Electricity, Eee-Lec-Tri-City

This post should be read with the School House Rock! song "Electricity" running through your brain. If you don't know the song, well, I am truly sorry.

We've been having lots of wind storms here in Washington this week. A not-so-pleasant side effect of the wind blowing lots is that our power goes out pretty much all the time. It was out yesterday afternoon through this morning, and I'm speedily typing while I have the chance, as I'm sure it will go out again soon.

We live in a very pro-electricity home. Not only are all of our phones cordless, digital ones that only work when the power is on, but my kids get freaked out and annoyed when the lights don't work, let alone when they can't watch Curious George. Fun times. I left the house yesterday to go shopping with both boys. Yes, that's how desperate I became. Also, our garage door is way too heavy for me to open by myself when the power is out (the previous owners rigged the doors so they are connected so they could use one garage door opener. We call these kind of things "Imper-vations" in their honor) so I have to make sure to park outside so I can leave if I need to. Fortunately, yesterday the power was already out when I got home, so I couldn't get locked in the garage.

Last night, the electricity came on momentarily -- long enough to turn on the battery back-up system Hubby keeps his alarm clock plugged into. The battery back-up has a very annoying high-pitched beep that sounds every 20 seconds. Hubby can't hear it, of course. Only the dogs and me, apparently. So, sometime in the middle of the night, I was crawling around under his side of the bed, poking around for some sort of OFF switch for this infernal contraption. I finally found it, turned the thing off, then worried that Hubby would miss some important meeting this morning. I woke him up to ask him what time he needed to get up so I could set my trusty old battery powered alarm clock for him. "Seven fifteen," he mumbled. I was already going to get up at 7:15, so left my alarm set for its original time.

So, this morning at 7:15, the alarm sounded and I told Hubby it was 7:15. He mumbled, "Thanks," before rolling over and going back to sleep. I finally got up at 7:30 when I figured he wasn't going to get in the shower. When I was scrambling to get the boys out of the house to head to speech therapy at 8:15, guess who was still snoozing? Hmmm. I told him it was 8:15 before I left.

Anyway, last night after turning off the annoying beeping device (why the heck do they make those things so they beep? "Hey everybody! The power's out! Let me wait 20 seconds and I'll beep again so you know the power is still out!") I started thinking about electricity, and how living in the boonies is not a good thing for having constant electricity when you need it. I decided someone somewhere should come up with a generator that runs on fat person treadmill action. That way, the fat person is getting some exercise, and in addition to sweat and burned calories, electricity can be generated as well! Hey, I'm not being weightist, either. Skinny people can use them, too. They should definitely get them at gyms. They could fuel the entire gym, and sell the excess electricity to nearby buildings. So, someone, somewhere, get on it! I'd like one for my house. Of course, I don't want to have to be the generator of electricity, so I guess I'd have to use the dogs or kids to run on the treadmill.

Time to go soak up some more electric lighting before the power goes out again.

Another Gray Monday - Yeehaw!

It's another gorgeous day in the Pacific Northwest. No sign of sun, rainy and gray, and it looks like it could be dusk outside. No, it's 10:30 a.m. I really need to get a spectrum light.

For those of you who've been wondering about that little minx, Jetta (what, you don't remember Jetta? My tempermental car?), she went in to the shop Wednesday. That afternoon they called to say it was a fuel injection problem and they'd fix her up with a new filter, and for only $80 we'd be good as new. I relayed the news to Hubby, who gave me his, "I'm very skeptical" look, then said, "Yeah, I don't think that's the problem." Sure enough, that night when I drove Jetta to my soccer game, on the way home, that good old engine light came on again. At least this time she didn't go into limp mode. I told Hubby, who said he'd take her in again tomorrow, and that he was afraid it was the transmission.

Sure enough, the next morning, I picked Hubby up from the car place, where Jetta was getting a brand new transmission. Woohoo. Friday we got her back, driveable again, but responsible for the big chunk missing from our bank account. Not that we need that during the Christmas season. No, plane tickets for a family of four, car rentals, and gifts for everyone are free these days -- didn't you get the email? No? You must have thought it was spam and deleted it. Nope, re-read those "Gift Card Confirmation" emails. Oh, wait, it WAS spam. Crap.

Autism Stuff

A couple things to write about Autism today.

The other day, someone posted something quite annoying on one of the Autism forums I read. It wasn't the poster's opinion, but something she'd read and that had annoyed her as well, and she wanted to share.

So, I read what was posted on the Autism site, then went to the site to see it in the flesh.

First of all, it's from the website, Biblelife.org, so I was prepared for the, er, most biblical.

Second, it was in a section under "Pregnant?" - Yeah, you know there's going to be some good stuff there, if there's biblical ministering going on.

The pregnant section starts out with:

Don't get an abortion or give your baby up for adoption.
Look to the future with hope and prayer for your baby.

OK, I understand the whole Bible people have an anti-abortion thing going, but don't give your baby up for adoption? WTF? So, say you're a 14-year-old rape victim living on your own on the streets, but you don't believe in abortion. Best thing would be to put your baby up for adoption since you can't support it, let alone yourself, right? Oh, hell no! Not if you're a good Christian. You pray about it and everything will be fine. Huh.

Now, here are the good parts (good meaning "OH MY GOD! THEY DIDN'T WRITE THAT!):

Well, I just went to the website to copy some stuff, and lo and behold they've changed it! That's good to an extent. I'll paste in what they had on last week that made my blood boil:

Mommy's Diet Can Cause or Prevent Autism in the Fetus

Autism in infants has soared to become an epidemic and shows every sign of heading higher. This is a dreadful brain damaging condition that is incurable and destines the poor child to live a life as a retarded adult....Autism is caused by the USDA recommended low-fat, low-cholesterol diet when eaten by the mother before and during pregnancy. The fetus in the womb needs cholesterol, essential EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids and essential arachidonic omega-6 fatty acid as found in meat and fish in order to grow a healthy brain...Autism is caused by the mother's dietary deficiency in fats and cholesterol during development and growth of the baby's brain. Pregnant women should eat a high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-protein diet before and during pregnancy in order to have a healthy baby without autism. Vegetables and fruit have no fat, no cholesterol and no protein. The low-fat, low-cholesterol vegetarian diet causes autism. A high-carbohydrate diet with excessive amounts of fruits and vegetables as recommended by the USDA Food Guide Pyramid actually causes autism.

Mommy, your salad for lunch will not grow a baby with a healthy brain. Salads will cause a brain damaged baby. The baby's brain is made of cholesterol and fat. Your low-fat diet can cause your baby to become a retarded child.

OK. Good stuff, no? They go on to rant and rave about the importance of essential fatty acids, etc., which I do agree are important in the diet. The problem I have is that I did eat a high fat, high cholesterol, high protein diet when I was pregnant. Guess what? Hutton has Autism. Hmm. How did that happen? I was eating my red meat and drinking my milkshakes.

The entire part about autistic children being destined to live as retarded adults with no future really pissed me off, though, as well as the incurable thing. Uh, tell that to all the recovered kids out there, and spend a few minutes with most of the autistic kids I know, and you would NOT call them retarded. Whoever wrote this, on the other hand, might be considered retarded.

Anyway, one of the moms on the Autism forum this was posted on, who happens to be a Christian, sent the website an angry letter soon after, and it seems to have worked, because now there is no mention of incurable brain damage and retarded adults. However, they do still have this little gem on there with their dietary warnings:

If you are the mother of an autistic or ADHD child you should deal with the reality of the situation. Go look at yourself in the mirror and shout, "It is your fault." Then change your diet. Go out to dinner and eat a ribeye steak without bread, potatoes or dessert so your next child won't be autistic or ADHD also.

Yeah, you can bite me, you pompous jackass. My child's Autism was not caused by my diet. I'll be praying for you to grow a brain. Ha.

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The second annoying thing I read yesterday in a more mainstream source, but it was still quite ignorant. It was in Hubby's college alumni magazine. I thought it would be good to read about the Autism treatment world in my hometown, as I never know if we might end up there someday. Well, the article was going well until I came to this:

For a while, some people argued that thimerosal, a mercury-based additive in childhood vaccines, was behind the rise in autism cases—but that theory has not held up under scientific scrutiny. Thimerosal was removed from American vaccines in 1999, and as far as anyone can tell, there has been no subsequent decline in ASD in children born after that time.

Yeah, that's good and all, but it's completely wrong. Thimerosal (which is about 50% mercury, and extremely toxic) was not removed from American vaccines in 1999. That is when the FDA brought it up and the Public Health Service, American Academy of Pediatrics and vaccine manufacturers agreed to remove thimerosal-containing vaccines "as soon as possible." Of course, that didn't mean much. Money is involved after all. We didn't have an immediate recall. Some vaccine makers didn't start cranking out mercury-free vaccines until 2003! Those made before 2003 could have up to 25μg of thimerosal, and they are possibly still in use as well, as they still haven't been recalled. Vaccines made shortly before the new thimerosal-free ones in 2003 won't expire until 2006 at the earliest, 2008 at the latest. So, if your doctor has a big stockpile of vaccines, your child could be getting pumped with mercury for two more years.

Oh, and the pregnant women and kiddies who are "doing the right thing" and getting their flu shots? Yep, they're most likely getting a nice dose of mercury as well, as most flu shots are still made with mercury.

So, this whole, "No, there's not anything to see here!" thing the CDC has tried to pull isn't working on many in the Autism community. The reason there hasn't been a noticeable decline in Autism numbers could be because thimerosal wasn't really removed from vaccines in 1999. It's still in them. That and the zillions of other toxins are children are being exposed to. We won't be able to see if there's a decline in Autism numbers due to the removal of thimerosal for several years, and even then, if pregant women are still getting flu shots with mercury, isn't it possible this is damaging to their fetuses and could cause Autism? Since nobody knows the cause of Autism, I think it's safe to say it's possible a potent neurotoxin still widely used in vaccines could have something to do with it.

The take home message -- ask for a single dose vial of your vaccine if you're going to get one, and double-check that it doesn't have thimerosal, aka nasty potent neurotoxin. Or don't get vaccines at all. That will really piss off the CDC. Har har.

My Poor Children

My poor children are not getting any gifts from me for Christmas this year. Aren't I a heartless, uncaring mother?

Well, take a look at these pictures:



And those are only some of the toys. There are more downstairs. And this is after I've cleaned out a lot of what they don't play with.

I got out the Christmas stuff yesterday, so Santa's village has been incorporated into the rest of the Little People toys that are spread out around the room. Hutton likes to hook all the sets together in a circle, but in this case, it's more like a Gordian knot. Last week, I set up the train tracks on the train table, because before that they'd been all over the floor. So, for a day or so, one could walk into our playroom/office without stepping on toys. That's over now, as you can see from the pictures.

Don't worry, though. My poor, poor, deprived little boys will be getting more stuff from Go-Go and Nana (the names their grandmothers have given themselves). The two of them race to get to the Amazon wish list each year and buy everything. Mom (Go-Go) snapped everything up this year, so Nana will have to just wing it.

Snowy Days Just Lead to More Rain

Well, it's the end of the week, but it seemed pretty slow and mellow. Probably because Hutton's school was cancelled every day but Monday due to our huge blizzard. Cough. Really, it was just a few inches of snow, but that was enough for our district to be overly cautious. Monday I went out with Harrison to buy a hat and gloves for Hutton, and some boots for both boys. Tuesday we didn't leave the house; we stayed inside in a snow coma. Wednesday we went outside and played in the snow a bit. Hutton attempted to sled using a cardboard box. It wasn't ideal for sledding, I found. Note to self: buy a sled for the next time it snows.

Thursday was back to the routine in terms of speech therapy, but still no school. My friend and her kids came over to play, then the boys and I went to Target so I could spend money on things I don't really need. I like to alternate my Target trips -- every other time I buy things I need. The other times I get sucked in by, "Oh, that's new! I think I'll get that." I bought a "winter" slipcover for the couch, some Christmasy tablecloths, and a poinsettia. So, not too bad -- they're somewhat useful, though I could have definitely survived without them.

Today was the really fun day, though. Fun in the sense that it was crappy. Well, not that bad, but the worst of the week. It started out with the fact that I had to -gasp- drink tea instead of coffee, since I forgot to buy coffee the last time I went shopping. Then I was late getting in the car to take Hutton to ABA therapy. Then my car started acting wonky when I got on 520. The "ESP" warning light lit up. ESP in this case stands for Extra Stability Protection, but it could have been that the car really does have ESP, had an idea it was going to have some big issues in the near future, and was giving me a heads up.

Now, I'm going to share something a bit embarrassing with you: I name my cars. Yes, I'm one of those people. My cars have been: Cecil, the powder blue Civic hatchback, Elliott, the "titanium" Escort (titanium is a fancy car paint name for beige), Jackson the black Prelude (I didn't like any P names for alliteration, so went with Jackson as Jacksonville was his point of entry in the country), Sven, the silver Volvo C70 (I didn't really call him that very often, and I think I should have named him Mulva - you know, the rhyming version of the part of the female anatomy that you get from changing a couple of vowels in Volvo), Jimmy, the green Jimmy (that was a given, as he was already named), and lastly, Maddox, the green Acura MDX. This was before my current car, the goldish/beige Volkswagen Jetta stationwagon, who hasn't really clicked for a name yet. Though all of my previous cars have been boys, Jetta is definitely a girl. She's bitchy and temperamental, you see. I've thought of just calling her Jetta -- like Jimmy, she already has the name. It's the name of the bitchy girl on Clifford the Big Red Dog, too.

Back to the car warning light situation -- Jetta started with the "ESP" light. I, of course, had no idea what that meant - a triangle of arrows with a big exclamation point in the middle. I don't speak car German. I don't even speak human German, other than my favorite word, gemutlik. The triangle of arrows corresponded with Jetta making funny noises and not having decent acceleration. Which is great when it happens as soon as you get onto a highway. Pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor, hearing the car not upshifting, and seeing the speedometer stay on 40 is really fun. Jetta continued to do this off and on, with the warning light staying lit, the entire way to the UW. Since I was late for Hutton's appointment, I didn't want to pull over and try to figure out what was going on. Jetta managed to get up to 60 sporadically, and I stayed in the right lane. I managed to get the owner's manual out, and found the warning light page which I read in bits and pieces as I drove. (Yeah, I'm all about safety on the road!) We made it to the UW a mere twenty minutes late, and I brought the manual in with me to read while I waited. I wasn't too concerned. Figured the ESP light came on because of some slush I drove over getting on the 520, and maybe it would go off when I turned on the car later.

After lunch, when I turned on the car so we could drive to another of Hutton's appointments, which conveniently enough, I was also late for (hey, we were all enjoying our lunch, and I lost track of the time!) the light wasn't on. Phew. Wait, scratch that. There's the ESP light again. Oh, and here's a universal symbol I know -- the engine light! Joy. Jetta revved and made all sorts of fun noises while refusing to go over 35, and we arrived 15 minutes late to our next appointment. Fortunately, I had the perfect excuse both times for my lateness. Darn car troubles! During the second appointment, I called Hubby and he said he'd meet me at the car dealership in an hour and a half, that he had a conference call. I then called the car dealer, and was told they were "shutting down for the day" -- at 2:30 on a Friday. Yeah, it's one of those dealers. Then he said, "I'll put you down for Wednesday. How's that?" Uh, great. Really amazing how you fit me in like that.

I drove home on the back roads to avoid being run off the road in my car, which I now knew was driving in "limp mode." It was OK until I hit Hollywood Hill. I put Jetta in third gear as she huffed and puffed. No go. Pull over to let three cars pass. I made it up to 20 mph again. The hill got steep again. How about second gear? No better. How about first gear? I managed to creak around a curve in the hill going 15. Pulled over to let another car pass. I finally made it to the crest of the hill, and practically coasted home in neutral. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the drive to the dealership Wednesday. There's another big hill the other way, too.

So, back to the car names. If there is a serious issue to these car warning lights and "limp mode," I'm thinking of calling Jetta Cassandra instead. She did give me those warning lights, after all. Didn't just stop driving all together on the 520 bridge over Lake Washington. For that, at least, I'm thankful.

We'll see....

Extra, Extra! I'm Stressed!

Here's one of those studies that make you think, "Who paid for this?" and, more importantly, "Can they get their money back?"

As a mom on one of my Autism lists succinctly put it: Duh.

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University of Washington
Abstract Title
STRESS IN PARENTS OF PRESCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN WITH AUTISM, DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY, AND TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT
List of Authors
A. Estes, G. Dawson, E. Koehler
Enter your abstract here
Background: Stress levels are generally higher for parents of children with autism compared with parents of typically developing children.

Objective: Identify specific child factors that relate to stress in parents of children with autism to assist in providing effective strategies for reducing stress in families.

Methods: Participants are from a longitudinal study on the neurobiology and development of children with autism (ASD), developmental delay (DD), and mental-age matched children with typical development (Typ). Children were evaluated for general cognitive ability using the Mullen Scales and for ASD using the ADI, ADOS, and DSM-IV. Language, adaptive behavior, behavior problems and social abilities were also assessed in children. Parents reported their own level of parenting stress, depression, and anxiety.

Results: Data are reported for 51 children with ASD, 20 with DD, and 27 Typ children (Mean ages; ASD = 43.9 months, DD = 44.2 months, Typ = 28.1 months). Parenting Stress in the ASD group was significantly higher than in the DD and Typ groups. Anxiety was higher in the ASD group than in the Typ group. Depression scores did not differ between groups. Analyses are planned to investigate the relationship between specific child factors and parenting stress in this sample.

Conclusions: Preliminary findings indicate elevated stress levels in parents of children with ASD compared with parents of children with DD and typically developing children. Results of analyses aimed at identifying the specific factors, including child factors, that play a role in increasing parenting stress will be presented.

Funding source: NICHD (U19 HD34565) and NIMH (U54MH066399)

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After processing the information for a few minutes, I went from finding this laughable to getting angry about it. Like the asinine study that tries to link autism to TV watching, this study is foolish. But the foolish part of this study is that it states the obvious. Parents of children with autism are stressed out. This could be determined by using common sense. Why in the world would you need a study to determine this? Here's an idea, instead of wasting valuable research time and money on studies like this, why don't you spend it figuring out how to help treat kids with autism? That would definitely help with the parents' stress levels.

But, wait, I guess you can't do that if you don't know the parents are stressed; this must be a preliminary study, so they can go ahead and find a cure for Autism, now that they know it's making us poor parents stressed out. Yes, that last line should be read with as much sarcasm as possible.

I know my stress levels when Hutton was in preschool were much higher than they are now, as I scrambled around, trying to put the pieces together to figure out insurance coverage; then find a good doctor, find a better doctor, no, find any doctor who can offer ANY help at all; then find a speech therapist, and find another speech therapist when the first one doesn't want to work around our schedule at all; then figure out the whole ABA thing, get on a year+ long wait list at a good place, find a decent place to give us ABA in the mean time, find a home therapist; figure out which of the bazillion supplements and dietary changes we need. You know what, I'm STILL stressed, and STILL working on most of the above issues, plus the new issue of kindergarten. At least now, though, I have support from other autism parents. Isn't it funny that of all the resources out there that cost so much money, fellow parents are still the best resource and support, and they're free? The UW should do another "duh" study on this: Having support from people in similar situations can help lower stress levels.

Pukey and Tired of Turkey

I've been having this ongoing feeling of nausea for the past 4 days. It's not that bad, kind of nausea light. No, I'm not pregnant. It is odd for me to be nauseated, though. I had zero morning sickness with either pregnancy with my boys -- lucky me, right? I can count the times I've thrown up on my fingers -- well, and maybe one foot's worth of toes. They are pretty much limited to the odd virus, alcohol over-consumption in college, and narcotic pain meds after my knee surgery in my early 20s. So, this is not a normal thing for me. It's not stopping me from eating normally, fortunately (unfortunately? If I skipped eating a few meals due to being sick, it wouldn't hurt my flabby gut any!). I skipped coffee yesterday for the first time in ages, but it made no difference in my nausea levels. I would almost prefer puking to nausea light, though. At least you have some resolution with vomit!

Enough of that. My blog has gotten a bit too scatological lately. I'm going to have work on being more Austenian. She would have never mentioned vomit, poop, or even giblets in her works. Hmm. Maybe the giblets. Have to look that up.

We have finally eaten our way through all the leftover sidedishes, though we still have lots of turkey left. I like turkey sandwiches, but I can't say I'll be eating turkey with stuffing and cranberries anytime soon. Eating those nearly every meal for 3 days straight has done me in for a while, thanks!

Sick But Thankful

Still nursing my cold, though it's nothing to complain about. Just some congestion and a slight sore throat.

Hubby let me sleep in this morning. He got up at the crack of dawn to put the turkey in the roaster grill. It took several hours to cook, but that was good, because we needed the time to get the rest of the food done. I made cornbread stuffing, orange-cranberry relish, and a gravy which took way too long and wasn't that good. Plus, Hubby said he's doesn't really like gravy anyway, so I will not be making that from scratch again! It started out ominously, as it involved using the giblets from the turkey. I realized I'm a much stronger person than I used to be. Washing those organs and seeing them laid out on the cutting board reminded me of biology class. I felt slightly squeamish as I chopped up that poor turkey's innards, but I soldiered on. Then again, I never had a problem with dissections in biology. It's live things and their blood that make me pass out. Anyway, after working on the gravy for way too long, I wasn't liking the still visible organ meats floating around, so I strained those out and gave them to the cat and dogs, even if the recipe didn't call for it. Yeah, I think next year I'll just leave those giblets in the plastic bag where they belong.

The stuffing and relish were good, though, and the boys both liked them, so that's always a plus. Hubby prepared the turkey -- he made a rub for it last night, and it smoked all day, and turned out very good -- and a potato dish that was supposed to be like smashed potatoes or twice baked potatoes. They were a little off, visually, but they tasted yummy.

As I was saying, the boys liked everything, even though they got antsy before "lunner" as we served it at 2:30. It took that long for the turkey to cook. They had some snacks around noon, and before we ate, Hutton asked for tacos, and Harrison for hotdogs, but they both seemed to like what they got instead. When I was a kid, I only ate turkey, potatoes and bread with Thanksgiving. Over the years I started to add in the sweet potatoes, gravy and stuffing, but I was about 12 before I was eating everything my mom cooked for Thanksgiving. I'm thankful my kids are more open to trying different foods! Hubby doesn't like sweet potatoes, cranberries, or, as I mentioned earlier, gravy. I didn't make sweet potatoes, but I made the others, and will probably continue making the things I know he doesn't like, just because I like them and they're traditional.

Hubby's mom sent us a frozen pumpkin pie that a man in their hometown makes, and I heated that up in the oven and had a small piece a minute ago. It was quite good, considering it had been frozen and mailed!

I didn't get around to showering until 1 this afternoon, as I was trying to get most of the cooking done before hand. Of course, in the 20 minutes I was upstairs showering and getting dressed, the boys got into the flour I had measured out for the gravy, and left on the counter. I knew something was up when our dog Sally, the black lab mix, came in to the bathroom with white kid-sized handprints on her back. Then I heard the vacuum running. Hubby may not have been watching them, but at least he vacuumed up the mess.

Off to loll on the couch for a while. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Is the Week Over Yet?

Yesterday, as I napped on the couch while the boys watched "Curious George," I developed a sore throat. I knew it was coming, and stuffed as much vitamin C and zinc as I could in my body. This morning, I woke up stuffy, but not really sick. Just that annoying, slightly off feeling, like I could sleep all day. And a headache, of course. It's gray outside. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Hubby is supposed to be taking care of our turkey. We'll see.

Hutton's parent-teacher conference was yesterday. His teacher reiterated that she thought he should still be in preschool, "but since that's not going to happen..." Yes, she said that. Hubby and I just smiled politely when she said that. She mentioned Hutton repeating kindergarten next year, and all I can think of is, "God, I hope we can get him in another class!"

We then asked what we should be working on with him outside of school. Apparently he needs to be in a lots of groups to help him socialize with other kids. The last thing I did with Hutton in a group setting was swim lessons this summer. He was fine, but I guess I'm just burned out on doing all the "extra" stuff. It costs money, it takes time, and even if we have the money, I feel burned out constantly driving Hutton to various appointments, and Harrison is getting the short end of things. Harrison has Gymboree once a week, and gets to play with my friend's daughter once a week, but other than that, he's stuck going with me to take his brother to doctor's appointments, speech therapy and ABA. Then again, he doesn't have social issues to work on. I tried to get Hutton interested in a soccer class, but he said he doesn't want to play soccer. The horror! Harrison seemed interested, though. Maybe I could get them in the same class? Doing something for both of them simultaneously? Wow, that would actually make sense and save time.

I need to take Hutton to have his blood drawn so we can get his lab work started. He conveniently hasn't pooped for the last two days, and sneaked into the bathroom without my noticing on Sunday, so I have to do another sample of poop for the labs, but am worried it's going to be screwed up from waiting so long. See, you're supposed to take two samples, preferably on consecutive days, and you can only send the poop by FedEx Monday through Wednesday. So, if he doesn't poop in the next couple hours, I'll have to wait another 5 days to send in his poop, and the first sample, which I took Saturday, will be really old. Hubby didn't know about the labs until I ran in Friday night screaming, "Wait!" as he flushed a perfectly good sample down the toilet. Me: "What are you doing? Did Hutton poop?" Hubby looked at me bewildered as I explained that we needed two poop samples, and looked longingly at the toilet, Cher singing in my head, "If I could turn back time!" Anyway, one of the samples from Saturday is frozen, so it's not that big a deal, but the one that is just in the jar with the preservative -- is that OK? And it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, so I'm sure sending a sample today is a bad idea all together. I already realized I should have sent his pee in Monday, so will have to retake that. The pee isn't that hard to get, so I'm not worried about that. It's really the poop that is annoying me. Geez, there's nothing like getting flustered about poop.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

It's Thanksgiving Time

The week of Thanksgiving has arrived, and that means that Hutton has no school this week. I see a whole lot of TV and Wallace and Gromit playing on Xbox in our future. In fact, Hutton is playing Wallace and Gromit on Xbox as I type this. Oh well. I was a "good mom" for approximately 20 minutes earlier today, when I helped Hutton with his homework -- a page of writing out his name, a page of "color the things that start with G", and a page of cutting out the bees and pasting them on the corresponding number on the hive.

Twenty minutes. That's about right. I could never homeschool my kids, because I know that I can't come up with things to keep them busy for longer than 20 minutes (other than TV and video games, which I don't think count as "schooling"). Yesterday afternoon, I played games with the boys. We played the Oreo cookie game - Matching Middles, Don't Spill the Beans, and Barnyard Bingo before I was bored silly and Hutton had gone back upstairs to play Wallace and Gromit. Harrison would have been happy to play those exciting games for hours more, but I convinced him to let me read him some books instead.

Harrison is currently entertaining himself by putting all the train-related toys in the Thomas toy box. At least he's not doing what he did yesterday morning while I showered: putting every toy in the room, including puzzles, in a big pile in the corner. That's fun to clean up.

Gotta come up with something to do. Maybe lunch out and shopping. Get some more toy organizers and let Harrison go crazy. Maybe some more challenging games, too. Like Candy Land. Don't think the boys are ready for chess just yet. It's not raining, so the park is always an option, too.

We can go to the movies this week, too. Flushed Away and Happy Feet would probably be entertaining for the boys. Don't think they'll go for Casino Royale. Darn. Mommy could use some Casino Royale.

The Spawn Of Satan Returns

Friday started out well. I took the boys to the University of Washington for Hutton's ABA therapy, and made it on time! I thought I'd be late, but there was no traffic. Then, I had cash to pay for parking. If you pay the $11 in cash, you can get a refund of $5 when leaving. So, instead of paying 11 freaking dollars to park for an hour and half, you only have to pay $6. What a bargain, huh? I've had to pay the entire $11 several times, though, when I don't have enough cash, as I tend to run out of cash by the end of the week. Did I really need those lattes? Well, this week I was good and drank my lattes at home. (Plus, I had cash from doing a "Fieldwork Seattle" music study last week. I went in on two days, for two hours each time. I listened to a tape filled with 5 second snippets of songs and rated them. It was a fun, kid-free event that was like a trip down memory lane, listening to songs I'd forgotten about. And getting paid $125 in cash was nice, too.)

So, a good start to the morning. Then after talking to Hutton's therapists for a few minutes, I left them to do their work, and Harrison and I went for a walk, to enjoy a beautiful, rain-free day. We walked along the water (the Montlake Cut behind the UW, which connects Lake Union to Lake Washington) and looked at the ducks and geese. We walked up a big hill, then went to the hospital to get some snacks to take to Hutton's next appointment: the nutritionist. Everything was great. Harrison was in a good mood, though getting tired from the walking. I should have known that things wouldn't get any better.

We picked up Hutton and headed for the nutritionist's office, south of downtown Seattle. Of course, traffic had picked up by then, parking was a bigger issue (though cheaper!) and we were 10 minutes late for the appointment. Still, nothing too bad. Harrison and Hutton played relatively nicely while the nutritionist and I discussed the GFCF diet, and probably cutting out corn as well in January. Then, it was time to go. I started asking Harrison to clean up the toys and crayons he had spread all over the floor five minutes earlier. I repeated my request for the fifth time, and the nutritionist asked him to clean up, nicely, as well. No go. Harrison kept yelling out, "I clean up!" but not doing so. I started to put some crayons away. That did it. The Spawn of Satan replaced my child instantly. It thrashed around, spreading the crayons and toys everywhere. The nutritionist gave me a look of terror, and told me he'd happily clean up the toys after we left. I agreed that was the best thing to do. My good son and the Spawn of Satan accompanied me out to the lobby, son walking, SOS being carried sideways, screaming and thrashing. I quickly made a second appointment with the nutritionist, which I will probably cancel now, as I don't think I want to be seen in his office again after our last appearance. SOS's face was bright red from screaming, "Clean up crayons! Go to doctor's office!" I kept telling him he didn't clean up the crayons, that it was too late for that now. We had to leave.

I carried him to the elevator, making small talk with another passenger who tried to look like she wasn't terrified for her life. We made it to the car. SOS convinced me to let him walk for a moment, but then I carried him again when he attempted to run back to the elevators, to go "clean up crayons. Go doctor's office!" still screaming hysterically and red-faced. Hutton got into his seat quickly, his hands covering his ears. SOS writhed and bucked as I attempted to get him into his carseat, still screaming about the crayons. I was cursing under my breath by now, telling SOS that he COULD NOT go back to the doctor's office, that the crayons were cleaned up already, etc. I was wondering if I could bribe him with something, when a woman approached, wide-eyed with fear. I looked at her, with my, "Please don't tell me my son is disturbing you. Can't you see I'm about to lose it and go mental?" look. But she didn't complain. Maybe she'd seen the Autism Awareness sticker on my car, and thought this screaming SOS was the Autistic one. She simply said, "If I can help you in any way, just let me know." By then I had pressed SOS's writhing pelvis into his seat using all my strength, and strapped him in. "Oh, he's just being a two-year-old!" I replied with total false-cheer. "Thank you!" I slammed the door, she walked away, and I got into the car to the still roaring, red-faced SOS. After I paid for parking, and had driven north to get back to the 520 bridge, I had devolved to screaming, myself. Answering SOS's screams with my own, "We're not going back to the effing Doctor's! You DIDN'T PUT THE CRAYONS AWAY! IT'S TOO EFFING LATE FOR THAT!" Good times. SOS stopped screaming abruptly in Bellevue, as he'd passed out. When the child woke from his nap two hours later, sweet Harrison had returned.

I have learned that scheduling two of Hutton's appointments back-to-back, when Harrison is due for a nap, without lunch in-between appointments, is a very, very BAD IDEA.

A Lyrical Interlude

I wrote "musical" first, but since I have no music, we'll call this a lyrical interlude.

The other day, I forgot to mention something about the doctor appointment Monday. The doctor gave us (well, sold to me, for a lot of money) a new fish oil Omega 3 supplement to use instead of my beloved Coromega. (Seriously, Coromega is good! I like it, the boys like it, it doesn't taste like fish. It tastes like orange pudding with a hint of chocolate. Yum.) So, Thursday morning, I took out the new fish oil to add a 1/2 teaspoonful to Hutton's orange juice. As soon as I opened the bottle, the overwhelming odor of fish came out. I felt like I was at the aquarium at feeding time. I carefully measured out a 1/2 teaspoon, but still got oil on the counter and my hands. I wiped off the bottle, then wrapped it in more paper towels to put in the fridge, so it wouldn't get more fish oil everywhere. I tried a sip of Hutton's juice to see if I could taste the oil. I couldn't, but Hutton didn't drink his juice, and I figured out why: there was an oil slick on top of the juice after a few minutes, emitting the fish smell. Yuck! After dumping his undrunk juice, I noticed there was a tiny bit of oil left in the measuring cup. I wondered just how bad this new oil would taste. It was lemon flavor, after all.

It was bad. I had a drop of oil on my tongue and immediately started gagging. Fortunately I hadn't eaten my cereal yet, so there was nothing to come up, but if I had...However, after ingesting a single drop of fish oil and handling the bottle, I smelled fishy for hours. Hand washing and tooth brushing did nothing.

This was Thursday morning. Thursday is speech therapy. So, Tuesday morning I went to speech therapy smelling like perfume and B.O., and Thursday, it's fish.

So, without further ado, your lyrics. These are to the tune of the Police song, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and from the viewpoint of Hutton's speech therapists.

Young[ish] mother, the subject
Of speech therapists' dread
She comes in twice weekly
Think they are all inbred
Her breath stinks of coffee
Must drink it all day long
Hey lady, heard of breath mints?
You'll need five for a stench that strong

Don't talk, don't talk so
Don't talk so close to me
Don't talk, don't talk so
Don't talk so close to me

Then Tuesday, she came in
Wreaking of bad perfume
I think that I could smell it
Before she hit the room
And yet it got worse still
When I smelled the B.O.
I wanted to yell out,
Oh God, please let me go!

Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me

It's Thursday, she enters
Today the odor's fish
Come on do people really
Have that for a breakfast dish?
I think I'll give up now
Her son is nice enough
But having to talk to Mama
Is getting way too tough

Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me

~~~~~~~~~~~~
I haven't thrown the new fish oil away yet, but Thursday during Hutton's therapy session, Harrison and I bought a big box of Coromega at Super Supplements. I really don't like to torture my children or myself. Or those around us, either.

I haven't posted about Autism lately, so I know all of you who read my blog (crickets chirping) for my deep insights into Autism (dead silence) have been waiting.

Hutton went to a new doctor Monday. She's a naturopath, but also a DAN! doctor who treats a few of my friends' kids. So, Monday the boys and I drove out to Seattle (this is post Spawn of Satan morning) and spent an hour and a half with our new doctor. I now have to get all the labs figured out for Hutton. We did the same labs a few years back with another doctor, but since Hutton's pediatrician seems to have not sent on his records to the new doctor, and it's been a few years, we figured it was worth re-testing. Insurance covers some of them, so that's good. It doesn't cover the new test that tests for metals in the blood, but the doctor recommends that before she'll see if Hutton needs chelation. It does cover the urine and stool testing. That's right. Did I mention how much I love collecting stool samples, being sure to "Take multiple samples from different areas of the collection tray"? Yep, you dig around in poop and get multiple little chunks to cram into a couple of vials. And, you get to do it two days in a row! Joy! I do like this bit:
Caution: Avoid contact of the skin and eyes with the fluid in the vials. For eye contact, flush with water thoroughly for 15 minutes. For skin contact, wash thoroughly with soap and water. For accidental ingestion, contact your physician immediately. If you accidentally did this BEFORE the poop was in there, that would be one thing, but after? I think you'd need more than contacting your physician.

Back to the doctor. Of course, I blushed and looked guilty when she started asking me about my non-doctor-supervised chelation of Hutton over the past year or so. Why do I always let doctors, even the naturopathic ones, make me feel stupid about decisions I've made, that I have researched thoroughly? Sure, I used the Internet for research, but it's not like I was looking on the "Chelation for Dummies - No, Really, We Only Want Stupid People Here" site. No, I used a technique a PhD in chemistry used to chelate himself, using ALA and DMSA. Now, oral chelation isn't the fastest or best way to chelate, but when your son's first "autism expert" doctor wants to just sit on his ass and "wait and see" how ABA therapy goes, while the very important young years of my son's brain development tick by...no thanks. I'll just do it on my own. It's hard to tell just how much Hutton improved from my DIY chelation, but I wasn't able to do metals testing of his blood. Though you can buy DMSA online, I wasn't able to track down any black market blood testing kits. And even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to get blood from my child to test. I'm squeamish, and I don't really go for injuring my children with lancets.

So, I'll try to collect my son's urine and stool sometime this weekend, and get to a blood-drawing lab next week for the fun part. Then we'll wait several weeks for the test results.

Tuesday, we saw another of Hutton's new doctors: the cranio-sacral therapist. This doctor basically massages Hutton's head and pokes around on his abdomen. Through this, though, she can tell Hutton has definite food allergies (she also wants to at least cut out cheese from his diet. Damn. More support for the difficult GFCF diet!) Her husband comes in and helps do some stuff with Hutton's arms at the end of the appointment. We've been going weekly for 3 weeks, and so far, it seems to help. Hutton was very calm and talking in much longer sentences the weekend after his first appointment. It may sound kinda kooky, but we'll see if he continues to improve. I'm not closed off to anything that might help Hutton. (Well, I'd probably turn down a Evangelistic faith healer. Matt-Man's posts from the last couple of days have reminded me that I totally forgot about the faith healers! I will probably avoid things that involve snake handling, as well.)

A big plus to the cranio-sacral therapy: afterwards, the husband gives the boys BALLOON ANIMALS! These are very exciting. Tuesday, Hutton wanted a dog, and Harrison requested a duck. The husband couldn't quite remember how to do a duck, so it didn't turn out as well as the dog. Here's a picture:

Hubby saw this "duck" on the kitchen counter. I told him it was a duck, and he commented that he didn't think it was supposed to be a cock and balls, but that's what it looked like.

Headaches and Super Powers

My name is Laura, and I have a super power, so will have to come up with a super identity. How about The Nose? Or Bouquet Girl?

Yes, my super power is my sense of smell. I inherited it from my mother, who also has a strong sense of smell. Not necessarily the best super power to have when you live with pets and children, but it helps to find the source of hidden smells, if you have to do that. And if you have pets and kids, chances are you do.

The side effect to this amazing super power is that strong smells give me headaches. My mother, too, has this problem. She used to always try to give me perfumes she'd bought for herself that she couldn't wear because they gave her headaches. I tried to tell her, "Just don't wear perfume if it gives you a headache!" but Mom seems to value the favor of other people's noses over her own comfort. Most times, these perfumes give me headaches as well. So, I have lots of perfume on some glass shelves in my bathroom that mostly act as decoration. But, I have found if you keep a bottle of perfume out in the light for 10 years, the smell fades a lot, so this actually makes it wearable for those of us with super noses. My hint of the day.

This morning I was getting dressed, and quickly grabbed a sweater I bought on sale the other day at Mervyn's, a store here that is closing. Rumor has it, Kohl's department stores will be taking over the Mervyn's stores after they close. This really doesn't change my life in any way; just thought I'd share some exciting downscale department store gossip. Anyway, I pulled the tags off the sweater and pulled it on, and noticed it smelled of perfume. Apparently before I bought this sweater, someone wearing A LOT of perfume had tried it on. I hadn't bothered to try it on in the store, and apparently hadn't smelled the perfume in the store. The store had lots of other smells going on, though. Anyway, I debated taking off the smelly sweater and changing, but I'd already put on a matching necklace and earrings, and I was feeling lazy, plus was running late for Hutton's speech therapy, so left it on.

By the time I'd driven to speech therapy, I had a headache. Still, the smell wasn't as obvious, so I figured I was getting used to it, and if I still had a headache when we went home, I'd change.

After speech therapy, I took Hutton to the bus, then microwaved myself some soup to eat for lunch. My headache wasn't as bad, so I was fine to leave the smelly sweater on. That is, until I pulled up to the counter to taste my soup, and caught a whiff of something that was decidedly not soup-like. It was the smell of B.O. My mind whirled. What? Was that ME? Surely not! I showered this morning, used soap, deodorized myself....Now, not meaning to brag or anything, but I'm NOT a smelly person. I mean, if I go work out and hang out afterwards in my sweaty clothes, I'll start to smell. But I don't smell like B.O. on a normal day, and if I did, I would know! The whole super sense of smell, you know. It's not like not being able to smell your own breath. You can easily sniff your own pits and tell if you stink, right?

Which is what I did. There, under the heavy perfume smell, was the undeniable smell of B.O. Ewww! I ripped off the stinky sweater and sniffed its pits. Ewww! I rushed it to the laundry room, threw it down and Febreezed the crap out of it. I'll have to face it later, when the current load of laundry is done. I then smelled the shirt I was wearing under the sweater. It smelled vaguely perfumed and B.O.ish as well. I hurried upstairs to find a new shirt to put on. And just so you know, I sniffed my pits after taking off the stinky sweater and shirt, and they were just fine, thank you very much. Go ahead, take a sniff. See? Er, smell?

So, I've learned an important lesson, as I still nurse my smell-induced headache: When clothes shopping, sniff the clothes before you buy them. And to those of you who don't shower and/or deodorize yourself on a regular basis: you stink. Dousing yourself in perfume doesn't change that. That just makes you stink while giving those around you headaches.

The Spawn of Satan; Going GFCF Again

I took Hutton to a new doctor this morning. Before we could leave the house, I had to deal with the new demon in my life: The Spawn of Satan Who Used To Be Known As Harrison. TSOSWUTBKAH started out screaming for me from his room this morning at 8 a.m. I went down and cheerily asked if he wanted a diaper change and to eat breakfast, and that afterwards we'd take Hutton to the doctor.

TSOS: "No! Pajamas on!"
MOMMY: "OK, let's change your diaper then..."
TSOS, wriggling angrily on changing table: "NO! ARGGGH!" Spits blood and venom. Well, maybe not the last part.
MOMMY: "Do you want to wear your train sweater? Here!"
TSOS: "NO! Pajamas on!" Wrestles out of shirt I attempted to put on. Pulls pajama top back on.
MOMMY: "Sweetie, we have to get dressed and eat breakfast if you want to go with me and Hutton to the doctor. We don't have much time!"
TSOS, with more blood and venom: "No breakfast!"
Moments later:
TSOS: "Eat yogurt!"
Immediately after:
TSOS: "No breakfast! Pajamas on!"

This continued for a looonnnng time. Hubby had gotten out of bed by this point and also attempted to get TSOS to put clothes on, eat his breakfast, or at least, stop screaming.

Finally, after 45 minutes or so, in which TSOS ate some breakfast, screamed more, and refused to get dressed, Hutton and I headed out to the car. As soon as I opened the garage door, TSOS appeared, wearing only a diaper. "Go to doctor!" I told him he'd have to put his clothes on quickly or we'd be late. TSOS, changing before my eyes into Harrison, a real, live, human boy, quickly put on his clothes with my help, and ran to his carseat. He was happy boy again. TSOS, please stay away from my kids. A normal 2 1/2 year old is challenging enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We headed to Seattle to see the new doctor. The boys were so well behaved, even though the appointment was over an hour long, involving the new doctor getting to know everything we'd ever done with Hutton in his life. While we were in the waiting area before the appointment, another woman commented on how good the boys were. That made me feel good. Plus, I thought back to Friday afternoon, when I took them both to the grocery store and they acted like angels for 45 minutes. This tells me two things: 1) I'm insane to take two young boys grocery shopping with me, my least favorite chore, on my least favorite day to go out, with pouring rain to boot. 2) Even though I'm insane, having kids who behave makes things so much easier.
Oh, I just figured out: 3) I've jinxed myself to a bad rest of the month for bragging about my kids being well-behaved.

Anyway, the doctor gave us a bunch of lab stuff. We've done some of these tests before -- they involve sending blood, urine and stool to a lab. Yep, getting these from a 5 year old is as fun as it sounds. Well, at least that was the case when he was three. The doctor also wants Hutton to go back to a Gluten and Casein Free Diet (GFCF). This is a common diet for kids with Autism. Many can't digest gluten and/or casein, and it leads to Leaky Gut Syndrome. That, too, is as fun as it sounds. Gluten is in wheat, and cross-contaminates most processed food items and other grains like oats. Casein is dairy protein. We did the diet for several months when he was 3, and it made a difference, but it's very hard to do properly, without any infractions. Pretty much any "regular" processed food is off limits, as are most restaurant foods. You can still find ridiculously expensive GFCF processed foods at specialty stores (think pasta, bread, crackers) but the cheapest and easiest thing is to make everything from scratch. Yep, that's the easiest. Ironic, no? Plus, you always run the risk that foods that were once GFCF may be reformulated, or that they'll be processed on the same lines as gluten-containing foods. A big event with friends of mine, whose kids are GFCF, is when it was discovered that McDonald's french fries, the mainstay of any healthy kids' diet, weren't gluten and casein-free after all. They'd long claimed they were GFCF, as they are fried in different vats from the chicken and other glutenous/gluttonous stuff, but apparently some of their special fry addict flavorings contain gluten and casein. So, this wasn't an issue for us, until now. We were off the the diet when this discovery was made earlier this year, and Hutton was happily eating his, "French fries, chicken nuggets and lemonade!" at least once a week after speech therapy, in the half hour we have to get home and get lunch before school. Sniff, I'll miss you, Micky Ds! I better go watch Super Size Me to get over this, fast!

When we first did the diet, I think we did it long enough that Hutton's gut was able to heal, then, when we followed with dietary enzymes for several months, that helped as well. On the advice of our old doctor, we started gradually re-introducing foods with gluten and casein, and there weren't any noticeable problems. Believe me, you notice Leaky Gut problems. Hutton still has food allergy and yeast issues, I'm sure, so I'm willing to try the diet again while we run some tests and before we tackle new biomedical treatments, like chelation. Hutton practically lives on cheese, though. I was expecting this, and have been weaning him from cheese. I bought nutritional yeast to make fake mac and cheese, stopped buying string cheese, and keep it off his tacos when we go to the Fresh Mex place. The problem will be with those fast and easy dinners I rely on so often: frozen pizza and frozen spinach ravioli. Tonight I made beef and vegetables in the crock pot, but I get bored very quickly with meat and vegetables. Guess I better go find some more GFCF recipes! Oh yeah, and the holidays will be so fun. We're going away for two weeks, staying with family. Fortunately my mother still asks if Hutton needs any special food whenever we visit, but I may just say we'll do the diet officially on January 1st!

Well, That Was Sorta Fun

I finished the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt last night. Well, except for one, which is on a website that is currently being moved.

WAHMies was my nemesis until the bitter end. I used the clues from the hint forum, clicked about 1 million different combinations, and still don't really know how I found it. I figured out that something was different in the browser when I clicked in a certain combo, then finally found the elusive icon. I didn't feel like I'd accomplished something great afterward. No, I just felt annoyed that I'd spent so much time on one silly site that hid the clue in an entirely convoluted way. You shouldn't have to click just the right combination of things to find the clue. It should be readily clickable within 4 clicks of the home page. And I never saw anything that looked backward, which is what the clue hinted at. If I hadn't noticed something different in my browser - though, not backward, mind you - I wouldn't have found it, and I'd still be crazy searching girl today.

One of the last icons I found last night made up for the pain of the WAHMies hunt, though. It had great clues, and I was able to find the icon using the clues only, without further hints. Plus the products on the site were cool - handpainted shirts, knitting, and cool photography. Here's the link to that site, if anyone is actually reading this!

Off to knit and watch TV, which I've been neglecting of late. Coming, my darlings!

What Have I Been Doing...

...if not blogging? Heck, I have barely even been reading the blogs lately.

This is what I've been doing.

That's right. I've been spending nearly every waking moment, when not attending to the needs of my children and pets that is (how annoying! Jeez! So needy!), hunting down the elusive cloth diaper icon hidden in various websites. There are 175 websites, to be exact. And though I have the entire month to do this, I have it in my head that I must do it all NOW!

I have stayed up past my already late bedtime every night this month looking. Some icons are easy to find. Others are diabolically hidden by web masters/torturers in such a way that one can spend hours on one site and still not find the icon, even after receiving hints. This one for instance. If you can find the icon here, and tell me where it is, I'll give you one of my kids or pets. Ha. Just kidding. I wouldn't cheat. Um, or give away my kids or pets, for that matter.

So, until I complete my hunt, you may not see me again in the blogosphere. I'm still floating around on the Internet, just in a different world. The world of crazy cloth diaper people. Now you know.

My Pussy Pussy Cat

First pussy, as in full of pus. Second pussy, as in cat. I realize as I type this, that my blog may end up with attention from some people who are looking for an entirely different type of pussy. Sorry, I don't blog about wussy guys.

Tully (yeah, I know, I'm still calling her the old name, though after this, Pussy Tussy will be a nice rhyming name!) came limping into the house on Monday. She doesn't stay out at night, so I thought she'd be pretty safe to go outside a little during the day. Guess not.

She lay around looking sad and miserable Monday and Tuesday, while I stepped over her and helped her get to her food so she wouldn't have to jump (we keep her food on the counter top, out of reach of the dogs) or to get up to the cat bed on my desk, then finally got her in to see the vet on Wednesday. Yeah, I'm a bad kitty mommy, but Tuesday I had way too much do with my human kids for Halloween. Anyway, by Wednesday, her paw was swollen and she was still limping, so we headed for the first appointment we could get.

The vet told us they'd have to keep her overnight so they could anesthetize her to put a drain in her foot, as it was infected, probably from a cat bite, and give her some IV antibiotics and rehydrate her. Thursday I took the dogs in for their check up, and picked up Tully. She had a bandage on one front leg, where they'd had the IV, and the hurt paw was shaved and had two big straws sewn into her paw. I'm very squeamish, so I really don't do well with this stuff. I'm supposed to wipe her paw frequently to keep it clean, and that alone gives me the willies. We're keeping Tully in the bathroom, so she won't drain all over the house, and she's just so pathetic, lying on a towel with her hurt paw and the goofy Elizabethan collar. When she walks, the collar throws off her balance, plus she's still limping, so it's hard to watch her like that. Cats without balance are just so...wrong.

Off to go spend some quality time with my sweet pussy in the bathroom. No, not that one. You people really are sick.

Update and pictures:

She's now moved to my desk. Not draining anymore than I can see. Able to sleep with a big plastic collar on, too. Not bad.

Notes From the Morning Drive

A few things from my commute to take Hutton to his speech therapy appointment this morning:

The carpool lane on 520 has a sign: To report violators, Call 555-HERO. Hero? For turning someone in for driving in the carpool lane illegally? I don't really think that's all that heroic. Not like saving someone from a burning car or pulling them from flood waters. How about 555-RATT instead? Wait, that might make people think they're calling to listen to the latest recording from the 80s hair metal band.

Now I can't remember what the other thing was. Oh well. I hate traffic. How's that?

Based on a True Story*

It is Halloween. My son holds my hand as we walk to the bus stop to wait for the school bus. He has his Halloween costume stuffed in his backpack; toward the end of the school day, he'll change into his costume for the class party. He is excited to be a pirate, and has been practicing his "argghs!" all morning.

The bus is few minutes late this morning, and I jog in place to keep warm. It's colder today than it's been all month. Finally I see the bus rounding the bend and coming to a halt.

The STOP sign flips out, and the door creaks open. I walk my son up to the steps, and look up to the bus driver, Heather. She is unrecognizable this morning, wearing a clown costume with a big red nose and wig. I remark about her perfect disguise, and lead my son back to his seat. I am about to put him in his carseat, when I call up to Heather, asking where the other passengers are. Normally there are three other boys on the bus by the time it gets to our stop. Heather grunts from the front. As my mind slowly realizes that the grunt from the front was way too low and guttural to have been from Heather, I notice the blood on the seats in the back, and then it is too late.



*The true part: Hutton's bus driver, Heather, did wear a clown costume on Halloween, and she was unrecognizable. But she wasn't an evil clown. Phew!

S.A.D.

It's only the second day of Standard Time, and I'm already feeling S.A.D. You know, Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I'm not really feeling depressed. Well, just a little. Let's see, it's gray, the leaves are all falling off the trees and making a big wet mess of our driveway, (which is actually very pretty if you're not S.A.D.), and I want to eat chocolate chip cookies and drink coffee all day, since I can't go back to bed. Really, it's not that different from most other parts of the year, but as I look out the window at the coming darkness (it's only 4:30!) I don't get a second wind like I do in the summer, when I realize I have several hours of light left to do things. When it's dark out, I don't want to go run errands. I don't want to go to the grocery store to get that one forgotten ingredient for dinner tonight. No, I want to stay home, preferably on the couch, under a blanket, watching some good TV and knitting.

Fortunately, I'm signed up for indoor soccer for the winter season, which starts Wednesday, so that will force me to leave the house for exercise, at night no less.

Another thing that has nothing to do with the end of daylight savings time, but depresses me, is that my face has broken out like a pizza-faced 15-year-old boy. I didn't have skin this bad when I was a 15 year old (no, I was a girl then, too. Boys just look more pizza-faced as teens, because they don't wear makeup to cover the zits.) So, tomorrow when I wake up, it will still be dark out, I'll have zits all over my face (I've tried a zillion masks over the past two days; tomorrow I may resort to a Halloween mask, since it will be Halloween after all) and the parts that aren't zitty will be pale. I better go sit under some full spectrum lighting for a while to cheer myself up. Or just go sleep on the couch.

Oh, and even the "Famous sufferers of SAD" are SAD, meaning pathetic. From Wikipedia:

Famous sufferers of SAD include Miriam Taffel, renowned for her work in the fields of psychology and intelligent systems.

Jillian Barberie of Good Day L.A. has mentioned during the program that she suffered from SAD when she lived in Ontario, Canada.

Johnny Briggs, who played Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street, also suffers from SAD.

Musician Rick Strom has credited his most creative periods to SAD.

Norman E. Rosenthal, MD, first researcher into the effect of light upon mood.

Natalie Imbruglia, a famous Australian singer, suffered from SAD during a longer stay in London, England.

I only know the "famous" Natalie Imbruglia, though it's quite heartbreaking that the guy who played Mike on Coronation Street suffers as I do. Not that I've ever seen Coronation Street. It sounds delightfully British.

Weird Dreams

I've been having lots of weird dreams lately. Most I don't remember, but here are a couple for your entertainment:

A week or so ago, I dreamt that I was at a big party -- a wedding or a funeral, perhaps -- and got really drunk. I ended up getting hitched to an old woman. In my dream, this made sense, even though I'm already married, to a man who happens to be mid-thirties, but you know how dreams are. In the dream I was also joking with Hubby that he should have married the old woman. When I started to sober up in my dream, I regretted marrying an old woman. I really didn't think I'd be able to er, consummate the relationship, and I knew my old lady (literally, in this case. Wait, can you use "literally" when describing a dream? Fantastically?) would be disappointed. Then I wondered why my mother, who was also at the party, had let me marry an old woman. Aren't mothers supposed to stop their kids from doing really stupid things, even if they're drunk, too?

Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with a group of friends, though they were dream friends, meaning they don't exist in real life. In real life, I don't have any friends. Sob. Anyway, back to the dream. My "friends" and I were walking along, talking about girl stuff, and the conversation turned to Botox. I said I wanted to have it done, and there was a special going on....

This is when my alarm clock woke me up. I realized I was about to mention a Botox special in my dream, that is actually going on in real life. I saw in ad for it yesterday in The Woodinville Weekly, a cutting edge, journalistic tour de force of the rocking world that is Woodinville, WA, population "estimated to be 9900." This ad was for a local spa offering a great special on Botox for Halloween. Halloween day, from 9 to 6, you can get 10% off your 31 units of Botox! Plus, invite a friend and get $25 off your treatment! Hmmm. Botox on Halloween. Sounds Frankensteinian. Plus, 31 units? How is it possible to get that much Botox in your face? Can you still eat, drink, breathe, or blink after that much Botox? Sorry, I'm Botox ignorant, but I don't think I'd be desperate enough to get a discount on Botox (10%, though! Wow!) that I'd be willing to buy 31 UNITS of it to do so. Then again, if you get that much Botox, you can probably incorporate it into your Halloween costume -- "Person Frozen by Medusa", perhaps, or "Startled Over-the-Hill Starlet"? Still, if you need 31 units of Botox, the "before" is probably much more scary, therefore better for your Halloween costume - "Good God, What is That"?

You'd Think Nearly Every Child Would Have Autism

There was a study released last week, led by an economics professor at Cornell University, that said the huge increase in Autism is the result of...that's right -- TV! Please, go kill your television, immediately! We must end Autism!

Oh wait, let's not get hasty. Let's think about this a moment. The study tries to link a very complicated disease that involves not only brain development, but the immune system and the gastro-intestinal system as well, with findings based on statistics. Hmm. An ECONOMICS professor using STATISTICS is telling us the cause of Autism. OK, I'm not going to jump on your bandwagon just yet, dude. And the researchers, "admit that their findings are not “definitive evidence” because they could find only indirect evidence of the amount of time that autistic children spend viewing television." [The Sunday Times, UK Oct. 22, 2006]

Yes, that's right. This seriously flawed study used statistics to link the high rates of Autism in California, Oregon, and Washington to the high incidence of cable TV and round the clock kids' programming starting in the 80s. But wait, they didn't use actual stats of TV watching in kids with Autism, but rainfall stats. Huh? I'm not following. Oh, I see, areas with high rainfall (CA, OR and WA) must have higher TV watching, because that's what you do with kids when it's raining, right? You couldn't possibly, say, play with your kids, inside, with -- what are those things called? Oh yes, toys -- when it's raining? No, no, you must be watching TV. Because it's raining. The higher rainfall causing more mold and mildew, and keeping kids indoors where there's poorer air quality wouldn't have anything to do with it. It's all TV's fault. Well, I could almost see part of the TV thing. After all, TV casings contain the toxic flame retardant deca-BDE (which was banned in the EU this summer), that, along with all the hundreds of other toxins floating around in our homes, could have something to do with Autism. But this study says, no, it's definitely "television watching" that's the problem.

So, we have the above "scientific study" released last week, as well as one from Vanderbilt University, done by *cough* real scientists. The Vanderbilt study, "of 743 families, in which 1,200 members were diagnosed with autism, has found evidence of a mutated gene [MET] that is involved in brain development, the immune system and the gastro-intestinal system..." [The Sunday Times] Hmm. So, do I think Autism could be from the above mentioned gene mutation, or do I think it's from TV? I wonder.

Oh, and a friend of mine has a 2 1/2 year old son with Autism who has NEVER WATCHED TV in his life. Yeah, I wonder.

No offense to any economists out there, but where Autism is concerned, I'm going with the developmental neurobiologist's research.

By the way, the picture above is not of one of my kids. It's probably some other child who, if the cockamamie Cornell study is right, is doomed to have Autism.

Flags of Our Fathers

Another serious post on the blog. Can't be all sweetness and light all the time, kids!

This is NOT a review of the movie that's currently out. Remember, I have kids and no babysitter, so I don't get to see R-rated movies in the theater. (Unlike the Gouda, I don't go to movies by myself. It's something I should try in the future, though!) Oh well, it will be on DVD in a year or so, right? The movie is based on a book written by James Bradley, the son of John Bradley, one of the men who raised the flag atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. We are friends with one of John Bradley's grandsons, who got to attend this movie premiere.

Hubby sent me this link about our friend's grandfather, and I found it very interesting. The last section, "Post-war Life," is very sad, and I'm still upset by the part about Bradley's friend, Ralph "Iggy" Ignatowski.

Jeez, war sucks. I can imagine how f'ed up it makes you. I never heard any stories from my grandfathers, who both served in WWII, in the army and navy, but I'm sure they had some horrifying ones. Probably not something they'd share with a young granddaughter, which I was when they were still alive.

I Just Don't Get Some Things

Like this:



Why do you have an anchor in your front yard, chained off? Your yard is not ocean-front, or even lake-front. True, it was probably underwater many, many years ago, but it's not currently even near water (barring Lake Washington, which is about 2 miles away).

Are you waiting for a new flood, so when a modern day Noah swings by to pick up your family and pets, he can anchor himself down? Perhaps this is an ancient anchor you found while making a new garden bed, that you believe to be a relic of Noah's? Are you a retired sea captain, and just couldn't bear to part with your ship, so you kept the best part of it to put in your front yard to remind you of the sea? I don't know. I just know that as I was stopped at a red light for two or three traffic light cycles, your front yard decoration struck me as odd, like an anchor out of water.

Save Me Some Rolos

Lina had eaten all of the Rolos from the bowl of Halloween candy, and was ready for bed. As she was blowing out the jack-o-lantern on her porch, she heard someone call, “Trick or Treat!”

She turned and saw a ghoul approaching. Lina reached for the bowl of candy, now containing only Necco Wafers and the tell-tale Rolo wrappers. The ghoul looked into the bowl, met Lina’s gaze, then grabbed the bowl, quickly slitting Lina’s throat with its sharp metal edge. As the ghoul ripped Lina’s ear from her skull, it whispered, “You should have saved me some Rolos.”


The above "story" is for this contest:


Write your own 99 word story and enter here!

Now I'm Really Feeling Better

Thanks to all my loyal readers for your thoughtful comments on my last two "Autism Funk" posts. I am feeling a lot better today! Your comments are one reason. This is another:

Hutton's preschool teacher called me this morning. She taught him for two years at his special education preschool. She's a very straightforward but easy-going woman, and Hutton did wonderfully in her class. He wasn't perfect all the time, but his teacher knew how to deal with him and got him to behave in class. Apparently, Hutton's Kindergarten teacher has contacted his preschool teacher A LOT this year. It boils down to, Kindergarten teacher (KT) wants to give Hutton back to Preschool teacher (PT). PT says, "No thanks, lady, that's not how it works. He did fine in my class, now he's ready for Kindergarten. That's your territory. You need to figure out to get the boy to behave."

PT told me that she explicitly told KT how to handle Hutton. That Hutton would test her, and that KT needs to just "get in Hutton's face, and tell him how he is expected to behave." That may sound a bit crazy to you readers, but believe me, it's not. That's what works with Hutton -- getting in his face. PT also understood Hutton's sensory issues -- he loves to smell everything and is usually tempted to eat things he shouldn't that smell good, like glue or playdoh, and he just gets a little too "into" smelly handsoaps, etc. So far, KT has written 3 notes about Hutton eating glue or playdoh, smearing handsoap all over his hair and the bathroom, and smearing peanut butter on himself if I send that as a snack. So, you'd think a teacher who deals with special education kids would have dealt with a child with sensory issues before, but I guess Hutton is just that extra special special kid.

But, after talking to PT, I now feel better about his placement in Kindergarten. PT told me the Transition Kindergarten is exactly where Hutton needs to be. The local contained class is mostly non-verbal kids, and Hutton will not have nearly enough stimulation there. And that Hutton going back to preschool isn't the right choice, either. He's in Kindergarten because he's ready for it. He's more than prepared academically, and KT just needs to get Hutton to behave. PT and I both agreed that Hutton figured out pretty quickly that he could get away with horrible behavior in Kindergarten, because the KT didn't handle it right off the bat.

I feel much better now about Hutton, and about my choice to put him in Kindergarten. PT told me to call her whenever I need to vent, ask questions, or anything at all, which was great. It's always good to have someone who understands the system and who knows Hutton to have my back. Word.

Returning to Normal

As normal as things get around here, that is. After spending most of Thursday in a huge funk over the email bomb from Hutton's teacher, telling me he wasn't fit for her kindergarten class, I spent the evening swollen-eyed and achy-headed and went to bed at the unheard of time of 9:30. The next morning, the boys woke me up at 7:15, an hour earlier than they got up on Thursday, because they have a system: On the two days we have to leave the house by 8:30 a.m., they are both nestled cozily in bed at 8 a.m., and are quite difficult to wake up and get going. On the other 5 days of the week, they're up and at 'em by 7:30, making the noises mothers can't ignore -- slamming doors, opening the fridge (yes, I have very good ears for this sound, as it usually means they're getting into food they don't need to, or are attempting to pour themselves drinks, or that the fridge will still be open an hour later, defrosting and wet-handled, if I don't get my ass up NOW and go deal with them), etc.

So, Friday morning I got up and stumbled downstairs, and soon got into a bitchy mood because Hutton refused to take his supplements. Half of his supplements go into his juice/probiotic smoothie combo, and the chewable supplements (his multivitamin, enzymes, and zinc) I give him to eat, since they're chewable, and I think they taste just fine, so he should, too. He wasn't going for it, though, and of course, I was still in the deepest depths of the "I have a child with Autism and he's never going to get better" funk. In mere moments, Hutton's refusal to eat his chewable supplements had me sobbing and snotty, telling him he HAD to work with me on this, because if not, I'd end up in a loony bin, and he'd end up in a bad group home. Hutton could not have cared less. He did not want to eat his supplements, even if the yummy cod liver oil supplement could be his if he did. (No, really. The Coromega "orange with a hint of chocolate" cod liver oil supplement is REALLY GOOD!) Hubby came downstairs during my crazy tirade about the supplements, and told me to go upstairs. Looking crazed, my hair standing up from sleeping on it, no makeup, swollen, puffy eyes and snotty-nosed, I refused. "I have to eat breakfast, so I can go get a shower and take Hutton to his ABA!" "I'll take him to ABA." "No, I'm fine." "Well, go eat your breakfast upstairs in the bathroom. You're acting crazy, and Hutton doesn't need to hear this." "I don't want to eat breakfast in the bathroom! I want to eat it here!" "OK, then we'll go upstairs." And so Hubby went upstairs with Hutton, I slowly stopped sobbing, finished my cereal, then showered and put on make-up to make myself look less like a crazy woman.

We headed to the UW for ABA, and I managed to not sob all over myself when I told his ABA consultant what had happened with his teacher. I had called the teacher Thursday afternoon. She told me that Hutton wasn't doing well in the class, but a one-on-one aide for him wasn't an option, as the school wouldn't pay for it, and that the contained class wouldn't be challenging enough for him. OK, lady, you're not giving me much to work with here. She then said she'd never had a child sent back to preschool, but there's a first time for everything. I really don't think the preschool will accept a 5 year old, but if it's possible, I'll do it. We agreed that next week we'll try to give or take away certain benefits at home, based on Hutton's behavior at school. For instance, if he receives a 0 for behavior at school, meaning he was horrible, he'll get 0 computer or TV time at home. If he gets a 3, for super behavior, he can get 30 minutes of computer or TV time. Of course, computer and TV time is the only way I manage to unwind in the afternoon and get dinner made. "Curious George" on PBS saves me before dinner, and "Wallace and Gromit" on Xbox saves me after dinner. But, I'm willing to sacrifice if it makes a difference. His ABA consultant made the point that this may not work if Hutton isn't able to connect his behavior at school with having things taken away at home. We'll see. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Hutton showed us some of his bad behavior at ABA therapy Friday - throwing some wooden signs around, narrowly missing Harrison, me and his therapist. His consultant quickly stopped the behavior, by holding Hutton's arms and leading him through putting the signs back into the box where they belonged, while asking him what each sign was, then quickly moving on to another activity. It was really amazing how easily re-focused Hutton was, and it made me think his teacher just needs to learn some of the techniques his ABA consultant uses. I mean, Hutton is probably doing his best to get away with whatever he can at school, because he can. He doesn't act up at home, speech therapy, or ABA (well, he hadn't been until Friday...) because he knows he won't get away with it.

So, his ABA consultant told me she'd go sit in on a class to see how Hutton is at school, and to come up with solutions for our big problem. And his ABA therapist (the one who comes to our home) told me she'd be happy to help Hutton at school. Well, that's nice and all, and I guess an extra $100 a week isn't that much to spend if she helps Hutton behave in class. All the same, I think there should be some way to get this solved without me having to pay someone to sit with Hutton in school and make sure he doesn't throw blocks or clear off his desk when he doesn't want to do his work. Sigh.

After we ate lunch, we were driving home across the 520 bridge over Lake Washington, and I started singing along to R.E.M.'s "Shiny, Happy People" on the radio. I thought if I sang, Hutton might listen to the words and think it was a fun song. I kept looking at him in the rearview mirror, and soon he and Harrison were both asleep, and I started to cry as I was singing. You wouldn't think it possible to cry while singing the words, "Happy! Happy!" but it is.

Friday night Hubby and I watched lots of good, funny TV (caught up on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" from earlier in the week) and I felt better.

Today was good. Hubby got up with the boys, I managed to go the gym, and we had just a few bad moments from Hutton, right before lunch, but after he ate he was fine. After lunch, we walked down to the creek at the end of our street to see if there were any salmon left. There were a few stragglers swimming upstream, but most of the fish had already spawned and died. There were about 20 fish in various states of decay, but it was actually very calming to see them, if a bit smelly. The whole "circle of life" feeling going on, though I didn't break into song. We walked up the trail for a while until Harrison got tired, then walked back home.
Looking for salmon "Cheese!"
Hutton chilling My boys

Then I went to the grocery store by myself, which is also very calming when done solo (though my almost-least-favorite chore, second only to cleaning up vomit or poop, when done with children) and made dinner using leftovers I remade into an Indian curry dish. We had grilled shish-kabobs last night, and I used the leftover meat and veggies, added some chickpeas, curry sauce and yogurt, and some Amy's frozen samosas and rice on the side. Hubby and I both liked it, so I felt very proud of myself for managing to make an easy dinner that actually tasted good. Hutton didn't eat much, and Harrison was falling asleep at the table, but two out of four ain't bad, right?

I'm now back in my previous state of calm. I think I have to have an Autism-fueled breakdown every once in a while. It's like a wake-up call/reality check-in, to make sure I know raising Hutton won't be all fun and games, easy-peasy. I was feeling pretty good for a while there! Thanks Reality, I know I was coasting. But I'm still staying positive, and looking forward to meeting Hutton's new doctor next week. I don't want to have to add "becoming more of a crazy bitch every day" as my sub heading just yet, but check in and see. Maybe it will be there for November.

Just When I'm Starting to Feel Good...

...Riding on an Elmo porn high, well-caffeinated, etc., I get knocked back down by the everyday crap.

Yesterday, we received a letter from the University of Washington, where Hutton goes for his ABA therapy. (The link includes a good overview of what ABA is. It's basically the treatment most widely accepted as being helpful for Autism. The fact that it is expensive and not covered by most insurance plans is just an added challenge for parents of kids with Autism.) However, our insurance plan does cover ABA therapy. Or 80% of it. Still, a lot better than paying everything out of pocket. That is, our insurance is supposed to cover it, but I keep having issues with our provider. The woman in charge of getting our ABA covered keeps finding problems. The letter we received from the UW told us that we'd be "private pay" for the rest of the year because we are over our allotment. Our allotment of 60 case management visits. That would be at least one visit a week for an entire year. We've averaged about 1 visit A MONTH with our old case manager, which is one of the reasons we switched to the UW. So, 1 visit a month from January to July, followed by weekly visits from mid-August till today, equals less than 60, when I add them. Of course, as you know math isn't my strong suit. But still. Even if I fudge the math a bit, it's still nowhere near 60. There's NO WAY IN HELL we've used 60 case manager visits for 2006. So, I've been trying to get in touch with someone at our insurance company for the past day, and have gotten nowhere. The main woman, who alerted the UW to our "red flag" status, is on vacation this week. Her assistant doesn't appear to be in her office in the afternoons. Oh, and did I mention we had the same exact thing happen in June, and they realized there was a mistake, and we all went on our merry way? Well, I guess they just lost the file, and rediscovered it, and forgot about the whole, "Oh, wait, that's wrong, you still have lots of case manager visits left for the year" discussion we had a few months ago.

OK, still, not that big of a problem. It will be resolved. I was fine with having that to tackle today. Until I got an email from Hutton's teacher. Hutton's behavior has become "increasingly inappropriate" for kindergarten and "he does not seem ready for the demands of kindergarten." Great. I cried. I stopped crying for a few minutes as I tried to contact the parent liason from Hutton's preschool to talk me down. She wasn't there, and the woman I spoke with at the local school with a contained learning program told me she'd try to find someone who knew something to call me back. I'm still crying. My child is being kicked out of Kindergarten. My life is not going so well today.

Elmo As You've Never Seen Him Before

This is frightening. And wrong. And really funny.



What is really scary is that someone had to find 3 TMX Elmos -- now that's hard!

Hubby wasn't sure what he liked most -- the music, the Elmo looking in the window who joins in, or the black satin sheets.