I know I keep saying it, but I really cannot fully express how much I've loved this summer. This is our fourth summer in Georgia and the first one that's felt like everyone is okay and life is good. The stress level has been relatively low and the kids are happy and mostly healthy. Basically I never want this summer to end, ever. But it's going to end in a couple of weeks, and we're starting to brace for impact. It's funny; I had a post planned, yesterday morning. It wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it was going to be about how good summer has been for everyone, but most especially for...
There's good news and there's bad news, when it comes to the latest on my darling daughter's skin. The good news is that we didn't have to see Dr. BadHair again; this week we saw the head of the department, who asked us a year ago how far we were willing to go to cure her, and this time finally told us what that meant. The bad news is that Chickadee has thus far decided that actually, no, she's not willing to go very far at all, thanks, she will just be rashy, that's perfectly fine, actually. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself, a bit. The truth is that Chickadee's skin issues have...
Sometimes I feel like I've got this whole Aspie thing under control. I know what will knock Monkey for a loop. I prepare him ahead of time for trouble spots, or sense when things are about to get ugly and take him aside. Sometimes I don't realize or see what what will set him off, and I feel alternately inept and callous as I try to both get him in line and soothe him. Like, yes, honey, no one likes to wait an hour for the doctor, but that doesn't actually mean it's okay to answer his, "And how are you?" greeting with "I'm PRACTICALLY DEAD because we've been waiting here FOREVER and I'm...
We bought Chickadee a new cell phone. (And by "bought" you understand I mean "picked her out a new purple one that was free on our plan.") It was not long after she began texting more often that her phone starting having issues, so we figured we'd go ahead and upgrade her before that one broke entirely. Now she texts all day long. She texts her friends. She texts me from the next room. She texts Otto the second he steps outside to ask what he's doing. I'm pretty sure she's developed callouses on her thumbs. The only advantage is that she's talking less, so if our phones are set to vibrate,...
I don't know if I've mentioned how much I am enjoying this summer. I mean---The Saga Of The Fence aside---I feel like we've reached a good place as a family. The kids are old enough that they don't need us every second but young enough that they still like hanging out with us. Otto and I have had time to nurture our relationship. (See, as a grownup I say "nurture our relationship" because I am fancy, rather than saying "be naked more often" because one, I'm a lady, and two, Otto would kill me if I said that.) (Oops!) I'm not going to claim to have that whole work/life balance thing down...
I thought there was nothing I like better than when a reader so totally gets my family, they feel the need to call my attention to something that would make us happy. Alert reader Jamie did just that: She emailed me earlier this week with this link to say she was thinking about me. In case you don't feel like clicking, that leads to this little DIY gem: Awesome, right? I immediately thanked Jamie, printed out the necessary images, and delivered it to Otto with a flourish. "I have a project for you!" I declared. Otto chuckled and set to work. Just a little bit later he presented me with his...
The children are home! The children are home! This is what Paul Revere ran through the town yelling about to strike fear into the hearts of the British. Or possibly Otto. But as for me, I was positively giddy yesterday, because no matter how much of a pain in the butt they can sometimes be, two weeks is a LONG TIME for my babies to be gone. Mind you, sometimes it was like they weren't even gone at all. After an unfortunate incident earlier this year when Chickadee took the sometimes-her-cell-phone to a school event and proceeded to spend the entire time texting with a friend sitting a few...
When school let out this year, I announced to my perfectly capable 11- and 13-year-olds that for the duration of the summer, they would each be planning and making dinner for the family one night each week. I delivered this decree with calm cheerfulness, but in my head I was seeing this: The thing is, one of the results of having grown up extremely self-sufficient by necessity is that---and I know this is going to come as a complete shock---sometimes I kind of baby my kids. I KNOW. I mean, it's crazy, because I'm such a complete hardass in so many other ways. But I am sometimes slow to get...
It has recently come to my attention that there's the possibility that my oldest child has observed a year of her younger brother getting a lot of attention for repeatedly falling into messy chunks, and that she has since concluded that the best way to get love and affection in our family is by behaving badly. [This conclusion is fueled by a deep need to believe that her recent rottenness is the result of incorrect conclusions rather than an honest-to-God sociopathic streak, and I AM OKAY WITH THAT.] So over the last month I have been trying very hard to Spend Quality Time With My Daughter,...
