That's just something that happens when you have kids

Yesterday I had a meeting with the new Executive Director for one of the nonprofits I work for. It wasn't a very formal meeting but it was still my first meeting with the person who is my new supervisor. We had a nice time, she's very cool. Young. Man, I'm old. But that's not my point at the moment.

Afterwards she's walking me to the elevator and we're wrapping up our chat when I reach into my pocket to grab my keys and out of my pocket flies a bright pink chip clip. It lands on the floor at our feet, in this nice, air conditioned, fancy office building we're in.

Why do I have a bright pink chip clip in the pocket of the pants I'm wearing to a work meeting? Well, the answer is that I do not know. Why do we parents have anything in our pockets, really? It's all kid related, somehow. Chip clips, and used bandaids; maybe some ketchup containers, those plastic wrappers that come off the straws that are attached to juice boxes. Any number of random items can be found in the pockets of our fancy work pants. As parents, we know this is not unusual.

So, I casually bend down to pick it up from the fancy carpeted hallway floor, and as I do I say "That's just something that happens when you have kids; random things will come flying out of your pockets like that."

She probably thinks I'm crazy now. She probably wouldn't be wrong, either.

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Some days you get the autism, and some days the autism gets you

I was waiting for this morning; I've been waiting for 2 1/2 weeks now and somehow I was still surprised by it. It's the third week of school and the honeymoon phase is over. The harsh, cold reality of "there is school every day" has sunk in and Child 1 has begun to rebel. It started on Sunday night when he didn't want to go to bed by himself and lead up to this morning, when he had a meltdown (a meltdown for him, anyway; even his meltdowns are pretty mellow). He threw a bowl of Cheerios away, and he hit me. Although, saying he hit me isn't really that dramatic, since he's so skinny and weak and has that hypertonia going on, his "hit" doesn't really pack much of a punch, but still. He very rarely does anything even close to that, so when he's crying and hitting me it's something to take very seriously.

First I tried to get him to tell me exactly what the problem was, which is always a waste of time, because I know what the problem is: he doesn't like school! And he can't really get specific about that, at least not specific enough to satisfy me, although he does try. He threw out things like "this is the real reason why I don't want to go to school, because I have to do math," and "I have P.E." etc.

The truth is that he doesn't like school, and he didn't want to go. I tried to fight it but it just kept getting worse because the more I tried the worse his anxiety got. So, I hinted at him staying home, to see what kind of reaction I would get (duh). Unfortunately, Child 2 heard that and immediately says "If Child 1 doesn't have to go to school, then I don't have to go to school. That's not fair."

Well, shit. He's right, you know. Now, of course I always have the option of saying "because I said so" and forcing him in the car, but he's right that it's not fair. Child 1 isn't sick and even if Child 2 understood the nuances of autism, which he doesn't, he's still only 7 and uses 7 year old reasoning and 7 year old reasoning says that if his brother isn't sick and gets to stay home then he should, too.

It was at that point that I just said fuck it, everybody stays home. I didn't have anything to do that I couldn't reschedule (but I was sad, because Danielle and I were going to have lunch, and I don't often get to do fun stuff during the day ) and I just didn't have the energy to fight it.

So, fuck it. You win this round, autism. I admit my defeat, partly because I was caught unprepared for something I should have been prepared for but mostly because I just didn't have it in me to put up a fight. They both get to stay home today, but they're not allowed to do anything fun! No TV and no computer and no iPod until 3:00!!! That's how I put my foot down, I can't be a complete loser in this scenario. That, of course, didn't stop me from feeling like a complete loser, waste of a mom, totally defeated by failure.

I know that's not true, but that's how I felt.

Maybe tomorrow, right?

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How we put on sunscreen in my house

This post is for Nicole, who said in the comments of yesterday's post "I need your light-hearted, Fuck it sometimes posts with the great stick figures and such to get me through the sometimes crappy job of being a 'autism mommy'." I don't actually know you, Nicole, so I don't know how to find you and tell you to come and see this; hopefully you'll just happen by!

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Just makin' my purchases

The kids are at camp for the summer; they're both at the same camp this year (not like last year) and one of Child 2's friends is going with him. I've been driving the friend to and from camp every day; it's no big deal, I'm going there, anyway, it's easier for his mom to drop him at our house every morning and he lives close so I just bring him home in the afternoon. This fact will become important in a minute.

Wednesday was a busy work day for me; I had back to back clients all day and then I had to rush up the hill to pick up all the boys from camp. I finished my second client and realized that I had about 10 minutes to spare, so I decided to go to Trader Joe's to pick up some necessities.

So, I park and jump out, and I go into the store and don't even get a cart or a basket, because I'm going to be so quick. I grab my first two necessities: a bottle of vodka and a bottle of wine, and I head to the other side of the store to get the ham and the Mac & Cheese.

I'm on my way over when I hear a little voice say "Hi Jill!" and I look over and I see the little brother of Child 2's friend. The friend who is at camp with my kid right now. The friend who I'm about to go pick up in 10 minutes. And HEY! There's the friend's mom! Buying milk! And here I am... holding a bottle of vodka and a bottle of wine.... with no basket.

I literally stop in my tracks in mid-stride, and I'm sure I looked like a deer in the headlights. Like this, probably:

and I say very awkwardly "oh, hey! Yeah, um.... just, uh.... makin' my purchases! Heh heh heh." And she says something like "oh, have fun!" all the while we're both very much aware that I'm now on my way to pick her son up from camp. In my car. Not like I was going to drink any of it before I got there, but still.....

Awkward.

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Johnson's body care, take me away....

It was Tuesday morning and it was of those days.

You know those days.

My house was a gigantic fucking nightmare, there was crap everywhere, sometimes literally, it smelled like a goddamn litterbox and there were piles of laundry in random places and underwear seemingly everywhere. You know that Simpsons episode where Marge gets up in the morning and keeps finding underwear all over her house? And she walks through picking them up saying "underwear.... underwear.... more underwear...." and she finds them in the freezer and such? It was like that. (Actually, sometimes I feel like my entire life is like that scene. I've been trying to find a clip of that on YouTube and haven't been successful, but if you saw it, trust me, you would laugh.)

So there was laundry and underwear everywhere.... and..... it was the little things. The little things that kept happening.... you know... little. fucking. things. For example, there was this plate of cat food in the middle of the floor in the kitchen that I kept stepping on; squishy cat food..... with my bare feet. And somebody had spilled a glass of water on the carpet, and I was apparently unable to walk across the room without stepping in said wet spot.... with my bare feet (at least it washed off the squishy cat food?) And the really long easel paper that Child 1 likes to spread out in the front room and draw BART tracks on had been attacked by cats the night before and, um... well, they did bad things to it. And I was trying to get everybody ready for school, but I couldn't even walk because there were cats constantly circling around my ankles (I call it "Constant Cat").

For some reason, Child 2 always manages to find some reason to melt down right before we're about to walk out the door. It never fails, in fact, I don't think we've had a single day this whole school year where he hasn't been crying about something as he gets in the car. I've tried many different ways to figure out how to make this not happen, but I guess he is determined to be crying as he walks out the door every fucking day; always making us late, of course. And Child 1 was in this weird trance, probably because his BART drawings had been fouled by cats the night before, so it was really hard to get the two of them to put their shoes on and get out the door. (Oh, and BY THE WAY, judgey fucking Berkeley parents? YES. I drive my kids the 6 fucking blocks to school every morning. That's right, I see you on your fucking bikes giving me the stink eye because you know how close I live and am still driving by you. My mornings are fucking hard enough and driving my kids instead of dragging them the 6 blocks to school makes my life just a teeny, tiny bit easer, so I'm going to fucking do it. I don't care what you think about me and I certainly don't care if it's bad for the planet. FUCK THE PLANET)

Here, I drew it for you:

The breaking point came when I was trying to microwave my breakfast, but the glass tray that turns the food around while it cooks simply refused to fit in into the little hole dealie that it goes into, which meant I couldn't heat up my food until that fucking thing got in there. I snapped and SCREAMED "GAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" and started banging the glass thingy against the bottom of the microwave. Poor hubs comes running out of the bedroom upstairs to say "oh my god are you okay??" and I was like this

SORRY HUBS!!

Okay, so I finally get the kids off to school and I head over to my client. I get there, and she's standing on the street with some police officers, because her studio has been broken into. Again. She runs an art studio for kids and for some reason people really like to break down her front door. I don't know why. She's really cool and was obviously very distraught, considering that pieces of wood and door hardware were literally halfway across the room. So I was like... seriously, Today? WTF is wrong with you?? Do you just have it in for everybody??? and I head into her office in the back to get my work done.

I sit down at her desk and am greeting by this:

... and I just started laughing my ass off, because..... seriously? Help me unwind and feel at ease? Do you think the lotion has that kind of power? Will it erase the shitty morning I just had? Will it melt all my stress away with its lavender and chamomile powers? I bet it smells GOOD, though.

It actually did smell good, and I happily moisturized my hands with it, and while it seemed to lack sufficient power to actually "melt" away my stress, I was allowed a lovely chuckle at its presumptuousness. So, thank you, Johnson's Body Care, you actually semi-succeeded with your lame marketing attempt, and you made my day just a little bit better.

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I hope you all read my guest post yesterday, over at AutismWonderland. If not... FUCKING GO!!!!!

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Text conversations with the Hubs

Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's while Hubs stayed in bed with the boys. I went for a bunch of stuff but my most important mission was to get strawberries for a very cranky Child 2. Here is the text conversation we had while I was there:


Me: There are no strawberries

Hubs: I have relayed the bad news.

Hubs: Child 2 says you have to go somewhere that has strawberries.

Me: Oh does he?

Hubs: Yes he does, although he didn't say it so much as whine it.

Me: Ask him what his second choice is.

Hubs: 2nd choice is strawberries. Also his 3rd choice is strawberries.

Me: I'm getting grapes.

Hubs: He whined "OK" on the grapes.

Me: I think I'll blog this conversation.

Hubs: Cranky boy will suffer the wrath of Daddy.

Me: Oh, I'm definitely going to blog about this.

Me: Okay, I'm done, do you need anything else?

Hubs: A beej?

Me: I'll ask.

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