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Had a nice afternoon on the reference desk.  When I wasn't answering patron questions, I caught up on my claims for the flexible spending account, bills, coupons, etc...  Mundane stuff is nearly impossible to do at home.  I have called five times to check on them - Jimmy ate half a large pizza.  He never pounds food like that.  Maybe he is hitting a growth spurt.  The only thing I really failed to do was to catch up on my e-mailing... to Amy and T, principally.  I miss them both a lot.  One lives an hour away and the other is now in Wyoming and I see each about the same amount - never.  I really need to work on that...

*Sigh* 

What up, T!

John Mayer says hi...

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. In 18 days I get be another year closer to 40. Whoopee. Lose weight, exercise, stay in better touch with friends, yada yada yada for the New Year goals. Yeah, I will work on those, but I am also hoping to make one of the presidential candidates answer a question about autism. That's my goal for the year. What do you think?

A nice day

Aside from the layoff, today was a good day.  I saw Melanie for lunch at Panera.  I saw my friend Beth and her husband and boys.  They are in from California and I honestly haven't seen her in years.  We took the boys to House of Bounce and for pizza today.  Jacob was a bit of a pill at the end, but we had a good time.  It was really good to see her - as I have said before, I don't keep in touch with people the way I should.  But seeing her is a reminder that I should try harder.

On the first day of Christmas...

We are stretching our celebration out into four days this year. Day one was spent with a morning therapy session with a community outing to the mall. He is doing a much better job of walking with an adult, but anytime he has to wait in a line, he goes limp. I won't completely knock improvement, but we aren't ready to be stroller free. And it will be a long time before I can take both out solo. But you have to start somewhere.

Shortly after we arrived home, Uncle Mark arrived. It had been awhile since he had been for a visit, which went fairly well. Except for Jimmy peeing in his cup... he was shifting around as I went to try to get him to the bathroom. Just leaked right there, as he was drinking his medicine (I have never seen anyone move as fast as Mark did to get out of the way.) So Jimmy used his cup... I can feel you cringe, but this is my life. It's why my house doesn't really get clean or neat - I can barely stay ahead of putting out the fires. It's an effort just to get him to keep his pants on at home. Unless you are living it, it is so hard to understand what we go through.

Yeah, I wish that it had been the perfect visit, but I can't knock it - the husband made prime rib for dinner. The food was great. The boys each got a present early as Mark opened his, so Jimmy got his little Padme and Anakin action figures for his Galactic Heroes set. Rosa, their old sitter, dropped by with gifts for them as well. They both were very happy to see her as well.

Tomorrow is another packed day. We have therapy for Jimmy in the morning, a visit with Auntie D in the afternoon, and I am planning to Jacob to a kids church service here in town tomorrow night. Hopefully I can fold some of the clean clothes in the basement and put a dent in the loads of work I have to do over the break. I get the feeling it will be over before I know it.

Autism, Welcome to My Inner Circle...

For the longest time now, I have felt like Jimmy was one in 150. It's the statistic, it's the norm now. I figured I probably knew more autistic kids by benefit of being a parent of one - people who we met through autism rather than people we had know having kids with it. Today, that all changed.

We got a Christmas card from a couple we have know for years - someone my husband worked with in the comics industry. Taking you back... he, an incredible creative individual in many ways, got engaged and married this wonderful woman. We hung out a bit, until we started having kids. Then it got a little harder. I think as Jimmy's problems became more obvious, we both started to shut people we had known in the past. I had my friends from Mason, women who having been walking this road with me since the day autism entered my vocabulary. The husband has been sort of walking alone. Both of us found our paths easier than constantly having to explain or apologize for what has happened with our son. I will freely admit that I have shut my own family out to some degree, just because it hurts too much to have explain or defend or justify.

At any rate, eventually they moved away and we didn't stay in touch. In part for the reasons above, but also because regular old life has kept us extremely busy. Today, their family Christmas letter revealed that their son had recently gotten a spectrum diagnosis. The husband is crushed, but I am just shocked. I think maybe we collectively have 50 people that we consider friends between the two of us. Relationships are hard to maintain in adulthood in the best of circumstances. These are the people who we manage and even work at staying in touch with, even if we don't get to see them the way we would like or should. People he knew from his store, people I knew from grad school or my job, people we know now. Of those 50 people, not one had a child with autism or anywhere on the spectrum, save us. Until now.

By my estimation, that isn't 1 in 150. That's 1 in 100. The activist in me would really like to know how many kids it takes to make autism a national emergency, so people are motivated to find a cause, a treatment, and a cure. So kids like mine can speak and interact and live a more normal life. So families don't feel like they have to hide or apologize because their child doesn't act like his or her peers. How many kids and how many families have to suffer before the rest of the world cares or acts? Or does it have to strike everyone's inner circle first?

Hey...T...

Why is your phone always busy?

How to spend your snowy evening? Posting your husband's resume on hotjobs.com, careerbuilder.com, and monster.com. Am I good or what?

Please let there be a two hour delay tomorrow morning!

Waiting for the Sunday paper...

Jimmy went to McLean Bible Church for respite today.  He has such a great time there and the people in the ministry are just so wonderful to us.  I ran into Melanie briefly, but she was working in another room.  I went to lunch with my friend Amy.  Jim took Jacob to the Christmas parade and sat with a friend of mine from work and her son.  I think it was a fairly nice day all around. 

DH's job search kicks off in earnest tomorrow, with the arrival of the Sunday paper.  I think I applied for about 8-10 jobs when I did my job search a year and a half ago.  Nine or ten resumes yield four invitations to interview, two interviews, and two job offers. I hope my husband's goes as well.  He is already up to five jobs applied for in five days. 

What a year - the car accident, his injury, and now this...  I am more than a bit overwhelmed at this point.  I know he is too.  Keep good thoughts for us.  And if you have any jobs in desktop publishing or need someone who know Quark, Illustrator, InDesign, etc..., send me an e-mail.  I know a guy...

  

Melanie Saves the Day

Well, my mom did get stuck working, but we still managed to get out of the house.  My friend Melanie came to the rescue by helping me take the boys to House of Bounce, one of those inflatable moon bounce party places.   We spent an hour there, running around, jumping, and sliding down these huge indoor moon bounces.  A great way to burn off energy on a cold day.  We had lunch at Applebee's, which provoked Jimmy because he wanted to go to Walmart next door. So we went there after lunch.  Melanie is a huge help and an incredible friend.

Oh, big autism related news from yesterday - we solved our seat belt problem.  We found these Angel Guard clips that block the release button on the seat belt.  We used them for the first time yesterday.  We sat in traffic trying to get past the American Legion Bridge for over an hour and no one got out of their seats.  I am using it on both boys!!!  Best $20 I have ever spent!!!!  

Tomorrow is the belated shopping with my mom.  I so look forward to that.  She is the Queen of the Mall.  My foot injury is making me crazy, she hurt her knee, and we are both still going!

Losing Jimmy... and the Baddest Man on the Planet

Well, this morning started out badly... I briefly lost Jimmy at church. We arrived for his respite program and waited in a long line of other parents. Jacob was entertained by a service dog named Mason, but Jimmy was out of control, not wanting to wait. I put him on my shoulders, toted him around, held his hand. Anything to keep him entertained. When we arrived at the check in desk, he bolted to the back classroom area. Someone said, "He'll be fine." I paid my fee and went back to find that he had vanished into thin air. I yelled for him, yelled to see if anyone had him, and got no response. I looked at the back door - which immediately has another door to the parking lot. I was running on back and forth, calling his name and crying. Someone ran out the back to the parking deck. No sign of him. Finally he was found in a classroom. I have officially lost both my children at one point or another and it is truly the worst feeling I have ever known. I held him so tightly when I got ahold of him. I am starting to realize though that I am so overwhelmed by the both of them together that it limits where I can go and what I can do. Jacob will improve with age, but the next few years will be rough.

Tonight finished with an MMA event called the Baddest Man on the Planet. You could call it one of the craziest nights of my life. My husband writes for this website that covers mixed martial arts (think UFC, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell) and we got free tickets to this local event. A bunch of local guys came for the fight. The fighter that my husband interviewed earlier this week Matt, was on the card. Matt's opponent didn't show up for the fight, so they put out a call among the dojos in the back to see if anyone at 205 was willing to fight. There wasn't, so he bounced out of the back room to check with Steve, on of the guys who came to the show with us. Steve trains MMA and has had some amateur fights/sparring matches. It was an amateur event, so Steve thought he should consider it. He pulled Steve away from buying a hot dog and took him back to the promoter.

Next thing you know, he is taking the the fight. They give him gear to use, The other guy from the board Chivo corners him, the whole nine yards. They introduce him with an acknowledgement of pulling him out of the crowd essentially, so the crowd was definitely pro-Steve. The trade one or two shots, Steve threw this great kick, and after that it is all a blur.

He got KOed and he says he can't move. At an event like that, they put him on the board and load him on the ambulance to the ER as a precaution. I was sort of bummed that he was fighting, because I was looking forward to talking to him between fights. Turned out we had plenty of time to chat between x-rays. It all worked out. He's fine, though, and on his way home. His wife has even forgiven him for doing it, I think.

It was sort of insane all the way around. But it was really nice to finally meet Steve and Chivo as well. A lot of fun. This was the second time I have seen someone I know step into the ring. But after KC and now this, I don't think I can ever watch another e-friend step into the ring. My stomach is still in knots.

At least he is going to have a great story for work on Tuesday.

A Shout Out to T

To make you feel better...

The End of an Era

When we bought our townhome in July 2002, I was very excited about my new neighbors. There were four townhomes in a row - between the four, there were twelve kids. Jacob's arrival in 2003 made thirteen. The neighborhood is pretty decent - not chic by any means, but a mix of mostly white and Latino families from all sorts of backgrounds. A few people who we might refer to as "countrified" for lack of a more polite term. These neighbors are the ones you tend to have trouble with and we did have a lot of trouble with one.

We had so much trouble that eventually one family left, bringing the total down to ten kids. Last night, I had nine kids in my house total as the family with six of them, my immediate neighbors, loaded the van to move out to Front Royal, essentially following the first family to the new town. They were renters - supposedly, the landlord will be doing some work on the house and putting it on the market. The kids ran amok in my house, all over the backyard, getting in the pool fully clothed and stay in until they were waterlogged prunes. I ordered Dominos and sodas and let everyone eat in the living room, carpet be damned. (Doesn't matter, it's getting ripped out next week!)

The four house used to have game nights and cookouts - they dynamic was dying out after the relocation of the first family and is now dead with the departure of the second. My husband is not real social, so I had to miss more get togethers than I would have liked. I enjoyed the times I did spend with them. Since I have no girls of my own, I was especially close to some of the little girls. Their birthday parties were my excuse for buying Barbies and pink, pink, pink!

New neighbors have and will move in, but it will never, ever be what it was. What we had collectively was pretty unique and even if we keep in touch, it will never be what is was. I feel a sense of loss about the whole thing.

Don't Mess with Mama

Jan 10, 2005

I wish - I have all that passive-agressive girlie conditioning. But I am pretty pissed at one of my husband's friends. He doesn't really like kids in general, but moreover, he doesn't like Jimmy. He apparently has plenty of opinions on how we our raising our child without any sort of consideration of his lack of receptive or expressive language. A quote - "You can teach a dog no." Screw him. It's more than just the no issue - Jimmy likes him. He wants to crawl in his lap and hang out with him like every other visitor in the house welcomes him doing. Pretty much everyone else in our lives, everyone else who would visit our home, seems to understand what we are up against. I want him to be external, to make friends, to be affectionate and sweet - if he isn't doing that with kids yet, but is willing to be friendly with adults, it's a start. He actually yelled at my child in front of me. The only reason that I didn't start screaming at him right then and there was all of that b.s. hostess conditioning.

I am completely ashamed that I didn't stand up for my child right then and there. Told the husband that he is not welcome in my home. Fairly passive-agressive, I know, but it's better than doing nothing. God forbid if that man calls me husband and winds up getting me on the phone. If he has opinions on child rearing, he should have one. Oooh... I am ANGRY!!! After that dog crack, I would not piss on that man if he were on fire.