Tragic Sandwich

Tag: Baguette

  • Don’t Panic, It’s Just Autism

    So as I’ve discussed, Baguette has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We’ve been trying to navigate the process of working with the local school district, insurance, and a psychological agency to get her the services that she needs.

    This is taking much longer than I think it should.

    Part of this is because we are overwhelmed by it. There is always more paperwork–we still haven’t finished the intake form for the regional center. There are so many different service providers. And there is insurance.

    The agency did an evaluation in September. We had all hoped that they would be able to start treatment this month. But the insurance authorization just came through this week. Thanks, insurance.

    And in case that isn’t enough fun, keep in mind that we will have to change insurance companies in January, because our employer is going to stop offering our current plan. (This is not an Affordable Care Act thing. This is the routine “we’ll no longer offer that plan” thing. It’s irritating, no matter why it’s happening.) Will we have to go through authorization again? I suspect so. Will Baguette’s care be interrupted? I freaking hope not.

    Authorization also means that we will be changing the kind of support we’ve been providing in Baguette’s classroom. For most of the past year, she’s had a “shadow” who gives her help in the classroom for part of the day. This is not covered by insurance. But when we start Applied Behavioral Therapy (ABA), there shouldn’t be a need for the shadow. Which will mean that we will be spending less on this–although we will still have co-pays for ABA–but also means that we will have to tell someone who’s been doing exactly what we asked her to that her services are no longer needed.

    All of us, including the shadow, knew that this day would come, and indeed that it was a goal. That doesn’t make it easier.

    And it looks like part of the ABA will take place at preschool, and part will take place at our home, on a mix of evenings and the weekend. So I’ll need to figure out how to modify my work schedule, which offers a variety of challenges as well. I am particularly anxious about this.

    It’s a lot. And it’s not going to be easy. But the idea is that it will help Baguette, and that makes it worthwhile.

    I just think “worthwhile” should come with less paperwork.

  • Fine Dining at Bargain Prices

    You know that thing? The one where the people you love make your eyes roll extra hard?

    Yesterday afternoon, my father-in-law calls to ask if we want to join them for dinner. “It’s too hot to eat here,” he says, “So we can go out.”

    To Burger King.

    Because they have coupons.

    Mr. Sandwich’s family is made up entirely of fitness nuts. His dad will comment on someone’s BMI and speculate on their resultant health at the drop of a hat. He once told me that he likes to offer ice cream bars as dessert, because a guest is less likely to ask for seconds.

    At the same time, a coupon is a coupon. As Mr. Sandwich says, “My father has always had an appetite for a deal.”

    Since we in fact have nothing planned for dinner, we take Baguette to the pool and then head across town (Again, we have been invited across town. To Burger King.) I call to let them know we’re en route, and Mr. Sandwich’s mother is delighted. She calls to Mr. Sandwich’s father to get out from under the car, which he is fixing.

    Also, she hangs up just as I say, “We’ll meet you there.” So I call her back a few minutes later, and that turns out to be a good move, because she is startled that we are not coming by the house and then all driving over together.

    I do not want to get Baguette in and out of the car an additional time. We say we will meet them at Burger King, and she tells me the intersection and says, “It’s next to the Subway and across from the McDonald’s.”

    She also instructs me, “Don’t order until we get there. We have the coupons.”

    McDonald’s is about two miles from their house, and is where they get “Senior Coffee” after their morning run. (My in-laws are in their late 70s and win their age divisions in races, so of course they run to McDonald’s).

    McDonald’s is also home to the Big ‘n’ Tasty, which, as my father-in-law is fond of saying, is “just as good as In-n-Out.”

    NO. NO, IT IS NOT.

    We pull into the parking lot, and agree that while we may be waiting to order, we are not waiting to order for Baguette, who is the most likely of us to start screaming when she gets hungry. She screams, “Fash! Faaaaaash!” This means “hungry,” except for when it means something else, and I don’t know why either of those things is the case.

    So we order chicken nuggets, fries, and milk for Baguette, who in short order bumps her milk and spills it on her fries, but thankfully is not upset by this turn of events, possibly because there are chicken nuggets to be had.

    The woman at the counter says, “Is that all?” I answer, “We’re waiting for my in-laws” and think better of adding, “They have coupons!” because the woman at the counter seems very nice, and it’s not her fault that my in-laws are, um, extra quirky. So while I probably had a completely insane expression on my face, at least I didn’t say anything that went along with that.

    I feel even better about it when my in-laws arrive, and it turns out that they are regulars at this Burger King. Apparently there is more than one place to go for Senior Coffee, and they come here so often that the staff gives them gifts.

    Fortunately my father-in-law realizes that he cannot reasonably require us to confine our choices to the remaining unused coupons in his coupon book, and we order food that we suppose we’ll be okay with, because neither of us particularly likes Burger King, with or without coupons.

    And it was, just as we anticipated, totally mediocre. It wasn’t bad–although I didn’t feel good afterward–it was just meh.

    But it did remind me that I never wrote the final post about my Cheeseburger Challenge. So let me just skip to the end: Burger King has an edible small cheeseburger. Del Taco, a late entrant, turns out to do reasonably well (although theirs is priced a little higher). The winner, such as it is–and just as I thought it would be–is Wendy’s.

    Based on how icky I felt after last night’s meal, though (and not just last night’s, but the last several fast-food meals), I think my next fast-food adventures will focus on a Salad Challenge.

    I just need to come up with a better name for it.

  • Little Talks

    Mr. Sandwich wrote this on Monday, and we both wanted to share it here.

    Last week we got the news we had been both expecting and dreading. Baguette was formally diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This was not a complete surprise, we had been looking at symptoms and ‘benchmarks’ to one degree or another for at least a year. There was speech therapy, there were visits with the principal at daycare about her behavior and class integration issues, of potty training, and the need for her to have further help. To the friends I’ve talked about it with, I have likened it to a punch that you can see coming. You can brace for it, but you’re still going to feel it.

    So now we have a doctor’s diagnosis. We have a downloaded packet of steps to follow and paths to pursue. As I read my packet I see that I can expect to go through the stages of grief, which I don’t know if I am, or I don’t know if I started months ago when it became so clear that Baguette was different from her peers. I’ve talked with friends whose children are affected too. I’ve felt at alternating times that I am dizzy and steady, even keeled and bowled over. Today Baguette bowled me over, and I haven’t quite gotten up yet.

    I picked her up from daycare late and was rushing to the pool. We’ve noticed how she seems to respond positively to the water, both with speech and behavior and for the past several weeks I’ve been trying to get her into the pool every day. When I buckled her into the carseat she asked for her Sesame Street CD like she always does, but that was in the other car, so all I could do was turn on the radio for the 3-minute drive to the park pool. Of Monsters and Men’s “Little Talks” was playing on the radio and we heard most of that by the time we hit the parking lot. I was running late, and we would only have 12 minutes worth of swimming so I was hustling as fast as I could. As I scooped up Baguette, she was reciting to me. She frequently recites, she doesn’t speak directly, she reiterates whole passages, whole verses of books and songs she knows and keeps as her friends and repeats them to me and Mommy and the World. While I was initially distracted as I fast-marched through the parking lot, she reached out and grabbed my face to turn me towards her and I heard clearly what she was reciting.

    “Listen word I say. Hey. Scream sound same. Hey. Truth vary. Ship carry. Safe shore.”

    She was repeating to me the lyrics she had heard on the radio just moments before. She’s heard that song played before, but not recently, and even if she did I’m not sure I’d expect any three-year-old to mimic lyrics like that. For a brief moment I was struck dumbfounded in the parking lot, trapped between wanting to laugh and congratulate her on her razor-sharp retention and cry over the fact that she couldn’t tell me things other little girls can. The fact that the lyrics are about a woman whose mind is at war with her and the man who still loves her despite this is just the brass wrapped around these particular knuckles. I didn’t have time to process the moment completely. She had started singing “The Farmer in the Dell” and time was ticking away. We only had a few minutes to get in the pool and that was the reason why we were there, for her benefit, not mine.

    Hours have passed now and I can’t shake that refrain she recited to me. I can’t help but think that she was trying to tell me how the wheels in her mind were turning, how she needed me to communicate to her, how she hears the world. “Don’t listen to a word I say. (Hey) The screams all sound the same. (Hey) Though the Truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.” That song will never be the same for me. Nothing will ever be the same.

  • Diagnosis: Person

    A hundred years ago–okay, in January–I wrote about our efforts to help Baguette with her speech delay. I was going to write more. I didn’t, really.

    It’s not that I was avoiding the subject, it’s that I didn’t really know what to say about it.

    Since January, we’ve eliminated the idea of thrice-weekly occupational therapy appointments; while she does have some sensory-seeking characteristics, we don’t see indicators of the Sensory Processing Disorder that the therapist suspected.

    We’ve tried–and failed–to get Baguette’s hearing tested (she would not cooperate with the protocol). We’ve also determined that if Baguette really had a hearing problem, she wouldn’t hear as well as she does, and she wouldn’t be able to memorize what she hears as well as she does. So we’ll probably try the testing again at some point, but we don’t think it’s a priority.

    We had an in-network evaluation with a speech therapist, who recommended twice-weekly sessions that were denied by the insurance company. This is both infuriating and not a big deal, because we were happy with our speech therapist and could not have gotten Baguette to the location that the insurance company would have insisted on.

    We’ve continued–mostly, Mr. Sandwich has continued–her twice-weekly speech therapy and music therapy sessions. Once a week the speech therapist comes to school, and once a week Baguette goes to the therapist’s office.

    We’ve hired a “shadow,” who helps Baguette with classroom activities, encourages her to look at and speak to her classmates, reinforces the activities introduces by the speech therapist, and tries and tries and tries to help her with potty training.

    And we went to a developmental pediatrician. He talked to us and observed Baguette for an hour, and sent us home with a form for us and a form for the teacher and a request to take video of Baguette in class, to see how she interacts with other children.

    At the first meeting, he said that he couldn’t yet diagnose her with Autism Spectrum Disorder, but he saw things that might indicate it. At the second meeting–last week–he did issue that diagnosis.

    This is not a surprise to me. My reading to date has been admittedly spotty, but it seems to fit. And there are a lot of things that now connect–the sleep challenges, the picky eating, etc.

    But at the same time, I recognize that a lot of those things are also simply Baguette. She is a happy, funny, intense, independent, adventurous, STUBBORN little girl who chooses whether to comply. And she has autism.

    How much is autism, and how much is her personality? I’m not sure they can really be separated. But I do know that autism is not the only thing that makes her who she is. It is part of who she is, just as many things are.

    So as we now embark on the process of setting up an Applied Behavioral Analysis program for her, I want to pay close attention to what we’re actually working on: helping her develop skills that will give her greater flexibility in the world and throughout her life.

    But I also think she’s perfect just as she is, and I want her to be the Baguettiest Baguette she can possibly be.

  • Mom-Friendly Meals

    Recently, some of my friends have said, “You really seem to have this meal-planning thing down. What’s your secret?”

    I do not have the meal-planning thing down. My secret is that I have a child who is slightly older than their child.

    I think there are a lot of us in this boat. We think, “That person over there is doing this much better than I am.” And the truth is, they’re just working with different circumstances.

    One of my college friends has a daughter about two months older than Baguette. She also has an older child and a stepchild. And when her daughter was a baby, every night this friend would post on Facebook about some amazing meal she was making her family for dinner.

    Now, I know her. She wasn’t doing this to brag about how much better she was at parenting. She was doing it to show that it could be done–that often when you feel overwhelmed, it’s in your head. She wasn’t boasting, she was demonstrating.

    But what I couldn’t figure out was this: how was she managing it? Like me, she had a full-time job outside of the home. Like me, she had an infant. Unlike me, she had two other children. So how was she pulling off this amazing feat?

    As it turns out, she has a shorter commute. Like, a lot shorter. Mine is an hour each way. Hers is more like 15 minutes.

    See what I mean? Different circumstances.

    And my own circumstances have changed. Looking back, I’m not really sure what I ate when Baguette was a baby. I cooked for her, but I don’t remember what I made for myself. After a while, I found that I could use the crock pot on the weekends to make a big batch of something. That counted as cooking.

    slow cooker
    I no longer use the slow cooker for oatmeal, though.

    More recently, I’ve been able to use the stove a little. Last night I made shrimp with bell peppers and zucchini in Red Thai Curry Sauce, served over quinoa. I’m having leftovers for lunch.

    I have no idea what’s for dinner tonight.

    Again, I think there are a lot of us in this boat. So I’m starting an occasional series called “Mom-Friendly Meals.” I’m going to write about what I cook, how I choose recipes, what tools I use, how I find ingredients, and anything else that comes to mind. You can follow me on Twitter at @tragicsandwich; I’ll be using the hashtag #momfriendlymeals for these posts.

    One thing to keep in mind: These are mom-friendly recipes. At our house, we all eat different things. Baguette is going through a picky stage, and while we’re trying to move her through that, I’m not going to pretend that she ate the Thai curry with me. And Mr. Sandwich has his own palate, and tends to do his own cooking. So our kitchen is very busy, but we’ve finally started eating together as a family.

    Now we just have to clean off the rest of the kitchen table.

  • What Baguette Is Saying These Days

    Here are a few things we’re likely to hear from Baguette right now:

    • “I want listen to Pajanimals music.”
    • “I want iPad, please.”
    • “That wunnerfull!” (most likely to be heard just after she jumps into the pool and surfaces)

    And the kicker:

    • “I can’t sleeping!”

    We knowing, Baguette. We knowing.

  • Things I’m Loving

    1) Hot Tot

    Hot Tot brand shampoo and conditioner

    This shampoo and conditioner combo continues to deliver for Baguette’s hair.

    2) Parents

    ParentsJuly2013_cover

    The last few months, this magazine has had at least one article that has really spoken to us.

    3) Steel-cut oats

    John McCann's Steel Cut Oats

    These things are amazing. Much better texture than the regular ones, although I suspect they won’t work as well for cookies.

    4) And, of course, Baguette

    I know I’m her mom and therefore biased, but she is cute as beans.

    Photo of oats by urbanlatinfemale, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • Hey, Remember Me?

    Wow, it’s been a week and a half since I last posted anything. That’s a long time in Blog World.

    The reason is that I’ve been sick. I started feeling bad last Tuesday, and on Wednesday I had what was clearly a sinus infection, complete with monstrous headache. Naturally, I went to work.

    In the afternoon, I went to see my doctor, who said that, yes, I had a sinus infection, and did my right ear hurt? Because I also had an outer ear infection. So I walked away with prescriptions for an antibiotic and eardrops, and a sample of a nasal spray that kind of scares me–and requires pre-qualification for a lowered co-pay.

    Thursday I stayed home sick. I watched Thor. It was disappointing because it wasn’t even remotely better than I expected it to be. Also, it failed to explain much about Loki’s mindset in The Avengers, which was the whole reason I watched it. (Seriously, what is his deal? He clearly has power, but he gives up really easily a lot of the time. Is he just lazy? And what on earth happened to the quality of Kenneth Branagh’s directing? Because he started with the ability to do this.)

    Friday I went to work, and then at 11:30 I went home.

    Saturday, Baguette didn’t nap. On Sunday, she did, but then she played with the iPad too late in the evening (it turns out) and was up chattering and singing until after midnight. (Our recent adventures with the iPad are worth their own post.)

    Monday I went back to work and also got my doctor to call in a new prescription for antibiotics, because the first one wasn’t working that well. Certainly not as well as it should have been five days in. And by the end of the day my voice was so raspy, I wasn’t sure if I’d have one at all in the morning.

    But I did, mostly, and I can tell that the new antibiotic is slowly, slowly working better. Although I noticed a difference yesterday and today it seems to have plateaued, so I don’t know. It definitely isn’t fast enough.

    And all of this is why I haven’t been blogging. But I want to, so hopefully next time I’ll have something more interesting to say.

  • My Week, as Told by Twitter

    EggSnob

    Geoguessr

    BangladeshFactory

    Moustaches

    Vacuum

    BaguetteTwitter

    StarTrek

    BruisedToe

    For the record, Mr. Sandwich saved us all from the babbling, screaming monster.

  • You Can’t Win Them All

    Yesterday was a Day of Tantrums.

    It didn’t start out that way. Baguette woke up happy, because we were all there. Mr. Sandwich, who normally leaves at 6:00, was home to take care of some car repairs. I was about to get up; my alarm went off about two minutes after Baguette woke. There were snuggles and giggles and more snuggles.

    She did not want to get up and go in the living room with me; she wanted to stay and snuggle. But eventually I needed her to get up, and managed to relocate her. Getting her dressed, on the other hand, was a different matter.

    First, she didn’t want to take off her pajamas. Putting on pants wasn’t a problem, but she raged against the first two shirts I offered her, throwing them across the room. All of this was accompanied by screams.

    She screamed at me when I changed clothes, retrieving my pajamas in an attempt to put them back on me.

    And then, once we got to her school, she ran up to sit next to a little boy and play with the toys he had out.

    Back home, she wanted Play-Doh–as she always does, these days–but she screamed rather than say “please,” and then she screamed instead of saying “sorry.” So the Play-Doh went away.

    Later, she found another container of Play-Doh. Rolling it flat led to screaming. Packing it into a ball, or returning it to the container? More screaming. I handed her a wooden block in the shape of a cylinder so she could roll it out herself. She screamed as she rolled, tears streaming down her face.

    She couldn’t tell her what was making her so angry and upset, no matter how we asked. Instead, she just screamed. So that Play-Doh went away.

    Finally, dinner calmed her down. And you’d think all that screaming would wear a tiny body out, but no. She was up until nearly 10.

    Although on the plus side, she slept the whole night through. Can we call that a win? I’m having trouble answering that question.

    can't talk, having a tantrum

    Photo by Photos by Mavis, via Flickr. Creative Commons.