Thursday, October 29, 2020

Engineer camouflage

It's funny that I was thinking about a big meeting I attended a few years ago since there is so little time spent being in person these days.

I was working for a small company and we were meeting with an engineering group from a much larger company. It was important, because we were the small team. The project coordination would do a lot for our company. The other team was more insulated from the financial risk that a big risky project brings to a small company just by being in a huge, well known tech company. So, there definently was a difference in dynamics. The meeting was onsite at our office and everyone on our team was invited. Just part of their team was there and we still were a smaller group. It was important and everyone dressed up and wore a nice shirt.

As I looked around the room, I was the only woman. This isn't a new thing for me. This wouldn't be a new thing for most female engineers. As I scanned the room looking at everyone in their nice dress shirts, the other differences made me chuckle. Looking from engineer to engineer, every single one of the male enginners had a standard button down shirt on. I must have missed the memo or the unwritten rule of the day. It was apparently plaid or check shirt day as there wasn't a solid shirt on anyone. There were at least 25 to 30 people crammed into that conference room. Green plaids, red plaids, blue checks, this continued as I scanned the room until I got to me in my favorite big flower shirt.

I was hearing that sesame street song in my head, "One of this things is doing it's own things, one of these things doesn't belong..."

As a woman in this field, you have to get past everyone's assumptions, including your own. You need to see yourself as belonging as much as you want everyone else to accept you, not talk over you and listen to your ideas. There's even a term for this, impostor syndrome. Twenty years in the field, and you still can second guess yourself.

When I got home that evening, I told Pete my little story. We laughed at the plaid shirt bragaude, logged onto Lands End and ordered a plaid shirt for me. It's a button down, it's a lovely green and now I will finally look like everyone else on the team in my Engineer camouflage.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

So many changes

Our Au Pair has opted to return home. This was a fast decision. She told us Sunday morning and was on flight out of the country by Wednesday. I can understand why this decision was made, but ACK!

With the COVID-19 virus, we are all working from home. The governor closed all schools for our state about a week ago. The day care also closed and will remain closed for some time. I also think we shouldn't use the day care and risk additional exposure coming home with the youngest.
We will miss, K.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Social Distancing for COVID-19

We are all stuck at home. It's a very uncertain time and the gravity of everything that is happening with schools closing, work places closing and required remote work. I hope that all of this makes a difference.

We are, obviously, doing a lot of cooking at home and I'm sure as the weeks wear on that this will become more creative.

Day 1 dinner was via Jamie Cooks It up Lemon Butter Chicken with a loaf of beer bread.

The schools closed for 6 weeks starting last Friday. I have been working from home since the first time big N's school closed for an active COVID-19 diagnosis.

The big kids are being good sports. Big N is hiding in his room after I suggested he work on some online math work. We will see if he comes around. Little N has been a huge help. The littles have a ton of energy. The day care closed, officially, Monday the 16th. We kept Little A out of day care on Friday when the announcement mentioned that they did not have enough staff. Big A is in kindergarten and out of school with the big kids.

We have an AuPair living with us and she is being a good sport. Her hours have significantly increased with all of us being home and I'm trying to balance out making sure she has some down time while I get my work done. Obviously, that's harder than I thought considering I am running sims in the background right now at 2:51AM.


Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Underestimating her abilities


It's been a long time, but we've had a lot of big changes.

Her little brother, baby A, is potty training and both kids are big fans of Peppa pig. So, baby A ended up with Peppa pig undies next to his Spider-Man ones. Big A decided that she wanted to wear Peppa pig. And that is when it hit me.

Why was I potty training her little brother and not trying with her? She was showing interest, she has been sitting every morning for at least a year and knows how to use the equipment. Second, she's in a very supportive preschool and is getting ready to move up to the pre-K room where the school no longer supports potty training. They are willing to move her up, but we are doing a disservice to her by not trying her out on it while she has the supports in place.

So, we brought it up with the preschool. I think they were surprised we were asking them to do this after all my discussion on how it might be later for her. It still might, but we should allow her to try. I'm not entirely sure if all my work to convince them we should wait had been too effective because I didn't get the impression the school was entirely happy with my change of heart.

We started her at home over the weekend and there were a lot of messes.

A lot.

But, she seems to get it. At least with a timer, but she's doing it on a schedule. A few times I caught her walking to the rest room, but not going in there on her own.

She's getting it!

For school, it dawned on me that a social story would help, so I tossed on together. The preschool told me that really helped. She would ready it and get to the picture of the little girl with blond hair like hers and try.

I'm proud of her no matter where this goes. She's getting it and I hope we have given her enough time with the right supports to keep getting this.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

W2/W3

It's that time of year, again. Time to get those W2s together. I think this is the part I hate the most of having a household employee. It's confusing and the forms are hard to find.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Preschool blues

We have made the decision that Anna should be with kids her own age who are neurotypical. You would think this would be easy to find, call a few local preschools and just sign her up, but it isn't.

The moment I mention that she has Down syndrome, I suddenly have to prove that she belongs there. If it's in person, there's hand ringing, or the standard, "I don't know if this will work out..." These preschools who list "inclusive" on their web pages are scared to death of having to actually follow through with what inclusive means. Or, perhaps they don't realize how exclusive they truly are.

We went through the search for child care a few years back and it took searching high and low to find a day care that not only would take her, but wanted her there. You can tell. You can tell when the provider is scared and you can tell when they think Anna is the problem. However, we found one that not only wanted her, they embraced her.

This was not an easy thing to find. The search began when she was 17 months old. She had just had her G-tube taken out a few months earlier and was still learning to eat orally. Her primary source of calories was liquid. She had limited core strength and needed side support in chairs. She wasn't really climbing, but was walking, just walking. We thought we had found one in a great church day care, but I brought her in for her first day and they walked us into the infant room. The next oldest child wasn't even rolling over. I left her there, because I felt I had no choice, but I bawled in the parking lot.

They told me they couldn't handle her in the room with the kids her age. What's to handle? She was on a bottle which she held herself, but they didn't want to even try.

On the third day, I said enough, and picked her up. She had gotten sick at the day care and when I called a few weeks later they let me pull her out and told me to forget any fees for the month. I think they were glad to see her go and the problem family was gone. They were able to go back to thinking they were inclusive and pretending that they welcomed someone who works a little harder to learn skills.

We found a home day care, but that also wasn't working. They were not staffing the rooms. Every time I stopped by during the day, it was one worker and no other staff. She kept telling me this was not normal, but it was consistent. Anna came home with massive bites on her.  We were on the search for something that was safer for her.

We finally found a center near my office. At this point, I had interviewed and visited 20-30 day cares. I walked in, assuming more of the same, and asked the director if she would allow Anna in the room with kids her own age. She looked surprised and said back to me, "Why wouldn't we? Yes, of course." I think I cried in the office.

Anna did really well at this preschool and day care. The staff found a high chair that allowed Anna to sit at the same level as the kids at the table for meals and brought it into the room. Within four weeks, Anna had figured out how to sit in the big kid chairs and the high chair disappeared. A few weeks in, I was picking Anna up and one of the room teachers told me to hide for a second and watch. She was explaining how they were trying to figure out which kid was helping Anna get up onto the play structure when they finally saw that she had figured out how to get up on it all by herself. I watched my little girl, who just recently learned to walk, climb up on a play structure and go down the slide. It was magical.

The gains in her skills just being around the other kids her age cannot be quantified. There was no PT service, no OT service, no magic therapist that led her to make such big gains in skills as what she learned from the other kids. She started to eat traditional foods, watching the other kids eat lunch, she wanted to try it. This was huge! We finally were able to back off on formulas and start to push real food. This was not the feeding therapist, it was kids showing her what to do that helped her.

Anna started developmental preschool right after her 3rd birthday. There are no peer models in her room. She had started potty training at the day care and this seemed to come to a stop in developmental preschool. Words stopped, big skills stopped emerging.

We put her back on the wait list at the preschool/day care that had been so good for her and I returned to work. A spot opened up this September and we made the decision that a truly inclusive setting is best for Anna. We decided that Anna's best setting is with her peers and decided to pursue what it would involve doing her therapies without attending the preschool program.

Of course, when I called the school district, they are not willing to bus her for her therapies because the preschool is just outside the district. So, all her therapies end or I have to leave my job that I really enjoy. I have long ago written off Anna's SLP at the school as useless when she told me in an offhand comment that Anna would never speak. However, her fine motor skills are still behind. I worry this will be what blocks the kindergarten teacher from welcoming her. And how will we manage her orthotics?

I've called preschools within the district and we are back to proving Anna should be allowed to be there. I have to provide a copy of her IEP to one preschool so they can analyze if they think she would be a good fit. Would they ask for that level of scrutiny from any other child who has an IEP? They also told me she must be potty trained. I brought up that this would be an ADA issue and that didn't go over well. The thought of going through the search, the depressing, search, again, is hard to stomach.

Someone's ability to welcome my child says a lot more about that person as a human being, more than anything they say to me as a person. To welcome someone without question says a lot because it says that they belong in this world. She belongs in this world and I wish I didn't have to fight so hard to prove this. However, someone who welcomes my child is far and few between and the world needs more of that.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Don't use the R-word



The R-word. Seriously, you have to have a better term, unless you're really just that incapable of coming up with anything witty. Because The R-word is not witty. It's not funny and it's not something you should use.

It's insulting to anyone who has developmental delays. It should be insulting to everyone. It is an outdated term and the R-word is no longer used in medical texts.

I "hear" it more often than I used to. I don't think it is used more often than it used to be, but I'm more aware of, or at least more sensitive to the true meaning.

I notice it when people use it perhaps because it stings.

It is hopefully unintended, but using that word as a joke is a derogatory way to talk about my daughter. You see, my daughter is blessed with an extra chromosome.

However, the R-word has changed meaning over time. Our language is a living thing and that medical term has become a joke and an insult.

It is no longer a medical term. The medical community recognized what the word had become and removed it from their descriptions of developmental delays.

The negative assumptions of her capabilities are what make it "funny." The things she works so hard to accomplish are summed up as a joke. Even today I am advocating to allow her to be involved in activities with typical peers because the world assumes she is not capable of being part of that world. That's the joke you are inferring when you use that word. The ha-ha, the funny. This is the history of segregating persons with developmental delay from the rest of society.

Don't pull my daughter out of the world because you cannot accept differences.

Most of all, don't use the R-word. Come up with something better.