Imperfection and a picture.

I want to fire up my blog life again.

I keep coming here and trying to write something AMAZING to dazzle and permanently seduce a GIANT audience for my teeny blog.

But nothing comes to me.

And without a published paragraph, each day here feels bigger than the day before it.

Much, much bigger.

Bigger in a bad way.  An oppressive way.  An intimidating way.

Have I lost my skill set?

I want to write.

More than just that, I want to be good at writing.

I keep thinking of that as a single task – one I am ill equipped to start and desperate to complete.

It isn’t that though, is it?

It’s really a very long, involved process of little steps all smashed together, cut apart, rearranged, and done again.

Over and over.

So here I go.

Step one: post a current pic of myself (sorry to my Facebook friends who have already seen it).

Step two: pick one thing to worry less about.

Step three: come back and try this again in a day or two.

♥

Happy Monday.

♥♥

To The Rude Mom at Vons Today

Dear Rude Mom,

When you blocked my way at the end of the aisle, I said nothing.

It wasn’t enough of anything to think about.

I was annoyed that you had seen me walking in your direction and that you responded by turning your cart fully perpendicular to mine.

But I don’t think you did that on purpose, so I didn’t take it personally.  And I did nothing to visually convey my annoyance.  Why would I?

I slowed to give you time to move the cart (which your deer-in-the-headlights son did for you) and then I passed you without another thought about it.

That is, until I finished the rest of my shopping and realized I had forgotten something on that same aisle.

I made a u-turn and walked back.

You were still there, staring at the same shelf, completely oblivious to the other customers around you.

Thankfully this time, your son actively pulled the cart to the side to make way for everyone else.

You couldn’t be bothered to do that yourself.

I walked by briskly, grabbed my item, and was heading out of the aisle when you decided you didn’t like me.

In a voice clearly meant for my ears, you said to your blank-faced son “Wow! Get out of HER way or she’ll just knock you down.”

You said something else that I didn’t quite hear, but it included the same tone and the words “her way,”  so I can only assume it was more of the same.

Nice of you to let me know exactly how you feel.

I am so terribly sorry that I interfered with your oafish pace, careless cart management, and stellar parenting skills.

Next time, I will curtsy and ask if there is something I can find for you.

Like a shred of common courtesy?

Yeah.  That.

♣

P.S.

What I love about the end of the summer?

It’s hot enough to run the a/c and briefly freeze the house, but close enough to Fall that the a/c makes my kid want hot chocolate.

🙂

♣♣

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.

♥♥

Sick Again

The boy is home from school again today.

He missed three days last week because of a stomach bug and now he has a very annoying cold.

My kid can’t seem to catch a break.

And neither can we.

He’s a bear when his nose is bothering him.  He wiggles and whines and screams and goes insane.  Same deal.  Different day.  Frequent topic.

It makes us all nuts.

And there’s no real way to explain to anyone what we go through in our house.

He’s an angel out in the world.  He behaves, he is loving, he handles things.  (Except occasionally at school, but that’s another post.)

At home though, when it’s just the two of us, or just the three of us, he is a different kid.

He is inconsolable, desperate, angry, sad, very physical, exhausting and exhausted.

He wakes in the middle of the night, will do nothing to help himself, but is insistent that we are awake and miserable with him.

We rarely get a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

Our son slams doors, throws toys, twists his body, flails his arms, furrows his brow, screeches, and screams, but he says nothing.

We try desperately to help him, but our efforts generally fail.

Last night, husband actually got him to take some Motrin.  He was tired and it did help him to fall asleep, but he was up again at 3:45 and back to his routine of misery.

I asked him repeatedly what I could do for him.

I suggested all of the usual remedies for his bothersome throat and nose and I tried to comfort him.

I offered him a snack, some water, and a hug.

Nothing worked.

At 4:30, I gave up and told him I was going back to bed.

I closed the door to our room, but that made him crazy.

He got louder and louder and finally crashed something into the door.

Husband got up that time.

This morning has shown more of the same.

The boy is miserable from the cold and he wants everyone to know it and feel it right along with him.  It’s maddening.

He took some more Motrin about an hour ago.  He has eaten a hot dog and even exercised at my urging, but it’s going to be a long day in what already feels like an insanely long week.

Husband is gone for a few hours to catch up with a friend and I will get out for a while when he comes back, but I don’t know how far that will go toward preserving our sanity today.

It’s 12:15 p.m. and I’ve yet to make it out of my pajamas and into the shower.  My hair is dirty and flat.  My skin is colorless.  Honestly, I look like the sick one.

Stress.

We need a babysitter.

I’m starting to forget what my laughter sounds like.

♥

P.S.  The best thing to happen today?  I got out the camera to make a video of his on-going tantrum and suddenly he’s a model – posing, smiling, saying “cheese” for all these photos.

He’s on the couch, watching a video now.  Maybe I will get a shower after all.

♥♥

A New Chapter

My husband lost his job last week.

We were a one-income family and now we’re a no-income family.

I don’t even know what to write.

I am experiencing great relief and deep panic, all at the same time.

It was once a good job.  And then it wasn’t.

He liked it.  And then he didn’t.

It was comfortable.  And then it was prickly and painful.

It is a great relief to have him home, away from there.  Away from them.

But the future is completely freaking me out.  Not so much because I don’t know what it holds, but because I do.

We have to make money.  Fast.

I haven’t been in the workforce since my son was born, over ten years ago.

That’s not what we anticipated.  It’s not what we planned.  It’s what we did for our very different kid.

I stayed home.  I gained some weight.  I learned how to be a fierce advocate for my son.  And I lost my professional skill set.

You think technology evolves too quickly when you’re right in it.  Try looking the other way for a decade – you won’t even recognize it when you turn back.  I am scared.  And old.

I have also watched my wardrobe transform from business casual to “is-that-stain-somewhere-that-I-can-cover-it-with-a-sweat-jacket-while-I-drive-my-kid-to-school?”

Who will hire me?

I can edit like nobody’s business.  I can write, sort of.  But what about all of those other things people do at jobs these days?

I can learn anything.  I know this.  I am smarter than average, I have a BA, and I work well under pressure.

Will anyone care about that when they see a ten-year gap on my resume?

I can’t type without looking at the keys and I am not bilingual.  Well, I do understand a lot of Spanish.  But I answer it with English.

Where will that get me?

Husband thinks I would be a great office manager.  Anybody know an office that needs some managing?

A friend suggested I ramp up my crafting and sell some things on etsy.  I’d like to, and I will, but that’s not going to pay my mortgage.  The Office Manager job won’t do that either.  In the prime of my employment, I was earning less than half of what my husband has been making this year.

I used to work in Human Resources.  Considering our current circumstances, I can’t rule out doing that again, but I felt dirtier in HR than I did as a hotel maid, years ago, cleaning toilets all day.

I am nervous.  If it were just me and my husband, I wouldn’t be.  We can roll with the punches and adjust along the way.  Alone, the two of us would have a ton of flexibility.

But we have an autistic child in the equation.  Our son needs a schedule and a stable home with room for Legos and stuffed animals.  He needs fair warning about things and he needs routine and familiar surroundings.

Yes, I am nervous.

Unfortunately, we may be have to sell our house.  If we can’t find employment, or some other way to keep from depleting every penny of our savings, then we will have to go.

As scary as it is to think of that, we’re going to downsize like there’s no tomorrow under this roof.

Most of my cookbooks are going.  Dressers and chairs and side tables are going.  Old clothes, extra blankets, and toys are going.  Husband’s old band equipment is going.  Big plastic bins of baby clothes are going.  Fabric is going.  Kitchen crap is going.  Two little bikes are going.  CDs, DVDs, magazines and a file cabinet are going.  Maybe even one big, hard-to-manage Christmas tree is going.  And absolutely anything we have been oppressed by, is going.

We have resolved to clear things out – donate, sell, give to friends.  I am calmed by this decision.  I have never before felt so completely, psychologically freed of any commitment to my stuff.

That is one good thing to come from our new reality.

I hope there are other good things on the way.  We are ready for them.  We really are.

♥♥

Things That Make Me Panic

In no particular order…

Soccer.

Car repairs.

Sick cats.

Withered friendships.

Last minute changes.

Too much time to plan.

Not enough time to plan.

Details.

The big picture.

Weddings.

Funerals.

Running out of chocolate or avocados.

Other people’s perceptions of my weight or mothering skills.

Fois gras.  And eel.

Overpriced pasta.

My son’s melancholia.

My husband’s melancholia.

Stacks of paper.

Too many pens.

The good china.

The fact that all but one of the shirts I wear regularly have holes in them.

Lack of sleep and no time in the foreseeable future to make up for it.

Homophobes.

People who are voting for Mitt Romney.

All that water in the NY subways.

Heat.

Variety meats.

Air travel.

Being mistaken for a mean person.

Being mistaken for a timid person.

Being mistaken for a dumb person.

Being mistaken for a smart person.

Being mistaken for a rich person.

Being hungry.

Being full when other people are hungry.

Using too much water to clean the juicer.

Throwing out the pulp.

Not having enough time to use the juicer in the morning.

Driving a tiny rental car.

One size fits all.

One size fits most.

Being in the least, because I am the most.

Going to the doctor.

Not going to the doctor.

My left foot.

My right hip.

Paralysis.  Physical and figurative.

The length of this list.

♥♥

Brain Dump & A Rip Ryder Mailbox Man

Potty Dream

Last night, I dreamed that I was married to Matt Damon and we had a toilet in our dining room.

Matt Damon sat at the dining table and told me he knew we would be together forever when we picked out the toilet because he thought to himself “this toilet will last for the rest of our lives.”

I know why I dreamed this.  I think it had more to do with the toilet than the Damon.

I needed to get up and go, you know?  It was the 4:00 a.m. calling.

My befuddled brain tried to embarrass me awake.

Pee, in front of Matt Damon?

Never.

Eyes open.  😯

Wide awake now, thanks.

And back to real life, very real life…

Dearly Departed

A couple of my friends from high school recently lost someone very dear to them.  Their experience got me thinking about why I started my blog.

I blabbed in the beginning about my childhood friend, Betsy.  She died of breast cancer in 2003.  We were both 38.

Even now, I wake up everyday and instantly think of her.  She is on my mind as I fall asleep and she is sometimes in my dreams.  I also see her in every young mom with a ponytail.

I talk to her constantly and sometimes feel like a fool for doing it, but I do it anyway.  And sometimes I hear her talking to me and I take her advice, or I roll my eyes.

She still informs all of my major life decisions and many of the teeny ones too.  I knew her a long time and I usually know just what she would say.

I’ve written about her a lot – for example, here and here – but coming to this post today, I realize I don’t know if I can write about her very much more.

The rest of what I know and think and feel about her, and myself, and our friendship, is all kind of private.  I can’t have it taken apart by anyone on the internet.

I don’t know why I feel compelled to mention any of this, except that I feel I somehow owe an explanation to Betsy herself.

She was the one who always told me to write.  I’ve been thinking about that a lot this month and I decided that if I don’t write about her, then I have to write for her.

To that end, I entered NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction contest.

Three-Minute Fiction

You know that moment after you leave a big school exam or a job interview and you realize exactly how you sank yourself?  Entering this contest kind of worked like that for me.

I was thrilled by the writing challenge, I got exponentially more excited after I submitted my piece, and I was glued to the Three Minute Fiction Facebook fan page for a good three hours afterward.

Then I started re-reading my story.  I read it over and over and over again.

I saw its flaws unraveling before me and I got kind of depressed and embarrassed.  😦  It wasn’t good.  It still isn’t, and of course, there is no opportunity to edit.  I hit “submit” and now NPR editors are seeing it (and me) with all imperfections exposed.  Ugh.

Several days have passed and I am feeling a little better about it.  I can see what I did wrong and I am learning from it instead of turning red.  It was a good exercise and I will enter the contest again.  You should too.

And speaking of good exercise…

An Update On The Boy

I have been trying to write about him this month, but nothing feels quite right.

There is progress, but there are set-backs too and I can’t think of the best way to talk about all of it.

Instead, you get a video of his favorite activity.

And yes, the video ends because I sneeze.  🙂

Happy Wednesday!

♥♥

#15 – Things I sorta already knew…

but learned again recently…

Never say never.   The finality of it will feel like a challenge.  (Insert far too much self-analysis here.)

No matter how careful I am, I am not careful enough to keep from splattering big dark blobs of hair color all over the carpet every time I dye my hair.

If I forget to put the sheets in the dryer until 11:00 p.m., then we have to wait until 11:40 to go to bed.

I’m too old to stay up until 11:40.

Taking a cat to the vet costs at least $500.  They always find a problem.  It’s just the same as taking your car to the shop, except there’s fur.

IKEA seems like such a good idea, until I get there, and then it just makes me achy and sad.  Like nachos.

I don’t have enough space for my junk.  (I went to IKEA looking for junk storage.)

It’s really hard to let go of the stuff that I like to make room for the stuff that I love, sooooo…the stuff that I love is waiting in drawers and closets and piles and boxes.  Waiting.  And the stuff that I only like is hanging on the walls.  Sigh.  😐

Dark purple Mario fruit snacks look a lot like little balls of cat poo when I spy them on the floor in my dimly lit living room.  Their grape scent momentarily confuses me.

One of my son’s biggest challenges is communicating his long-term goals.  And by “long-term,” I mean what he wants four minutes from now.  He starts every goal by communicating only the first step: “I want Mama up.”  His ultimate objective is a mystery that only he can know until each step is completed, in order, one at a time.  I try to get more information by asking “I want Mama up because…??”  On a good day he will finish the sentence – “I want Mama up, because I want Mama to be standing.”  😐

When Oreo cookies go on sale, husband or I must buy them.  Must.  Buy.  Them.  Double Stuff.

My older brother knows way more about books than I ever will.

I used to love playing jacks.  The metal kind.  They were heavy and offered a satisfying tactile experience.  The new, too-big-for-little-fingers, neon-colored, sticks-to-itself-rubber jacks just aren’t the same.  😐

Giant umbrellas will pop open in the car.  Twice.

If I really enjoy the hotel jacuzzi, then I will not have a card key to get back into the building until I am freezing again.  Freezing.  In a wet swimsuit.  In the dark.  Other hotel guests will stare at me when I walk around through the parking lot to find an open door.  I will not find an open door.

Six quarts of crock pot vegetable soup = six quarts of trash if you add just one ingredient that doesn’t have quite the right flavor.  I added two.  😦  Tarragon and green onions…what was I thinking?!?  Darn it!

If I decide at the last minute to take my cat to the vet, then I will forget to do something else, like put my son’s lunch in his backpack.

If I forget to put my son’s lunch is his backpack, my sense of self-worth in the motherhood department will look like a ball on New Year’s Eve – sparkling and determined (until the wrong is righted), then dark and low for a really long time.  Oy.

I can never have enough tin ornaments.

When I am at my lowest, a thrift store visit is sometimes all the pick-me-up I need, especially when it yields cheery little creatures.

Happy Tuesday!
♥♥

A letter, a nervous knock-out & a couple of pumpkins.

Post This

I got a letter in the mail last week.

I’m talking about an actual, two-page, handwritten letter, complete with family update, inside jokes and miscellaneous witticisms.

Are you jealous?

I am lucky.

Truth be told, I invested a few notes of my own to get this amazing return.

What can I say?  I have a thing for pretty stationery.  And stickers too.  I can’t just stockpile it all forever, so I sent cards to six or seven people on my address list a few weeks ago.

And I got a letter back.  🙂

It came from a 90-year-old friend of the family.  She lives in town, but I never see her, so it was lovely to read something she had written just for me.

I highly recommend that you send out some notes.  These days, snail mail is a luxurious treat and it’s still relatively cheap to send.  You might even get something spectacular in return!

That’s your assignment…

Go!  Write!  Now!

♥

TKO OH NO!

The boy had the big sedated dental appointment last week.

I think we did a good job talking to him about it.  We explained it well in advance, I put it on the calendar, and we brought it up everyday for almost a month.

He knew what would happen and he even seemed proud of himself for having the information to talk about.  “We’re going to the sleep dentist!”

He was quite a little trooper too.  We explained the food restrictions and he never even asked for his morning chocolate milk or snack.

He dressed and rode in the car without complaint and he waited patiently through every part of the process at the hospital.

He wore the gown, he held out his arm for blood pressure, he got on the scale and he used the bathroom when we told him to.

He was a model of compliance…

right up until the moment he was on the table in the O.R.  😦

I was right there with him and I really do think that helped.  I kept my cool and I saw his body briefly relax when our eyes locked, but it was a losing battle.

The nurses, the anesthesiologist, the other techs – five people in all – surrounded him and tried to do things quickly.

I get it.  There are a zillion kids out there, only a limited number of surgical teams, rooms, etc.  There is no space or time for letting my autistic son catch up and comply.  They had to assume he never would, so they just dove in and grabbed him.

As you can imagine, he freaked the hell right out.  I stayed calm and talked softly, but it was tough to watch.

It took all of them to hold him down.  Well, all except the one wise nurse who heeded my warning about too many people in his face.  I figured she was the only parent in the room.  Before I even finished my comment, she took a step back.  I love her.

The others forged ahead and managed to get the mask over his face.  He collapsed back onto the table pretty fast, but his eyelids were purplish and fluttering, so I knew he wasn’t done struggling.  It made me sad to see that.  I kissed him and told him what a good job he did.

They put a tube up his nose after I left.  The gas through that would knock him out harder.

One of the nurses took me back down the hall.  As we walked, he said “you know, your son is only going to get stronger.  Next time, maybe you can ask the doctor for some medication to make him drowsy in pre-op, so that the mask isn’t as traumatic.”

Why the hell no one suggested that this time, I don’t know.  It kind of pissed me off.  😡

I made it back to my husband and ripped off my tight paper goofy suit.  I made Husband promise to erase the memory of that vision from his head.  Those suits aren’t really meant for rubenesque women.  😳

Husband followed me out of the building.  I led him thirty yards from the door and behind a big pillar near the parking garage before I started crying.

There wasn’t really anything to say.  I was sad that only one of us was allowed to go in and I was tortured by the fear I had seen in our son’s little face.  Husband understood and hugged me.  Then we ate bad food and waited.

The boy woke up hard and was mad about having to stay so long in the post-op bed, but he was basically okay.

He came through everything emotionally and physically drained, but he was eager to go back to school the next day, so we knew he would be fine.

The net result of the whole experience was positive.  We learned some things for next time and the boy’s teeth are in pretty good shape.

And the most important thing?  During the struggle in the O.R., he said “all done” over and over again. That may not seem significant, but it’s really quite huge.

He doesn’t communicate well under duress.  He loses his words and sometimes violently tantrums or becomes eerily still and stuck when he’s upset or frightened or hurt.

This was a worst case scenario for him – a cold scary room with weird lights, odd noises, and a bunch of strangers grabbing at him – and he perfectly articulated how he was feeling.  “All done!”

All done, indeed.  😐  I felt that way too.

I don’t think I realized until I dropped him at school the next morning just how much dread and anxiety coursed through my body in the days before the appointment.

Looking back on the last few weeks, I am reminded that heightened stress often keeps me from writing.

I am so glad we don’t have to do this again anytime soon.

I don’t think my kid, my blog, or I can take it!

♥

Fall Decorating

I stowed a few pumpkins in the china hutch this week.

Then I came to the conclusion that I need to get the hutch out of this room.  😦

It’s just too huge for this choppy, awkward space.  I love it, but it limits what else we can do.

Stay tuned for the next round of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-house?

Sigh.

It never ends.

♥

Happy Wednesday!

♥♥

Tiramisu, OCD, Pennies & Pasadena

Sweets for me and my sweets

There’s tiramisu in the fridge again.  (Insert contented happy dance here.)

It’s such a mess to make, but so worth the effort and the cocoa dusted counter tops.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate grout?

It’s everywhere in my home and nowhere in my dreams.

And this evening, my grout is cocoa powder brown.  😐

But like I said, there’s tiramisu in the fridge again.

And it’s the good kind.

The almond kind.  

It’s not the rum kind.

It’s this kind.  🙂

♥

OCD and then some

The little boy is going through an increased phase of obsessive compulsive behaviors again.

He has some of these behaviors all the time, but every month or so they intensify for a while.

It makes us tired.  And frustrated.  And teary.  And sometimes really, really mad.

He will insist we do things for him that we haven’t done since he was a baby, or ever.

Tonight, for instance, he called me to come into the bathroom as he was finishing his shower.

“Mama, pull the plug?”

I’ve really never pulled the plug for him after his bath time, but suddenly, he is desperate for me to do it.

When I refuse and explain that it’s his responsibility to pull the plug, he starts a tantrum.

I leave the room.  😐

He has also started asking us to push him or carry him everywhere again.

THAT makes me lose my mind.

I sit at the dining table with my cereal and he wants me up so that I can carry him three feet, from the kitchen to the couch.

I ask if his legs are broken.

Sometimes, he gets the point.

Sometimes, not so much.

And just now, he was standing in the kitchen with me.

He was waving a cloth napkin in his hand.

“Mama put the napkin down?”

He wanted me to take it from him so that I could put it on the counter.

Um…

no.

You get the picture.

Exhausting.  Exhausted.

♥

Penny for your thoughts.  And your patience, please.

Before we weened ourselves away from the little boy’s private psychologist, we got one last piece of great advice.

She suggested we offer him a penny every time he waits patiently at a red light.

Until we started doing that, he would absolutely freak out in the car.

He doesn’t like to wait.

He doesn’t like things he can’t control.

Traffic + his being in the backseat with a limited view = intersection of all anxiety, mine and his.

I’ve written before about being pelted in the head with McDonald’s toys, having my seat kicked, having my ear drums pained by sudden blood-curdling screams, and having papers and magazines torn to pieces.

All because of red lights.  Or pedestrians.  Or bicycles.  Or buses.

Being in the car pretty much sends my kid into the deepest recesses of his autism.

Or at least it did, until we started the pennies.

Now, things are usually okay.

And this week we took the pennies to Vons and threw them into a CoinMaster machine.

$16.00.

Unreal.

He bought another nightlight.  😀

♥

Pasadena Partners

In the wake of some marital strife – no, you don’t get details – I have concluded that the husband needs a fabulous weekend like I had in Pasadena.

I suggested it today and though we do have a lot on the calendar in the next several weeks, I think it will work with some creative planning.

So, husband, start thinking about all the guy stuff you wanna do.

I will help with reservations.  🙂

♥

And that’s all she wrote.

Happy Thursday.

♥♥