Mid-CenturyModernMoms

We won't be buying him socks for a while...

The step-daughters sleep in the attic. At one point there were three of them up there. Now there are two. (They're growing up, they're growing up!)

I do not go up in the attic.

Step-mothering is a chancy business, far, far harder than bio-mothering. You're a parental figure, but you're NOT the mother. I understand that. I have bio-children who have had more than a few mother-figures in their life with their dad. I want them to like the other woman, I want them all to get along; it would be lovely if they loved her, but, and perhaps this makes me petty and not having my children's best interests at heart, I dunno, I would not want them loving her like a mother. Because they have one of those. So, though I would like to get along with my husband's children, maybe like a respected and fondly-regarded aunt (?), I have never aspired to be a mother to them.

And if your husband learned a few things from one marriage to the next, and you are a hugely different person than their mother, then not only are you not the mother, but you're alien. The things you do are weird, your outlook on the world peculiar, your values suspect, the way you run your house, your social life is odd. (Their mother's outlook, values, etc., are right and yours are wrong. That goes without saying. I can deal.)

So I tread carefully. And I stay out of their room, because I know that if I saw it, I would be nigh unto fainting and SOMETHING WOULD HAVE TO BE DONE! BEFORE WE GETS BUGS IN THE HOUSE! Something like that. I really, really try to avoid situation where I have to lay down the parental law with my stepkids. I can and will do it if essential. But when it comes to adolescent bedrooms? What I don't see ain't essential.

So last week, their father came down from the attic. He goes up there from time to time when they're not around to watch television.

"I think the girls need to clean up next time they're here."

Oh, lordy. It had to be bad. My sweetie, for all his many, many virtues, is not a visual person. He is, bless his soul, a personally tidy person; he does not leave messes for me to pick up. But he does not see messes, either. For the state of the room to have registered on him, it must have been BAD.

I did not go up in the attic. I just don't want to know.

When the girls arrive, they are sent upstairs with a few guidelines. The next morning, I do go up in the support role of helping them sort the clothes that have been discarded.

There are a LOT of clothes.

It takes about an hour, but at the end we have four containers: two garbage bags of clothes that will be sent to the Goodwill; one of items that are good only for garbage, and one bag of things they will hand down to their brother. A few unisex t-shirts, but mostly?

Socks. White sport socks. DOZENS of white sport socks.

Dozens of them, going off into infinity ...

I washed first, then sorted. Which seems backward only to anyone who hasn't tried to sort filthy, balled-up, sweat-crusted socks worn by teens, the monarchs of body odour. Sorted dozens of them. (We must have bugs up there! Why do I see no bugs?) I tossed several pair with pink and purple heels and toes: too girly for a brother. I had tossed another 8 or 11 or 14 that had no match.

And at the end of the day? Youngest brother got 37 pairs of socks. THIRTY-SEVEN pairs.

And it's probably safe for me to go into the attic.

For about a week.

Arguing over food

My twins are very very different. Like Patty Duke, they're different as night and day. My son is a big galoot of a guy, tall, big boned, a bit chunky, blond hair and blue eyes. He's kinda geeky, introverted, a bit socially awkward, smart as a whip, and so freaking obnoxious he could win prizes.

My daughter is petite, sweet and loving, with such a potty mouth you could just keel over. She's very social, but not adept socially. She has tons of friends, is an extrovert of grand proportions, can't stand to not be doing SOMETHING fun every second of the day, and she's a bit of a dim bulb sometimes. With dark hair and dark eyes, her olive skin makes people assume she's from another culture quite a bit.

The one thing that really sets them apart, and makes them argue more than any other topic is food. OMG you would think they were starving African refugees they way the act around food. My son eats anything that is not nailed down. He is relentless in his ability to eat and eat and eat. Even when he knows that the food he's eating is earmarked for a celebration (say the bowl of potato salad for today's picnic for July 4th) or something that was purchased just for me or the Girl. He will eat anything, even when he knows there will be consequences. He just doesn't care. He is an eating machine. Plus he has no interest in setting something aside if he wants to eat it. His impulsivity around food makes for more trouble than anything else.

His sister is not a big eater, nor does she like most foods. What she does like, she protects viciously. She labels things, she hides food, she will do anything to reserve food for herself. Unfortunately, her brother has no respect for her and will search her room if he's on the lookout for candy or sweets. She always has candy or sweets hidden.

My daughter has taken to counting food. If you ever wanted to live with a really annoying person, find a food counter. It could drive you right into the gin bottle. She knows how much there is of everything, and if there is one morsel missing, she's sure to comment upon it. If she's out, when she returns the first thing she does is take inventory of what he's eaten. She counts everything and nothing escapes her eagle eye.

Now, try and imagine living with this pair. She knows if one crumb of pie is missing and he will eat an entire pie if he can possibly not get caught. It's like living in a constant battle zone. I try to make both sides a bit more respectful of each other, but in truth my son is not going to stop eating like every hour is his last meal and she's not going to accept that he's in this huge growth spurt and needs the food intake. They're not nice to each other. They say hurtful things and in honestly, cannot understand the other's position at all. Or even want to. They're content to keep fighting over food. It gives them something to do.

If truth be told, I'm very concerned about my son's lack of sensitivity regarding food. It drives me absolutely bonkers that he will eat things that he KNOWS are earmarked for a celebration or a special occasion. In our house, he will eat all the leftovers knowing that I might want them for lunch. He'll eat all the ice cream in the house, leaving none for anyone else. Whole containers of cookies disappear. Whole loaves of bread vanish without a trace. He takes food up to his room and leaves the dishes up there until I go ballistic because we have no dishes, glasses or silverware left. The kid is that rude and insensitive.

I can't force him to stop. He doesn't really care that this bothers me and his sister. Stuffing his face is way more important than trying not to take what isn't his. So I have no clue as to how to get them to make peace over food. She's furious that everything she wants to eat disappears before she has a chance to even get a taste. He's furious that we're always pissed at him for taking food and eating it all.

Is there any way to solve this? I can't think of one.

Parental support

We're all parents of teenagers here at MCMM. But some of us are parents of very special teenagers. By that I don't mean the academically perfect MIT bound volunteer for the summer in Kenya building schools special teenager. More like the "lazy, emotionally immature, neurologically impaired, psychologically tweaked" kind of special. My kids are certainly in that category and many of our writers also have kids who fit in that strange mix of labels as well.

Today I'm going to skip talking about the kids and talk about parenting. It's hard enough parenting a neurotypical teenager. What with the mood swings and the opinions and the foul mouths, it cam be challenging just getting through the day with a really cool and neurologically fine kid. But parenting these other kids, these 'special' kids can rob an adult of their ability to be congnatively awake at any given moment. When your brain is working overtime just trying to stay one step ahead of the kid that is manipulative, dishonest, and has little control over implusivity, you're gonna flatline if you don't seek a bit of help yourself. It's just too darn hard to do this stuff alone.

Many couples rely on each other and don't think they need outside support. Or get psychological help for their child but eschew family therapy. If you want to burn out quickly and affect the other NT members of your family, that's certainly a way to go. But I don't believe that it's necessarily the right way, nor the only way. What I want to talk about is the support services that are out there for families with these special kids.

If you have a child that is using drugs, stealing cars, lying and stealing, or doing a lot of illegal activites but has yet not been caught by the police, you can ask for court involvement without getting your child a record. Did you know this? It's a way of taking the onus off of you, the parents, and putting it onto the Judge that oversees your child's case. To do this, you have to go to your local courthouse where there is a Youth Probation Officer and file a CHINS. This means a "Child in Need of Services" petition. A CHINS essentially sets up a relationship between your child and the court, and will write up a contract with your child telling them exactly what they may NOT do. A lawyer is assigned to your child. It is NOT your attorney, it is your child's attorney, and their discussion is priviledged, just like a therapists. But, like a therapist, if there is any notion of harm to self or others, they will tell you and they will seek a hospitalization.  When a child has a CHINS, they have to appear in front of the Judge regularly. The Judge gets the child's report cards and reports from the school regarding attendance and behavior. They also confer with the child's therapist and psychiatrist, as well as the Attorney and, if needed, a guardian ad litem.  If the child has NOT followed the CHINS, the Judge can make decisions regarding the consequences. This might be further court involvement, Department of Social Services (CPS) or Department of Youth Services involvement, or might just involve tweaking the CHINS.

The CHINS is your first line of defense when illegal activity or behavior you cannot control, such as running away or setting fires, has you really needing outside help. When you have filed a CHINS, you are able to get VOLUNTARY DSS services. Scary? You betcha. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the scariest decision a parent has to make when dealing with a child whose impulsivity is dangerous to himself or others. But so many of us HAVE faced it, and made the decision to ask for this type of help. And after it's over, we're all pretty darn grateful considering how much help you can get this way.

If you ask for Voluntary DSS/CPS involvement, you'll be assigned a caseworker, and with this caseworker you'll determine what the family needs entail. They will pay for therapy, ensure that you have medical insurance for this child, they'll get you an in-home social worker for family therapy, they can assign the child a mentor, they can get your child hospitalized, into Acute Residential Treatment  programs, and even into residential schools. Your caseworker can help you with special parenting skills classes, respite care, and even some financial help. Once your child is involved in DSS Voluntary services, you are going to get help. Sometimes more help than you wanted or think you needed. It might be a couple of years of some very difficult work with your family, but it IS worth it in the long run.

Another road, if you have a child with a mental illness, is to contact your state's Department of Mental Health (DMH). Yeah, that one is a hard call to make. Nobody wants to admit that they are dealing with a mental illness that is making it too difficult for the family to function normally. It takes some families years to ask for this one, but again, once the call is made, if you are accepted into their program, it is going to make a huge difference. Most of what DMH can and will do for you is similar to what DSS does. Only DMH works with different agencies that specialize in mental health issues. You'll still get a caseworker, you'll still get the hospitalizations, insurance, ARTs and residential schools pair for, only by DMH. They offer MORE in the way of financial help, ensuring that you won't get evicted from your apartment because of mental health issues, and will assign you an in-home therapist as well.

Asking for this type of help is extremely difficult. But it is there for you. It's just waiting for you to make the first step and call. As a parent who has made these phone calls more than once, I know that the decision to admit you need outside help feels like you're failing as a parent. But it isn't that at all. In fact, I believe that to be a GOOD parent of kids like this, we do need to ask for help in order to offer our children the best of the best.

If you have questions about the process or about my own experience with these various agencies, please email me. I'm happy to answer any questions I can.

Why be normal?

We threw a surprise party for my son's nineteenth birthday last month.

The boy is in the 'gifted' stream at his high school, as are his friends, with only one exception. When I was offered the option of having him apply to gifted, I was only partially convinced of the merits of the programme, but decided he'd enjoy the extra intellectual stimulation. He's very bright, but academically lazy (sigh). What I didn't understand at first was just how grouping these bright kids together would change the social dynamic of high school for him, in an entirely positive way.

Perhaps your high school was different than mine, but I remember having to hide my intelligence. I muted my interest in subjects outside the norm, and tried to fake an interest in the socially accepted areas of obsession. Which, with few exceptions, bored me. I wasn't a total sell-out: I was in the band, I was on the honour roll, I took on extra projects for fun, not just for extra credit. But I learned that all these idiosyncracies would be paid for socially, and sometimes the price was higher than I could face. (University? Loved, loved, loved it. Phew.)

But these kids in my living room last month? They are so accepting of so many idiosyncracies. They shriek and yell and indulge in brainless mayhem, as all teens do, but they also converse. They think, and, even more important, they don't have to hide this from their friends.

Here are some snippets:

(No, I didn't stay and party with the children. I figure that puts me in one of two camps: the pathetic forty-something trying desperately to be cool, needing the approval of children, or the parent who trusts her children so little she can't afford to leave them alone for a second. I was around for the first hour, while guests arrived and until a few minutes after my son showed up, and then for the last hour, to ensure they all left on schedule. A reasonable compromise, I figure.)

So, the snippets:

One of the girls came wearing a pink-and-red tutu over her jeans and carrying a magic wand. No one gave it a second's thought. ("Julia's in drama. They all do stuff like that.")    

Discussing a scene in the cafeteria earlier in the week:    
"She just uses indignation to get her way."    
"Yeah. Pre-emptive outrage."    
"Well, more like proactive outrage, because she's manipulating the outcome by going all hysterical."

Twenty minutes of computer talk which went completely over my head. They weren't talking about computer games, but about motherboards and processors and various other inner workings of the machines. (The one long-time friend who isn't in the gifted programme sits on the end of the couch with his girlfriend. "Do you know what they're talking about?" she asks him. "Nah." he says with his easy-going grin. "You get used to it.")    

"Have you finished your presentation for Mr. Science Teacher?"    
"I thought I was done, but then I found out about some research they're doing at McGill that takes it in a whole new direction, and he's given me an extension so I can try to contact the research team."

"Ian! Hey, Ian, I didn't know you'd be coming!"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Hey, man, you know you don't come to half these things."
"Nothing wrong with being anti-social."
"He's a misanthrope."
"Misanthropy rules, dude!"
[Catch this? Words of more than two syllables - and they ALL know what they mean.]    

One girl, who's in a theatre troupe that gives sex and sexuality presentations in junior and senior high schools, described how a certain principal had not allowed them to present part of their show. "It was 'too mature a subject' for his students."    
"How old were the students?" I asked.    
"Grade nine."     Someone else wanted to know which part had been prohibited. She suggested they guess.    
"Abortion?"    
nope.    
"Homosexuality?"    
nope    
"Sexual assault?"    
nope

   
Ummm... so what was it?    

"Masturbation."    

"WHAT?" One boy shouts out. "The one aspect of the whole presentation that they have the most experience with??"     General roar of laughter.    
[So sensible. No tittering, no squeamishness, but no prurience, either. Such a great bunch.]

And the movie they chose to watch? Monty Python's Holy Grail. Heh. In other circles, they'd be the geeks and the outcasts. Here, 'geek' is normal -- "normal" is boring. I love these kids.

Nerds Rule!

By Nina

I saw it with my own eyes at every single HS reunion I've attended. The nerdiest most unlikely to "succeed" kids inevitably ended up being the coolest, realest and most interesting ones at the party.

Somehow the mean alpha girls just got meaner and smaller.  The cheerleaders got fat.  The grinds had been ground down by life.  But a lot of the nose picking, pocket protector, AV Squad boys and nerdy girls were the ones who'd cashed out their dot.com businesses and were now pursuing their bliss, sailing sloops around the world, taking on second careers, shepherding foundations, that sort of stuff. Even Marsha Miller, who was so horsey she practically whinnied, had turned into a way-cool art gallery owner in the Bay Area. 

No surprise learning that a high school A-lister like Robby Benjamin went to med school, made a lot of money, retired early to Florida and was proudly wearing his trophy 2nd wife on his arm.  But whoa, let's hear it for Geek-O-Rama Marty Tessler, who went to med school the hard way, after being a Physician's Assistant for 7 years and then chose Emergency Room medicine in a hospital in Queens.  Way to go dude!  You may not be making the big bucks, but you've earned my respect and I bet you feel good looking in the mirror every morning.

So while I wish my own nearly 16-year-old geek in residence had a more robust social life and was feeling a little higher up on the high school food chain, I try to remember that being a tech nerd often means having the last laugh. 

My kid is a tech assistant this summer before he leaves for Israel.  He's helping to install new computers in the new building at his school . . . and he's getting paid for it!  He's enjoying the radical paradigm shift as he works with the school's resident technology staff who are (gasp) Republicans and Libertarians, unlike the mushy skwushy  liberals who teach at his crunchy granola private school.  This week his reputation as a nice reliable kid who knows his way around Macintosh computers landed him an off-site gig at the home of one of the school's two college advisers. There he successfully installed a Wi-Fi network and in the process got on the radar of the person who is going to help him navigate the rocky shoals of college applications.  And he got $100 smackeroos. 

Like I said.  Nerds rule.

With tears in my eyes- a graduation story

  Eighth grade graduation.  What a boring thing to anticipate, for a parent.  At least it's the end of those private school tuition bills.

What a surprise!!!!

The graduation was great!!! Each of the kids had 45 seconds to say something about their SSDS experience. Many of them did it in concert with 1-3 others.

What can you say in 45 seconds? Actually, quite a lot. And the ones that did it together (multiplying the time) were very creative. The kids totally blew me away with their ideas. Rosie did it with another girl and they even thanked their siblings! Most kids didn't thank parents/teachers, but many did. Some of the ones that stood out were: 3 boys- performed a new music composition; 4 boys- did short skits parodying rap music, Shakespeare and something else from English class and 4 girls- Remember the original Charlie's Angels beginning " Once upon a time, 3 little girls went to..." This was based on that and really outlined all their 9 years at school.  Several sets of girls sang, as well as commented on their choice of words. One set some words from the Biblical literature to new music.

I am going to miss the comraderie of all of the moms. But many of the kids will be attending the supplementary Hebrew High school, so we can arrange to see each other on Sunday mornings.

Remember the JC Penney dress purchases?  Here's the final results.

At graduation:

 

And for the semi-formal dance.  Rosie spent an hour with a friend curling her hair.

Isn't my baby gorgeous?

Birthday Girl

Suburban Correspondent here, wanting to keep it light today, all righty? No serious topics, no politics, just some blather about, say, birthdays. Can't argue about birthdays, can we? I hope not. Mine was yesterday - I turned 45. And, you know, it felt good. I feel....free.

I don't know why I feel so free.  After all, despite my advancing years, I still have 6 kids at home to raise, 4 of them not even teens yet.  But maybe, since I haven't gotten pregnant in the past 3 years, I'm realizing that the baby years are done.  Sure, life with teens can be a wild, sleepless ride; but it doesn't compare to the crazed early years, when my only goal was survival.  I'm moving beyond my survival-only life now; and it is refreshing to be able to look around and survey the horizon.  Let's see...there are just so many things I can do, now that I'm not spending all my time comparison-pricing disposable diapers or buckling little people into shopping carts and strollers.  I could go back to school or I could knit and crochet more or maybe I could even get a part-time job, just to get out of the house in the evenings. 

Of course, I know a lot of other, more fun ways to get out of the house after dinner: Mothers Nights Out, yoga, Stitch 'n' Bitch. But those reasons tend to get pushed aside for the kids' stuff, like homework or Boy Scouts or whatever.  Somehow, needing a sanity break just doesn't rank with all the zillion and one things that kids need done for them in the evenings, even though it darn well should.  Even the teens seem particularly needy just when I'm hoping to get a little me-time.  Suddenly there is a clothing crisis (Anna) or a math crisis (Theo), and life as we know it has to stop until things get resolved.  I'm fantasizing that a job would take precedence over all this; and, by getting out in the evenings, I wouldn't feel like a prisoner anymore.

Not that I like to compare being a SAHM to being a prisoner; but I'm thinking that the detainees at Guantanamo get out more, and with less fuss, than I do.  And torture?  Put those guys in a room all day with 2 small children fighting over who gets to sit in the flowered armchair; they'd break down, all right. 

Where was I?  Oh, yes, keeping it light.  Right.  So...I'm sitting up at 11:30 PM on my birthday, baking blueberry bread and making sandwiches.  Why?  Because Larry and Anna are leaving at 5:30 tomorrow morning for a week of work camp, and they need food for the car ride.  Since I got the day off for my birthday and spent 2 hours browsing through every clearance bin in the bookstore, and another 2 hours reading Devil in the Details, well...stuff that should have gotten done, didn't. 

You know, if you're gonna dance, you gotta pay the band.

Still, I love birthdays.  Mine, that is.  And now it's only 365 more days until my next one.  So give me some ideas for my next chance to goof off for 24 hours - what would you do?

Bigfeet live. And they're slobs.

Here we have a shoe rack:

Nothing exceptional about that. Every home has one, or some other accommodation for the footwear that cannot, given our climate/weather, be tromped throughout the house.

It takes years of consistent effort to convince your children that shoes do indeed need to be removed from one's person before one starts racing through the house, stomping up stairs, clambering up over the soft furnishings, leaving a trail of sand, mud, snow, slush, twigs, dust and dead bugs in one's wake. Parent work for years to get this drilled into them. Years.

Infancy: "Time to take those shoesies off. Oh, toes!! Let mummy nibble on those lovely little toes!!!"

Toddler: "Uh-oh! Did you forget to take your shoes off???"

School-age: "Where are you going with those shoes, young lady/man?"

But you know, eventually it does get drilled in, mostly, and by the time they're teens, they do start removing footware. Without even thinking about it!

And therein lies the problem. "Without even thinking about it." It's automatic. Mindless. Brainless.

In the picture at the top of this post? Every single one of those shoes on the rack? They belonged to either me or my husband...

The kids' shoes are here:

The picture does not do justice to the reality. These are LARGE shoes, people. LARGE. Many of them have ... odour issues. In fact, not all of the shoes associated with our brood are in this picture. One or two pairs lie on the porch, where I tossed them when the fumes threatened to kill the family pet. My entire front hall (yes, that's the whole thing), is carpeted in LARGE, STINKY SHOES. (And one random pair of socks. See them, up at the top? Socks. Can this possibly be a surprise?)

And while I must confess that the shoe rack is very obviously NOT up to the task of dealing with the staggering number of feet which inhabit this small house, the evidence is still very clear: Not one of those ambling, shambling teens-on-footwear-autopilot has made the slightest attempt to place their shoes where they would be out of the way.

It took years of diligent effort to get them to take the damned things off. It will take still more years of diligent effort to get them to LINE THEM UP AGAINST THE WALL! (Because remembering to put your shoes together, and to one side? So the next person in the door doesn't trip or drown? That's really, really complicated. Yes, really, it is! It must be complicated, hugely complicated, because these are NOT stupid kids. No, no they're not. Really. All shoe evidence to the contrary.)

A complicated task, then, that will take more years of diligent effort to drill into them. But, given that the youngest is 13, and they will be leaving the nest by 20 at the latest (Um, yes. Yes, they will. Every single stinky-footed one of them.), the sad truth of the matter is that I do not HAVE sufficient years in which to train them.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that second picture? That is a picture of the next seven years of my life.

Sigh.

Just What The Doctor Ordered

Whoa! Suburban Correspondent here, which means that it must be Sunday again. How did that happen?  You know, I don't like this time-speeding-up-as-we-age thing.  I especially don't see how the time that is moving so slowly from my teens' viewpoint could be the same time that whizzes by me so fast that I can't even keep track of which month it is.  All I know is that I am reaching the halfway point of a year that, by my reckoning, shouldn't be anywhere past March yet. 

Of course, I can count on summer to slow things down a bit, albeit temporarily.  My least favorite date is the 1st of September.  The beginning of September is akin to being at the top of a greased chute which deposits me, approximately 3 seconds later, at the beginning of the next calendar year in a bewildered post-serial-holiday-state, a condition that renders me a sobbing shell of the woman I was a mere 4 months previous.  Thank the Lord for the therapeutic power of a festivities-free January.

Anyway, I had my annual pep talk today.  At a local homeschooling conference, I saw the doctor - Dr. Ray, that is - and listened to him remind me that

I am the grown-up.
I am allowed to set the rules.
There is no reason whatsoever to tolerate disrespect, verbal or otherwise, from my beloved progeny.

All things I already knew, of course; because I learned them from him last year. After last year's talk, I came home, kicked down the front door (figuratively speaking), and ordered my teenage daughter to her room.  "Why?" she asked, bewildered. 

"Because you've made my life a living hell for the past 10 months," I told her.  She was so stunned, she listened.  And then I slowly began to turn things around.  This book helped.

Still, it's good to be reminded of the basics from time to time.  So I went back today to imbibe more wisdom at the feet of the master.  You see, this man has 10 children.  That's right.  He's an expert.  He also has a comic delivery which has his audience practically rolling on the floor during his talks.  Go ahead, check him out.  You'll be glad you did.

And I'm not even getting a free book out of that little advertisement up there.  I am uncompromised.

I guess strangling him wouldn't improve his COMMUNICATION skills, would it?

Last fall, Daniel had a bit of a personal crisis. Though I got the bare bones of it, he didn't want to talk about it with His Mother. Could he please go see Dr. D, the psychologist his older sister had seen for a few months after the separation? (Who his sister still chats with once in a while.)

The sessions cost $155 an hour. This is not small change for me, parent of three, step-parent of five, living on one and one-fifth income. (Four-fifths of my husband's income is taken up by income tax, student loans, union dues and child support.) However, it's my child's well-being... And maybe the boy will learn some useful emotional and life skills. So, yes, of course you can see Dr. D, son.

After a couple of months, I asked how it was going. The crisis was comfortably over, and it is costing  $155 every week... My budget is feeling the pinch like a vice-grip applied to one's butt.

"Well," he said, "I like talking to her. It's nice."

("It's nice?" Um, no. NOT worth $155/week, son.)  Okay. Must probe a bit. "Can you give me some idea what you're talking about?"

"Well, mostly about communication."

My mind reels in delighted astonishment.

COMMUNICATION!!!!! My son was discussing COMMUNICATION! My son, my cheerful, easy-going, largely cooperative son, who can and will talk your ear off about a quirky cartoon or a computer game, becomes completely mute when conversation threatens to become personal. He will talk about personal stuff when it reaches the crisis point, and I take a great deal of satisfaction in that, but in the ordinary run of things? I get NOTHING, people, NOTHING. Shrugs, grunts, one-word non-answers.

My boy is getting an hour a week's tutorial in COMMUNICATING??

Worth every penny. Every single penny. I'm sure we can squeak the money out of the budget somehow. We don't really need to eat three times a day, after all. Do we? Surely twice would suffice.

It was worth it even more when, by dint of a doctor's prescription for psychotherapy, our insurance started paying the lion's share. (Thank you to smart doctor who thought of that. I didn't know therapy could be prescribed!! But why not?)

COMMUNICATION! My boy is getting lessons in COMMUNICATION! I envision that glorious day when "You feeling okay, sweetie? You look a little down," is answered with full, entire sentence! Yeah!

However, I'm still forking out a chunk of money every month. After six months, I decide it's time to  check in with the boy. And besides, I'm his mother. I love him. And I'm curious! I want to know what he thinks about it. I want to know how the experience is affecting him. I want to know what's going on inside his head, his thoughts, his responses.

I want COMMUNICATION.

Me: How are your sessions with Dr. D going?
Daniel: Fiiine. (Tones of mild suspicion.)
Me: Are you enjoying them?
Daniel: Yes. (Suspicion rising.)
Me: Do you feel you're getting anything out of them?
Daniel: Yeees. (Hint of defensive, self-protective edge to the voice.)

Longish pause. Will he divulge?
Pause continues.
And continues. And continues some more. My patience is rewarded by ... silence. He's not divulging. I will have to ask. Sigh.

Me: So, what do you think you’re getting out of them?
Pause.
Daniel: Well, that’s hard to say, really.

Six months working on "COMMUNICATION", and it's "HARD TO SAY" what he's getting out of these sessions.

Money well spent, wouldn't you say?