Good Thrift Store Day

The first of today’s thrift store treasures…

I’ve really never seen another like it and I don’t even mind that one of the leaves is missing a small chunk of wood.

It’s beautiful.

And it was made by someone clever.  Look how it opens:

And the compartment is lined.  Clearly meant for a very special ring or something.

I also picked up an old-fashioned egg basket.

The top opens flat like a big flower.

I found a little English pottery set too.

All three pieces are chippy, so I can’t really use them for food, but they were really inexpensive and I couldn’t resist.

I love the little houses.

The backs read:

“Good courage breaks ill luck”

“Waste not want not”

“Take a little cream”

Here’s the bottom of the sugar bowl:

And just because he saw me with the camera and he likes to pose, here’s the boy:

Happy Monday!

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Up On The Roof & Gumby

It was really windy today.  Things were whipping around in our backyard like crazy.  It always amazes me that our dirty old inflatable beach ball is still out there when we go looking.

There’s a weird downdraft at the top of our back wall that prevents stuff from escaping.  It doesn’t prevent them from dancing violently on the ground until the wind dies down though.  The beach ball never leaves home, but it sure does cha cha.

Wind like this always makes me think of my dad.  When I was little, a windy day usually meant Dad would be climbing onto the roof to check that nothing had blown off and away.

We had a long aluminum ladder that he would lean against the wall behind the garage.  Up he would climb.  Sometimes my brothers and I got to go with him.  It was truly a great adventure and treat – doing something dangerous with my dad.  Looking back on that with my grown-up eyes, I see now that the whole thing probably made both of my parents very nervous.

Having the three of us so keen to walk the edges of the open roof was worrisome enough, but finding wind damage would mean money, time, and inconvenience.

Dad climbed the ladder fearing the worst, I suppose.  And he always took his tools in hope he could fix things himself.

My dad was a true DIY pioneer back then.  He taught the three of us how to hammer nails, use a saw, and improvise, whenever we could.  On the roof.  In the wind.  Even in the rain.  Eventually though, Dad’s age and declining mobility would keep him on the ground and away from that ladder.

Husband and I are lucky enough to have sturdy clay tiles on the roof of our own house.  We don’t worry that the wind will mess with them much.  I wish my dad had experienced that same peace of mind when he was my age.

Then again, I’ll bet he really enjoyed showing us around the top of the world.  🙂

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P.S.  Someone just knocked on my front door.  I peered through the peephole and spied a well dressed man whom I didn’t recognize.  I did not answer the knock.  What’s your policy?  Do you answer when it’s someone you don’t know?

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P.P.S. And for your viewing pleasure, here is something I didn’t buy from the thrift store this month.  Ha!

 

 

 

Active Day

We went to a big park near our house today.  It was nice to see some trees and sky for a change.

Unfortunately, we have spent much of my son’s Spring break just walking around inside the house like poorly functioning zombies.

The boy has been waking up and throwing tantrums in the wee hours for the last several nights.  He screeches and kind of screams and he hits himself.  Loudly.  Repeatedly.  He turns on lights, he throws things, he slams his head into the mattress…over and over and over.  It’s disturbing.  And it’s routine.  His routine.  Our routine.  No one sleeps.  We all go crazy.

So yeah…trees, sky, clouds, grass…welcome sights today.

I wonder who JD is.

We parked really far from the playground area so we would be motivated to get in a good sweaty walk.

There was also a big hill that called to us several times.  My calves are crying a little bit right now.

The boy had a great time running and skipping and jumping, just like a boy should.

He was also determined to climb a tree.  Sadly, most of them were covered in red ants or were too slippery to tackle.  We settled for this one:

“V” for victory, I guess!  🙂

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What are you up to this week?

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My Favorite Martian

He goes back to school on Tuesday.

Stay tuned for a thrift store adventure report!

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Variations on a Lego Theme

And then he got a haircut.  🙂

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Tangled Autism Hair

A few weeks ago, I posted a note on Facebook about my son’s love for the movie “Tangled” and how he had fashioned himself some long Rapunzel hair using a few lengths of orange Hot Wheels car track.

Not long after my post, I bought the boy a long blonde wig. He tried it once and abandoned it in favor of the car track again.

Now, when he arrives home from school each day, he goes immediately to his room to get the car track.  He puts it in his hair and wears it until he needs to dress or shower the next morning for school.  Yes, he even sleeps with plastic car track stuck in his hair.  And usually he attaches three or four pieces – about eight feet of track – so it drags on the ground when he walks around the house.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except maybe to give you a glimpse into life with an autistic child whose sensory issues, OCD, and creativity frequently collide.

We can usually anticipate that he will react strongly to things, but we are powerless to accurately predict for you exactly how, or for what duration, that reaction will grip his body and our house.

We have simply learned to slip our arms under the track when we hug him and to call him Rapunzel, as if he were the most gifted princess in the land.

Happy Thursday!

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P.S.  What’s happening at your house this week?

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Carlsbad Staycation

Our room at the Grand Pacific Palisades had a view of the ocean.

It was beautiful.

Unfortunately, the flower fields below were cleared for the season.

Instead of colorful blooms, all we saw was a lot of dirt and this big pile of manure.  Heh heh.

Our room was downwind, but it wasn’t that bad.

The view went a long way toward making up for the “aroma.”

The little boy didn’t seem to mind.

I don’t think the room is of great importance to him anyway.

He’s all about the water features and this place surpassed all of our expectations in that department!

The play area next to the family pool was great.

The pool itself was walk-in warm, really clean, and fairly large.

Because of its location right next to the water play area, I didn’t have to get out of the pool to keep an eye on my son.

The hotel also has a separate adults-only pool with a few lanes marked off for lap swimmers.

As a plus-sized mom with a splashy child, I appreciated being surrounded by families, and not by young fit singles or childless lovebirds.

Both pool areas have hot tubs too.

Despite some negative comments on Yelp, I gambled on this place and I was pleasantly surprised.

It doesn’t hurt that the service is excellent and that the restaurant on the property is a Karl Strauss Brewery.  🙂

I would definitely book a stay there again.

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After husband left us to go to work in the morning, the boy and I checked out and headed down the street to the Museum of Making Music.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this place, but I am so glad we went!

The museum is very small and only takes a few minutes to walk through, but it houses a remarkable display of unique and old musical instruments.

It is clear that the exhibits are lovingly cared for and designed with curious kids in mind.

There are buttons to push and music to hear and each room includes at least one instrument meant for visitors to play.

My son enjoyed this immensely.

The last room of the museum is entirely hands-on.

Even I couldn’t resist playing Twinkle Twinkle on one of the harps.

The boy loved this drum thing.

The admission to the museum is only $8 for adults, $5 for older kids, and $0 for those under five.

I felt like it was easily worth that and if I’d remembered to do it before we left, I think I would have tossed a few more ones into the donation jar.

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Overall, this was a very pleasant little getaway.

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What have you been up to?

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Babysitting & Playing Hooky

Babysitting the nephews today.

They are sweet and they make me laugh.

Kids say the greatest things.

From the seven-year-old:

“You smell like your house.”

“Me and grilled cheese sandwiches are like two peas in a pod.”

And my own child, wide-eyed when I told him I would be taking his cousins to the park in his absence:

“My chin hurts too much to go to school today.”

Hmm…

I’m a big softie and a huge proponent of family first, even ahead of school.

The nephews and I are picking him up a few hours early and going to lunch and a park with him, instead of without him.

They are only little once, right?

Right.

I haven’t written anything here for the past few months.

I guess I have been feeling kind of private and withdrawn, and this is not the place for that.

But these boys, all three of them, have reminded me this week that life is good and sweet and short.

And my favorite bloggers have continually shown that some of the loveliest, most interesting lives I know are lived right out loud, in front of the world.

I don’t have to be all that.

I can be something in between.

I can just be a good mom and aunt who writes now and then.

So what the hell, here I am again.

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Spring Break Phone Pix Dump

We actually did a lot over the two-week break.

The child had a bad case of the hives, got really sick, and also lost another tooth, but he rallied for the best parts of his vacation.
He had no trouble inhaling a basketful of candy on Easter morning.

🙂

The rest of our days went something like this…

lunch with Grandma
Inflatable World
Pump It Up
several different parks
a night at the downtown Marriott
egg hunts
and
I guess I’m too tired to remember anything else.
Enjoy the photos!

Oh, I almost forgot!
Husband got a new job.
(Insert great relief here.)
He started yesterday.
So far, so good!

Insert bad family photo here (complete with chinless child and bug-eyed mommy):

I love this next one of my husband.  He’s more than a little freaked out by heights, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying our 11th floor view of the bay and the bridge.

The pools were beautiful.  The smaller one was walk-in warm in the morning.

Next on the agenda?
Back to school this morning and then to the kid’s salon for a long overdue haircut!

What did you do?

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Stuff That Helps My Autistic Kid – #1 in a series

Turning on the subtitles when he watches his favorite movies.

My son didn’t start talking until he was four years old.  Even now, at ten years, he is far behind his peers and still has enormous trouble communicating when he is upset, confused, or hurting.

Anything that helps him understand his emotions, motivate his speech, or improve his reading comprehension is important for him.  And for our family.

This morning, he came up to me and spontaneously rattled off a list of words – “sighing,” “echoing,” “stammering,” “gasping,” and “straining” – and he gave me appropriate examples of each one.

His new vocabulary came straight from the subtitles of the movie Enchanted.  Each word appears in parentheses there to describe the dialogue and emotion in the current scene.

He has read those words and listened to the associated speech a hundred times.  Now, he knows it all well enough to come up with examples of his own.

When my son first insisted on reading the subtitles a few years ago, I found it very distracting.  We displayed them by accident once or twice, and it seemed the faster we reached to click them off, the more he wanted them on.  Smart boy.  Now, he turns them on for everything.

The subtitles help his awareness of ambient (and usually meaningful) background noises as well.  In Enchanted, he knows when to listen for “truck horn honking” and “glass breaking” and he has made the connection between these words, their sounds, and the storyline.

Subtitles also make it easier to catch elusive song lyrics.  Enchanted includes some amazing and very clever musical scenes.  Despite the beautiful, clear voice of Disney princess Giselle (played by Amy Adams), some of the lyrics were a mystery to us until we read them at the foot of the screen.  Now, we laugh every time we hear and see them.

These days, I can’t imagine watching a video with my son and not having the words on.

Those subtitles help my kid.  And that helps me.  🙂

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What simple things help you and your kids?

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P.S. Easter Egg ears are all the rage in our house today.  🙂

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