Hello Weekend

I am tired.  It has been a long week.  I planted so much stuff and ran so many errands and made so many phone calls that I think I used up every last reserve of energy I had.

I think it would be ideal to just crawl under some blankets and not come out.  For a long, long time.

Hello, weekend.  Let's play.

Never Wear White With Cream

About twenty plus years ago (oh, man, I feel so...wise...saying it like that)...

I was a teacher for a small group of children in our church primary class.  One little girl always came to our children's group dressed to the nines.  Gorgeous little girl, cute little dresses, not a hair out of place.  Her mother was the same way...a fashion plate.  One Sunday, that little girl came to class and sat down and her mother looked at her and said, "Oh, no, what did you put on?  No, no, Briana (or Kelly or Lisa or whatever her name was) We never wear white with cream!"

I just sat there, stunned.  I didn't have any children of my own yet but I knew absurdity when I heard it.  I'm all for teaching your children good grooming habits and what to wear in different situations but...WOW.  That little girl was like, five?  Four?

Today my three year old wore a cute little plaid skirt and a cute little pink t-shirt.  She ran into the backyard, kicked off her shoes, and jumped feet first into a mud puddle.  She proceeded to have the most glorious hour a toddler can have.  She looked for dinosaur bones.  She ran.  She played with our four dogs.  She hid in her brother's "clubhouse".  She dug in the dirt and planted plants and I'm not sure that outfit will survive but that's not the point.  Kids need to be kids.  They are cute.  They are fun to dress up.  But above all else, they are fun to turn loose sometimes.  They are fun to turn loose and observe, because what you are looking at is pure joy and energy in motion, and I will never understand, not in a million years, why someone would want to damper that with the silly concern of whether or not their child's clothing selection jives.  I'm thankful for mud puddles.  And I'm thankful for the gorgeous three year old in my life who reminds me each day of what is truly important.

The Songs We Sing

Back to autism.  We've discussed stimming, we've discussed what autism is and isn't, meltdowns, and all that wonderful jazz.  So, I want to talk about music for a minute.  Yes, they're related.

My son makes a LOT of noise.  To say he is one of the noisiest children I've ever met would be an understatement.  When he was younger he made a lot of ear-splitting, high pitched noises that I suspect have damaged my hearing.  Do I blame him for this?  No.  He didn't know what he was doing.  I've developed a VERY eternal perspective.  This isn't permanent.  Someday, I'll have my hearing back 100 %.  And the body I had when I was eighteen, but that's a different story!  Wink, wink.

A few months ago, we were at home and Logan kept making these really annoying guttural sounds.  I thought he was just stimming and doing nonsense so I asked him to stop.  He looked at me and said, "I singing.  I singing a song about_________." I don't remember what he said the song was about, but I have since come to realize that many times when I've thought he was just making noise, he was "singing a song".  The thing is, Logan actually can sing.  I've heard him do it.  He can memorize the words to songs and has an affinity for Kelly Clarkson, Pink, and Dragula by Rob Zombie (don't ask).  He also likes Guns n' Roses and Tove Lo.  There are certain songs he also can't stand, and will immediately ask me to change the station on the radio when these come on.  He once told me they hurt his ears.  When Logan sings, however, it's not always on perfect pitch and it's not always clear and understandable.  Deliberately, he will use different tones of voice, yelling and screaming or making his voice low and rough on purpose.  His songs are about different things.  "The Outside Song".  "The Garden Song".  "I singing a song about school".  That sort of thing.  This is one of the ways he expresses himself.  I've learned that if it gets too loud or it interferes with an activity the family is doing, instead of just asking him to stop, I can say, "Don't sing that song right now" and it's more effective.

This behavior is something I wouldn't have picked up on by myself.  He had to tell me what he was doing for me to understand.  It made me wonder how many autistic children express themselves in unusual ways like this, and how many go misunderstood, because people don't understand what they're doing.  I'm thankful for my son, because in spite of the challenges that come with raising him (and they have been many, and they have been heartbreaking at times), he has also brought me a lot of joy and taught me a lot.  I'm also grateful that my love of music has passed on to at least one of my children!  Logan may never play an instrument, but that boy will sing.

My Lucky Charm

Thirteen years ago today I was pregnant and things weren't looking so good for our family.

We'd been forced to move out of our home in Fort Worth due to a burst pipe under our house.  We were living with my mother (who, by the way, is a saint for putting up with us), and my husband was working ridiculous hours that left him exhausted and asleep on the couch every night.  We were fighting with the insurance company over the claim on our home and trying to figure out where we might end up.

That night, the contractions started.  I thought they were fake.  They weren't.

My husband rushed me to the hospital.  To say that I almost had that baby on the freeway wouldn't be far from the truth.  As I laid there in the hospital room, we waited for the anesthesiologist to show up.
He didn't. For a long time.

By the time he did show up, it was too late.  It was natural all the way.

I wish I could say that I gave birth to that baby with grace, but I'll tell you that I screamed bloody murder and was more than tempted to punch my husband in the nose when he said, "Stop screaming and push."  He wasn't trying to squeeze a watermelon out of his man parts, now was he?  The pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced and I hope to never experience again.  Ever.

I also found out it's true what they say.  As soon as you hold your baby, you forget the pain.  She was beautiful.  Perfect.  I couldn't stop looking at her.  Her little finger nails were perfect little ovals.  Her little mouth looked like a rosebud.  She was and still is my perfect, sweet baby girl.

As you can probably guess, this all went down on Saint Patrick's Day.  What I learned that day is that even in the midst of trial, when circumstances aren't ideal, God will still bless you.  I am so thankful for baby girl, for the joy she continues to bring me, for the peace and love she adds to our family every day.

Thought of the Day

Beware the man who burns down your house, then offers you a glass of water.

My Giverny

It appears that spring has finally descended on our little area of Texas.  It's still a little chilly, but not prohibitively cold.  (Prohibitively...is that a word?  It is now.)  Anyhow, it was with extreme delight that I spent a few hours yesterday working in the garden and getting my hands very dirty.  We have six raised beds and I planted all of them but one.  This year I'm leaning more toward heirloom vegetables.  Heirloom vegetables and flowers are plants that have been around for a long, long time...think of your grandma's or great grandma's garden and you're probably thinking of some heirloom varieties.  But more importantly, if you collect seeds from heirloom plants, you can save those for next year.  They're open-pollinated.

Besides working in the vegetable garden, I started preparing a bed for a bunch of flowers, bought some herbs, and started thinking about where to plant bulbs.  If I had my way, I would be out there all day long, and I would have twice the space I have now.  In my head, it looks like Giverny.  Giverny was Claude Monet's garden and home in the south of France.  It inspired many of his paintings and thousands of people visit it every year.  Mine doesn't look like that, of course.  (But I can pretend it does!)

Now that spring is here and the winter blahs have finally left, I plan to spend more time than ever working on the house and yard, working hard at my job, and working hard at school.  Life is best lived at the speed of light.  One day, I'll slow down, but "today is not that day".  Happy spring, readers.  Go outside and breathe.

The Feast

I used to think that being in love was like sitting down at someone's table, opening your mouth and allowing them to fill you with all the good things they had in front of them.  Now I know that being in love is like sitting at your own table, ordering for yourself and hoping that the right person will bring their plate over, sit down and join you, because they have the same expectations from the feast that you do.  Doing it any other way is a good way to starve.

I Don't Care

Today Abby dropped some ice cream in our minivan.  The ice cream got all over a very expensive coat that I had left in the car that used to belong to my dad.

I didn't care.

I didn't care because I knew that I could wash it when I got home and it would be fine.  It started me thinking about how much I've changed since having kids.  When something happens, a series of questions runs through my head:

Is it permanent?

Did somebody die or sustain serious injury?

Can it be washed, mended, glued back together, or otherwise restored?

Can I fix it at all?

If the answer is no, no, yes, and yes, then I don't worry about it.  It reminds me of this Buddhist quote, to paraphrase:

"Can you do something about it? If no, don't worry.  If yes, don't worry."

Quote of the Day