My Alternate Universe

A lot of people ask me what I think about vaccinations and autism (since I work in the field...) and usually I assure them that I'm a Behaviorist, that I can analyze and shape a kid's behavior, but I don't know a thing about Chemistry and Neurology and if giving someone a shot can cook their brains better than scrambled eggs.
Working in the field and listening to a lot of frantic moms, I went through a brief phase of feeling like I wasn't going to vaccinate my children. Then one event changed my mind. It's going to sound totally tacky and weird... get ready... I was watching the HBO series "John Adams" with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney, and there's an episode where John's away doing something that politicians do, leaving Abigail alone with the kids during a smallpox outbreak. So, strong-willed Abigail calls up the doctor and strong-arms him into vaccinating her family against smallpox- a procedure which at the time was highly controversial. The scene was pretty gross, with the doctor scraping this oozing puss... I'll stop there. Abigail effectively saved her family. What touched me about that scene was how brave Abigail had to be to do something that scared her so badly, but that ended up saving her family. And we have the luxury of doing that for every person in our country, with years of experience and science to understand how and why it works.
This morning I was reading a blog that I really enjoy (dooce - go there and scroll down to the Vaccination post) and my views are almost perfectly reflected by the author's views. I'm going to vaccinate my children, though maybe I'll space the shots out a little more so that they aren't getting 5 immunizations in one visit. But I'm going to do it, so that my kids don't get yellow fever in Africa and kill half of the Elementary school. Oh, and vaccinations don't cause autism.

Saturday was quite a busy day for me! I was all over the place seeing all sorts of people, and it was a blast.
***
In the morning, I had a session with my client in Agoura Hills. Her house is always fun for me to be in, because there are 8 kids (3 with autism) and the place is tingling with excitement. Her mom is also really cool, so during down time I love to chat with her. All of the kids want to play when the tutors come over... apparently my client cries if her brother and sister have sessions and she doesn't. It's funny to me, because sometimes she wants me to leave her alone once I'm there. But other times, like on a previous Saturday, she BEGGED me to sleep over, "please please please please!"
Anyway, Saturday we were sitting at the breakfast table, and my client's little sister was demanding that her breakfast show up miraculously on her plate NOW. When mom explained that it was still in the oven, she said "When I grow up, I'm not going to buy an oven!!!!" She's 6 and still can't say her 'R's, which made it that much funnier. We laughed pretty hard.
Then we did some fall-inspired Arts & Crafts, and the same sister made this lovely rendition of me. I'm happy, and I have lips! I'd say it's a pretty good likeness.

It's amazing how kids learn to draw, and what they incorporate to make their own style. By age 6, they've picked up on what their images are supposed to look like -- hair, hands with 5 fingers, flowers are pink and leaves are green. But my client's older sister, one of the other autistic children in the family, has a style all her own. She's much more severe than my client -- she's 4 years older, but has to be coaxed to make any intelligible words; otherwise she shrieks like a bird of prey when she's excited or mad. Like many people diagnosed with autism, however, she has an uncanny ability.
It's almost impossible to see in this picture because of the sun shining on the concrete, but this little gal can draw like nobody's business. I had the girls using sidewalk chalk to encourage interactive play, fine motor skills, colors, drawing, etc., and of course big sister was invited. Well, I did not expect what I saw! She just busted out with these amazing drawings around the poolside. They're very modern in style, women with understated facial features and overstated arms and torsos. I was so taken aback -- I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Honestly, done in watercolors in vivid colors, I would buy these in a gallery. Wow.
***
After work I popped into the Palmer's house in Agoura Hills to visit my Uncle Lance and his 3 little munchkins, who I've blogged about in the past. They all had neon-colored hair from Hudson's soccer game, and they were getting ready for the beach, so I didn't stay long. Nonetheless, I managed to get a little video of Hudson's showing off his newest tat -- a Boston Red Sox strip I brought over that his dad so deftly applied. What a guy.

**
After an uplifting and non-controversial Relief Society Broadcast, I hopped over to Whitney Low's in Simi for her 23rd Birthday Party! I reminisced in the car about my funniest birthday present in June... $50 in singles in a gift bag from my Grandma Palmer. And the only person who thought it was funnier than me: her. Thanks Marilyn, for being in my life :) Anyway, at Whitney's party -- where Whitney was the belle of the ball in a lovely coral anthropologie dress that made me green with envy -- I met lots of new people who I'll probably never see again, and I saw my old friend Gustavo Soares! I met Goose through Whitney at BYU several years ago, and I quickly learned to associate him with good humor and good times. There have been drag races down 9th east, spur of the moment water polo games, and of course the notorious butt shaving incidents. Goose, however, being a young gentlemen, left us to serve a mission in BOSTON! He's Brazilian, so he was called Portuguese speaking and spent time getting to know lots of my old friends. Well, Goose is back from those 2 years of spreading the good word, and it was so good to see him! Whitney's parents made a killer dinner for the party, and it was an evening well spent. Happy Birthday Whitney!

So let's talk about work. Some people feel dread when it comes to waking up Monday mornings, trudging into the office slurping down a hurried cup o' Joe, wishing they were still warm under the covers.
Not me.
I love getting up to go to the Infant/Toddler program in the mornings, even if I have to leave my house before 7:30am! And I'm here to share an anecdote as to why my job rocks, and it may just make you question your personal career paths.
Every morning after a few minutes of supervised play, and then at the end of the day before sending the kids home, we have 15 minutes of "Circle Time." Sounds simple enough to anyone who went to preschool, but our circle time is a little different. The kids have to have an adult hovering over them at all times to prevent the kind of shenanigans that autistic toddlers try to run on us. They try to jump out of their chairs to do this that or the other thing, or in the case of this morning, one of them tackled me to kiss my arm. But I digress, so here's the long-awaited, fabulous story.
We have one little guy (who I'll refer to by his cartoon alias Johnny Bravo, as to the company privacy policy) who picks Old McDonald to sing twice a day, every day. Heck, sometimes when we're not even doing circle time the kid will run over to where we keep the picture icons and demand to sing his song. Now, his preferences don't end there. We have these knit finger puppets (that look identical to the ones I found on the internet, here)
and every single time Johnny Bravo chooses the pig. You see, each kid gets to choose an animal from the pile to sing about. So Johnny Bravo pulls the pig, screams "pig!" and then proceeds to oink in sheer glee every day, twice a day.
Today, the lead tech in charge of circle time had a great idea. It confused the kids, but it proved for some pretty intense adult laughter! You see, we have some reject finger puppets that don't really work for Old McDonald, and we usually skip them. But the teacher is on vacation this week, and we decided to do something sneaky. So here are the animal options we gave the kids: Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a... (snowman, snail, toucan, octopus, chupacabara, brontosaurus) E-I-E-I-O. The funniest thing about the Island of Misfit Toys remix of our song wasn't the animal choices, but our attempt to make up the noises that these animals make. It wasn't premeditated, so it was a cacophony of strange sounds... if you're reading this alone, or in the privacy of your own home, try to make their noise out loud. TRY not to laugh.
Verily, a chupacabra is a mythical creature and there's a lot of controversy as to what the thing looks like. We didn't have a chupacabra, we had a lizard. But, lizard is boring. So chupacabra it is. In case you were wondering, this is what google makes of the chupacabra:
GORGEOUS.

So yesterday was a day of successes for me! In the morning, I drove up to my office in Valencia to take Part II of my training test. On Thursday we took the written portion, and then were dismissed to stew in fear of failure at home until the oral portion the next morning. I got in there right on time, and my trainer Mario said that I had been particularly fabulous on the test: one other guy and I had passed with flying colors, and had been especially thorough and had kicked the hard parts' butts. So that was a fist-bump with my ego! Anyway, I took the oral part with the Program Manager pretending to be my autistic student. I had to run a lesson with her and correct a behavior problem, so I did! I definitely felt the pressure, I mean here's the Program Manager testing me, scrutinizing my every move! But it went well, and I got even more praise from Mari-izz-o for using several different disciplinary methods. Go me, fist-bump again. Or, as Ms. LaRoche used to have us do in the 1st grade, give myself a pat on the back :)
I got my schedule right then and there, and I had my first real live session yesterday! So I went to this little lady's house (I can't give any specifics, or I could be prosecuted.) She's almost 8, but has the verbal capacity of a 2 or 3 year-old. But she can read, and she's very sweet and has almost no behavior problems. I think she's going to be a really good first case, since she's pretty easy. I'm so excited! I was 45 minutes late to the house because their street has three segments separated by dead-ends, but it was cool... the Field Trainer didn't seem too upset, and it all worked out well. I'm the bomb, which everyone already knew, but... pat on the back Lauren!!!