The W

Once upon a time, a lot longer ago than I care to admit, I was looking for a college. The only sticking point was that my dad said he would pay for two years at the neighborhood junior college and two years at a state-supported senior college, and that if we wanted something else, we had to get scholarships. My grades were medicore so huge scholarship offers weren't exactly filling my mailbox. However, I topped out on standardized tests so there were some offers, including one that was big enough--the only problem was that it was to an all-girls school, Mississippi University for Women, affectionately known as "The W". The funny thing was, it was also the first school from which I had gotten recruiting material. A student came to speak to my class in junior high and passed out response cards. I thought the material looked nice, but I didn't want to go to an all-girls school. Still, I remembered the place and when the scholarship offer came it, decided to take a look. Eventually I figured out that where there were that many girls, there would likely be guys, and I decided I wanted to get away from home (just the age, nothing really wrong with home) more than I wanted a co-ed school. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I found a school where you were a person, not a number. I found a school where leadership was expected and nutured. I found a school where a sense of community was fostered. I found the school where I grew from a shy bookwormish girl into a self-confident, competent woman. I have college friends with whom I am still in contact, though we live in different states (and it one case, different countries). I even have a relationship with quite a few fellow alumnae who I have never met in real life. We met through the alumni listserve, and I can't tell you how many times I have thought as I read those emails "there aren't many colleges where a list like this would work". Once we were telling stories about the long-time chief of campus security and I wondered how many students at other schools could name the chief of security, much less tell stories about him. There are a lot of ties that bind "W girls" and I'm proud to be a part of that Long Blue Line.

Unfortunately those ties are being threatend now by one who doesn't seem to understand them--the president of the university. For reasons that are too complex to explain here, and of little to no interest to outsiders, the president and the leaders of the Alumnae Association do not get along. I don't know the president's side of the story, except to say that I know some of those officers expressed a desire to have the president replaced, and that the president knows about those desires. About a year ago the board that governs universities in Mississippi decided that universities had to have affiliation agreements with their associated groups like Alumni Association, athletic foundations, foundations etc. The president used this ruling to try to force changes to the Alumnae Associations by-laws that would basically give her control of it. When the Alumnae Association balked, the president, following the terms of the affiliation agreement that was basically rammed down the throats of the Alumnae Association, disaffiliated it. A court battle has begun.

This weekend is homecoming, which at the W is a weekend of parties, meetings, performances, campus tours and the like. There is no football game to get in the way of alums greeting old friends and making new ones. However, the Alumnae Association situation has not been resolved either way at this time. Please pray that those attending this weekend (and unfortunately I won't be one of them) have a great time and that the president is able to show real leadership and find a face-saving way out of this for everyone.

Kids at Mass

I'm one of those horrible moms. You've heard about us. We don't take our toddlers to mass. There is a lovely lady in our parish who keeps the nursery during the mass we attend, and my toddler loves her. Going to see Ms. G. and the other kids there is one of the highlights of her week. However, we took her to mass for Easter and to church on Good Friday. She enjoyed the other toddlers in the cry room, but I didn't.

If Tulips are So Great....

...then YOU go to Holland. Anyone who has been online for any length of time, especially anyone who has a special needs child, has probably been sent this sappy email about how the writer bought a ticket to Rome and ended up in Holland, wasn't happy, but then realized all the wonderful things about Holland. The point of the email is that parenting a special needs child isn't better or worse than parenting a normal child; only different, with a different set of joys--and troubles.

To stay with the Rome/Holland analogy, our plane landed in Rome and we did some sight-seeing. After a couple of years, we realized that we weren't seeing what the guidebook said was in Rome, but rather, we thought we were in a suburb, or maybe in Milan or Venice. We worked to get the tour back on track and at times we could even see the Coliseum in the distance--and we had run into plenty of people who were trying to get back to Rome who were set firmly on the road for Holland, so we considered ourselves pretty lucky. However, that Coliseum seems to be getting further and further away, and I don't want to go to Holland.

It seems that the older my son gets, the more his differences stand out. He made it through elementary and middle school with average to slightly above average grades, but he (and I) worked hard for them. Now he is in high school, on a track that is considered average and he is not only working harder than he ever has, he is also making the worst grades ever. He brought home his first F on the last report card--and it was in Algebra, which last semester was his strength. It has become obvious that college is not in his future, and frankly we don't know what is. We've always known he wouldn't make it in this world due to his great personality, but figured his brains would get him through.

We were with some friends the other night. They have a daughter three months older than my son. We've shared potty training stories, gone to each other's birthday parties, talked about choosing schools, and otherwise been a support system to each other over the last fifteen years. This time they were talking about their daughter's first boyfriend. They mentioned that she is rarely home, is busy with dance team, friends etc. She is taking driver's ed this summer. She is looking for a job. She text-messages them when she wants something. She lives on her cell phone. In short, she is a normal teenager (and a cute one too). My son doesn't have a cell phone--and wouldn't have anyone to call beside me and his dad if he did. He has no friends, he has no extra-curricular activities (he dropped chess when they started meeting on Saturday mornings and interfering with his cartoon watching). His grades stink, but he spends at least two hours on homework on school nights. The divide between him and normal kids seems to be widening, not narrowing. I had a kid a couple of years older than him here tutoring him on Sunday. I told them to go ahead in the book if they had time, and my son had a crying screaming slam the door temper tantrum of the type I'd expect from the three year old.

I'm looking forward to high school being over, yet, I don't know how he is going to make it as an adult. No matter what job he gets, he is going to be expected to come in, get to work without further prompting,and work until it is time to leave. No one wants to have to keep telling him to get busy. He is undergoing his three-year re-eval at school and the psychologist asked me what his strengths were, and I couldn't tell her any.

Another Weight Watcher

I found a website today called Aimee's Adventures. It is by someone who has taken this WW stuff seriously. She has tons of recipies, all with points listed, links to restaurant nutritional information websites and more. I was just looking at some of her dessert recipies and they looked good. Sometimes I think "diet" desserts that go beyond fruit are simply a testament to the idea that anything is low-calorie if you eat little enough of it. Some of these recipies have an 8x8 pan making 8 servings, which sounds reasonable--I've seen some that suggest a pan that size can make 16 servings (but everyone is going to want at least two servings if the stuff is any good).