial procedure that removes toxins, such as mercury, from the body), or hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And we've tried a lot of those things. But none of them did for Jonah what they had supposedly done for other people's children.

I used to feel this incredible pressure to try every alternative treatment I heard about. Because what if Jonah's miracle was out there, but we never found it because I stopped trying? One thing Kennedy Krieger has done for us is relieve that pressure. Knowing that Jonah's tantrums were caused primarily by his mood disorder means that no diet, no B12 injections, no amount of oxygen could have "cured" him. Bipolar disorder is a medical condition, and requires medical treatment.

But now I'm thinking about miracles again. Because, although Jonah's aggression has virtually disappeared since he was prescribed lithium and abilify, his doctor at Kennedy has just started him on a new medicine that she hopes will help with the lingering irritability, crying and SIBs (self-injurious behavior, such as the hand-biting Jonah does when he's agitated) she is still seeing. This new drug, riluzole, is only FDA-approved to treat patients with Lou Gehrig's disease. But doctors have also seen amazing results treating psychiatric patients who haven't responded to traditional mood stabilizers - like Jonah, who has been on so many different medicines over the years, I lost track long ago. Clinical trials are going on at Johns Hopkins (across the street from Kennedy), and the psychiatrists at Kennedy have just begun prescribing it to their patients. The two who are now taking it, according to Jonah's doctor, have made enormous gains.

New drugs are exciting - so full of hope and potential. It's thrilling to think we may be part of the beginning of a great advancement in the treatment of kids like Jonah. Although I've stopped believing that Jonah will ever be cured of his autism, we sent him to Kennedy to solve the puzzle of his mood disorder. Giving him the gift of a tranquil mind would be miracle enough for us.

Happy Birthday Declan!

Where have the last 4 years gone? How did my baby go from this:

To this, big brother to two little ones?

We took Declan to the Renaissance Faire for his birthday, and he got to wear his new pirate costume, complete with hat and boots. He was by far the most dashing young pirate there. He loved the magic and the shows and the 3-foot-tall slushies, though was devastated that he couldn't buy (or touch, for that matter) the numerous (real) swords on display.

As soon as we got home, I rushed to bake cupcakes and prepare his favorite foods for his birthday dinner: steak, homemade mac-n-cheese, and edamame.

So did he enjoy his celebratory meal? Not exactly. He fell asleep in the car on the way home from the Faire and we couldn't wake him for dinner, even with the promise of cupcakes. He slept right through the night.

So we ate in his honor. Happy birthday Declan!