Traumatic. Brain. Injury.

There's a country song with lyrics that say, "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" (go ahead, take a minute to figure it out...). Over the past three weeks I've realized: I'm glad I didn't know then what I know now AND that I should stay off of Wikipedia when it comes to all things medical.

I saw my "baby" bloody in a ditch--just hit by a car.  It was almost like an out of body experience. Well I've never had an out of body experience, but if I were to have one, this is how I envision it would be.  What was coming out of my mouth and what was running through my mind weren't matching up, but it's possible that's how I'm wired (you'll never know though).  Regardless of the words that were coming out of my mouth, in my head I was thinking, "He's conscious. This is good. He's going to be ok." We get to hospital #1, and by this time I was in full on rational, get things done mode. Within 30 minutes we had 7 friends standing outside of his room listening to the doctors and praying like crazy. The news came that he had no broken bones, no internal injuries, but he did have a fractured skull and a hematoma on his brain, so we were headed to the trauma hospital.  Still in rational mode, although survival and denial mode are probably more accurate, the thought that was running through my head was, "If they take the clot off, he's gonna make it." As they wheeled him away for surgery, I asked the doctor if he was going to make it, and she said yes.  I was so relieved, I asked her for a hug, and we went on our way down to the waiting room. At that point, in my head was, "If he gets through surgery, he's gonna make it, and he's going to be fine. We'll be on our way home soon and this will be a distant memory." Fortunately, that is how it played out, although the distant memory part isn't there yet.

Over the past three weeks, I've begun to process and feel the weight of what could have been.  You see, to me, I figured if Aaron made it through surgery he would make a full recovery.  I didn't comprehend at the time that he could live, but with different long term outcomes: brain damage, paralysis, vegetative state....I'm not sure that I still fully comprehend that. Quite honestly I don't want to fully comprehend that. Having a mostly non-verbal kid to begin with is trickier to assess pain, emotions, and what he's really thinking. We had a follow up at Children's Hospital a week and a half after the accident.  I didn't know what it was going to be for, I just do what the doctors tell me to. When we got there the appointment was with the rehab team.  Rehab? Well that didn't occur to me.  Huh.  Again, because of his autism, it's different.  They asked us a ton of questions (because Aaron certainly wouldn't answer them) and looked him over. I kid you not, the doctor said, "I don't understand.  I don't understand how he could have the injury that he did, and be where he's at today. It doesn't make sense." I understand.  This is where faith and science don't meet. I walked away with the realization of how much of a miracle my son is. A week after that, we were back at Children's for a follow up CT scan and appointment with neurosurgery. Another layer of realization.

Modern medicine is amazing.

I believe that faith in God and the power of prayer, resulted in a miracle.

It's a miracle my son is still here on this earth.  

It's a miracle my son is functioning like he was before the accident.

We met the driver of the car the other day. A very, very nice man. A man who felt terrible and told us that was the worst night of his life--the sound of the accident still plays in his mind.  He quickly added that it was probably the worst night of our lives as well. I showed him the image of the CT scan, and he showed us a picture of his car (I will no longer make fun of Prius'...at least I'll try not to).  Looking at the damage to the car the man told me he was surprised that Aaron didn't have a broken pelvis.  Huh.  That thought never occurred to me.  He gave Aaron a hug and went on his way, hopefully with some closure. I walked away with another layer of realization of what could (should) have been.

I drive that road often.  Last night I was driving and watched my speedometer go to 35 mph.  Aaron was hit at probably 35 mph. I visualized the accident happening as how I understand it went down. I was sick. The extra layer of cushion Aaron has, his insane flexibility, and him not understanding what was about to happen and therefore not tensing up, helped. Having autism played a part in saving his life. Another layer of realization. If he were a "typical kid" I could better assess where he's at right now, but alas, he's a guessing game. In my denial of what could have been, I find myself treating him as if nothing ever happened.  He has this tic now that he didn't do before the accident that annoys me--how's that for ungrateful? I have to keep reminding myself (with the help of my neighbor the nurse) that he just had a major accident that he shouldn't have walked away from. 

So here I am, 25 days after my son got hit by a car, and my biggest problems with him are keeping him off the scooter (which was easy as soon as we hid them in the neighbor's garage), keeping him off the trampoline (not so easy), and jumping through all of the insurance hoops.  On a side note, if you tell doctors you own a trampoline, they suddenly treat you like you are a child abuser and belong in prison. Just letting you know! As time goes on, I am more and more thankful for his life, as challenging as it may be. The little things just got a lot bigger, and the annoyances got a lot smaller.  I'll have to remember this the next time he ruins something! Or maybe even now as he picks out the marshmallows in the Lucky Charms and throws away the rest. :)

I no longer have the right to say, "I feel like I got hit by a truck"

I have a plaque that my mom gave me that says "I know God won't give me more than I can handle, I just wish He didn't trust me so much".  That seems to be a theme in my crazy life.  In the challenges of life that I face, I like to think I handle them with grace and humor (a lot of humor). As my little monster is sleeping peacefully on the couch while I write, I am humbled by the grace (and sometimes humor) others have shown to me over the past week.  If you Facebook stalk me (I know there are at least 121 of you according to the "likes" on my status update) you know THE story. If you don't stalk me, then you have to wait for the stories! I suppose they are worth the wait.

6 days ago the little monster (who is now 12 and not so little) escaped, hopped on his scooter, took off in the middle of the road, and was hit by a car.  You know how sometimes you wonder how you would react if you were in a trauma situation with your child...well, now I know...we'll leave it at that.    Dad was there about 20 seconds after it happened, and I was there a minute or two after that.  It was dark.  Aaron was wearing dark clothes (and no shoes).  He was riding his scooter in the middle of the road.  It was a country road with no sidewalks or street lights.  It was an accident.  The driver pulled over and called 911.We are still waiting for the police report to piece together exactly what happened because we were with Aaron, but my heart goes out to the driver.  I cannot imagine the images he will live with. 

Aaron was transported to the closest hospital, and a trauma team was working on him when I got there.  Amazingly, his vitals were stable, he had no internal injuries and no broken bones (kind of).  A CT scan showed a multiple fractured skull, and an epidural hematoma that was pushing his brain 6mm over.  They decided to transport him to the major trauma hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to remove the clot.  It's surreal listening to a neurosurgeon matter-of-factly telling you how they are going to remove a chunk of your son's skull, remove the clot, and hopefully they'll be able to put it back on right away, but they may have to refrigerate it for a few days to let the swelling go down.  They are confident (at least they sounded confident) that once they get rid of the blood clot he'll make a full recovery.  By this time it's 1:45 in the morning and they are wheeling him away to surgery. For two hours husband, four friends and I waited for the surgeon to come in and let us know that not only did they get the clot, but there was no bruising inside the brain and they were able to reattach his skull, titanium plate and all (oh and they didn't shave his head--totally weird)! He should make a full recovery.  He was finished with surgery around 5:00 am Tuesday morning and he was discharged at noon on Thursday.  2 days after brain surgery he got to go home.  2 days. Aaron is recovering nicely...I'm sure he feels like crap and has a nasty headache, but he looks better every day. Everyone's comment is (even when he was in the hospital), "he looks a lot better than I thought he would".

True to who we are, there have been funny moments in this story: Bryan Adams lyrics that were spoken and not sung at 3:30 in the morning while Aaron is in surgery and we're delirious from how long we've been up and needing some comic relief from the gravity of the situation.  The next day one of the nurses asked me if he was wearing a helmet, and of course the answer was no.  She asked me if we had one and I told her that we did.  She said that if we didn't have one that they would send us home with one (how nice)--I asked her if they looked cool because I might change my answer.  She laughed and told me they weren't all that cool, so I kept my original answer. We also found out that neurosurgeons don't have the same sense of humor that we do.  As they are explaining traumatic brain injury husband asks, "so does this mean he can't jump on the trampoline or ride a scooter as soon as we get home?"  They answered him like he was serious and they couldn't believe this idiot would think those activities were okay.  I'm also thinking, what else do I need to do to make the news? I mean, come on.  With my stories???  But then I think, there would probably be a bunch of idiots out there commenting on what kind of parent wouldn't watch their child...blah blah blah, and then I would be mad and need medication so I didn't rip some heads off--that wouldn't be good.  

A lot has happened in the past week, so much that I could write a novel that would put you to sleep, but the theme is: my family is loved. Prayers, rides, food at the hospital, groceries, meals, cleaning, visits, looking out for my other two kids, getting Aaron's room ready for him to come home, and offers of help are too numerous to count. Different friends and family have played different roles, and apparently I still need to learn to accept help from others. (For those of you who really know me--that's totally lame because I can do it myself!) We are so blessed.  I am hoping that I can get back to writing harmless antics that Aaron has done rather than this craziness, but for now, here we are.

The first day we were at the hospital a dear friend brought me a gift that brought a much needed laugh.  If I remember correctly, they taste nasty together, but tomorrow I'm planning on seeing if the combination tastes as nasty as I remember--just in case.  :)

Are you kidding me?

There are some days where there aren't words to even describe the madness I live in.

Last night we were doing a last minute yard party (although I don't think my kids would use the term "party") before the rain came again. We (and by "we" I mean "husband") had the older two outside mowing the lawn, sweeping the patio and weed-eating.  Aaron went outside and hung out on the retaining wall while everyone was working around him--well everyone except for me :). I figured he was probably secure in the backyard, so I went in the house.  Being outside was much better than him sitting on the computer, or so I thought.  When I peeked outside to do an "Aaron check" (making sure he was still in the backyard and not wandering the neighborhood) I saw him bending over the retaining wall, and spitting dirty water out.  Huh.  I had a feeling I knew where he got the dirty water, but I didn't really want to admit it.  Right after he spit out this water he came running inside and grabbed a straw.  At this point I had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do, but rather than stop him, I decided to follow him with my camera.  My boy did not disappoint.

Yes, that is him sucking NASTY water out of our fire pit, trying to hold it in the straw, and spitting it onto the wall.  My husband can't believe that I'm not stopping him, and I told him I would as soon as I got pictures.  After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You need the visual to see how nasty this actually is. I seriously wonder what is going on in his head when he comes up with these things!
 

Spring Break

 It's spring break for us!  If I were 20 years younger it's possible that spring break would have meant living it up in Florida/Mexico/anywhere other than rainy Puget Sound.  Actually, it wouldn't have been that kind of spring break for me, but I can pretend.  But onto today's reality.  This year for spring break we decided to actually capitalize on the sunshine (something virtually nonexistent in Western Washington), and take a couple of day trips.  People who know us would not classify our family as "outdoorsy".  In fact, a few people in my family may be allergic to fresh air.  So you can imagine the surprise in my kids when we told them we were going to take a drive to hike to some waterfalls.  We were not met with overwhelming excitement, but we forced them to go anyway.  We needed to get out of the house and hoped that Aaron would behave.

There were three awesome parts to Day Trip #1.  Destination: waterfalls.

1.  Aaron was contained in the car for a one hour drive, for a total of two hours.  Nice.  There's not much he can ruin buckled up in the car.  Except for that one time where he got totally naked while he remained buckled up.  Oh and then there's the time that he opened the door while I was driving.  Never mind.  There are all sorts of things he can do in the car, but this time he sat quietly (most of the time).

2.  We learned that Aaron has a healthy fear of waterfalls.  You can get fairly close to one of the waterfalls, and when we were trying to walk down there Aaron formed a death grip on Husband's hand.  Husband was gently encouraging him and he was having nothing to do with it.  When your minimally verbal kid says "NO WATER", you aquiesce to his request. We were thrilled at the development that he had a fear of danger (at least this dangerous situation).

3.  We all got to see nature AND get exercise.  Double bonus.  We could have done without the incessant complaining from the 15 year-old who would rather have been killing imaginary bad guys on the XBox than spending the day enjoying God's creation with his family, but I'm pretty sure at 15 I would have been complaining too.  Now exercise isn't something that Aaron is really a fan of.  I suppose if he were having to run to get the last chocolate chip cookie before I ate it he wouldn't mind it so much.  But to walk for the sake of walking...not so much.  He was a good sport for a long time (like 30 minutes).  He got to flap his hands at the fish in the fish hatchery, and again at the rushing of the waterfalls.  But walking for the sake of walking got old real fast.  Eventually whenever we got to a fork in the trail, and we would stop so the four of us could argue discuss which way to go, Aaron would plop down and refuse to get up.  After a few times of his sit-in protesting, we decided to head back so we wouldn't have to carry him out of there!  We had some good laughs over his refusal to get up and how ridiculous we must have looked trying to get this kid to keep walking.

All in all the trip was a success (especially since he got a donut out of the deal).  It was a great way to kill 5 hours, and he didn't ruin a thing!  Yay for Day 1.  Only 6 more days to go!        

Happy World Autism Awareness Day

Unless you live under a rock you have probably seen somewhere that today is World Autism Awareness Day, and April is Autism Awareness Month.  You have probably seen some of the statistics:

2002  1 in 150 children

2004  1 in 125 children

2006  1 in 110 children

2008  1 in 88 children

Currently 1 in 54 boys is diagnosed with autism.  

1 in 54.  

You've got the people out there who say it is now a broader diagnosis, and others who don't buy that line.  You've got the people out there who swear it's caused by vaccinations, "leaky gut", the environment, genetics, or having super smart parents (I like to think it's the super smart parents because that means I'm super smart--yay me).  Most people have an opinion on the best intervention, and others think no intervention is needed at all.  You've got some parents yelling and screaming over all sorts of things (acceptance, education, insurance, various interventions), you've got other parents who are curled up in a ball in the corner, unable to accept the impact of an autism diagnosis.  You have parents who want their kids labeled, and others who refuse to utter the word autism as if it's a stigma that will socially isolate their child from all of the world.  You have people who think autistic kids are just unruly kids who need a good spanking time out, and other who think that because they're autistic they shouldn't be disciplined at all.

And then you have me.  :)  On the one hand I applaud those people who have strong opinions, but on the other hand, people within the "autism community" can be just as closed minded (perhaps even more so) than the ignorant people on the outside looking in.  Here's the thing--I really don't care.  Just like you, I have my own opinions (that I generally keep to myself), but at the end of the day, guess what?  My son is still autistic.  At the end of the day we STILL don't know what causes autism, we STILL don't have a "cure", we STILL don't understand the complex workings of the human brain.  In the midst of all of the unknowns about autism, there are a few things I know, and life lessons I have learned along the way. 

1.  I don't need to know WHY my guy is 1 in 54.  To me it doesn't matter.  He's mine. 

2.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Thank you Kelly Clarkson for singing about it because now I have a tune to remind me!

3.  I'm popular--seriously popular in my town.  If there was a mother-of-an-autistic-child popularity contest where I live.  I would win.  No joke.

4.  Perspective is imperative--hey that's pretty catchy.  It could ALWAYS be worse.  ALWAYS.  That being said, I'm not gonna lie, the amount of sympathy and admiration I get because of the stupid things Aaron does feels really, really good!

5.  Thick skin is handy. 99% of the time I really don't care what people think about me, my parenting or my kid (I'm not perfect--sshhh don't tell my kids or husband that).  Walk a mile (or 1/10th of a mile for that matter--you'll give him right back) in my shoes, and then we'll talk.  It's unfair to expect ignorant people to know what it's like.  You can't fix stupid.

6.  Just because I had hopes and dreams for my kid that will most likely never come true doesn't mean that if he were "typically developing" (let's be P.C. here) he would have those same dreams.  Would you really feel like it was the end of the world if one of your "typical" kids decided to not get married and have kids?  (And if you would feel like it was the end of the world, might I suggest you get help for your control issues). It's okay to grieve those things that you feel like you've "lost".  I've done my share of grieving, and every once in awhile something happens and that sadness pops up.  There are plenty of days when autism sucks.  It does.  I would be a liar if I told you that it doesn't hurt to see your friends' kids who are the same age meet milestones that you will probably never see.  BUT, if I focus on all the things Aaron can't do, I'll miss out on all of the things he CAN do.

7.  I've had opportunities and experiences that I never would have had if it weren't for autism.  I have made new friends and helped complete strangers.  Heck, I've been on the news, spoken to graduate students at a university, and given a speech in front of hundreds of really rich people who were donating to a good cause.  I told you, I'm popular (and humble).

8.  I don't hang my hat on what the "experts" say.  My favorite is: if they aren't talking by the time they're 5, well, you're outta luck.  Guess what?  Aaron was 10.  Those experts can shove it....

9.  I get to celebrate all kinds of things that other people take for granted.  I will never forget when I was so excited that Aaron played in the toilet because that meant he was aware of something in his environment.  Seriously, I was elated.  Although it got old quick.

10.  I have a firm belief in God's divine wisdom, and He clearly believed that I was the best mother for Aaron.  I'm not sure why He's that crazy, and you had better believe that one day I will ask Him that question!  God won't give you more than you can handle--I just wish He didn't trust me so much.  Another one of my favorite quotes.  It's sitting on my piano.

11.  I've learned a new language that is full of acronyms.  I don't know how many I am up to, but it's a lot.  It's fun to throw them around so I sound smarter than I actually am.

12.  Laughter truly is the best medicine.  In the trials of autism with so much that is out of control, I have control of my attitude.  I have options: curl up in the corner (guilty), get super mad at some of the ridiculous things that Aaron does (guilty), or take it with a grain of salt and choose to see the funny side of it.  Most of the time I choose the last one.

And finally,

13.  Red wine and Banana Taffy help.  (Although I don't recommend them at the same time--it's nasty).

Siblings saved his life

My older two children deserve a medal of honor.  Together they saved their brother's life (or maybe they saved their mother's life)...either way....all members of our family are alive and uh well.  Maybe that's a little extreme.  How about they saved us the expensive copay to commit me to Western State Hospital.

Our garage has turned into one gigantic garbage collector.  For some reason, when we ask children to take out the recycle or put something in the garage they hear, "Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah" and translate it to "Hey take this, and just throw it anywhere in the garage.  Anywhere is fine."  Needless to say, this interpretation combined with my lack of desire to make them ACTUALLY do what I told them to created one big disaster.  It was kind of like Hoarders with a small area carved out to park my car.  Getting in and out of the car was quite a feat, and we were always tripping over things trying to get in and out.  Yesterday Husband decided it was time to clean out the garage.  It was sunny (which is super rare in the Northwest), so it was time to end the procrastination.

Aaron was on the computer watching the same 3 second clip from a Veggie Tales movie, so we brought the older two kids out to break down some of the boxes.  BIG mistake.  I know better.  I know better.  I know better.  Why don't I listen to myself?  Oh I know--because no one else does!  My son goes back in the house to find a box of popsicles unwrapped and dipped in sugar, all over the kitchen counters and floor (nicely staining the grout on my counter tops and leaving the floor so sticky that three times over with a mop didn't even get it).  Since he saw the mess first, we made him clean it while we continued working on the garage.  (We were losing daylight, and the contents of our garage were all over the driveway).  A little bit later Daughter comes back out and says, "Mom, do you want me to clean your bathroom?  You should probably see it."  I tell her that if she wants her brother to live then she should clean it and not tell me what happened.  She can tell by the tone in my voice that I'm probably kidding.  Probably.  I didn't really want a recap because I pretty much knew what happened.  My trash can confirmed my suspicions, a full bottle of dish soap and shaving cream were completely empty.  Seriously!  I suppose the upside is that at the end of the day I had a clean garage, a clean bathroom, and a mostly clean kitchen with sticky floors!  It could be worse. 

My little shopper

After living in my house for a year, I've finally decided that it's time to start decorating it like someone lives here.  Thus, my need for curtain rods.  First of all, I suck at decorating, so trying to figure out what I want is a challenge.  But how hard can CURTAIN RODS be?  Husband has the day off so we decide to go take Little Monster to the store to pick out curtain rods.  We'll go to Ross and see if they have anything, and if not, Lowes it is.

For the most part I LOVE LOVE LOVE to shop (if I'm alone), but let me be honest--I hate Ross.  This whole "looking for treasures" is a bunch of crap.  My brain isn't wired to look for treasures; however, my brain is wired to see $9.99 curtain rods and decide that is better than the $32.99 curtain rods at Lowes--especially since I need two. ($20 or $65--I'm willing to treasure hunt for 3 minutes).  Husband, Monster and I walk into Ross, and Aaron immediately has an agenda.  My agenda outranks his, so we drag him through the store and find curtain rods that will work (for $9.99 each--nice).  Being the nice mom that I am, I decide to let him take me to where he wants to go--the toy aisles. Husband goes to one end of the aisle and I take the other so we've got him blocked off and he can't go bolting through the store.  It only takes him a minute to come up with this:

I'm so proud! Really!

I'm laughing and think this is absolutely hilarious, and who can refuse that face, so I let him take his treasures to the checkout.  Husband is looking at me like I'm crazy, and I'm like, "what?"  He says, "you're going to let him get all of that?"  I reply, "hey-they are toys.  Our son wants to play with toys.  Come on, let's get them."  Who can refuse me?  So we're standing in line, and he spots a package of Jelly Bellies.  "I want candy"  Ugh.  "I want jelly bean"  Awe.....so of course we HAD to get those too.  I pay for our "treasures"...IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CHEAPER TO GO TO LOWES.  This is why I don't take him shopping with me. 

The funny thing is, he picked out this piece of junk Transformers "laptop" (which even though I knew it was a piece of junk I still bought it for him--how's that for good parenting).  As it turns out, today he showed us on that junky "laptop" that he could type all sorts of things (most of which we knew he could, but he surprised us by spelling our names).  When Husband got home from work tonight I gave Aaron the "laptop" and told him to spell Cameron.  It didn't look like he was going to do it so I said, "c....a...."--which he typed and then ignored me and finished with "ndy".  Ha ha ha ha!  That kid makes me laugh!

Fishing for fishies

I'd like to say that the reason I haven't posted in months is that my ball of trouble is no longer trouble; however, that is not the case.  I've thought about posting often, but haven't been able due to terminally ill parents.  Well, we're back.  I'm hoping I can get to my storytelling again and make you all feel better about your lives.  Here goes.

Tonight I went to my first support group meeting for parents of children with disabilities.  I have never ever had a desire to do such a thing, but it was the first night and I volunteered our church to host it, so I figured I'd better go.  It was actually a good night, and the most repeated comment was "I just want to be somewhere where other people 'get it'.  That I can tell them what my kid is doing and they won't judge me".  I'm so glad there is a safe place for them to do that, and I promise I won't be telling you any of their stories.  It's ironic that as soon as I get home from my first support group meeting, with people who just want to be around other moms who "get it", that my sweet monster gave me another notch on my belt.  Seriously people--you can't make this stuff up.

I come home and Aaron is still awake (it's 10:30 PM mind you).  He has confiscated my laptop and is in his bedroom with a bowl of goldfish crackers watching one second of a YouTube clip of Baby Neptune over and over and over...obviously it's late and it's time for him to go to bed, so being the responsible parent that I am, I tell him it's bedtime.  The next two minutes unfold like this.

Me: "Aaron, it's time to go to bed.  Let's go potty and brush your teeth."  We walk to the bathroom.  Stop reading right now if you have a weak stomach. 

Let me first quickly back up.  Aaron has been neglecting to pay attention and "aim" while he's going to the bathroom, so we've had to back up and actually follow him into the bathroom and give him the direction "pay attention".  Seriously?  He's 11. 

Anyhow.  We walk to the bathroom and he's carrying his bowl of fish crackers.  He walks up to the toilet and I go to take the bowl of goldfish crackers from him as he's standing over the toilet.  He won't let go of them so I say to myself "fine, he can hold them, it's not that big of a deal".  True to the way we roll in this house, he accidentally drops the entire bowl into the toilet.  I was on top of my game (or so I thought), so I immediately grab the bowl out of the toilet (thankfully he hadn't actually started going yet) and flush it because I know what was going to happen and I didn't want him grabbing fish crackers out of the toilet.  As the fishies are going down the drain, he decides he going to help them on their journey by peeing on them.  Fine.  Well...ummmm....this is the part where I'm not on top of my game.  He grabs the bowl he dropped into the toilet (that I had put on the tank) and drinks the toilet water that was left in it!  I'm grossed out, and calmly rip it out of his hands and say "gross"!  I know, I know, you're not supposed to react--but COME ON!   You know how the toilet bowl drains, and then fills back up again?  The toilet fills back up and some of the fishies come back up...so naturally he reaches into the toilet to grab them out TO EAT THEM!  NASTY!  I was able to grab his hand after he stuck it in the water, but before he was able to get one of those fishies in his hot little hands.  I'm standing there helpless.  I've got a toilet water contaminated bowl in one hand, Aaron's hand in my other hand, and I can't flush the toilet again because it's still filling back up with water!  Aaron is trying to squirm out of my death grip to grab the crackers, and I'm rattling the handle to get those suckers down!  Needless to say, I got him out of there, had him wash his hands, brush his teeth and off to bed!  It took FOUR flushes before the toilet was free and clear of the crackers.

And THAT is how I ended my day! 

Humility

There are very few places like church that provide wonderful opportunities for humility.  While going to the store with Aaron often turns head with people judging me for all sorts of reasons, I don't have to see those people every single week.  I have fairly thick skin, but there is still a little part of me that would like to put on a front that I am a good mother who doesn't let her children leave the house looking like Pig-Pen from the comic strip Peanuts.  Is this too much to ask?  Apparently it is.  Let me back up for a moment.  If you've been reading this blog, you know that ANY functional language should be rewarded IMMEDIATELY by doing what is requested.  We have also been working very hard on answer questions with "yes or no" (more importantly choosing which of those words he wants, and not answering the question with the phrase "yes or no"!!!)  Over the past 3 days Aaron has made some pretty cool gains by answering yes and no questions appropriately, and making brand new requests (with words he hasn't used before) that we have acted on.  Fast forward to this morning.  I wake Aaron up and tell him to get dressed for church.  Naturally he goes for the nasty, pizza smeared clothes he wore yesterday.  Our conversation goes like this:

Me: (Taking the dirty shirt away from him)  No honey.  You can't wear this shirt today.  It's dirty.

Monster: Shirt.

Me: (Quite happy that he has correctly identified the object in my hands, as he has never done this before, but still standing my ground).  You can't wear this one.  It's dirty.  How about this one? (Holding up another shirt).

Monster: (He takes the shirt out of my hand and puts it back in the drawer, and then tries to grab the dirty Captain America shirt out of my other hand).  Shirt.

Me: (Standing my ground.  So I put the DIRTY Captain America shirt between my legs and pick out two other shirts.  I hold them up.)  Your shirt is dirty.  Which shirt do you want to wear, this one or this one?

Aaron:  Dirty!

I've been defeated.  This boy has never verbally told me that he wants to wear his dirty nasty clothes (although he has let me know in screeching and whining in the past).  So I have to go by the "rules" and let him wear the nasty, dirty, pizza sauce smeared shirt.  I figure I would outsmart him by having him put a sweatshirt over the shirt and then people wouldn't see the nastiness.  I tell him he needs to put on a sweatshirt, and he does.  As we're walking into church I see that the stupid sweatshirt is dirtier than his shirt!  And so, I walk into the doors of church with Pig-Pen.  The only thing we were missing was his nasty blanket and my pride.

It's been a while

Well hello again--it's been a while.  I think about writing often; however, life has been a little crazy around here.  Both of my parents have ended up critically ill within days of each other, so my siblings and I are taking care of them as well as our own families.  This whole "sandwich generation" crap is ridiculous!  ANYHOW....I've had a few stories that I've wanted to write about but haven't had the time/energy to get it out.  Well.  The other night kicked me in the butt with a story that I just HAD to write about.

I went over to a friend's house for wine, snacks and a visit.  I left about 8:15 (PM--I at least wait until the evening-ish to enjoy a nice glass of wine), and asked my daughter and her friend to put The Little Monster to bed at 8:30 for me.  15 minutes.  No problems.  Right. 

8:42pm--phone call from daughter.  I hear some sort of noise in the background, and I can't tell if it's crying or laughing.  I'm worried. 
Daughter: "Mom.  I have two things to tell you."
Me: "What's wrong?"
Daughter: "Well, there are two things.  First of all J*** (friend) and I put on a pomegranate face mask and it burns--"
Me (interrupting and possibly agitated): "Well wash it off."  (I was going to add "stupid" to the end of the sentence, but caught myself as I remembered that 13/14 year-olds lack common sense, so it was unreasonable for me to expect her to problem solve something this difficult).  "What else?  What's wrong?"
Daughter: "Well, I put Aaron to bed like you told me to, and he didn't want to go.  He went to his room whining.  He kept whining and then about 20 minutes later he was banging on his door.  I put him back to bed and he was mad.  All of a sudden Cameron (brother) came running upstairs asking us if we knew what Aaron was doing.  Cameron was walking toward the house and saw Aaron push the screen out of his window, and was throwing his toys out of the window (which happens to be on the second story)."


At this point two things are going through my head: 1. That's hilarious!  I totally wish I could have seen it.  I can only imagine what was going through his head.  2.  Holy Crap!  What if he jumps out the window???


Me: Call your father (who happens to be 30 seconds away) and then call me back.


The remainder of the evening I exchanged phone calls and texts with both of my children so I could stay on top of the situation.  Husband came home and was able to put Aaron to bed without incident.  I'll admit I didn't sleep as well that night because I was worried that he would jump out the window to escape in protest--he didn't.  Whew!

I'm the favorite

I'm not gonna lie, I LOVE being the favorite.  It stems from being the favorite child in my family.  (Ok, well maybe that's not entirely true--the part about me being the favorite).  Since it didn't work in my family, I tried to tell my father-in-law that I was his favorite.  He agrees (with a stipulation), but he adds "oldest" into it--so I'm his favorite "oldest" daughter-in-law, guess I'm not the favorite there either.  What's with all of this equality business anyway?  Just like there is sibling rivalry (in order to be at the top of the parental favoritism list), I would argue that there is spousal rivalry as well.  (I think I'm going to see if they will include that as a disorder in the upcoming DSM V).  Even though adults should be mature enough to not play the "favorite game", the reality is--I'm not that mature.  It's true.

Yesterday was one of the more precious Aaron days.  It started at school where I attended a crack for kids Valentine's party.  It was the end of the day and I was getting ready to leave.  Aaron grabbed my hand with a death grip that turned my hand white.  I was planning on taking him anyway, but I enjoyed the sweet pain of my hand being crushed because I knew that he wanted me.  It only got better from there.  It wasn't even bed time yet when Aaron said, "Mah, coh hewe" (Mom come here) and grabbed my hand to lead me somewhere.  I stopped my whatever non-important thing I was doing (my euphoria of having him want me erased my memory), and I let him drag me through the house. It turned out that he wanted me to put him to bed, so we went through his bedtime routine, and I left his room a happy "Mah".  Husband, Daughter and I settled down in my bed to watch The Voice when I noticed that his door was open.  I found him and brought him to my room to lay down.  His hot, sweaty body fell asleep during the show, and I subjected myself to the inferno because he was just too sweet.  (Sleeping kids are the best!).  After the show, Husband woke him up to put him to bed (long gone are the days of carrying him anywhere).  They got all the way to his room when I hear "Mah, Mah.  I want Mah."  How can I resist that?  So without gloating too much (ahem), I repeated Aaron's bedtime routine, and both of us fell asleep happy.  

Fast forward to this morning.  [If you've read this blog, you may remember that Husband hates all animals (especially our two golden retrievers).  Hold on to this information--you will need it in a minute.]  It's time for Aaron to get on the bus.  Husband is walking out the door for work, so he yells that he'll take Aaron out to the bus.  Well Aaron doesn't want Husband to take him.  He wants ME to take him (oh yeah baby)!  In the midst of this exchange, Husband leaves the front door open.  Not good.  The golden retrievers seize this amazing opportunity and go FLYING out the front door. Chaos has now ensued.  Luckily(?) the dogs went running onto the bus.  The bus driver grabbed them, and Aaron and I are walking towards the bus.  She sees us coming, so she lets the dogs go.  Son and Daughter come running out to get the dogs, but the dogs have other plans.  They go bolting off down the street.  I know that Husband is most likely pissed at this point (especially since it was his fault--not that I'm assigning blame or anything).  The dogs are headed for the woods, and the kids are running as fast as they can after them.  I'm not sure what my emotions should have been at this moment, but I was quite satisfied that Aaron wanted me to put him on the bus.  Long story short, Husband ended up corralling the dogs in his car, brings them home, and drives to work.  He calls me to let me know how ironic it is that the boy wanted me, and the dogs wanted him (the sarcasm in his voice was thick).  I leave the conversation with a deep sense of gratification--it's going to be a good day.       

Scissors

What did you do this morning?  I bet you didn't spend 20 minutes with a tiny pair of scissors trying to get a tag off of the elastic band on underwear.  Yeah.  I didn't realize when I bought this package of underwear (for Aaron--just for clarification) that they would have tags.  Who puts tags on clothes anymore?  Everything is supposed to be tag-free now.  I can't believe Fruit of the Loom doesn't know this.  Anyhow, thankfully I didn't wait until the last absolute minute to get Aaron dressed for school (not that I've ever done that)--otherwise he may have been ripping his underwear off at school--not cool.  Husband apparently ran into this problem before I did, and his solution was to cut the tag out of the elastic, so now there is a big cut out of the elastic of another pair!  I at least "saved" the elastic from being cut to shreds!

After Aaron got home from school he comes downstairs, whining, saying "scissors, scissors".  I am SO thankful that he didn't find some on his own otherwise there would be one funny looking kid running around! 

Peanut butter saved the day!  He was quite unhappy with the process, trying to wipe the peanut butter out of his hair while I was trying to work it through the gum.  I tried to have as much compassion as possible (which isn't much), but COME ON!  Don't put gum in your hair!  Thankfully the peanut butter worked, and after some apple Suave he was back in business!  Although his hair smelled confusing...Is it apple? Is it peanut butter? Who cares--he only lost a few hairs in the process, and taking scissors to his hair was avoided!

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!

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!

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?

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!

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.

Markers and Memories

You expect 2 year-olds to suck on markers--heck I might even expect a 3 year-old to suck on markers.  At some point though, you've gotta stop.  I would have thought at 10 we would be past this stage, but apparently we're not.  I'm trying to decide if the feelings of disgust in myself are warranted though.  Here's why: if I wasn't so lazy I probably could have prevented it.  I'm going to confess--I walked by the pile of markers for days (yes, that's a plural) thinking to myself, "I should pick those up or Aaron is going to draw all over _______" (and every time I walked by I thought of a different object that he would write on).   Did I ever exert the 20 calories it would have taken to walk over to the markers and pick them up?  Nope.  Well actually, in the end I did because I got to clean up the markers AND his face.  The good news to this story is that the only casualties were Aaron's mouth and a few markers.  The computer made it out unscathed (which in the past hasn't always been the case), and the carpet fared well too.  Whew!

Now for an "awe how cute" story.  Aaron loves Disneyland.  Husband has videos of our last trip on his computer, and apparently Aaron went looking through the computer for something fun to look at.  When I walked in, he had moved the office chair into the kitchen where the computer was, unplugged the iPhone that was syncing (ha ha ha--I'm laughing only because it wasn't my phone), and was watching a video of himself riding the Buzz Lightyear ride.  He was doing this while playing with a Buzz Lightyear light up toy.  It was so precious.  It made me want to grab his headphones and head off to the most magical place on Earth.  Even if that did mean I had to ride the stupid steamboat 400 times!

"Meyyows"

As a kid did you ever take a marshmallow and squish it between your fingers to make it like taffy?  Aaron has somehow figured out the speedy way to do this.  I'm not sure how he figured it out (it must have been one of his siblings--it's always their fault), but he likes to microwave marshmallows.  So I went to the store yesterday and they had these HUGE marshmallows on sale for 99¢.  Daughter had just had braces put on, so I was a sucker to get them for her (even though she can't eat them...didn't really see the logic in that one).  So the Little Monster saw the "meyyows" (as he calls them), and he wanted one.  He got a plate out and brought me the bag.

I must have been in a delusional state of mind, because I knew how this was going to end--which was messy.  He had eaten his dinner (in just shy of 45 minutes...yay), so what the heck.  He takes the gigantic meyyow over to the microwave and wants me to start it.  At this point I'm more than willing to do it myself because it would be a total disaster if he started working the microwave to cook his own marshmallow.  Can you imagine the clean up on an exploded marshmallow?  Anyhow I carefully watch the meyyow and pop it out when it's almost ready (no need to take any risks), and hand it over to him.  He goes running through the kitchen with it, and starts to play.  In my wishful thinking I hand him a wet washcloth hoping that this time he'll use it instead of his pants.  Nope.  Gotta use the pants.  Meyyow eating has to be 100% supervised because, well...duh.

Aaron has strategically placed himself so that he can see his reflection in the sliding glass door while he's eating his meyyow. So there he sits for the next half an hour, making funny faces at himself in the door, stretching the meyyow and smearing it all over his pants and the table.  Awesome.  Because I made him stay sitting down while he at his meyyow, the mess was contained, and a quick strip of the pants and a LONG time with his hands under hot water to dissolve the sugar, he was on his way, leaving me to scrub down the table!