John Denver

So, if you're reading this, you probably know me decently well. (If not, what could I possibly say that you'd be interested in?)

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm super busy at work. I work in a cube next to a large open meeting area. To concentrate, I listen to my iTunes.

I found that I was having issues concentrating, even with my music, so I turned to the old standby: John Denver.

I have 6.5 hours of JD music in my iTunes. I've been listening to it non-stop for almost 3 weeks. I can totally get into a zone when I'm listening to JD.

I think that because almost every memory of my childhood has John Denver music as the soundtrack, my brain actually functions better when I'm listening.
Yep, I'm weird, but I'm wondering how weird? Don't other people have some music that they feel this way about?

I assume that they do...

I hope they do...

Shining

So, I'm not a huge fan of the Rolling Stones. That I ended up last night at a sneak peak of their IMAX Martin Scorsese directed movie, is odd.

I "won" them from the local TV station. I use the term "won" loosely. I think that they didn't have that many people trying to win, so they gave them to everyone who entered. Anyway, Craig and I both went to see it last night. Aunt Sarah babysat the kids at her apartment, which is a first. The kids loved visiting.

It was good, but not being a huge Stones fan, I didn't know some of the songs and couldn't have watched 2 hours of only concert footage. Lucky for me, "Marty" threw in some old clips of the band from the past 40 years.

Things that I liked in the film:

• Scorsese freaking out because he couldn't get Mick to give him a final set list. The last second before the band came out, a producer runs in with it.
• Keith singing. At least twice, he totally messed up the words.
• Keith talks and acts just like Jack Sparrow. I knew that Johnny Depp modeled the character after him, but it's hard not to laugh watching Keith.
• Keith wearing what I can only call a brooch on his coat. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean logo. (Also had a ring like it on.)
• The camera shots and editing were amazing.
• The video and sound were amazing. You really felt like you were there.

Things that I'm going to have nightmares about:

• They are WAY too old for a 4 story closeup. Some of their wrinkles could swallow a small child.
• Men with legs that skinny are freaky.
  
• Mick and Keith's arms.
• They are all WAY too touchy feely for old men.
  
• Mick's sweaty, sweaty, sweaty armpits. (Come on, really, you haven't figured out yet that a red silky shirt doesn't hide sweat well?)

It was nice to get out, but now I wish I would have seen the U2 IMAX movie when it was out. If you're a Stones fan, I'd say go see it.

Labeling

So, having watched Autism: The Musical, I've been thinking that I haven't talked about how Chase is doing lately, when it was the original reason I started this Blog.

Chase has "high-functioning" autism. Right now his diagnosis is PDD-NOS, Pervasive Development Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. Nice and descriptive, huh? But, the more he can communicate, I'm thinking that it is more like Asperger's. He really doesn't "get" the finer points of social interaction. Like how hard is too hard to hug, when it's appropriate to hug, kiss, etc. He also can seem aggressive because he doesn't understand this stuff.

I think that he's learning to function. I don't think he'll ever "get it" like neuro-typical children, but I think that he can learn how you're supposed to act and how you're not, but I think it'll be a struggle for him. He has to remember how interactions are supposed to work, because it doesn't come naturally to him.

Watching Autism: The Musical, I see children that do similar things to what Chase does, but they are older. I start wondering what they were like at 3. I think that I always think that they must have been "worse" than Chase, if they're now functioning like him. So, he'll be way better by the time he's their age? Right? That's logical, isn't it?

I just wish it will work out that way, but who knows? This whole autism rollercoaster is crazy. When you first find out, you suddenly "lose" the child you thought you had. Everything you have thought about his future is dead, or is it? While it's not a death sentence, everything in your world is different. My first thought when we got the diagnosis? "We're never going to be able to take him to Disney World or Cedar Point." Seriously. You see all the information about autism and apply all of it to your child, whether it really fits or not. At the same time, he's no different than he was yesterday. And, how much of it is his age, and how much is the autism? (BTW, we've been to Cedar Point and Disney World, both with wonderful results for everyone.)

I wish that everyone would watch that movie and see what kids, parents, and families go through. Maybe instead of people saying that he's overly aggressive, they'd understand that he can't help it and that all he's doing is trying to fit in and learn proper limits. Maybe people wouldn't stare at him standing at a table in a restaurant instead of sitting.

It's hard not to get protective. It's hard not to compare him to the other children with autism. It's hard not to resent other children who start stuff with him and then tattle on Chase when he reacts to them (Thank God for classroom video cameras.) It breaks my heart to see him try so hard to fit in and mix with the other children, and to have one of them say, "Why do you talk funny?" He understands that he's different, or at least he's treated differently. But he tries. How does a 3 year old know to try so hard?

No matter what the outcome of this whole thing, if there really ever is an "outcome", I'm glad that we've gone through it. I'm much more compassionate than I ever thought I could be. All of us have met so many strong and loving children, parents, and teachers.

And, I have a sweet, loving, smart, strong, brave boy who has taught me more than anyone I've ever known. I am truly blessed.

Oof-da!

Thought I should pull that out. Our weather this last week really reminds me of our time in Minnesota: Freezing, SUPER windy, but not a ton of snow. At least that's what I remember...

So, the big news this week? Well, my back was bothering me the last two weeks. Cory jumped on my back and aggravated my bulging disk, which hasn't bothered me in over a year.) I decided to go in and get something stronger than my Tylenol. Well, I bent down to pick up the pen top that I dropped and BAM! My back completely goes out. Nice. It was more painful than giving birth without any drugs. Really. I almost passed out. At least I was in the doctor's office.

So, I've been out since Wednesday morning. I'm feeling better, but not 100%. I'm still taking my muscle relaxer and Vicadin. They help my back but make me feel kind of sick. So that's fun...

Anyway, I hope your days are all going better than mine.

Oh, April, the way I got the good hair pictures: played the show online, paused it, and used SnagIt to capture what I wanted. I'll try to get a picture of my hair soon. Craig's work party is this weekend, so hopefully, I'll get a good one then.

I'm Back (Again)

Thanks for bugging me April.

I've been busy and lazy about posting. I guess I needed a kick to get going. We'll see if I can start doing this more. ;o)

Anyway... I've got some pictures from Halloween through last weekend.

And, I actually included pictures of me, so you're in for a treat.

I chopped off my hair last Friday instead of going shopping. I went to Douglas J and saw Lourdes. If that sounds expensive, it was. Thank goodness for giftcards. Here's what the hair plan was:


I don't have a picture of me with the haircut, but she really got it to look just like the photo. I LOVE it!

In other big news, we booked a trip to Disney World! I go back and forth about the intelligence of this idea. We're going to be staying at a Disney Hotel for 9 nights. I'm praying now that the kids (and Craig) like it.

Well, I will try to talk to you all soon!

Mommy Wars

Having a mother that stayed home with me and my sisters, and never worked outside our home after I was 2, I've had to deal with all kinds of guilt issues about having a career. I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for what my mom did and still does. After working part time for six months, I was relieved when I started working (almost) full time.

Working in an office is much easier (for me at least) then staying at home with two kids under three. This realization is what causes me much of my guilt. The other major guilt provider is my mom, who believed that people shouldn't have children if they're not going to raise them themselves and that daycare is evil. (She has come around some, since on Chase's bad days she too is convinced that Cory is much safer in daycare.)

Brought up the way that I was, I had never been to daycare, had never come home to an empty house, and been able to stay at our cottage for most of the summer, since we didn't have to be home for my mom to go to work. How could I not be that same kind of mom? I've struggled with this for three whole years, and finally, I feel that I'm at peace with the fact that I'm just not that kind of mom and probably won't ever be.

I enjoy my job. I enjoy being out of the house. I enjoy the validation from other people that I do a good job on my work (which is not something that a stay at home mom gets much of.).

And that's OK and my children won't be horribly messed up because I work. (Repeat)

Although, I do think that Chase is better when I'm around him and interacting with him constantly, I have even come to terms with this. I'm never going to be able to be there for him 24 hours a day for the rest of his life. He's going to have to learn how to cope with "the real world". Isn't starting now better than pushing him into it when he starts kindergarten? But I digress.

Anyway, there's an article from Newsweek written by a women who is sick of hearing all about the great "should mothers work or not" debate. I found it interesting, funny, and validating. The last line of the article is:

It's nice to read something that "gives us permission to be worse mothers," she says. Permission granted.

Thank you.

It constantly amazes me when someone that I see as super-involved with their kids says to me, "Wow. You do so much with your kids. I should do more." or "You have so much patience." or "How do you handle that?" --- Um, are you talking to me?

It seems to me that women who overdo the fight of stay home or work might be covering up their own uncertainty that they are doing the "right" thing. I know that's what I did when I was trying to convince myself, as well as whomever I was talking to, that staying at home was THE ONLY way to go.

I think that most, if not all of us, focus on our mothering shortcomings, not what we do that's good and right. Maybe today we can all try to concentrate on the good things that we do and not what things we're messing up.

Or, maybe we can just think that there's got to be worse mothers out there. That makes me feel a little better too.

As promised...

So, how did the week go?

I totally feel like it’s Monday. Being out of the office for three days make Fridays feel like Mondays. But then free lunch comes, today it was pizza and ice cream day (YUMMY!) and I remember it’s Friday.

Chase
Chase was pretty good this week, although he’s having some issues with pushing and hitting this week. We haven’t has our group therapy for two weeks because of an inservice and spring break. I can’t tell you how excited I am that we’re going back next week.

I started letting him into speech therapy without me in the room. They have a two way mirror so I can watch what’s going on. It’s really interesting to watch. He really likes Robyn so he’s pretty good in there with her. Being on the outside of what’s going on, it’s much easier to see how much he doesn’t make eye contact and doesn’t initiate contact. On the other hand, he did ask to go through the cards and even said what a lot of them were without any prompting. The biggest thing was that he sat in a chair and stayed focused the whole time.

I also released how I talk too much when I’m working with him. I need to give him more opportunities to initiate and ask for things, instead of me asking him what he wants. At home he does initiate more than at therapy, but I still have to work on it.

Me
Have any of you lost track of old friends over the years and want to find them again?

There’s a few people that I’ve found (thank you Google and MySpace) and tried to start talking to again. I think that a lot of my interest in finding people is that now at 28, I’m more like the person I was before I graduated from high school and early on in college. In my later college years, I had many of my priorities really messed up. I guess now that I have my old children, I’m more sensitive to some of the stupid things I did and bad decisions I made. The worst was allowing myself to loose contact with some very close friends.

Now that there’s Google and MySpace, I’ve been able to find people that I’ve randomly thought about and looked for, but now I’m not sure what’s worse: not finding them, or finding them and having them not answer.

It’s funny, several years ago, I would have been the one that wouldn’t have wanted to make the effort to answer if some one tried to contact me.

Amazing how our priorities and outlooks change, isn’t it?

Hello Friday!

It has been a great week! Chase has been in a great mood and has been acting much more like children his age.
Chase
He repeated almost every word the speech therapist asked him to, even when he was frustrated. He got mad because he wanted a piece of train track. Robyn pushed him into asking for it. He said, "I want (signed) more track!" and he got it.
He recovered very quickly, like 5 seconds after he got the piece, he was fine! This is HUGE! There was a time he wouldn't have recovered but would have continued to be crabby for hours. There was also a time when he would not say anything while he was mad, he would just scream. So you can see why this would make us happy.

Me
After Monday, I was pretty happy this week. I'm really excited about this Autism Walk. I've got one other person signed up for the team. So, if I've invited you and you haven't signed up yet, please do so. It won't cost you anything to sign up!
I also decided to stop being crabby and start asking for want I need or want. I explained this to my hubby, and he shocked me by saying that he understood. Wow! I don't give him enough credit most of the time.
I also got a great deal of real work for work done this week. It's amazing how much better I feel when I actually accomplish something. Helps me stay motivated for other things, like housework. I even got up early to clean up the playroom, which is going to seem useless when I get home and it's already a disaster area... oh well.

Putting up the pictures of Cory's Birthday made me look up some old pictures of Chase. Here's a couple from his first birthday cake. He loves him his cake!



On a side note, looking at those pictures from his July birthday make me REALLY want it to be Summer! It was 73 degrees on Tuesday, and then we woke up with 4 inches on snow yesterday. grrrr...