Happy Mardi Gras!

It's Mardi Gras, and you know what that means! Well, actually at our house, it really doesn't mean much. The boys get to play with my Mardi Gras beads (circa 1993) year round, so it's nothing special. We don't have King Cake (yum!) . No drinking or showing of tits going on. Scratch that, Harrison gets to see them whenever he wants milk (the only kind he drinks, baby!) and Jay can see them if he's really nice, and maybe if he gives me some beads. Sorry, to
instill that "too much information" image in your mind, gentle reader.

Hope everyone else is getting more rowdy than we are!

Question of the Day

Who is this?



No peeking.....


Keep scrolling....




Yes, it's Axl Rose, from Guns N Roses.
Scary! Of course, I never really understood why people liked him in the 80s, either, or how he ended up married to Stephanie Seymour. Now, Slash on the other hand....HAHA.

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We survived the half of a Sonics game we attended as a family tonight. That's right, all of us, including our 2 kids under 5, went to a basketball game. At night. Harrison was climbing all over the seats, then I gave him some candy to keep him busy. That lasted at least a quarter. Then the nice woman in front of us who kept telling me how much she loves kids (she obviously doesn't have any yet!) gave him some of her popcorn. Hutton was going back and forth between the seats on either side of Jay. Fortunately, it was a very mellow game - not a packed house for the game against the New Orleans Hornets. Poor New Orleans, though, having to play a game in Seattle on Mardi Gras!

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Before the game, we went to a Thai restaurant. Everything was going well, the kids had their spring rolls and the food came out just in time. I had cut up Hutton's chicken for him, and was serving myself when Jay got a weird look on his face, stood up, moved the boys' plates, and told me not to eat anymore. He came back a minute later and told me he had eaten a little piece of glass, and didn't know which dish it came from. So, the waiter came and took our plates away, brought us more rice, then we had to wait for them to recook our food. Fun, fun. The restaurant did give us a discount on our food and some gift certificates, so the next time we're in downtown Seattle and in the mood for glass, we know where to go!

Boring Monday

I survived my single parent weekend, and am enjoying a slow Monday, typing with a sleeping child in my lap.

Hutton is back at school. I stayed up too late last night getting my weekend ebay auction wins (Little People extras!) packaged. Before that I was working on knitting an Elmo sweater. It's my first attempt at intarsia knitting (knitting with more than one color yarn, or picture knitting), and though the front looks OK, the back is scary and tangled. I think it will be enormous on Harrison, too, so I may end up ripping it out or modifying it to be worn by Hutton. Though by the time I finish it, Hutton may be way too cool for an Elmo sweater.

So, this morning when Harrison woke up at 7 a.m., I did my mommy duties for an hour (changed his diaper, nursed him, fed the dogs, let the dogs in and out...) then went back to bed, where I did the never really helpful blocks of 10 - 15 minutes of sleep, interrupted when the boys would come in with toys to show me, or with sippy cups to be filled, etc. I finally go up at 10 to really face the day.

Now Harrison is awake in my lap, so I am off to the post office to deliver those ebay packages.

Weekend Worrier

So, I'm having one of those "single parent weekends." Not that I'm a single parent, but that I feel like one in that my husband has been busy working all weekend. He "watched" (parented) the boys Saturday morning when I went to the gym, but complained about not being able to work with the boys in the room. Hmm, don't know what that's like, Jay. I always accomplish everything easily with the boys underfoot. ;) Often literally in Harrison's case. He's a leg-grabber.

Of course, though Jay is so busy with his work, he still managed to go to bed earlier than I did on Friday night, and get up 2 hours later. Last night, he went to bed an hour or so later than I did, and is still enjoying his sleep at 9:30. No, I really have no bitterness about the fact that he doesn't feel physically sick when he hears Harrison cry in the mornings, and I am the one who does feel sick and am forced to get up at 7:30 a.m. or earlier. Yes, I'm sarcastic. I'm also the parent who gets up with the boys every morning (I think Jay "let" me sleep in one time in January so far this year), prepares 90% of our meals and bathed them and put them to bed both nights this weekend so far. Jay does help out, but I'm not feeling it this weekend. I'm feeling like I'm going to need to start playing soccer again soon so I can have at least a weekly night out!

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I told my online moms group about this already, so I feel like I can start getting this off my chest. It will be a huge relief to stop living a lie. Well, that last part is a stretch. I'm not living a lie, just being pretty stupid!
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I'm having an existential crisis over my, ahem, toy collection. Some of you may know that I'm a true freak, and have a huge collection of Fisher Price Little People toys. I started getting them when Hutton was little, and now have just about every set of the "modern" Little People toys, made from 1997 to present day. Though I have managed to get rid of some of the bigger pieces here and there, like the airport, and older versions of "Discovery City" and Main Street, I have kept the figures that go with these sets. My collection is about 500 or so. Yes, I do have that many Little People people and animals spread around on shelves in our lovely "home office" / play room. I told you I was a freak.

So, one of my collector friends (another freak like me!) IM'ed me Friday to tell me she's considering quitting the collecting thing, because it's so expensive and ...well, neither of us is willing to admit it's just pretty stupid. ;) I am now thinking I should get rid of my collection, too. Just keep a few sets that the boys actually play with. But, I've spent 3 years obsessing over these things, I don't know if I'll be able to do it! I guess I can just start slowly selling the ones I don't really care about, and then maybe it will get easier.

It really has become an addiction though. Fisher-Price came out with a huge new group of toys this year. I managed to calmly wait about month before I had to go to Target to buy the new pirate sets and animals add on to the new improved version of Noah's Ark. That's something evil Fisher-Price does to suckers like me and the rest of the Little People collectors-- every few years, they change up the designs of some of the toys, and re-release them, with the accompanying figures painted just a little differently so the freaks MUST HAVE THEM NOW! They did that this year with the Noah's Ark set. Mind you, the "old" set was from 2003, and the only changes are that the ark is a different color plastic and half of the animals are different molds of the same animals -- more babyish looking giraffes, elephants, etc. I have been strong and NOT bought the new ark...yet. I go and look at it every time I go to Target, though, and my hands start itching to pick it up and put in the cart, before my mind yells, "NO! You already have that damn ark at home, just in tan plastic instead of red! You don't need to spend $20 on this crap just because you don't have those 4 freaking plastic animals!" Did I mention it's an addiction?

Ok, you don't believe the addiction. Well, in January I found out that I could get a PayPal debit card that would allow me access to my PayPal account at real stores, not just ebay. So, I applied for one, and when it arrived, I rushed off to Target for those much-needed Little People. Then I kept them hidden in my car for several days. Then I sneaked them into the house and hid them in a closet until my husband was away at a meeting, when I finally got around to getting them out of the boxes and putting the toys on the shelves, where they'll blend in with the other hundreds of Little People. These toys do come packaged with zillions of twist ties, you know, so it takes a while to get them out of the boxes. I can now rationalize that any money I have on PayPal can go to my Little People "collection" and my husband won't realize I'm spending any money on them. Sad, sad, sad. Of course, this was BEFORE I decided I'm going to start selling my collection. Maybe now I can use my PayPal debit card for worthwhile things, like my son's visits to the various doctors he sees. Or new workout clothes.

So, if I take it one day at a time, I can NOT buy the Noah's ark (come on, I'm not even religious! But I also have a Little People Hanukkah set. ) I am focusing also on not starting any more "collections." If you just have some toys, and are not obsessing about getting every new version you see, then it's not a collection. This is the case with the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff - we just have some of the trains, and I don't freak out over it. Right now, I am quite at peace with the fact that we don't own every engine to ever chug along the tracks on the Island of Sodor. At peace! Really!

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Yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in 2 weeks. Because it had been a while, I did two classes in a row (step and total body conditioning). Surprisingly enough, today I am not sore! How did that happen?

Anyway, there was this woman there who had such an amazing body, that I found myself immediately going into Catty Mode. I was thinking to myself, "There's no way her boobs are real! The rest of her body is too fit for her to just keep the fat in one place!' And then I started scrutinizing her. (I was behind her and to the side in the class). She had very toned but muscular legs (and everything else for that matter!). Not skinny, but no fat that I could see, just enough to make her not look veiny and body builderish.

I just thought it was interesting that instead of being inspired to work out by this woman, my immediate reaction was to cut her down by thinking that her boobs were fake (well, they were big and very non-bouncy in her spandex). As if that makes the rest of her obvious hard work worthless. Guess I'm just jealous because I have less than admirable boobs after 2 pregnancies and years of nursing! But, really, I don't want big boobs. Just less gravity-affected.

It would probably be easier to be happier for her if I knew her, right? Maybe next time I see her in class I'll go up to her and tell her she looks amazing. Then we'll both feel good, right?

And then on the fifth day, she rested

Ok, it's been another little lull in the posts. This time, I blame it on Hutton's break from school this week. We've been busy! Well, at least we were sorta busy.

We enjoyed the Children's Museum on Tuesday, and we had fun at Curious George, though with the time it took to find Harrison a booster seat, then to take Hutton to the potty mid-movie, I think we missed about 10% of the movie. But, hey, for an 82 minute movie, it's not hard to miss some!

Today was a day full of sloth. I had big plans to go shopping for my friend Liz's birthday gift. I showered and dressed...and then wasted most of the day napping and sitting in front of the computer. But not blogging or doing anything worthwhile. I was mostly "Windows shopping" - just looking for things to buy on various websites, but not actually buying anything. Hutton played Wallace and Gromit on Xbox while I was doing this. Harrison was the only one who actually played with non electronic toys, so that means I had to repair the Thomas train track destruction once or twice.

Tommorrow, I will go to the gym. And not sit on my ass all day (or lie down in my bed for 2 hours when it's not nighttime). And I WILL buy Liz's birthday gift.

Four days in a row!

Can I get a, "Good job, Mommy?"

Hutton has just started saying, "I did a good job!" after he accomplishes something we've asked him to do. Before that, he used to say, "Good job, Hutton!" Actually, I think I could learn something from that. If I told myself, "Good job, Laura!" after everything I accomplished (including using the potty, pulling up my pants, and washing my hands afterwards) my self esteem would skyrocket! Good job, Laura! You dressed yourself, and today even blow-dried [yes, I had that as "blew dry" before, and I actually looked in up in the dictionary to double check. I used to be an editor you know!] your hair and put on makeup! You're awesome!

So, this week is "mid-winter break" for Hutton's preschool, so we have more free time than usual. I have a trip to the Children's Museum planned for tomorrow after speech therapy, and Wednesday we're going to go see "Curious George" after ABA therapy. The boys haven't been to a movie in the theater before, so we'll see how it goes! I think they should be able to handle 82 minutes, right?

Today we went to see one of Hutton's doctors. Now, this Dr. is pretty cute. I used to think his regular pediatrician was cute (my friend and I called him Dr. Dreamy, and this was before Dr. McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy, so we were pretty ahead of our time!) but now he's getting a little chunky, and he's much more regular guy cute, not so dreamy. The Dr. we saw today, on the other hand, gets to me more each time I see him. He's geeky cute, with curly hair. Today he was wearing some pants with suspenders, for God's sake! That should be the opposite of cute, but I have to say, he made me fell all funny, like when I used to climb the rope in gym class.

So, this new, replacement Dr. Dreamy (though still nowhere as cute as Dr. McDreamy or Dr. McSteamy on Grey's) was really excited by Hutton's speech progress. We see him every few months, and he always comments on how much improvement he's seen in Hutton since last summer. That's always good to hear! Since I see Hutton every day, and his regular therapists see him a few times each week, it's easier for us to overlook his progress, I think.

I cleaned up the toys overtaking the house, and waffled over giving half of them away, as I do every time I clean up all the toys. I secretly buy the toys for myself, though, so I can't bear to part with them. (Remember, I have an enormous collection of Little People that I claim are for the boys.) I may have to buy a big Rubbermaid container to put half the toys in, then hide them away in the attic. Then, this summer I can pull them out and we'll all be so excited to see them again! Wow, is that a pirate ship? Awesome!

PopoZao - That's freaky! I had that phrase in my notepad, so when I control V'ed just now, it popped up. I was checking up on K-Fed's song earlier today. Check

This is just sad

I hate how these @$)(*#% advertisers screw up everything. I mean, the spam email is one thing. Usually the ads for V!agara, V$aliaum, etc. (yes, that's how they are misspelled, believe me!) go straight to my junk mail folder and I don't have to even look at them.

This is another thing all together:

"Captivating blog. I love surfing the web for thetype of blogs that you do. It had me on the edge of myseat and I kept going back to again and again!Go and find my wv west virginia house cleaning blog. "


Yeah, no thanks. Captivating blog? Er, that's a stretch. I read along until "It had me on the edge of myseat." You've gotta be kidding me! Guess it's time to turn on the word verification and hope that keeps these freaky housecleaners off my blog.

Same goes for you, vitamin salespeople!

Saturday in the House

I think it was the 4th of July. Sorry, an old Chicago song just popped in my head while I was typing the word, "Saturday." If you don't know which song it is yet, then you don't need to worry your pretty little head about it.

Just to clarify before continuing, I've never been a Chicago fan. I remember listening to the older stuff on the radio as a kid, but by the mid 80s, had written them off as any self-respecting cool 10-year-old should. Then Peter Cetera had his exciting solo career, which was equally spurned by the now cool 12-year-old. (Yeah, I wish I had been a cool 12 -year-old!) I remember seeing one of my 6th or 7th grade classmate's backpacks on the lunch table one day, and had to pity the poor girl (who was actually more popular than I, so I really didn't need to be the one pitying anyone) when I read the words written in ink on said Eastpak: "Peter Cetera / You're the Inpiration" I shook my head in disbelief that someone would actually write out the name and artist of such a sucky song in ink on her backpack, and to add insult to injury, to misspell it. At least she didn't write, "Your the Inpiration" though.

So, back to my exciting life. I am still at my computer at 11:00 am on a Saturday morning. I should be at the gym at the step class I've gone to the past month, but I stayed up too late reading in the tub. (Yes, I got to take a nice bath last night!) So, this morning when Hutton and Harrison woke up, and I could barely function to get out of bed, get Harrison out of the crib, feed the dogs, etc. I knew I was going to come up with an excuse for myself to not go to step class. I'm currently going with overtired and female issues. Ha. I never used that as an excuse in gym class in school, but now I'm using it as a adult to fool myself, and even I don't buy it.

I really like step class. Even though it's pretty 90s, it's motivating, and though I am a total spaz (remember, I was in remedial PE as a child) I feel quite accomplished when I can follow the "choreography" and learn the fancier 10 step moves. Plus, the teacher plays some good music. Not as good as the music from my old gym and step class (Buzz, the gay 50-something instructor played a whole class-worth of ABBA one time! Is there a bouncing-in-excitement emoticon somewhere?!), but still pretty good. Old Michael Jackson good.

Which leads me to:
http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=216036&GT1=7756

So, the new Katrina song is coming out. Sorry, Michael, but I don't think I'll like the song or really care. Off the Wall is still my favorite. You were so young, so talented, so black. So not using women's restrooms in a mall in Bahrain, getting off on molesting children (oops, I meant getting off in the legal sense, really), and so on.

Really, as of Bad, I was starting to look forward to the Weird Al versions as much as to your music.

Time to shower. My life seems to revolve around bathing, doesn't it?

I really want to take a bath...

But decided I should blog instead. There, are you happy now? Yes, I'm talking to you!

So, the past week I've wasted much time reading things online, which is a usual part of my life. One thing I read online that pissed me off a great deal was this article in the Seattle PI about Seattle school funding. Now, we're not even in the Seattle school district, but the article was incorrect about many financial things (it basically claimed that special education students take up more money than they should, money that should go to "normal" kids). Some quotes from the article:

"The problem Woolverton refers to is a multimillion-dollar budget deficit projected for several years, prompting district officials to consider closing some schools, reducing bus service, trimming the central office payroll and making other cuts. One service that can't be cut is special education, which gets one out of every nine dollars the district spends."

"A family moves in with three kids with autism, and suddenly you don't have a school marching band or the football season is canceled," Parrish said. "That's extreme, but it can happen."

OK, you're hating those evil special needs kids, now, right, gentle reader? Because of them, your child can't take the bus, play football or the piccolo! Well, as someone wrote in a few days later in a letter to the editor:

"Deborah Bach argues that children with special needs are draining funds from Seattle Public Schools. The numbers she reports, however, tell a different story. Bach notes that special education gets $1 out of every $9 the district spends. She also points out that the special education population in the district is slightly more than 13 percent of the total enrollment. How does spending 11 percent of the budget on 13 percent of the children create a deficit? If the numbers are accurate, special education students are helping reduce the red ink, not create it."

Yay! Someone with a brain. However, there's a little comment section on the online paper which had some horrible things on there. After reading these comments Wednesday afternoon, I went to my room, got in bed and cried. There were some positives, too, but two a$$#oles especially got to me.

Here's the first post by Ahole #1:

"Why are the unfortunate circumstances surrounding YOUR kid MY problem?My kids didn't make the baseball team. It's killing their self-esteem and ruining their chances to realize their dreams. I need more funding so that they can spend an hour a week with a couple of pro baseball players. Gimme! They deserve every advantage! Gimme gimme! They deserve our full support! Gimme gimme gimme! After all, it's for the children. They are our future. GIMME! GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!!!!"

Yes, dude, you're a sarcastic ass. Here's another post by this winner:

"For the record, I have nothing against educating the handicapped (or anyone else, for that matter). My beef is with those who would pick my pocket to do it. Your kids (and, if it applies, their handicaps) are not my responsibility."

Ok, dude, if you pay taxes, they are going to every public school kid's education, not just to special ed. Dunce. If you don't want YOUR money going to someone else's kids, you need to move somewhere without taxes, or, in the Bush-Cheney era, make $300,000 or more per year so you'll get some nice tax cuts.

Another guy (Ahole #2) was talking about euthanasia and abortion.

The positive was after all this, I checked on the site Thursday and some new posts were there that renewed my faith in humanity. But, on Wednesday, I was in a huge funk, thinking that my poor Hutton will have to live in a world full of bastards.

Well, I had more to post, but I really do want to take a bath!

Yes, I'm the worst blogger ever born. But this is just for me and my own personal growth, right? Yeah, cause only one or two other people know I'm here, except for the occasional person who ends up here on accident after googling some bizarre phrase I may have written.

Anyway, I just got back from dinner out with the Autism Moms. So nice to get out with other moms who know what it's like. Not to mention that my friend Amy, whom I consider a darker version of myself, and I split a $60 bottle of Merlot which was fantastic. It was half price wine night at the wonderful restaurant we went to, so it was only $15 each, which is practically the same price as a getting a couple glasses of house wine. Woohoo! In addition to the wine, I had half of a very good sirloin steak sandwich (other half is in the fridge for lunch tomorrow), a chocolate dessert that could serve a small tribe, and a coffee with Frangelico liqueur. Yummy! My stomach feels like it may be about to burst open with an alien spawn soon, but it was worth it to have my last meal be so good.

Back to Amy. I consider her my doppelganger, but who only looks kinda similar. Like an evil twin, but not so evil. Maybe my more unihibited self? I don't know the best way to describe her, but we have a weird bizarro life. We are often asked if we are sisters. We aren't. We are the same height, the same build, usually within 5 pounds of the same weight, had both of our children within 6 weeks of each other, both of our older sons have Autism, we both have freckles, we both love lattes and good wine, but aren't wine snobs, etc. However, whereas I am the "conservative liberal" (meaning I am a typically a shy person, conservative in manner and prone to be concerned what other people think of me, though I'm liberal politically), Amy is the tattooed, extremely forthcoming version of me. She's not afraid to tell people what she thinks. She's the me that I can be if I have enough to drink to "lubricate my speech."

So, Amy and I, along with three other moms went to dinner at this great restaurant and talked about our kids, our husbands, the various therapies, supplements, bio-medical approaches to Autism, etc. that our lives revolve around. It's always good to get out and talk this way with other moms. And as I learned in an RDI workshop today, it's very important to find your group. I'm a maple leaf, apparently. I never knew I was a Canuck, but hey, I've spend half my life in Washington state and New England. Not too far off! This stems from one of the exercises we did, in which each person was to grab a shape from the bag, and not looking at your shape or anyone else's, find the group of people who had the same shape. My shape was a rounded, asymmetrical maple leaf. Pretty to look at after the fact, but very difficult to figure out what the heck it was through touch alone.

The workshop was fun, and a great day away from my "real life." Of course, Jay complained (more than once) about the fact that he had to be in charge of the kids ALL WEEK because I had the nerve to go to a PTA meeting Monday night, host my book club Wednesday night, go to a workshop today (for our Autistic son's benefit, mind you), and then go out to dinner tonight. On Monday night when I went over the stuff going on this week (I have very, very rarely ever had more than one night a week Jay is required to "babysit" AKA father for a few hours) Jay had the nerve to get huffy about having to do all this with the kids. And he didn't even have to drive 30 minutes both ways to get Hutton to speech therapy today, and wait 2 hours for him while keeping Harrison entertained, which is a regular part of my Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I pointed that out today when he forgot he was supposed to watch the boys while I did this workshop. He really doesn't know his audience if he complains to me about having to do a few hours of bedtime duty 3 nights a week. I mean, come on, Harrison was still in his pajamas when I came home at 4 pm! Blah, blah, blah....

So, at dinner, we happened to bring up the topic of bigamy/polygamy. And, in my "well lubricated" state of mind (two glasses of darn fine merlot), I really think that sounded like a good idea for us ladies. You have another woman (or more) around to vent to, to help with the cooking, cleaning and child-rearing, and on those nights you just want to sit up late reading and not do your "wifely duty" (HA!) you send the ole hubby to wife(wives) no. 2 (3, 4, ....) . Now that I'm a cynical ole woman, I don't think that sounds so bad! Of course, I'd have to be Alpha wife, and I'd get to choose my friends to be the other wives.

The Joys of the Season -- Christmas Cards

It's that time of year again: the annual cards are arriving in the mail every day from far and near. So far we have only received 5 cards, but I'm sure next week will be big. I mailed my cards yesterday. Go, Laura! Of course, they were totally impersonal -- a picture of the boys in the snow (see my post from a few weeks ago) I had printed out online, slap on a computer-generated address label, a return address label and a Christmas stamp, and put a huge stack of them in the mail box. Ahh, relief!

Of the cards we have received, two are from the same extended family, who shall remain nameless. These have some issues I must address. The first included the "catch-up on the year" form letter. It was generally OK -- telling about the big events of this family, what the kids have been doing in school and extracurricularly.

The issue I had was everything was very, er, religious. Now, I'm not intolerant of religion. I try to be accepting of those with other religions. (Well, calling agnosticism/atheism a "religion" is a stretch.) Anyway, I am fine with Christians sending cards talking about remembering the "reason for the season," etc. I, personally, find the reason for the season to be about giving gifts to friends and loved ones, getting together with loved ones, etc. Yes, I am one of those horrible secular people who has turned Christmas into the Santa-centered holiday it now is. And I don't take offense at people wishing me "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas. I won't boycott Target because of this. I will continue boycotting Wal-Mart because it is evil, but I won't boycott a store because the employees get the Christians in a tizzy by saying "Happy Holidays" to be more inclusive of non-Christian Americans.

Anyway, back to the cards. The form letter brought up a few things that made me uneasy, but the main one was this: Billy Graham Crusade. The phrase just gives me chills.

The other card that I couldn't handle seemed OK until you read what was printed under the cute picture of the kids: "Merry Christmas from the Smith's" followed by the first names of the parents and kids. Now, this family's last name isn't really Smith. I am using Smith to protect the innocent -- the two boys pictured above the horrible grammatical error. It's possible the boys and their parents are actually property of "the Smith," but I doubt it. I just don't get it. The parents are both educated people who are pretty smart. Do they really not know that adding an apostrophe doesn't just make something plural? Now, I would give them the benefit of the doubt if their last name ended in X or something. "Merry Christmas from the Ajaxs" Hmm, that doesn't look right. Maybe I should do apostrophe X? Now, it would still be wrong, but understandable. More understandable if their last name was actually "X." But, it's not. It's a normal last name, that is made plural by adding a regular old S, not by adding an apostrophe S! Arrggh! And, I could also overlook this error if it were in an email message. But, it's not. It's in a Christmas card that they had printed out. Did they not even proof read this before they had it printed and sent out to family, friends and acquaintances (and grammar nazis)? Or is it nazi's?

I'm back!

And I'm tired! I keep going to bed too late at night. Last night I almost made it to bed before 11. Well, I was in bed, but I insisted on reading before turning out the light. Then when Harrison woke me up at 5 am, I was still feeling brain dead. Fortunately he went back to sleep!

My latest crazy idea: I'm going to write a novel. Or maybe a book of short stories. Well, I at least have an idea to start with. I've been thinking about it at night when I'm drifting off to sleep. I have my main idea, but then I keep coming up with problems. If I have to research this thing, it's not going to happen, so I'll see if I can solve the problems in some non-research way. Perhaps sci-fi, so I can have everything happen in a different world, with human-like beings, who don't necessarily act exactly like humans. That way I can have them do things humans wouldn't and no one can complain that my story is unrealistic. Yep, I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to write something first, before people can start tearing apart my writing!

Or maybe I'll use talking dogs....

Let the feasting continue!

I accidentally typed, "fasting" which is probably a better word for this blog!

Following the examples of Allison and Kristen, I give you

THE 10 THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME

1. I'm a member of this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FisherPriceNewerLP/
I own about 500 of these plastic figures. It's a sickness, but I can't stop. I even took that picture on the website of the Nativity scene. Yep, those are part of my collection.

2. I finished 2nd in the 7th grade spelling bee. When I was watching the finals, the guy who beat me (and really didn't deserve to, since he got to spell the same word I'd just misspelled) missed a really easy word that I could have spelled with my brain closed. I coulda been a contender!

3. I have completed 3 sprint length triathlons.

4. I slept with a security blanket for many, many years. I still have Banky, but I don't sleep with him anymore. We have a platonic relationship now.

5. In grade school, I was in remedial PE. It was called COPE class, and involved lots of riding a scooter back and forth across the gym floor. I repressed this memory for several years, then remembered it in high school, and my mother confirmed that I, indeed, had had motor skills issues as a child.

6. I limped down the aisle when Jay and I got married (well, anyone who went to my wedding would know that...) . I had ACL surgery on my knee 6 weeks before hand, and it didn't heal properly. I had another surgery a year later, and now have a normal gait again, and my quadricep muscle back, which totally disappeared when I had my gimpy leg.

7. I got to see Jude Law do a nude scene in a play in London the summer I studied abroad. He was just a young guy starting out then. Every girl in my program had a crush on him after that play (and probably some of the guys, too - it was a theater program, after all!).

8. As a preteen, I had huge crushes on David Letterman and Alan Alda. So, so, pathetic! I watched two episodes of M.A.S.H., followed by Late Nite every weeknight. My girlhood crushes were more acceptable - Harry Hamlin from "Clash of the Titans" and the kid from "The Black Stallion."

9. In college I was a ropes course counselor (this involved getting up too early on Saturday mornings and sitting on a platform high in a tree), and was into rock climbing and the use of "cams and biners." Prekids, I also used to scuba dive and ski a lot. Don't I sound rugged and outdoorsy? Haha.

10. I went from being a super geek, ultra-involved honor student in high school to being a complete slacker/procrastinator in college. I guess that's what college is for, right? Well, I was involved in some clubs in college, but wasn't compelled to be the treasurer, president, director, vice-president or similar in any of them!

Getting Good Photos of Young Children is So Easy!

Can you smell the sarcasm in that title?

Last Friday I decided I'd take the boys to the mall to get some Christmas pictures, and hey, while I'm at it, Harrison's 18 month pictures done at the same time. Brilliant idea, Laura! Would you like to introduce a pack a wild dogs, a bloody carcass, and some baboons, as well, to liven things up?

So, I set up an appointment, dress the boys in their matching red sweaters and khaki pants, get some more floofy clothes for Harrison to wear, some goldfish crackers, hair gel and a comb, and baby wipes. I'm set!

We arrive at the photo place and get to wait about 20 minutes. That's always a great idea with the young kids. Keep 'em waiting! Then, the fun of the photo shoot starts. The photographer wants Hutton to kneel and hold Harrison's hands. Hutton doesn't know how to kneel, so his butt collapses on his heels, but hey, he's holding Harrison's hands, so that works. The photographer gets a few shots of this pose. Move on to the snowman prop. Hutton starts trying to lift it, takes the hat off, crushes the hat, etc.

OK, move on to the individual shots of Harrison. Things seem to go pretty well. I change his outfit a couple of times. He poses with a train prop while wearing a train outfit. I know these pictures will turn out great! We leave to go kill an hour at the mall.

Because the boys were both so good (relatively speaking), I take them for ice cream to kill time, as I only have the umbrella stroller for Harrison, and trying to shop with two young boys is always a bad idea. And we return to get the pictures....

Which are really sucky. The ones of Hutton kneeling, holding Harrison's hands, are OK, though Hutton has his weird half smile on, where it looks like he's using his tongue to press out his bottom lip. Plus this draws attention to the fact that he has a cold sore. Eh, they're OK, though. The snowman shot the photographer captured (and when I saw photographer, I mean the 18 year old who works there probably making $7 /hour) features Hutton trying to knock the snowman's hat into his frozen brain, while Harrison looks great. Of course the 2 pictures of Harrison are both bad. One is off center, and he looks disheveled. The other he is sitting, but has a terribly pained expression on his face. No train shots. So, out of the half hour of work (and I mean on my part, trying to get the boys to cooperate with having their picture taken), there are 5 pictures ranging from mediocre to really bad. I'm just not very happy that I've gone to all this trouble for 5 bad pictures.

I finally buy one of those poses of the boys together, figuring it's a good picture of Harrison, and not the worst picture Hutton's ever taken. Then I set up another appointment to bring Harrison back for his 18 month shots, because I still have a coupon, and I'm not going to waste a coupon, dammit!

Feast or Famine

Well, my blogging seems to be feast or famine -- three posts in one day, followed by several days of nothing! Then again, calling my posts "feasts" is a stretch, too. It's more like when I go too long between meals, then get hungry enough to eat at McDonald's, and get a combo meal and eat the whole thing. And then afterwards feel gross for stuffing my body with bad food.

Fortunately, the McDonald's thing doesn't happen too often, even though Hutton always asks for McDonald's, or "M Donald's", when we are leaving his speech therapy appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I try to only get Hutton food there when we go, and wait and eat a better lunch at home. The problem is, we only have a half hour between speech therapy and the school bus pickup, so it's a rush to drive home and get him lunch, and "M Donald's" is so fast and easy....Of course, he always mentions going to M Donald's when we are at the speech therapist, so she thinks Hutton only eats crap, I'm sure!

The other day my sister ran into my best friend from high school in the grocery store. My friend, Sharling, had switched jobs a while back and lost my contact information, so got my email address from Emily and wrote me yesterday. We're going to try to get together when I go home to Nashville for Christmas next week, which will be good. She has a 19 month old son, so I'm sure Harrison and Hutton will love playing with him. It's very strange to think that it's been 10 years since Sharling and I have been really close. We drifted apart after college, when we both got real jobs, then I married Jay and moved to Florida. We've only seen each other a handful of times since then, and I would really like to keep in touch with her this time around.

Snow fun

After Harrison's nap, we went outside to enjoy the snow and wait for Hutton's bus to drop him off from school. We all had so much fun walking through the yard in the snow, and even Jay came out for a few minutes. Sally, one of our dogs, had the most fun, tearing around like a greyhound. Here are some pictures:

Cool NYC people news

My friend, Eva, lives in New York and works in the Bronx Zoo. Well, she doesn't work there, she works for the Wildlife Conservation Society, but her office is at the Bronx Zoo. Sounds cool, doesn't it?

And, as if that weren't cool enough (living in NYC and having an office in the zoo and getting to see the cool animals whenever she wants), she's married to a cool guy, too - Jeff. Jeff and his brother are independent filmmakers. They have made 3 or 4 films now. The first one, Suckerpunch, is one Jay and I own on DVD. It's a little, er, violent and disturbing, but interesting, nonetheless. And my friend Dawn's 3-legged dog, Mona, has a part in it! I haven't seen their other films yet, but these include, The Fittest and...wait for it...Ghetto Dawg II, Out of the Pits. So, I had heard from Dawn that the latest film was a departure from the more violent films. Well, The Fittest was, too, but that's beside the point. And Eva even got to do some sound effects in this one. I got this email today from her:

"Yeah, baby! Jeff's horror movie, Salvage, got into Sundance...yes, the top festival in the country. He is sooooo excited. And, an agent has already called offering to represent the Crook Brothers. Oh, please, please, please....we've been hoping and wishing for a little luck (and to get out of debt.) Talk to you soon!
Eva"

So, if you ever hear of the movie Salvage, run, don't walk, to see it! Hopefully it will actually show up in a theatre, as the earlier ones didn't make it to theatre, or were in some smaller film festivals.

A lovely, snowy day

Well, as you can see from my absence since Sunday, I am not doing well making this a daily log. But, I do what I can!

As you may have guessed from the title, it's snowing today. The first snow of the season here in Woodinville, and it's coming down in pretty, fluffy flakes and sticking to the trees and ground. The boys were both so excited by the snow, and when we got home this morning from Hutton's (yes, I'm going to call everyone by their real names, now, as I don't think anyone who ventures onto this blog will use them against me in any way!) speech therapy session, he rushed inside to get the snowflake magnet from his magnetic calendar. He showed it to me so proudly and said, "Snowflake!" and then we put it on the calendar to mark the first snow.

Hutton's therapy is going so well! I don't know if it's his biomedical stuff - he's done 6 rounds of chelation, which is a metal removal technique that helps the body detox, and the last round seemed especially helpful. The first 5 rounds were this spring, and then over the summer I took a long break for his body to try out different things, like a regular diet. Prior to the "regular" diet, he was on a gluten and casein free diet for about 9 months, and though we saw improvements at first, when we added gluten and casein back, his behavior seemed similar, and his speech continued to progress. He still doesn't drink regular milk, though he eats cheese and yogurt. On that front, I am planning to take him to another doctor to try NAET, an allergy elimination technique a few of my friends with autistic kids say has helped their kids.

Anyway, after his last round of chelation, he had some bad behaviors for about a week, which I think could have been from yeast overgrowth, which is a side effect of chelation sometimes. I treated him with an antifungal, and then a few weeks ago we went to his homeopath, and he was given his "remedy" again. So these things, in addition to his speech therapy, ABA therapy, supplements, and school are all playing a part in his progress, I'm just not sure which is the most helpful! But the past week in particular has been especially good -- he is now saying, "Look, Daddy/Mommy! I see a _____" instead of his old, "What's that?" which he would use to draw our attention to something, even when he knew what it was.

I my various readings, I saw there was yet another new yahoo group devoted to a new method of treatment for autism, using Valtrex and MB12. So, of course I signed up for that group, too, to add to the hours of reading I already do on all the autism boards. I find it quite funny (I won't use the term ironic, because I know what it really means!) that I am the parent who spends so much time reading up on autism and its possible causes and treatments, and half of my readings are very complicated medical and scientific reports I don't really understand. Reports that discuss ethyl versus methyl mercury, methyl sulfation in the brain, viruses, bacteria, vitamin supplements and what they do, etc., etc. Jay is the parent who spends 90% of his time watching the stock market, which is his new job, working from home day trading.

Now, I'm getting to my point. In college, Jay double-majored in computer science and...
CHEMISTRY! So, why I am the one making my head hurt trying to figure out if MB12 is better than regular old B12 at improving the methylation (I don't even really know what that means, and how it differs from sulfation) in the brain, if ALA alone or ALA + DMSA are better at chelating mercury, if using antivirals will help? Hmm, I don't know, but I guess it's like everything else in the life of the hausfrau -- if I don't do it, chances are it won't get done!

Well, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm coming to the horrible realization that the holiday weekend is almost over. But then again, that means the H1 will be back to school and his morning ABA therapy tomorrow, so I'll only have one child to chase around for most of the day.

Then there is the gym hanging over my head, taunting me with, "You know, you haven't been in in 2 weeks. You've already used that sickness excuse. Your toddler doesn't have a runny nose anymore, but your butt fat isn't going to go anywhere unless you move it in here." I am still trying to get myself into a 3 day a week gym habit, which I had going great for about a year between kids. Strangely enough, in the 18 MONTHS I've had since H2's birth, I haven't gotten myself back into the gym habit.

I at least accomplished some sewing this weekend. I got my serger to work again, and my sewing machine works sporadically. I have a shopping cart cover partially completed, which is good since it was a baby shower gift for a baby who is now over 6 months old! Whoops! Oh well, I did give the baby's mother a gift instead of the shopping cart cover and told her I'd finish it "soon." Everytime I use my sewing machine I have to really wonder if this hobby brings me any pleasure, especially when I start calculating how much money it would cost to buy whatever it is that I'm attempting to make myself. There are a whole lot of things that are cheaper to buy, look better, and save my precious "hey, the kids are asleep and you can actually accomplish something" time for more important things -- like sitting on the couch, watching tv, and knitting. Which I would have done this weekend instead of sewing, except J was hogging the TV playing Halo.

Well, on that note, J isn't playing Halo right now, H2 will be needing a nap soon, and if I hurry, I can go get dibs on the TV! I need to spend more time with my other monitor, you know.

Random quote and funny story

Random quote:
"There has been one death from Vit A toxicity in an adult male who ate nothing but polar bear livers." From my website readings on vitamin supplements for viral issues.

Funny (and true!) story:
J repeated this one to me today when we were eating lunch with the boys. The restaurant was playing your favorite soft hits, interspersed with holiday music, though the phrase "favorite soft hits" is quite subjective, as none of them were faves of mine.

So, as an Alanis Morrisette song started, ("Under Rug Swept," or whatever it's called) I commented to J that the song was about her affair at age 13 with Dave Coulier, the Canadian guy from "Full House." J didn't know who Dave Coulier was, but asked if I remembered the story from our friend Neal about seeing Alanis at the Redhook Brewery. I vaguely did, but asked him to repeat the story.

So, Neal and his family went to the Redhook Brewery for lunch one afternoon. The walked in behind a petite woman and guest. Neal swears the petite woman was Alanis. The hostess at the Redhook apologized that the restaurant was closed, as it was in between lunch and dinner time. Alanis said that she was disappointed because they had come to the brewery for the sole purpose of eating lunch. Neal said he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying to Alanis, "Isn't it ironic?"

Bonus funny anecdote:
After lunch, we went to Costco. After shopping, we needed to get gas, so pulled into the line there for some super cheap $2.14 gas. Woohoo! J was waiting for a left side pump to open up, when the attendent tapped on the window. The attendent told J, "You know, I've got a 14 foot hose that can reach around pretty much any car, so you can use any pump." Of course, J immediately quipped to me, "He seems pretty proud of his 14 foot hose!" After pumping the gas, J expressed regret that his quip didn't include reference to the "reach around" as well.

It's better to burn out....

J just came upstairs to tell me he had something very sad to show me. I followed him downstairs. He turned on the TV and pressed play on the TiVo to start up the episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live he'd been watching. (Yeah, there's not much stored on our TiVo worth watching today....)

There, before me on the screen was the immortal 80s hair band, Def Leppard. The paraplegic (?) drummer started the infectious beat, and the lead singer, looking older but still sporting some long and not necessarily pretty hair, spoke/sang the lines, "It's better to burn out/Than to fade away!" Hmmm. You may want to really listen to that line next time before you show up on TV to sing a decades old song from the glory days.