sqt – little thoughts

sqt

small things that keep going even when the big things are broken and scary

Posted on 2020-06-04 by kristinabean

So, our country is going through some tough things right now, and my prayer is that greater equity and justice will come from it, that wrongs will be set right. It’s yet another evidence of the brokenness of our world, coming on the heels of a pandemic and mass unemployment. But for today, here, I’m going to focus instead on the small pieces of beauty and growth and happiness that are like gifts in each new day. And maybe God will give me meaningful words to address those bigger issues another day; right now, everything I try to say sounds so empty.

Our corn is really taking off! This is my first time growing corn, so while I’ve seen it in fields before I’ve never really paid attention to all the stages of its growth. For instance, I’ve never before seen those tall, willowy flowers that bloom before the ears form, or gotten to watch the ears slowly grow plumper within their husks. They also make a good barrier to hide behind when having water gun battles with the kids…

The bed that doesn’t contain any Three Sisters planting (corn, beans, and squash) was intended for tomatoes and peppers and potentially peanuts but has been completely taken over by volunteer sweet potatoes from last year! Last year’s harvest was disappointing, but I think I am better informed now so hopefully this crop does better.
Even if the sweet potatoes themselves don’t fill out well, I’m going to try to make better use of the leaves this year. They have a very mild flavor – akin to spinach – and a slightly firmer texture. I think they’d be good in curry, to be honest, and Limerick invented an amazing green smoothie with them just the other day by combining them with frozen mango, frozen banana, and apple juice.
Limerick also discovered fractals and tessellation in the past couple weeks, and has been trying to build models of them with all the various pattern/construction toys we have around. And then whenever possible he turns them into rocket launchers, with progressively larger fractal rockets 🙂

He also got to help Paul change the oil in the family car, scooting under the engine block to see the oil cap and filter and looking in from the top to check the oil levels (and help identify a cracked part elsewhere on the engine…). He’s starting to show interest in learning practical skills by doing things together with us, which is just awesome for so many reasons (not least of which is the enjoyment of time spent together making something useful).

Rondel, by contrast, has been so absorbed in the world of fantasy and imagination. He’s trying to build every Lego set we have so that he can set up a gigantic battle between them; he’s acting out stories with kings and queens and princesses and princes and good guys and bad guys and extremely dramatic climactic moments; all of his toys have some role to play in the ongoing narrative he creates. He begs me to read more and more of the chapter books we’ve been tearing through, so he can soak up the story, and his own reading ability has been increasing rapidly as well. It is so much fun to listen to all the adventures he comes up with!
So, when we made bendy people earlier this week, it’s not surprising that the first one he requested was a king! (I later made a sword for him as well). Aubade asked for a princess (she is so obsessed with princesses right now), and I also made a grandma for her and an evil queen (not pictured) for Rondel since his king needed an antagonist. I used these instructions from The Enchanted Tree, although the beads I had available for the heads were quite a bit smaller than theirs. While they used embroidery floss for wrapping the dolls’ bodies, I found that yarn worked just as well, as did a strange metallic gold string I have around that is a complete disaster for just about anything else. My sister returned our bag of pipecleaners and my mom is bringing up her hoard of yarn remnants, so I’m expecting a new round of bendy people to join us soon!

Head over to This Ain’t the Lyceum today for the link up!

sqt

snippets of life

Posted on 2020-05-072020-05-07 by kristinabean

We are now flooded with blackberries! I have made 4 jars of jam, a crisp, and the most wonderful simple sauce to pour over crepes filled with tangy whipped cream – not counting all the berries we’ve simply eaten straight off the bushes! And honestly this is just the beginning of the season; we probably have another few weeks of fruit.

I’ve been texting my sister all about my blackberry goodness and I think she’s a bit jealous, as she lives in a place where blackberries ripen much later. It might even be one of those places where you can legitimately eat the last of the blackberry harvest on September 29th for Michaelmas (which just boggles my mind as that seems so late for berries). But her turn will come in a couple months and then she can make me wistfully recall these blackberry days.
My other sister, who lives locally, made me a very nice cloth mask to wear when I need to go out! She’s actually been making a lot of them and donating them to one of the local grocery stores where she knows some of the employees, and she even offered to donate some to the security personnel where I work after they commented on mine and on their anxiety about not having enough (the man I spoke to was going to be on patrol on one of the floors scheduled for deep cleaning after a confirmed covid-19 diagnosis and didn’t have a mask, so there’s clearly a problem here for people’s state of mind at the very least, even though the masks aren’t as crucial as keeping your hands clean and off your face).

Sporting my mask! It’s like the opposite of one of those superhero masks that just go around their eyes.

I also got to wear the mask down to Aubade’s dermatology follow-up this week. Of all the places I’ve been, they are definitely taking the virus most seriously. Two people wearing masks stood outside the waiting room to take our temperatures before letting us in; the chairs were mostly removed with just a few left in isolated locations; and everyone there was masked and gloved. And while Aubade’s eczema (about which we were following up) is well under control currently, it was still a useful visit with regards to the molluscum epidemic among the kids (a possible treatment at last! Hurrah!) as well as Aubade’s nevi spilus birthmark (which apparently slightly increases her risk of skin cancer over her lifetime and is something to watch as she grows). Also Aubade got to show a bunch of new people her sparkly light-up sneakers, and we got to chat just the two of us for the whole drive down and back, which is always nice.
Limerick is still loving numbers over here. He really just needs a whiteboard and a marker and a new concept to sink his (figurative) teeth into and he is so happy! This week he spent quite a bit of time calculating powers of different numbers until they got to be 6-7 digits long; he made lists showing the conversions between fractions and decimals for 1 down to 1/12; I introduced him to long division; and we had a fun afternoon counting in different base systems. (It always seems like we aren’t doing enough school, but I think that’s actually a lot for one week now that I list it out like that).

We did base 10, 16, 2, and 3 together; then he did base 4 on his own and here he’s working on base 5. He ended up making lists for bases 6-9 as well, counting as high as he could fit on the whiteboard for each base.

In general, Limerick has a good mind for solving problems of the quantitative sort. Paul’s been setting up the boys’ loft beds so that one of the ladders and the two railings lie across the space between (with Aubade’s mattress on the floor below) so that the kids can crawl across and hang and swing and jump off them. Well, they decided they didn’t want to wait for him to be done working, so Limerick and Rondel figured out how to do it together. It’s not easy! The ladder is heavy and difficult to position even for me, as is the mattress they have to drag in from the other room (through two doors and a narrow hallway). But Limerick has an eye for angles and positions and possibilities, and was able to figure out how they could set it up without the advantage of adult height. It was really awesome listening to him direct the whole project, with Rondel providing good input and feedback as they worked together.

And… that’s all I’ve got for quick takes this week! (Well, I suppose I could add that Rondel and I have almost finished The Horse and His Boy since last week’s takes. I’m not always sure just how much he understands, especially in places with lots of names and places, but he keeps wanting me to read more.) Visit the link-up at This Ain’t the Lyceum! I hope you all have an excellent week filled with unexpected pockets of joy 🙂

sqt

finding joy in the little things

Posted on 2020-05-01 by kristinabean

Aubade has been so into princesses lately that I decided to make a couple little dresses for some of her tiny dolls, to match the princess costumes one of her aunts and uncles gave her for Christmas. I guess one silver lining of the quarantine is that I have a little extra time at home for little crafty projects like this! (Also, her pink nails are Crayola marker… she’s been coloring them to match her outfits!)

For Limerick, I wrote a few quick Python scripts to let him see some of his favorite number sequences up to whatever parameter he wants – Fibonacci numbers, triangle numbers, square numbers, powers of any base, and reciprocals of integers. He loves being able to see those numbers in more detail (and more quickly!) than he could with a calculator. So far I haven’t gotten him interested in trying to write his own code, although since this is his first time using a computer he does have the whole learning curve of the keyboard and trackpad to deal with first!

With Rondel I’ve just been reading and reading and reading. We started The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe towards the end of Lent and have now finished it, as well as Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair. He absolutely loves worlds of fantastical beasts, bold adventures, kings and queens, and magic.
One of the hardest things about the quarantine is making sure we all get enough physical activity. The other day we set off on what I thought would be a short exploration through the neighborhood and ended up being a 3.2 mile trek (Aubade in the stroller, Limerick on his bike, Rondel walking)… but now the temperatures are hitting 100 every day and those long walks are a lot less enjoyable. Also I’ve been sick for the past week and really didn’t have energy to do anything active with the kids. My parents’ pool has been such a blessing, as their house is the one place we are still taking the kids, but for the first time I’m wishing we had our own! I’m sure when things are back to normal this desire will fade, though.

My other personal challenge is maintaining a sense of rhythm and structure when all the milestones and pivot points of a regular week are gone. I think especially as an autistic person, I struggle significantly with having an uncertain routine. So far I’ve been doing alright with bookending the day – prayer in the morning, reading to the kids while they eat breakfast, and exercising on the stationary bike in the evening while listening to podcasts – but the middle of the day is a great gaping void. And when I think the day is going to have a certain structure but then it doesn’t end up working out, it’s really bad. I suppose if I had to find a silver lining here, it would be both the confirmation that I am autistic and didn’t somehow trick the psychologist as well as the reassurance of God’s faithfulness and grace as I find myself needing Him more.
Related to that last point, the Easter season has been such a gift right now. The daily reminder that Christ is risen, the reaffirmation of the hope and joy to be found in Him, even just the singing of the alleluias – those things help me stave off negative emotions and unhelpful thought patterns. They give me a starting point for seeing joy in each day, for learning to be thankful, and for abiding in hope.
Finally, the sudden burst of warmth has made the garden flourish! The last of the winter beets are rounding out under their thin blanket of soil and the herbs are thick and bushy. The blackberries are ripe, the peaches are blushing, the corn is shooting up, and the beans are filling in around the trellis. I even have some sweet potato and purple basil sprouting up on their own from last summer! This is definitely a joy-bringing aspect of this time as well.

I hope you are all doing well, staying healthy and finding joy, and that you have the support you need right now! I am linking up with Kelly today so head over to check out the rest of the link up!

autism acceptance month, sqt

{sqt} – autistic #ownvoices fiction

Posted on 2020-04-03 by kristinabean

In the midst of all the covid-19 craziness, life goes on. It’s still Lent, for about another week, and there will still be Easter, and it’s still Autism Acceptance Month now that it’s April! This year, my focus will be on books of fiction written by and/or containing autistic main characters.

Why fiction? There are a lot of good memoirs written by autistic individuals, and non-fiction books addressing autism, but fiction in particular taps into the imagination and vision of the reader. It opens up new perspectives and potentials, allowing the reader to enter into new worlds, relationships, and experiences. So for the neurotypical reader, encountering autistic characters in fiction (assuming they are well-written!) can make autism understandable, relatable, and more human, which will then hopefully translate to the real world. For the autistic reader, those characters can give them people to identify with when they may be surrounded by neurotypical society in real life and in most books.

Another advantage of fiction is that it is more likely to be read by people who aren’t interested specifically in autism – at least not enough to seek out a non-fiction book on the topic – but who are looking for a good story to immerse themselves in. In this way, books with autistic characters can help bring awareness and acceptance of autism to a more mainstream audience.

It’s not so helpful, however, to read fiction with autistic characters if those characters are stereotyped, flat, or defined by their atypical behaviors rather than shown authentically as human beings with complex internal lives and emotional ranges. For that reason, fiction written by autistic authors is particularly valuable, as these authors tend to have more reliable insight into the processing and perspective of autistic characters than neurotypical authors have. It is possible for non-autistic authors to write autistic characters well, of course, and I think it’s important for fiction writers to try to write from a variety of perspectives, but in my experience autistic characters written by autistic authors are much more accurate to life and multi-dimensional.

For those reasons, most of the books I’ll be reviewing this month are #ownvoices autistic fiction – books with an autistic protagonist or important secondary character written by an autistic author – and the exceptions will fit into either one or the other of those categories. I’ve written three reviews already, I’ve read two more books that I need to write up, and I have 2-3 more in reserve – but if you have any suggestions of books you’ve loved or that sound interesting, please let me know! It was difficult to find books in this category and so I’d love to be able to put together a more comprehensive list by the end of the month.

I’m linking up with Kelly again this week – head over and check out the rest of the linkup!

family life, sqt

{sqt} – social distancing with littles

Posted on 2020-03-26 by kristinabean

I tend to use field trips and excursions (and even errands!) quite liberally with the kids: as a way to break up a long day, cut through moodiness, provide structure, and create enjoyable and educational experiences. So being stuck at home all day, every day, has been a bit of a challenge – though I’m sure not nearly so much of a challenge as it is for parents accustomed to being away from the children most of the day. I’ve been aiming for one new or different activity each day to break up the routine, and we’ve been diving more deeply into some regular activities as well. For your inspiration, here are a few of the highlights!

The Dome Tent: we have a climbing dome out back, and the boys helped me move it into the lawn and cover it with sheets (using chip clips!) to make a tent! The kids hung out in it, hung upside down in it, and hung in a swing from the center of it (I put the swing up after I took pictures, but it was Aubade’s favorite part). It needed more openings so the breeze could keep it cool in the sun, though 🙂

Water (and mud): with a sprinkler and some pipes, the boys discovered how water pressure can force water up through a vertical pipe, how the water will seep out of any crack when two pipes are joined, and how to make the water spray everywhere by blocking part of the opening and thus increasing the pressure. They also filled their pipes with muds and pretended they were magic mud sticks.

Custom Pancakes: We eat pancakes a lot, but we’ve been eating them even more recently, because I started making them look like letters (for Rondel), numbers (for Limerick), and cute animals (for Aubade)! I love when the kids eat pancakes because my recipe is 100% whole grain with no added sugar and a secret addition of some type of vegetable. These days we’ve been using up the frozen pumpkin and butternut squash from last summer’s harvest, but carrot is also good, as is a half and half blend of spinach and banana (for quite vibrantly green pancakes that are amazing with chocolate chips and walnuts mixed in!)

I’m lucky – the kids are quite forgiving of lumps and irregular shaped ears lol. Also it took me way too long to realize that if I shape the numbers and letters as mirror images I’ll be able to have the better-looking side of the pancake visible when they’re right way around on the plate. This batch would have the ugly bubbly side on top.

I was trying to make a cat, but Aubade was convinced it was a mouse…

Lots and lots of reading! All the kids are starting to get excited about reading, and it makes more reading possible when I’m not the only one who can do it (my throat does get tired, and also now we can rotate who is listening so everyone gets a chance to not be just listening). Aubade has memorized Old Hat, New Hat by the Berensteins and likes to read it multiple times a day; Rondel puts so much expression into the words that it’s like listening to a dramatic audiobook with all the added nuance and humor he conveys; and Limerick is beginning to devour everything he sees with the craving of insatiable curiosity and an intensity bordering on perfectionism. We’ve spent hours just reading out loud to each other (I read the entire The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe just this week out loud to Rondel, just by way of example…)

Uno: the boys very recently discovered the card game Uno and have been wanting to play it all day every day. I’ve been using it as an incentive, or to give rhythm to the day: I’ll play three games of Uno now, but then I’d like you to exercise your body before the next set of three, or exercise your mind with reading or with math. We talk about the importance of using our minds and bodies and stretching them to do hard things, and then break up those more challenging things with some fun and relaxing Uno games, and it seems to be working well for now.

Leaf Rubbing: To get some outdoor time and for a unique art project, we took a walk around the block collecting interesting-looking leaves as we went. Our neighborhood is rather weedy, so we were able to get a wide variety of leaves while only pilfering a very few more cultivated plants reaching out over sidewalks 🙂 And of course we had some good leaves to use from our own plants also! Once we got back, we laid them out on the counter, covered them with plain printer paper, and rubbed crayons over the paper to generate the impression of the leaves below. Juniper wasn’t as spectacular as I’d hoped, though it was still good, but the Hong Kong orchid and mallow leaves were stunning. And Rondel used black crayon over a longwise half of a wild arugula leaf to make something that resembled a jagged blade.

Costumes: one day, we pulled down the box of old Halloween costumes and had fun dressing up and playing pretend as the various animals and conglomerate creations to be had there. Rondel loves his alligator outfit the most, while Aubade prefers to rotate through all the options (and her princess dresses) rather rapidly…

Between all these things and more (and I have more ideas stockpiled for the next idle moment!), we’ve managed to keep TV time to a minimum without getting cabin fever from being cooped up in the same place for so long. I’ll definitely be glad when the libraries and museums and zoos are open again, but I’m not going to jeopardize the health of my community over boredom or frustration. Instead, I’m going to treat it as an opportunity to creatively connect with my family even more than normal.

I’m linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum today if you want to join the linkup! She’s posted a few times in the past week or so with helpful and humorous thoughts about isolation and quarantine (with two medically fragile kids, she’s been less complacent about it than a lot of people).

How have you been handling isolation or social distancing? Especially those of you without backyards or easy ways to get time outside, how have you managed to create a sustainable new rhythm of life?

musings, sqt

{sqt} – like a child at rest

Posted on 2020-03-192020-03-19 by kristinabean

Compared to the scope of a pandemic, my life feels quite small. Not necessarily insignificant, but most definitely small: myself just one person, my family just one little cluster of people amidst the billions all swept up in a single massive crisis. It is the kind of smallness that can make someone feel helpless and afraid, unsure of how to protect themselves and their loved ones from something so big and so out of their control; it is the kind of littleness that can leave us cowering and vulnerable against a greater force than we can hope to conquer.

But tonight, as I put my daughter to bed, she curled herself up against my side, tucked under my arm, and I thought that the smallness of fear or helplessness is not the only kind of smallness in this world. There is also the smallness of restful trust: the smallness of a little child confident in their parents’ love, to whom the world may be very big and scary indeed but for whom that parent is a shield and refuge and source of strength. This is the smallness of a child who is hurt, or sad, or scared, or angry, but whose tears fade in the arms of their mother or father.

The Psalmist wrote that,

"Truly I have set my soul
in silence and peace.
As a child has rest in its mother's arms,
even so my soul."
(Psalm 131)

Against the swirling unknown threats of a pandemic, against the overwhelming storm of uncertainty and anxiety that is threading its way around the world, we are each on our own very small indeed, like a young child trying to fend for themselves. But where I find peace in this time is in acknowledging my own smallness and staying close by God my Father, who is quite the opposite of small and helpless, and in whose unconditional love I can be utterly confident. I do not need to be my own strong tower in the hurricane; he offers his strength so that in him I may have the peace of a child comforted in their mother’s arms.

My view biking home from work the other day! (Panoramas are tricky to capture in the rain on a bike…) I love the promise of the rainbow, which I believe can be taken figuratively: that God will not prove faithless to his people, but will be with them through the storms and floods of life. Sometimes the things that make sense from an eternal perspective don’t make sense from our earthly perspective, but I choose to trust in his faithfulness.

Visit Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for the rest of this week’s linkup! She didn’t do 7 takes either this week so I don’t feel too guilty about just sharing one thought 🙂

sqt

{sqt} – disability rights, epidemics, communication, love, and lemons

Posted on 2020-03-06 by kristinabean

Some good news this week – the FDA has banned the electric shock devices used by the Judge Rotenberg center to control disabled (primarily autistic) patients. From the ACLU statement in response to the ban:

“Using what are essentially human cattle prods to shock people with disabilities into compliance is simply barbaric. For over 40 years, the disability rights movement has fought to ban the use of abusive ‘behavioral treatment’ methods such as these ESDs. The FDA’s decision today banning their use should be seen as a necessary and important first step to securing a broader prohibition on the use of aversive interventions.
“People with disabilities deserve the right to be supported with dignity and respect, and there are no circumstances under which they should be subjected to pain as a means of behavior modification.”
– Susan Mizner, director of the ACLU’s Disability Rights Program

Some not-so-good news is that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 does seem to be of potentially greater concern than I originally thought (in line with the flu in terms of transmission rate and severity, far lower in total number of cases so far, but still concerning to researchers and health care workers because it is an unknown agent). In response to that, one of the labs we frequently work with at the university is optimizing protocols for high-throughput diagnosis and training people to run those protocols; if an emergency situation does occur where the load of potential cases is very high, they’ll be equipped to run 24/7 and process 1000-3000 tests a day. (I say “they”, but I’m hoping to run through the training myself so I can be part of the public health response if the epidemic becomes a serious issue locally. I guess I’m nerdy enough that the opportunity to be involved with a novel virus on even a small scale is just purely exciting to me 😛 )

Coming down to a more personal scale, communication and relationships are so hard. Even when two people are trying as hard as they can, misunderstandings can happen and feelings can be hurt and it’s just all around miserable – so much so that even knowing how a good conversation about something meaningful can fill up my heart like food and drink, it’s tempting to just not even try sometimes. But isolating myself doesn’t lead to health, or happiness, or holiness; it leads to bitterness and selfishness and despair. My sister shared a quote with me today that speaks to this, and of far more than this – of the value and even necessity of pursuing relationship in a self-giving way, of staying alive and invested and connected not for your own sake but that you might in so doing pour out your life for the needs of others and open yourself to be so poured into by others (and I don’t have access to the original formatting of the quote, unfortunately, since that can be significant with poetry):

"I don't want to feel better; I want to know better.
I should have known that God is not in the meal
but in the sharing of the meal.
I should have told you that holiness resides in needing each other,
in acts of survival made generous."
- Julian K. Jarboe, "Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel"

Speaking of powerful quotes from books, I came across this one and realized that far too often I am impatient with and even contemptuous of weakness – starting with myself, but sadly spreading out to those around me as well. I do not often respond to my own struggles with compassion and grace, and that attitude of harsh, high standards can carry over into my interactions with other people. Having had the issue brought to my attention, I’m trying to be extra intentional about cultivating a spirit of love and gentleness instead: to offer open arms and a listening ear instead of an eye roll or an “I told you so”; to wait calmly for someone to process and express themselves instead of letting my attention drift away from them in impatience or disrespect; to make space for struggle and failure and fear and meet people where they are instead of expecting them to succeed in a way or time that’s convenient for me.

“No one is of the Spirit of Christ but he that has the utmost compassion for sinners. Nor is there any greater sign of your own perfection than you find yourself all love and compassion toward them that are very weak and defective. And on the other hand, you have never less reason to be pleased with yourself than when you find yourself most angry and offended at the behavior of others.”
– William Law, cited in Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

One of the great blessings of cultivating this gentleness and patience is seeing the happiness and peace it gives to those around you. I think as a parent of small children it’s easier to see things like that – young children are both more sensitive to their parents’ attitudes and more expressive of their own feelings. For example, Rondel has been working really hard on riding his bike the past few weeks. He has training wheels, but he still feels very panicky about balancing, steering, and just generally maintaining control of the bike, especially at faster speeds. It is so easy to become frustrated when he bikes at a slow walking speed – Limerick racing ahead then having to wait for him to catch up – particularly because he doesn’t look anxious at that speed. Some part of my mimd interprets his actions as laziness or an unwillingness to try when really they stem from anxiety and poor motor skills, and my resulting impatience just makes him feel worse. But when I remember to re-evaluate in terms of gentleness and grace, I can see the anxiety and try to help him work through that root problem so that biking can be something fun and energizing for him like it is for his siblings.

Another thing that I’m learning as a parent is how little control we really have in the interests our children develop. Aubade wears princess dresses as often as she can, claps with delight at the thought of going to a shoe store, revels in sparkles and stick-on earrings, and pretends every playhouse is a “princess house.” Just. What. I have no words. Aside from having to tell someone with no concept of monetary value that she can’t have all the shoes she desires, though, it’s actually pretty fun 🙂

Finally, I got a bag of lemons from my mom and need to use them up this weekend! I’m definitely going to make a jar of preserved lemons, now that I know I like them and won’t wait six months before breaking into them, as the batch from last year was beginning to get mushy (still tasted good though). I’m also contemplating making a jar of lemon marmalade, but I’m debating whether or not to add some sort of accent flavor to it. I could go a slightly savory route with rosemary (I made a rosemary and lemon shortbread last week that I loved, and this would be a similar flavor profile), or more Middle Eastern with cardamom (my favorite spice of all time). Or I could keep it straight lemon, simple and bright. Any thoughts?

Head over to This Ain’t the Lyceum for the rest of the Seven Quick Takes link up! For fellow homeschoolers, there were some helpful/thought-provoking posts on that topic this week that I found encouraging 🙂

information, sqt

{sqt} – internalized ableism

Posted on 2020-02-13 by kristinabean

I’m joining the quick takes link-up today at This Ain’t The Lyceum with a rather more serious topic than normal. Head over there for the rest of the regular varied line-up.

Disability is innately challenging in various ways (hence the term disability), but it is also socially challenging because the surrounding culture is not designed to accommodate disability, typically misunderstands, and frequently actively stigmatizes it. When a person in a wheelchair can’t navigate safely down the sidewalk because someone left one of those electric rentable scooters lying across the width of it, for example, that is a challenge posed social ignorance and carelessness, not an inherent challenge of the disability. When people assume that a disabled person’s life will be less meaningful, less joyful, or less worthy, just because of the disability, that stigma and misunderstanding add a significant challenge that is not actually part of the disability itself: the burden of proving oneself to the community instead of having one’s potential and value automatically acknowledged. And in the face of that assumption, repeated over and over again, the disabled person may even begin to believe it themselves, in what is called internalized ableism.

I can really only speak for myself and the disability I know well, autism. But for me, internalized ableism is:

…scratching my arms till they bleed because it’s more subtle and socially acceptable than flapping my hands in the air and I really just don’t want anyone to notice that I’m different and struggling here, please. (Just realizing this and giving myself permission to flap and stim in other more obvious ways has reduced my self-injurious stimming a lot, actually.)
…laughing at everything that is probably a joke so that I’m not the clueless person who doesn’t get cultural humor. (I laugh when I’m nervous or overwhelmed too. I hate this. I hate that my emotional responses don’t match up to what they “should” be and I have hated it ever since an adult got angry with me as a kid for laughing in an “inappropriate” setting. Internalized ableism is often learned through emotionally significant childhood events; it often speaks to the heart with cruel, cutting hate.)
…acting like I know things, even if I’m not totally sure, if it seems like everyone else knows already – only admitting ignorance if someone else does, because then I’m not the weird one who might not be worth bothering with.
…believing I can’t serve God in any meaningful way because I’m too anxious to build relationships and share the Gospel with my neighbors/coworkers/homeless people/etc.
…trying to get my kids to act “normal” instead of helping them live fully into the way God made them, disability and all, because I secretly (subconsciously?) think displaying their disability will hurt their chances of friendship, community, inclusion, and happiness.

Limerick standing at the edge of a lake, arms raised mid-flap. I never want him to think he has to stop his excited flapping to fit in and make friends. I never want to cut out his natural and beautiful expression of happiness, and in so doing damage the happiness itself. So why do I try so hard to do that to myself?

…doing everything on my own without asking for help, because I think asking for help for disability-related reasons either means I’m a useless burden on the relationship or lazy and immature and relying on my disability as an excuse.
…assuming that the people I do rely on (particularly my husband, at this season of life) resent me or see me as a burden, or would do so if they understood the reality of my disability. I felt this years before I had a diagnosis: I knew that I was different, that I didn’t process things “normally”; that I had struggles no one else I knew had; and I thought this made me deficient and broken and that anyone who really knew me would stop loving me because it would be too much work. And that is just with Level 1 Autism. I can only imagine how internalized ableism, if not actively combatted, could bring down smothering waves of anxiety and depression on someone whose support needs are higher, either physically or emotionally.

In short – internalized ableism can rob the disabled person of joy, shut down their authentic self-expression, replace their faith and hope with fear and despair, and reduce the blessing and the gift they can be to the communities they are a part of. I don’t have a great solution for eradicating it, and I think it can only be done hand-in-hand with eliminating more generalized ableism in society – disabled people are going to pick up on the attitudes others have towards them, and especially as children can easily internalize those attitudes.

The following chart is, however, a well-written, sensitive, and helpful guide for evaluating your own attitudes toward disability. It’s aimed towards the non-disabled reader, but I honestly found it quite helpful in unearthing my own internalized and self-directed ableism as well.

Where on the chart do you see yourself? What has led you to where you are now in your understanding of disability, in either yourself or in others?

Has internalized ableism been a part of your life? If so, what does it look like for you? How do you move past ableism and learn to walk with joy in the fullness of who you are as a disabled person, beautifully and wonderfully made by a good and loving God?

family life, sqt

{sqt} – seven reasons to visit the sonoran desert museum

Posted on 2020-02-062020-02-06 by kristinabean

A few weeks ago my parents and I took the kids down to Tucson to visit the Sonoran Desert Museum. Despite its name, it is not very much like a traditional museum (although it does have an art gallery) – it is part botanical garden, part naturalistic zoo, and part museum. And all of it is exceptional. We were there for over six hours, impressive enough with three littles even before factoring in the 2 hour drive to get there, and we still didn’t get to see or do everything. But here’s a taste of what we did experience!

So many native plants! – The museum irrigates their grounds, so that while the desert there isn’t representative of any exact part of the Sonoran Desert, all the plants that are native to the region can thrive in a smaller, more accessible space. I could have spent the whole day just looking at the plants and reading all the information about them.

This cactus was one of my favorites – I loved the shades of color running through its prickles. Those broad spikes earned it the name Cat’s Paw, or, more evocatively, Devil’s Tongue.

The Hummingbird Aviary – While we didn’t visit at the optimal time of year for birds, bees, and butterflies, there were still a lot of hummingbirds zipping around the aviary. All the kids loved looking up into the branches to see if they could spot a bird, and Aubade got especially excited when one flew just over her head and landed near her. The aviary has a large informational sign as well for help in identifying the different species of hummingbird, which I appreciated!

I didn’t realize rust-colored hummingbirds even existed! I do really love the more well-known blue and green jewel tones, though.

The Desert Bird Aviary – Yes, there are two aviaries at the museum! In this aviary, there is a wide range of different birds – we saw doves, ducks, cardinals, orioles, and quail, and my mom commented that she’d seen even more types on a previous visit at a different time of year. There were places to sit and be still and watch the birds, with water features trickling through the center of the aviary, creating an overall very calm and peaceful atmosphere. We had to be sneaky and peek under bushes to find most of the birds though 🙂

The Animal Shows – Every day, the museum hosts at least one live animal show where a docent will bring in a variety of native Sonoran species and talk about them with an audience. Unfortunately, I had to miss most of the show on the day we went because it was lunch time and Aubade was having a hard time – but Rondel and my dad absolutely loved it. The docent asked for questions and actually meant it, engaged with the audience, and explained things well. Rondel even asked several questions himself, loud and clear! And at the end, a few of the animals stayed up at the front for people to look at more closely and even pet. This was Rondel’s favorite part of the entire day, and I wish I hadn’t missed out on so much of it.
The Animal Exhibits – The exhibits here recreate the natural desert environment, and can often be viewed from multiple levels. All the riparian animals have underwater viewing areas, for example, and cliff-dwelling animals like the ocelot can be seen from two different vantage points. We saw a beaver curled up in his den, and a playful river otter swam around by the window for a long time with Aubade and Limerick. He would swim right up to the glass and around in circles and back again; Aubade kept jumping back giggling saying that he almost touched her and Limerick kept trying to explain to her that the otter couldn’t actually touch her because there was a glass wall in the way 😛

The Raptors – My mom and the kids also saw an ocelot, a fox, and a mountain lion, but I have no pictures of these because I was too distracted by the Harris hawk family winging over the desert. It was such a beautiful and wild thing to see, the hawks on the wing, or perched on top of the saguaros like sentries overlooking the land, glorious and fierce.

The Packrat Playhouse – If you have little kids, this is a great place to stop in and play! The museum limits the number of people allowed in at a time, and restricts the time spent to a half hour, so you’ll probably need to reserve your time in advance and come back later. But after several hours of walking in the sun looking at plants and animals, a little time out of the sun climbing and sliding and tunneling was perfect for the kids.

Rondel and Aubade in the mouth of a large rattlesnake statue, pretending to be eaten — A couple of packrats didn’t get back to their burrow quickly enough and ended up as rattlesnake food!

Honestly, I could keep going. The views are spectacular. The offshoots from the trail with nests for solitary bees or gardens for butterflies are fascinating and beautiful. The day we were there, the museum had a rocks and minerals event going on and we got to learn about a lot of the different rocks that are part of the Sonoran desert – and even take samples home! The reptile and amphibian houses captured Rondel and Limerick’s attention for ages, with so many unique types of snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and more, and a wonderful display describing the life cycle of an amphibian.

In short, if you are anywhere near Tucson and in any way interested in the Sonoran Desert (or birds, or animals, or plants in general), I highly recommend the Sonoran Desert Museum. It can be a bit pricey, but there is a lot to see and do and it is very much worth the cost – just plan on spending the whole day there!

Again, here is the link for the museum’s website: https://www.desertmuseum.org. Check it out!

I’m also linking up with Kelly for quick takes again this week – head over and read the rest of the linkup!

sqt

{sqt} – biking!

Posted on 2020-01-23 by kristinabean

I’m joining the SQT link-up today, hosted by Jen at Meditatio this week! She mentions in her takes that she’s been blogging for 20 years which I find completely amazing – head over to read the rest of her post as well as the other linkers 🙂

I’ve worked at the same place for close to 10 years now and I’ve commuted by bike off and on throughout that time – from two different homes, on three different bikes, and across widely varying work schedules. Currently I’m riding a $5 3-speed cruiser with pedal brakes that I bought from a retiree in a trailer park in Apache Junction and biking mostly at night.
Biking at night is very different than biking in the day. I actually wear a helmet now (with a headlight strapped around it and a built-in taillight), and a fluorescent pink vest with reflective stripes. I have pictures but they’re pretty awful 😛 Safety over fashion though! I’m very visible and I can tell that most drivers are giving me a wide berth, but a lot of people just aren’t expecting a biker or feel irritated by the presence of a biker and don’t drive as safely as they could.
I also put cost over fashion and instead of using something like real bike panniers to carry everything I need each day at work, I just have a plastic crate zip-tied to the rear rack of the bike. (I actually Googled how to do this just to make sure it would be stable and I found the most hilarious step-by-step guide. If you need a laugh, or want to attach a crate to your own bike, check it out!)

how not to tie a crate to a bike, image courtesy of the Eugene Bicyclist blog mentioned in take 3

The hardest part about biking to work is making myself do it. Every day I think, “I’m tired, I don’t want to push myself that hard”, or I put off packing a change of clothes or procrastinate checking my tire pressure and lubricating my chain ($5 bikes haven’t had a lot of TLC in their lives and they can really benefit from it. I reduced my commute time by 10 minutes just by lubricating the gear chain, after one horrendous commute home where the bike was fighting me the whole way.). It’s just easier to take the car, since most days I don’t leave until after Paul gets home and his little commuter car is available and driving it doesn’t mean stranding him with the kids.
So why go to the effort? Because every time I get off my bike at the end of my commute, I feel less depressed, less anxious, and more motivated than I did when I got on it. (The therapist I saw after Aubade was born described it as mindfulness biking and it’s pretty accurate – I just sink into the present world around me, the warmth of the sun or the whir of the wheels or the light catching on the trees, and the whirl of anxiety fades.) Of course, in the long-term it’s also just a healthy practice since I don’t have another way to squeeze 25 minute intervals of hard exercise into my daily life, but those short-term benefits are what keep me getting on the bike each day.
Another benefit to biking is the sensory experience of commuting in the dark. I really, really, really loathe driving at night. Between the windshield and my glasses, all the head lights and tail lights and traffic lights and building lights fracture across my vision like broken shards, stars and lines and webs and points that feel like they’re stabbing me, and I have to stay on maximum capacity and focus the entire time just to deal with the lights and be safe and aware. When I bike, head lights are sometimes too bright (and police lights are still desperately painful) but I don’t feel like my whole field of vision is splintering apart.
The flip side, of course, is that a car with a loud engine and a driver who wants to rev that engine proudly is much, much louder without the walls of the car to muffle the sound; it makes me want to get off the bike and stim until I can feel calm again. I wear headphones and listen to music or podcasts when I bike during the day, but at night with the added risk of poor visibility I don’t want to dampen my other senses. So it can make things difficult – but still definitely worth it.

My eyes don’t make such geometrically perfect patterns with the light, and the dimmer lights fracture as well, but other than that this isn’t too far off from what I see. Public domain, picture credit JB Stran.

Do any of you have the option of biking to work? Have you tried it? I’d love to hear your stories and thoughts and experiences 🙂