The Magic of the Season

It's been a rough couple of weeks here on the Crazy Train, which I realize is no way to begin a Christmas holiday post, but it's true.

The holiday hubbub makes it hard for my darlings to deal with regular, everyday stuff, as was evidenced in Princess's school behavior two weeks ago (which will get it's own post, I am sure).  It made for a terrible week full of disciplinary action plans, visits to the principal, and tears.  I was sure the week couldn't get any worse until the tragedy in Connecticut occurred.

The Sandy Hook tragedy has left people across the nation mourning the loss of 27 human lives, most of which were too young to even comprehend.  On top of that unfathomable loss, the media managed to use this awful event to vilify Asperger's syndrome as well.  That unfortunate side effect has left parents like me-- parents of children on the autism spectrum-- doubly reeling with sadness and outrage, as we are left to defend our children and loved ones from the ignorant hate-mongering that abounds on social media and the news right now.

Add to all this stress two children with the flu and one mommy with a very high fever, a massive sinus infection, and what sounds like an emphysemic cough, and you can see why this Christmas season has been a little lackluster for me.

A funny thing has happened, though...

Rubber Pellet Gun... A Fantasy

Image from Christmas Story 2

Some days my kids-- and possibly your kids, too-- make me crazy.  We all have those days when our tolerance for all things b.s. go right in the crapper, and all we have left is our imaginations and divine intervention to keep us from losing our goop.  Many of us even have a secret fantasy that we play out in our heads to make the crazier days more tolerable.  And by secret fantasy, I mean we have a mental Calgon place, where things are calm and (insert favorite adult beverages here) flow like water.  On the really crazy days, though, my mental diversion isn't to an exotic locale.  Mine is a rubber pellet gun.  (I'll wait while you finish laughing at me.)  I have been threatening and joking about getting one for years, and I am sure it could solve all my most aggravating problems.  My sanity sometimes hinges on a couple of ounces of imaginary toy gun.  Are you worried yet?

If you aren't worried about me yet, you are about to be.

The Crazy Train Olympics

I have to admit that I'm not much of a fan of televised sports.  Not even the Olympics arouses my interest much.  I will occasionally watch the beach volleyball, since those are about the hottest athletes to ever walk the face of our planet.  A bit of the high diving competition never hurts, either-- those insane divers are fearless and amazing!  (They make me just dizzy watching them.)  I will watch some gymnastics too, for the same reason I watch diving-- gymnasts are truly unbelievable!  I wish I could do those things, so I live vicariously through them for a few moments, until it becomes depressing how obviously low their BMIs are, and I begin to feel the need to self-medicate with ice cream.  (It also occurs to me that those little girls could totally kick my ass.  I have never even imagined myself in as good of shape as they are in!  Even when I played basketball and spent hours everyday in the gym, I didn't hold a candle to the fitness level those girls achieve!  Ugh.  But I digress...)

I have tried this week to interest Princess and Birdie in watching some of the Olympic competition.  Why not, right?  After all, the Olympics only happens every four years, and there are some great lessons in sportsmanship and dedication to be learned there.  Even if the girls got totally addicted to watching the games, it would all be over in a few days, and life would go on as normal (no possibility of fixating on it they way they did with the Pocahontas movie or Sonic X ).  I tuned into the equestrian event, thinking the horses might tickle their fancy-- not even a flicker of interest.  We also tried swimming, water polo, volleyball, and gymnastics, all with flagging enthusiasm.

After many attempts at watching many different sports, Birdie finally asked me "I don't understand.  Why do these people practice these sports so much, Mom?!  Wouldn't it be better to know that you are the best at a sport naturally, without all the practice?"

Princess, the Pool, and the Purple Paper Kitty

Whew!  Today has been... interesting.

I obviously didn't take this photo today.
Read on and you'll see why.

For those of you that are up on the Crazy Train summer schedule, you know that today is our Wednesday Swim.  My girls LOVE the pool.  The sensation of weightlessness, plus the added bonus of uniform sensory input across all their skin at once, makes swimming very relaxing for my girls-- usually.  Today, the pool was a little less relaxing than I had hoped it would be.


Normally, we get to the pool early, before it gets crowded, and leave before the after-lunch crowd arrives.  Today, we were late getting to the pool AND the weather was swelteringly hot, so real estate in the pool was cramped-- like trailer park at the beach cramped.  We were elbow to elbow in the pool with about 90 of our neighbors.  As you can imagine, it got really ugly really fast for my personal space-loving ladies.  A little over an hour after we arrived, I was hauling my crew into the locker room so we could get out of Dodge.  You could say our autism was showing a little too much, and it was making several of the other pool patrons nervous.  

The Annual Birthday Trip

Birthday parties-- they aren't for everyone.  This is as wild and crazy as we like it.

For the last three years, Hubby and I have taken Princess and Birdie on a weekend excursion for their birthday.  We have several reasons we like to take a trip on the girls' birthday (not the least of which is my aversion to parties and the inevitable drama they entail).  The nightmare of a "real birthday party" is more than my girls can typically handle, what with the crowds of kids, the noisy birthday venue, having to say thank you for less-than-appreciated gifts (when the gift giver should "know I would never like that!"), being upset about friends that can't make the party, etc, etc, etc...  Not to mention the fact that a birthday party at the Rathole (aka Chuck E Cheese) or one of the other popular birthday venues is really freakin' expensive.  I remember my mom throwing me a birthday party for the cost of some paper plates, some cheap balloons, a box of cake mix, and a can of icing!  It most definitely did NOT cost $14/child.

Oh the Places We Have Been... So Far

Birdie pretending to be Balto and mushing for her sister

As of yesterday, I have been at this blogging thing for exactly eleven weeks.  Also, sometime in the past 24 hours, my blog counted its 3000th pageview.  Frankly, I am shocked.  I know that 3000 pageviews is less than many blogs get in one hour, but I truly expected only my mom and my husband to read my craziness, strictly out of some kind of moral obligation that results from their relationships with me.

Control Issues-- We All Have Them

I am learning from motherhood that most of life is about managing the craziness that is taking place around you.  The rest of life is about ignoring the crap that is bothersome if  it is something you can't change.  I don't think realized this before I had kids.

Geocaching

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day that absolutely could not be spent indoors.  Also, being the day after our all-day mac and cheese feast (aka Mac-stravaganza), we could not let inertia get the best of us, for fear that all those cheesy calories would take up residence in our pants.  My husband and I decided to take the girls geocaching at a local park near the Potomac.

What is geocaching, you ask?  I could spend hours of your time explaining this wonderful outdoor game, but in a nutshell, it's treasure hunting.  All around the world, people have hidden little treasure boxes for others to find.  The GPS coordinates of the boxes are posted online along with a few topographical clues.  You download this info and you have yourself a treasure hunt!   Are you going to end up with gold doubloons at the end of your trip?  I never have but I guess some idiot out there might leave something valuable in one of these caches.   The boxes are usually cleverly disguised waterproof containers that have a logbook, which you sign when you locate the cache, and some swag.  This swag-- or treasure, as my kids call it-- is very much like the treasure I mentioned in an earlier post about my Birdie's room.  You find a range of items, such as ancient Happy Meal toys, buttons, pins, magnets, business cards, costume jewelry, foreign coins, belly button lint.  It's all pretty much junk, but to Birdie and Princess it is worth hours of trekking around the forest (which makes this junk very valuable to me.)

How Did I Get So Lucky?

If I have given you the impression that life with my daughters if filled with constant challenges and lots of stress, then I need to apologize.  It's not that your impression is incorrect, it's just incomplete.  First of all, every parent faces these stressors and everyone's challenges are different.  I realize that I am not alone; I do realize my war stories sound a little odd compared to many parents' stories, though.  I also know as parents we all fret, from time to time, about whether we make the right decisions for our kids.  I feel I have painted an incomplete picture, though, because you should know my stress is balanced by equal parts of wonder and joy.  There is so much good that comes from having an autistic mind!  For me, the silver lining shining around my daughters is a much bigger part of who they are than the dark cloud that goes with it.

The Things We Hold Onto

In the beginning...

I look into the abysses that are my daughters' rooms.  I am NOT going in there.  Hurricane Katrina has nothing on my Princess and Birdie.  Clothes are strewn about their rooms with great abandon.  Toys clutter the floor while their toy bins stand open and empty.  Books are in piles all around the room-- sometimes the books are piled by topic and sometimes they're just piled up to clear a path to a pile of something else.  There are bits of trash and paper and "treasure". (Treasure in this instance translates to most folks as "random, formerly shiny crap found in the Target parking lot".)  And then there are the stuffies-- tons and tons of stuffed animals fill every gap, nook and cranny that remains in the room.  How would I get in if I wanted to?  Why would I want to?

The Delicate Flower, The Emergency Vet, and Patience

Two nights ago, I experienced enough stress in one evening to last me for... well, forever.  (That may be a little overdramatic, but the night is still fresh enough in my mind for that to seem true.)

Now earlier I mentioned I have a dog.  I told you he is ridiculous and funny and smelly and has a penchant for home un-improvement.  I failed to mention he is also a delicate flower-- a walking, slobbering, itching genetic disaster.  He is equal parts adorable and allergic.  He is allergic to all the same things I am and they are all things that you cannot avoid, like dust mites, grass, weeds, and mold.  (The similarities in our allergies are so great that I have come to the conclusion that he and I are distant blood relatives.)  When not medicated and left to his own devices, my dog would literally claw his fur and sometimes skin right off his body.  He spends countless hours finding the perfect place to rub his back-- on the carpet, against the tv stand, on the low window sill-- so he can scratch the itch he can't reach.  It makes me laugh and feel sorry for him at the same time.