The start of goodness

An Internal reorg

I came to an uncomfortable realization that these past few months most of my thoughts are centered on work. 

It’s not just that my work day is long and intense (which it is).

But that I carry it in my mind everywhere.

                                                                 

Its how I define a good day or a bad day and my self-worth.

It only changes when we are in crisis ( like Crohn’s)

I am trying to change this
 Every day as I walk into the house.

I visualize  mentally put down the work day along with my laptop.

When we are fully engaged in R -OMG what a difference in him

He is just as autistic (as he always was).

It’s just that he is engaged and autistic, which is the other realization that DH and I have come to
that R is ...

Growing up Autistic

 After so much therapy( 6 years ) - he is growing up 100% autistic.

All the therapy has been totally worth it as its brought about engagement and communication  but R is still fully autistic

One of his bedtime poems is by Edgar Allan Poe

A lines makes me so sad is

“And all I loved, I loved alone”

It makes me  wonder if that is what the experience of being Autistic in a world of neurotypicals must be like.

Not having anyone who finds interesting what you find interesting.

Like even when DH and I watch TV - I get really mad, when he multitasks - because when something funny or stupid happens - I want to look across at him and I want him to acknowledge my eye roll.

( we are watching Grey's Anatomy right now and trust me,drippy Meredith Grey and her sappy love are giving us plenty of opportunity to roll eyes)

His interests are just so peculiar but we try to be interested in them  and build on all of them

For instance he is enamored of the conductors and their batons

DH orders a baton on ebay and I think R will pass out with excitement

But I make sing songs and make him conduct me

Another huge interest is going up and down elevators  and taking photos of the numbers.

so since 0 is missing in the floor, I take a photo of his hand that he shapes into a circle. So the series is complete

 
Or having a same size can of Fanta( which he will never drink) , next to the can of the Sprite( which he loves)

Or the pleasures of trying to create the scenes that he has seen in a show

But we try and see that we are with him in these things so exciting to him


Naughtiness & Spontaneity

Ever since school ended ( even though he works around 30 hours a week atleast between tutoring and therapy) , he has so much more energy.

Unfortunately some of this energy is getting used for evil  :-)

Twice this month he ran away at our fitness club

I usually designate a naughty chair and make him sit on it for 5 minutes or give him consequence like no elevators ( his current obsession)

 He weeps repentantly and is very very sorry but he somehow still cannot resist himself.

What is truly incredible and a great gift is that now he has started to plot his crimes

For instance he loves to buy apps and games from I tunes –

Since I refuse to buy the expi ones an – he makes me buy him a cheap app from ITunes ( like 99 cents) and then while the password is in there, he takes away the iPad and then buys the expi ones .
This weekend we brought $45 worth of apps

While this is truly terrible, we could not be more proud.

Same with his eye medicine. Since he has a lazy eye- the strong one needs a patch/atropine. He found and hid both

Once I explained that his weak eye would keep getting weaker and weaker unless he put on at least one of them – he went straight to his hiding place (downstairs dustbin, very bottom, he had added a lot of paper in the trash to “bury” the meds)

And he asks to do things

Like Bake cupcakes
Color and decorate same cupcakes ( these activities would have been impossible a couple of years  ago )

But there are still things we need to work on. We get to visit some dear friends who have darling children  and find that as soon as R is tired - he has a hard time interacting with peers

Spontaneous Speech

I love that R is going a little bit better in terms of chatting.

The other day I told him to write an email to Miss Gypsi

Here is what he wrote

• Knoxville
• Tennessee
• Bakery
• We go to McDonalds
• Oak Ridge
• Mother
• We go to target
• Cheese

This most peculiar email is of course quite explicit to Miss G and me as he is remembering all the things he did with her ( "Cheese" is a mystery, Mother is related to when he met Miss G's mother and made Easter eggs with her )




Homeschooling start

Summer ends at the end of this month - but every year and we need to officially start with homeschooling

We are busy trying to design the curriculum for R 3rd Grade Therapy classroom.

This is not as easy as you would think !

The start of goodness

 

Despite so many things to the contrary, I am starting to feel a certain contentedness in life.

 

Everything about me -the contentment in my life, the feelings in my heart, how I come across to people, my home and how I see my whole world

 

It all  starts with how I feel inside

 

And the contended grateful feelings are starting to come.

 

I am remembering to ask fewer questions about the troubles we are facing ( insomnia, crohns etc ) and thinking more about our gifts

 

The more grateful I am, the more grateful I become

 

Gratitude to Gratitude always gives birth

 

Sophocles

 

 

 
 

July in Seattle

How is it always like this?

I think I  will  blog regularly , I will reflect more.

I will find 10 minutes to capture a bit of today - store away its pleasure for tomorrow

But the days pass in fast forward

And I find myself at the other end of the screen feeling that a month has gone by.

Sunny days 

July has dawned glorious and sunny .

This familiar green-grey landscape is transformed . The blues are so blue and the greens so green.


Every moment we can - we spend outside

Oh how I love these craggy green mountains

R takes his first hike in the gorgeous Mt Baker and walks 2 miles.

Snow in July?

Yes DH is making a SNOW ball.

What is super glamorous is that there are big signs saying "Avalanche area" all around

A nephew of ours who is doing a summer program at Brown comes to see us and spend a week .

He is really easy going and it makes me wonder what life would be like if R had a sibling  ( though Z the nephew was an only child for a long time and says he loved it )

Settled into a routine

There comes a time when you settle into a city when you know exactly what you will do every day and every weekend

For us the evenings revolve around  going to the park , the weekend's revolve around going to the special park ( which for some reason has an AMAZING sensory playground ).

I have started reading/listening to books again 

Just finished Mrs Dalloway- I have avoided Virginia Woolf until now as I thought it was a "should-read"- (Do you know what I mean?)

But its amazing.

This is a day in the life of a woman in post WW1 England.

As she goes through the day and you listen to her thoughts - you know everything about her whole life.

To me, its such a powerful thought that we carry our entire lives with us all the time.

 Also read "The end of life book club"

In this book the author( really great author)  talks about the power of a good opening line.

For instance Mrs Dalloway starts with "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Of course my favorite is "The small boys came early to the hanging" Ken Follett, Pillars of the earth 

Starting to travel 
I am also starting to travel and this too has its own routine .. I usually take R with me to the office if I need to do last minute things like print off boarding cards

R colors on the white boards, while I finish by chores

And then when I am away, instead of enjoying "Me time" like my sensible colleagues do, i miss home .

Crohns is back 

A small flare blessedly .

But it has scared us .

 Till now the infusion has been working beautifully - we have been able to forget he has Crohn's.

All we need to do is to spend a Friday morning in the hospital every 8 weeks.

This too with our usual positivity we have turned into a family fun ritual and R quite looks forward to "medicine-in-arm" day 

But despite the meds, there is flare right before the infusion

Plus R has a sore on the side of his nose that does not heal.

I look it up on the web and see that many Crohns folks have this and this makes me cry and cry.

I feel angry about Crohns.

And I try to get peace with some of the Eastern Philosophy that I was raised with

In the East, there is a very strong belief in destiny- as though everything that happens to you has already been determined

The eastern story "Appointment with Sammara " depicts fatalism perfectly.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia 

A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the market. Shortly, the servant comes home white and trembling. In the market he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death, and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, he flees at top speed to Samarra, 75 miles away  so  Death will not find him. The merchant goes to the market and finds Death, and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, "That was not a threat, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

While Westerners believe that they are in charge of their destiny, Easterners believe that the life they are leading- has already been mapped out for them.

This is a lot of comfort but I still cycle through the stages of grief.

Why does our precious child's body attack itself from time to time?

Heal yourself by helping others

DH and I meet up with a  couple whose son has just been diagnosed.

Its a gorgeous sunny day

We eat pizza and chat. They are a delightful family.

And their son is so sweet and cuddly - like R a few years ago that I can hardly stand it and must ( I love autistic children - I really do ) cuddle him constantly

They  want advice on coping with with Autism and as we talk about the changes in philosophy and perspective that are needed for a happy life with Autism, some of my peace starts coming back

In this past year of change, stress and ill health, it seems like all I have done is cope,  not live.

I spend too much time thinking of work and not enough time thinking of R, our family, our marriage and what we need for our life to be a happy one ( despite everything )

Its time to get my priorities in order.

And make time  in life, for living

For like the Buddhist saying goes 

" You must meditate for 20 minutes a day .. unless you have no time. if you have no time .. you must meditate for a full hour "

Dear friends, like my own blog, I have neglected coming to say hello to your blogs. Promise to stop by and get connected.

June in Seattle

And I meet, coming through the dew

Another summer's Day!

-Emily Dickinson

Dear reader- where I live in Seattle people have warned us about the treacherousness of  June

"June is better known as Junuary... bitterly cold"  we are told

But June has come bursting with golden days.

Outside 

We spend as much time as we can outside

So many interesting things to discover in our city.  Its as though this city of constant rain knows how to make the most of the 3 months of summer - so everywhere you turn - there is a park and a lake and a little place to sightsee

And

R is nothing if not a creature that loves tradition and every evening we are at the park to swing and have a little picnic of junk food 

A Sense of expanded time

I tell people that my 30's will be marked with just one factor -

A  starvation of time. 

The 40's dont look like they will be much better 

Needing more time, wondering where the time went, gasping at how fast the weekends go by, trying to multitask ( which we all know does not work ), trying to do things faster, prioritising etc 

These days I have found a new way to expand time 

Which is to pretend that I have loads of time. 

This really really works 

Next time you have 30 minutes to go to the park, each minute act as though you have endless time 

I look - really look at what is around me

I notice the bits of magic and whimsy all around me

I notice, this child's endless love, how when I push R in the swing - he puts his hand behind himself so I can low five him each time he swings to me

I learn from R as he stops  and smells the roses

 Oh I have so much to write and so little time

But if I dont write, I will forget all about this special time and all the little things that made it special

1. That DH and I are addicted to "The West Wing"
2. The we eat a lot of mangoes and broccoli
3. That R loves to match his clothes these days - his blue pJ's with blue green socks and blue shirt and his pink shirt with his  Red PJ 's pictured above
4. That these days we read poems at bedtime. Since they are from the days before political correctness - they are really quite inappropriate
5. That we have drunk more Expresso these past few months than we have ever done before
6. That I no longer ache( at least not all the time )  for my small southern town and am starting to feel settled
7. That DH plays again ( squash )
8. That DH had a massive impressive meeting proposing homeschooling and the support we needed from them  ( by showing exhibits of his work - that in school R was counting 1-5 , while at home he was doing factors for multiplication )
9. That R loved butterfly cookies

And a million more things that matter ohsomuch to me

So here I am dear reader, writing from a W in Chicago after a 14 hour work day

For if I dont write, I will forget what happened

“If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.” — Joshua Foer

The Last days of May

A weekend with friends

Our friends from Canada visited us

These are DH's friends from Engineering college almost 20 years ago

We have made a pact  we will pretend not to notice the many extra pounds

We all tell each other that we look "EXACTLY " the same

(Though to be honest an extra person could have been created with all the pounds we have collectively gained in the intervening 13 years )

They live in Canada where the wife is a doctor and the guy ( DH's roomie from engineering days ) works as an engineer

They have a teenager ( extremely sweet ) .
 Very self possessed  - and all we saw of him was the top of this head over his laptop where he was communing with his friends over games

She does Hospice now and it was really interesting to hear her stories

One story was about a 52 year old woman who is passing away and who is trying to teach her 4 sons to be self sufficient

Her husband also died of cancer a few years ago

52 years !

I will be 52 in only 14 more years

I wonder what I would do if I knew I had only 14 more years to go

!!

The little girl ( Canadian friends' daughter ) was very sweet 

R was - at first jealous of her

( he snatched his paintings from the frig and put them away )

But when he noticed that she treated him with respect - he quickly realized that he really  likes her  ( finally someone smaller and hence  lower on the food chain than him !!)

Now is always asking for Chloe



A neighbor's birthday party

R LOVES going to birthday parties

We went to a neighbor's party - they are soooo sweet - they invited R to get in line for whacking the Piñata , guarded a few sweets for him daily

As soon as we came home - R insisted I make cupcakes

Meeting Temple Grandin

One of the cool things about working for Microsoft is that some days Temple grandin comes to give a lecture at your company

Now that I have attended one of her long conferences , heard her on Ted Talks and read all of her books, I find that I have pretty much heard everything she says

Still  I  get something new out of it - even when its a reminder ( this is why conferences and trainings are important because they shake us out of our inertia )

Two things
1. focus on practical things also - like shopping etc , ANY kind of job experience
2.focus on academics - for visual thinkers ( her brain scan images were fascinating -google usa today Temple grandin and see above for the picture I took of her presentation) things like algerbra are impossible - so skip it

Pattern thinker

I am always astounded by R's impeccable memory

Was astounded to see that he remembered a lot of our cryptic internet password as I saw him trying to put it in the wii

As I was organizing his toys , I was just struck by how many letters and numbers we still have


How much he still enjoys them

His number intersts have become more compictated - here he has painstakilnly taken photos one by one ( this is the  album view on my phone )  of even numbers

Here a pattern of division

Here he has made a series of animal that are in the sequence of the alphabet

 If I see a bunch of random cards there is usually some thought behind it

like here - this mess on our dining table is actually multiplication cards and he has just picked out the 4 series

Getting Normal

DH and I were talking the other day how we have been in a "state of emergency" for the past 12 months .

The pain of leaving Knoxville, coming to a new everything and then R's long illness

I am so ready to start feeling normal and that is what I am practicing

These days as I walk inside the house , I say to myself

Today I will Floortime
Today I will clear up
Today I will have a normal evening
Today I will watch TV

When we go to the park, I do our usual routine of swinging etc

But I also play little games

At the park I laid down his number cards - I told him to memorize the series - then I turned them around and I pointed to the back of the number to ask him "which number is it "

With his bed time tales I got the little people and made them act out poems

At the gym - we play bouncing games together

 Homeschooling

We are finally moving to homeschooling ( a version of it )

DH and I will be planning curriculum and R will spend his Fall hours divvied up between

1. Hometherapy
2. Therapy at a center ( 1:1 ratio)
3. Services at our neighborhood school

We discuss this at our team meeting and all of us feel that this is the right way ahead for R

In our hearts, DH and I agree that it feels right as well

There are years that ask questions and there are years that give answers.

This past year has been the former

"Were we right to move?"

 "Why must our child have one more mystery disease? Are SPD , Apraxia not enough?"


But as the team meeting ends one of our therapists says

 " I like coming to your house.. this is a happy house"

Another adds

"Your house is my happy place"

And I think maybe this past year was not so bad after all  

10 Tips for Better Hospital stays

Blogger  lets me look at what people type in when they travel to my site and along with the “floortime” “floortime mama” but then some make me very sad “Husband wont accept  autistic child” “ “Child wont talk” and I feel such kinship  for the lonely fingers typing those words on another end of the internet

These days some people who arrive on my blog arrive after having typed in “hospital visit for child ” or Crohn’s

When we were first getting admitted to the hospital in February – I hunted for a something on the internet on how to prepare for a hospital stay. I really found nothing suitable

 So here I write this post specifically for you -unknown mum or dad -about how to make a hospital visit more bearable

Since R goes for infusions on a pretty regular basis, DH and I have the dubious distinction of some expertise in this area

1.       Explain why and keep it simple When possible explain simply why you are at the hospital. We told R simply that we were there to make his belly hurt go away . That the doctor needed to look inside his tummy to see what was wrong

2.      Be aware that your child is hearing what you are saying. We found R looking up “Crohns disease in children” and “Remicade” on Wikipedia – not necessarily what you want a child to be reading

3.      Make a schedule and tick things off on the schedule. Most of the time children do not get why they are in the hospital or why things are being done to them. When things are being ticked off a list , it gives them a sense that they are making progress and that there is an end in sight.

4.     Bring some home to the hospital. Take their and your ordinary clothes with you – I know R found my tatty nightgown and snuggling up with his bedtime story book – a signal that things were okay and ordinary – even though life was far from ordinary.

5.      Go to pediatric units – Pediatric nurses are the finest creatures in the world and they think of things like kiddie videos that regular nurses won’t think about

6.      Treats for Hospital Day If you need to go on a regular basis to the hospital do some special things that are reserved just for hospital day . In our case, we eat pizza at the restaurant , do elevators, watch some special DVD’s, unlimited video games

7.      Don’t cry in front of your child. Seriously, no matter how hard it is

8.      Prioritize physical comfort. Example, if your child needs an IV,Nitrous is very relaxing, . Numbing cream can make all the sting go away. Make sure your child is warm.

9.      Distract your child – The hospital where we go to have a Wii Console – Every other visit, R has whined about getting the IV out and being “all done”. This time since the Wii had many new games, there was not a peep out of him

10.   Treat your child the way you want others to treat him. Most of us are really good advocates for our kiddos. But I think we need to go one step more than that.
We need to treat our child with a special tenderness, treating their fears with respect.
This means for example that when a nurse jokes “oh he is going to fight that IV”, we don’t smile along with them.
If you think about it – these sorts of statements are deeply disrespectful to our kiddos.
 Now I say something like “I would too if I did not understand why”.
Even though they did not mean any harm in the first place – there is a subtle shift in the energy of the room. R does not feel like mum and dad and nurse are on one side and he is on another. And the nurses treat him differently

Hospital stays are never fun. But I hope these tips make them a little more bearable 

This article has been written for Hopeful Parents and is published there today 

The second week of May

More glimpses of our life

The weekend

DH and I have found a way to find time together for just us .

This is Saturday when R has therapy for 4 hours .

The first 2 hours we usually cook. The second two hours depending on where R's social skills class is - we take a walk or we go out to lunch .

This weekend is one of our first sunny weekends  and dropping him off at the Sky zone ( which is giant set of trampolines ) DH head out for a gorgeous park.

See that line behind me

They are turtles

See this big turtle and little turtle make their way towards each other

I have heard that turtles are mean creatures and that turtle soup is delicious

But I do not think of those terrible things

And just imagine that the two turtles are mum and child , floortiming away

Sunday

Is also sunny .

 Its so rare to have the sun in Seattle that you are in an agony because you want to make sure that you can quickly arrange your chores so you can be outside

I am in such a frenzy - scared that the sun will go - that I am almost wishing it was a rainy day

We walk ( when R's therapist is here )

The best part of today is when we  get the hammock out

It feels like the end of something dark and gloomy (there is no doubt that last year has taken a heavy toll on us )

Monday - Friday

I usually try to write a little everyday .

But this week I did not and so it will all come out higgledy piggeldy

An Irish woman, a Chinese man

I meet an Irish woman in the park.

Such a delightful accent she has - I imagine what it would be like to met my friend Looking for Blue Sky or Jazzy Gal

To my shock I realize that I have been reading her blog in my voice - Indian/Bengali/Delhi/British.

This must be rectified

I tell her how much I love Maeve Binchy

( I wonder if Irish people this is like the Indian equivalent  curry , in the South I always got some comment around curry sometimes even the inexplicable "no offense, I don't like curry" ...  which of course always provokes me to think of wicked things to say like " well then what shall we talk about " ..  )

She tells me how sad this is that she ( Maeve Binchy )  is dead

I immediately realize that perhaps she did not understand my accent


I immediately realize that she probably does not understand what  I meant

But later I find that indeed she did understand and Maeve binchy is indeed dead at only 72 - how terrible


Accents are a real factor in conversations in this very cosmopolitan city

The other day a Chinese man and I got talking and we were talking about how his daughter has started to talk
As I said that R talked late as he is autistic - he beamed and said wonderful

Later I realized that he thought I was boasting about R being artistic

Play Therapy

I am too lazy to do real floortime

I just follow the lead in R's eccentric choices ( taking photos of road signs, making a chart of numbers, eating the same thing in the park everyday)

DH and I are trying hard on getting R to answer us

He is the master of ignoring a question

Motivation is powerful.

Q: how long does it take to teach R to take a photo with zoom
A: Just show him once

Q: how long does it take to answer a question about an inference " why are there branches on the ground"
A : Eternity!!! finally I give him the answer with gritten teeth " because there was a storm?"

Games

DH and I are trying to get him to play with us -

Nowadays he is blowing up his allowance at the Educational Store and different kinds of Bingo is really his thing

So we try to use this

But always this is like pulling teeth

Still we remind ourselves

That

1. He regularly plays with Miss Brittany
2. Its a whole different world than when we used to try and play when he was really little

For one thing he understands what we say ( this in itself is pretty impressive for us as words took so long to come  )

New interests

Right now R's new interests are in photography

He takes  selfies

Pics of the characters on the Wii

And sometimes he even takes pics of us

The weekend :The Hike Bike and Boat Sojourn

DH has signed us up for a VERY hectic weekend

We usually spend our weekend ensconced in sloth and here we are going to a day of endless activity

Oh but its so worth it

To see R being able to ride a bike effortlessly - just look at his face

 To snuggle with R in the 100 year old forest

to watch the gorgeous river and mountains

But most of all I am just amazed by some mothers I meet here

With such admiration, I see a woman who has chosen to adapt an severely handicapped child

What is even better is that she has done such a fabulous job of teaching her sign language that the child is so beautifully engaged and so clearly happy

There is a lot of misery  in this world - but thankfully there is also a lot of love
 

Days of my life , the last week of April

One more ordinary week of my life ( a little bit long - but guess what this is what I know I will really enjoy reading in April 2014 )

Wednesday

Today I told myself that I will not be lazy - I will do floortime .

But of course I forgot the first rule of floortime

Which is to observe

At first he was on the swing in the playground and I was trying to get him to think of substituting words in the "Farmer in the Dell " to "Papa in the house "..

OMG so much resistance

 I found myself  thinking in a victim-like way - how hard it is to get him to participate

But as I watched him - my mood shifted

I thought of all the things that were wrong with my approach

How I had forgotten that the first rule of playing with the child is to observe ?

I watched him sitting beneath the tree shredding a leaf

And I st next to him and shredded the leves with him

Soon we were making a pile of leave together

Then he wanted to play ringa ringa roses

Now HE WAS changing the words of the sonds and were doing ringa ringa roses dance to new songs

Such a silly thing to do with an 8 year old child but I felt that magic moment of connectedness

I have kept myself from a connection with all my assumptions of how things should be

Yes its very difficult to get R to play

But its not so difficult to connect

Later 2 little girls came and jeered at R wanting to swing in the little swing - and he just did not bother

And I though that this is the quintessestial moment that mothers blog about when you get the stab in the heart

But I did not feel anything

Except for the fact that those two little girls  were maybe mean kids , or they were maybe not meaning anything

But who cares -we  swung in the baby swing cheerfully and it was a lovely sunny evening in the park



Friday

Today at work I struggled with computers

After work - I went to Zumba.

 One of my friends from saved a spot - right in the front for me.

This was super prestigious but the flip side was that I could not shuffle at all .

I had to be super energetic and heave my bulk around - So exhausting

But it was all worth it when Derek ( guy who teaches the class - came down among us in the middle of the song ) - all of us huffed and puffed our portly selves .

DH and R also came to the club and DH took Rohan swimming

We went to the planetarium - AMAZING show - (for kids but I learned a a lot

I had forgotten all about light years and stars being born and dying and black holes )

R was a moaner  and complainer

DH yelled at him in the car for never wanting to try anything new

He weeped piteously and borrowed my Phone to play Nursery rhymes

1. Twinkle twinkle ( to show in fact that he WAS Interested in stars )

1. Ding dong bell .. to play the line "what a naughty boy was that " ( to show his contrition )

I intervened diplomatically y and a crisis was averted and we ended the night with Applebees -

where R stunned us by eating hot buffalo wings ( which are really chicken nuggets now that I think about it )

The weekend

Woke up late with DH and R  wrapped around me. This is my favorite way to wake up.


DH and I went for a walk when the therapist was doing ABA with Rohan but it started raining heavily so we only walked a mile ( so old people like )

Still pretty good as far as weekends go

I also was super organised for the week

(Though sometimes I wonder why am I always getting ready for something .
Then I do that thing ....Then its time to get ready for the next thing


We went to the Pro club that R loves- he did the usual ( jump etc ) get stuck on the slide then the walk of shame as all the kids wait impatiently as the instructor climbed to get him down

There is a large play area and R played with the blocks and made a giraffe and a camel ( the two things miss Gypis taught him )

This below is a giraffe

Here is a camel ( Alice ) with 5 humps

Oh Gypsi - I miss her so much

Sadie, Kristen, Tori - my Knoxville family !!!

I send her a FB message and we  have a love fest

I am so glad I always err on the side of being a sentimental person

R insists we buy him a cookie and eats it just like that - see that large butterfly cookie next to him )

Monday

(One of my friends told me that he hates the word "plump" .He also later told me the word "moist" gives him heebie jeebies

A few months later he confessed his phobia of raisins -

So of course now I sign every email with "Plump moist raisins")

I digress....

Guess why plumpness is on my mind

its cause I am not losing any weight

I finally broke down and bought a pair of Levis that are made for people who have large behinds

They are called "demi curve id ( translate junk in the trunk )

So I am eating SUPER healthy but not losing any weight

Why is it so hard to lose weight ?

I don't want to go hard core 17 day diet as its super hard to do and it requires the level of planning that I am just not prepared to do- DH and I did this once and it really worked

But I may have to do it anyways as this way (sort of )  is depressing

I watched a documentary on Netflix on why we are so fat ( answer Sedentary lifestyle and food industry, lack of sleep  and diet soda)


It was a rainy cold day ( cannot believe its almost may - so cold here still )

However there was a silver lining in this as well

Since it was so cold and miserable R ad I played and swung all by our selves s

We jump on the benches

Make up songs

( though in retrospect I hope that he will not sing the song of "this is the way mama dances round the pole " to  here we go round the mulberry bush )

The cold was totally worh it

We even manage our picnic

R has been mistreating his Wii Discs - so I have put them away so he will have to ask for them in a 1 by 1 basis

I have left a note for him ( later next week I find that he has colored on the note and also hunted his discs)

Tuesday - Thursday

Followed the same pattern

Sunny days - that I spend busy at work

Sunny evenings that we made good use of by going daily to the park

Thursday I prevent a girl from being bullied in the park and I feel so happy about it

Friday

I get to work from home in the afternoon  which I am super happy about

R has the day off ( admin day at school ) and is super happy to have me home

We  meet our neighbor

All I know about her before this is that she homeschools 3 kids and is from Kansas.

Based on this , I had instantly stereotyped her in my mind as a perfect and superior  person  like Gwenyth Paltrow. ( my reader friends you know me well and know that this is not a compliment )

In meeting her, she is really sweet and instantly won my affection by saying that she had bought some chocolate to welcome us but then had eaten it herself

R scratches his butt and since he has been weeping a little while ago he looks like an urchin  ( as his father had threatened him with not getting to sleep on the couch that night . This is his weekend treat and means a lot to him. Weekdays he must sleep in his bedroom . Weekends he sleeps on the couch watching us as we watch TV after dinner and drifting off to sleep on a couch with a blanket  ) -

Still she says how high functioning he seems ( I know this is a very bad word in the autism community - but I still like this term when its used for R )

We go to the park and R tried to engage me once again in his scripts

"Leo says " he prompts ( waiting for me to say "we got a mission")
I oblige

And then I floortime him " And mama says ....."

I look expectantly

And he replies " Mama says .. I love you "

And I am floored