I am a youngest child. I grew up forever feeling persecuted that my brother got to... stay up later/go places I wasn't allowed/watch movies that were forbidden/fill in the blank with any other life-or-death-desirable activity in a kid's mind. I never saw him with more responsibilities than I had---therefore earning those special privileges---though that, too, is probably a perception heavily shaped by its passage through tween/teen Not-Fair-Colored glasses. Of course, there were also rules in our family that were shaped by "because he's a boy" or "because you're a girl." Different time,...
Hey, let's talk about the kid who still likes me! So I may have mentioned that we suspected Monkey had another sinus infection. It was a kind of deja vu to last year's pre-surgical carnival of Angry Monkey; his behavior has been steadily deteriorating for a month, and all the while he insists he feels FINE he is FINE it's just that everyone else is STUPID and MEAN and why are you LOOKING AT HIM? Things at school have been rough, and I've been back in that place where I say, "He's sick. This isn't him. Please be patient, we're working on it." And whether it's reality or not, it feels like...
Chickadee is dying for me to cut off all my hair. She says she thinks it will be "cute." Then again, she also says she thinks I should dye my gray bright pink once I do, and she currently has plans to streak her hair purple, so I'm not sure I'm relying on her for reliable hair advice. Monkey has no opinions on hair, not really. He dislikes the actual act of having his hair cut---the sitting still! the scratchy little pieces of hair tickling his neck and nose!---but has reached a place where having scraggly hair hanging in his eyes bothers him more, so we generally keep his hair fairly short....
I tried really hard not to burst out into mournful song during my post at Off Our Chests this week, but I have to warn you that my girl is growing up and it's making me a little sentimental. Okay, a lot sentimental. Okay, FINE; I'm a gibbering mess. (I keep telling her to just please be UGLIER and LESS AWESOME, but she refuses to listen.) In addition to that craziness, y'all know I'm insanely proud to be involved with The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, and as part of their "Slice of Life" series for Autism Acceptance Month, today they're featuring an interview with Monkey. (I may have...
Apparently it's World Autism Awareness Day, which is important if you live under a rock and have never known anyone with autism. Anyone? Anyone?? Bueller...?? Obviously, I'm aware of autism... oh, pretty much all the time. So I'm going to celebrate today by doing the same stuff I do all the time. I'm a rebel that way. For you, though, maybe you'd like to check out this nice little interview with me over at SheKnows, all about how---for our family---diagnosis wasn't hard or scary, but the start of things getting better. And I don't know if you know this, but my Monkey is really the very best...
Every now and then I realize that I've left you hanging on a variety of things---by accident, and because I'm disorganized (not on purpose)---and/or I think of a few minor things I want to share that aren't entire-post-worthy. And then I throw them all together in a single mish-mash post and call it a day. Hooray! First of all, I can't stop watching this video: (No, that has nothing to do with anything, I just love it. You're welcome.) * * * * * Next, I realized I never filled you in on the recent developments in Dog Saga-land. After a lot of consideration and discussion and research, we...
I may have mentioned before that sometimes there's a dog at Hippie School; the director was bringing her almost every day, for a while. This dog and Monkey immediately became the best of friends, because Monkey loves animals and Star is a saintly paragon of patience when it comes to children flinging themselves all over her. It was reported to me on more than one occasion that when Monkey was having a difficult time, either he would spontaneously go bury his face in Star or she would go to him and sit on his feet. (It must be noted here that Licorice is also very patient with Monkey, but at...
First: A health update! Thank you so much to everyone who had such kind words and thoughts for my sweet mother-in-law; once again, she fooled us all. She's out of the ICU and doing much better. This is good news because we love her, but excellent news because I don't think Otto could've taken it if things had gone differently. (Although I didn't mention this in the last post, while waiting on updates on my mother-in-law, we unfortunately lost two other magnificent folks---their deaths weren't unexpected, but were still way too soon. "They" say bad things come in threes, and for once I was...
My current earworm: Because, yes, today my Monkey is (sing it with me!) 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12! (Remember when they only ever counted up to 12 on Sesame Street? It was like numbers higher than that just didn't matter, or even exist.) Today we have to start paying full price to take you to the movies. Today you no longer get a kids' menu. Today we'll probably start bending a bit when it comes to letting you watch PG-13 stuff, because we started softening when your sister turned 12, but the difference is that you won't care too much, and if something you watch has even the remotest iota...
