Detours
What I wanted to tell you, after yesterday’s post, was that my fears were for naught, and Monkey had a great day and a hard but meaningful farewell with his parapro.
What I wanted to do was gently poke fun at myself for always fearing the worst, for always tensing up for the collision. I would make a joke about how being angry and worried had clearly appeased the Gods Of Suck, and everything worked out okay, after all. We would all exhale together and Otto would tell me I worry too much but look, everything’s okay, and then life would go on.
What I do not want to do is to detail the phone call I got, the chaos that ensued, the broken down little boy who came home to me yesterday afternoon and crawled into my bed and whispered that he always ruins everything. I do not want to tell you about how he cried himself out and then slept, brow sweaty, while I rubbed his back and cried silently behind him. read more…
Big feelings
I’m trying to learn a little bit of self-discipline in the form of not blogging when I’m overly emotional. Which probably means I will never blog again. HA! I kid. See, that’s me being all casual and detached. Ahem.
So yesterday, I popped up my blog dashboard four or five times, and in the end, closed it again, because I just wasn’t able to think of anything to say other than WE ARE ALL DOOOOOOMED and OMG YOU GUYS AAAAIIIEEEEE and that just seemed… not in accordance with my new rule of not blogging while inebriated with negative emotions.
Instead, today you get the Wah Wah Hangover. Lucky you!
Simply put, on Wednesday afternoon the phone rang. It was Monkey’s parapro, and she was very sorry, but she was calling to let us know that Friday—two days later, today—would be her last day. This is where I dryly inform you that the very best thing in the whole damn world is when you have to inform your Aspie that someone he loves is unexpectedly leaving him. read more…
Alas, poor closet. I cleaned it. Once.
I enjoy order and predictability. Having a kid on the spectrum has made The Schedule even more important to my life—he just plain functions better when he knows exactly what will be happening when. It’s easier to get his cooperation when things are planned.
And so it came to pass that every Saturday I call for the children to bring their hamper downstairs, and every Sunday afternoon I announce that I need the basket of clean clothes put away (if they haven’t been already) and the basket should be returned to me, emptied, before dinner. This seems to work out pretty well; the children never run out of clean clothes, I am able to keep track of things like when all of Chickadee’s socks have mysteriously disappeared or when Monkey’s undies are starting to unravel (“They’re fine!” he assures me, gamely modeling a too-small pair that fits like a thong and has a tail of elastic sweeping out behind him) and such.
I am constantly reading blogs wherein people claim to do two or three loads of laundry EVERY DAY. Who ARE you people? Do you only own two outfits each? Do you wash every towel every time it gets used? Do you wash each pair of jeans individually? You confuse me. read more…
Not sentimental, but also not insane
This morning over breakfast, Monkey told Otto, “Today’s our field trip to the middle school!”
Otto clucked appreciatively, asked him if he was excited (he was), then said, “And do you know what one week from tomorrow is?” Monkey scrunched up his face, deep in thought, and I tried to figure out what Otto had in mind. There’s a field trip today; there’s a field trip next week (though not a week from tomorrow). Hmmm.
“He doesn’t know, honey. What is it?” Otto turned to me, incredulous. He waited. I thought about it some more. My hands flew up to my mouth, involuntarily. “NEVERMIND!” I yelped. “I KNEW! I KNOW! I didn’t forget! I… I…” Otto was glaring at me. “I love you? Yes. I love you. Monkey, a week from tomorrow is our anniversary WHICH I DID NOT FORGET.” Otto shook his head and returned to his cereal.
Poor guy. He’s all secretly sentimental and stuff, and then he goes and marries ME. (Can’t I just say that it feels like we’ve been married forever and that gets me off the hook for actual date-dependent celebrations? No…?)
I share this as preface to the notion that I’m not one of those “shower me with love and expensive gifts” sorts of people when it comes to Mother’s Day. On the other hand, today I’m over at Off Our Chests talking about what even a confirmed un-sentimentalist like myself can tell you is a really bad Mother’s Day gift. Come on over; you know you love it when I go all Judgy McJudgerson.
Sense of accomplishment, gone
I have (had) all kinds of exciting things to tell you about today. I am (was) feeling productive! And accomplishment-y! And like a worthwhile member of society, and I couldn’t wait to tell y’all that I’d stopped wallowing long enough to get stuff done. My weekend was FULL OF WIN!
But then I saw that Osama Bin Laden was killed, and because I don’t want to get into anything political and I’m also uncomfortable with the notion of being happy about murder (even of someone who certainly appears to meet all objective criteria for “pure evil”), all I can say is this:
Hey, thanks, President Obama, for upstaging MY weekend! Sheesh.
Naturally, I’m going to tell you about my weekend, anyway, it just seems a lot less impressive, now, somehow. Maybe I will seamlessly embellish part of it to try to bring it up to a similar excitement level. Probably you won’t even notice. read more…
Getting it
So remember back when I said we’d finally landed a new therapist for Monkey, but we’d have to wait a while to see her? We finally saw her. I can tell she’s going to be very good with him; there is such a difference, sitting down with someone who works with Aspies all the time, versus someone less well versed in “kids like him.”
“Monkey, why do you think you’re here?” she asked him, after some of the initial pleasantries were out of the way.
“Because my mom brought me here,” he answered, ever the literalist.
She laughed. “Well yes, okay, but why do you think your mom brought you here?”
Monkey pretended to think about this. “Maybe she didn’t have anything else to do?” It’s hard to get mad at him when he deflects, because it’s a skill he developed relatively late. If you appreciate the mental gymnastics required for a kid who believes in One Truth to dance around the edges of an answer—and I do—you just can’t get mad at him for it. But after some prodding, he stared at his lap and his voice dropped as he said, “Because I’m bad.” read more…
Laying in supplies
You may have heard about a little storm that blew across the country yesterday…? We’ve had a few tornado scares since I moved to Georgia, but this was the first time that our local weather guy was basically spinning around and screaming “DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!!”
It’s times like these when I kind of miss having a basement.
Oh, sure. We have a “safe interior room” in our house—it’s underneath the staircase, through the laundry closet and behind the washer and dryer. (Have you tried the Turkish Delight back there? Delish!) It is precisely big enough to hold the four of us and Licorice, assuming that we all really like each other and don’t mind being stacked up like cordwood. It is also just the right size to hold the big bag of dog food and other pantry overflow items, so Otto took everything OUT of that space yesterday to make sure we’d have a place to seek shelter if necessary. Now our kitchen is too cluttered to accommodate people, but whatever. Safety first!
The storm wasn’t slated to arrive until after dark, though. So naturally, we went strawberry picking, first. read more…
Apparently my tongue felt left out
When I last left my dentist’s office, it was in a state of semi-hysteria over having just been informed that I needed a $2,000 bite splint that my insurance (you know, that thing you pay for the pleasure of being told everything is ineligible for coverage?) wouldn’t pay even a little bit towards. I came home and had a small tantrum and then vowed to cure myself of TMJ the old-fashioned way—I would simply will it to improve.
It actually worked, if by “it” you mean “that whole ‘willing’ thing, plus changing my diet some and doing nighttime relaxation exercises.” I went from being unable to chew on the affected side to where I am now, which is hardly any pain to speak of at all. I mean, TMJ is typically cyclical, but let’s just all agree that my giving up chewing gum and learning to practice deep breathing is the real reason I got better.
And because I was no longer in pain, I totally forgot about it. Until I got a phone call reminding me that I had my regularly-scheduled dental cleaning this week. read more…
Reputations
It’s a funny thing, about reputations. I always insisted, as a kid/teen/young adult that I didn’t care what anyone thought about me. And that was total crap, of course; I did care, desperately. I care less now than I used to, but probably more than I will confess to most of the time. Doesn’t everyone want to be well-thought-of, more or less liked? I’m not going to sit around and cry about it if someone gets the wrong idea about me, but you know what I mean.
I am fond of telling the kids, “It doesn’t matter what other people think, it matters who you are.” I believe that. But it’s not entirely true; sometimes it DOES matter what other people think. And lots of times, it FEELS like it matters (whether it does or not).
Once upon a time, I was young and cerebral and not particularly interested in sex, but my reputation ended up suffering, anyway. Come on over to Off Our Chests today to read about my brief stint as something I wasn’t… and how I ended up being okay with it.
Easter Day, 2011
6:00 a.m. Wake up. Look at clock. Remember it’s Sunday. Go back to sleep.
7:30 a.m. Wake up when Otto gets up. Go back to sleep.
8:30 a.m. Hear Otto making coffee. Get up.
8:35 a.m. COOOOOOOFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
8:45 a.m. Put turkey breast in crock pot.
8:50 a.m. Field Chickadee’s inquisition; she is certainly not eating any of that GROSS ANIMAL in the crock for dinner, so what is she having? Is that cranberry sauce on the turkey? Did I save her any? Because she is NOT EATING CRANBERRY SAUCE THAT TOUCHED TURKEY, MOM.
8:55 a.m. I give up my sanguine replies about how I have unfailingly accommodated her choice to avoid meat for the last two and a half years and instead suggest that with just a little bit of work, she could be in full-blown eating disorder status and should let me know if I can slice her some celery to gnaw on.
9:00 a.m. Monkey—who has been vibrating with excitement for the last hour—asks if maybe I think they should start, you know, looking for something? Maybe? Just in case there’s something around?
9:01 a.m. I do my best to look contrite and say, “Oh my gosh, you guys, I totally forgot to put your baskets out last night! I guess you can take a look, anyway, but… I’m sorry.” read more…