So Far, So Good

The email from his teacher today:

[Sunny] had a pretty good day today.  He was excited and anxious to share things with the rest of the class.  We did have to refocus him a number of times - but I think part of that was the excitement of being back.  [Sunny] did not get angry or overly frustrated today over anything. 
He did say that his throat was bothering him and asked to go home frequently in the morning (but then appeared to be doing fine in between times so we were hesitant to send him to the office).

Just the usual ADHD and hypochondria, that's all.  So far, so good.  We're hoping he can keep it up through the week.

ETA: Hypochondria and ADHD aren't a bad combination, because the ADHD really lessens the effect of the hypochondria.  If he didn't have such a short attention span, he might obsess endlessly over his imagined symptoms.  As it is, he forgets about his terrible potential illnesses as soon as he sees something shiny, and they're pretty easy to manage.

- "Mom, I have a bump on my wrist!" "Mom, look at this bruise!" "Mom, my head hurts!"

- "Oh no! I'm sorry you're feeling bad. I'd better take you to bed so you can lie down for a bit."

- "Actually... I'm feeling better! Don't worry! I'll be OK! I'm going outside to play on my pogo stick now!"

Tonight, he was complaining that there was something blocking his nose, and if he took it out, new stuff would block up his nose.  Guy told him, "that's called 'boogers', and they're a lifelong condition.  I've been suffering from them all my life."

The Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Sunny is down to 25% of the dosage of his old med.  Today, he's going off it completely.  It's also the first day of school.

New Year's Eve, he had a monster fit. It was probably one of the more unpleasant New Year's Eves I've ever had in my entire life.  But since then, now that the new med and the old med are working out of his system, he seems to have improved his outlook.  He isn't putting on his "pick a fight" face. He seems happier and less angry.

The other night, when he I told him we couldn't visit my cousin at the clinic until Wednesday, he burst into tears.  He really misses her and worries about her. But after we hugged him and comforted him, he stopped crying, instead of escalating to screaming.

Later that night, Guy and Sunny were playing Yahtzee together. Sunny was throwing around the dice too wildly and Guy warned him to stop.  On his last throw one die flew off into a corner of the room.  Guy told him to go look for it and explained (in a calm voice) that the consequence if he didn't find the die was that they wouldn't be able to play Yahtzee anymore.  Sunny complained a bit but kept looking for the die.  Eventually, they found it.

Later, Guy told me, "Something really weird is happening.  I was bracing myself because I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen.  Sunny would throw the rest of the dice at me and scream that I was ruining his day. Then you were going to have to step in, and hold him down, and he would try to bite and hit you while calling us "&%$#@ *^%$ ^&$#@!" until he got hoarse. Meanwhile I'd be down in the basement office pounding my head against the wall and threatening to kill myself.  But then... none of that happened. What's going on?"

We're both cautiously optimistic.  I think the old med had both a negative and positive effect on Sunny.  Perhaps the positive used to outweigh the negative, but now it's the other way around, so taking him off is going to be the best thing.  We've had a six-month honeymoon, then a year of intermittent raging.  Maybe we're ready to move to a new stage now?  Or, he might have gotten tired of being angry on his own.

The real test is how he does in school this week. Towards the end of the year, his behavior was getting worse. We had a special conference to discuss problems with pushing other kids, throwing, and one incident where he slapped a crayon out of his teacher's hands.  Whereas his angry, physical episodes had been only 1-2 a day at the beginning of the second grade, they'd increased to 3-4 by the end of the year.  That was one of the reasons we considered the disastrous med change in the first place.  But maybe he'll be able to manage his behavior the same, or better, with no meds at all.  I guess I'll find out soon.

We're also lowering our expectations for him a little bit in the area of being alone. We're not expecting him to play "alone" at all, even for 10-15 minutes. We switch off so that one of us is always doing something with him, or else letting him play chess and board games on the computer.  He'd prefer to play the more high stimulation games at places like Lego.com, but the chess game is a good compromise.  They don't wind him up and make him as agitated as the other games.

Science Question

Sunny asked me a great science question today.

"Mom, is a speeding bullet faster than the speed of light?"

"Nope. Nothing is faster than the speed of light.  Light is the fastest thing possible."

"But what if you shot a lightbulb out of a gun?"

"Umm... the light wouldn't go any faster." (I had to think for a second there)

A Naked Picture for the New Year

That's me, around this time of year, having a nice tubby!

Happy New Year!

Med Change Failure

It's been 11 days since the med change.  The psychiatrist gave us a schedule which included a quick ramping up of the new med (the anticonvulsive) and a slow ramping down of the old med (the atypical antipsychotic). For the last 3.5 days we've been at 100% new med 50% old med.  It is NOT working.

- Sunny started having abdominal pains where he says "my waist hurts!"  It was probably gas and intestinal discomfort.  We started giving him some fiber pills and that seemed to help a lot.  We were hoping this symptom was just a temporary one that would go away when his body became adjusted to the new levels.

- He used to bedwet 1-2 times a week, now it's almost every night.  He's also been spot-wetting during the day, which used to be a fairly rare occurrence.

 - He became much more irritable and oppositional.  These last few days, it's been at least a fit every day, sometimes two. He jumps more quickly to accusing us of wanting to hurt him.  For example, when I said he had to wait until after dinner to eat a chocolate-covered pretzel, immediately, it was because I "never wanted him to have nice things, ever".

- This morning Sunny had hives all over his face and chest.  He was miserable. I gave him a benadryl. A rash is one of the rarer side effects of the anticonvulsive.

The rash sealed this. We're taking him off the new med right away. Not even one pill more. I just called and left a message with the psychiatrist.

Our only question now is whether to try and take him off the old med entirely now that we're at the halfway point. That way we could check his baseline. I have a feeling that he really needs his old med in order to regulate his emotions, and that if we raised his levels, he'd be able to regulate them even better. But then he might start drooling and ticcing because of the side effect profile.

UPDATE: The psychiatrist was out for the holidays but he just called me back shortly after I left a message on his answering service. He said we should stop the new med entirely and could go right back to the full dosage of the old med.  We'll make an appointment in a month, which should be enough time for the new med to clear his body entirely.

Fastfeet calling Coolfeet

I bought Sunny a set of fairly powerful walkie-talkies.  It's proven to be one of his favorites among the many presents he got today.  My cousin told him he needed a "handle", so he quickly decided to call himself "Fastfeet". I'm "Coolfeet". Dad is "Homebase". 

Sunny had a great time today running around outside, with my cousin's friend, testing the range of the radios, sending back various reports and yelling stuff like "THIS IS FASTFEET REPORTING ON POLICE CAR ACTIVITY".  We're still working on explaining that yelling very loudly into the walkie-talkie does not result in higher comprehension.

It's a great tech toy.  Aside from filing reports, he also uses it to pretend that he's fighting off alien invaders.  He does this from the next room, so we could really hear him without the walkie-talkie, but the walkie-talkie makes everything ten times as exciting and dramatic.

Christmas Morning On My Own Thinking about Problems

I'm spending this morning by myself, doing almost nothing, which is a pretty relaxing break. Later, we're going to meet up again at my mom's house to open most of our presents. Sunny and Guy drove to Sunny's sister's house. 

Guy just called to tell me that Sunny's little cousin is reenacting scenes from Scarface with her new Nerf gun.  Every time I hear another story like that it just boggles my mind. His cousin is 8 years old and she's watching Scarface and Saw and playing Grand Theft Auto.  It's lucky she's smart, sophisticated and has a great sense of humor, so I think she's able to keep a critical distance from all the mind-numbing media ultraviolence.

I tried to buy her an extra present for today -- a Tiana doll, since I know she would love one -- but of course all the stores around here were totally sold out of them. I'm about to order one online.

Now that I have some space to think, I'm calming down about the information I received a few days ago.  The "Merry Christmas, your son and his brother are meth-exposed!" message. I appreciate the kind comments on my last post.

I'm worried about the stigma on Sunny's behalf.  He already faces stigma for being adopted from foster care. We're open about that, because he's open about that. It's a trade-off between stigma and shame. If you don't hide something, people will pre-judge you negatively. But if you hide it, or are encouraged to hide it, you'll grow to be ashamed of something you shouldn't be ashamed of.

I feel I can be open in real life about his ADHD. It's such a commonly discussed topic. I can easily put it in a non-adoption context, since I grew up having a cousin with ADHD.  I'm going to go on telling people Sunny has ADHD.  The alternative is to say "We think he has prenatal meth exposure, which led to brain development issues including a set of behaviors which happens to include many of the same behaviors as ADHD".

But it's really not genetic ADHD. We already know that ADHD meds don't work on him well, or upset him emotionally to the point where he can't take them.  Many of his behaviors are nowhere near as severe as my cousin's were.

The scariest behavior that Sunny has -- and this scares me even more than the rages sometimes -- is his inability to be alone.  He cannot even put on his pajamas alone by himself.  He'll run out naked into the hallway putting on his pajamas so that he won't be alone by himself in the bedroom even for half a minute. It's not about attachment -- if we're not there, another adult or child  will do for an audience -- and I doubt it has anything to do with a particular past traumatic event.  He just cannot be alone with his thoughts.

We quickly realized that time-outs were pointless for Sunny, and I wish we had never tried them at all.  The idea behind a time-out is to calm yourself down, but they had the opposite effect on Sunny.  When he had time-outs, he would hurl himself against the door, beg, plead, sob, scream himself hoarse, "MOM DAD PLEASE SAY SOMETHING".

I think that being in that rage and panic state is actually much more comfortable for Sunny than being alone with his thoughts. Rages, in part, are a defensive reaction against being alone.  If he rages and panics, people will pay attention to him, and he won't be alone.  Because he can't stand to be alone, he finds it hard to calm himself down.  Usually, when people get mad, they storm off, which is often a smart tactic. Storming off means removing yourself from the presence of the person who is enraging you, and giving yourself a space to calm down, hopefully to come back later for a cooler discussion.  But when Sunny storms off, he hits the wall of being alone, snaps back like a rubber band, turns 180 degrees and comes back into the enraging presence, still enraged.  When he storms off, his storm-right-back line is about 20 feet indoors, 40 feet outdoors.

I think that his fear of being alone is very deep-seated, possibly related to the meth exposure, and I'm scared of what will happen to him as an adult if it never gets better.

1) people may be scared of him or avoid him because he won't seem to respect their physical boundaries in emotional situations.  If they draw away, he'll go into panic mode and follow them out of fear of being alone.
2) If he happens to fall in with anyone particularly manipulative -- perhaps a friend, group of friends, business partner, lover -- and they realize this tendency, they'll have him under their thumb.
3) He would be especially vulnerable to a cult or destructive religious group, which tend to create highly social environments in which people never have to be alone.

Balancing that out is the fact that he's very strong-willed and increasingly self-aware.  He isn't that vulnerable to peer pressure right now -- he's too strong-willed and argumentative -- and hopefully that will keep up as approaches the difficult teen years. So far, he's still very popular, but he's starting to get a reputation at school as a "crybaby", someone who can't control their emotions, someone who pushes when he's mad... I'm worried that if this escalates and kids are going to start leaving him alone, which would trigger a vicious cycle of panic, fear and more avoidance.  He's already become very sensitive about people thinking he's a crybaby.

Luckily, the kids at the school are very diverse, and some kids in his class have similar problem behaviors and some have different problem behaviors. He doesn't stand out as the only one, and the classroom has a strong focus on inclusion.

I wonder if a neurologist can address this in any way.  Maybe not.  Maybe we'll just have to keep working on giving him a lot of different tools that will help him handle the different symptoms of this base issue, because it's never going to go away or get better.

Also scary is the thought that when we get BB, he's going to go through the same things as Sunny.  His foster mom keeps trying to get the developmental infant people to examine BB, but they won't return her calls. Another effect of the budget crisis.


I'm definitely not going to talk to NN about this.  According to everything NN says, her daughter was practically a saint, and she died simply of a hard childbirth and a heart condition. I know she didn't really have a "heart condition". But why say anything to the contrary? NN will talk about the best parts of her daughter's life to Sunny, and the best parts are just as true as the worst parts, and if I died, that's the way I'd like to be remembered too. I don't want to talk about the meth exposure in front of NN, or anyone who isn't a professional or somehow involved in real life, because it's a huge issue with privacy.

At some point when he gets older I'll have to talk to Sunny about it.  That's not something I'm looking forward to either.  That means we have to move beyond "Your Mommy _ was very sick, which is why she couldn't take care of you, even though she wanted to" and into some of the uncomfortable details.

I feel like I worked through a lot of my stress just typing this up.

I'm going to move on and have a great Christmas Day.  I love watching Sunny open his presents, pumping his fist and syelling "YESS!"

I'm also heading somewhere warmer now.  The heating in our house failed for an unknown reason yesterday, and the probability of getting anyone to fix it this weekend is pretty low!  Luckily, we live in Georgia, not somewhere terrifying like New York or Michigan. So losing heating is an irritating inconvenience, not an emergency.

Happy Holidays! And a mini-update.

I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. 

Summing up: my cousin had another really bad breakdown, which we think is exacerbated by involvement in a particular local 12-step group that has mutated into something secretive, hierarchical and cultlike. Then we had an extended-family dispute over Thanksgiving that was very depressing to me, but I'm not going to talk about it any more.

I received some documentation on BB that states he was meth-exposed, which I half expected.  I did not expect that learning about BB's medical issues would give me so much insight into Sunny's issues. Really, it's like a lightbulb went off in my head. We don't have much medical info on Sunny beyond basic hospital stuff, because he didn't come into foster care until he was almost three.  But by all accounts, he had almost exactly the same issues as an infant that BB is having now.

On advice from Tubaville, I'm going to make an appointment with a neurologist ASAP.  This makes me really sad for Sunny. Much of his behavior must come from the fact that his brain was literally damaged by  destructive chemicals. Again, it's a possibility that was always in the back of mind, but I never really brought it to the front.  It's up there in the front right now, for sure. And unlike ADHD, which I feel confident about discussing widely, meth-exposure has a greater stigma, and so that raises huge privacy issues for me.  If this blog goes private for a while, that will probably be the reason why. On the other hand, this is really, incredibly important stuff for other parents to know about, and we stay ignorant when we don't listen AND talk... it's hard to say.

We're also halfway through a med change for Sunny.  We're switching from an atypical antipsychotic to an anticonvulsive. It's supposed to have less potential side effects, but Sunny has already been complaining of stomach pain, which is really worrying me. We're going to keep it up because so far the pains have been intermittent, haven't affected his appetite at all and there's a chance they'll go away as his body adjusts to the new medication.  He has a new diagnosis -- IED -- and if you know what that stands for, it's sort of a baloney diagnosis, but then again I take all these diagnoses with a grain of salt.

I'm mostly keeping up with my fitness plan. I'm getting burned out on Debbie Siebers but I still do Burn It Up a couple times a week and I'm exercising at least 5 days a week. 

So far Christmas is going OK.  I IMed my dad in Hawaii the other day and wished him a Mele Kalikimaka (Hawaiian for Merry Christmas).  I expected him to IM back something like "I don't believe in that garbage" or "you will burn in hellfire forever".  Instead, he wished me a Mele Kalikimaka right back!  He really has mellowed a lot in his old age.  Maybe one day he'll even buy me a present on Christmas, or let me buy one for him.

We're going to have a small Christmas, and my cousin is getting a day pass from her clinic to join us.  Sunny has been tracking Santa and making calculations about the chimney size.  I'm a bit stressed but staying in good spirits.

I'd also like to congratulate Thorn, who has a special visitor this season.

ARGH!

Non-adoption family drama is peaking. I'm extremely angry and upset about certain developments involving certain family members. I'll have to wait until things settle down a bit before posting a blog update, because I need some distance.

Search and Reunion - Thoughts on the Future

I just finished reading through this post at AdoptionTalk: "Find My Family" as Sensationalist Trash or Springboard for Discussion. It's about a new reality show that covers adoption search and reunion. The post discusses the potential reaction of children and what age would be most appropriate.

I had a lot of contradictory feelings when imagining whether Sunny should watch such a show at his current age.  It's somewhat remote from his experience and it might not affect him at all.  He knows his maternal bio family.  He lived with his mother.  He doesn't need to search or reunite, because we already have a relationship with them.  But his mother passed away... and because of that, watching other adoptees reunite might feel like a punch in the stomach and a reminder of what's been taken from him.  He's never going to see his mother again, at least walking this earth.  I know this hurts him.

Sunny talks about it, but not often.  We read a great book together once -- Everett Anderson's Goodbye -- a story about a son grieving for his dead father.  It made him cry, and he told me he never wanted to read the book again because he didn't want to cry like that again.  Every so often, he'll say "I miss Mommy __" or "I'll never get to see Mommy __ again."  I'll just pat him on the back and say "I know you do," and talk about maybe visiting her grave the next time we visit, if he's up for it.

On the other hand, in the future, it might be useful for him to know about other kinds of adoptee narratives.  Maybe the stories would fascinate him.  Maybe they would bore him, since they tend to lack dinosaurs, robots or explosions. 

Maybe these stories would make him think about his biological father... that's an area where I'm waiting (an active kind of waiting) for him to take the lead.  I know, from talking to more maternal relatives, that his father is not quite as unsafe as the record indicated. I'm not going to pick up the phone and call him out of the blue, but I'll remind Sunny when he gets older that we can set up contact with his father.

We're not at that stage yet.  We recently cleared a pretty important stage... he understands that his maternal uncle is his uncle and not his father, that his uncle is white and his father is black.  I think he really knew this, but he didn't want to know it, so he obfuscated.  He needed a lot of very gentle reminders.  About a year's worth.  Getting to see and play with his uncle on our latest visit finally clinched it. 

I don't think I'll be watching those shows myself.  I hate to say it, but the thought makes me too sad. I can take a little bit of these stories, but not in concentrated multimedia doses.  I would find myself thinking about my own lost relatives... the grandparents that died before I was born, whose deaths were inextricably linked to my father's adoption. 

I also think the cultural practice of closed adoption with sealed records is deeply unnatural, a historical anomaly, and will hopefully disappear soon.  In the future, we'll all have DNA fingerprints on file electronically (for good and for evil) and finding a relative will become just as easy as Googling... you'll just lick your iPhone or something and a list of everyone who shares your DNA will pop up.

Transgender Day of Remembrance Post

Usually I suck at blogging on significant days and anniversaries. But today, I'm in time to catch The Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people.

We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred-based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored. Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. This trend shows no sign of abating.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgender people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.

Here is the latest victim: Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, who was stabbed to death, then decapitated, dismembered, and burned in Puerto Rico this week.

I'm not sure if he was gay, transgender, somewhere in the middle, or both at the same time.  But the story makes it clear he was murdered for his gender expression.

I don't want to remove the focus of this day from transgender victims.  However, I have to do that, in order to stress that hatred and fear of transgender people makes all of our lives worse, when you really think about it.

Homophobia and/or transphobia (I think it's a continuum) affected me lightly when I was a girl. I didn't look like other girls around me because of my race. I was also tall, small-breasted and blocky. I got called a "lesbian" and a "dyke" quite a few times.  Once, someone even called me an "Elizabethan" which was awfully confusing. It shows that even when kids don't even know what these words mean, or how to pronounce them, they use them to hurt other kids and try to make them conform to gender standards.

Of course, I've been quite lucky since then.  Since I'm straight, I have a lot of economic privilege from being able to marry my husband and get tax breaks and discounts on a wide variety of things. And I've been mistaken for a man off and on, depending on how I was dressed and how I style my hair, but it never particularly bothered me, and I never had to pay a big social penalty for it.

That is, until one time I went to the Bahamas.  I didn't know it at the time -- I was blissfully unaware -- but many parts of the English-speaking Caribbean are hotbeds of hatred towards anyone who is not "gender-conforming".

I was in Nassau for two days en route to another location.  I dressed in my typical tropical travelling clothes.  Knee-length shorts, baggy long-sleeved cotton shirts, hat.  I like wearing these types of outfits because 1) they're comfortable in the heat 2) they protect my skin from the sun 3) they cover my body enough so I don't get too much unwanted male attention, so I can fly under the radar. 

I started feeling really nervous after only a few hours in Nassau. I was used to being stared at because of my race when I travel, but this just wasn't just curiosity, it was curiosity plus anger.  Bahamians were glaring at me. Women especially.  I'm tall, but a lot of these women were taller and bigger than me. I was in line at an ATM when a group of women pointed at me and broke into derisive laughter.  I didn't understand what was going on... until the time I was outside of a grocery store and women yelled at me "ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL! HA!" Then she sneered at me and moved off.

If I'd stayed in Nassau, I was probably putting myself at serious risk of a beat-down. Of course, I had the privilege of escaping that treatment if I had to... I wasn't particularly attached to my androgynous outfits.  I realized later that if I'd put on some lipstick and a halter top, that terrifying sense of constant physical menace would basically have evaporated.

As far as I've learned, although many English-speaking Caribbean countries have horrendous levels of violence towards LGBT people, it's not quite as bad in the Spanish-speaking countries, and in Haiti there's actually a pretty high level of cultural tolerance. I know about this now, because it affected me, and so I took an interest. But it's not just an interest for many other people... their very life can depend on it.

There are many ways in which hatred of transgender people is mainstreamed and made acceptable.  One way in which everyone should help is by making a pledge not to use gender expression for mockery.  For example, I'm going to try hard never to make fun of any woman, trans or otherwise, by saying they "look like a man". Casual stuff like this goes on all the time, and it contributes to the disrespect of transgender women, dehumanizing them, and making their deaths "not count".

I think it's also important to support children in foster care who have been rejected because of their gender expression. There's an organization here in Atlanta I donate to: Chris Kids and Project Rainbow.  They always need donations especially for this program, because although their other child programs receive federal and state funds, Project Rainbow is more "controversial" (sadly) and has to be funded separately.

The Rainbow Program

The Rainbow Program is a subset program of the Independent Living Program that transitions teenagers from homelessness into self-sufficient adulthood. Youth live in apartments and receive counseling, vocational and educational training, and life skills development. Each teen must be working or enrolled in appropriate educational programs for a minimum of 20 hours per week. Teens have individualized service plans that outline goals and objectives for independence. Staff works with each teen to accomplish their individual goals. This program targets outreach to homeless youth and teens identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning (GLBTQ). At CHRIS Kids these youth find a place to live where they can learn self acceptance and be open about who they are without fear or retribution.

• National statistics suggest that up to 56% of homeless youth identify as GLBTQ.
• This program is one of few GLBTQ Independent Living Programs in the Southeast
• This program receives no federal support

Short Sunny Update

Guy is out of town this week.  When we went on the same trip last year, things kind of fell apart.  That's the first time that Sunny ever hit me during a tantrum. Guy being away seemed to flip a switch in his brain and probably activated all his memories of the other people in his life that left him...

This week, it's been hugely better, so far. Guy wrote seven notes with little drawings and messages like "I love you" and "sleep tight", and I give one of those to Sunny every night.  He also emails Sunny from the road.  Sunny has a clear goals -- 5 nights of "reading nicely" and "no fits" means two visits to the play center this weekend.  His days are also much more scheduled. 

Guy does so much around the house.  Washing the dishes and getting Sunny's lunch ready and all the other stuff isn't easy on my own. I do have my mother helping out -- she's picking up Sunny from afterschool every day.

Sunny says "I miss Dad" and "I'm sad because I miss Dad" a lot.

After dinner we usually play a game of chess together. We've also tried (and failed) to do some dance videos together.  It's so hard! Also, Sunny really does not have good dance basics.  That's one reason I keep up with his hip-hop dance classes.  I think it's a generally good thing to know how to dance, and as Sunny grows up hip-hop is what the kids his age are going to be dancing to.  He doesn't dislike the classes -- if he did I'd have to discontinue them -- but he's not really excited about them, either, the way he is about chess club.

He loves singing punk rock songs though... or singing AOR soft rock songs in the style of punk rock. Guy recently taught him to sing this one.  It's not very hard to learn.

Long Fitness Update

Here's how it's going. I'm not weighing myself or even measuring myself because I don't want to get stuck on numerical goals.  I'd rather aim for a general wellbeing and fitness level.   That way it might be more sustainable.

Nutrition: I'm doing a modified South Beach, low carb but not ultra low carb style.  The hardest part is remembering to eat six times a day and not letting myself get hungry.  I know this is a nutrition principle that's crucial for keeping your metabolism working properly, but it's tough, especially since I have a tendency to get really focused on something and postpone eating.

For breakfast I'm usually eating omelettes with a little parmesan and ajvar... ajvar is a spicy red bell pepper and eggplant spread. We have a lot of Bosnians living nearby, which is how I discovered ajvar, which tastes awesome, and is really convenient as a filling and additive for all kinds of dishes.  Then for a mid-morning snack I'll have some miso soup or a handful of almonds.  At lunch I'll have vegetables with hummus, veggie burgers (I'm not a vegetarian but I like veggie burgers) and/or a lentil or bean soup.  Then for a late lunch I'll have some more almonds or half a roll-up with a low-carb wrap, and maybe an apple.  For dinner I'll eat whatever I cook Sunny and Guy, but without the rice.  Then for dessert, after exercising, I'll have a small protein drink: unsweetened soy milk with hemp powder, a dash of vanilla and cinnamon and a Splenda packet.  The flavors make it not taste entirely like ass (that's the kindest thing I can say about it).

I'm planning on making some rolls with those Vietnamese rice paper things so I can replace the small low-carb wraps, which don't taste very good. 

Here's my exercise log.  Start it Up is the first level of Slim in 6.  Ramp it Up is the second. You're supposed to do Start it Up for only 2 days or until you "master the moves".  It took me a LONG time to "master the moves".

Tue Oct 20         Start it Up
Wed Oct 21         Start it Up
Thu Oct 22         Start it Up
Fri Oct 23         Start it Up
Sat Oct 24         Start it Up + Weight Training
Sun Oct 25         REST

Mon Oct 26         Start it Up
Tue Oct 27         Start it Up
Wed Oct 28         Start it Up
Thu Oct 29         Start it Up
Fri Oct 30         Start it Up - and evil fire drill
Sat Oct 31        horrible pain
Sun Nov 1        horrible pain

Mon Nov 2        horrible pain
Tues Nov 3        slightly less horrible pain
Wed Nov 4         Start it Up
Thu Nov 5         Start it Up
Fri Nov 6         Start it Up
Sat Nov 7         Start it Up + Weight Training
Sun Nov 8         Zuma (dance fitness) class

Mon Nov 9         Ramp it Up
Tue Nov 10         Skipped - did 20 mins of cardio + flexibility instead
Wed Nov 11         Ramp it Up

Start it Up and Ramp it Up are tough, but they're good for my back. After the first week, my back pain disappeared.  Unfortunately, the day before Halloween, and the day before we left to visit Sunny's home state, the evil fire drill happened and that ruined my exercise schedule for a while... otherwise, I would have been able to start Ramp It Up sooner.

I'm going to try and do weight training twice a week, and Zuma every week, but for now, I think I can only count on once a week. 

The first time I did Ramp It Up, it was hard on my arms. I felt like one of my muscles that I use doing pushups was close to being pulled.  So I decided to skip it and do a different, simpler cardio video instead: Jillian Michaels: Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism. It was popular and had good ratings... but it was a really bad idea. One move involved jumping while rotating your whole body 180 degrees.  The first time I did it, it hurt, and I should have known to stop, but I tried to keep up.  The next day my lower back really hurt.  Luckily the pain went away in time for me to get back into the schedule by doing Ramp It Up later that night.  My arms don't hurt as badly anymore, although one of my legs feels very sore, and I 'm thinking about getting a full-body massage this weekend.

I wish there was some way of telling which exercise videos are back-friendly/scoliosis-friendly and which aren't! I can twist -- in fact, I need to twist, because that strengthens core muscles and helps my back -- and I can jump, but now I've learned that twisting while jumping leads to certain doom. Plus, Jillian Michaels glares at you in kind of a freaky and frightening way, whereas Debbie Siebers (Slim in 6) strikes a better balance between perky and aggro.

I can mostly keep up with Ramp It Up except for the part where you get on your elbows and knees and kick your feet in the air. That's hopeless.  I'm starting by simply doing half of whatever Debbie Siebers doing.  Then I'm going to gradually work it up until I'm doing the same number of kicks.

At this slow rate, I don't think I'm going to get to Burn it Up level in 6 weeks. Oh well.  I'm fairly happy with the way things are going, and my energy level and mood have improved.

Veteran's Day Quick Post: Hepatitis C

I wrote before on this issue.  My stepfather is a Vietnam veteran with Hepatitis C that he contracted while working as a medic stationed in South Korea. Currently, his Hep C is under control, but until a reliable cure is developed, he's always going to be in danger of liver failure. 1 in 10 Vietnam vets have Hepatitis C.

Please see this page at hcadvocate.com to find out what we can do to help people with Hep C.

Email to Hank Johnson Regarding Healthcare Reform and Stupak Amendment

Hello,

I would like to congratulate you on all the great work you have done to fight for healthcare reform so far. I have supported your reform efforts and I attended your healthcare townhall as well as David Scott's. However, I'm very upset right now at the current House bill.  Here are just a few of my problems:

- fines for people who refuse insurance
- lack of coverage for undocumented immigrants
- The Stupak-Pitts "coathanger" amendment

I understand that compromise is necessary in politics.  I understand that if we pass halfway reform now, we will be able to augment and improve on it in years to come. I am willing to compromise quite a bit on healthcare reform. But we can't compromise away everything.  We cannot actually TAKE A STEP BACKWARDS. Any healthcare reform legislation should improve on what we have, or at the very least, continue SOME of the same injustices at the same level... not actually make those injustices worse!

I have never had an abortion. Like you, I am a Buddhist, and although I do not know your opinion on the subject, I have some moral reservations about abortion when it comes to me personally. But I believe every woman has the absolute right to make that decision for herself. If the Stupak amendment is included in final legislation, that means that only women above a certain income level will have that choice anymore! It goes far beyond refusing federal funds for abortion by not even allowing private insurance companies to include abortion.  The Stupak amendment equals FORCED CHILDBIRTH for lower-income women. It is disgusting and unconscionable.

I heard that a letter has been sent to Nancy Pelosi with the names of at least 40 Democrats who have promised to vote against any final reform that includes the Stupak amendment.  I hope your name is on that list. I do believe in compromise and negotiation, but at some point we have to stand strong and hold the line. Thank you.

Our Halloween Visit

The visit this Halloween went well.  Sunny and I flew in on Saturday, and flew out Sunday night.  I scoured the web for coupons and specials and got very good deals on the hotel and rental car.

It's enjoyable spending time with Sunny's foster family. They're incredibly nice people and their family is large, boisterous but harmonious.

It's just that their environment really gets me down.  They live in a solidly middle-class, very white suburb.  It's a great place to be a little kid. Neighbors know each other. It's safe to play in the streets. But when you get to be a teenager, especially someone like me, it can turn into hell on earth. From the age of about 8 to 15 I lived in a similar environment.  Towards the end I simply refused to leave my mother's house at all.

It's in a different region, but it inspires the same familiar feeling of dread.

Plus, the food is awful. The regional food is practically inedible. I'm not going to sing the praises of Southern food -- it's mostly overcooked, oversalted and overgreasy -- but at least it has some taste.  If I can have a pork chop with some collard greens and fried okra I won't complain.  Even a barbecue sandwich is acceptable. When I visit Sunny's family I have to carefully plan out my meals. My only real options are chains: Cracker Barrel, Chipotle and Subway.  I don't know what I'd do without Cracker Barrel. Sunny's family mainly eats massive amounts of pizza, pasta and mashed potatoes. I would never refuse food in a formal dinner setting, but it's often a "make yourself a plate" situation there, so I'm usually able to duck out politely.

Being a food-snob burb-trauma victim makes the visits increasingly rougher. Once a year is more my speed.  Sunny's foster mother and I also discussed sending Sunny up there for a week visit as an unaccompanied minor. I think that's what we'll definitely do in the future, but I'm not sure if he'll be ready yet next year.

The family really goes all out for Halloween.  They had a corpse on the roof, and a collection of animatronic witches and bats on the porch.  I told their oldest son about how nobody trick-or-treated in my neighborhood, mainly because there are a lot of Baptists and others who think Halloween is anti-Jesus. He told me that the one time he was in Georgia he hung out with some "country boys" and was pretty amazed at how they would hellraise all week and then go to church on Sunday.

Their neighborhood was full of trick-or-treating kids and everyone had an incredible time. Sunny was Darth Vader. Toward the end of the night, he had to use his lightsaber to fight off a whole squad of Imperial Stormtroopers.

My other problem was that we had a fire drill in my office the Friday before Halloween.  I walked down an ungodly number of steps. That day, I was fine.  On Saturday, I woke up with agonizing pain in my calves. I could sit, I could stand, but anything in between and it felt like someone was stabbing me in the calves with a fiery poker. I could barely bend my legs.  I started walking like an arthritic penguin.  On Sunday, my back pain came back in full force, because I hadn't been maintaining proper posture. I could barely move. I was trying to spend a lot of time bonding with BB but I couldn't even pick him up.  It was so frustrating.  In order to fly back to Atlanta carrying our luggage -- luggage that included many pounds of Halloween candy -- I bought some compression bandages and wrapped my calves really tightly, and even then, it was tough.  My back pain finally went away on Monday and my leg pain went away a few days later.

I didn't want to show Sunny exactly how badly I was hurting. Little kids like it when their parents are a little bit off their game, because then they can show off being useful and helping out.  But they can get panicky if they think their parents are really not doing well; it's upsetting to their worldview.

BB looks great. He eats and drinks constantly, and is very active.  Some of his favorites activities: pushing his toy truck around the house, spinning things around, tipping over the trash can, dancing up and down, throwing himself down on a blanket, getting tossed up and down.  He's still not saying any words yet (he's 16 months old) but he does make happy sounds and frustrated sounds and excited sounds.  He plays nicely alongside other children.  In contrast, Sunny's foster mom's grandson, who is a few months older, is much more advanced developmentally but also likes to run up to people and hit them and throw things at their faces!  It's still kind of cute now, but hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

Sunny and BB got to do some bonding, which was very sweet.  Sunny didn't have the patience to play with him, but he would stop and kiss BB on top of the head whenever he ran by.

On Sunday, Sunny went out with NN to a local playground.  They also hung out with his uncle, the one that Sunny used to think was his father. NN told me that her ex-husband, the disagreeable grandfather, even showed up, although he didn't interact with Sunny that much (this was the grandfather that threatened to disown his son, Sunny's uncle, if he adopted Sunny).

After we got back, Sunny was on pretty good behavior.  Then it fell apart on Wednesday.  He had a very long fit that night, although there was really more crying than hitting involved. He had a crying fit in class so that he had to be taken out of the classroom temporarily on Thursday.  He had another two fits on Sunday.  There's definitely some fallout from the visit.

We have an intake appointment at a promising new therapist office next week.  We're not looking into the ABC of Atlanta right now because we're really looking for play therapy, not attachment therapy, but thanks to anyone who left suggestions anyway.  This week is shaping up to be tough because Guy is going out of town for the rest of the week.  Sunny is NOT going to handle that well, no matter what we do and how we prepare.

When I walked into our office tower the Monday after the trip, it gave me a sense of shameful joy to notice that a quite a few other people were still walking like penguins.

I Have a Sneaking Suspicion About Our Adoption Subsidy

I hesitated to blog about this for a long time, because it might be possible to ascertain Sunny's home state from this information. However, I think it's worth the risk.

Last month, we got a letter from Sunny's home state. It started talking about the state's budget woes, which we are well aware of.  If it wasn't for their budget crisis, BB would probably be with us now.

The letter asked us to accept a cut in our monthly adoption subsidy. Since interstate general adoptions involve a supposedly ironclad contract when it comes to this subsidy -- as long as we are taking care of Sunny, we are guaranteed to be paid that amount until he turns 18 -- the letter said that we should VOLUNTARILY give up the money.  Why?  Because if enough people didn't give up the money, they would be forced to make vaguely defined "across the board" cuts.  The language was rather slippery and menacing.  The deadline is next month.

I've been trying to figure out what to do about the letter.  Some possibilities:
- We don't sign, and they don't make the cuts (no money lost)
- We sign, and they don't make the cuts (a known amount of money lost)
- We don't sign, and they make the cuts anyway (an unknown amount of money lost)
- We sign, and they make the cuts anyway (a known amount of money lost + an unknown amount of money lost money lost)

Based on that decision matrix, the option of signing looks really, really bad.

I finally managed to get hold of our local caseworker. She told us absolutely not to sign.  She didn't think it was even possible for them to make the involuntary cuts!  Her theory is that they're just trying to help the budget by picking some low-hanging fruit -- that is, scaring a few adoptive parents into signing the letters.

It's so sleazy.


They already cut BB's foster mom's adoption subsidies.  Since her adoptions are not interstate like ours, there was apparently less legal protection. Her income went down a combined total of $1000 a month. Two of her older children have FASD and need a lot of services.

We could get by with a lower subsidy.  But the subsidy helps a lot.  If it wasn't for the subsidy, we probably wouldn't have been able to take a risk on that extremely expensive course of neurofeedback Sunny did earlier this year.  In the long run, special needs subsidies help the state, as long as the parents are ethical and the subsidy is actually helping the child, because the money you invest in children now means less money you have to spend later on.  But the state is obviously desperate and not thinking about the long term.

BB's caseworker wasn't able to give us any advice on Sunny's subsidy letter issue. But I'm a little bit suspicious of the way she's been asking us to give her a subsidy request letter on BB even though we're missing some health paperwork on him.  His foster mom tells me that she's waiting on the results of a blood test to determine whether he has a sickle cell issue. Earlier test results were apparently ambiguous.

I'll write about my thoughts of our Halloween visit later on, maybe tomorrow.

I Have a Sneaking Suspicion About Our Therapist

Well, this sucks.

I couldn't go to therapy today due to my work schedule, but I'd talked extensively to Guy about what we should bring up in today's session. The main points were: 1) our weekend trip to Sunny's home state, which is sure to stir up some strong emotions 2) recurrence of his chainsaw nightmare 3) the way his fits have lately seemed like he's just going through the motions and isn't really feeling them (he had one this week).

Guy and Sunny showed up on time. The therapist was 5 minutes late. He said he was locked out of his office, so he led them into the file storage room for the session. He brought a chair in for himself, sat on it, and rubbed his forehead while looking distracted. Once Guy realized a chair wouldn't be forthcoming, he sat down on a cardboard box. Sunny just stood. They all talked for a little bit, but the therapist seemed very disjointed. He didn't remember the chainsaw nightmare, or much of anything, for that matter. After ten minutes he asked Sunny if he was feeling OK. Sunny said yes, of course. "See you next week!" That was it. Guy left... but as he drove back he got more and more irritated with the therapist's behavior. The therapist has canceled a lot of sessions in the past. The receptionist he shares with another practice has often called us to cancel sessions because she says he's sick.

It isn't a waste of money for us, because he takes Medicaid and we don't pay anything out of pocket for the sessions. But after some discussion Guy and I decided we're just going to "break up" with him in a passive way. Guy is going to cancel next week's appointment and we're not going to make any new ones. I'll start looking for another therapist that takes Medicaid.

All of the therapist's behaviors point me to one suspected root cause: HEROIN. I'll feel bad if it turns out he has killer migraines or a brain tumor or something like that. But he should say so in that case, because otherwise, it looks very, very squirrely.  In the past, when I've seen or heard of behavior like this, it's been caused by heroin. That whole avoiding eye contact thing seems more like a mark of heroin addiction than crack or meth (people on meth make especially horrible and inappropriate eye contact).  I think he left something he didn't want Guy to see on his desk, and that's why he pretended he was locked out.

When I was a teenager, I worked for a junkie boss once, in an ice cream store, and it was a total nightmare. At first, I thought he was just going into the back of the store and getting drunk or smoking pot. Then he started leaving his dirty needles in a paper bag next to the cash register... He used to go into the backroom for ten minutes or so, then come out front staggering and weaving and ineffectually sexually harassing me. I would wave him away and make him return to the backroom to lie down on the cot in the corner. I left after a few weeks of this, but I heard the situation deteriorated quite a bit afterwards.

I'm going to start looking for a new therapist on Monday. All we need is someone who will do simple play therapy with Sunny weekly, or once every two weeks... who will get to know him, establish a consistent program of anger management for all of us, and be able to work through highly emotional issues with as they arise (like this trip we're taking). All I want from a therapist is that they 1) show up to appointments 2) listen to us and to Sunny and remember what we tell them 3) don't use overtly religious therapies 4) have some experience working with children from foster care 5) do play therapy, which is something that Sunny responds well to. That's not so much to ask for, is it? There are a gazillion therapists in Atlanta and I guess I just have to keep plugging through the lists in search of a new therapist, who will be our fourth one so far.  The first one had no clue, the second was great until she recommended spanking, and the third is... umm... potentially way too problematic.

Our neighbor says their family therapist is great and would fit all the criteria, but he doesn't take Medicaid.  I might end up going to him if things keep falling through with other therapists. Perhaps it could fall under my insurance.

BB Timeline Update

I've been talking to BB's caseworker for a while. I have a very tentative timeline. First comes the official matching, which will happen very soon. Perhaps next week. I need to submit a letter requesting a subsidy. The subsidy is going to be a LOT lower than Sunny's, due to budget constraints. I'm just hoping for anything better than zero dollars a month. I don't care about the subsidy as much as I care about making 100% sure we get Medicaid for BB.

The actual cross-state investigation/paperwork process is going to take many months. How many? It took five months for Sunny. Add in a month for the holiday season, and another couple months for the budget crisis, and we should still be able to get full placement before BB turns two years old. I have to look at the bright side, otherwise it's just too depressing.

They won't pay or reimburse for pre-placement visits anymore, since the state ran out of money. The caseworker did say they would pay to fly BB down at least once. This is totally meaningless, since he would have to have someone fly with him, and children under 2 fly for free for anyway.

This translates into a really open visitation schedule... whatever we can afford, basically. We could bring him down to Georgia for periods of up to a week, but that would mean someone flying there, flying back with BB, then flying BB back, then flying back home.

If I figured out some way to work from there, I could go up for a week at a time, and just feed him and sleep next to him for that week... I don't know. It's going to take a lot of planning.

One really worrisome thing is that according to the Georgia adoption rules, an infant older than one year cannot sleep in the same bedroom as an adult. I'm not a believer in full-on attachment parenting, but I've read a lot of convincing stuff that says children like BB who are in danger of attachment disorder need co-sleeping.

Weekend Update with Gun Violence Q&A

I'm closing the weekend on a down note, although it has mostly gone well. Sunny's behavior has been pretty good. He had two rewards he was working hard towards. The first was going to see Astro Boy; I promised I would take him as long as he didn't have a fit or major snit. The second was a candy bar, which he could get if he won the "anger management game". This is just a simple point system where we get a point if he loses his temper and yells or backtalks, and gets a point if we tell him "no" and he doesn't lose his temper.

We spent the whole day together, since Guy was off on a day trip. Sunny ran lots of errands with me and was extremely helpful. He got in some quality play time as well.

I was very appreciative of Sunny today because I had a horrible nightmare the other night. In the dream, my family was vacationing in a city by the beach. The city was full of nightclubs and restaurants and hotels built almost vertically on high cliffs above the beach. The beach was full of swimming vacationers and also full of large sea turtles... it was hard to walk down the beach without stumbling over a sea turtle. Something complicated was happening and I had to run from place to place handling various issues. I ended up in a restaurant balcony on the cliff, watching Sunny play far below. All of a sudden, I saw a huge, 100-foot tall wave rushing out of the ocean -- it wiped the beach completely clean of everything and everyone. Guy and my mother rushed over to the restaurant, I figured out that Sunny had been lost to the wave and I started crying, and kept crying for what seemed like forever.

I have recurrent nightmares involving tsunamis. I don't know why. In real life, I have very little fear of the ocean or even of large waves, and I'm a strong swimmer.

We had an interesting talk about guns in the car today. One of my friends that Sunny knows was once shot in the chest during a failed mugging in Little 5 Points, and Sunny is kind of obsessed with that incident... I think it ties into his long-standing obsession with Abraham Lincoln getting shot. I had to answer a lot of questions about guns today.

If someone shot at our car, would the glass stop it?
- No, because the car doesn't have special bulletproof glass.

If someone shot at our car, what would we do?
- I would yell at you to duck down, then I would duck down and keep driving, and we would get away.

But what about you? I could duck down because I'm little, but you're too big, you wouldn't fit under the seat.
- I wouldn't need to duck down all the way.

How could you keep driving if you were ducked down so you couldn't see out the front?
- I could drive while peeking out of the corner of my eye.

Have you done it before?
- No, I've never driven under gunfire but I'm pretty confident I could manage it if I had to.

Can people who are big get shot and live like your friend who got shot and lived?
- Yes, but it's a better idea not to get shot in the first place.

If you get shot by a bazooka could you live?
- No.

If I was shot would I get killed because I'm little?
- It depends on where you got shot.

If I got shot in the leg I wouldn't die.
- Well, if the bullet hit your femoral artery in your leg, you might bleed out and die. Like I said, it's better not to get shot in the first place. A lot of kids die each year because they play with guns and they shoot themselves or their friends by accident. They think guns are cool because kids see so many movies where guns are cool, but they don't realize how dangerous they are.

So they didn't mean to do it? That's impossible!
- No, it's really easy, maybe they look down the barrel and they hit the trigger by accident.

How come Abraham Lincoln got shot in the head and he lived for three days?
- (I should have this answer down cold by now but I don't) Umm, because the bullet caused his brain to bleed, and the doctors couldn't get into his brain to stop the blood, so it took three days but he was bleeding too much in his brain to live.

The brain has a lot of blood in it because we need blood to give us lots of energy to think!
- That sounds right.

I was oddly touched that Sunny was worried about my safety during gunfire.

He also made me a really nice offer later on. I was pulled over by a cop for an annoying reason: not seeing a minuscule "No Turn on Red" sign. Luckily, the policeman didn't give me a moving violation ticket, but instead of letting me off with a warning, he gave me an even stupider ticket: not having proof of insurance (I had an insurance card but it was expired). Georgia has an automated system and they can look up proof of insurance in seconds, so I didn't even know you were still required to carry around a current insurance card! He obviously knew I had valid insurance... this "no proof" ticket is just a stupid nuisance. Anyway, Sunny said he felt bad for me and offered to pay my ticket out for his birthday present money! I told him, "No, it's my responsibility since I was the one driving, but thanks a lot anyway."

Back to the gun stuff... I believe in being pretty graphic about what guns can do. Here in the U.S. we get a ridiculous amount of positive messages about guns. Guns = instant power = instant masculinity, and so on. Gun messages start at a preschool level and just get stronger and stronger. There's no way to totally shield kids from these messages, and the idea of the gun is too powerful to fight against. The pragmatic remedy is to try and balance the idea with the reality. If you just tell kids that guns are evil and leave it at that, I doubt they're really going to take it to heart.

It's also important to know what to do in case of gunfire. I've talked about that with Sunny before. If you hear a gunshot, hit the ground and crawl to cover. I've had to do this more than a couple times in my life. Just last year in Charlotte, actually!

People who don't understand these simple lessons, perhaps because they were lucky enough to grow up somewhere without a strong gun culture, are really vulnerable. For example, I remember a party I went to a long time ago in Miami, where a friend of a friend publicly announced that someone had taken his .22 out of his backpack. He spent an hour trying to find it, then went to the police station at 2 in the morning to report it stolen (otherwise, if someone had shot someone with that gun, he might have gotten blamed for it). It turned out a drunk German backpacker who had washed up at the party had taken it, thinking it was a toy pistol, and was passed out on top of it in a bedroom corner somewhere.

I've heard a lot of anecdotes about young Europeans getting into serious trouble in Miami. In a lot of European countries, if you get in a bar fight, people hit each other, and the worst that happens is a bloody nose. But people are more polite in places like Miami, where everyone and their grandmother has a gun, because you should take for granted that your opponent isn't going to start a fistfight... instead, they'll just go out to the parking lot, get their gun and wait for you. Drunken soccer hooligan type behavior in a gun culture is a disaster waiting to happen.

Sunny's Pawpaw (Guy's mother's husband) has a gazillion rifles but he keeps them carefully in a safe. J's father (J is Sunny's friend, the pinecone lighter) also has a gun and keeps it in a safe. But realistically speaking, someday Sunny is going to end up in a house where somebody is not responsible, and kids/teenagers can get hold of the gun...

I've spent so much time writing about guns I'm too tired to talk about the reason I'm feeling down today. It's all about my dad. I was relying on him for something and he let me down. He can be such a jerk sometimes. Maybe I'll write about it later.

On all other fronts, things are going well. I feel pretty good about my health. Today was a day of rest -- relative rest, that is, considering all the stuff I did with Sunny. Yesterday, I finished my 5th consecutive Level 1 Slim in 6, did weight training at the gym and got an extremely painful but effective massage. There was a scapula pop involved. I'm not sure if I'm going to get all the way through Slim in 6 in 6 weeks, simply because my arm strength is not very good... I'm fine with all the leg work but I can't follow along 100% with the arms. At one point I think you're suposed to do about 16 push-ups and I can barely do 6. It's going to take me a while to build up the arm strength, and I'm going to be conservative and not start the next level until my arms are ready for it.

I also need to write a post about Astro Boy and adoption. The movie has huge, huge adoption issues, including a portrayal of two extremes of bad adoptive parenting: 1) the parent who wants to force an adoptee to fit their image of the fantasy child 2) the Fagin-type parent who takes in and exploits the orphaned.

Although, when you think about it, adoption issues are all over children's and fantastic and superhero stories. Superman? Transracial adoption. Spiderman? Relative adoption. It's rare to encounter a story without it. It's like a reliable motor to drive a story with.

I'll leave with some Twitter stuff. The hash tag #oneletteroffmovies has been really popular lately, and all the funniest one letter off variations have been done already. I contributed my own variation, #oneletteroffWernerHerzogmovies, though I warn you it will only be somewhat humorous if you're German, a film geek, have a juvenile sense of humor or some combination of those three qualities.

Aguirre, the Wrath of Cod
Bad Lieutenant: Poot of Call New Orleans
Cabra Verde
Fescue Dawn
Nosferatu the Vampire
Little Dieter Needs to Fry
My Best Friend

I love Werner Herzog. I can't wait for the Bad Lieutenant remake that's coming out next month. I don't know if it's going to be good, but it's going to be extremely something.