What If

The Rooster's speech therapist encouraged us to practice the construction, "What do you think..."

So Saturday we started working on "What do you think about..." and "What do you think will happen if..." because these are the kinds of questions you often hear in school. We have asked him so many questions that he can see it coming from the sound of the "Wh" and I thought he might have started to tune out. 

Tonight I sat on the bathroom floor watching the Roo playing with his cars in the water, and he looked at me and asked, "Mommy, what do you fink if I zoom my car over the side of the bath and then fast down into the water?" I said, "I think it will splash." He said, "Yeah. And I fink I will laugh. Let's see!" 

And for once we were both right. 

Unanswerable questions

I have the best husband ever. He is adorable, sweet, and smart, and no, I have no idea why he picked me. I remember asking over and over and over and over when we met how on earth no one had snatched him up by then, allowing him to reach the ripe old age of 28 without a wife. 

We have very little in common, as you can see. The part that will clearly indicate to you that he "completes me" is this: you can't bring J down. He buoys back every time. And not in an annoying way, either. He's no bright-sider, no Dudley Do-right. He just has a natural Tiggerishness to my Eeyoreness. I like him. I love him. I'm crazy about him. I want to be more like him. Stay away from him, I found him first. 

If you don't hear a "but" coming, you must be new here. 

So, here is the Meme I have had on my mind. If you knew you had to ask your partner/spouse/significant other 20 objective questions that they could NOT possibly answer, what would you ask? You know, stumpers that might have been on that old show, The Newlywed Game...

Here is my list of THE UNANSWERABLE:

How many loads of laundry do our children require a week? 

What do we need at the grocery store? 

What is today's date? 

How does one go about sending holiday cards? 

Name all of our kids' current teachers. 

What do our children eat for breakfast on weekdays?

What do our children eat for lunch on weekdays? 

What do our children eat for dinner on weekdays? 

What size shoes do the kids wear? 

What important business do we have on the calendar for this week? Or tomorrow? 

What code word did the school give us in order to pick the kids up in an emergency? 

How long can you keep a toothbrush before you should throw it away or donate it to science? 

When should you throw away food (or risk poisoning your family) despite the fact that technically it isn't the "SELL BY" date yet? 

Name one gift we ever gave to your grandmother since we met. 

How do you set the alarm clock? 

How does a calendar work? 

What is the only thing I ever asked for (and which I have never received) for my birthday? 

If you plan to travel with our kids, what goes in the suitcase?

What did I tell you that you simply MUST remember in case I suddenly die soon? 

How do you put up with me? 

 

Don't Read the Eeyore

There is so much good and beauty in the world. 

I can't see any of it. 

I am an eeyore. 

In the past 10 days:

I had a chest infection. Fever, night sweat, coughing spasm, blood.

The Rooster woke up one night around midnight vomiting profusely. 

The Peaches woke up with charley horses around 2. 

My husband caught the chest cold. 

Peaches caught the stomach flu. 

The Rooster hit his shadow. 

I caught the stomach flu. 

The shadow caught the stomach flu. 

The broker we hired to find us the car we need disappeared; a simple Toyota that matches our needs (can I hear a "THIRD ROW" amen please?!) cannot be located anywhere in the country. Our current 14-year-old, overtaxed Toyota limps along sadly, threatening to quit, and I can't blame it.  

A coworker seems determined to criticize me unfairly.

My husband ordered a new mattress to replace the 11-year-old one that sags miserably and hurts his back. The new - expensive - set came. It is toxic. I'd rather sleep in the Rooster's bed during his stomach flu, it smells that bad. 

And, don't think I didn't notice, there was a presidential election. I did, I swear, do my best to bask in it. I had all four computers in the house on abc, cnn, npr, and msn, and stole all the glances the kids would permit. I turned on the clock radio in the bed room and snuck in there each chance I got. The rooster, of course, did not allow me to watch any tv, but when I tried we at least had a moment of levity. He pointed to the screen and shouted, as he does on Sundays when I try to catch a Redskins score, "I DON'T LIKE FOOTBALL!" I told him, "Son, that is not football. That is about the president of the United States." I pointed to the screen, where images of both candidates looked back at us. He stamped his foot and proclaimed, "WELL, SHAME ON HIM!" And he turned it off. Fine, I have an iPhone, and his bedtime is 8, so eventually I got to bask some. Everyone else in the blogosphere wrote about the magic and power and significance of the night so much better than I can, but I shared the goosebumps, the tears, the  chills -- and this was not about my infection or flu. It was a moment of joyful hope. I still haven't come down from the news-binge every chance I get. I still revel in the history-making. I still feel heady and slightly anxious and very grateful. 

But I am still an eeyore, too. I still have the rest of the last ten days chewing on me, and it sometimes makes it hard for me to see the big picture of the goodness and the beauty all around. I am lame, and I know it, and I apologize for it. 

In the words of the rooster, Shame on ME. It's a good thing for me I'm not up for re-election. 

I'll Live

Have felt near death with this illness (flu?), and after major dysfunction on all levels around here, had been considering euthanizing my hopeless self... had been planning my bequest blog, in fact... 

(coughing attack...coughing attack...ack, ack, ack....)

But tonight, even I have to have hope. 

So I'm sparing you my drama (you're welcome), and I'm going to enjoy the drama with the happy ending in our country.

Yes, we can. 

(and thanks for the really nice comments and get well emails!)

Undone

How ridiculous will I look if it's a cold that finally undoes me?
A COLD.
But it could happen. It could be my dimpled chad, the straw to my camel hump.
My COLD could be the thing that sends me to the hospital (medical) or the hospital (mental), or jail.
Sure, I have a bad cold, but my pride still rankles at the possibility of a cold doing me in, even if this cold comes with fever and likely infection. On the one hand, I feel so ABOVE a cold breaking me. On the other hand, I think at least some people -- some of YOU people -- will forgive me, will understand. You'll be able to tell people, in a mitigating way: Well, it went beyond just the cold. (As in, the death of a thousand paper cuts.) You can tell people: She really did put up a good fight, no matter how it might look.

Won't you?

Every single night when I am awake at 2 or 3 or 2:43 in the morning, I wonder how long a body can take it. And today, when 6 came and kids finally convinced me to rise after being awakened a handful of times, my body answered: No More.
This "cold" signifies a rebellion of my pudgy, hypervigilant, fatigued, underbathed, and assaulted mortal shell.
I have a cup of tea on the counter, a lozenge in my mouth, tissues in my pocket, Aleve in my system, soup in my belly, but I recognize I don't stand a chance. My immune system got up and left town in disgust months ago.
My next post will include important last words, goodbyes, and bequests; or, I will get some deep, satisfying, REM sleep.
Hmmmm, which one sounds unlikely?

Trick or Treat: Is it Halloween Yet?

The Rooster began asking me in September: Is it Halloween yet? And, sadly, it still is not. 

He points to the neighbors' decorations, brightly lit up across the street, unmistakable from our naked windows -- five of them of them across our living room -- and pitches his frustration at my ears' pain threshold: YES IT IS HALLOWEEN TIME, LOOOOOOOOOK. IT IS IT IS IT IS. IT'S HALLOWEEN. I want to go get CANDY. NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!

This is our first Halloween post autism diagnosis, and our first Halloween gfcf. Now, before I explain to you what a giant pain I find this in my giant rear end, let me tell you my little back story. 

I love holidays. Love em. You never saw a Jewish girl get Christmasy like I do. Oh, I don't go over the top with decorations or anything, I just get all drunk on symbolism and hungover on high stakes emotional expectation. Even I can't believe how quickly I turn from cynical pessimist into a drippy glop of mush shelling out $30 for every ugly ornament that says, "Baby's First Christmas" or "2007: Our New Home" and weeping over Passover stories on NPR.  

So you're wondering if you stumbled on to the wrong blog? Revising your whole mental picture of Rooster's mom? 

Even farther back in the back story: My childhood sucked. My dad got the very literal kind of drunk every holiday eve and puked all over symbolism. Then he fled the country and my mom worked every holiday eve, and spent every Christmas morning refusing to accept my thanks for the gifts she gave me, insisting on apologizing nonstop for not being able to buy me expensive clothes and jewelry I never wanted in the first place. Then, she met another drunk...

When I left for college, I EMBRACED celebration. I considered myself all grown up and in charge of my own holidays, and I. Did. Them. Up. Right. I remember a particular Halloween dorm party where I met a cute cyclist named.... but wait. I digress. 

I couldn't wait to have a family of my own with HOLIDAYS. I do not discriminate about holidays or worry about such nonsense as whether or not they match my religion or whatever: my rule says that if food is involved, I will celebrate. Ramadan, not so much. Chinese New Year? Now you're talking. 

And now, in the face of the holiday season, I feel a little slack in the ho ho ho, if you know what I'm saying. I'm concerned how my family's EPIC sweet potatoes will turn out without the essential stick of butter this Thanksgiving. And Halloween? It's looking pretty scary. 

So this is what I did. I got online and ordered a gajillion dollars worth of gfcf candy, which got me about 14 servings, and then paid double for shipping. I have stuffed these sugary gems into environment-killing baggies, and tomorrow I will add to these baggies a note to our neighbors. It will beg them to give an atypical family a break. It will request that, when my kids say "Trick or Treat", they will hand them these organic gummy whatevers instead of the good stuff they hand out to the NT masses. Wednesday after my husband comes home, I will sneak out and reverse trick or treat down our little street, leaving these baggies at the houses with the inflatable ghosts and the static cling bats where I feel most likely to catch a break. 

It's a risky plan, and I doubt it will work. But I have to at least try. It's that, or go all bah humbug, and give up my Fa la la la las. Maybe by the time we're looking for gfcf fruitcake and gelt, I'll raise the white flag, but for now, I'm setting out to get our whole family drunk on all-natural gluten-free casein-free soy-free gummi bears and good times. 

Wish me luck.

Is it Halloween yet? 

A Day in the Life

Many of you reading this could surely give me a run for my money. You could handle my days with one arm tied behind your back, not in a straight jacket like the one I need. But I write this because over and over again people ask me things like, "Why don't you meet us at the beach?" and "How was your day?" and "Are you looking forward to..." and they don't know exactly what to make of my answers. I don't blame anyone, I just want to reframe things a bit with this perspective into my typical day in an atypical family with Rooster (4 1/2) and Peaches (2 1/2).  

Please: consider this a meme. I'm dying to read YOURS.  I advise you NOT to read mine. It is boring and pathetic, self-indulgent and stupid. 

On a "typical" Roostery, Peachy weekday, like the ones laying in wait for us now: 

2:30 I wake up for the first, second, or third time to a child who fell out of the bed/had a nightmare/threw up/has a cough/wet the bed/has issues.

3:15 I stare at the clock, kept awake by obsessively and depressively calculating how much (little) sleep I will end up getting at this rate, and my pity party begins. 

5:29 I wake up for the day to a child who is ready whether it's dark out or not to watch cartoons, wake a sibling, and hand over the daily list of demands. On lucky days, I squeeze in a shower, while the kids sit on the bath mat watching, commenting unfavorably. (LOOK at your TUMMY!) On unlucky days, I throw on whatever and barely manage brushing my teeth before I dive right in to the rituals: 

• make sure I have one humongous-eater lunch and one gfcf (read: EXPENSIVE) lunch packed, along with daycare snacks (always red organic seedless grapes or the world will stop spinning)
• make sure I have the backpacks with requisite supplies (pullups, wipes, changes of clothes, blanket, MORE SNACKS, etc.)
• diaper and dress two unwilling participants who ought to be using a potty by now; then re-diaper them after they digest breakfast
• feed two demanding eaters
• eat my own breakfast, sharing bites with Peaches, who considers it tragic if I eat my own food alone
• brush teeth of slippery eels by coercion 
• put shoes on children no fewer than four times

Around 7:15, the arduous car loading (Where is my BATMAN? NO, I NEED SPIDERMAN!! GET HIM!), then commute begins. This is an exercise in juggling and magic. It is my job to distract, distract, distract. If I deejay just right with Beezus and Ramona on tape and Joe Scruggs songs, keep one finger on the wheel as I dole out MORE food, and anticipate arguments before they begin so I can head them off at the pass, maybe, just maybe, no one will bleed en route to....

8:00 School. Okay, use your imagination. The dropoff at school is too painful on typical days to write about unless you want me to sink into deep depression. And I work there so I'm not allowed to curse at my children in the process. In fact, I am expected to smile at least a little. Never do I feel less dignified. Oh, except at the end of the day. 

8:20-4:30 I spend working, but on lunch and other breaks on typical days I call insurance companies, therapists, doctors, and pharmacies. I occasionally look through the viewing windows into my kids' classrooms to see Peaches playing doll babies and Rooster knocking down another child's Magnatiles construction or being carried away from circle time in a tantrum. I wander the halls carefully hoping no one will stop me to tell me what issue my child had just this morning in class. If my phone rings and I see certain extensions are calling me, it is gong to be typically BAD DAY. Otherwise, I just enjoy working really hard. 

4:30 The Peaches is tired, the Rooster is overtired, and, while carrying two backpacks and lunch boxes, I sign them out and lure them away from their play with promises of popsicles at home should we ever make it there. As we leave, several small people try to stop me, wanting to tell me how the Rooster upset them during the day, but my hands are too full to pay adequate heed, and thus I am even less dignified then I was in the morning, hastily dashing off apologies, dragging my kids, begging for cooperation. It takes an average of 23 minutes to wrangle the tornadoes to the car. You could make the trip without them in about 3 minutes. En route, we pass at least one or two of my dear friends/colleagues, whose warm good night wishes to the kids earn snarls and yelps in reply from the Rooster, and hiding behind my legs from Peaches. 

By 5 we are in the car, and by 5:45 we get home, having stopped the car at least 3 times on our 9 mile journey while I threatened to put them on time out on the side of a freeway. The rooster is not entirely to blame for this. He used to be, but now that Peaches is two, she has some terribles to get out of her system. Either one, two, or three of us have tears and snot flying by the time we make it to our driveway, and the floor of my Saturn has a new layer of filth that soon will make for a creative foot rest for the short people. 

by 7ish, daddy is home. Before his arrival, I have fed the kids, emptied and repacked their lunches, tossed in a load of dirty clothes, emptied the dishes that he ran before work in the morning, handled mail and bills, and we are deep into an episode of Sesame Street on DVR. 

It is time for my own dinner. Cereal? PBJ? Or microwave some chicken teriyaki? I ponder the exercise bike taking up all the breathing room in our bedroom. I am weary. Daddy will have to fend for himself for food. First, though, he's going to pour himself a cocktail. 

By 7:30 my husband and I have done medicines, diapers, toothbrushing, humidifiers, book reading, melatonin, vitamins, and behavior management. We have toyed with the concept of baths and resigned ourselves that this will wait. We make plans to divvy up the rest of the week's therapies, phone calls, and extra chores. We briefly wonder when we will look at potential schools for next year, decide about vaccines, replace our broken down car, and see our faraway families. We vow that soon we will see our own doctors and take care of our own maladies. We add more papers on the piles. We argue a bit, make up, sigh heavily, and probably I will cry just a little. At least once I will say, "I miss my Grandma." At least 30 times the Rooster will have jumped from furniture. At least 10 times the Peaches will have tried to negotiate to stay up longer. The names they will have called each other range from the jargony made up ones (You're a DATCHER) to the gross (You POOTER), and their assault on one another will include poking, pushing, shoving, biting, spitting, grabbing, kicking, taunting, and screaming. We will tuck the children in with lullabies once or twice or thrice. They are, at last, lovely, beautiful darlings, and I kiss their foreheads repeatedly. Mmmmm, sweet foreheads. 

8:00 I will consider any number of useful activities I could do VERY QUIETLY (TV is OUT), and then end up playing a few quick rounds of WordTwist on Facebook before reading blogs and writing a post like this one (well, hopefully better than this one). I call this Therapy Time. It keeps me going. Really and truly, it is not optional. Once in a while this is a time to sneak in that shower, but on a truly typical day, my husband is soaking in the tub with the lights off nursing a headache, so I'll make do with a quick wash cloth and some extra Secret. 

9ish Make to do list with grand intent, with things like Send Birthday Card to Loved One, Change the Oil, Deposit Paycheck. Cram it in the overstuffed purse with the others. 

9:30ish If my eyes still hold themselves up, I will remember that I must do the right thing and close them, because 2:30 will be here soon, and I better be ready.