Autism Baptism

I'm not a religious person. As a child, my Presbyterian parents took me and my sisters to church every Sunday. As a child, I enjoyed the structure. As a teenager, I became wary of people telling me what I should an shouldn't think.  The organization of the church began to creep me out, so I stopped going.  Side note: I was never baptized.

Fast forward to after marrying my husband. When he was born, his Greek Mother had him baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church. According to my husband, it's very important to the Greeks that they are baptized. After that, their connection to the church is totally up to them. They can go to church, not go to church, whatever.  Greek Orthodox God is totally cool with you.  You will never see a Greek showing up at your door telling you how to worship.  They'll give you unsolicited advice on EVERYTHING else, but God is a given (remember, my only source on this is my husband). So my husband wasn't a church-goer either.

Anyway, A few years ago, our life got OMG CRAZY.  My husband's education and career became this downward spiral of betrayal, hostility, loss, and debt. Our marriage suffered. We had a new baby.  He experienced a literal crisis of faith.  He took this opportunity to reconnect to the Greek Orthodox Church. Ultimately, the effect of that connection has been very positive for him, and by association, me.  So when he came to me and said he's like to have our 2-yo son baptized, I consented.  It's only a few minutes right?  Wrong.

I met with Father M. He's probably one of the sweetest people I've ever met.  He explained to me what would be involved in this rather lengthy ritual. It would be about an hour from beginning to end. So I explained to him that Stefan is autistic and nonverbal.  He will only understand a little of what's happening, and he won't be able to use any words to tell us what he needs.  There will be some screaming, wriggling, and probably a LOT of running around the church. So the bargaining began.  We came up with these ground rules:

-The ceremony will be on a Saturday, not a Sunday
-There will be no parishioners.
-Attendees will be: my father and stepmother, my husband's parents, my brother-in-law (we need him to be the godfather because he's the only other person we know who's a baptized in the church, and the godfather is the one who answers for the baby during the ritual because babies can't talk), his wife and son.  And the priest.  That's it. (There was a subsequent fight with my Mother-in-law who wanted to invite the WORLD.) 
-We will take as many breaks as my son needs.  If he melts down, we will retire to another room, regroup and try again.
-There will be no dunking in the font. Just pour a little water over his head.
-The anointing with oil has be fast fast fast.
-Same with the hair-clipping.
-The Eucharist will consist of a crumb of bread and a drop of wine - no promises on where this lands.
-Our son will not be traumatized by this in any way.

Father M. was more than happy to meet our requirements, but he was also really pushing for more passages read, icons blessed, etc. I guess the more ritual you have, the more baptized you are. 

When the actual baptism day rolled around, I had some anxiety.  While Father M.'s goal was to protect my son's afterlife, my goal was to protect his today.  The whole ceremony went about as I expected:  Father M. read his lengthy passages with great alacrity.  While we stood in our appointed positions, facing this way and that, according to the ritual,  my son squirmed in my arms, trying to get away.  My husband read something. My brother in law read something. Father M. read more things. While all the reading was happening, I let my son walk around the church, while I followed, exercising maternal damage control. Luckily, he stopped at the pew where my Dad sat, and crawled up into his lap to sit there for a while (this made my Dad's whole day).

Then he got anointed.  Off went the shirt, pants and shoes (diaper stayed on). I held him while Father M. applied olive oil to forehead, hands, feet, ears, and chest THREE TIMES.  I tried my best not to giggle because my kid was laughing.  That laughing stopped when I had to lean him over the font and Father M. quickly doused his noggin with warm water.  I'll hand it to my kid.  He wasn't that upset.  He was more taken aback.  He likes water, as rule.  I also had to hand it to Father M. He was reciting scripture this whole time. Nice multi-tasking. Especially for a young priest.  After that, he sent us back to the room to dry off (with his baptismal towel - I bought it at Target, but I guess it's all special and holy now) and regroup.  Father M. would stay with the others and (you guessed it) recite more passages. 

My boy had the most fun in the back room playing with his cousin.  His cousin, who's still 1-yo, couldn't handle the church at all, so he stayed back there with his mom for most of the baptism. After a rousing game of beach ball toss with his cousin, we were called back to the church where we (mother/son/godfather) had to walk 3 times around the font while Father M. shook an incense burner.  Did I mention Greek Orthodox is really big on 3rd time's the charm? 

After that? The Eucharist! I grew up calling it "communion." When I was a little girl in the Presbyterian church, the Elders would hand out pieces of white bread dipped in grape juice from plates. This was not like that.  This church is super-serious about their bread and wine. This is the part I was afraid of.  My son has a sensory processing disorder and it's centered around food. He doesn't chew. He's really skeptical about food entering his mouth.  It wouldn't be a big deal, except in this religion, if even a crumb gets spilled, the priest MUST eat it. There's a holy hand-towel that catches the crumbs so that they don't fall on the floor.  So.  My husband held the hand-towel. Father M. held the tiny spoon.  I held the squirming, 45-pound autistic boy.  This was not going to work.  I turned around, and said out loud, "Dad? I need you."  My Dad came running up.  I handed him the boy, then held both his hands (so he wouldn't knock the spoon away), made a crazy face, and while my son mimicked me, I said, "Now!" Father M. popped in the spoon, and my kid ate the blood and body of Christ. 

Phew.  Achievement UNLOCKED.

Geocaching

On an impulse, I revived my old Geocaching account.  That may have been a mistake. I'm really not good at it.  I've found 16 caches. Total. My whole life.  It's gotten a little embarrassing having to log a DNF (did not find) 3 times in a row.

My decision to start caching again happened because I changed jobs.  Instead of working in a business complex in Watsonville which has no caches near it, I work in an industrial complex in Santa Cruz with a bunch of caches surrounding the building I'm in.  Strangely enough, I work in the same building I worked in  16 years ago when it was owned by a different company. It's walking distance from no fewer than 8 caches.

But I have a limited time to find these caches.  In a month and a half, my employer is picking us all up and moving to yet another building in Scotts Valley.  This gives me about 4 weeks to find the 5 caches I really want to find.  I don't think I'll find them. And I probably won't be able to return on the weekends because motherhood, chores, responsibilities, etc. Basically, because I have a family, I don't get to have hobbies for x number of years.

Anyway. I poked around Natural Bridges for two of them.  I saw some monarch butterflies (yay!) and some used condoms (ew).  I tried to find one over by Antonelli's Pond, but there were two ladies playing with their 3 dogs, and I really couldn't look for it while they were hovering (muggle interference -- the struggle is real). I even trudged past the construction zone to find the ones around the Seymour Center.  No joy.

I just really suck at this.

Throwback Thursday - October 27th 2016

Halloween - 2007 Night Elf Priest

This was probably one of the best Halloween costumes I've ever put together myself.  The cape and armbands were knitted (by me).  The dress was my old bridesmaid dress from Jen's wedding.  The necklace was a souvenir, given to me by my grandmother when she visited China.  The ears and contacts were ordered from the internet.   

In retrospect, I should have been posting old costumes every week this months, but I'm a terrible blogger, if you hadn't already figured that out.

The Best-Laid Plans

During our latest attempt at cleaning the house, my husband held up a plastic bag and said, "Garbage?" in that hopeful tone we both use when we're asking each other if we can get rid of their stuff.  I paused.  "Wait. No. I want to keep these for a little while."  Here is the contents of that bag.

If you don't recognize what this mass of plastic is, it is a bunch of Dr. Brown's bottles and accessories, all of which I used to feed my baby when he was an infant.  I will explain to you why I have mixed feelings about this bag and what it represents.

I fought to be able to breast-feed my son.  For the first five weeks of his life, the little guy just didn't want to latch.   I could have made things a lot easier on myself by feeding him formula.  Instead, I went to the lactation center, and with the help of some wonderful people, I pumped out my milk, fed it to him in a bottle, and JUST KEPT TRYING.  Eventually, he latched.  That wasn't the end of my struggle, though.  Like I said, formula is a great alternative.  There is no shame in in formula-feeding, and maybe, if I had to do it over, I might have chosen that route, if just to save myself a lot of pain.

Only, that exhausting postpartum story wasn't the end of my breast-feeding saga. When the boy was just three months old, I had to go back to work. There wasn't another option open. I had to work to support my family.  I was so angry.  I was so angry because I had to go back to work at a job I didn't like. I was so angry that I couldn't have what I wanted: to be a nursing, happy, stay-at-home mom.   Working, leaving your baby in daycare, pumping your milk out however many times during the day, plus the endless packing, cleaning, gathering, assembling, travelling that gets added into the day is INSANE.  But, you know what? Fuck you, world. So, I fought stubbornly for my right to breast-feed.  I forced myself into painful pumping prison so that I could at least be in control of something that I'd envisioned for my son and for myself.  I did that until Stef was 10 months old, and then my milk supply tanked in spite of my best efforts to keep it going with lactation teas and herbs.  The doctor said is was stress. GO FIGURE.  I was defeated by my own body and I switched to formula.

These bottles remind me of everything I went through two years ago.  They remind me of what I was feeling: anger, powerlessness, and jealousy.  They make me wonder if I made my decision to breastfeed more about me than about my kid.  That's where I get a little confused.  While no one can say my decision was bad for my baby, I certainly wasn't acting selflessly.  I don't know.

In a week or so, I'll have processed these feelings, let them go, and  I will give my husband my consent to throw them away.  But for now, I want to remind myself of that time and what I went though.  There may be some value in taking stock.

Baby Weight

I would post a picture, but I don't have a selfie-stick (I probably wouldn't be able to use it very well, if I had one).  I've officially lost every pound of weight I gained while gestating my son. Well, maybe it's better that I don't have a picture.  The results are really not that impressive.  I am, however, fairly proud of myself. 

It took two years to do it, and a number of crossfit classes.  My diet is still pretty awful (I'm like a goat eating garbage most of the time).  But, let me relate a conversation I had with my doctor at my most recent physical.

Doc: "How much weight did you gain with your pregnancy?"
Me: "About forty pounds."
Doc: "And how much have you lost?"
Me: "All but five."
Doc: "Good for you!  Well done."
Me: "Thank you."
Doc: "You know that you're still overweight."

*beat*

Me: "I don't care."
Doc: "Okay, let's move on."
Me: "That would be best."

Throwback Thursday - July 21st 2016

Morris Dancing!

Picture taken...maybe 2001?  2002?  Not totally sure.

I used to do this thing called Morris Dancing. It's English in origin.  It's done in sets of six (or eight). You wear bells on your legs and smash sticks together.  There are different traditions named after towns in England.  I danced with Seabright Morris, a group in Santa Cruz.  We would practice on Wednesday nights, and on May 1st, we'd dress up and dance all over the town.  I did this for about 3 years before I quit for personal reasons. I didn't keep in touch with any of the other dancers.  I assume some of the older folks are dead, and those who had kids have seen them off to college.  Yeah, it was that long ago.  My favorite memory of Morris Dancing was attending the Midwest Morris Ale in Wisconsin.

I've done a rubbishy job of explaining Morris Dancing here, but if you're really interested, go use a search engine. I'm not hot-linking for ANYBODY. 

 

Throwback Thursday June 23rd 2016 - Our twenties

This is from either 2001 or 2002.

 

 

The fact that my sisters and I are all looking in different directions really brings home how we were in completely different places, but none of us knew what we were doing.