In So Many Words

Boy, this four-day weekend has gone by fast! I was planning to log in and try to get some work done today, since my coworker may have to attend a funeral on Monday, which would put me in charge of the current training class for the day.

However, I forgot that Michael and I were scheduled to go to Dutch Wonderland with some friends this afternoon. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully the weather will be good. It is sunny right now and supposed to be in the high 30s/low 40s, but with snow later tonight. Last time we went with the weather forecast, we drove into a blizzard that started five hours early!

This was definitely the Christmas of the video game at our house. We have never purchased a game system before, but we took the plunge this year and got a Wii. Since my brother decided to buy the player for us, Santa brought the extra remotes and stuff we needed to play together as a family plus an extra game to play. Michael pretty much wants to play Mario Kart all day long, but hasn’t protested too much when we told him to take a break.

I used the money my in-laws gave me for my birthday to get a Wii Fit Plus, so we spent some time last night getting that set up for the three of us. Michael’s real age was 15, so he was very excited. Bob & I weren’t as excited to test a few years older than we actually are, but I am just surprised it didn’t tell me I was ready for retirement! I set a goal, so we’ll see what happens. I haven’t seriously tried to lose weight since the year before I got pregnant because I just assumed I would fail, which I know isn’t the right attitude but is how I feel.

I just know that I need to get myself in better shape before my health is seriously jeopardized. With the last 20 pounds I put on, my reflux has gotten worse and I have developed some mild sleep apnea, both of which interfere with my sleep.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it’s more than time to be finishing up Christmas presents. Especially since my husband’s family has decided to celebrate on the weekend before Christmas! (I’m totally fine with those plans, if any of you are reading, by the way. It just means I have to get myself organized!)

Anyway, 5 Minutes for Mom is having a fantastic bunch of giveaways, 30 in all. You can enter through Friday, December 4th at 12pm EST, and they will be announcing the winners on December 5th, so everything can be shipped out in time for Christmas.

As part of their Christmas celebration, 5MFM is also sponsoring Under the Tree 2009, where you can nominate a deserving family in need to win some of the same prizes being offered in the giveaways. What a wonderful opportunity to see someone blessed!

Michael has been talking about wanting a cat for a while, and yesterday I heard about this kitty, who has been living in a bathroom for the last few days,

because of this doggy, and needed a new home.

So, last night we went to meet him, and now…

he is living under our bed!

Actually, he is very friendly and lovable, just a tiny bit nervous still about Michael after living with a toddler and a baby. His name is Stubby (long story), but we are still deciding if we are going to change it or not.

It has been over three years since we said goodbye to the cat we got from my mom right when we got married, and I am really looking forward to having a pet again.

Visit Special Exposure Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday for more great photos!

Today is my son Michael’s 7th birthday! I can hardly believe it – I remember being amazed when he turned 7 months old, and now here we are with this big kid running around our house.

A few weeks ago, I got an idea to make him a scrapbook for his birthday. The plan was to fill it with positive words that describe him and would build up his self-image, which can often be very negative. He loves the alphabet, so I decided to make it go in alphabetical order. I used bright colors for the backgrounds and put them in rainbow order, which is also a must for him!

My friend Lisa and I got together last Friday night and actually put the entire thing together in a six-hour marathon scrapbooking session. I could never have done it without her help and expertise, and I am so amazed by the finished product that I had to share it with everyone.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Tackle It Tuesday. I’m also over at 5 Minutes for Special Needs today, talking about Teaching the Value of Money. Whether you have a child with special needs or not, we’d love to have you join in and share your ideas on this topic.

With my son’s birthday coming up on Tuesday, I had gotten the bright idea to make him a scrapbook that would be filled with positive things about him to help improve his self-image (both in terms of accuracy and self-esteem).  I didn’t realize how long it would take me to actually figure out how I was going to do and get started on it.  Earlier this week, I finally got photos picked out and found a variety of paper, stickers and other items to use for the project.

The plan was to have words from each letter of the alphabet, since that is one of his loves, and I decided to use bright color backgrounds and put the colors in rainbow order (another strong preference of his).  Well, I went to my friend Lisa’s house on Friday night, thinking that we would get started and then I would spend the next two days holed up in my basement finishing it . . . but wouldn’t you know it, we FINISHED THE ENTIRE THING in a marathon six-hour session!!! 

The finished product is amazing (IMHO), although we are NEVER doing anything like that again.   I can hardly wait until Tuesday evening to give it to him.  Here’s a sneak peek of the first page:

Edited to add: I realized later that I forgot to put a link to the new blog (although I do have a widget with the feed in my sidebar). Anyway, it’s at Autism Interrupted.

I wasn’t sure I was even going to mention this here, but I started a new blog. It’s really a place just to ramble and let it all hang out. I found a really cute, girly template from BlogU (it’s pink, which I normally avoid!).

Here’s my first post from the blog, just to give you an idea:

Why start a new blog? Well, there are actually a few reasons why I decided to start a second blog.

The main one is that I keep finding myself hesitating over things I want to share on my original blog (Another Piece of the Puzzle). Sometimes it seems too personal, or too rambling, or even too negative, so I talk myself out of it. I don’t want to be the person who writes down everything that happens to her and posts so much mundane stuff that people don’t want to read it. So here I can let it all hang out and not worry about whether anyone will want to read it.

I also struggle about how much of my blog is about autism. Yes, my son has autism and, yes, it takes up a good deal of my time and energy. But there is so much more to life, and discovering who I am behind the autism mom image is another reason I started blogging almost 11 months ago.

I think what I am finding is that I do have a passion for autism and special needs, but I also want to explore my other passions. That’s not to say I won’t talk about autism here, because I probably will, but I will likely write more about the journey and the things I am trying to figure out. I may also write more about my faith, which I haven’t done too much because it is also such a journey of changing understanding and revelation.

A smaller reason is that, even though I am glad to have moved my blog to WordPress, I miss Blogger and keeping up with all the new stuff they are working on over here! I loved playing around with my template all the time and learning new things about the code. I am too intimidated by my WordPress template to mess around with it very much.

What did you give yourself for Christmas?

(Like Land, Ho! when you are at sea – I hope that wasn’t totally confusing – oh, never mind, just ignore my weak attempts at humor.)

I am starting to feel a bit more like my usual self today, and that is such a relief!  Having suffered from depression for so long and only recently feeling like I was beginning to be free of it, it can be a bit scary to feel the same symptoms again – even when they are from a known illness.

Bob had the day off today (he goes back to work on Friday), so we made our grocery list and reviewed the Christmas presents to see what was still needed.  We didn’t get quite as much done as we wanted since he ended up having to take his car to the garage after coming out of the library to find the muffler hanging down.  It was sort of odd, but he had been needing to get his turn signal replaced for a while anyway, so it was good that he had the time to take care of it.  That’s my opinion anyway; as the person who had to change his plans to sit in a waiting room at a repair shop, he wasn’t so happy about it!

Tomorrow my office closes at 3:00, so I am going in early to get my four hours in.  I am hoping to sneak in a trim over at Supercuts before work, and then we are planning to go out for dinner tomorrow night as part of my birthday celebration as I will be turning 39 on Thursday.  Yes, I was a Christmas baby.  Yes, I got gypped on presents and parties.  I truly don’t mind it too much, however, since I always thought it was better to be born on the actual holiday than just before or after.  At least I never have to work on my birthday!

I have been thinking how weird it is to write a blog that no one knows about.  I am not keeping it a secret, exactly – it is on my Blogger profile and I added to a bunch of my online services last night – but I haven’t announced it or anything yet.  I guess I should do that in case there are people out there who do want to listen to my ramblings.  I think some people who aren’t involved with special needs may have lost interest in my other blog as that began to take over so much of the content, so maybe I will be able to connect with them here.  Although I can’t say I won’t talk about autism or other issues like that, but this already feels like more of a retreat for me.

Well, it’s getting a bit late, so I’m signing off for now.  I got an email today with a great poem that is a cross between Twas the Night Before Christmas and Dr. Seuss with an autism twist, and I got permission to post it over at APP, so I’m hoping to get that in before I go to bed.

So, the Little Guy’s sixth birthday is on March 10th, and it has been a topic of conversation for quite a while, but now we are up to evey morning:

YESTERDAY MORNING
LG: I have a surprise for you!
ME: What is it?
LG: It’s the first day of my birthday month!

THIS MORNING
LG: Guess what?
ME: What?
LG: Only eight more days to go!
ME: Until what – oh, yes, your birthday.

He has been adding things to his birthday list since Christmas was over – sometimes things he has seen, but also things he thinks about (if you think about it, it must exist somewhere, right?) Some of them are easy to find, such as Boohbah DVD’s and a Mega Rig fire truck, but others are more challenging, including toy waffles with syrup and Boohbah costumes for all three of us. I did manage to track down the waffles with syrup, but I don’t think I am going to look too hard for the costumes – I really don’t want to dress up like Zing Zing Zingbah!!

What’s the best thing your little ones have asked for as a Christmas or birthday present?