First black eye. No broken nose.

Today, Primo and Spark were playing outside.  It's Spring break, and they'd been inside on screens all day.  I sent them out at 5pm, telling them to play until Daddy got home. He usually arrives at 6.

When one son is twice as large as the other and they like to play with sticks, the little one often ends up with a scrape or whacked knuckles. Today was different. There was chasing, shouting, a strongly pushed swing, and then blood and tears.

Primo needs physical exercise and release every day. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any peers to goof and roughhouse with.

Spark's nose has a neat 90-degree cut, and his right eye and cheek will tell their own tale soon. Thank goodness for my Girl Scout first aid courses.

October 25 evening

Spark is laying out the four pairs of mittens and gloves.  He's preparing for the winter cold.  The end of October here means an opportunity to trick-or-treat in freezing rain and/or snow; I can think of many childhood Halloweens where I had to design a costume that would fit over my winter coat.

I'm on the couch with the laptop, looking for new jobs.

The kittens, Hazel and Mabel, are hiding in the folds of five layers of blankets on Primo's bed.  Our house is uninsulated, yet we find ways of keeping warm.

When I'm stressed out, I tend to write less and less.  I eat less. I sleep more. In the last three months, we've had one cat go missing, one cat need to be put down, my parents moved across the country, and I received official notice that my employment will end by December 31.  It's been a bit of a hard go for my emotions.

Primo's voice is changing.  Spark is getting taller and skinnier and sweeter by the moment.  We filled the kitty void with two seven-month-old female kittens.  Hero is playing more music with friends. Maybe we're finding some balance of the difficult with the joyous. 

Looking up into blue eyes

In the quiet of the upstairs hallway this week, the family going through our morning routines, Primo came upstairs to say Hi. I was freshly dressed, putting on makeup in the bathroom, getting my hair in some proximity of rightness. He stood in the hallway, wearing his size 13 shoes for the first time. It was the last hot day of a long hot spell; we were looking forward to wearing pants and sweaters after a rainy day.

I asked him how the shoes felt.  He said they were a little tight.  I looked down at those big feet of his, and assured him that he'd find the shoes comfortable pretty soon.  He sighed and shifted his weight.

I then realized that, as he was facing me, his nose was above mine.

For the first time, in his shoes, this boy is taller than me. I told him this, and we and laughed a little. I hugged him tight and kissed his cheek, telling him I love him. 

There is only one moment like this in our lives.

About time for a winter post.

So many things!  The posts pile up in my head and then don't get written.

A blizzard is coming our way.  For those raised in places that get Big Snows, you can relate to that sense of giddiness of a pending snow day.  Added to that is the possibility of an early start to school Christmas break, extra cookies in the house, AND new snow boots, and we have a recipe for all of us brimming with excitement.

All this is after of our third annual Pre-Christmas Weekend Waterpark Escape!  For the third year in a row, our family has had the great pleasure of being treated to an extended-family get-together at a nearby resort complex.  Hero's dad has some kind of condo club membership that applies to this resort, and all the siblings on that side of the family meet up for a weekend of water-filled fun.  There are cousins to play with, lots-o-nothin' to talk about, grownup beverages, and silly movies.

Primo loves the water.  This year's favorite feature for him was the wave pool. If Primo could be in a warm pool for a couple of hours every day, he would be.  That's something we haven't figured out how to do yet.  But escaping into a rhythmic pool of waves once a year is such a treat--he can spend hours at a time swimming, floating, and body surfing.  He gets hungry and deeply tired from the exercise, retreats to the room, and refuels.  It's a beautiful cycle.

Tuesday morning in October

And was thinking last night about feeling thankful.

I am thankful for the tiny meow-snores of my giant orange cat.  He does this as he's falling into his first big sleep of the night.  He is still new enough to our family that we are still learning his sounds, his patterns, and his personality.

I am thankful for the warm clothes I wear, and for an extra blanket on the bed that makes sleep time just right.

I am thankful for the kisses that blossom from Spark's lips and speckle me until I can hardly breathe.  And how 'just one more' is always five or ten or twelve, really.

I am thankful for each white hair I find on Primo's head, mixed in with the thick dark browns.  I wonder whether he will be all-white by his late 20's, like his grandfather.  When Primo hugs me now, his arms can go around my shoulders; no longer is he waist-high.

I am thankful for the love I feel when I look at my husband's face.  That feeling is not a choice or a decision; when I see that arrangement of his eyebrows, his eyes, his lips, his nose--it just comes, and I am often surprised by the joy of it.

I am thankful for understanding what it means to feel thankful, especially when I have known despair, fear, and darkness of the soul.  Today I know I am thankful.

Chores for urban kids

So, what shall these next weeks bring?  I'm hoping for more fun with my sons, some conscious face time with my beloved husband, and far less screen time in my household.  After a rather painful offense against his father, Primo was given housekeeping chores this weekend; he performed them willingly and fairly well, with guidance appropriate to a boy cleaning a bathroom and kitchen for the first time.  He asked useful questions, requested appropriate breaks, had a snack, and was generally in a playful mood as we went through the chores together.

The rest of that day was pretty great, behaviorally, for Primo.  There was a less-than-usual amount of backtalk and disobedience, and some useful suggestions for what to do with the evening.  He proposed early combined showers with his brother, in order to get to watch a movie -- displaying forethought and the planning required to get a desired privilege.  Primo has to be in a really good emotional place to be able to put all of those steps together and make the proposal in a manner that is appealing to his parents.  It was pretty great.

These Ralph Moody books have me thinking about what kids like Primo would have done to get along and survive in the days before Asperger's was a diagnosis, and autism was an identified neuro-psych disorder. I've been considering the chores that many non-urban kids still do, and wondering what we can do with Primo to keep his body working hard enough that his mind and emotions are mellowed by it.

First-world problems

I have two sets of blogs I love to read: one set is just for me and my interests, and the other set is about autism and parenting kids who have autism.  Over time, the blogs in the lists have changed, but they remain a list of those that are mostly family-friendly (for those who read over my shoulder) and mostly G-rated.

I know that being the parent of a kid with autism is hard.  My kid's flavor of autism -- Asperger's -- is an intellectually-gifted, socially-pathetic (almost-sociopathic) kind.  Primo has almost no ability to empathize with anyone else, except when their point of view is very similar to his.

I know that parents who have kids with autism didn't choose the life they have.  Many parents would choose to have their kid, without the autism.  Others will say that the autism and the kid are inseparable, and the autism is part of who the kid is.  For me, I would be lying if I said that I'd take Primo with autism as readily as I'd accept him without it.  His struggles with life, his loneliness, and his antisocial behaviors are all hard on him as well as the rest of his family.  Having Primo's autism in our family makes our lives so much more challenging, and often downright miserable.  If I could choose to have him become neurotypical, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  I wonder whether he would.

Having Spark come into our family has provided a sharp contrast for me as a mother.  As far as we know, Spark is neurotypical.  He joined our family when Primo was four years old, right when the autism started to become more markedly apparent.  I knew, through the haze of nursing and diapering and trying to mother those different needs, that something was up with Primo.  I was raised in a family with a father has Asperger's Syndrome, too, so I recognized what was going on.  Spark knows that his brother has autism, and to a degree he can understand that the autism is what makes Primo so unable to be mostly polite and kind.  It's hard for Spark, though.  He's a deeply emotive and sweet person.  I wish his big brother could be the strong, sure, kind and assuring type.

Some days I'm in a state of grace, and some days I'm not.  I've got my own issues, like major depression and anxiety, which I mostly manage with medications and supplements.  I'm about 65 pounds overweight.  Hero's got more anxiety than I do.  He's a gifted musician with no time to make music.  We've got no discretionary income, lots of debt, a house in strong need of rewiring and insulation, and two cars with almost-bald tires.

We also have a lots of family members who love us, though they are unable to help us with caring for our children or our finances.  They can and do pray for us on a regular basis.

I think about the complaints that I have and the complaints I hear and read from others every day.  For the most part, we are lower-middle-class white U.S. residents who have homes to live in, food to eat, and people who care about us.  I know that some hurts run extra-deep, and some pains from mental illness and addiction are extra-strong.  But really, what is it with the navel-gazing and inward-scrutiny?

Sheesh.  Get over yourself already.  It's not about YOU.  Do some good for someone else today, will ya?  You might feel better.

Tell 'em Glori B. said you should.

Adventure Girl

Spark and I were talking the other night.  He asked about why I don't wear dresses very often.  I explained that I do dress up from time to time, wearing a skirt or dress if I have a special occasion to attend.  (And then I had to explain what the word occasion meant.)

To summarize, I told him that I've never been much of a girlie-girl.  He responded, "Yeah, you're more of an Adventure Girl."

Monday short

My children are downstairs, making up songs and singing at the top of their lungs.  They crack up, laughing.  Some are songs about sagging pants and pee, but really, I'd expect that from 7 and 11 year-old boys.  Their boisterous rollicking is likely fueled by the freshly-baked cookies that are rapidly disappearing next to the stove.  Today's Cookie Day recipes were for coconut-sugar cookies, and oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies with coconut.  Though Hero doesn't like coconut nearly as much as I do, I am fortunate enough to have sons who understand my need for this favorite flavor.  Spark and I have a deal to do something with coconut and marshmallows for next Cookie Day.