July

Ok, July is gone, but the heat lingers.

I still haven't watched Howard's End yet, the netflix disc taunts me continually. I did see the rest of the Harry Potter movies before the premier of HP-VIIb. I took Kevin to see the show at midnight. It was fun, getting caught up in the whole first-night frenzy, but I really want to see it again in a normal way, no craziness, no kids in school uniforms. Dan hasn't seen it yet, either, so I'm thinking "date night!" Every time I think I have an open evening, our darling daughter gets a call asking her to work, and no daughter means no supervision for Kevin.

Speaking of Kevin, Dan and I are discussing getting him a cell phone. There are many times when he's out on his bike, for example, and I want to get a message to him, like, "come home!" Last month when Dan was in California I'd hand my phone to Kevin so he could type out a message to his dad. Sometime he'd rebel, sometime he'd answer Dan's questions, and sometimes he'd just type back what was asked of him. Written echolalia. I'm afraid, on the other hand, he'll lose it, or it'll get taken from him; he won't be responsible for it, or he'll manage to run up a $600 phone bill. Fern managed to rack up an extra $120 last month, so anything is possible with The Boy.

I have a stack of Girl Scout vests I've been ignoring and many quilting projects that should require my attention. I've set a goal of finishing one by the time state and county fair entries are due so I'll have to get it done. I need to get another quilt done by October so it can be included in a book being published by the woman who designed the patterns. Add the monthly sewing obligation of the swap we're doing in my bee. Sheesh.

OK, that's enough for now, just listing it all out makes my head hurt.

Kevin

July 3, 2011
I'm sitting on the beach at Rehoboth, DE watching Kevin play at the edge of the surf. He truly is an amazing child. And not because I'm his mom and am paid to think that. If you don't know Kevin, he's my eighteen year old autistic son. 

Kevin is always happy, or nearly so. He finds joy in all that he does. He is perfectly happy sitting in the surf on a crowded beach on a holiday weekend where most of us would get antsy with the crowdedness. He scoops sand from a wet hole in front of him and pats it on to a mound beside him. Scoop, pat, pat, pat. Scoop, pat, pat, pat. He is never distraught when a wave laps up to fill in his hole and erodes the mound. He continues his mission when the water recedes. And for an hour or more he continues like that, building his shapeless mound, which gets larger as the afternoon wears on and the tide gets lower. Perfectly happy. 

At home he can be happy riding his bike through the neighborhood, or playing with legos for hours on end, or commandeering my iPad and slinging birds at silly green pigs. He is happy where he is and never complains of boredom; he takes care of himself. 

But more than that, he's amazing because he wants for nothing. He is very hard to shop for because of this, however. He just doesn't want anything. He's not the type of kid who peruses the Sears Christmas catalog and circles six things on every page. I'm reminded of a scene in Harry Potter I where Dumbledore tells Harry about the Mirror of Desire, it shows the true desire of anyone who looks into it (Harry sees a family, Dumbledore sees warm socks) and anyone who is truly happy will see only himself. I think Kevin would see only himself. 

It amazes me that in this materialistic world we live in, I have a child who is so happy and joyful with what he has.

Weekend Round-up, Among OtherThings

I'm not usually one of those moms that dash off to the ER at the sight of blood, but when the sight of blood wasn't ending, I took The Boy in. I knew there was nothing to stitch up, since the edge of his left index finger was gone, but I knew I couldn't stop the bleeding by myself. He was cutting salami.

Dan was in Tampa for the weekend golfing with his friends.

I did a lot of laundry this weekend. The last load is in the dryer right now. It's the "everything else" load. Usually I pick through what is on the floor of the laundry room to make a load of like items, darks, pastels, colors, whites, towels. The "everything else" load is the stuff that falls through, the stuff that doesn't pass muster on previous sorting rounds. It's the load you hate to put away because it's usually a bunch of mismatched socks and shirts that are too small for your youngest child. You know. I'll have that load waiting for me tonight. Oh joy.

Lost is back tomorrow night after a nine-month hiatus. I gotta make sure the DVRs are set. Yes, both of them. I started a Lost marathon yesterday by rewatching season 5. This interrupted a Lois & Clark season 1 marathon and ended up being interrupted by watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days because we wanted to send it back to Netflix.

I found Season 1 of Lois and Clark on eBay for The Girl (and myself!) because I enjoyed it 16 years ago and thought she might like it, too. "Like it" turned out to be an understatement. She loves it and thinks Dean Cain is wonderful, gorgeous, and very good-looking. He was quite yummy in that show, wasn't he? I found Season 2 on eBay and she had that watched in a heartbeat. Now she's dying to have Seasons 3 and 4, but I can't find them as cheaply as I found 1 & 2 and I'm not willing to pay $61 per season at Borders, or even $40 at Amazon. She'll get her homework done and I'll keep looking for bargains online.

I've had 21 Girl Scout vests to work on this month. I didn't think my stack would ever diminish, but it's down and I now have only four to go, then it's back to personal sewing/quilting. Yay.

The quilt retreat is coming up at the end of next week so I've made a list of projects to take with me. It's a small list, only ten or twelve things. Sheesh. I probably ought to take my ritalin with me so I can stay focused and not get overwhelmed. And get stuff done. There are three guys in my office whose wives are due with babies and I've promised them all baby quilts. Silly me. The nice thing about baby quilts is that you can make them small and no one will complain.

I ordered a portable sewing machine table with some birthday and badge-sewing money. It should be here in time for the retreat. This new table will make it easier to do machine quilting at retreat, where it was impossible before because the table was not flush with the bed of the sewing machine.

Since I haven't had a proper blog post in a while, I'd better stop here. I can't give away all my secrets at once, and, I still have real work to do even though the crush is (almost) past.



 

I just turned my back for a second...

I've wanted to post this picture for a while. Kevin brought me my phone one day to show me the letters he had photographed. I didn't even know he had it. He figured out how to turn on the phone, open the camera, and press the shutter button. Several times.

Kevin started forming an attachment to my iPhone and I was afraid I'd never be able to use it again. He decided it belonged in his hands or in the charger, and he would get upset if I tried to make a call with it.

Dan and I ended up buying him his own "iPhone," an 8gb iTouch, (much to the chagrin of Fern, of course) so I could have my phone back. I loaded it up with a bunch of free apps and a lot of his favorite music. He loves it and it doesn't matter it's not really a phone, even though that's what he calls it.

Oh, and he LOVES the iPhone ads on TV. He has to rewind them and watch them over and over again, they make him giggle and smile.

I just wish they made the iTouch with a camera in it, I'd love to see more of Kevin's art. Maybe if I'm brave, I'll let him use my phone again.
 

Lost Weekend

He's a faker! OMG! He's such a faker! He's not even from Iraq.
No, Honey, he's an actor.
He's a faker!
He's an ac-tor.
Faker!
Actor.

The Girl is yelling at the TV. Or maybe me. I am watching the bonus features DVD for Lost Season 2 and she joins me part-way through. Naveen Andrews is talking on the screen about the show with a pristine British accent although he plays the Iraqi Republican Guard survivor on Lost. Also from London is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who plays a Nigerian crimelord-turned-priest. Later, Daniel Dae Kim, who speaks no English on the show, only Korean, speaks accent-free English in the bonus features. It's all quite jarring, especially if you've bought into all these characters, hearing then talk in their native tounge. The Girl is outraged. These people are fakers! No, they're actors. She storms out.

The Lost season 5 premier is January 21 so we've been watching the past seasons pretty much non-stop the past two weekends. She says her homework is finished... I even bought Season 4 yesterday, which The Girl had to break into right away even thought we hadn't even finished watching Season 3. She's so into it now, when the show premiered in 2004, it was too much for her, too gory, too adult. Now she's giddy, it'll be the best thing about next week.

Outwitting the Outwitter

I like chocolate milk. I have a hard time drinking it plain. I'll make a glass for myself and after I've finished my first gulp the glass disappears. My son also likes chocolate milk and believes any glass of milk in the house is meant for him. He'll finish any glass I've made for myself, he'll even take it right out of my hands mid-sip.

So I make two glasses and drink from of one of them. He takes it away. I pick up the other and start drinking it. Score one point for Mom.

He takes the new glass away from me and pours the remaining milk into his other glass.

Sheesh.
 

Got Tired?

I was hoping Kevin would have been a bit more tuckered out last night, but he wasn't. He was still heading off to bed at 1:30. Sheesh.

I was hoping for an earlier bed time because Monday and Tuesday nights he had attended new activities. Monday night he started a new gymnastics class. It's a main-stream class at the sports center held once a week for 11 weeks. Since Kevin's not ready to do a regular class by himself I called for an inclusion aide to be with him. I had to drop him off early, his class started at 7:15 and my water aerobics class started at 7:00. I checked him in at the desk and told the gal he has autism and someone from inclusion was supposed to show up. We told Kevin where to wait since he was so early and I went to my class saying a quick prayer for everything to work out.

After my class I got to observe the last bit of his. They were on the trampoline. The boys were to do a series of jumps: tuck, straddle, pike, and turn. I saw the aide sitting with Kevin (yay!) while he awaited his turn. The instructor was great working with each boy at his level, and patiently showed Kevin what to do. He got the tuck jump down pat, but couldn't combine that with a straddle jump. Maybe next week.

After the class the inclusion aide introduced herself to me and said Kevin did well and tried everything and followed instructions well. I explained if Kevin doesn't follow a rule, write it down for him to read and usually he'll get it.

Last night Kevin went to his strength training class for teens and adults with disabilities. He'd missed the first class last week because he was sick, but fell right into the routine of the group when he got there. The instructor said he did well, did everything twice. Upon quizzing him on the way home, Kevin told me he did the treadmill, the bike, the stair stepper and used the weights. I asked what the number was on the weights and he said 10. Maybe he'll go to bed earlier if they give him 15's to use?

Rounding up November

Wow, I've got two weekends to round up. I'll try not to forget any of the good parts and summarize the boring bits.

In this Issue:

• Gadget Corner


• IEP Season


• He did What?


• Teen Drama


• Thanksgiving vs. Mendoza


• High Def Rain

Gadget Corner

A while back on John's blog he got a comment from a fellow trucker who runs. I checked out her blog and she had written about a GPS pedometer. Since I walk every morning I wanted one. I want to know how far I really walk and how fast. I was thinking the $150 model would suit me fine. When I didn't get one for my birthday I used the Costco coupon for $40 off the model they have and got the $300 model for $160. I'm loving it, it's a fun gadget. It draws a trail where I walk and beeps at me when I drop below a 15:20 mile, which happens a lot when the three of us talk too much in the mornings. I've logged over 27 miles so far and end up finishing the 3.06-mile loop in about 44 minutes. Not too bad.

IEP Season

For some reason they wanted to change Kevin's IEP schedule from spring to fall. So last Monday I went in and met with Kevin's team. It was actually the first time I'd met his current teacher because the one who started the school year quit. The meeting was lead by the head of the Special-Ed department and not the new teacher.

Most of the plan was the same as last year, but I didn't think they had enough math concepts covered so I had comparisons added (less than, greater than, before, after) as well as a component of measuring. I also inquired about shop class. Kevin loves to put things together and I think with some supervised instruction, he'd do well. I'd like him to transition from pictorial instructions to reading and comprehending written assembly instructions. My inquiry was a general question, Is it possible in the future Kevin could take shop class, maybe next year? He's now signed up for Tech-ed for next semester. Ohmigoodness, that scares me and thrills me at the same time. He'll be in the regular-ed boys every-other day. I'm sure I'll report how that goes.

He did what?

Kevin caught a cold last weekend and by Monday night his voice was gone. We kept him home from school on Tuesday. Kevin hardly ever gets sick, Tuesday was his first missed day of school in several years. But that's beside the point. We don't stock a lot of liquid cold medicine for him since he doesn't usually need it, and had nothing to give him for all his symptoms except gel-caps. Which he swallowed without ceremony. I was stunned, Dan was shocked. We were both happy with this new skill.

Teen Drama

Applications for First Choice High (FCH) were due on the 21st by 2:30 pm. The application packet consisted of the form, copies of the 7th grade final report card and the first quarter 8th grade card, and an optional essay. I'm not sure how the whole thing went down but I found part of the packet for Fern's neighborhood friend on our kitchen counter on Saturday the 22nd.

I asked Fern why Amanda's application was in our house. She starts flipping out. "Dad was supposed to turn that in, Amanda's gonna hate me, her mom's gonna be mad at her and she's gonna hate me.....," talking fast and anxious like only teen girls can do. We can't ask Dan, who turned in Fern's packet on Friday morning, didn't turn in Amanda's. He was on a road trip to La Grange, KY for a college roommate's surprise 50th birthday party in another college friend's car and his phone was in his car parked at that friend's house.

No one specifically said to Dan, "here is Amanda's application, will you turn it in too, please?" But Fern swears we said we'd take it and knew about it. I left for work early that day and knew nothing about special requests. I turned it in to the high school on the way to the IEP meeting.

As it turns out, the head of the special-ed is good friends with one of the chairs of FCH and emailed her my story when I was there for the IEP meeting the following Monday. (FCH, is a special application-only honors program within the local high school.) In the mean time, I called Amanda's mom to explain what happened on our end and where the application was. She wasn't mad at us or at Amanda. It was her responsibilty after all. Amanda's not mad at Fern, and Fern is not mad at us. The FCH chair called me and accepted the app late anyway. Now, if Amanda gets in and Fern doesn't, heads will roll, baby, heads will roll.

Thanksgiving vs. Mendoza.

I'm still above my Mendoza line and am not happy about it. I get so close, then go and do something stupid like have cake at a birthday party Saturday night. Grrr. I'll be doing the "on the ball" class at the gym at lunch and I'll be back to my water aerobics class tonight. There were no classes last week, which didn't help the cause any.

High Def Rain

Three weeks ago I negotiated a fabulous deal with DirecTV for high def service and picked an install date of yesterday, it was the first Sunday appointment they had. I hate taking off work to wait for someone to maybe show up in a 12-4 window. The guy showed up at 2:00. Except it was raining. And the tech wouldn't climb up on the roof in the rain for an hour and install a new 40lb dish. Grrr. I complained and got free Show Time for several months. They are supposed to be coming back today and Dan, the great guy that he is, is going home to meet them when they call so say they are on the way. I bet they forget to call. Scattered showers in the forecast for the afternoon, too.

Shopping With Kevin

I took Kevin shopping for jeans the other day. He's in another growth spurt and is showing a lot of ankle again so I set out to cover them up.

The boy is rapidly approaching six feet tall, he's probably just a half inch shy now, and he weighs 110 pounds. Picture a light pole looming over everybody nearby, a light pole with a lot of sock glaring between the jeans and the high-top sneakers, that is. I headed to Sears so see what they had. In the Boys' department he's about a size 12 in the waist and a 20 in length. In the Men's department he's about a 25x32. However, the smallest waist available is 28". Sheesh.

I gave him a pair of regular fit 28x32 Lee's and took him to the men's fitting room. Three times I explained about going in the room, putting on the new pants, and coming back out to show me. I was apprehensive but hopeful. I waited outside the door for what seemed like forever, and eventually he came out wearing jeans that were finally long enough, but sereral inches too big at the waist and very baggy in the butt. They didn't droop too much as to violate the dress code at school so I decided to buy them. I found four pairs of 28x32 pants, each a different color and asked him to pick out two. I asked him if he wanted a belt. "NO!"

The next day I did some searching on the 'net for skinnier jeans. I found a place that'll make them for you for $135 but the smallest waist on their pull-down list was 28". Sheesh. Not that I would actually spring for $135 jeans for my baby, but why brag about custom-fit jeans if you're not going to make them small enough for your average bean pole?

And before you even ask, No, I'm not going to make jeans for him myself!

 

Weekend Stuff, Oh, and a Rant

Brrrrr. It was cold this morning, 34°! I had to pull out my gloves and hat for my walk.

Fern got me to take her and two friends to the movie on Friday night; we saw The Secret Life of Bees. She wanted to see it because it had Dakota Fanning in it, the other characters were played by Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys. Given the demographic of the actors, the demographic of the audience was about the same. I didn't want to believe the stereotype that black audiences talk back to the movie, but they do. Oh well, the movie was still good, I enjoyed it. Nobody told me I was going to need to take tissues with me.

I went through my stash to find a fabric for the back of the wedding quilt I'm working on for my cousin. I have fabric stashed away in lots of different bins with no real method of organization. I always have to pull it all out to find what I want, and make a real mess in the process. That would be on top of the mess that already exists. Sheesh. So I decided it was time to sort the stash with some meaningful system: by color.

I need large vessels to put the fabric in as I pull it out. I need something large, cheap, but sturdy. I looked in the dollar store and the largest things I could find were baskets the size of mixing bowls and gift bags. Not gonna work. Then I took a field trip to the mega dollar store and scored a dozen small laundry baskets. I got most of my fabric sorted and found my biggest pile was of greens, followed by blues, and a pile a pieces that clearly have more than one dominate color and I don't know what basket to put them in.

Now I've got to figure out how to store the fabric so I can find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it. But first I have to fold all these pieces into same-sized bundles. That's going to take forever. I actually have a smaller stash than lots of my quilting friends, but still, it'll take forever to fold up neatly.

I got the greens and purples folded and put back into their baskets, then changed gears. I got the wedding quilt basted and started quilting it. The pattern I picked will take a while to execute, but it should look good when it's finished.

Last night Dan and I went to the Rams Head to see Rodney Crowell. It was a good show, I didn't know his music ahead of time but enjoyed myself, nonetheless. He played for a long time so we got home later than expected and both kids were still up. Oh well. Kevin had given himself a nap after church so he was very much awake at 11:30 and I have no idea when he actually went to bed. He did make the bus this morning, though. That's the important thing, right?

I just spent far too long on the phone with the high school. Our high school is the largest in the state and until when and where they decide to build another school, our 9th graders have classes at The Annex, 10th 11th, and 12th grades are at the main building, along with all the special-ed kids. It's the only school in the district with a split campus.

Well, it seems the lunch accounts systems are separate for the two buildings. Kevin is classified as a 9th grader so his lunch account is at the annex even though he eats at the main building. Which means he has not been able to use the automated account system yet; we have to keep sending in money instead of a check, and I don't want to send in anything bigger than a $20. Dan got fed up with it and started asking who we (I) call to get this fixed.

It took calls on three different days to get a real person to answer the phone. Still, the person I spoke with passed me on to someone else and that person said she wasn't the correct person. Somebody in the registrar's office will have to set the mobility flag so the lunch system will work. Kevin isn't the only one in this boat, why do I have to call? Why can't they just do it for all the special-ed 9th graders? Why does system have to be split? Why doesn't the school district care and fix the system? Oh that one's easy. It only involves one school.

And, for what it's worth, this post might hold the record for the number of labels I tacked on to any given post.
 

Weekend Round-Up

I've been trying to write a weekend round-up post for a couple of days now and stuff keeps getting in the way. Like work.

In This Issue:

• Mr. Clean


• Child Services


• Laundry Queen


• Back to School

Mr. Clean

Last Friday was Day 3 after the teeth got pulled. My poor baby. I feel so bad having done this to Kevin without his full comprehension. Because of his autism, it's hard to explain it to him. He's so independent, he pretty much takes care of himself when it comes to napping when he is tired and eating when he's hungry. So He napped a good part of Wednesday and Thursday and ate very little despite the offerings of food. By Thursday night, he felt well enough to take a shower and by Friday morning he showered again and again and had taken three showers in 12 hours. I'm not really sure why.

I finally got him to swish the salt water in his mouth and not drink it. It took a lot of modeling but finally he got it. He even made his own cups of salt water after that.

The doctor said he'd only need ice on his cheeks for the first 12 hours, but Kevin made his own ice packs through Monday. I guess he knew he felt better with them. I wish he could explain it to me.

Child Services

Saturday morning Dan drove down to rendezvous with his sister to collect Fern since she had spent the week there with her cousin, Rose.

While she was gone I went into her room and got her hamper and collected all the clothes that were on the floor. Then I scraped together all the flotsam and jetsam from the periphery of her room into a pile, you know, that stuff she ignores when she thinks her room is clean. It's hard to ignore when it's in a big pile. All she has to do is sit down in one place and sort through the debris and, voila, her room is clean. But as I did I knew she'd be mad at me for doing it.

Laundry Queen

Saturday I added the laundry I got from The Girl's room to the pile in the laundry room. I got through most of it so there wasn't enough of any one type of clothes left to make a full load of anything. Whew. I even did a few loads of sheets and towels.

But on the other side of getting laundry done, is putting it away. Another chore I'm bad at. The pile on my dresser is so high I can barely see the mirror so I started a new pile on the floor next it. I have too many clothes, I know I do, but I'm reluctant about getting rid of stuff. AM helped me last week get rid of a lot of dresses that don't really fit or are hopelessly out of style. I am always grateful for her help, (always, always, always) and we cleared out a lot of rod space in my closet, but I wish she could have stayed for another hour or so. I need to clear out more to make room for the clean clothes I just washed.

My goal is to get the master bedroom in shape. Soon. I got part of the room cleaned up over the weekend, but now the cleaned-up spot needs vacuuming. Somehow our room collects stuff. Kevin likes to play in there. Like the rest of the house. Sheesh.

Back to School

Monday morning, the culmination of a summer vacation, was the first day of school. Both kids were up and ready on time. I opened the garage doors at 7:20 and Kevin went out to wait at 7:25. And waited. And waited.

Fern's bus information had come in the mail a week before school started but we didn't hear anything about Kevin's bus. I had checked the school's web site and found out his bus would pick him up at 7:31. Because he's on a special ed bus, we usually get a call with the information, not just a letter. Finally over the weekend we got a call from his new driver telling us the same time.

His bus never showed, unless it was way early. Which on the first day of school, I highly doubt. By 8:15 there is still no bus so I started calling around. The guy at the bus lot was very nice, even offered to send a bus to pick him up. I declined. He said he'd talk to the driver and find out when she came by my house and call me back.

I took Kevin to school and waited my turn in the busy office to explain my presence. The new CRI teacher herself came up to get him instead of an aide, so I got to meet his new teacher. She seemed nice, but a little frazzled. I didn't hold it against her.

The bus lot guy did call me back (surprise!) and said the driver said she was at our house at 7:35, only a few minutes late. But I know she never stopped by our house, I was there. I'd remember a big yellow bus pass by. Tuesday morning, we were ready and waiting, and the bus went past our house before it stopped. Kevin ran across the lawn to get on. Now you know, if she really was at our house on Monday, she would have known where to stop on Tuesday. Right?

This morning I tried to ask her where she went on Monday and she dodged the question by saying she was sorry she was late. Arrrgggggg.
 

The teeth are out and in a jar.

Ice is on the jaw.

The house is too quiet.

The Rest of the Story(s)

Last year I was comfortably below my Mendoza line, that weight I never want to go over. Clothes were fitting well; life was good. Winter came and as usual, I struggled with keeping the annual hibernation weight off. Then it took a while to get the spring break in Europe weight off. Finally I got below the line, but not as far below as I was last year, but I was holding steady. Life was OK. Then I went to Vegas and came back many pounds over the line, and not just a smidge, either. It took me a month to get stay back below.

Monday morning: I'm way over again. Too much food at the cook-out I guess. I hate that. Even the watchband won't stay clipped, I'm up so much.

---

I'm still not sleeping well, I tossed and turned until after 1:00 last night, then I got up and roamed the house for a while. I vacuumed the carpet in the sewing room and laid out my triangle quilt on the floor and studied the borders, auditioning different possibilities. I realized I don't like the inner-most border, it's too wide. So much for using the Fibonacci number sequence for border widths. Blah. I'll start taking off the borders tonight or tomorrow and re-work them. Maybe this time it'll work for me better. Here are two possibilities, a thin cream border before the green stripe and a thin dark red strip in the middle of the green:

---

When Fern went away to camp a couple weeks ago, her roommate, whom she had last year too, gave her a Stonehenge tote bag. Two days later she took it to the Orioles game with her, in it was her book and camera and other odds and ends. The following two weeks the bag was lost, she couldn't find it anywhere. I kept offering to call Orioles' guest relations office to see if they found it and she kept telling me she read the book on the way back from the game and didn't leave the bag there. But yet, the bag was still MIA.

Then I remembered she went to the church that night to help with vacation bible school. Sure enough, the bag was left at church and it was recovered a couple days later.

My parents sent Fern a tote bag for her birthday. She took it with her on our trip over the weekend. In it was some movies she watched on the laptop and her book. Monday night we start to gather the movies to return to Blockbuster. She can't find them. Where are they? In the tote bag. Where is it? I don't know. Did you leave it at Michelle's? I didn't take it there. Did you leave it in Damascus at the cookout? Maybe.

I call our friends and they have the bag. Tonight after work I'll drive up to meet them half-way to retrieve the bag. Aye-yi-yi.

In the mean time, The Girl has left the family Nintendo DS with the Guitar Hero cartridge at a neighbor's house. When she went over to collect the DS she brought home yet another forgotten tote bag.

---

Kevin continues to have wacky sleep patterns. He was awake at 4:30 yesterday morning. I'm not sure if he'd been awake all night long or just woke up in the middle of the night. We managed to keep him awake until after 8:00 last night, but then he fell asleep in our bed. At 5'10" he's too big to move while he sleeps so I had to wake him. I pulled the blanket off him and he woke right up and tried to pull it back. I told him I was changing the sheets and he had to go to his room. It worked. I am a mean mommy.

Fern was slow in waking for skating camp on Monday and Tuesday this week so I told her she had to be in her room lights out at 11:00. At 11:00 I tapped on her door and told her to turn off the light. I moved away from the door so the floor creaked a bit and stood there quietly. Thirty seconds or so later the light came back on. She was genuinely surprised when I pushed the door open and told her to turn off the light. I am a very mean mommy.

Project School day

This week Kevin's been in this cycle of crashing as soon as he gets home from his day camp and sleeping until midnight or so, then playing for a couple hours before going back to bed then waking up tired. So last evening I took him to the pool for a couple hours to keep him awake. It worked: he was awake until midnight. I guess I'll need to take him to the pool again tonight after work so he'll stay awake then maybe, hopefully, he'll fall asleep earlier than eleven and he'll get into a more normal cycle and less teenager-like.

While we were at the pool we saw Kevin's classroom aide from the middle school. She came over to me to say hi and tell us her news. She just, like yesterday, got offered a job at the high school and she'll be in Kevin's class. She's very excited because she's wanted a high school placement for a while now and get out of the middle school. I'm excited because it'll be great for Kevin to have her there to ease his transition to a new school and program and she'll already knows him so she can help the classroom teacher learn about him and what's in his IEP.

For a lot of years Kevin got a new teacher every year and would flounder, even regress, until about Thanksgiving while he got use to the new teacher and routines. Kevin did much better at the beginning of the year when he had the same teacher two or more years in a row. Since he's going to high school I couldn't expect anything consistent to help the transition and had to hope for the best, but now he'll be in a new place with a familiar face. I'm very pleased.

 

Portrait of Modern Parents

Scene: Last night; middle school cafeteria; crowded; rows of folding chairs filled with lots of parents with cameras; chairs and podium on the stage.

I'm sitting on a aisle seat so I can get up quickly to take pictures when I need to. I don't know where Dan is sitting.

The orchestra sounds better than I expected.

My cell phone rings and I put my earbud in and took the call.

I enjoy three selections by the 7th grade band.


The Rest of the Story:

I'm at Tasker Middle for the 8th grade awards ceremony, Dan's at Ogle Middle at Fern's spring band concert. Both started at 7:00 pm. Kevin sat with the students on the front row. From where I was sitting I could see a little of him and he seemed well behaved. He got called up to the stage four times for awards in "most improved in science," "academic excellence in math and reading," "academic excellence with a 4.0 gpa," and perfect attendance. Each time he went up with little or no prompting, accepted his certificate, and shook hands with the administrators and returned to his seat like a pro. Dan calls me when the 7th graders take the stage so I can hear Fern play. Shortly after she was done I lost reception so I couldn't return the favor and Dan couldn't hear Kevin's name for his 4.0 gpa. I did take pictures, however. But I can't post them because the camera battery is on the charger at home. Doh.

Lost Weekend

Kevin was up past 3:00 Saturday night.
And let us know about it.
Sheesh.

Sometime after 2:00 I promised him Five Guys after church if he'd just go to bed. Eventually he did.

I knew he'd take a nap when we got home from Five Guys which would then push his bed time back to some ungodly hour, again. I hate that.

Time for a preemptive strike. I camped out on my bed, where he like to take his naps, and attacked the backlog of laundry, matching socks and stacking underwear, while watching episodes of Lost on DVD. Every once in a while I'd hand him a stack of something to put away and he finally gave up on the nap idea and played computer games, instead.

I started at the beginning of season one of Lost since I hadn't seen it in a while. If you keep up with the show, you know we've learned things this season that blow "normal" TV out of the water. If the series hadn't done that already. So yesterday, I watched the first five or six episodes and I noticed that all those early comments, seemingly innocent at the time, have deeper meanings and are clues for the future. It's just like reading all the Harry Potter books over again after you've learned the end of the story and all those clues Harry and gang glossed over in the early years pop out at you like someone took a highlighter and marked up your books.

I started to head downstairs around dinner time but got shooed back up. I was served surf and turf dinner "in bed" and then I finally came downstairs for real to watch the Survivor finale at 8:00.

Kevin did have somewhat of a normal bed time, about 11:30, so the strategy worked for the most part. And, this is the bonus part, he won't (oughtn't) have that domino effect tonight and take a nap as soon as he gets home from after-care. He's off to high school in the fall and they have a start time of 7:30 which means he'll have to get up an hour earlier. Yikes. We'll have all summer to practice getting up early, right?

Weekend Round-Up

Well, I'm really rounding-up a lot more than the weekend, it's been a long time since I've been able to sit down at a computer and blog. I've been away from the office, too.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday I took the Acela to New York with a colleague to do some usability testing on a new instrument for work. After the last interview, I headed to SoHo for an appointment with Lina for a new haircut. I needed to get the mess fixed from the last cut I got. The new do is fab. I guess I'm too old to talk like that. The new haircut is great, especially a day later after all the stylin' was washed out. When I went to pay I was told my bill was five-twenty. $520? I don't even pay Nick, the owner, near that much. I say out loud "$5.20?" After a consultation with another clerk I was charged the proper amount.

I headed uptown to Times Square to the TKTS booth to meet my colleague to pick out a show to see. Whilst considering our choices, a man with two tickets ($76/seat) to August: Osage County offered them to us for $50 total. The show is pretty new, we'd never heard of it, but this man "swears" it'll win the Tony next month. (He was dumping the tickets because of a Rangers' game, or so he says.) Anyway, we took them and enjoyed the drama, although it was over three hours long and we didn't get back to the hotel until almost midnight.

Friday: another interview for work and lunch and the train home. Friday night, Kevin had more swim team practice, he has a meet on Sunday, and I spent the time cutting fabric for another quilt I'm working on. Yes, another quilt. No, I never finish anything, just start, start, start.... It's called ADD, thank you.

Saturday I took Kevin to his activity and went over to the Honda dealership to look at the Fit. I'm very tired of the 20 mpg my van gets, so I'm dreaming of a more efficient car. The Fit is a compact station wagon, the trunk holds at least two bags of golf clubs and a couple suitcases, that and cruise control, what else do I need?

In the afternoon, I fired up the newly tuned-up lawn tractor and mowed the front yard. I dumped all the clippings around the trees instead of bagging them. It's a lot easier, but I still get stuff all over me. And in my hair.

Sunday after church I mowed the back yard. As I circled back around for another lap I noticed gobs of bunny fluff. At first I thought I hit a rabbit, but then I couldn't remember actually hitting it. And, there was no blood on the fluff. Alas, I'd uncovered a nest. The babies are about 3 inches long with brown fur and long skinny legs. I tried to be careful not to touch the area so the mom would come back and take care of the young'uns. I tried to take pictures of the critters, but I just got blurry fur. They sure do move around a lot. I showed Fern later and she thinks there are about seven future flower eaters in the nest. My words, not hers.

I wanted to get the Living room and sewing room vacuumed, that meant I had to pick up and put away the erector set that Kevin had so graciously placed dumped all over the room. I cannot just scoop and dump, I have to put every part away in the proper compartment, every little nut, every bolt, everything. (Again with the ADD/OCD!) This, of course is the slow way and Kevin comes down stairs to check on me before I'm finished. Oh well, all this work for naught. i prepare myself for the undoing of my work. But it doesn't come. He doesn't get upset I'm cleaning. I'm floored. I'm so floored, I'm still trying to get up. I'm seeing a tremendous change in maturity in him, with this incident and the legos on his bedroom floor last week, I'm just amazed. He is even doing his homework with out balking, Dan says he sought it out earlier today to do. Oh, and he is 70" tall, now. Last Tuesday, Dan and I met with his teacher for his annual IEP meeting. She, too, has noticed great changes in him. Who is this child and what has he done with my son?

Monday I played golf, already wrote about that. Today and the most of the rest of the week, I'll be in a pre-retirement class. More time away from my computer, another thing to keep me from blogging. Darn.

Here are some quilt blocks I've done with the fabric I cut on Friday night. What do you think? So far I have 63 blocks done and 36 to go, but I'm kinda tired of it so I'm taking a break.

Weekend Roundup

Kevin, my sweet boy, has such a contented nature about him. For the most part, he is very patient and compliant, (except when he can't find one of his precious letter Y's or wants the ceiling fan on,) I call him my gentle giant. When I ask him to do something, like "put your plate in the dishwasher," I get a sing-songy "oh-kay" in reply.

His autism turns his communications into echolalia, his room into a sanctuary for thousands of plastic alphabet letters, and his teenage years with crazy sleeping patterns into a non-competitive happy child.

Sunday was a St. Mary's Special Olympics event for basketball, one of the qualifiers required for the state competition in two weeks. The venue was about an hour south of Bowie in rural southern Maryland. I got to take Kevin this time, Dan usually gets the honor. Kevin participates in the individual skills competition, because, despite his height, he doesn't have the basketball concepts or concentration to play on the 3v3 team.

The athletes complete three skills activities, 10-yard dribbling "dash," bounce-passes, and shooting. Each of these earned the athletes points and the medals were give out for the points totals in each heat.

During the awards I watched three young women get their medals. The bronze was awarded first, then silver. The third girl stood there waiting, gears clicking into place, then she broke out into the most joyful squeal when she figured out she got the gold. It's hard not to smile along with her when you witness such pure glee.

Kevin did well, as he always does. Without the underlying competitive current, he has no expectations, he just enjoys being there and being with the other kids. I was a smidge disappointed he was the only boy in his heat, but I was glad to hear he got 68 points, so the automatic gold was well deserved.


Yes, it went in.

Manners Please

My son is not a polite sleeper.

He is 15 and displays typical teenage behavior, staying up late on weekend nights and sleeps in. But because of his weekend activities, he cannot sleep in, but crashes afterward. This past Saturday night, maybe I should say Sunday morning, he went to bed sometime after 2:00 (after having gone to bed after 3:00 the night before). Then he got up for his skiing program at 8:30. When he got home, he put himself to bed, shoes and all, on his father's side of my bed. What is it about Mom & Dad's bed that is so appealing?

One of two things happen when he goes to bed so early. He'll either nap until bedtime then stay up for several hours after that playing computer games, or he'll sleep through until the morning, sometimes waking only for a shower and a glass of milk. Last night he didn't get up, he slept through.

Usually Monday's are the worse because all the sleep deprivation of the weekend catches up, he's asleep by 6:00 on my bed. We can't move him, like we could when he was a toddler, he's taller than we are now, and getting strong. We can't entice him to stay awake for his favorite supper so we can steer him to his own bed later. So Dan sleeps in Kevin's bed, for which I'm grateful, and I get to try to sleep next to The Boy, who is a major cover thief and I end up sleeping on top of the edge of the blanket, having it flip over me like a taco, so I can at least stay warm, but not too warm, thank you, I am approaching (gasp) 48. And, of course, when I do get too warm, he senses I've released the blanket and takes it. Not a polite sleeper, not at all.

Let's Eat

I was lying in bed last night thinking of different things so I wouldn't think about the fact I was not yet asleep, and one of the things I tripped over was vegetables.

My son now likes broccoli. This is fabulous. This is fabulous because it's not a "white" food. For so many years he just ate pale food: french fries, grits, french fries, hot dogs, chicken nuggets with ranch dressing, french fries with ranch dressing, spaghetti-n-sauce. Not red sauce.

Early on in my marriage I found a recipe on the back of a box of tortellini for cream sauce. It's been a family staple ever since. The boy loved it then. And still does.

Nowadays, he "helps" me cook the sauce, he has to stir the sauce and control its destination, meaning it had to all go on his plate. Which meant I'd have to make another pot for the rest of us. In recent weeks he's understanding the concept of sharing the sauce and will pour some on each person's plate when it's time to serve.

The other night Dan and The Girl went to see the Wizards beat the Celtics (Yay!) and The boy and I had a dinner of spaghetti-n-sauce and broccoli. He at the broccoli first. I couldn't believe my eyes. This is like the day when your kid ate the chicken nuggets first before the french fries, except better.

Spaghetti-n-Sauce

• Fix your favorite pasta according to the directions


• in a small sauce pan, i prefer a heavy non-stick pan, over med-low heat, melt a couple tablespoons of butter. (probably 1 per person, I never really measured and the original recipe is long gone.)


• stir in a couple ounces of parmesan cheese. I usually use shredded, but grated (yes, the stuff in the green can) melts faster.


• don't get the butter too hot or you'll fry the cheese instead of melt it. (which, is itself a yummy treat, but not our goal here)


• when it's all melty, like a big mess and you wonder if you're doing it right, add a couple ounces of cream. stir until smooth. I use a wooden spoon. I sometimes have to raise the heat to get the cheese to melt smoothly. If it's too thin, add more cheese and keep stirring. It should be thick like a good hollandaise, but not able to sit upright on its own plate.


• pour over your pasta or put the pasta in the sauce to mix, then serve

It's not bad over broccoli, either.

Another Boring Post

My life is so boring right now I'm posting about passwords, for goodness sake. Sheesh. I got nuttin. No current construction projects. The painters came to work on the kitchen a couple weeks back so it's about done except for some trim work. I'm not working on any quilting projects, although I have a lot unfinished that could use some attention. I haven't knitted in weeks and still have that green sweater part-way done. You can see where this is going. Well, it's not going anywhere, really. I'm stagnant.

The other night I was boxing up some old software to Freecycle and found a disk I remembered fondly. Explore the Airport with Buzzy the Knowledge Bug A MAC/WIN software disk by Random House, 1995. Most of it is very juvenile, aimed at your average 5 year-old. Except for a game where you sort luggage into color-matching bins using reversing conveyor bins. The first 20 or 30 levels are no-brainers, very easy, then it got tricky, tricky enough to hold my attention. For a long time.

Well anyway, I found the disk and last night I put it in a couple different computers to see if it would work again and had success with the Toshiba laptop. I got up to level 49 before The Boy commandeered the computer. When I went to bed he was on level 61. This morning I opened the game to check his progress and he made it to level 84 before he went to bed. 84!

That's my boy!


Post Script: I checked my posting on the other laptop and this picture didn't come across. That's so weird! Oh well. I hope you can see it.