Love is sweet torture
By the time Chickadee got home from school yesterday, she was all sweetness and light again. She wanted hugs and kisses and to cuddle and was full of stories from the day and things she’d been meaning to tell me and pretty much just brimming over with “I am sorry except I can’t actually SAY that.”
Just like that, the events of the morning are set to rights. In her perception, anyway. I try to go with it, to suck up the goodness when it happens. Like the little girl with the little curl, when she is good she is so very, very good. So I roll with it. I take a quiet moment to remind her that I vastly prefer THIS to THAT, and sometimes it brings a muttered, “I know…” and I move on, quickly, before it goes sour again.
Monkey has a bit of a cold and put himself to bed early, after which Chickadee and I sat on the floor of her room, chatting and getting her packed up for this weekend’s band trip. (“This one time? On the band trip?”) Licorice kept moving back and forth between us, deeply concerned. read more…
My tender, dewicate, feeeewwings
I once had a fellow mom-to-an-Aspie comment to me that her kid (unintentionally) hurt her feelings all the time because, you know, Aspies aren’t so good with interpersonal relations, on the whole. “I know it’s not intentional,” she confided, “but sometimes it just really hurts.”
Funny; Monkey only very rarely hurts my feelings. I think it’s BECAUSE I know that the stray rude/hurtful comment is likely unintentional (or, conversely, totally intentional but generally spurred on by anger or frustration that has very little to do with me personally) that I’m able to let it just kind of roll off my back. Plus, Monkey is an extremely affectionate kid; very huggy and kissy and generous with the compliments. In fact, I’ve recently tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to him that really, I have no desire to be 29 again, and he should please stop insisting that I am. (One overheard quip, man, and that’s it….)
Chickadee, on the other hand, hurts my feelings constantly. I assume this is her birthright, and all, but it still sucks. read more…
Now that we’re all buddies…
… you totally noticed that halfway through yesterday I caved and created a Woulda Coulda Shoulda fan page, right? And then you went and “like”d it, because we’re all such good friends? (I am really unclear on what such a page is meant for, other than going OH HEY YOU GUYS I LOVE YOU AND YOU LOVE ME, which I guess is… fine? Maybe I’ll give away ponies on there, periodically. Who knows!)
Meanwhile, now that I have a whole slew of NEW FRIENDS over there on my shiny new page, today I’m talking body hair over at Off Our Chests, because I like to break the ice at cocktail parties with frank discussion of pubes. (Uh, not really. But maybe now I will. Or maybe I’ll just ask people to join my fan page, and when they say no, THEN I’ll start telling pubic hair stories. That’s a reasonable plan, right?)
Are we friends?
friend (noun)
1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
2. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?
4. a member of the same nation, party, etc.
5. ( initial capital letter ) a member of the Religious Society of friends; a Quaker.
I understand that my personal definition of friend is not necessarily going to exactly match everyone else’s. I likewise understand that there are degrees of friendship; I myself, if pressed, could generally classify various friends in a fairly quantitative way that I think would make sense to most. So I get that.
HOWEVER. I cannot help feeling that social media has somehow confused the masses about friendship, and frankly, I think it’s time we rectified some misconceptions about friendship, etiquette, and why I think I may know more than the usual number of people who are either completely clueless or on drugs. read more…
Weekends fix everything
This is our first weekend in a long time without a million places to rush off to at top speed. We’ve all been enjoying a rather glorious slugdom! (Sadly, I do think showers and laundry and groceries are in order for today. Alas.)
Licorice is the destroyer of all toys, but her glee while shredding them is so adorable that I cannot resist buying them for her even though I know they’re only good for under an hour of (closely supervised) playtime. Last night she got a giant wrench, and lo, it was Very Good:
Yep. That’s an awesome weekend, alright.
Our kingdom for a therapist
It’s true that our “kingdom” at present doesn’t amount to much, and as many odd things as I’ve encountered thus far, I really haven’t gotten the impression from anyone involved that the offer of a deck badly in need of refinishing or a falling-down fence or even the pond full of peep-peep-peeping frogs would significantly improve our odds of being helped, but whatever we do have, I would happily offer it in exchange for the ability to:
1) Locate an appropriate child psychologist,
2) discover said professional takes our insurance,
3) admire said professional’s extensive experience in dealing with kids on the spectrum,
and
4) celebrate at the news that this doctor would be DELIGHTED to take Monkey on as a patient.
You know, Monkey? Cute, adorable, charming, Monkey? Who WOULDN’T want to spend a couple of hours a week with this kid? I’ll tell you who: Every damn therapist in this town, THAT’S WHO. I am trying not to take it personally. read more…
Dogs and ponies and unicorns
So I went to this thing. (Truly, I am a master storyteller, no? Silver-tongued and imbued with the wisdom of the ages!) It was a meet-n-greet for elementary school parents get to chat a bit with our local middle school’s staff, and I went.
I felt a little bit like a spy, because of course I already know the principal and the staff; my daughter’s been at this school for nearly two years, already. And normally I’m the last person to attend any meeting that isn’t compulsory, but it occurred to me that when they had this when Chickadee was in 5th grade, I sent Otto for some reason (I can’t remember, now, but I’m thinking maybe one of the kids was sick and I wanted to stay home). I’d never been to this particular event. So I figured I’d go.
Because I’m me, I spent 15% of the event goggling at the information being presented and 85% of it musing to myself that the middle school administrators in that room probably already sort of consider me a pain in the ass, and right now they’re only dealing with my neurotypical star student. Just IMAGINE how much they are going to love me if Monkey goes there! JUST BUNCHES, I am certain. read more…
The importance of seeing clearly
I’m over at Off Our Chests again today, and this time I’m talking about my glasses, as us four-eyed types sometimes do. Maybe you’d like to come over and check it out?
(P.S. After you read it, maybe you’d like to revisit the eyeball wrangler days, back when I thought Chickadee would never be able to manage her own contacts. It did take a couple of months, but it’s all a distant memory, now. None of that was relevant to the story I wanted to tell over at OOC, but it still makes me laugh.)
Polo, polo, polo
I find my fingers itching to click “Buy” on polo shirts.
I spend a goodish chunk of every day combing websites and sales and coupons for Want Not, and of course some of the deals I’m finding, I’m also buying. I consider it an occupational hazard. Though I don’t really consider it a hazard, even when my daughter opens the pantry and beholds fifteen boxes of cereal and dryly inquires, “Exactly how many people do you think live here, Mom?”
My standard line is that I am cursed with tightwad tendencies but impeccable taste; for me, the deals are about getting the expensive stuff for cheap, not just plain BEING cheap. Just buying cheaper stuff is not the same thing. I’m aware that a large percentage of the items I buy for my family could probably be procured at The Big Box Store Which Shall Not Be Named for approximately what I’m paying to order higher-quality analogs from other stores.
Part of the way I keep us in the style to which I’d like to become accustomed (ha!) is by scouring sales and clearance and buying ahead for things we’ll need next season or next year. And today it seems like I’m seeing polo shirts everywhere, though of course it may just be that I’m subconsciously looking for them. read more…
You can’t put a price on this kind of aggravation
On the whole, life right now is pretty darn good. Honest and for true, the most likely answer these days when you ask me how I am is, “I’m really good.” I may even sound a little surprised, when I say it, because… it’s still a little unexpected. But yeah, in the big picture? Not only am I feeling grateful and appreciative of all the recent improvements and little victories, I’m feeling all HOPEFUL and CHEERFUL and crap.
It’s weird.
At one point while I was kind of down in the pit during operation Gather Up The Shattered Pieces Of Monkey And For God’s Sake, Someone Get Some More Glue Over Here, Joshilyn wrote me an email which included the following:
But I have thought to myself, in a way that was hard to articulate, that you have moved over the last year or so from regular old Mir worldview of “A lot of the time, the glass feels half empty, but hey, I will go lick dew. Because, that’s moist!†person to a place where the glass is 2/3rds empty and rats are rubbing their diseased little tongues on the place you have to drink from, and there is no pitcher and we are all fucked and about to get plague.
At the time, that was accurate. Nowadays, I’m a hundred million times better. However, I need to vent about three recent things. read more…