Affection- A Sensory Fairy Tale

Image from stockfresh

Not too long ago, in the kingdom of Autism, lived Princess Crazy, of the Crazy Train Crazies, and Birdie, her Not-A-Princess twin.  While ruling the land of Second Grade in Kingdom Autism, the lovely Princess Crazy was quite the stingy girl.  Where most all the other children in her kingdom were willing to hug and kiss and say hello, Princess Crazy would go out of her way to avoid activities such as these, deeming them an "invasion of her personal space".  *gasp*  Right up to the end of her reign in Second Grade, the princess would not bestow her love and affection on the grown-ups in her kingdom, with the exception of an elite few.  (Quite frankly, it seemed that most of the grown-ups that did receive Princess Crazy's hugs and kisses were grown ups upon which she depended for food, shelter, transportation, and good grades... but I digress.)

Understood Rules

Yesterday was a horribly disagreeable day here on the Crazy Train.  The day started off rocky, and continued at a consistently bumpy cadence the rest of the day.  For whatever reason-- the alignment of the stars, the toss of the dice, the smell of the laundry hamper (your guess is as good as mine!)-- peace was not to be had between Princess and Birdie.

The civil unrest began shortly after breakfast, when I went out to get my morning exercise.  (We have a sidewalk loop right in front of our townhouse where I try walk a mile or two each morning.)  The girls declined my invitation to come out an play while I walked, stating that they were "in the middle of THE most awesome story show ever and didn't have time."  Whatever.  They were getting along nicely, so I let it go.

Twenty minutes into my walk, just as I was getting to the good part of the Harry Potter book I'm reading, Birdie came charging out the front door.  She let the whole neighborhood know that "Sissy tried to strangle me with her bare hands!  TWICE!"

Vicious, aren't they?  (borrowed image)

Great.  "So what did you do to cause that reaction, Birdie?"  Guess I'll finish my walk later.

"Uhhhhhh, nothing?!"  She said this like it was a question.  Which meant the answer was decidedly not "nothing".

"Corn Dog"

This handsome fur baby is my Buddy.  You may recognize him from my weekly Hairbrained Musings posts.  He is a bit of a local celebrity here on the Crazy Train.  He is the funniest, most ridiculous, most loving, most(ly) well-behaved (he is still a pup at 17mo) dog a girl could ask for.  He is also completely and undeniably stupid-- sometimes.

Dammit-- I AM smiling!!  YOU say "cheese" and I might look more excited.

Being a pup, Buddy still does "puppy stuff", like getting hyper for a few minutes and running around like a nut, or occasionally peeing in an "inconvenient" place (like on my mom's couch-- sorry Mom).  He gets a little "frisky" sometimes, too.  Especially around sweaty women-- and me.  (Notice I don't count myself in with the sweaty women, no matter what may be true.)  It's gross and funny all at the same time, the way Buddy will sit at your feet and whine with "desire" right before he jumps up on the couch and tries to make your shoulder his bitch.  Now that I think of it, it's actually gross and sad... oh, what am I saying?!  It's freakin' hilarious!  But I do hope that one day he outgrows his amorous side, or at the very least adjusts his sexual preferences to not include me.

Enthusiasm in Pictures: Wednesday Disability Blog Hop

Welcome back to the Disability Blog Hop, hosted by Meriah at With A Little Moxie!  This week, our prompt was:

 SAY CHEESE! Let's have some photos - just post some fun pictures that have a connection with disability - your child with Down syndrome/special needs, yourself and your bad-ass chair, your hearing/seeing dog. What-have-you, but let's have us some FUN. 

 

Well, that's certainly easy enough!  My contribution follows.  :)

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My Mess, My Memories

This past weekend, my family and I were invited to my friend's beautiful new home for a housewarming party.  Her house is so lovely!  Everything is so immaculately clean.  The decor is tasteful and eclectic, and reflects the personality of the hostess perfectly.  The yard is absolutely to die for, and the whole darn town has a very Mayberry kind of vibe.  Needless to say, I loved it!!!  I am green with envy over her yard, the abundance of open space in her new house, and the freshness of it all.  It is all so... new.

And my house is so... lived in.  Quite frankly, my place could use some serious "freshening up".  Some new carpet.  A coat of paint or ten.  Hell, even a once over with a soapy rag from top to bottom would help!  But alas, all the living we have done, and continue to do in this house-- the very living that has made this place the mess it is today, keeps getting in the way of the "freshening".  Well, the living and my reluctance to change some things.

I have two main reasons for not wanting to update my house.  You can decide if they are good reasons.


My first reason to delay home improvement is that "the kids are just going to mess it up again anyway."  Can you hear my dramatically put-out tone of voice when you read this?  I try to convince myself this is the practical voice in my head, helping me to wait until I will get more bang for my renovation buck.  In reality, it is probably the lazy-ass voice in my head, which knows from experience how much more fun it is to wield a crochet hook than a paint roller.

Mother's Day Reflections

The week after Mother's Day eight years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of becoming a mother myself.

Me as a brand new mom, still stoned from the awesome
delivery room drugs.  Dude, I look puffy!

When Princess Met Prince Charming

As I have mentioned before in a previous post, Princess has a *dun, dun, dunnnnn* Boyfriend.  I know-- crazy, right?  This is, after all, the child I withheld macaroni and cheese from in order to get her to interact with the boys in her class.  But for Princess, there is no need to interact with other boys because she is already friends with the most awesome boy on the planet, and his name is Charming.  *sigh*

Prince Charming and Princess at her 7th birthday "party"

Better Together...

The day Princess and Birdie came home from the hospital

My daughters are so connected.  Of course they fight and sometimes don't see eye to eye-- they are sisters, after all-- but most of the time they are the best of friends.  It is a very special bond that Princess and Birdie share.  I envy the closeness between them.  They have been together since the beginning of time and they seem to be joined by some invisible bond.  They love, support and care for each other  SO MUCH... it is just hard to explain.  Recently, they have been especially loving.  This has made me nostalgic and sappy, and so I have been reviewing my photo albums.  Here's few of my favorite pictures.  You can almost see the invisible bond in these photos.  :)

A Blip on Princess's Happy Day Radar

Today started like any other Friday.  It was Spirit Day at school and the theme was mix & match or "cool colors" day-- whatever that means.  Princess came down to breakfast dressed in her favorite yellow dress, which she usually wears on Monday.  Surprised by this anomaly, I asked what the special occasion was.  "This is the coolest colored thing in my closet so I had to wear it today.  It's beautiful!"  Not wanting to tell her I thought "cool" meant wintery colors, I told her she'd be the coolest kid in her class.

Why I'm here bending your ear...

I've considered off and on for quite some time now about writing a blog.  I have waffled on getting started for many reasons, many of which boil down "why would anybody read what I blog about anyway?"  And I've wondered if it is conceited to want to write about my life and publish it for the world (kind of) to read.  Ultimately, I came to the following conclusions: a)  I don't care if anyone reads my writing, and b) writing about my life is a very inexpensive form of therapy for me.  The most this blog may cost me is a laugh at my expensive-- a price I am willing to pay to feel sane at the end.  :)

So what do I have to share, you might ask?  Is this going to be another monolog by some SAHM that has nothing better to do than overshare online?  Maybe, but I hope not.