Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Blogging in the bathroom

Hey that was catchy!
My last 5 minutes in pictures:
I'm sitting all cozy on the couch, eating instant mashed potatoes and wasting my life away on Pinterest (wow that sounds ghetto...where's the trailer park?) when I hear, "coh hewe" (come here). 
I look toward the voice and see a boy with goggles and no shirt.
Me: What do you want?
Aaron: I wah baff. (I want bath)
Me: What do you want? (I'm really asking this to put him off long enough to finish my faux potatoes)
Aaron (a little annoyed): Coh hewe. I wah baff tub.  Cawher. (Come here.  I want bathtub. Collar--his other way to tell me to come here).
Me: Ok, ok.  Just a second.
Aaron: Coh hewe.  Coh hewe. (Come here. Come here.  This time with more emphasis because apparently I didn't get it the first 10 times.)
Me: I KNOW.  HANG ON.
I'm fully expecting him to be naked, but to my surprise he has his swim trunks and goggles on.  I'm beyond thrilled that he decided to come and get me to run a bath for him rather than just doing it himself! So I start the bath.
And in he goes.
Now that his bubbles are gone he's pouring water in his mouth.  Ick.
He's contained and I have a laptop, so I'll sit on the counter and play on Pinterest from here!


Acting like a typical child

I hate mornings.  There is nothing good about being up before 10:00.  Seriously.  Unfortunately Aaron and I don't agree on what an acceptable waking time is.  His idea is somewhere in the 7:00-7:30 range, which is outrageous.  What is even more unfortunate is that the bus arrives about 8:45, and what is even MORE unfortunate than that is that Husband is out of town for the week so I have to get out of bed early.  (I am fortunate that he gets up and helps get Aaron off to school...I need to remember to mention that to him the next time I talk to him..I'll put a reminder on my phone).  ANYHOW.  Tuesday mornings I have to get up early because he has his haircut at 8:00 AM (every week).  Wouldn't it figure that THE ONE MORNING WE HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO Aaron doesn't want to wake up.  Seriously--why couldn't he do this on a Saturday?  Of course I was running behind because I wanted "just 5 more minutes" of sleep.  When I went into Aaron's room he wasn't awake (at 7:45 and we had to leave in 5 minutes).  So I turned the light on, sat down next to him, rubbed his back and said, "good morning", to which he replied, "night night" and pulled the covers over his head.  I thought this was hilarious, so I kept saying, "good morning" and he kept responding with, "night night".  I finally pulled the covers off of him so that he would maybe get up--which he did.  Luckily he slept in clothes last night so I grabbed his shoes and socks and got him in the car--we were only 5 minutes late.  Not bad!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Don't leave your bags unattended


You know how at the airport they tell you to not leave your bags unattended?  That rule should apply to our house as well.  Husband left on a business trip tonight.  This time he's going to be able to visit his sister, her husband, and our nephews while he's gone, so of course he had to buy the boys some treats from their Uncle Jason.  He went to the dollar store to get them some obnoxious, loud toys (sorry Bethany), and came home with some goods.  When he walked in the door Aaron saw that he was carrying a bag and immediately went over to see if there was anything for him.  He found some candy in the bag, so he tried to steal it.  Husband gave in and gave him a package of candy, and off went a happy boy--but not before he saw me put the remaining contents of the bag into the suitcase.  So when he saw the suitcase unsupervised, it was more temptation than he could bear.  From the other room I heard the sound of a zipper and just knew what was happening.  He was starting to rummage through the suitcase before I stopped him!  When I got to him he gave me this look as if to say, "what"?  :)  I told him to stay out of the suitcase, and he did....for a minute.
CAUGHT RED HANDED!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

First day of snow

Aaron loves everything about snow.  I think what he loves the most about the powder is watching it do different things.  He loves to throw it against the fence, kick it around, pee in it (while his cousins were over--awesome), and eat it (hopefully not in that order).  When his trampoline is set up he loves jumping on it and making the snow bounce.  I enjoy watching him play in the snow (from inside...with a hot cup of creamer with some coffee in it).  So when we woke up this morning with the first snow of the season, Aaron went out for some fun.  Oh, and our idea of "snow" is about an inch that melts by the end of the day...that counts though, right? Now let's look at the bright side first.  He put on appropriate clothes (yay for firsts!).  He actually had long pants, a sweatshirt AND shoes on--this is a big deal for us!  Now for the "Aaron part" of snow.  I'm all for kids playing in the snow; HOWEVER, we have two dogs, and just because there is snow on the ground doesn't mean that what is under the snow goes away (if you know what I mean).  So when Aaron decided to do this, I may have thrown up in my mouth a little:

In addition to a fun-filled day of snow, I am trying to paint some of the rooms of our house.  Today my project was the hallway and the kitchen.  It's great fun to paint for a second, get off the ladder, walk downstairs to make sure Aaron is still in the house, go back up the stairs, get on the ladder and paint for a couple of more seconds, only to do it again.  One of the times I went out to check on him I found this:
Nice!  Everyone wants to lay out on the back patio IN THE SNOW with their blanket and a LAPTOP!  Awesome.  I didn't let that stop my painting though!  :)  I probably should have listened to my better judgement!

He gave me a moment of panic when I couldn't find him because he was hiding in my room playing on a computer in my bed (eating goldfish crackers and chips--I'll be sleeping in crumbs tonight).  I assumed I was safe though because the hot-wire fence was on.  NEVER assume...you know what happens.  I went downstairs and saw the puppy in the backyard walking toward the gate--she didn't come back.  She didn't come when I called her.  I had a sneaking suspicion that Aaron was in the backyard (my detective skills of seeing the sliding glass door open clued me in), but it was too quiet.  I did a sweep of the house--no Aaron.  I ran outside and saw dog prints and Aaron prints in the snow.  Crap.  I ran back in to get my phone and tell oldest son to get some shoes on.  I figured I could follow the prints to find the escapees.  The only problem was there were a whole bunch of prints!  As I started running down the street calling for the puppy, Aaron and puppy emerged from the garage of the house next door.  (Note: this house is still under construction--so at least no one lived there!)  This is where my predicament got tricky.  I tell Aaron to get in the house, but the puppy goes running in the opposite direction (stupid dog), and Aaron's not coming.  I'm trying to corral both of them, but am failing miserably!  Finally psycho (the puppy) comes running toward the house, and Aaron decides he's going to mosey on over, so I've got both of them!  Whew!  Come to find out that the side gate had been disconnected from the rest of the hot-wire fence (I'm not sure how) and the back gate hadn't been re-coded, so out he went!  I took care of the problem, and then spent the rest of the day keeping one eye on my painting project, and one eye on the backyard.  He kept creeping over to the gate but every time I would call his name with my "Mom tone" he would get this surprised look (like "who, me?") on his face and walk back in the house.  Stinker.   The snow is almost all melted, so we'll see what happens tomorrow!  Did I mention I'm currently enjoying a nice glass of red wine?

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Gross (I have no other words)


Kiddos with autism can get fixated on particular objects--carrying them around with them all of the time.  Aaron's current object of his affection is....the....plunger.  Gross.  As if it's not bad enough that he's walking around with a plunger, it's HOW he's walking around with the plunger.  Apparently the suction of the plunging part feels good against his mouth.  Yes, I said it.  My kid walks around with a plunger stuck to his mouth.  NASTY!!!  I couldn't bring myself to taking a picture of it.  Make sure you're not eating right now because it keeps getting worse...the plunger has been used for it's intended purpose.  Did you just throw up in your mouth a little?  I chase this kid around constantly (and by constantly, I mean constantly), continuing to take his "toy" away from him.  I can't believe I want this kid to kiss me!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Solutions

"Necessity breeds solution" is a quote by an author named Anne McCaffrey.  I have no clue who that is, but that doesn't matter when you quote someone!  Aaron comes up with numerous creative solutions to his problems; however, a few of them (or perhaps most of them) don't fit under the "Safety First" category.  Saturday night Necessity Bred Solution without any thought of personal safety.  This story is another reason why Aaron can't be left unsupervised. 

So we're at my niece's birthday party on Saturday night.  Instead of a big cake, she wanted to do build-your-own cupcakes.  My sister had TONS of candy on the table to put parents and children into sugar shock.  Of course Aaron helped himself to his favorites that were on the table (starting before he ate his dinner).  Who am I to judge though as I was uncontrollably shoving my face with Good and Plenty's.  Which, by the way, DO NOT go well with red wine.  Just a helpful tip for you.  Anyhow.  Aaron comes up to me with his finger in his mouth, and he's irritated.  I see a piece of some sort of gummy candy stuck between his molars.  Nothing is more irritating than food stuck between your teeth (scratch that. I can think of a few other things that are more irritating, but am not going to bring those up...) So, I'm trying to dig this thing out with my fingers-with no success.  So Aaron decides to pick up a butter knife from the table to try to get it out.  Of course I tell him that's not a good idea.  He keeps trying, and I keep taking it away.  Mean mom.  He's not getting anywhere with me, so he decides he's going to walk over to the KNIFE BLOCK and grab a STEAK KNIFE to see if he can get it out with something a little sharper.  It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.  I was right there to run over and stop him.  I figured that he really wanted that out (and I didn't want to deal with a cavity) so the search for dental floss ensued.  This proved to be a safer, more effective way to remove the candy chunk.  With the candy gone he was able to enjoy more sugar.  Problem solved.