Outside of Children's Storefront on Bathurst.

When I spent three weeks in Toronto in Spring, despite my being busy with that whole, oh, conceiving a child while on birth control thing, one of my biggest challenges was to keep the kids and I busy during the many days that Big N was at work. I was in a new town and only had myself and public transportation at my disposal, and I have to say, we did very well finding fun things to do.

A reader of this blog (and I’m sorry, I can’t figure out how to look up who) suggested that I take the kids to someplace called “The Children’s Storefront,” that was just a few subway stops and about a ten minute walk from N’s house. This was one of the first places I ventured off to with the kids on the subway by ourselves. I was nervous because even though I looked it up on the internet, I didn’t quite get what this place was. It was a government-funded early childhood center funded by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. It said it provided resources and information to families with children under six. Okay. So I’m thinking of this in an Americanized way, and I think that it is some kind of place for low-income, high-risk families where you have to apply for services and go through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops and then you get some kind of counselor that tells you what other services you qualify for while doing little developmental assessments on your kids. (Kind of like the Healthy Start program I was used to.)

But I read this article and decided to give it a go and just show up and see what is there,  not knowing whether I, as essentially a tourist from the States would even be allowed in the building. When I entered the building, which was a large multi-level playroom with a kitchen in the back with fresh coffee smells and a crockpot full of soup, I held the kids hands tightly and would not let them go running off into the fun. I awkwardly explained to the woman who seemed to work there that I was from the states visiting my fiancé and was just looking for places for the kids to go to keep us occupied that were low-cost. She invited all of us in and said we could come there any time for free, make ourselves at home, did I want some coffee or soup?

I was all, “Free? Really? You know I am not a resident of Toronto? Are you just being extra nice to me?” I was sort of dumbfounded by this whole notion. But she reassured me that the Children’s Storefront was for everyone with small children, it didn’t matter where you came from or how much money you had or what you needed…an hour of playtime or intense services for mom’s in crisis, they would try to help you out. I filled out no paperwork, gave no address or information about myself (officially, I did tell her our names, but that was it.) Not even a donation box was to be found. She went over some simple rules of play and introduced me to some other mothers. The kids ran off and did their thing while I horrified the moms with my stories of U.S. health insurance premiums and lack of health care, and they told me of different resources available in the Toronto area for moms and kids. I was loaded up with suggestions of other places to take my kids for free or low-cost, and she helped me navigate a better transit route back home.  On a subsequent visit, when Little A had a potty accident after we’d been there just five minutes and I thought we would have to go home because I stupidly forgot to bring extra clothing for him, she pulled out a huge garbage bag of clothes and let us dig in, sending us home in them and told us not to worry about returning them since we were leaving the area soon. (A still has these beloved Halloween socks from there. He was so happy to wear them on Halloween and remembered where they came from.)

It was just the coolest vibe ever. So Canadian. I even thought that if I was able to get permanent residency in Canada and get out from under the health insurance hell-hole I’m currently in and go back to work full-time, I’d totally love to work in a place like this or start something of my own like it. At the very least, I knew that when I got back to Toronto (sooner or later…) I already had some connections to build on and would not be so alone in a new city. I was so looking forward to going back there again.

I was very sad to learn that over the weekend there was a fire and the place burnt down. Everything was lost and the building is totaled. It was such a neat old building, too. So colorful. And a neighborhood landmark that had been hosting families for a couple of generations. Parents were there who had spent time there as children, and now it’s gone.

Luckily, it seems that the storefront touched others as much as it did me, and it is not a building but a community. There are already efforts to find a new location and rebuild underway.  There is a Facebook page called “The Children’s Storefront Needs a New Home” where organizing efforts are taking place, and a fund for donations set up:

Our Charitable Donation account is up and running at TD Canada Trust. The Transit # is 13602 and the Account # is 5206664. (The Children’s Storefront.com)

I know that this cause is far removed from most of my readers, but I thought the least I could do is make a small donation myself and to spread the word to anyone else that is interested.

Here are some pictures of my guys at the Children’s Storefront last Spring:

Little N beelined to the trains. The staff member who was so helpful looks on.

A and N discover that Toronto has toys, too.

I don't know if you can see, but there is a comfy kitchen in the back.

New friends.

Colorful and Cheery with lots of artwork and wall murals, I hope they can replace this atmosphere.

I got some news today about what became of my guide dog I had to give up, M2. It is kind of surprising how much this news made me happy and sort of helped me put closure on the whole guide dog debacle of ‘o9. I had been trying to keep tabs on her progress, but there are confidentiality rules so I was only able to get limited information about her from the school. I had heard she went back into guide dog training and was doing well, and then I didn’t hear much else.

Well, today I got an email from the woman who raised her. I met her at my graduation and we exchanged emails, so she and I are not bound to confidentiality rules. Well, she let me know that M2 has been retired as a guide dog and that she was taking her back to live with them permanantly.

I would have been happy for M2 if she had been a guide dog for someone else, but this was actually my best case scenario for her. She doesn’t have to transition yet again to another setting, she will go back to those she is familiar with. She obviously had a strong bond with them when we met at graduation. They have 5 acres and other dogs, cats and horses which is about a dream come true for a dog like M2. And no little kids around to give her anxiety. Also, she is only about an hour and a half away, so I could actually take the kids and visit if I want to (she invited us.) I think it would be very good for the kids to see that she is okay and happy.

From what I gathered, she did fine in guide dog training, which did not surprise me. But then they had her stay with a foster family and work on her in-home behaviors and that is where things failed (also doesn’t surprise me) so she was retired (or “career changed” they call it. Tee Hee). I have to admit feeling a little vindicated about this. But moreover, I feel like M2 knew some guide dog things, but was not meant to be a guide dog and she will be much happier with this arrangement.

Interestingly, her puppy raiser said that she was surprised that M2 was matched with someone with young children as young children weren’t her thing and caused her a lot of anxiety. So, I think in the end, it was just a bad match most of all. Tonight is her first night home with her new/old family, and I hear she is happy and its like she never left.

I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone else, but this whole guide dog experience has been quite an emotional trauma for me. I felt sad and guilty and somewhat unsure of my decisions and my abilities and it was just a confidence shaker and, of course, very disappointing. I worried about the stress and trauma I was putting M2 through as well. Finally, this news makes me feel at least a little bit better about the whole thing. Like I did the right thing and like she is in the right place now and she will be okay and happy and have a good life. And it makes me feel a bit better about getting another dog sometime in the future. Like with the right circumstances and match, I will find another guide dog that will be as great as experience as my first one.

Sorry to be all going on and on about my continuing dog woes, but this was just something that made my day today and sort of puts some closure on my life with M2.

When I was pregnant with the twins, everything went to hell at 33 weeks. And then getting from 33 to 35 weeks was a day by day, minute by minute thing. So, it was a milestone to come up to 33 weeks this week and hope to get past it unscathed. I had hoped that I could carry just one baby all the way to term and avoid all the preterm stuff I dealt with before.

But I felt things going South over the last two weeks. At first I thought it was because Kim, my babysitter was gone and I was just feeling the extra work without her here. But then I woke up one night and called Big N and said, “I think you need to get here sooner.” He was planning on coming out November 24 for a Dec. 7ish birth. I told him I didn’t think I was going to make it. After a whirlwind of paperwork and flight changes, he is now coming here next Sunday.

People who are always healthy don’t seem to understand the feeling of when you are teetering on the edge and you calculate your every move, is this going to be too much? Can I get this one more thing done? Will this make me feel better or put me in the hospital? How wimpy am I being or how crazy am I being trying to do too much? It is frustrating because the kids are looking forward to Halloween, preschool, Sunday school, other stuff that I thought we could do and has been increasingly difficult. Sometimes I know a day of taking them to preschool is going to ruin me for the next 24 hours, leaving me barely able to walk to the bathroom, feeling out of breath and listening to the pump of my heartbeat as my blood pressure rises. But to stay in bed all day makes me feel shitty, too. Laundry piles up, the kids trash the house without my supervision, meals become PB&J and frozen pizza. And what about haircuts? Christmas presents? Applying for WIC in case I can’t breastfeed? etc. It all weighs on your mind when you are alone all day with two kids under what basically amounts to house arrest.

So, I went to the doctor today and as I suspected, things are turning south with this pregnancy. It’s not eminent danger territory yet, so I have almost officially made it past the 33 week marker (or will on Monday.) But my B/P has risen 20-30 points systolic, my protein in my urine and creatinine are up. I’m not in terrible danger, it just means that I just fulfilled my role of being a high-risk patient for the perinatologist and I no longer bore him. He now wants to see me two times a week and has brought my nephrologist in.

It also means that I’m in the balancing game that I was in with the twins, the race to give this baby more time while not going so far as to endanger myself. I will not make it to my due date, December 14 or even my goal date of  Dec. 7th. The doctor said to expect a November baby. Whether it is early or late November is still going to be a day-by-day thing. Basically, when he gets too uncomfortable with my B/P and kidney stats, he is going to call it quits and do a C-section. Now my goal is 36 weeks. One more week than I had with the twins.

The good news is that the baby is HUGE. Estimated to be about 5 and a half pounds, which is more than Little A and N weighed at birth. The baby is doing well and will likely do fine even this early. Still, a few weeks can make a big difference. So I’ll try to bed rest some more (I’m only one more week with no help and then I can probably do  bed rest the majority of the time.) And keep this kid in a little longer without anyone losing life or limb.

Also, good news is that I was able to get my H1N1 vaccine today. So I no longer have to walk around being in the highest risk group (third trimester pregnant women) and worrying about that.

That’s where things lie today. And as the famous and now MIA blogger GetUpGrrl used to say, “Nothing Bad Has Happened Yet.”

Day at a time. Day at a time…

Kan U Git a Bigur Wun? Kthxbai

I suppose there is some kind of hypocrisy in making life decisions that are nonconforming and then complaining because people are upset or uncomfortable that you don’t conform to something they can understand. I can’t run away from my own disability, but I could–I suppose–have arranged things so that I married an able-bodied man from Nebraska and had a house in the suburbs with 2 kids and a dog. Instead, my elevator speech about my life has developed into something like this:

I spent my 20’s and early 30’s pursuing my education and career in education and did not date a whole lot. In my thirties, I found myself single and wanting children with the old biological clock ticking, so I decided to persue fertility treatments as a single mother by choice. When discussing guardianship and other issues with my friend since grad school, D, who is quadriplegic, he asked if he could adopt my twin boys and be their father and my parenting partner. After much discussion, I agreed and that has worked well despite some health challenges along the way. In the meantime, for some odd 16 years, I have had a friendship and off and on relationship  with N, a blind Swede ex-pat who lives in Canada. Due to circumstances like immigration issues and others, we have not as of yet been able to live in the same country, but are working on it. I became unexpectedly pregnant with N’s child this year, and us three parents are working well together to find solutions so all the children are cared for and have access to all of their parents. We are a funny-shaped family, but we are foremost, a family. (Time permitting, I may add that there are really FIVE parents involved, mutually working together to take care of FIVE children…but we still are, albeit very blended and geographically and culturally diverse,  a loving family.)

OK, so complicated? Yes. Confusing to people at first? Ok, I can see how it would be. But is it really that weird? Is it really that freaky to understand?

Because what I get from many people, is this bit of a skeevy vibe. Like, I first of all am some kind of sexual freak with a fetish for disabled people. (Because disabled people dating disabled people is weird or wrong or disabled people being in relationships at all that result in children is icky.) And/or like they have in their head that D and I were married and I went out and had an affair with N because D can’t have sex (he can, btw…we don’t, btw) and/or too also since we all get along and often travel in a pack, we must be having some kind of kinky threesome. I have a feeling that people would accept us and understand us better if we were all in some sort of bitter custody dispute and hated each other. At least that would make sense! Because whatever it is that we are doing now, its just weird on some level they can’t explain.

But here is the other thing that adds layers to people’s freak out. It is actually many people’s main freak out. Is that we are all three disabled and there are all these children (FIVE! with FIVE! disabled parents…oh, and note that they are FIVE! healthy, smart children with no known disabilities. Disabled parents are only allowed to have disabled children, you know), we can’t possibly know what the hell we are doing. Even though, due to our geographical challenges (some of which are caused by policy discrimination because of our disabilities…not our inherent life decisions) we are all being–not perfect–but MUCH MORE mature than most parents would be in this situation, we must simply be doing it wrong.

So this pregnancy is getting harder. Little A and I had a cold last week that lingered in me for days, every coughing fit causing a Braxton-Hicks contraction. I’m huge and all my muscles hurt with the weight of the baby. I have days where I cannot walk without a cane because of my pelvic injury, I strategize before taking every step. My face is puffy, I have GERD, I have poop issues, I sleep erratically on a pile of pillows and get up 40 times a night to pee, I am exhausted all the time and have orthostatic hypotension, my kidneys sometimes hurt and I am tired of being constantly in pain and not being able to take any drugs for it. And, yes, I get sick of hearing myself complain about all this.

I live alone with two active four-year-olds who still need to go outside and get rid of excess energy. They still need to go to preschool and to church and to other stuff in the outside world. They still need to eat three meals and snacks a day and they still need their laundry done and their dishes cleaned. They still need hugs, kisses and bedtime books read to them. And I will be the first to admit, I can’t do it all alone right now, not with all this pg stuff and not with a new baby. I need help.

So I have my babysitter Kim (but Waaaah! She went to Budapest and won’t be back for two weeks!), and I have Krista who comes over a couple of times a month for a few hours and helps me out. But by far, my two biggest helpers for the day-to-day stuff are D and N. They are the two people who are involved and dedicated to the kids more than anyone else. They are who I can call at three in the morning. They are my A-Team. Between the three of us, we can usually get 85% of stuff done and we have hired help for the other 15%. (D has part-time help besides me. His attendant Rose, another two-hour a week CNA, Roxanna and a twice a month nurse, Lynn. N is the most independent of all of us, but has his roommate, Grant, to help with reading mail and friends from work who give him rides from time to time.) It is a complicated system, I suppose, but the point is that we try to do for ourselves as much as possible by helping each other out and then spreading the rest out to many people, most of which get compensated for their help.

So, all this is leading somewhere, I promise. I’m just finding that as I need more help in this late stage of my pregnancy, people are more confused than ever about who does what. Some people seem to think I can do it all myself and I am the main caretaker of not only my kids, but of D and N, too. Others think I can depend on D and N for everything so why am I asking for outside help? I get that people can’t possibly be expected to understand who does what and why and how, but can’t people just take my word for it instead of acting like I am teetering on the edge of sanity?

Examples: The kids’ preschool projects that I talked about last week. The teacher knew it was going to be an issue for me to take these two faerie garden things home. So she asked if I wanted to just keep them there until “one of my husbands” (okay, that made me chuckle) could help me take them home. That was all fine and good and nice of her to think of me—until she said, “oh, well, I don’t know if they are really any help to you anyway, are they?” Then I was like, huh? I didn’t know what to say to that. And then I said something muttery like well, D can maybe pick us up in the car or N could help me carry on the bus. But I ended up just taking them home one at a time anyway, because it wasn’t that big of deal and spending their day to come with me to help me carry a faerie garden just doesn’t seem like a good use of anyone’s time.

Another example: I called my doctor’s office today to see if I could get some kind of documentation for N to come out a few weeks earlier than the actual birth. Parental leave starts at the date of the baby’s birth. To come earlier, he would have to take some kind of family medical leave. I would need documentation from my doctor saying that because of my high-risk pregnancy and the fact that I live alone that I could really use some live-in help from a family member. Not a stretch in the least. Right? Am I being wimpy here or what? To me it doesn’t seem that unreasonable to ask. Does it? Not like it affects them anyway, he would not be paid for it and they’ve already hired his replacement for parental leave so he is set to go.

So this nurse that I knew from my last pregnancy but haven’t seen in five years calls me up and hems and haws over it. Doesn’t he have vacation? (Well, it is the end of the year and he is using part of it, so no. Don’t you think we’ve thought of that?) Then it comes out that she’s heard all the office gossip about us. I’m the one with the twins and the guy who is “confined” to a wheelchair and some other Canadian dude that has “difficulty seeing.” (Yeah, if not seeing at all is difficulty seeing.) She knows all about us. And her concern is this: She doesn’t think it is plausible for the powers that be to grant family leave to someone who is blind because how is he going to help me anyway? Have I thought about him being yet another burden on me? Don’t I have a family member who can come stay with me awhile?

Well, first of all…I’m asking for documentation that I need help for medical reasons, I’m NOT asking you to pick who should be allowed to help me. So what difference does it make to her? She just needs to say I need help.

And second…UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH….Get me away from ignorance for just one day and I will be so happy! Can it happen? No?

I know.

Sigh.

I always used to joke about having brochures handy to hand out to people about my disability or my guide dog or whatever. Here is my new brochure.

Ways the Father’s of My Children Can and Do Help Me Out, and Ways They Cannot

N can and does:

• Do laundry, dishes, cooking, housecleaning and shopping. (He does require  help with shopping, but store clerks can help him or D can, and he can bring all the bags in and put them away.)
• He can dress the kids, help them with all of their little teeth brushing, bathing, and eating tasks. (With a small amount of guidance from me about what clothes match.)
• He can completely supervise the kids, play with them, take them to the park and for walks, even do a modified version of reading books with them.
• He can change diapers, make bottles, feed a baby, carry a baby, get up in the night with a baby, dress and bathe a baby, do pretty much all baby care except breast feed.
• He is a pack mule. He can carry a shitload of stuff while still being able to cane travel. He can do any heavy lifting around the house.
• He can run errands and travel independently if he is shown once or twice how to get somewhere.
• He can order anything on the computer that we need and have it delivered.
• He can do handyperson stuff around the house, yes. With tools. Like even drills and saws and stuff.
• He can fix my computer (the software side of things, mostly).
• Most importantly, he can let me sleep in, fetch me my morning coffee, give me back massages, keep the kids entertained, decompress with me at the end of the day, and generally let me have a little time to myself.
• He can work and provide a salary that helps support us.

D can and does:

• Drive me around a lot. Allow me to haul stuff I can’t carry on transit like a Costco haul or groceries.
• He is also a different version of a pack mule. He always has water, napkins, little ketchup packets, hand sanitizer, etc. And you can always pack a shitload of stuff on his wheelchair when shopping/walking.
• Act as my communication intervenor (otherwise known as SSP, special support person for the deaf blind) giving me visual and auditory information about the outside world and facilitates communication between me and others.
• Act as my medical liaison by providing the above intervenor services but also by having medical knowledge and a knowledge of me needs and desires in a medical situation should I become incapacitated (or just drugged up.) Does pretty much the same for the kids. He researches a lot of kid controversies like vaccines and other things and gives me a report.
• Take the kids out of my house for several hours at a time, entertain them, feed them light snacks, and teach them a hell of a lot about science, music and math.
• Help to corral, monitor and entertain the kids on outings.
• Fix my computer (the hardware aspects of it mostly with help from me or N to do the actual screwdriving kind of stuff). Also, need an extension cord? A phone? Spare parts? a Hard drive? Microsoft Office? 150,000,000 songs on MP3? D probably has it lying around somewhere that he’ll give me for free.
• Chocolate. He always has chocolate at his house when you need a fix.
• Understanding about illness and pregnancy stuff. He gets it because he lives his own version of it. Other men may try to be sympathetic and what not, but D GETS IT. This is the guy you can barf, bleed and have diarrhea in front of and not feel too bad about it.
• Run errands for me to a limited extent. (He can usually do any drive-through or pick up something where he is already going, but I don’t ask him to make special trips just for me. It is too hard for him to get in and out of his car.)
• Also decompress with about disability, kid, and other stuff.
• Pitches in money for incidentals or unexpected big purchases and emergency needs from time to time.

There is probably other stuff I’m forgetting, but you get the idea. They do more for me than it seems like a lot of able-bodied husbands do for their wives. I think I do a lot for them as well. But now when I am pregnant, they are able to carry much of the burden and help me out a lot. I need them, and I’m really angry that people can actually stand in the way of my access to them because of their stupid, ablist ideas. It is hard to be a single mom, alone and very, very pregnant. It would be really nice if I could be cut a break here, ya know?

***************

Here is a funny I will leave you with, that could only happen in my family.

The kids have been asking the how babies are made questions. So I found this book in old boxes from my childhood called “How Babies Are Made.” The copyright is 1968 and it is published by Time/Life.* It is actually pretty good considering how old it is. It has these kind of cool, very simple illustrations and diagrams that are all made of cut out construction paper. It progresses through how flowers, chickens, puppies, and then babies are made with pretty straightforward language.

Now, as usual however, I have to supplement with my own information. Again, regarding the boxes I don’t fit in, this is starting to happen a lot. The kids went to a sibling class at the hospital and it was pretty good, but it was all “your mom and dad this” and “your mom and dad that.” In the UU church, we say “your grown-ups” because we actually recognize that not everyone has a mom and dad live-in dynamic in the home. So, I had to do some explaining about how it is okay that their dad doesn’t live with them, a lot of dad’s don’t, or moms, etc. And that N would be doing most of what they were saying the dads would do in this baby scenerio.

So anyway, I’m reading this book to them and supplementing my own information where necessary. (Little N: “I’m TIRED of the chickens, get to the part about the HOOMAN BEANS!)

Now we learn that it takes two things to reproduce. eggs and pollen to make a seed, sperm and egg to make a chicken, puppy, or hooman bean. Here is where I have to diverge, and where they are used to me diverging. Mom and dad did not lay down together and dad did not put his penis in my vagina and put sperm in to swim up to the egg. They have heard this part for years. Babies can be made in different ways, families can happen in different ways. We talk about adoption and other scenarios, but that it is still true that all babies start out with a sperm from a man and an egg from a woman. In our case, they know, daddy didn’t have any sperm for us to use because of his accident. So we were given a gift by an anonymous donor who we call Sergei but we don’t know him. But he gave mom some sperm to use to make A and N. And mom and dad went to a doctor and the doctor put a small tube in mom that let the sperm swim up and meet the egg (TWO EGGS!) and make (TWO BABIES!) a very special bonus!

So, this time was the first time they connected that I have a new baby in my uterus that must have come from somewhere.

Little A: Who gave you the sperm gift to make this baby?

Me: N did.

A: Did the doctor in Toronto put the tube in?

Me: No, N and I actually made this baby how they show in the book. Where he puts his penis in my vagina.

A: (Seeming to notice for the very first time that this is even a possible scenario and examines the construction paper cut out of a man and woman lovingly laying together in bed under the covers, and then an inset picture showing a very simplified diagram of a penis in a vagina with sperm swimming up to the uterus. His eyes get big…you see a light bulb go off over his head…he collapses in a fit of hysterical giggles on the couch.)

A: You let N POTTY in your VAGINA? You said POTTY only goes in the TOILET!!!!! (more giggles, Little N doesn’t get it at all.)

Me: (cringe and…eeeewww!) I go on to explain that potty does go into the toilet and two things come out of the penis at different times blah, blah, blah. He calms down, but he’s still bemused by the whole idea. My four-year-old is now a sex expert.

The other funny thing he said was when they were showing the tiny embryo grow bigger and bigger in the uterus, he exclaimed, “HOW is that BABY going to GET OUT OF THERE!!!”

To which my painful ladyparts cried, “I KNOW! That’s just plain crazy talk!”

*OMG! I found a funny blog post about this book! There are a lot of pictures of the construction paper illustrations, too.

When Big N came to visit last month, he took the light rail from the airport. And he commented that it was kind of interesting because in Toronto he can’t get away from people who want to help him sometimes and here he couldn’t find anyone to stop and help him get a ticket. He actually called me from the airport station and I verbally walked him through buying a ticket from the machine by memory. Then I told him that nine times out of ten, there is a waiting train at that station that is turned off and everyone gets on and waits up to about 1/2 hour until it goes. He said that there was no train, and I said that it was a double edged platform and to check behind him on the other track. Sure enough, train waiting. I wondered if people would just let the train ride away and leave him standing there.

D has had trouble on the train as well. There are two of four doors on each train car that he can use with a wheelchair. A ramp deploys and then once inside there are two spaces for wheelchairs. Both spaces are near the necessary buttons to push to make the ramp deploy when you want to get off. It really works best if you push the buttons before the train stops and the doors open or they have to re-close and the ramp deploys and then they re-open and everyone gets impatient and mad. The problem is, many times when the train is busier, no one moves for a person in a wheelchair. So you end up being sort of stuck in the aisle unable to push the button when your stop comes. Or, worse, you get in the designated spot, lots of people get on and are standing around you, and then no one moves when you want to get off. It is a 500 pound chair. It will break your foot. It can nudge you and knock you down.  So unless D wants to be killing people left and right, he pretty much has to yell at them to get them to move.

I say yell because often times (not always) a polite “excuse me, I’m coming off” doesn’t cut it. Sometimes it is because people are just oblivious to what is going on around them. They are on cell phones, have head phones in their ears, are engrossed in a book or on an electronic game. Or just spaced out. It’s not every one who acts like this and makes traveling while disabled hard. There are plenty of nice people who do what they can to be helpful. But many times (say 50% of the time??) no one seems to care.

So, Big N was commenting on something and wondering about the cultural implications.  He said that on our train, the pre-recorded announcement says and several stops (something like) “You are required to move for seniors and people with disabilities.” Compared to what the Toronto subways say which is (something like) “Please consider giving up your seat for pregnant women, small children, seniors and people with disabilities. Courtesy on TTC makes everyone have a better day!”

And one thing I did notice when I was using the subways in Toronto was that I NEVER did not have a seat. Ever. People could not give up their seats fast enough to give myself and my two kids three seats together. It didn’t matter how busy the train was. If I got us all prepared to stand, there were people corralling me to seats. It was as if they couldn’t stand to sit in a seat with a mother with small children in front of them. They just wouldn’t allow it. Now, this was when I was not pregnant, not always with Big N (who looks obviously blind) and not always with my cane visible (sometimes tucked under my arm or in a bag, because the speed of those subways rushing into the platform not 3 feet away from me scared the crap out of me and I always had my hands on both kids.) People just realized how hard it is for a mom to help two small kids stay upright on a train when it is standing room only and also seem to understand the need for a mom to stay very, very adjacent to her kids.

So, our question was, does asking people nicely like they do in Toronto help people be nicer about it? Instead of “you are required to move” like they do here? Or is it that the culture for being nice already exists there and so there is no need to get bossy about it? I don’t know.

I bring this up because I had the most hideous day yesterday on public transportation. I took the kids to their preschool and back which includes the train and–currently during my pregnant state—one very short bus ride. Now to be fair, on the way there in the morning I had no trouble except for finding adjacent seats. Many times there are seats for all of us but they are spread out and I don’t feel comfortable being apart from my kids. So, I was offered a seat by someone who moved because she had an empty seat next to her. And then one kid has to go on my lap or stand between my legs or we all just squeeze in together. It’s workable.

And then I was in their classroom all morning because I had to volunteer. I had to stand, sit on the floor, stand up again, sit in child sized wooden chairs, stand sit stand some more and just generally be physically busy. By the time it was time to go home, I was tired and my hips/pelvic bones were achy-breaky. Then, my other problem is getting the kids’ artwork home. Many times it is not a big deal, but sometimes it gets tricky. Last week they made “faerie gardens” in pie pans and I could only take one home. This week they did outlines of themselves on big butcher paper. Ugh. I’m all for kids doing art projects but I want most of these things to vanish after they are done with them and never be remembered again. Doesn’t work that way with 4-year-olds. So, I have a backpack, they each have lunch boxes, I have Little N’s faerie garden thingy from last week which is full of soil and seeds and beads and stuff and needs to be kept level. I have two rolled up pieces of butcher paper that are each taller than the kids. (The kids and I carried these intermittently. The kids tended to hit everyone and everything with them.) I have to walk two blocks to the bus stop and then I have to stand there for 20 minutes because the bus we usually take, we missed due to all the scrambling to carry stuff. And then I stood at the train station for 45 minutes because I don’t know why. The train was late for some reason (It usually comes every 6 to 10 minutes.) The missing trains made it so there were a lot of people to have collected wanting to get on the train and it was very busy.

So when it finally came, I had to herd the kids onto it without holding on to A. And a bunch of people rushed between me and a 4-year-old. Like, who does that? I never, ever get between a parent and their young child. I’m always conscious of making sure little kids are connected with their adult. Well, luckily, (I guess) A got on the train and couldn’t find me and freaked out and so just stood there yelling for me. So I found him quickly. But then there were no seats. So first and foremost I have to find a way for the kids to hang on to something they can reach. And then I have to find something for me to hang on to while I carry all this stuff that the kids can’t carry now because they need to hang on. People, I am seven and a half months pregnant with a giant kid who weighs in about the size of an 8 month one week fetus. Because of my pregnancy and my hip/pelvic thing, my balance is for shit and I can’t even make my legs do that wider “brace yourself” stance that you can usually get away with if there is nothing to hold on to. And already in pain, after about three stops of the shaky train braking and unbraking, I was almost doubled over in tear-induced pain. It was kind of one of those things where I was actually too far away from anyone who had seats to ask for a seat and I was right in the aisle and would have needed to corral my kids over to two or three seats. Wasn’t happening. And I was kind of starting not to be able to think straight anyway.

I hear this huge guy sort of smirk and say something about how he hoped I wasn’t going into labor on the MAX, which would make him late as he laughed to his buddy. This got the attention of some woman who was also standing, and she came over and asked if I was ok. I said, I’m not going into labor or anything but I just have a lot of pain right now. So she basically yelled that “This lady needs a seat!” And every one just kind of looked around at each other. So she whispers to me, “What a bunch of assholes.” Then she bellows to all these people (around 6 of them) sitting in disabled seating that they are REQUIRED TO MOVE and points to the sign. More eyeing each other like, “whose gonna do it?” and then finally one person moves. So I got one seat. I moved A to between my legs and I moved N to right next to me hanging on the (much better height for him) handicapped grab bars.

So there is my story. But I just want to say two things. I am not some sissy blind chick who has to have a seat all the time. When I am alone (and not pregnant) I think nothing of standing up and NEVER sit in disabled seating. When I’m with the kids, I usually try to find them a seat and am fine standing as long as they are sitting. In a pinch, we have all stood and not batted an eye about it. And I also try not to judge anyone for not moving out of disabled seating because you never know what people’s deal might be. But fuck if there aren’t times when people are so completely oblivious to the needs of others because they have their head stuck so far up their cell phone that they don’t realize they are next to living humans that I don’t get pissed off.

Also I would like to say that I usually can speak for myself, but the pain this time actually was that bad. And, embarrassing as it was,  this random woman stepping in and helping was a life saver for me. All I need now is the very real possibility that I could dislocate or break a hip or have so much pain that my blood pressure starts doing crazy dances. This is the most dangerous time in my pregnancy. Things all went to total hell at 33 weeks my last pregnancy. I have to be careful. I thanked her then, of course. But if you are that random woman (literally or figuratively in another similar situation) THANK YOU for stepping in and helping out a total stranger and not just minding your own business. As much as some people piss me off, I know that there are others like this woman who do more than make up for it by being a decent human being who cares about others. Sometimes your random act of kindness can literally mean more than all the rude and complacent people combined. And also? The people of Toronto rock for knowing enough not to put someone in this position in the first place.

***************

Oh, and another thing. Can I bitch about another thing? Moms need to cut the fucking judgment on each other already. I was asked about my due date by a group of moms (IRL), and I talked about my first week of December planned Cesarean. And I got the whole lecture about the overuse of Cesareans and how they aren’t natural and they are so awful and dangerous and natural childbirth is the most wonderful, bestest way to go. And I’ve read Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions and I’m up on the controversy about overmedicalized births. Therefore, I totally support any woman’s right to assess her own risks and her own resources and comfort levels and to have all birthing options available to her. I am very glad that women can and do have such wonderful experiences with natural birth. Dooce’s account gave me goosebumps and I was nothing less than thrilled for her. However, until you have lost your eyesight, watched copious amounts of blood come out of your eye, nose, ear and mouth, been on bedrest, had to choose between your own health and that of your unborn children, and almost died during pregnancy…you pretty much need to shut the fuck up. Every person has to take their own circumstances into account and assess their own level of risk. I am a single mom to two young children with a severely disabled father who lives in poverty and cannot easily take care of them long-term. I have kidney disease and a bum hip and a uterus that has seen more than one major surgery. I simply CAN’T, CAN’T, CAN’T die or even be out of commission for too long without major implications for my kids. I know the risk of C-sections and in MY (ME, MINE, MY OWN) case, the risk assessment is way less to have this level of medical intervention. Okay? So share the love, sisters. This is about giving women CHOICES that they have control over, not just dictating how it should be done. How is that different than what the medical establishment has done already against women? Okay? Okay.

</bitch>

Having two adults in the house always slams it home that being a single parent is really, really hard and never-ending. I’d almost rather not know what it is like. (Or I remind myself that many of my married mom friends say that their husbands don’t do anything around the house anyway without being nagged, and that it is almost easier when they aren’t there and you just know that it is all going to be you. Sad.)

So, Big N came and left. It was both nice and hard at the same time. The nice thing is that he does just pitch in and do what needs to be done. And he spends a lot of time with the kids and they like him a lot. D and him get along quite well, although sometimes I have to tune out their nerded out discussions over various Apple products and I get annoyed with their mild ego-game where they try to one-up each other with their technical prowess. Every once in a while, not too often but sometimes, they seem to have this subtle pissing contest over who owns the rights to me. It comes in the form of them passive-aggressiving each other about who is more qualified to help me pick out my new computer or something. At which point I tell them both to shut the fuck up. I’m not five years old and I can and will pick my own damned computer. It can be rather amusing at times.

But they are good with the kids together. They don’t get territorial or anything. They get the whole, “we are a family with more than one dad” idea. It can be interesting when it comes to other people, though. (Oh, you all know I eat this stuff up. I get a kick out of people’s reactions.) So Sunday we all went to church together. I ended up having to help with the kids Sunday School so D and N sat together during the service. With my 7 months pregnant stomach thrown in, we got a few doubletakes. And Big N got pulled over to the side by one very direct member and given the third degree. Too funny. I just sit back and watch with amusement.

We all went on a picnic after church, a kid restaurant together another day, to the beach together another day and went to an aquarium where the kids could hold starfish and hermit crabs and the like. They got to feed baby seals. Between the three grown-ups, we actually work pretty well together to complement each other’s abilities and disabilities. D does the seeing and driving, N does much of the hearing, communicating and the physical stuff, I do much of the guidance in kid/behavior/schedule management. The kids tend to know who to go to for what. It is kind of interesting.

At the beach

On Wednesday afternoon, the kids stayed with Kim and the three of us went to my peri appointment. I have told the nurse that D is not the bio father of this child, but he has gone to all of my appointments thus far and so I think most people assumed that he was. We were late so D dropped N and I off and parked the car. N and I went right in to my ultrasound and D came and joined us a few minutes later. I think between actually feeling my stomach and the baby kick and hearing the heartbeat and kicks on the ultrasound, the reality of this baby was slammed into Big N’s psyche big time. D and I have seen the ultrasounds five or six times by now, so we are kind of nonchalant while N was all “Wow!”

(Oh, and stats: Baby is good. 3.2 pounds and 17 inches at 28 weeks. 69%tile.)

We were sent out to the waiting room after the U/S to wait for the doctor. D and N went off to the bathroom or something while I was called back. The nurse steered me at top speed into the exam room and started right in to get the low-down. “Who’s the new guy? Is he the father? How’s D handling all this? Do you all get along?” Then she went off on how the sonographer was so very impressed with N and that he could follow along and ask appropriate questions and stuff. (I only remember him saying stuff like, “OK. Uh-huh. Right, right.” when the sonographer guy explained stuff. Apparently this was more than was expected of a blind guy. Maybe he was supposed to just drool and grunt.)

The nurse was all into the novelty of us and went off on how families are dynamic and stuff. So she was more funny than anything else. The doctor came in for just a few seconds and didn’t even sit down. I could tell he was weirded out by the whole thing. (He’s an old white guy, so…) I’m not sure whether he was weirded out by the fact that both of my kids’ fathers were there in the same room getting along or whether it was because they both were disabled or what. We talked about doing a planned C-section the first week of December, and he was all good with that but left by saying, “um…ok…I hope you guys all work this out.” And then he bolted right out of there. I remember having a bunch of pelvic/physical exams with my twin pg. I’ve had a lot of U/S with this one, but this doctor hasn’t touched me once. I have yet to be examined by him in any way. He does the lab diagnostics (blood, UA, etc.) but mostly just goes by the ultrasounds. Not that I’m really complaining. Its just…interesting.

I’ve decided on a C-section because I’ve had one last time, and because of my hip injury, and because this baby is looking to be on the larger side, and because I’m not totally comfortable with this doctor and he does not seem totally comfortable with me. To me, having him do surgery is pretty clinical, cut and dry. I don’t worry about it too much. I’ve had a billion surgeries. Having someone all in your business while you are vulnerable and having to push out a child from your vagina who you are not totally comfortable with is not my idea of a good time. I don’t really have a choice in doctors in this case, and I am too high risk to have a midwife who will take me. Also, considering I’m a single mom who has to find child care for two kids, and get bio father here from Canada, AND quad father is the only driver among us and his driving/car is not all that reliable…I need to manage risks and plan this as much as possible. Roaming around waiting for the 3 in the morning contractions and then getting everyone to the right place is a logistical nightmare when you can’t drive and live alone. So, due to all these factors, the planned C-section is what I’ve decided is the best to manage risks. It is not considered elective, I do have enough of a medical need for one anyway. Dr. Uncomfortable was leaning this way anyway and I tipped him over the edge I think. The only question now is, will they let me have both D and N with me?

Because that is what I want, and the policy for C-sections is only one person can be with you. N needs to be there because it is his kid and such. D needs to be there because it is ME and D is my medical comfort go-to guy. N means well, but he is just a complete medical neophyte and thinks hospitals are creepy. D and I have been with each other in enough medical situations where we know exactly how to advocate for the other and what each other wants and needs.  Besides, they can help each other out and keep themselves out of the nurses way and stuff. Should be interesting…

So, parenting-wise we all are coming together as a team and prioritizing and supporting each other. Big N did a lot of work for me getting the baby stuff together and reorganizing stuff around the house. He brought me a bunch of cash for baby stuff and even extra for groceries. He is excited about the baby and coming down for parental leave, which now looks to be like the last week in November through April.

Little N inspecting our day's work on "baby/mama headquarters."

Relationship-wise is a bit tougher. Things are not as they were. He says all the right things and I mostly go numb and don’t want to hear them. Part of this is because I’m physically uncomfortable and just doing the “lets just deal with the pregnancy and the kids right now and I can’t think about anything else.” But part of it is because I don’t have the same sense of trust and security with him as I did before and you can’t just magically get that back based on him saying all sorts of trusty-feely-lovey words. It has to come with action and sort of walking the talk and that takes time. I don’t know if I can ever have that trust back like it was with him. But it isn’t there, yet. And it can’t be there just because he wants it to be. So, (although I got some good back massages), this was not a romantic intimate visit…it was just mostly coming together as parents and setting up those priorities. It is kind of sad, because I miss what we had. And I wish I could go back but I can’t.

So that’s where things are at this point. The kids started preschool and Sunday school. Little N is doing great, Little A is being a little pisser. I’m trying to come up with a sort of incentive/behavior plan for him which I hate doing because it is so much a bribe and then I have to do it for N, too. And N doesn’t need it. I much rather have them do things for intrinsic reasons, which N already does. But I have to do something about A or he tends to ruin things for N anyway. With Big N here, I was able to sort of sit back and observe and get out of the thick of things and really get a handle on A’s behavior. I’m going to write about it more next time, but it is fast becoming my big priority before the baby comes, to get some of his behaviors under control. He is a smart, smart kid who does NOT like to conform or follow the crowd in any way. I get him. He is just like me. I used to HATE doing stuff like sitting in a circle and playing “Duck, duck, goose” or whatever. Like me, he’d rather go off and play by himself. But he needs to find a way to not conform but also let the other kids who do want to do group things do them without being a complete brat about it.

But, before I tangent some more, I’ll stop here and give that one some more thought.

Wow wow wow. Has this summer been full of epic fail in many ways.

My birth control failed.

My wedding failed.

My guide dog failed.

My computer failed.

Well, I’ve written enough about my birth control failure (and impending pregnancy) and my failed wedding. My computer deal is that, ironically while at guide dog school, I spilled less than 2 ounces of water on my brand new mac laptop that Big N had given me for Christmas. And after some procrastinating, I finally got it  down to the genius bar only to find its totalled. I killed the mac. My 5-year-old desktop Dell (that I’m writing on now) is on its last leg, too. So I will be computer shopping soon. With all that money I have, ya know.

I said Goodbye to M2 today. It was very sad. I cried. The kids cried. (I sent them to D’s house to spare them from the actual relinquishment, but they cried the night before when I told them.)

I got sort of a lecture from the folks at GDB. They were basically nice, but I can tell that they pretty much think this is my failure and not theirs. I’m not looking to blame anyone. I think there are several factors that contributed to it and certainly some are on my end with the pregnancy impeding on my actual physical ability to work her and stuff. But I’m still trying to wrap my brain around exactly what happened (and how to avoid in the future.) And I have to say that when it comes to dealing with GDB, I Just. Don’t. Get it.

The final straw came last week when she pushed Little N down the stairs. It was inadvertant, of course. But he was standing at the top of the stairs and she just came running and jumped on him and he flew down the stairs. It was scary. He ended up only having bumps and bruises and a large carpet burn down his back. Then, that same day, I took her to the mailbox and she was walking along and saw…something…and did a sudden, hard turn in front of me that was so harsh that she knocked me down. I do have diastasis symphysis pubis (you go, Meredith!), so I know that my balance and strength are not what they should be. But STILL. The pain from that put me out of much movement or walking at all for several days and I was scolded by my doctor to not walk the dog any more.  When I told the doc, yeah, well she is a guide dog…he looked at me like I was insane. A guide dog did that to you? A guide dog? And I’m like, yeah, I know. I’m having problems and they are coming out to work them out with me. And he said, no they are not. Don’t take that dog for any more walks or you are going to get really, really injured blah, blah, blah.

So that is when I pretty much knew I had to call it quits. But this is what I don’t get. The guide dog people are acting like M2’s behavior is typical, normal, usual new guide dog stuff that is to be expected. And that it was up to ME to fix her. Now, I get that new guide dogs will need to be broken in and will test you and will have their issues. But they actually suggested to me that one thing I did wrong was to let her have the run of the house and that this needs to be earned. Ok. My other guide dog always had the run of the house from day one (as does almost every other guide dog and most pet dogs I know) but I’ll play it the way they said and start kenneling her and tying her down more unless I can really be watching her with my undivided attention. (And because I have a real job, a volunteer job, two kids, etc. This is really not a lot of the time.) But the woman today says, no. They don’t learn anything being tied down. What you should have done was never let her off leash in the house and keep her with you non-stop so that you could be right there to catch all of these behaviors.

Huh?

…

What?

…

Really? That is really what I’m supposed to do? So, you all pay $40,000 and spend two years training this dog and I am supposed to take her home and have her on a leash in my hand under constant surveillance in my home 16 hours a day? Do you realize that I have cooking, cleaning, kid stuff, homeschool, typing, showering, teeth brushing, resting, visiting, etc, etc, etc. to do with my life? Gee. No one ever told me this. Yes. If I had known that I was basically getting a totally untrained dog that needed to be trained from scratch by me with this level of intensity, hell no would I have gotten a dog while pregnant. (Another criticism of theirs, I believe, is that I didn’t realize how hard getting a new guide dog would be while pregnant. People are nurses, teachers, doctors, police officers, army lieutenants, plumbers and all kinds of things while pregnant. Some pregnant women even have DOGS! I think any normal person would not assume that getting a highly trained guide dog and pregnancy would be mutually exclusive.)

I mean, there are people who train their own service dogs themselves from puppyhood. (Or they hire a private trainer to work with them and a new puppy and train them into being a service dog.) That’s fine. But I did not want to do that. I wanted 85% of the work to be done already and then I would come in for the last 15%. Instead, they act like I should have known it was the other way around. They do 15% and I do 85% after the fact. I mean, blind people have lives. You already take 2 to 4 weeks of your life out to train with the dog in school, then you do expect that there will be some time spent in the coming months working the dog and keeping the training fresh and customized. But you also expect that you will go back to your LIVES. You go to work, school, parenthood, living, etc. Of course you expect adaptations and adjustments, but you do not expect to not even be able to have people come over to your house, go to work or school with the dog, walk to your mailbox safely, or have your children be safe.

I just don’t get what they expect, or what they expected me to expect. Is M2 the exception or the rule? Were my high expectations for a well-trained dog from the get-go the exception or the rule? I never could quite get an answer for that.  I could have lived with the fact where they may have said something like, “Well, maybe M2 had some behaviors that we didn’t see in our controlled environment that are pretty extreme.” Or, “maybe M2 was just not cut out for a busy house with kids.” Or something that somehow acknowledges that M2’s behavior is NOT the NORM and should not be expected from a trained guide dog. But instead, it is like I”m the one with the crazy expectations that this dog should be trained better than a traumatized shelter puppy.

I’ll quit my bitching about it. I tried my best, M2 did, too. They probably did as well. A constellation of factors involved made it not work out. But here was the funniest line I heard from GDB today:

“We consider ourselves to be the Harvard of guide dog schools.” (I practically peed myself trying not to squeak with scoffiness.)

To which Big N commented, “um, maybe the community college of guide dog schools.”

And D commented, “More like the state farm school of guide dog schools.”

And another guide dog user who has met M2 commented, “more like the cheap Chinese assembly line factory of guide dog schools.”

I don’t know. I just don’t get it. I just expect more from the initial training from a school. I do realize that there are going to be outlier dogs and situations and this could happen anywhere, but there was just something…off…about this whole experience that was just weird when dealing with them. She said they have the most comprehensive, best graduate services in the world and why didn’t I call right away and start working with her? And I wanted to say, why should I have had to? I mean, again…one or two issues that needed to be dealt with? Fine, lets work it out. But across the board behavior that showed a complete lack of basic training? I don’t have that kind of time to fix your mistakes, you know? Is there a reason their graduate services are more comprehensive than any other schools? Is it because they need them to be because the dogs only get basic, basic training to begin with? I’m not sure. I just don’t get it. If I’m going to take every waking moment to teach a dog to piss outside, not jump on the table, not knock kids over, to sit and stay,  to guide around obstacles,  to behave around other dogs without going ape shit, etc., then I’ll go to the goddamned animal shelter and get a stray and just start from scratch thankyouverymuch. I’ve had new puppies before, I’ve done that. I did not want to do that this time.

Ok, I’ll really stop bitching now. M2 will be missed. Despite everything, I did genuinely like her and I genuinely hope that she does well and even finds someone else to successfully guide for. She goes back to the school now for re-evaluation and additional training. They can either place her with some other blind person or adopt her out as a pet. I will be able to find out, to a limited extent, what will become of her. I will keep tabs. I want her to have a good happy life and I was very sad to see her go.

So, today has been a mixture of relief, defeat and sadness. But it also feels like I can now turn a new chapter and start anew and get ready for the baby and things coming up. It is empty here without her, yet for the first time in weeks I could fetch the kids some extra juice at dinner time from the kitchen without worrying whether she would steal their dinner. (She left this morning with a ceremonial stealing of A’s breakfast when he left the table to go to the bathroom.) I could set my toothbrush down on the counter without worrying that it would be a chewed up mess by the time I rinsed out my mouth. I could answer the door without fear of the guest being pummeled. I could fill up the dishwasher without her stealing dishes from the bottom rack and breaking or chewing them up. I could let the kids play with legos without having to go diving into her mouth for the ones she chewed up every 2 seconds. I could go to the mailbox in the dark with my cane without massive amounts of pain and worrying about being knocked over and being led into a chainlink fence. I can sit here and type this without having to worry and check on her every two minutes.  I’m starting to relax.

I’m looking forward to Big N coming on Saturday, and I’m especially feeling lucky that I get him for 5 months when the baby is born. (Go Canadian Parental Leave!)  Despite our difficulties and no matter what happens in the future, I am starting to trust more and more his commitment to this baby, financially and otherwise. When I think back to the twins–to the lonely days and days and days of just me doing every three hour feedings all by myself with two babies while totally blind…I think of what better position I’m in now with this one. I have D, who can handle the big boys almost completely by himself, now. I will have a stay-at-home-dad in N for 5 months, I have Kim, who N is paying to come help me out twice a week and she is a huge help with the boys and with errands and stuff. I have a church full of people who actually know and seem to care about me this time around. And I will just have just ONE! (hopefully full-term and healthy) baby.

AAAAANNNNDDDD…I just found out yesterday that my baby will be covered temporarily (for one year) by medicaid. Which will really take a load off until we can work out a better insurance situation. It is not perfect by any means but I can’t tell you what a relief that is to not have to worry about having an insuranceless baby in the hospital with no pediatrician that will touch him and praying for no pre-existings.

And I’ll probably even figure out some kind of way to get a new computer. Maybe I can get N and D and I and whoever else to pitch in a bit for a computer Christmas/Baby Shower present or something. It will work out.

And when I really think about it…I’ve accomplished a lot of good things this summer, even though there were several disappointments. We had the kids party, I took them to camp, even though the guide dog thing didn’t work out, I made it through those two weeks and even made some new friends  there. I got the kids to the beach, we went swimming a lot, they have a whole new set of friends in Kim’s family, homeschooling is going well, too. They are enrolled in pre-school and I worked my ass off ahead of time to do nearly all of my volunteer hours there upfront (have only about 2 more hours to go!) They are happy and full of joy and learning and healthy. The baby and I are healthy. I managed to keep calm, cool, and collected with Big N and have done a good job finding a balance of coming to terms with him, getting along and getting what I need from him but also sticking up for myself and setting limits and not accepting some of his past stupid behavior.  D and I are good and are working out our “new normal.”

There are still many challenges ahead, but considering it all, I think I am doing really well. I was looking back at old baby records from the twins birth and pictures and all that. It is easy to forget all the good things we’ve accomplished and challenges we’ve lived through. Stuff like hauling the kids to the ICU and D getting his foot amputated and my eye surgeries and Little A’s trips to the ER for his seizures and stuff. And interspersed with all of that stuff is pictures and mementos of trips to the museum the forest and the beach and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Toronto, California, Iowa to see family. And new shoes and first steps and first words and first paintings. We have accomplished a whole, whole lot of good stuff. It is easy to get bogged down at the time with the failures and challenges, but overall, we have managed to keep us all above water and thriving. Usually happily.

Things are hard and I have not been in a writing mood. I’m in the mode where everything just needs to be taken day by day, hour by hour. Things have to be chunked out into very small pieces and I can only think a little ahead at a time. Since I told think I can pull together a coherent post, here are some of my little chunks.

• Dispite my doing a lot of work with her, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that M2 is not going to work out. I’m very saddened and defeated by this. I know I’m not the only one this has happened to, but it is one of those, “oh, that will never happen to me” things. Initially I thought that it was the differences in training I was having trouble with. She was like going from a Mac Leopard OS to a Windows Vista, or from a Lexus to a Civic…or something. Her training is definately a downgrade from what I am used to, but I was sure I could adjust to that. I thought she doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles, but she gets the job done. Wrong. She does fairly well when it is just me and her, but when I travel with the kids (most of the time) she simply cannot guide. She can’t change her pace to the kid’s pace, she can’t wait for them without losing it. She just simply refuses to guide when I’ve got the kids with me. She has become a danger and has even jumped on people while in harness while just walking down the street. Her in-house behavior remains that of an 8 week old puppy, and I just can’t deal with it and a new baby coming. This is not what I signed up for with a supposedly 2 year trained 40K dollar dog. It was just a bad match, I think. I don’t think her trainer really understood what is necessary to work with a deafblind mom with two/three kids. I cannot give her the constant focus and attention she needs. I still think back to having M1 for just a few days and going to my job at HeadStart with 20 kids and two adults and having absolutely no qualms about it and it all went fine. We would walk to the park with all these kids and M1 would guide beautifully. Now, I can’t even imagine taking M2 to preschool that starts next week. She has given my kids bruises, I cannot do my volunteer work at the kids’ preschool with her behavior like this. If she hurt another kid, I don’t know what I would do, and she makes me more of a burden for the other adults instead of a help. We all like her so it is rather heartbreaking, and I know that she will have a good home and a good life, but I’m pretty much thinking that this experience was just a big ass FAIL and it is better to cut my losses. I’m going to keep her until N comes (in two weeks) as I would really value his perspective on her, and then of course I will keep her until a suitable home for her is found. But I’m really strongly leaning toward the reality that in order to keep myself and my kids safe, M2 is not part of the picture. It’s very sad and it has been a very hard decision for me to make. It is very hard for me to give up on her.
• Technically the pregnancy is going well. But its a bitch. I’m into the third trimester. I’m nowhere as big as I was with twins, so the weight is not as bad, but I have really bad pelvic pain that I didn’t have before until the very end of the pregnancy with the twins. When I get up, I can barely walk, the pain is so bad and it is like my hip bones just don’t want to hold me up and will sometimes just collapse. When I was young, I broke my tail bone and ever since then I’ve had weird snapping pain in my pelvic region. It is usually not a big deal, but it often makes it feel like things are just not quite right there. With the twins, the last few weeks were like this, but this pain started in guide dog school and has gotten significantly worse. I don’t think there is much to be done, but taking short walks sometimes helps, as does some light swimming and stretching under water in the pool. But if I walk to much or get too strained, I pay for it for days and it makes it really hard to even do the simplest things. One of my final straws with M2 was when she cornered a cat in our yard and I could not get her to get away or under control. It was pitch dark and I could hear the cat meowing and she wouldn’t come. I had to feel around the side of my house and finally I was able to grab her leash and pull her away. But when I did that, the cat ran off and she took off after her so fast that she just flipped me around and yanked me down. I even lost my shoes! The pain was so bad that I just laid there in my front yard for a while with tears in my eyes and then it took me forever to make my bones and muscles cooperate to go the right direction. I’m sure we were quite a sight. I know that this won’t be forever, this kind of pain…but it is just really frustrating because it cuts into everything I try to do and makes it hard to get things done. Only 14 weeks to go…
• Big N is coming to visit for a week in two weeks. We have not seen each other since April and before all this stuff happened. So, it is a bit nerve wracking. I don’t know whether I want to hug him or hit him. Probably both. One thing I know that I need is just a kind, supportive person to be around…and I know that he will do that. I also have a list of things for him to help me with, so he will be putting the crib together and helping get some baby stuff together for me. I have an OB appointment that week, so it will be one of those things where I have to explain to the doctors that here is father #1 and this is father #2. They will both be at the birth so just deal with it, K? I actually really need Big N right now, as much as I hate to say it. I need him to be loving and supportive of this pregnancy and the baby and I need his just practical help now and when the baby comes. That’s pretty much as far as I’ve gotten. I told him that I’m carrying on as if I’m a single mom of three who lives here. He needs to take care of things on the T.O. end on his own (ex-wife, sell condo, financials, etc) and I don’t really care to hear about it. When it is all taken care of, then we can talk about next steps, but right now, I have enough on my plate than to monitor his crap and hope that he does what needs to be done to get his family together. He’s agreed, and I think he doesn’t want me monitoring his crap either. So, although he tells me daily to just hang in and have faith in him, I’ve really had to chunk that shit off my radar and just worry about me and the kids here in the states.
• Which actually really sucks in a way because I’m not happy with the states right now. This will have to be a whole nother post, but this health care shit in this country is just beyond the pale. It effects me directly because not only do I spend almost 39% of my income on health insurance premiums alone, I can’t figure out for the life of me how to get this baby insured. I’m trying all angles and hitting a lot of dead ends. I have applied for Medicaid/SCHIP, but that is questionable. I can put the baby on an individual plan like A and N are on, but have to wait a month after he is born and that is if he has NO PRE-EXISTINGS. If he even has jaundice, I may be in trouble. I am insured but I don’t know what they actually do at the hospital when the baby isn’t. It scares the crap out of me. I sometimes hate the misinformed, Calvinistic, shitfaced-greediness that is so apparent right now in this fucking country. We are better than this. Aren’t we?
• In happier news, The kids are returning to the homeschooling co-op for preschool next week, and I’ve starting homeschooling at home on Sept. 1st. (Although we did a lot in the summer as well, but not much since guide dog school.) We are doing Funshine Express again this year, which I did two years ago. But we are limited in what we could do, then. Now they are really at a good age and we can do everything and it is a lot of fun. We do that about 4 days a week, which includes several different math/reading/art/science/music activities that center around a theme. Then we do Hooked on Phonics one day, Handwriting without Tears another day, Building Critical Thinking Skills a third day, and then usually Montessori math or reading activities a fourth day. And then lots of library books. It takes between two or three hours a day and sometimes we break it up, I just play it by ear. They really like it and are changing by leaps and bounds. They are getting really fun to talk to and explore everything with now. We’ve also swim a lot because that is one thing I can do with them that also helps me and my pain. I really enjoy homeschooling them. It is fun for all of us and it is fascinating to watch them learn and it is a good way to just be able to spend time with them. I know that December and maybe January will probably be a wash, but I am determined to not let this year go by for them blown off just because of the baby.
• My dad left today which means everyone is coming back to visit me. D came today, Grampa B. came today. People feel more comfortable coming here when he isn’t here. The kids are happy. (And went into embarrassing detail telling Grampa B. how Grampa F. beats them up. *facepalm* It will be great when the whole preschool thinks they are abused by my dad.) It takes me a few days to get back into sync but I already feel way more relaxed. I probably won’t see him for another six months or so, which will give me a chance to really get a feel for the new baby and routine. It’s sad to be so relieved when he goes because I do think he has good stuff, he is just so self-involved and absorbed that he doesn’t see beyond himself at all. And I don’t have the energy to fight everything on it all the time. So, I’ve temporarily at least got my house and my sanity and my family back.

So the title of this post comes from this song “Give it all you got” by Chuck Mangione. It was a song I had to do a gymnastics routine to when I was a kid. On the same album (8-track, actually!) was a version of the song called “Give it all you got…but slowly.” And I always liked that idea. This is a really hard time for me to just get through the day-to-day, but I know I can do it if I just can sort of fake it till I make it. And sometimes giving it all you got is not Rocky Balboa running full speed up the steps in vigorous training mode. Sometimes, giving it all you got is just waking up every morning, getting out of bed, and accomplishing just one thing that day without losing your mind.

I’m very late with this, but this book came out in May, in the middle of my I’m-pregnant-and-dumped crisis, and so I failed to properly promote it.

I have a chapter in this book that is published by Demeter Press, through the Association for Research on Mothering at York University in Toronto. My chapter (Chapter 4: Kindred Keyboard Connections: How Blogging Helped a Deafblind Mother Find a Living, Breathing Community) is an essay I wrote about two years ago as a blog post turned submission.

During “In-Lawgate” after the twins were born, I was heavily criticized by D’s family for being a dreaded mommy-blogger. It was all about how I was exploiting my kids and putting them in danger. My SIL specifically criticized me for thinking I could make online connections of any worth instead of having relationships with “Living, Breathing People” since apparently all of you reading this are of the dead, non-breathing sort. So that is where the title comes from, and the inspiration for it which is to show how blogging has not only given me much needed connections but has also enhanced the lives of my children, both directly (like being invited to other blogger’s kid birthday parties) to indirectly (like all of the assistance and resources and kind words that you all have given me over the years that has greatly supported me as a mother.)

The other essays in the book are very enjoyable and thought provoking, too, including topics from adoption to queer parenting to celebrity mom blogs. If you’ve ever felt like you are “just a mom” and your writing is “just a mommyblog,” this book will really allow you to see how you and other moms are making a difference and breaking down stereotypes and barriers by finding power and support in blog and online connections. I think a lot of you would enjoy it, if I do say so myself.

I really enjoyed this project and I really do have you all to thank for not only reading this blog so I have the motivation to keep writing, but for all the connections, resourcefulness, ideas, thought-provoking questions and kind words and stories you have generously shared with me over the years. It is these connections that inspired my part in this book. And I hope that I have or can in some way return the strength you have given me back to you.

You can find out more about the book, including how to purchase it, here.

GDF vs. GDB

About three people have asked me to critique my experiences with having a guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind (my current dog) with Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind (my first dog), hereby designated as GDF as M1’s school, and GDB as M2’s school. This might get tedious if you are not a guide dog user…so feel free to skip if you are of the sighted nature.

In this corner: M1 from GDF

In this corner: M2 from GDB

Disclaimer:

It is a little unfair to critique GDB dogs when I’ve only had mine about 5 weeks so far. I was going to do this later, but the thing I have problems with remembering my first dog (M1) is remembering how she was when I got her vs. what I trained her to do. Before I was a blogger, I was a journaler, so I have gone back and looked at journals of the first year I had M1. And this initial period is what I will try to compare, not my new dog five weeks in vs. my old dog at 5 years in. In other words, what kind of dog you actually get from the school from the get-go. There is also the famous “second dog syndrome” where guide dog users have trouble adjusting and accepting their new dog because they are so used to their old one. I’m not immune to this, but I think I am not as susceptible as some others might be because it has been 5 years since M1 died and about 6 1/2 years since I worked her. I did not go straight from a broke in dog to a new one. It was more like going from cane to dog again.

Also, there are just differences in dogs which do not reflect on the school. I try to appreciate this and also be objective about it and bring in what I know of other service dogs besides M1 and M2. I was very familiar with Big N’s dog fro GDF, Jats, and lived with him for a while. I have not met, but heard stories of Big N’s ex-wife’s 2 dogs from GDF. Besides my fellow GDF students, I also knew several people in Nebraska with GDF dogs. For three years, I lived next to a woman who went through two guide dogs from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. In grad school, I also was good friends with another woman who had a dog from The Seeing Eye, along with several other acquaintances from that school. I also lived with a man who had a service dog (not a guide dog, a mobility assistance animal) from NEADS. I do not know that many people with dogs from GDB except for my fellow students in class and a friend of N’s in Toronto. I knew of  a couple in Nebraska who both had dogs from GDB as well, but mostly only saw them at the bus stop, not working them. My point is, I have been exposed to and have seen the workings of a lot of guide dogs from  a lot of different schools. So rather than comparing M1 to M2 specifically, I will try to look for overall patterns I see with the dogs from the same schools. This is imperfect and highly subjective, obviously, and with that I will end my long-winded disclaimer.

I’m going to sort of go through the life of a guide dog and rate my opinions on each domain, if that makes sense.

Breeding:

Both schools breed their own dogs. I am not an expert in any way on animal husbandry and thus this is where my opinion counts the least.

GDF dogs were in general bigger than GDB’s. Although this may have changed. I also know that now GDF are breeding a large number of labradoodles that don’t shed. I prefer a smaller dog as they are easier to handle in tight spaces like light rail cars and restaurants. So far, it seems like M2 does not shed as much as M1 did. Her coat is a bit thinner and wire-y-er than M1’s and thus shedding is not all over the place like M1. Both dogs were very pretty yellow labs, and both seem exceptionally intelligent. I do know that GDB breeds a LOT more dogs than GDF, and this might help with diversity. The jury is out on M2 yet, but M1 had some mild skin allergy issues and then later experienced joint problems in her old age.

Winner: I really can’t call a winner in this category. I just don’t have the expertise.

Puppy Raiser Program:

Both schools place their puppies with volunteer families that raise them the first year and are responsible for basic things like housebreaking and socializing. This is pre-me so it is another area where I have limited information. But this is what I gather.

GDF’s puppy raisers raise the dog from 8 weeks to about 12 to 15 months old. I did have a relationship with M1’s puppy raisers and from what I was told, they took M1 to “puppy camp,” every Saturday morning for a year. This was obedience school for the dogs that occurred right on campus with GDF trainers running the class. They had specific assignments required of them to practice during the week in regards to obedience commands. And then they were encouraged to give the dog opportunities to experience all kinds of different situations.

GDB’s puppy raisers seem to keep the dogs longer (8 weeks to 18 months), but do not seem to have the structure in place that was required at GDF. From what I have heard, the puppy raisers go to “meetings” that take place within their local cluster once or twice a month. GDB families seem to be spread out geographically much farther than GDF families. Some families are several states away from the campuses. It seems that although they take their dogs to the meetings and do learn and discuss obedience techniques and problem solve behavioral issues, they are not really attending “obedience school” with the dog. Based strictly from what I’ve heard, it seems a lot more lax than the GDF program.

And this seems like as good of place as any to discuss the off duty behaviors of M1 and M2 (and the other dogs I’m familiar with.) Guide dogs only guide a small portion of the day. The rest of the time, you and everyone around you in your family, workplace and public, has to deal with them. The thing I have struggled with the most with M2 is her off duty behavior, which by service dog standards I was astounded by how bad it is. And I was astounded by how bad the other GDB dogs were as well. I don’t know if the puppy raiser programs are solely to blame for this or at fault at all, but I put it here because this is what I expect most out of a dog that has been in a puppy trainer program.

M2 (and other GDB dogs I’ve seen and heard about) jump on people to greet them. They have trouble sitting still in restaurants. They have trouble sitting next to other guide dogs without wrestling/playing. They, to varying degrees, put things they shouldn’t in their mouths and then don’t know simple commands such as “leave it” or “out.” I have to tell you that this is what absolutely shocked me the most in my training at GDB. You think at the very least, you are going to get a dog that has been trained better than your average pet dog that has been through obedience school and I have to say in my experience, they are not. My dad’s miniature dachshund, Abbey, has better control of her trash mouth behavior than M2 does. And it was really weird at GDB when the fellow students would get together in someone’s room or in a lounge just to talk, controlling our dogs from going ape shit with each other was a constant interruption. All dogs will get a sniff or nuzzle in, and some dogs will even get especially excited to see another familiar dog and lose control. That isn’t what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about just constant wresting with each other, barking, growling, nipping, biting etc. It is not vicious. It is all very playful in nature. And M1 did do this with other dogs at times, but it was not constant and it was controllable. When I was in training for 4 weeks at GDF with nine other students stuck in the dorm, we visited with each other a lot and NEVER had the constant degree of dog wrestling problem that I had in my two-weeks at GDB. When I lived with Jats and the NEADS dog, Chloe, we did not have this problem. When I visited my friends with guide dogs, we did not have this problem. I’m not saying the dogs NEVER got frisky and played with each other, I just mean that it was not constant and it was easy to call off. And remember that couple in Lincoln I only sort of knew from the bus stop? All I ever saw their dogs do was sit at the bus stop. But my friend went to their house a few times and she said it was constant dog WWF the whole time and also that their were pee and poop stains all over the floor.

M2’s trash mouth problem might be specific to her in its extremeness, although my GDB roommate has pretty much adapted her lifestyle to preventing her dogs from eating stuff they shouldn’t. She has her son keep all his toys in his room and they baby gate  the upstairs. They keep the downstairs toy and debris free. There is nothing wrong with this, I guess. But in a small house like ours with two (almost three) boys, it is not that realistic. M2 has eaten legos, matchbox cars, little dinosaur animals, crayons and wooden blocks. She got into a bottle of WEED KILLER (though I blame my dad for that one.) She constantly gets into the trash can (like literally every five minutes) and then I bought a trashcan for the bathroom with a lid and she dumped that over and figured it out in about ten minutes. She got into my back pack and wallet and ripped apart my cash and some credit cards. I have to keep constant supervision of her which is nearly impossible. I tie her down and she eats the carpet right out of the floor. I put her in the living room (hardwoods) and she chews on the couch. My only way to contain her when I need to do anything (like go to the bathroom or sleep) is to kennel her, which she is not fond of. Outside she eats her own poop, bark mulch and the branches right off the bushes. Her problem is constant. She is learning the command “leave it” but I still have not found a way to teach her “out” and thus am constantly diving into her mouth with my hand and pulling stuff out. This is our biggest challenge and to be truthful I am absolutely shocked that I have to deal with this problem to this extent. I am working on it by supervising her in small doses and trying to replace the offending item with Nylabones and dog toys and “leave it” ing her all day long and trying to teach her to spit stuff out. But we have a LONG ways to go. This bad habit is deeply ingrained within her.

If I seem a little hysterical about this, I am. My whole existence has changed due to M2’s trash mouth. I can’t relax around the house when she is free or even on tie down. And even I can’t in good conscience kennel her ALL the time.

To put this into perspective, think of it like this. A few days after I got M1 I went back to work, at a preschool, and then a few weeks later in a public school kindergarten class. Kids, toys, chaos everywhere; carpet, furniture, books abound. Recess in grassy areas with kids playing with balls. I never even bothered to tie that dog down. Ever. Not at home, not at work. She had a blanket to lay on and work and she laid there. I would let her run around outside in the fenced yard area and in my empty classroom (with a few straggling kids sometimes for entertainment) during my lunch break. She rarely picked up anything she was not supposed to put in her mouth. She was not perfect. If there was a big piece of pizza lying on the floor, she would go for it. But I could say “leave it” or if I didn’t catch it in time, I could say “out” and she would spit it out. For years I left bags of dog food out that she would not touch. (In her retirement years, she did get a bit of trash mouth, but this happened when she was left home alone and had anxiety issues. Never right in front of me after repeated corrections.)

One thing that is definitely different about the dogs is their behavior in harness and out. M1 did act better and more serious in harness. But there wasn’t like a whole bipolar personality and training difference out of harness. The GDB dogs seem to really have a whole different personality when not in harness. M2 is a basically good dog in harness, but a holy terror brat out of harness. The GDF dogs were taught to guide on leash, not just in harness. Leash guiding is a little sloppy, so it was only meant for things like running to your mailbox, getting around indoors short distances, things like that. The point is, all the same commands and rules applied when on leash and when in harness. Its not like they don’t run and play when they aren’t in harness, it is just that when you give them a command, all the same rules apply and they listen to the command. GDB does not teach their dogs to guide or do much of anything besides sit and stay when out of harness, or even in harness but having downtime. They really don’t carry over that discipline much at all. It is really annoying.

Winner: GDF, BY FAR. To have a guide dog is a lot more than guide work. It is to have a constant companion at your side in all situations. To me, off duty stuff seems to fall into the hands of the puppy raisers, and I don’t think the GDB folks get enough structure or guidance to do all that needs to be done. And/or the work that they do do is not carried over and reinforced and added onto in actual guide training.

Guide Work:

The next step for the dogs is to return to the school and do the intense training of guide work. GDB seems to generally train less for less time (about 4-6 months) than GDF (about 6-8 months.) This is the area I really looked back into old journals and my memory to really try to be fair and evaluate M1 as a new guide dog. I actually think both M1 and M2 are equally good at the guide work they do. But there are some major differences in training that make M1 and GDF the standout.

Number of commands:

GDF teaches their dogs more commands. It is that simple. And many are quite handy. The commands that GDB teaches and that M2 knows, she knows quite well. But she just doesn’t have the vocabulary of M1. I’m not going to write an exhaustive list of commands that each dog knew upon my receiving them, but M2’s are much more basic. She knows forward, left, right, follow, hoppup, and others like that.

M1 knew those and in addition knew things like upstairs, downstairs, out door, escalator, chair, under (as in “sit under the bus bench”), find the way (when confronting a total obstacle that blocks your way), head in (to walk into the harness when putting it on, M2 and I wrestle a bit with this), over left/right (A gradual or not obvious turn. M2 has a left, left, left that kind of does the same thing, but not as well and more annoying to keep saying it until she turns, sometimes you are in a conversation with someone and you don’t want to stop and say left, left, left 20 times), about (to do a 180 and go the other direction, M2 can just do a right and a right again, about is more convenient). I’m probably forgetting some. There is a way I talked to M1 to keep her on track that I’m now doing with M2 and she is catching on. Like “Straight to the curb!” when she starts to get a little meandering on a sidewalk.

Learning New Commands

Another big difference between GDF and GDB is the use of food. GDB uses food rewards and GDF never did. We were required to carry around our waist a little pouch of kibble and to reward M2 upon crossing a street, finding a door, etc. Although I do believe that this process speeds up the transition from the loyalty the dogs have to the trainer to the loyalty she has to you, it was a pain in the ass and I have almost completely eliminated using food with M2. M2 works WAAAAAAY better when food is just out of the picture all together.  Because when you have food rewards, she gets so into the food that she focuses on nothing else. She does her guide work to get the reward, but she is not really focusing on the guide work or what is going on around her. She is focusing on getting the food. She technically does what she is supposed to, but it almost has a hyper-sterical quality to it that is rushed and unfocused. It is not comfortable to guide with her when she is constantly thinking about food. Besides, it is gross to always have to have your right hand handy to grab food out of a pouch and shove it in your dog’s mouth. You want to shake someone’s hand and you have wet, slobbery dog breath hands. Also, you attract other dogs with the food pouch. Its gross and its a pain in the ass. And it is sometimes painful. Although usually she is fairly good, especially if I get the food right down to her quickly, she can bite your hand off. Ouch! I was giving her food rewards intermittently at the school, I saw the problem and their solution was to have me UP the food rewards to every street crossing, good deed, etc. When I got home, I forgot the food pouch enough to just accidentally see HOW MUCH BETTER she does without food. I still give lots of praise and pats, but the food is gone for good. She doesn’t expect it. She is much more comfortable working now. She is steadier and not so frenzied, she is more focused, she seems to relax and enjoy the walk more, she listens better. The only exception to this is when I let her run around in my backyard and I call her, I give her a food reward for coming, because this is such an important thing for her to do if you accidentally lose her, or if I need to quickly retrieve her from a dog run or something. M1 never used food as reward.

Both schools expect that you will go home and teach your dog more commands and customize routes to your own environment. But they have different expectations as to how to do it. My basic theory is that GDB WAY underestimates it’s dogs capacity to learn stuff. GDF’s basic thing was to just left, right navigate your way to a destination and when you get to the door or whatever, name it and give it lots of praise. So, like you would go to the store, get there and be all “Good Store! Good Store, Doggy! Good store!” Yes, you sound ridiculous, but it works. When surveying some of the GDF students I know, they say it averages about three or four trips there to really get it into your dog’s head. And then they get it. I even remember taking M1 back to my old hometown after not living there for over a year and she remembered some of our regular routes and the commands that went with them. M1 could find bus shelters, crossing light buttons, and other landmarks like that consistently across contexts as long as they looked somewhat similar to what she knew. N’s dog, Jats could find public telephones and subway stations across contexts, as well. I taught M1 the names of my college classes and these changed each semester. I have in my journal the number of words she knew after about a year with me and it was 67. She also picked up on several ASL signs.

I have absolutely no doubt that M2 has this same capacity to learn. She has already demonstrated this as I have used the same methods with her. So this isn’t really a neg on GDB, just an interesting point, or it could even be a positive. But I don’t think GDB thinks the dogs have this capacity to learn. The way they teach the dogs new commands is pretty tedious. It isn’t that it is wrong to know these methods, and maybe in some instances it is good to know these methods because there are some contexts that any dog just struggles with and needs extra help to learn something. But I just don’t think that in general, for most dogs in most situations, this is necessary.

What they do is basically two methods. One, there is a word for it that escapes me right now. I want to say backtracking? You cane or sighted guide to your destination, then name it and provide food reward. Then you back up two feet and do it again. Then four feet and do it again. Repeat at increasing intervals until you’ve gotten a good 25 or so feet away. So basically, to find the door to a Starbuck’s during training. I walked up to that door, didn’t go in, treated my dog and repeated this process like 10 times. Compare that to what I would do with M1 (and have already successfully done with M2) which is to maybe twice go up to the door starting from perhaps 30  to 50 feet away. One of the first things I taught M2 was the route to D’s house. I did it once, then back tracked all the way to the end of the block and did it again. Did it once again the next day, and since then she knows it. I’ve also done that for my own house and the train station. No food reward needed, no 20 step backtracking. Dogs LIKE to learn. They like to use their brain.

The other interesting GDB strategy is clicker training. I don’t quite get clicker training, it seems like redundant systems. But I can see where in certain circumstances, redundant systems might be helpful. Basically, you have this little gadget in your hand that, when you push a button, makes a distinct clicking noise. And in the dog’s Pavlovian mind, this clicking noise is paired with food reward. So, in class, I taught my dog a couple of things with the clicker. One was to find a chair. I held a kibble in my hand and clicked when the dog touched my hand with her nose, immediately giving her food reward. After a couple of those, I put my hand with the kibble in it on the chair seat. Immediately as she touched my hand, I clicked and gave her the food. Then I paired the click and the food with the word “chair.” Then, I stretched my body (and the dog) as far away as I could while still touching the chair with my kibble hand and repeated. Then two feet away, then four feet, etc. We also did this with a miscellaneous post and a bus shelter later on. Interestingly, when I asked my instructor if this reward for the bus shelter would transfer to all bus shelters (that looked reasonably similar to this one) and she said, no. Funny, I thought. I taught M1 how to find almost any bus shelter without clicker/food or big ta-doo. Just a few trials with reinforcing praise (Good Bus! Good Bus!!!). I haven’t found a context in which I think clicker training would be more helpful than just the usual positive reinforcement that seems to be working just fine for us right now. I’m not saying that I never will. (Can I use it somehow to eliminate trash mouth? Hmmm.) But it just seems like more of a distraction from the “lesson” than necessary. The word + the click + the food +the verbal praise, gets M2 all hyper-spastic about the food reward. Whereas the word + the praise seems to help her focus on the actual WORD/LOCATION pairing, which is the important part.  It takes her less time to learn a new word my way than to use the clicker. I taught her this particular ramp/curb cut that I have to find on a daily basis in my neighborhood when I had the instructor handy. And she did learn it that day, but she forgot it only four days later when I got home. We still are working on that damned ramp from time to time. She seems to get all kerflustered each time we get near it.  This might be a YMMV thing. But pairing food rewards for M2 gets her all fucked-in-the-head silly.

The Two-Handed Harness Issue

When comparing the two school’s method of training, the two-handed harness vs. one-handed harness has been HUGE for me. I’m a mom of two young boys. One of the reasons I waited so long to get a guide dog after my kids were born is because I could not figure out how to watch the kids while having to sacrifice one hand to a guide dog. Even with a cane, you can flip it back and forth as need be or even tuck it under an arm in a pinch. It is mandatory for me to have hands free to manage kids. Finally, as the kids have gotten older, I felt that they were able to be verbally managed enough that I could let one hand free to use for a dog. Imagine my surprise and horror when I found that the way GDB’s harnesses work and the way that they teach corrections requires both hands to be available. I couldn’t believe it. It is the dumbest thing ever. Even if you don’t have kids, sometimes you have to like, carry things? Like groceries? Or maybe a coffee? Or, like, anything that needs to be carried? How they possibly ever thought this was a good idea or workable in real life is beyond me. Right now I am in the absolutely necessary process of changing M2 over to the old harness and the left handed corrections. (And she is doing quite well with the transition, thankyouverymuch.)

Okay, so let me explain. GDF had you do everything with your left hand in regards to your dog. You held the harness with your left hand and you held the correction leash looped around your left wrist and then held between your fingers of your left hand. The harness itself had a little give to it between the handle and the actual leather straps on the dog. The harness connected to the leather straps via two loops that removed with a standard leash clasp. Most guide dog harnesses are something like this, so you probably know what I mean, it is the standard. So, with your voice and your left hand, you could do everything. Rarely, if your dog was just a complete monster and getting away from you, you could reach down with your right hand and correct with the leash in your right hand. But you had a system of escalating corrections. 1. Verbal (huppup). 2. A slight jerk and release of the harness (meaning, Yo, over here. Pay attention!) 3. drop the harness and snap the leash (a major correction when she’s completely gone from guiding.) The thing is, you ALWAYS have that dog. You always have your wrist wrapped around the leash. So not only is your right hand free… for short periods, your left hand can be free, too, and you dog is still guiding albeit leash guiding only. For example, to carry a cafeteria tray to a table, drop the handle, the leash is automatically around your wrist, grab your tray with both hands, and your dog can at least guide you a bit around obstacles. My infamous story of being hit by a car while walking across a Target parking lot driveway is a case in point. That one handed leash hold very well saved my life. A car hit us while driving out of the driveway into a busy street without looking at us. Both M1 and I fell under the front of the car and were pushed into the busy street of oncoming traffic then the car lurched to a stop. In the fall I dropped the harness handle but the leash was safely around my wrist. M1 was able to guide me instantly via leash up and away from the oncoming traffic and back to the sidewalk.

With the GDB way of doing it, I likely would have let go of the whole dog in that scenario and then who knows if I would have had the wherewithal to get my butt out of the traffic so quickly. So, they have you hold the handle in your left hand, but hold the leash just tucked under the index finger of your left hand, not around your wrist and all or several of your fingers. The handle is connected to the harness via a stiff rubbery sort of male/female attachment. (Basically a stick goes into a hole and locks in place.) There is absolutely no give to the harness handle. The handle is stuck in one position to the leather straps. As an aside, that handle sticks up awkwardly when not in use just an inch or so instead of resting on the dog’s back, and because of this and because there is no give to it, it gets stuck EVERYWHERE! All harness handles can get stuck from time to time, but this one just gets stuck a whole lot more. So anyway, to make a correction, almost your only way to do it is to take the leash with your right hand from under your left index finder and do a leash correction, and then have to put it back. There is no harness handle “Pay Attention!” mechanism. Also, as GDF used hand signals a lot (you could literally just point your dog the direction you wanted to go with your right hand if need be) GDB relies on the leash in right hand to point your dog in the right direction. So if your dog strays to the left and you want it to go forward, you take the leash from your left hand with your right and actually take the leash forward in front of the dog. It is extremely awkward, and you can’t freakin’ use your right hand for anything else! (Especially if you are also using your right hand to dish out food rewards.)

I started the wrist wrapped, left handed leash corrections with M2 almost the day I got home. And that has worked fine, allowing me to at least hold a kid’s hand or a bag of groceries in my right. But the REAL improvement came when I put M1’s old harness on M2. That made a huge improvement in our guiding and need for correction in the first place. M2 is easier to control if you can catch her before she goes full-fledged bad dog. With the right hand corrections, by the time I’ve gotten the damned leash in my right hand and all that for a big correction, she’s gone off in her bad dog world, eating shit off the ground or going after a bird or something. With the GDF harness, I can catch her at the slightest inkling of misbehavior. Another dog walks by and I feel her head turn towards it. With just a subtle left-handed flick of the harness (Hey! Get back to work!) she is corrected before she even had a chance to go full-fledged bad dog. No big leash correction necessary. And when that doesn’t work, I can much more quickly drop the harness handle and correct her than I can crossing over hands and putting it into my right. I can do this and still hold onto my kid and even still with maybe just a command or two keep my conversation going with whoever I’m with, too. With the GDF harness and all left-handed corrections, my need to correct her (with a full leash correction) have decreased dramatically. Mostly, she just needs to be told to get back to the job at hand.

Miscellaneous

M2 (and the other GDB dogs) lack some “grace” or something that other service dogs have. It is little things. Like just going to a restaurant and having your dog tuck under your chair or beside you under the table rather than sprawling around everywhere and scooching around searching for crumbs. When I take M2 on the light rail and find a seat and tell her to sit, she just plops down wherever the hell she is at. Middle of the aisle, in front of someone’s feet, whatever. And then I have to man-handle her into the right place out of the way. M1 would just automatically go under the seat. (Now, sometimes she would start to sprawl eventually, but at least she started in the right place and tucking her back in was easier). I can teach M2 these things, but right now she just has no idea. M1 already knew these types of things. Going sighted guide with M1 meant that I could just drop the harness and heel her and almost forget about her unless she got sufficiently distracted (which did happen.) Heeling with M2 is a fucking nightmare. I hate it. I either have to work her or not go for a walk at all because going sighted guide with her or heeling with her at all is constant, CONSTANT corrections and having her jerk around and cross in front of you back and forth or lag behind you. It’s easier to walk with my dad’s total spastic brat miniature dachshund than her (at least she doesn’t pull so hard.) Again, I’m working on the heeling with her, but I did not have this problem with M1, nor did I ever see it much with Jats, Chloe, or the Guiding Eyes or Seeing Eye dogs that much. I’m not saying these other dogs were perfect. They ALL have their moments of brattiness. But at least they started with an expectation of good behavior and you worked back to that, that was the default. M2 just doesn’t have a clue about some of this stuff. There is no default to work back to.

Winner: Most definitely GDF. I’m working Ms. M2 into being a GDF dog, and I resent a lot that after thousands of dollars of training (paid for by donors) and hundreds of dollars of childcare and hours of taking time out of my life to get her, that I have to do all this with her. You always have to do work with a new dog. That is a given. But in my journals, I have the things M1 and I worked on the first few weeks. And it was all route stuff. Like how to get through my parking lot of my apartment with no sidewalks and buildings everywhere. It wasn’t things like “heel” and “leave it” for crissake. Not quit eating your poop, you damned dog! Quit jumping on and knocking over the babysitter’s 6 year old! Brat!

There are other small finesse type issues that GDF trains their dog to do and GDB does not. For example, shopping with a dog while pulling the cart behind you. GDB says don’t do it, it isn’t fair to the dog. They say to just heal the dog and push the cart in front of you, having a sighted person pull you and the cart from behind. But part of my job, for example, is to help D go shopping. Even though he helps me with the visuals, I cannot just passively be sighted guided around the store. I have to pull the cart behind me and have M2 lead. Then (being up front and with my right hand easily freed, I can grab things for D and put them in the cart. M1 was trained for this, as well as to work with strollers, etc. M2 was not. But I do have to say, we’ve been shopping three or so times now, and she did a good job guiding. She didn’t blink an eye with the cart behind her. She instantly compensated and didn’t seem a bit nervous. I’ve even shopped with her and Costco carts with two kids in them. And Costco carts are huge. There are just little things like this, escalator training, subway training, that GDF expects that in living your life you are going to have to do, whereas GDB tends to rely on the “get a sighted person to help you” approach.

When I asked about the differences in training, the basic explanation I got was that GDB trains way more dogs than GDF does and thus can’t put in the time for extras and must focus on basics. Again, what M2 knows, she knows well. She likes to guide. She is a good natured and fun dog. She is very smart and eager to learn. But she just doesn’t have the skills that M1 had. And it is entirely up to me to teach them to her. I have to live my life. I think I would much rather go to a smaller school who puts more into their dog training and has higher expectations for their dogs and be able to pretty much go right back to life after training than to go to a dog factory and have to do the last third ( or the first third?) of the work myself. Oh, another anecdotal thing, It seems like it is much more frequent for GDB students to give their dogs back for various reasons that GDF students did. I have no statistics to back this up, but I was surprised at the stories I heard from my fellow GDB students on false-start dog pairings.

In their defense, there has been problems with long waiting lists for blind people to be able to get guide dogs. And GDB has done a lot to try to speed this process up, especially for retrains. Double campuses, shortening training (and perhaps shortening dog training as well and slimming it down to the basics) are all things that have helps more blind people get dogs faster, so there is that. Everything is a trade off.

Student Training:

I’ve documented my love of the guide dog training experience elsewhere, so I’ll be brief. I haven’t been to GDF in 16 years and I’ve heard there have been improvements like single rooms, air conditioned vans with TVs, things like that. But it is still dorm life and I’m sure it is about on par with GDB dorm life. I’m not a fan.

Due to the new “innovations” that GDB is trying with the shorter class periods, higher instructor/student ratio, community settings, etc. they are obviously at least trying to go in new directions and make training more real life to blind people. So because of that…

Winner: GDB

Post Graduate Services:

I have not experienced GDB post grad services yet. But I have heard good things. Lots of in-person problem solving and follow-up seems to be available. Now whether this gets annoying (like are they going to flip when they come visit me and I’ve totally switched to an all left-handed GDF harness technique?) I don’t know. You do get the option to take legal ownership of your dog after a probationary year, which is very important to me and seems relatively reasonable. They also have a lot of financial assistance for vet bills available.

GDF’s grad services were limited. You could call them on the phone but I don’t know that they made house calls at all. They did not give you a vet stipend. In fact, when M1 needed ongoing expensive medication near the end of her life, I asked for financial assistance and was refused. I did not officially OWN M1 until I was given that option when she was about 11 years old. Until then, they officially owned her and could take her at any time. Now, I think this has changed, but I don’t know the particulars under what circumstances you can own your dog. There is not a large support network for GDF grads, although I do think they are just as helpful as GDB in placing your dog should you need to give it up.

Winner: GDB

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Overall Winner: GDF

For me, personally, I’m going to call the overall winner here to be GDF. I personally think that having to live with the guide dog for 10+ years makes good dog training the number one priority above all else, and GDF simply has better trained dogs, hands down. Now, I’m committed to working it out with M2 and I will do my best with her. I do not think she is a bad dog and I think she has a lot to offer. But when it is time to go back to guide dog school for a third? I can’t say what I will do specifically. But I will say that I’m not going to assume all guide dog schools are the same and I am going to do my research (like I did the first time, but really didn’t this time.) And if it means dorm prison training and paying my own vet bills to get a top quality trained dog? Well, I might just have to sacrifice and make myself suffer through it. What you most want out of a guide dog school is the best trained dog possible. One you can trust to keep you safe (which I do pretty much with M2) but also one that can live in your world and interact with the public and all situations effectively whether you are a stay at home mom or a top business exec (both things M2 cannot manage yet.) I’m not daunted too terribly much by M2’s troubles. But I think that is because she is my second dog and because I have so much training in behaviorism (through special ed stuff). I think that a dog like M2 with someone less experienced could be a potential disaster. And I’ll be honest. At this time in my life with a baby coming and two kids and some major transition coming up, it would have been really nice to have gotten a dog who knows how to live in a house with kids and be at least somewhat well-mannered. But we’ll keep working on it and maybe I will do a (shorter!) follow-up on her in a year or so.