Books, Books, Books

My dad was a big fan of celebrating special occasions. He especially loved celebrating them on dates that were not the actual dates of the occasions. I’ve mentioned before how we used to celebrate Thanksgiving whenever we felt like it, sometimes several times a year, and rarely in November. Christmas was often celebrated whenever my dad came back from a trip to the United States. It’s hard to describe just how incredible the ritual of the Opening of the Suitcases was when I was growing up. There were special gifts like walkmans and cassette tapes, magazines, Hershey bars and all kinds of assorted candy that was locked in a trunk and rationed throughout the year. My dad always milked it and made the most out of each reveal, so that my brother and I were always craning our necks practically drooling in anticipation while we waited for him to pull out whatever was hidden beneath the dirty laundry in his luggage. Christmas was always a fun time—tamales! rompope! huge manger scenes!—and an important holiday, but gifts were not big part of it. Nothing could have compared to the Opening of the Suitcases.

And my birthday, which was in May, was always celebrated in July.

There are a lot of bookstores in Costa Rica that sell books in English now, and there are even used bookstores which are full of books that tourists have left behind. But when I was growing up, there was only one. It was called simply The Bookshop, and it was so small and cozy. And they had a huge sale every year. In July.

My dad took me every year. It was my birthday gift, and I was allowed to buy stacks and stacks of books. After I was done picking out my favorites—books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle and James Herriot, the Great Brain books, Trixie Belden and every book in the Oz series—my dad would always steer me towards the saleslady and ask her what else she might recommend for a girl my age, and I would add some more to my pile. When I got home, I would spread them all out on my bed and look through them carefully, and deciding which one to read first took an eternity.

My parents passed their love of reading down to me. The yearly shopping spree at The Bookshop is the only time I remember money being no object. When I outgrew my own books, I moved on to my parents’ books. They had an aversion to fiction, so I read many, many memoirs, written by teachers, actors, doctors, books about the Cold War and about Holocaust survivors. We took to initialing the inside of the front cover of the books we’d read, so it was easy to keep track of who had read what. Even though we watched some TV every night, it was always turned off at some point so we could all have some peace and quiet while we all read in the living room together.

And now, I'm making every effort to pass that love of reading on to my boys. I didn’t start reading to them as early as they say you should, but I felt silly reading to them when they were newborns, just like I felt silly talking to them when I was pregnant. (Also, they got to hear my voice half an hour per hour while I was interpreting. I figured it didn't matter that what they were hearing were court proceedings in Spanish.) Once they could sit up, though, there were always board books strewn around the floor along with their toys. When I started reading them stories at night, I had a captive audience—their room was so tiny that there was only enough room to wedge a chair between both of their cribs. I would sit and read to them every night while they stood in their cribs and peered over the top.

When they were that small and had no say in the matter, I read to them almost exclusively in Spanish. That ended once they were big enough to grab a book and bonk me in the head with it insistently until I agreed to read it to them, so I began reading to them in English as well. What I’ve found, though, is that we keep coming back to the books in Spanish again and again, to the point that even P often reads to them in Spanish because those are their favorites and those are the stories they want to hear.

This has meant I’ve become quite passionate about children’s books in Spanish. I’m always on the lookout for them—new on Amazon, used at library sales, from friends and relatives who come to visit from Costa Rica. P often comments that our place looks like a bomb went off in Barnes & Noble. And while we started with Buenas Noches, Luna and the Eric Carle books in Spanish, the boys quickly moved past those (though I won’t say they outgrew them, because we recently went through another Eric Carle phase and they seemed to enjoy the books even more than they had before), and I’ve discovered many, many wonderful books since the days of La oruga muy hambrienta.

I’ve added an Amazon widget to my blog that reflects our current favorites, just for fun, and I’ll comment on what we’re reading occasionally as well, both for my own benefit as well as in hopes that it might lead someone else to discover something new.

Sick Days

So, I obviously took a couple of days off from blogging. Damn--I would have liked to make it through NaBloPoMo successfully! But other things took priority, like breathing, which I was having a hard time with for a few days. The good news is, I was able to cancel work, see my doctor, and get better. Also, it was decided I don't have pneumonia, which definitely qualifies as good news.

Back to work for me tomorrow, and more posts later.

A Little Fluff

I spent one morning this week at a fancy law firm interpreting for an interview. It was very emotional, boxes of tissues were passed to people. And then, I stood up to leave and reached across the fancy conference table to shake the hand of one of the attorneys. And proceeded to knock over my entire glass of water, covering the entire table. At least it was only water, not coffee or Diet Coke (both of which I’d been drinking), and no attorneys, laptops or documents got wet.

What I said, in a feeble attempt at levity, was, “Hey, at least we’re not in federal court!”

I didn’t finish the entire thought, which was, “Because when you spill water all over the defense table in front of a federal judge in the middle of a big trial, now THAT’S embarrassing!”

Trust me. I know. I am a klutz.

[I have a feeling NaBloPoMo may include several more mindless anecdotes. At least until the shakes from my fever subside. And until my ISP gets its act together. Curse you, Verizon! I don’t mind missing a day, but not if it’s Verizon’s fault. It’s 9:28 on Wednesday and I'm sure I'll be going to bed before things are up and running again.]

Notes From the Couch

Yes, I'm parked on the couch watching the election results roll in. Who isn't? The wine has been flowing freely (I'm sure that will go nicely with my Theraflu later). Not the good wine, though, not just yet. The last time we prematurely opened a bottle of the good wine was during Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series, and we all remember how that worked out. At least, we Cubs fans do.

The fact that Primo, at the age of not-quite-three, can read and spell is a topic for another post. But here's what he wanted to type on the computer today, over and over. His mama is so proud.

A Perfunctory Post

It's November 3rd, which I'm pretty sure is too early in the month to post a token blog entry. But the boys are sick, I'm sick, and with the time change, we were all up early in the morning. All I can think of right now is the Theraflu that is sitting on the kitchen table, Theraflu I plan to take as soon as I can heat up the water. Tomorrow's job will be a very stressful one, so I'm going to conk out and hope things are better in the morning.

And also, I need to get out of here early tomorrow morning and VOTE!

Hello, November

A year ago, NaBloPoMo inspired me to start a blog. I thought it would motivate me to start out, since the concrete goal would be to post every day. I posted 18 times that month, which wasn't bad, for me. Since then, I've only posted a few times a month (or once a month, in some cases), but this year, I'm going to challenge myself to ramp up the number of blog posts. I'm going to unoficially do NaBoPoMo again. So, here goes.

One of the reasons I started to blog was because I felt so strongly about teaching the boys Spanish and I wanted to chronicle their language development. And then I held back, because it became clear that Secondo's language development was delayed, and I felt guilty posting language-related stories because most of them would have been about Primo.

One year and one autism diagnosis later, I'm over that. Things are what they are. Primo's language development continues to amaze me, and Secondo's language development has become a cause for celebration, not a source of worry like it was last year. That is a huge relief, and overall, I'm feeling optimistic and ready to tackle November.

I have to say, October kicked my ass. It's not all doom and gloom around here, though. Many of the events I'm writing about occured a few weeks ago, and I'm over them and am moving on, but I need to get them out. So there will be more posts about autism, because it's become a big part of our lives. But there will also be more posts about language, about the wonderful books we're reading. About my work and other things going on around here. Things that have seemed unimportant lately, things that have taken a backseat to autism.

But you know what, here's to the unimportant stuff.

More tomorrow.

My Other Son

In my career as a translator and interpreter, I’ve discovered that Spanish speakers often start sentences with the words “Por una parte…” It means: On one hand. It is a phrase that just begs to be completed. And the speaker will ramble on and on, and I wait and wait for the por otra parte. The logical conclusion, on the other hand. But most of the time, it doesn’t come. I’ve come to realize it’s just a quirk of the language, and it’s so common that I usually just omit it entirely so as not to leave the English-speaking audience hanging.

I look back over my last post, which I only wrote a few weeks ago, even though it feels like much longer. There was also a Diagonosis: Part Two, which I composed over and over again in my head. It was, in a nutshell, about the fact that Secondo was officially diagnosed with autism. It was about the kindness of friends and how the simplest of gestures made things better. I may post it later, but lately I’ve been thinking about how I left the audience hanging.

The thing is, por una parte, there’s Secondo.

Por otra parte, there’s Primo.

It is noon, and preschool is out. My mom has taken Primo out into the hallway, and I am shuffling around the classroom, waiting for his teachers to finish up so we can talk. I have been out of town for two weeks and they have already talked to my mother, and to P. But I have asked to talk to them because I am Primo’s mother, and I need to hear this for myself.

We sit around a table, the three of us. The chairs are tiny, and I remember them from when I was a student teacher in a kindergarten classroom. I learned to sit in them, but what I really remember is the bruises. I always had a line of bruises from the knees down, from all of the tiny furniture.

Primo doesn’t make eye contact, they say. He doesn’t talk. When we talk to him, he parrots back exactly what we’ve said. He doesn’t participate during circle time. He doesn’t even sit in the circle. He sits in that little red chair, behind the circle. He plays by himself on the playground. There’s another little boy who tries to play hide-and-seek with him, but Primo just wanders off, he’s not interested. You know, it’s fine that the knows all of his letters, but that’s not the only important thing.

We really think he needs to be evaluated.

We’re not saying this because of the issues you’ve had with your other son.

What they’re saying is not news to me, because I heard it from my mother and from P. But their tone is flat and defensive throughout, like they’re eager to get their grievances off their chest, and like they can’t believe they have to repeat this a third time. I can’t really remember what I say. I do remember telling them we’re wondering if we should leave him in preschool another month, and I ask for their opinion.

Well, one of them shrugs, he’s not disruptive.

And suddenly I feel the tears start to well up. I try to hold them back, because the fact that I’m starting to cry makes me mad. Not because I mind crying in front of others, necessarily, but because I have been bombarded by negative statements and this last one makes me realize that they have not said a single positive thing about my son. Nor have they shown a single shred of kindness, which would have made this so much easier to bear.

One of them points me in the direction of the tissues, and thanks to Snick’s comment on my last post, before I even reach for one I think, I’ll bet these tissues are FUCKING SCRATCHY, and I am right.

I leave the room, scratchy tissue in hand, and run into the director, who is happily chatting with my mom. It is obvious that neither one of them expected me to emerge in such a state. The director touches my shoulder and tells me I can call anytime, and I can tell she means it. She also sends me down the hall to talk to an education specialist who happened to be observing Primo’s classroom this morning. I tell her the story, give her some background information.

A week later, I am on the phone with someone from the county school system. She remembers who I am, which I find both comforting and depressing. I schedule an evaluation for Primo. And I can’t believe we’re doing this again.