The blandest looking blog on the Web

Without formatting, this blog is going to be the blandest thing ever. I want bold. I want italic. I want color, dang it. But I'm attached to Safari. I've got so many bookmarks and they are organized just the way I want them.

So Friday is a school conference day: come 1:30 I will get to hear my kiddo and his teacher talk about the year so far and I am surprisingly anxious about it. My sense is that he's doing really well. I would say that he is making enormous strides, compared to what my expectations were. I feel like that sets the bar too high, though, and I should be prepared for worse news!!

In the beginning of the year, his resource teacher said that sometimes kids were just not developmentally ready to read at the same time as everyone else. Two years ago, I would have totally agreed. Since then I have been so convinced about the verdict of processing disorder/dyslexia that it was almost hard for me to hear that, but now...well, he's really making progress.

There's a part of me that wants to believe that he's not dyslexic at all.

On the other hand, there is a speech dysfluency that goes along with the diagnosis--these delays that I hear in his speech when he's trying to retrieve information, even simple information. It's not a stutter; it's a slowness. He speaks much less fluidly (albeit with an enormous vocabulary) then do other kids his age. And that's the processing disorder. That's the information being filed in the right side of his brain, and so taking longer to retrieve. That thing is the same thing that has made reading so challenging.

I think maybe it's natural to waver, to wonder whether it's real, to think maybe, maybe...The idea that he just needed to do it in his own time is so appealing. But I don't really think that's true. Reading came so easily to me, so hard to him. Even if there was something developmental there, I do believe he's dyslexic, and that he always will be. I'm also beginning to believe, though, that he's going to be able to read someday. Really read, not just painfully piece together the words.

I'm so lame...

Why can't I figure out how to format this???

Got the answer...Safari on a Mac, of course. I don't get the formatting editor, and the keyboard commands appear not to work.

Grr...

My Dog Can Climb Trees

I'll make Rory go out with the camera later and take a picture, but yes, the dog is willing to climb trees. I'd already suspected that she'd be willing to climb most anything if the temptation was strong enough: last night, I was up in the bunk bed, trying to make the bed, and she actually climbed most of the way up the ladder to get to me. A ladder is not easy for a dog, and she got stuck about one step from the top. She just couldn't get a solid enough footing to make the last push.

Today, Rory took her to the park and climbed a tree and up she jumped, scrabbling and clawing at the bark until she was safely lodged in the crook of the branches.

Conference Bliss

The great thing about conferences is getting totally jazzed about all of the cool things going on in the world of *insert conference focus here*. This year, I've been to Macworld, FlashForward, South by Southwest, and a small branding conference, and every time I come home totally excited to do all sorts of great new things. Then reality sets in and I start answering my email and going to meetings and taking my kiddo to school and walking the dog and generally living real life again.

It feels like a disconnect, a sad disconnect. In reality, though, it's an opportunity. Conferences expose me to all sorts on new ideas, new technologies--I just need to savor them for what they are and what they bring to my life, but then still appreciate the day-to-day and its virtues. I know for sure that if I had a conference every week my brain would explode!

I should also look into going to some conferences that relate to my personal obsessions. IDA has a conference in November, in Indiana of all places. Not that I want to visit Indiana (in November, I'd happily go there in June) but I can only imagine how excited I would be coming out of three days spent with people whose life is about my son's experience. That would be cool. And it might be pretty darn cool for him, too.

South by Southwest

The question is: how can an editor and technophile have reached March 2006 without starting a blog?

The answer is...um....it was easy? Busy with other things? Not sure what I'd write about?? Oh, I can always fall back on the standard: I'm a single working mom, you've got to be kidding. That's the answer to any question that revolves around why I haven't done something that would take time.

However, I'm now at South by Southwest, in Austin, Texas (Texas! I love my job) and Gary-Paul, my delightful co-worker, has started a blog for me. If you've stumbled across this blog, in some inadvertent way, chances are it will be filled with worshipful notes about my exceedingly charming and wonderful 10-year-old son. Also, potentially, the things I stumble across about dyslexia, positive parenting, alternative education, and the other things that obsess me (whether I'm glad about the obsession or not.)