Elsa, Anna, Zombie Skittles and the Truth about Life.

My daughter and I just went to the movies, and had made it in plenty of time for the twenty five minute onslaught of previews, so we passed the time by playing the skittles zombie test, tasting the neon Halloween inspired flavors of mummified melon and Blood Red Berry, waiting to see who would be stuck with the putrid, vomit inducing zombie flavor. Not a well thought out plan since the only place we had to spit them was a receipt in my purse. Worth it though. Less problematic, but disappointing, was realizing that you can’t really see the orange and black filled junior mints in the dark, and you don’t really take bites out of junior mints. We attempted it though, taking eensy, teensy bites of junior mints, while waiting for Maleficent 2 to start (an odd attempt at a child version of Game of Thrones with dragged out battle scenes and a fiery breathing dragon, but I digress). While we figured out the odds that I would get all orange junior mints and my daughter would wind up with soul-crushing black, the trailer for Frozen two came on and I was startled at the observation she made about the characters of Elsa and Anna.

“Elsa has all those powers,” my daughter said. “But Anna doesn’t have anything. And their sisters. Isn’t that weird

She finally got an orange, so it saved me from answering. It startled me because my daughter is a twin and her brother doesn’t have any of her struggles. She can barely run and he plays hockey. She just stopped using manipulatives to use math and he is in honors math. She put her clarinet together upside down and he plays the drums, exceptionally well and without even practicing. She even just had to get glasses and he has 20/20 vision. It’s like a genetic middle finger. The pediatrician even commented on how different the division was. It really couldn’t be more unfair. How does that happen, that one child should struggle completely, and the other have so many gifts?

“It’s bullshit,” is what I probably should have said—a phrase my daughter is fond of since she began binge watching Stranger Things. That one statement pretty much sums up the human condition. The question of suffering. Of justice. The purpose and reason why one life is one of suffering and the other of riches and indulgence

But maybe she just wanted to know why Anna couldn’t shoot ice from her fingers when her sister could.

And it was weird because Frozen used to be my daughter’s valium. She didn’t just like Elsa. She was Elsa. Frozen was to my daughter like the Grateful Dead to a dedicated hippy on a bad acid trip. In short, everything. Soul calming, metaphorical life lessons, a social lubricant. Without Frozen, she was just crazy, having meltdowns and scratching assistants in the hallways. Elsa was her. Her inability to control her temper, her inability to emotionally regulate, her shame and inability to socialize with people. The bad person inside her. She had to sing “Let it go,” loud and regularly. A cognitive behavioral musical. She had frozen pencils, frozen stickers, and a frozen Olaf that was used in every classroom as motivators. Maybe to the conservative right Elsa was pushing the gay agenda, but for us, Elsa was a powering symbol of mental illness

She was Elsa, and love overcame her problems. And for the most part, that has been true. Her meltdowns and her anger are extremely seldom. She is growing up, and Elsa has been re-placed by “El,” from Stranger Things. In Eleven, she sees empowerment, rather than shame, and luckily it gives her a way to process her own differences in a positive way. I’m not sure who she identified with when watching that preview. Elsa, with rare powers and differences that she can’t control. Or plain, simple Anna with nothing special about her but her pure love for her sister

. But I think she may just have discovered the truth about life, that within our lives, we are all both. Unique and Ordinary, Powerful and weak, Weird and Normal at the same time. We are as much a paradox as Zombie skittles, both enticingly delicious and revoltingly disgusting. And life is a crap shoot, sometimes wonderfully orange, and just as often, soul-crushingly black. Elsa, Anna, Zombie Skittles and the Truth About Life My daughter and I just went to the movies, and had made it in plenty of time for the twenty five minute on-sault of previews, so we passed the time by playing the skittles zombie test, tasting the neon Halloween inspired flavors of mummified melon and Blood Red Berry, waiting to see who would be stuck with the putrid, vomit inducing zombie flavor. Not a well thought out plan since the only place we had to spit them was a receipt in my purse. Worth it though. Less problematic, but disappointing, was realizing that you can’t really see the orange and black filled junior mints in the dark, and you don’t really take bites out of junior mints. We attempted it though, taking eensy, teensy bites of junior mints, while waiting for Maleficent 2 to start (an odd attempt at a child version of Game of Thrones with dragged out battle scenes and a fiery breathing dragon, but I digress). While we figured out the odds that I would get all orange junior mints and my daughter would wind up with soul-crushing black, the trailer for Frozen two came on and I was startled at the observation she made about the characters of Elsa and Anna. “Elsa has all those powers,” my daughter said. “But Anna doesn’t have anything. And their sisters. Isn’t that weird?” She finally got an orange, so it saved me from answering. It startled me because my daughter is a twin and her brother doesn’t have any of her struggles. She can barely run and he plays hockey. She just stopped using manipulatives to use math and he is in honors math. She put her clarinet together upside down and he plays the drums, exceptionally well and without even practicing. She even just had to get glasses and he has 20/20 vision. It’s like a genetic middle finger. The pediatrician even commented on how different the division was. It really couldn’t be more unfair. How does that happen, that one child should struggle completely, and the other have so many gifts? “It’s bullshit,” is what I probably should have said—a phrase my daughter is fond of since she began binge watching Stranger Things. That one statement pretty much sums up the human condition. The question of suffering. Of justice. The purpose and reason why one life is one of suffering and the other of riches and indulgence. But maybe she just wanted to know why Anna couldn’t shoot ice from her fingers when her sister could. And it was weird because Frozen used to be my daughter’s valium. She didn’t just like Elsa. She was Elsa. Frozen was to my daughter like the Grateful Dead to a dedicated hippy on a bad acid trip. In short, everything. Soul calming, metaphorical life lessons, a social lubricant. Without Frozen, she was just crazy, having meltdowns and scratching assistants in the hallways. Elsa was her. Her inability to control her temper, her inability to emotionally regulate, her shame and inability to socialize with people. The bad person inside her. She had to sing “Let it go,” loud and regularly. A cognitive behavioral musical. She had frozen pencils, frozen stickers, and a frozen Olaf that was used in every classroom as motivators. Maybe to the conservative right Elsa was pushing the gay agenda, but for us, Elsa was a powering symbol of mental illness. She was Elsa, and love overcame her problems. And for the most part, that has been true. Her meltdowns and her anger are extremely seldom. She is growing up, and Elsa has been re-placed by “El,” from Stranger Things. In Eleven, she sees empowerment, rather than shame, and luckily it gives her a way to process her own differences in a positive way. I’m not sure who she identified with when watching that preview. Elsa, with rare powers and differences that she can’t control. Or plain, simple Anna with nothing special about her but her pure love for her sister. But I think she may just have discovered the truth about life, that within our lives, we are all both. Unique and Ordinary, Powerful and weak, Weird and Normal at the same time. We are as much a paradox as Zombie skittles, both enticingly delicious and revoltingly disgusting. And life is a crap shoot, sometimes wonderfully orange, and just as often, soul-crushingly black.

No Séance Needed . . . it’s just my Daughter’s Anxiety Symptom

Strange and unusual things make my daughter gag.  Precious moment dolls, gnomes, miniature baby dolls or anything that resembles a pink fetus, and the Boar’s Head ham sign at our son’s hockey rink.  When she sees these things she will freeze, her eyes will dilate, and she will fugue.  Then she gags.  She has spit right there on the floor in front of us.  She has spit right in front of a crowd of people waiting in line for a sandwich.  The source of her revulsion could be something in close proximity, or a small, discernable object halfway across the room.  If it is gag worthy, she will find it and begin retching.

Of course, people back away from us, assuming she is about to lose her lunch.  When she first started this, we weren’t even sure what was happening.  She would just freeze and a black look would come over her face.  We thought maybe she was having a small seizure.  No amount of cajoling or pressure could get her to follow us to the bathroom.  She would end up frozen in place, unable to speak, retching at whatever nauseating object or feeling had come over her.

I could see that something specific was disgusting her, and I would try to follow her line of sight, but she would just stare, as if into the abyss.  It was creepy, as if she were seeing dead people.  We didn’t go running to the nearest medium, but we did make an appointment with a neurologist.  He didn’t find any evidence of seizures, but he also didn’t have any great answers other than she had some anxiety and an aversion to some things.  He didn’t seem to give too much importance to the disturbing experience of our child randomly retching in public.

“It’s probably a phase,” he said.  And I wondered what weird personal phases may have led him to become a neurologist.

It was really affecting our life.  At our local pizza shop, she backed out of line and almost fled for the door because a young girl was holding a small, baby doll in a pink bassinette.  She pointed at the thing from across the room and began retching, looking up every so often to point at the  offensive object.

The girlfriend who was with me, a free-spirited feminist, had laughed and said, “Well, it makes me gag.”  Which was funny, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing.  Or annoying.    I was hungry and my daughter had ruined everyone’s appetite. I don’t think the grandparent’s of the toddler appreciated it either, when my daughter pointed at them and shouted, “That makes me want to throw up.”

I was glad, at least, that my daughter was beginning to express what was going on.  I didn’t want to keep watching over my shoulder for dead people.  At the hockey rink, we finally figured out that the offending object was the Boar Head’s Ham sign hanging over the register (and not the unwashed looking teenager making the grilled cheese, as I had guessed).

Now we had an understanding of what was happening, but the list of nauseating objects was growing;  ugly fairies or gnomes in the craft section of Michael’s, most anything in the comic book store, but specifically bobble-heads, and anything at all fetus-like.  Makes sense.  But it just wasn’t socially acceptable to go around retching everywhere, so we made an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Straight away my daughter went into a fugue-like trance, pressing herself into the corner of the doctor’s couch as if she wanted to disappear.  I followed her line of sight to the bookshelf that was crammed with all manner of dusty books and trinkets.  The psychiatrist thought maybe she didn’t care for a stuffed monkey, a large book with a scientific title, or a plastic shape sorter.

“I think it might be that little statue,” I told her.  It was one of those Precious Moments figurines of a tiny boy and girl with large, alien-like eyes.  It was pretty ugly.

“This?” the psychiatrist asked, about to pick up.  My daughter held on to me with a death grip fear.

My daughter hid her face in my arm, so I answered, “Yes, I think it’s the statue.”

At this point, I was feeling major empathy for my daughter.  It was a hideous statue.  Why would anyone purchase such a thing?  The psychiatrist offered to move it behind another object, but my daughter was so distracted that she kept trying to peer behind other objects to find it.  The psychiatrist offered to put it in a desk drawer, but that still didn’t put her at ease.  Finally, the doctor got up and put it out of the room.  My daughter’s entire body relaxed like gelatin.

“Okay, we have some anxiety here,” the psychiatrist said.  We left with a prescription for Zoloft.  The Precious Moments figurine became a litmus test for how well the medicine was working.  By our next session, it was tolerated in the desk drawer.  A month later it could be hidden on a shelf.  By sixth months, she could tolerate it staring back at her.  The psychiatrist could say, “You’re okay,.”  And she was.

She still doesn’t care for small fetus looking objects.  We don’t eat shrimp.  We won’t be getting sea monkeys (darn) or gerbils (yay), but now she just says, “That makes me gag,” and we move along.  No séance needed.

Hair-Brushing Nightmares and Sensory Processing Disorder

All little girls hate having their hair-brushed, right? Honestly, my boys aren’t all that thrilled with it either. My son, with his “hockey hair,” avoids it like the plague, and with “hat-trick skills,” shoves it into a hoodie or snow hat before I can catch him in the morning. But my daughter cannot get away with this as easily. First of all, she doesn’t want to go out of the house looking like she has just played three periods of pond hockey in sweaty goalie gear…she wants to look like Rapunzel. She wants me to put waterfall braids in her hair, and intricate twists, and bows… never-mind that I barely have the skills to put a ponytail in her head without it snapping, or that while I’m doing this she lets off high pitch unmerciful screams so horrendous that I am shocked the neighbors haven’t called the police.

She has extreme sensory process disorder (or dysfunction) that mostly presents in her sense of touch. Those with children with sensory processing disorder understand far too well that the reaction to even normal, ordinary sensations is dysfunctional. So if something is uncomfortable or mildly painful to a typical child, than the child with sensory processing disorder not only reacts, but truly experiences extreme and intense pain. Having her hair brushed is agony for her. (If you’re unsure whether your child has spd or simply dislikes having their hair brushed, check out: Top 10 red flags for Sensory Processing Disorder, at sensoryprocessingmadesimple.com)

My mother told me she’d just cut it off. Like she did to mine when I was eight and she had them cut it into “the Dorothy Hamill”, for which I never truthfully forgave her.   I can’t do it. My daughter wants to grow her hair to her waist. Another friend told me that maybe I should teach her to focus on something other than outer beauty. (Obviously, that is all I am focused on), and not the serious impending health hazard the matted dreaded mess of her head will create when wildlife begin nesting in it. And by the by, if it were really up to me, I’d dread it Lisa Bonet style and be done with it. And my daughter…would be miserable.

She is different in so many ways, struggles so desperately to fit in, if having pretty hair is one superficial trivial way for her to feel good, then so be it. I am not interested in taking strong feminist social stands at this juncture. I just don’t want her to look like a homeless person.

It is a basic matter of hygiene. And to be honest, when I see her get off of the bus, her jacket disheveled, misbuttoned and hanging from her shoulders, smears of peanut butter and jelly on her face, and her hair in a crazed, tangled heap, it saddens me. It is an outward projection of the disorder that is happening inside. And let’s face it. Everyone is judging her by it. And judging me.

So what to do? We have tried all manner of detangling spray. She screams because it is making her hair wet, even when her hair is already wet. I tried kids’ organic raspberry detangling spray and she decided the cartoon picture on the bottle made her gag. Blue spray bottles are for boys. We have tried soft brushes, hard brushes, round brushes, vent brushes, and a large glittery brush with pink bristles, Elvis-like Rhinestones, and her initial on it. (This one works the best…obviously). But she stills screams like a wild banshee. Most recently, screeching the word “joust” whenever I come near her with the brush.

For what it is worth, here is the only method I have found that works provided all the right “conditions” are in place. My daughter has also decided she hates taking baths and showers because her hands and feet get “pruny.” No talk of mermaids, bubble baths, or swimming like fishies has been able to detract from this particular obsession. If you do not have this odd and annoying obsessive-compulsive issue, than you may have an easier go. If I can distract her with toys, bath crayons, or princess body wash then we are good to go for step one.

Choose the Right Pillowcase.   I remembered hearing that satin pillowcases were better for your hair, but never bothered thinking they were an expensive luxury. While it won’t rid your child of SPD, it does help relieve snarls and keep fragile hair from dehydrating. I found a satin pillow case for only $9.99 from SuperflyKids.com and it was pink with Bubblegum trim—perfect. But it comes in an entire rainbow of colors.

We HAVE to take a bath or shower in the morning. Sleeping on a wet head will always result in tangles and they are much harder to get out once she has spent the night twisting and turning against the pillow case.

Skip Shampoo if needed. Sometimes my daughter can all tolerate a minimal amount of touch and the conditioner is more important. Traditional shampoos can dry the hair out and make tangles worse, so I like to use only sulfate-free shampoos. There are many drugstore brands, but since I have curly hair myself I love a called DevaCurl. The make a “no poo” and a “low poo,” shampoo that hydrates the hair.

Use Tons of Deep Conditioner. There’s nothing that cures tangles better than a good deep conditioner. Again, anything that is sulfate free is better for curls and so it also helps tangles. Deva-curl “One Condition” is great for everyday and the deep conditioner “Heaven in Hair,” are both great. They contain zero sulfates, parabens, or silicones and smell great. If the smell doesn’t calm her, it at least calms me. They also carry a leave in and a “No-Comb” de-tangling spray. I admit, the no-comb promise pulled me in, even though I know better, but it does work pretty darn well. Truthfully, if I only have to use the detangler for the most monstrous of knots. The conditoner works that well.  It is a little on the pricey side, but well worth it. You can find them at www.mydevacurl.com

Choose the Right Brush. My daughter is rigid that it was difficult to get her to try anything other than her glittery Elvis brush, so it took convincing for me to drag another plastic pronged weapon through her head. She relented when I told her this was a special “Double Detangler,” also by Ouidad. There is a great guide to hairbrushes and a review of this brush in “The Hairbrush Manifesto,” by Zoe Foster.

Try a Blow Dryer. We blow dry her hair in front of her favorite cartoon instead of a big mirror. This may not work for those children who are sensitive to noise, but my daughter responds to the white noise it makes. It calms her and distracts her from the brushing. More importantly, it mutes her screaming so that my nerves are not set on edge.

Lastly,

If I don’t see it, it must not be there. If all else fails, I leave those matted tangles near the delicate neckline alone. I know they’re there but no one else does, so it makes me feel better. Sometimes I wait for the hairdresser to take care of those. She does far better at the hairdresser than at home. Yes, of course she does.

Wine never hurts. (For me, obviously.)   A glass of pinot noir makes the whole process go a lot easier. Or if need be just singing “Red, red wine” as loud as I can. So I can drown her out when she starts screaming, “Joust, you’re hurting me.”

Cover up. I follow my son’s lead and find something to mask anything that looks hideous with one of those tacky flowers from Claire’s Boutique.

Beauteous. Maybe not. But we have not found any animals nesting in her head, and I haven’t had to cut it. In the meantime, I am holding onto the solace that she eventually grew tired of shoving pink and purple crayons up her nose, so there is hope this battle will soon pass. Or I will bide my time for the teenage years when she rebels and shaves it into a Mohawk.