photos and a meme

Right you are, Christine. Fodder for a light blog post is just what I needed! Thanks. I didn't get to it over the weekend, and that's probably for the best, as the basement at home would make the "5 things in your room" question kind of unmanageable and/or uninteresting.

So, as I eat my lunch...

5 things found in my bag:

I carry this big black Kenneth Cole bag. I think Bill gave it to me before we were even married. It has held up well. I carry around all kinds of unfinished business in there, along with

-my purse (damn, it's on sale now!)

-our check register (watching every day for that "stimulus money" to be deposited!)

-this hair product on the rare day that I do use it, it's applied in the car or after I've arrived at work

-5 Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupons

-100+ pieces of paper pertaining to summer special needs programs, recipes, mapquest directions, e-mail addresses of my jury duty friends, etc. etc. etc.

5 favorite things in my room (office):

A Harry Potter poster hanging next to Henry's 2007 Mother's Day project

Henry made this planter at school. I bought the shamrock plant on our trip to the conservatory last spring.

Photos of the kids, a "sweet strawberry" Yankee candle, a tiny wooden vase Kate bought me on vacation one summer, a stuffed squirrel my boss gave me as a joke the day I was freaking out after hitting a squirrel on the way to work...

That's at least 5 things.

5 things I always wanted to do:

-Visit New Orleans

-Get together with my internet friends in real life

-Be independently wealthy

-Finish that Einstein biography

-stay awake while lying in bed with my son so that I can watch tv or have a conversation past 9 pm

5 things I am currently into:

-Amy Winehouse's cd (I know, I'm behind the times)

-jogging a couple times a week

-Lost

-trying to figure out what the future holds for our family but not freak out about it

-these:

a little heavy on pictures of the youngest

You're lucky I didn't write this last night. I finally broke down and bought Claritin D- the kind you have to buy from the pharmacist and practically get finger-printed for. I feel like such a criminal when I buy it that I avoid it as long as I can.

But Friday night I really couldn't breathe and so I bought the drugs on Saturday. Saturday night was fine, but last night? I was on some kind of decongestant trip. I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep and my mind started racing about the dumbest stuff: Henry's puzzles are still out in the basement. I should have had him help put them away. I have that chore chart that we never use. I really need to start using that with the boys. I shouldn't have bought that DVD for Henry without showing that he earned it somehow. There's a basket of laundry downstairs that I didn't fold yet...

People actually abuse these drugs because they WANT to feel this way? No thanks.

So.

Thomas had his first-ever soccer practice Saturday.

He did his usual shy thing, but I'm sure he will warm up to it. This league for 4-year-olds doesn't have games or anything, just practices. Luckily we have a very dear 10-year-old friend who plays many sports and gives us lots of hand-me-downs. So we are set for shoes and shin guards. But I have been informed (by my husband) that these shorts he's wearing are not appropriate, so they will have to make a trip to the sports supply store. (Roll eyes.)

Later on Saturday we went to the library and then to the grocery store. I did buy Henry the 101 Dalmations DVD and I did struggle with that decision.

When his teacher started reporting on Henry's day using 0-5 stars, the idea was that we would track how many stars he earned, and tie that in to a reward. Needless to say, the system hasn't really worked. He'll have an excellent couple weeks of 4 & 5 star days, but we won't happen to go to the store that weekend.

Then he'll have a couple rough weeks of 1 & 2 star days (even 0 stars one day this month), and I'll turn around and buy him a DVD. Maybe it's just me being a mushy marshmallow-spine mommy, but I find it hard to say no sometimes. Henry is a smart kid. But I'm not sure that he truly understands a consequence that is not immediate. I look in his eyes as I say "I know you want that DVD, but you can't have it because you kicked your teacher on Tuesday" and I don't see understanding there. All I see staring back at me is the blind desire for this DVD. And, if I'm being honest, I see the threat of a full-blown freak out if we don't bring the DVD home.

I am considering making it more of a daily consequence- you can't watch a movie after school if you haven't had a good day. But then I think about how hard he works at school all day and how chilling out with a movie probably feels so good to him, and I lose my resolve.

And sometimes I feel like all this talk about how many stars he earns just stresses him out. He starts to cry and shout "on Monday, I won't earn any stars! I will not be good!"
So, I'm a pushover. My secret is out.

Tommy's child-care provider has been doing more fun stuff with the kids. A couple weeks ago they planted zinnia seeds:

So this weekend Bill and Tommy moved them to roomier pots:

That squirt bottle he's using? It has provided HOURS of outdoor fun. Who knew that squirting water at stuff was so entertaining?

Both boys rode their bikes some more this weekend. I told Henry, more than once, that we were just going on a bike ride. I did not bring my money and we were not going to stop at Starbucks. But he did not believe me. This resulted in a few angry moments and about a quarter mile of him pushing his bike, rather than riding it. (I guess this was some sort of protest, but it really only punished him!) So, see, I don't always give in!

Tommy had a small wipe out, which led to the overuse of these cool band-aids:

Springtime feels really good. Having our whole family back home again feels really good. If we could just figure out the new VCR so we could record The Office, all would be right.

the pictures are misleading- this post is a downer

Remember that good/bad post the other day? That's how my life feels all the time lately. A friend asks about my weekend, and I debate: do I tell report the good or the bad? Because we are living a twilight zone of some of each these days. And to dwell on either for too long seems to not give enough attention to the other.

I can give the sun-shiney report:

-That Henry attended a different gymnastics class Friday; his teacher feels he is ready to move out of the special needs class and into just a "boys fitness" class. Bill said Henry did a good job and seemed to enjoy being "one of the guys".

-That Tommy went to a crazy bowling-alley birthday party on Saturday; he ran around in circles in his bowling shoes until his hair was plastered to his forehead and his cheeks were tomato-red; he hauled the 6-lb bowling ball up to the lane every time and dropped/threw it down- three times into the gutter (despite the bumpers) and once following up with a kick to get it going.
-That both boys successfully rode their new (from Christmas) bikes all the way to the library (over 1/2 mile from home); that Henry required very little help and rode with the posture and attitude of an old man- slow and steady; Tommy needed quite a bit of help at first- for all the things that come easily to him, riding a bike was not one; but by the trip home he was easily keeping up with his brother, and even "skidded" a couple times (how does he know about skidding?!)

Autism Awareness month is making me a little uneasy. I wonder what I'm supposed to do to acknowledge this? Because I live Autism Awareness all the time. People who come into contact with me and my family learn about autism through us. I don't shout at them about cures or about vaccines, I just am and I just talk and I think they get the real story.

I frankly become exhausted by acquaintances who say "I saw Jenny McCarthy on Larry King last night. She said there's a special diet that can cure autism." Yeeeaaaahhhh. Sigh. Or even friends who say "I watched part of Autism: The Musical. Wow- it looked so hard to live with some of those kids." Yeeeaaaahhhh. It's hard to live with any kid on a given day.

I don't know- one of my kids has autism. He needs special education. Certain situations are challenging for him, and thus challenging for the rest of us, his family. I want people to be understanding of that and I'd like the medical community to continue to probe what can be done to make my son's life easier.

But my other children find different situations challenging. I want people to be understanding of them, too. I think if you gathered up all my mommy worry in gallon jugs and measured it, you'd find equal parts of lifetime worry devoted to each of the 3 kids.

Finally, this may seem unrelated, but it just really seems right to me today: the folks found guilty in my jury trial last month have been arrested in an attempt to leave the country. In my world, where few things seem to be cut-and-dried, black-or-white, I just like knowing that these people did wrong, they were found guilty, they are proving their guilt by trying to run away, and they were caught by the good guys. Sometimes a good cops-n-robbers/law-n-order story just really hits the spot.