I never thought...

Back when I was in high school I knew I would go to college and expected I would live a decent life, similar to my mom's. I had hopes of being a physician, but not a whole lot of confidence that would happen. I didn't know what else was out there, but I never thought I would go further then getting a college degree.

When I was in college I knew I had to do something after graduation. I didn't just want to work away in a doctor's office for the rest of my life, no way. I had to do something, I needed to move on, but I honestly never thought I would actually graduate with an advanced degree!

I confessed to my husband a few years ago that when I started grad school my goal was to get out of town and try something new for a few years, I never thought I would actually finish! When I started, my goal was to write a paper. So that when I had a family one day, and grandchildren, that I could point to that paper that I wrote and my grandchildren would think me smart. And my name would live on long after I had passed. Somewhere buried in the journals of a library. My "publication list" pales in comparison to many of my friends and colleagues due to the nature of my work, but it goes beyond a single entry.

Once I made it through grad school my confidence increased dramatically. When I didn't get the same answer as the back of the book, I checked my work and went on, knowing that the answer in the back could very likely be wrong. And I was often right. I hope for a good and stable job, but I never thought I would be where I am now.

I started at the lab shortly after the group I was joining had won an R&D 100 award. I was proud to say I worked with that group. They were proud of their accomplishment. I occasionally met others who had won the award, but the Oscars of Innovation are few and far between. I never thought I would win one.

Then on Thursday, I found out we did!

(Link to the press release, official announcement coming next Wednesday.)

Things I suck at...

-Lying – seriously. I suck at this. I quiver and shake and my eyes start darting. I used to try to lie to my mom way back in high school and she would laugh at me. Now I look at Leif and see what she saw when she would look at me lying. Poor Leif is never going to get away with anything. (His sister, however, freaks me out with her amazing fibbing abilities. Her teachers have also marveled at her ability to pull one over on them.)

-History – I wish I knew more about history. But I don’t. I suck at it.

-Speaking Spanish – Yes, I know I had like 6 years of Spanish from Junior High through High School and I did at one point speak it fluently. I can understand Spanish, but I cannot any longer wrap my tongue around speaking it. (I have a Spanish speaking intern I am sharing with another colleague coming in and this concerns me a bit.)

-Baking – So maybe I don’t suck suck at it. I have a small repertoire of items I can bake. But baking is not my forte. Cooking a fabulous meal, yes.

-Growing indoor plants – I bought a lemon tree after a long hiatus of living in no plant land. They are messy and I just don’t like them. But dang, I wanted a lemon tree! Poor baby lemon tree…

-Cleaning – I suck at this. I also don’t like it. But mostly I suck at it. No wait… mostly I don’t like it… (Question – which came first, the chicken or the egg?)

-Meeting new people – I become a clam. I never know what to say. I get nervous. I worry that I will do something wrong. I worry what they will think of me. And I always come off wrong. Yes, I suck at meeting new people.

-Keeping a secret – Maybe I should caveat this… keeping a secret from my husband! I had a very exciting thing happen this last week. I made a wee tiny inquiry and received a fabulous response from someone regarding an anniversary gift for AB. And it is absolutely killing me to keep this secret. And I have to keep it for TWO FREAKING MONTHS. I am queen of ruining presents for him. This one I am not going to ruin. Nope, not going to spill the beans. Going to forget ALL about it.

Seriously. This is hard.

Yep, keeping secrets is my number one thing I suck at.

Narcotic Induced Stream of Consciousness

(Warning... this post has been brought to you post-surgery stream of consciousness induced by Vicodin.)


Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. Much of this was centered around my having surgery yesterday. I had to prepare at work to be gone for the week. I had to prepare myself to be housebound for a week. I had to prepare myself mentally for going under the knife. And we had to keep everything going along in the right direction at the same time for two little kids.

On the keeping everything moving along in the right direction front... Leif "officially" started kindergarten on Monday. I say officially because if you ask him he has been a kindergartener since June. And he is staying in the same private school, in the same classroom and so not much is changing. The first day of kindergarten is often viewed as a big huge deal, but for Leif and us, not much changed.

Then there is Skadi. The latest for her is that I took her in for her first eye exam last week, just to rule out any problems since Leif has eye problems. I knew she sees well and doesn't have any trouble doing any fine work at school, so I wasn't expecting any problems. She was a trooper and even offered to do all the eye tests willingly to keep up with her brother. They were quite impressed with her. Anyways, I was wrong. We have another appointment coming up in mid-September to have her eyes dilated and determine the extent of her eye problems. We know right now that her left eye is poor with distance vision and her eye doctor has indicated that she suspects similar problems as Leif has. Sigh.


Then there is the fun stuff. We hit the fair on Saturday with our good friends. When I was a kid growing up in Wyoming the fair was a huge event, one that we attended nearly everyday of the week that it was in town along with the rodeo. I like being the adult now. I take my kids to the fair on ONE day, we look at the animals, ride the rides and then we go home. No rodeo. I am just not a rodeo type person... I got my fill the first 13 years of my life I suppose.


All that brings us up to Sunday. Sunday I hurried and prepared myself for the week of sitting around the house, or lying around the house as the case may be. I went to the fabric store and bought more fabric for my quilt and got it washing. I stocked up on groceries for the week. I prepared myself mentally. Or so I thought. But it didn't help that I dreamt about my mom the night before, Skadi was up and my nerves would not calm.


I told myself over and over that people get their gall bladders removed all the time. My surgeon, who I had been told by others was very gentle, meticulous and does the most gall bladder removals in our area as he is a gastric surgeon, he had fully prepared me. Still when 5:30am arrived and I was sitting in the pre-op waiting room I couldn't stop the nerves.


I only have had surgery once before in my life, when I was 5. I had a hernia repair done and the details are vague, but what should have been a short routine surgery ended up in an extended stay in the hospital after I hemmorhaged afterwards. It's true, redheads have more complications in surgery. My grandmother used to tell me this during her nursing days. I used to kind of think she was just full of it. But I have since heard this from most of my doctors, including my obstetrician, my surgeon and the anesthesiologist yesterday.


Seeing what a mess I was, the anesthesiologist (who was super sweet) ordered a sedative for me before taking me into the OR. Thank you anesthesiologist. I only vaguely remember her asking me what color hair I had as I was fading in and out and confirmed with her that yes, my hair is red and that it was natural. Later I found out that she was concerned about this and upped my anestesia as she was worried about me staying under.


Next thing I knew I was waking up paranoid. I thought they were putting me out? What was I doing waking up? I got a glimpse of the clock and finally realized an hour had passed and they were actually done. Time in recovery, time in CDU (clinical decision unit - where they decide if I get to go home or stay), and then I was sent home at noon.


That first afternoon went fine and I slept a lot. Then night hit.


I have a fabulous husband. Really, really I do.


He set the alarm for every three hours to get me up and give me my pain killer as things were not going good. Then to top it off my daughter, who decides not to sleep through the night about as often as she does, woke up too. Poor AB, very little sleep last night thanks to the girls in his family.


Today has gone better. AB got the kids to school and brought me a pumpkin spice latte home which I have nursed most of the day.


He finished finally, installing the chandelier in the dining room. What a pain. A serious pain. And at one point he was asking me if I really disliked the old one that much, wouldn't it be easier to just send the new one back?


See this decorative plaster thingy? Yeah, it sucks. Royally sucks. No, don't get me wrong. It is pretty and I do like it, but it seriously complicated our installation of the chandelier. It adds a full inch to the installation distance. A full inch that our new chandelier didn't have.



I don't know what he did today, because I was on the couch watching Pawn Stars crocheting. (Yes, my new obsession thanks to Rick - the TV show Pawn Stars, not crocheting. I have successfully pawned off this addiction on AB and my sister in law as well.) We had worked on the chandelier over the weekend and left it hanging half done saying, "I don't know what we do next!"


I don't know what he did, but look... it is hung! And it works! And today is August 31st, so we succeeded in our August goal! (Ok, so my quilt goal was just way way off... we will just ignore that aspect of the August goal...)




So today I watched Mamma Mia (never saw it before but I recorded it knowing it was one of my mom's all time favorites). And because I have a horrible time just sitting and watching TV, I crocheted some:


I ironed my fabric for the quilt so I can finish cutting out 7" squares.


I watched Pawn Stars and Cash Cab.


I wasn't going to check my work e-mail.


No comment there. (But I am totally freaking out that two proposal calls I have to respond to were released today.)


I have taken my narcotic every 3 hours.


I have whined.


I checked Facebook.


I talked on the phone to my dads.


I am looking forward to being crafty tomorrow and maybe sitting at the table and sewing blocks together if I am able.


I am really, really looking forward to a shower.


I am bummed AB plans to work tomorrow, I have enjoyed having him home.



I am looking forward to feeling better and hope that tonight is a vast improvement over last night.

Anti-Cancer

A coworker of mine came back from reserve duty last week and took up residence in his brand new office across the hall from me. I enjoy having him there, he is a nice guy I get along well with and enjoy working with. We also see eye to eye on a lot of things in life - religion, family values, etc. It has been a different week with him back and there in his office... for example, I hear my name yelled spontaneously in our wing pretty regularly.

He spent some time in my office catching up earlier this week whereby we talked a fair amount about my mom's "Celebration of Life". He asked me the million dollar question then.

"Since your mom was diagnosed with this cancer at such a young age, do you worry about whether you will get it as well?"

Anyone who answers no, is lying.

It crosses my mind nearly daily. And since I am also a scientist with a wealth of journals at my fingertips, I will admit to staying on top of cancer studies and the current state of the art. When someone is diagnosed with cancer it is often a shock, a surprise and followed by a lot of time trying to understand 'what next'? And is what my doctor telling me the right course?

We had a lot of this with my mom because she was diagnosed with such a rare and often unrecognizable cancer. It wasn't until 6 months after we knew she had liver cancer did anyone dare label it with this rare name... cholangiocarcinoma. A cancer that only about 4000 people a year are diagnosed with in the US.

Yes, I think about it often. Will I get this cancer? Will my sister? Will my kids? My daughter's tummy ache the other day, is it cancer?

Present day medicine does not have a means to genetic test us to see if we will get this rare cancer. What medicine could tell us (if I understand it correctly) if we carry a gene that makes you more susceptible to cancers of this family. Taking this test? I haven't gotten there in my head yet.

What I can do, as I am learning in Anticancer, is to take steps to ensure that my body can fight cancer and make myself less susceptible to cancer. I like this book because as a scientist myself, it isn't telling a person with cancer to abandon all conventional treatment, it tells us to supplement your treatment. I believe there is merit to alternative medicine, but I also believe in scientific reasearch. As a Ph.D. chemist I "grew up" learning "better living through chemistry". And to a large degree I believe this, but I also understand that we don't know it all.

The book was recommended to my mom by a close friend who battled lymphoma successfully nearly two years ago. My mom downloaded it onto her Kindle and now I am reading it with rapt attention.

I am learning (after being only a third of the way into it) that we aren't terribly far off base in doing things to prevent cancer.

• We don't eat red meat more than 3 times a week.
• We only use olive oil or canola oil.
• We eat and push fresh fruit and vegies on our children (despite one of them having a weird aversion to fresh fruit that I do not understand - or accept - for the life of me)
• We drink red wine with dinner.
• We eat loads of blueberries.
• We all eat broccolli at least once a week.
• We eat fish and a lot of that is salmon.
• We shop local for local produce when possible.
• We make our own spaghetti sauce, thereby eliminating sugar in a routine dinner meal at our house.
• We have drank organic milk since my son started on milk.

Things I need to do better:

• Not drink so much coffee... (I gave up Pepsi two years ago and switched to coffee - and I am fully addicted to coffee now.)
• Pay better attention to use of plastic - I tend to look for BPA, but not always. I need to work on our use of Ziploc bags for everything - not only for health but also for environmental reasons. Example - when I buy meat in bulk and repackage and freeze, I need to wrap in parchment first... parchment isn't bad... is it?
• Watch the sugar. I like desserts on occasion, and that isn't going anywhere. But I have a new rule regarding fruit snacks (you know the ones in the cereal aisle), I am not buying them. If the kids want stuff like that they can come with me to the grocery store and ask. So it isn't that I am cutting them cold turkey, but I personally, am not going to enable it. If no one comes to the grocery store with me than I buy what I want. Simple as that. This is made easier by the fact that the kids are both head over heels and have been for some time for these fruit crisps. I buy them at Costco and this is lately Skadi's source of fruit (other than bananas and apples, which she will eat).
• Work towards cutting back on white flour. This is one we will work at, but frankly, I like to bake simply with white flour. I am open to alternatives, but pie crust just isn't the same.
• Get more exercise (no need to explain - I just need to get back to getting up every morning and working out - this would be greatly enabled by a daughter who slept through the night.)
• Check out "grass-fed" dairy products, this may be difficult in our small-ish town.

I believe in everything in moderation really. I am not necessarily looking to cut any of this out completely, and I don't think that is realistic for our family. But I will be trying to make some changes.

Hypochondriac Post #3

Continuing into phase 2 from this post.

In early high school I joined the gymnastics team. I was pretty good and I enjoyed it. I loved the meets. One day our coach called a meeting where she ranted and raved. She was irate at our team and I had no idea why. She talked about the petty arguments, the backstabbing, the lack of team cohesiveness and then threatened to quit and disband the team.

I was in total shock!

I had been completely out of the loop with the gossip and the back biting going on. I had no idea if it was directed at me or not and became a bit paranoid!

This is something that continues to this day. I have a horrible time picking up on even not so subtle cues especially by people I am not really close with. It often takes me awhile to realize that I have annoyed someone and without it being brought to my attention I wonder how much I would simply miss. How many friends I have lost out on because I never realized their cues that I was doing something wrong.

In groups of people I am not terribly close to? I have rhino skin. I don’t get my feelings hurt and see most statements directed towards me as constructive criticism that I try to learn from. This makes it easy for me to work on a variety of teams and I think it makes me a decent leader, I don’t tend to get my feelings hurt. However, the opposite is true when I get to know someone well – my family and my close friends - my feelings get hurt preemptively and my rhino skin turns to tissue paper. I look for things that I fear I am missing otherwise based off of history.

After gymnastics team that year and swearing I would never go through that again, I fell in pretty quickly with the kids who hung out in the park and smoked – the punk rockers. I had been friends with a few of them since moving to Colorado, but suddenly it was the most inviting group. They didn’t chide me for not wearing my hair just right, or not having a bag from Espirit or clothes from Benetton. I found many of them to be very straight forward. If you ticked them off, they told you so. Expressing indifference was a rewarded quality among my crowd. Brusque, rude behavior… not a problem! I floated along with this crowd and established a few friendships that have stood the test of time.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I had to conquer my “shyness” in order to succeed.

I was working in a histology lab when I was a freshman in college. I was assigned the embedding station with Shana for the day. I didn’t look forward to this because she would talk. Talk and talk about people I didn’t know about nor, really care about. That day we sat down at our station and she said, “I had the most fabulous and weird night last night”. Then there was silence.

“Oh,” I replied lost in my own thought. What was I supposed to say? I had no idea.

She stopped, turned so she was facing me and said a little annoyed acting, “well do you want to hear about it?”

In my mind I was fighting saying - not really – but it dawned on me that the polite thing to do is to say enthusiastically, “YES!” So I said that. I think it was at that point that it first dawned on me that I needed to learn the proper responses to questions like this. But it wasn’t until I moved to Boulder for college, took a job in a dermatologist's office and started dealing with the general public on a daily basis, that I really HAD to put it in motion.

I enjoyed my job at the dermatologist and easily got along well with Dr. Stinkbug. He started increasing his expectations of me and my job there and I fulfilled them. I started working in the rooms with him as an assistant which I really loved. I worked my butt off in his office and when I wasn’t manning the histology lab I was working in rooms and setting up biopsies and other procedures.

Note that I did not say that I was heading into the rooms, introducing myself to patients, talking to them about their procedure and setting up for the procedure.

One day, early in my career at the derm office the doctor told me, “you know, you are really, really smart.” (I took this as the compliment it was meant to be.) And then he went on, “you are one of those people who can probably do anything you want to, but if you plan to go into medicine, then you have to know that if you don’t speak to people, you make them REALLY uncomfortable”. He was one of the first people who was brutally honest with me about what I needed to do to succeed.

I hadn’t realized my job actually had people on the other side who I needed to interact with. I was just doing the job I enjoyed. I spent the day watching his nurse, Jan, who was a very warm and tender person. I watched how she walked in to the rooms. Walked around to face the person in the chair and warmly announced, “Hi! I am Jan and I am Dr. Stinkbug’s nurse. How are you doing today? How is the weather outside? What a pretty dress you have on today! Do you have any questions about the procedure we are going to do?” And with people she knew a little about it went even deeper, “tell me how your daughter is doing! What college is your grandson going to now? How is your job going?”

I went back to my apartment and recited these lines. “How are you today? What is the weather like out there? Do you have any questions?” I was like a broken record.

And I went back in to work the next day and recited these questions to every person whose room I walked into. It seemed terribly monotonous. And I knew what the weather was like out there, there were windows and a door to outside in my lab. But people bought it! It seemed as though I was doing what people expected of me! And despite the fact that I didn’t really care what the answers were to the questions I asked of them, I enjoyed my work even more because for about the first time ever I was succeeding at interacting with strangers! And eventually, when I got to know the patients who came back repeatedly, I built up relationships with these people!

Success!

Hypochondriac Post #2

One of my common phrases has always been, “I was a painfully shy little girl, but I overcame it”.

However, over the last year or so and particularly when I was reading about Aspergers with regard to Leif, I am wondering if I was really all that shy?

Because I actually think that a lot of my behaviors are more in line with a child with Aspergers than an introvert. I think I will hit this area of Aspergers in three posts - this is the first of three posts with regard to introvertedness/shyness vs. Aspergers.

A few years ago my mentor laughed when I said I was an introvert and said that he would have never pegged me professionally as an introvert and found it puzzling that I was once shy. As an expressive expressive person speaking to an analytical analytical, this was huge to me.

Mild tangent here over to social styles. I think this can be a good tool, however, I think that it is only a tool. In my social styles class there were only two analytical analyticals. Myself and another guy. Both of which our teacher said she wouldn’t have pegged us as such an extreme. She referenced later on our presentations class whereby we gave two of the funniest, most interesting impromptu speeches individually. By definition of analytical analytical, we shouldn’t have been comfortable in this situation at all, yet she found it interesting that we both thrived and didn't display any signs of being uncomfortable with the situation.

Public speaking… this is one thing that surprised my mom when I was in grad school. I was good at it. It isn’t that she thought I would be bad at it, by any means. But it didn’t necessarily fit my shy demeanor. Even now? I actually enjoy getting up and speaking in public and I am not half bad at it.

Off my (somewhat relevant) tangent.

When I headed into kindergarten I had not had any preschool. I had been home with my mom for 5.5 years and it wasn’t like we had bunches of playdates. I met some kids in the neighborhood and she occasionally babysat other kids. But I headed into kindergarten with a lack of social skills. I do not believe that it was a lack of preschool or playdates that caused my lack of social skills. They may have attributed to it, but in no way do I believe that the difficulties I faced with personal interactions well into college, were because I didn’t go to preschool.

I tended to make friends easily as most kids do, but keeping them was a different thing. I had a knack for saying the wrong thing, which then often resulted in the other little girls looking at me funny and walking off. I loved answering questions in class, I loved being at the center of attention (I played Jingle Bells on the piano at our kindergarten Christmas pageant and reveled in being the center of attention) and I always wanted to play the cymbals in music. I enjoyed reading out loud to the class.

What I *think* happened as I look back was that because I didn’t know how to effectively interact in a friendly manner with the other kids, I simply quit trying. If they didn’t want to play with me then who was I to push it? Not to mention, who really wants to spend time with kids who look at you funny when you say something? I didn’t. It wasn’t long before I was spending my recess by myself walking the perimeter of the playground. I remember watching what the other kids were doing and trying to figure out how to behave like them. Some kids saw staying in for recess a punishment, but I was thrilled to stay in and help the teacher with something because it meant I didn’t have to try and interact and it wasn’t in my face that I didn’t have a set of good friends.

In 1st grade we had dancing and I remember being the first one up and in front of the class shaking my booty while the other kids watched and slowly would come up. The shy kids were the last, if they came up at all. We would have annual plays every spring in elementary school and every year I BEGGED for a speaking part. I wanted lead parts and speaking parts SO badly, but was never awarded them. I blogged once about Mrs. Peacock our music teacher. I truly believe that she didn’t give me speaking parts because first, she placated the popularity contest, second, she didn’t like me and third, I had speech problems. It wasn’t for lack of trying for a speaking part. When I was in fourth grade I was finally given a speaking part… I said, “He’s so cuuuute!” and then giggled. One whole line. I wanted the job of memorizing the lines that the other kids had. In fact, I wanted it so bad I memorized all the lines for them so I felt a part of the action.

These things – all told don’t add up to a child who is shy. Instead, I think I became so used to hearing “she’s just shy”, that I thought those were the expectations of me. I didn’t have to learn to interact with the other kids if I was just labeled as “shy”. It was easy!

I wasn’t alone all throughout elementary school by any means either. When I was in third grade I obtained one best friend and she and I navigated our way through the following five years pretty efficiently. Once we hit junior high we hooked up with another couple of girls and had our own little network until I moved at the end of 8th grade. (I was always perplexed that after five years of hanging together, that she never wrote back or returned my phone calls. I figured that once again I had done something stupid.)

Next post - on to junior high and high school.

Hypochondriac post #1

I mentioned the other day (after reading a book about Asperger's) that I suspect myself as having a gradient of Aspergers. And no, I am not normally a hypochondriac. And mild Aspergers, not like Jerry on Boston Legal. And not to the extent that John Elder does in the book "Look Me In The Eye". But AB agrees, I easily fall on that spectrum.

When I was in grad school I took one of those “help a fellow grad student out in this field and take this test” things. Afterwards she told me I had Aspergers. At the time I went “what? I don’t have Autism”, and I laughed and went on with my day thinking, "wow, wonder if she ever gets her degree!". I will admit though that this has always lingered in the back of my head. Moreso now that Leif’s teacher has been mentioning Aspergian traits. I just finished reading “Look Me In The Eye” by John Elder Robison and spent many evenings nodding my head. In some chapters I laughed and thought “ok, that’s out there, WAY out there”. Other chapters I wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with the stories he was telling, they sounded normal and a bit comforting.

I have been trying to figure out how to blog about this and have finally decided to just jump in with a series of posts hitting on traits of people with Aspergers and how or why, I see myself and Leif.

One of the weirder chapters I could relate to was Robison’s on naming things or people. The other night after reading that chapter I poured out my soul to AB. I had not talked to anyone about this before, but I have this problem and not only that, but I suspect from a few of Leif’s slip ups – that he also has this problem.

When I see a person, not everyone by far, just random people I know for some reason, I have to think before I say their name. And often, it is just easier for me to avoid saying their name. Because it does NOT fit and even becomes difficult for me to form my mouth and say their name. Want to see me squirm? Have me introduce one of these random people to you. I can usually come up with a name quickly, but the question is whether it is the right name.

The worst is when I slip up. In high school I dated a guy for about two months. He was a nice guy, but I cannot for the life of me remember his name. After 20 years this might make sense. But truth? I couldn’t remember his name when we dated. He was Keith to me. He fit the name Keith. And I slipped up enough in our short dating stint that he was sure I had another boyfriend named Keith. And I didn’t even know anyone named Keith. Explain this one to a new boyfriend… I couldn’t. This was back when I forgot to think hard about something before I opened my mouth - something I try to do, but not always successfully.

Another one? When I first started at the lab I worked with a specialist. He was introduced to me, but I knew his name just looking at him before he was introduced to me. It was Cookie. Yes, Cookie is a very odd name for a man my parent’s age. And amazingly enough it rhymed with his real name, Charlie. Panic comes over me when I see Cookie around the campus because I have to rack my brain to get the guy’s real name so that I can do what I have learned to do and say, “Hi Charlie, how are you?” Thank goodness I don’t work with the guy anymore. Though with most people put me in an instance where I get to know them better and my tendency fades and their name comes more naturally to me.

Calling animals by “The Cat” or “The Dog”. No problem. I do this (not sure if this one is weird or not.) Your pets names? Oh, I would have to think a lot about that. Leif is big on this one. He loves his cat, Lucky, and has declared himself a cat person. He isn’t terribly fond of our dogs but he goes to bed every night with “Cat” on him. “Cat” likes to lay on Leif in bed, which is kind of humorous since “Cat” is also about 19 lbs and Leif is just over twice that. As Leif is falling asleep and his eyes are fluttering he will ask me to “put Cat next to me and make sure he doesn’t leave, I want him here”. Leif knows his name is Lucky, but more often than not, he’s “Cat” to Leif.

One of the very obvious ones from an early age that I blogged about years ago was hearts. Leif still calls hearts “eskimos”. This started long before I suspect he had much of an idea what an Eskimo was, which still perplexes me – because believe me, I know what a cookie is. His teacher at the time found it cute and novel, though a bit perplexing. His current teacher? She calls it Aspergers. Leif has learned that hearts are called hearts, but 9 times out of 10 if you put a heart in front of him he will start with “eski – err, I mean heart”.

And other kids in Leif's class? Until he gets to know them well he doesn't use their name, they are "the kid that knocked his front teeth out" or "that one kid" or "the boy whose dad is a police officer". Is this the same thing? I am not sure.

Am I the only one?

Here is probably where I admit to myself where my son's OCD (diagnosed by me) comes from.

Every day when I walk down the hall I walk by an admin’s office. When she is sitting at her computer with nothing up on the screen I get this strange urge to go into her office, scootch her away from her computer on her rolling chair and clean up the icons on her screen. Her entire screen is COVERED in icons. This makes me nuts and I don’t have to sit in front of it, just walk by it! How can she possibly work this way? Find anything?

(For the record I have one, the recycle bin, and I *never* put anything in it there. In fact, if I could get rid of it I would.)

Another...

I have a coworker and routinely I am in her office chatting while she has her Outlook open, as we all do. She has a really great organization system for her e-mails. Folders and subfolders. However, what drives me UP the wall is that many of the folders are bold typeface because they have unread items in them.

Why? Why would you file something, but not open it? Or at least go to the folder, right click and click on “mark all items read”.

I really would like to slide my hand over to her mouse as we chat and "here let me take care of those unread e-mails for you".

I am finishing up "Look Me in the Eye" right now which is a true story about one man's life with Aspergers. There have been suggestions that Leif is on the Aspergers spectrum. As I read the book I have marvelled not at seeing my son in the role, but at all the times I sat there and nodded my head or wondered to myself, "hmm, is this weird? This seems perfectly normal to me."

I was told one time, when I took a test in grad school - you know those tests where you volunteer for a fellow grad student in another department - that I definitely had Aspergers. Then I went back to my lab and looked it up on the internet and scoffed, I wasn't autistic. Though lately as I learn more about Aspergers... I look back to that test and nod my head.

Severe? Nope. On the spectrum? Most definitely.