by Sarah | Jan 6, 2012 | All About Molly, Autism, Crap, Special Needs
[flickr id=”6650056311″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]Every day without fail I pull into the parking lot of the elementary school to pick up Angel. At the same time every day I get into line behind the other parents, sometimes even in front of the line.
85% of the time so I don’t feel rushed to shove her in the car and go I end up toward the back of the line. This prime spot affords me a clear view of the area the older kids have their recess in. It’s mostly parking lot, but to the right there’s a large grassy area with a playground.
Every day in dry weather above freezing they run around like little ants. Hustling and bustling so fast it’s hard to keep track of them. All playing together. Laughing, shouting. Playing tag, pushing each other on the swings. Kicking balls, sliding down the slide. Talking. Laughing. Being with friends.
Except one.
One girl.
My girl.
My beautiful Riley.
Sure she runs. In circles. Behind the other kids.
Mirroring play.
Never participating in it.
Sometimes walking slow, all by herself. Other times watching, laughing after the joke has passed and the group has moved on. Never right in the moment.
And every time I see it, it breaks my heart.
She loves school.
I have seen in the contained space of the classroom how her friends aide her, pull her in to participate, make sure she is included.
It is only in recess that I see this.
If she feels the pain I do when I see it, she can’t express it. Or chooses not to.
But I know it’s there. I know that she will always remember the ‘different’ she felt. I know this, because her dad remembers the same feeling. The same sense of ‘different’. The same attempts to participate without the sense of how.
It’s something I don’t know how to fix for her. I can’t go to the school and force the kids to make the effort in recess. It’s their wild time, it’s expected to just run free.
But still…
What I wouldn’t give for her to be pulled in to the games. Instead of mirroring, melting in.
by Sarah | Jan 4, 2012 | All About Denver, Crap, Random, The Teenager
[flickr id=”6087274981″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]At first I thought it might be the special needs babies, toddlers, kids…
I thought it might be the mountains of paperwork to deal with it all.
The endless doctor visits, medical terminology, therapists and IEP’s.
No. It’s not going to be any of that.
It’s going to be 1 word.
TEENAGER.
The surly attitude. The lack of common sense. The lack of respect. The lack of hygiene.
In brief shining moments you see the brilliance of his brain. The kindness of his heart.
Covering it all is the teenitude. The fact that we, as his parents, are just the biggest jerks, the meanest people, and so frickin’ annoyingly embarrassing.
According to the Scout leaders they see it all the time…and then there is the “lightbulb moment” when it all clicks and he becomes a human being.
We wait for that day.
Or death.
Whichever comes first.
Right now I’m thinking it will be death.
by Sarah | Dec 10, 2011 | All About Kennedy, Crap, Random, WTF?
[flickr id=”6247831361″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]Angel and Riley have the same amount of underwear. Riley has Dora, and Angel has Littlest Pet Shop. I made sure of this so that I would know who would need new and when and also to keep them separate since they wear the same size. It can get confusing w/ some Irish Twins in the house.
So last week I started to realize that as I did the laundry I was missing a LOT of Angel’s Littlest Pet Shop. They weren’t in the laundry, or in her room. Where could they be?
It was Archie that figured it out.
All week long instead of actually changing underwear in the morning, Angel was just putting her clean pair on top of her dirty pair. At last count she had five pairs on at one time.
Needless to say the situation has been corrected. But it was a heck of a laugh to see five pairs on underwear on that little goober.
by Sarah | Dec 4, 2011 | Random
[flickr id=”6316612325″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]Day’s 2 and 3 of #Resound11 are Vices & Virtues respectively. I decided to go ahead and combine them into one post.
2. Did you slip back into any old habits that you wish you hadn’t? Did you gain any new habits that you wish you would have walked away from? Did you discover the evils of Nutella? ‘Fess up … we won’t tell.
Oh vices are the bane of my existence. I have a few. In 2011 I started smoking again…twice. I gave in to my fountain pop addiction and took it to new levels (at one point drinking close to 5/day). I was (alternately) slothful. Spent days wrapped up in TV or computer over….well, moving. I ignored my own writing in favor of doing absolutely nothing.
In short…me and the bad habits in 2011? Yeah, I indulged in far too many.
3. What good have you done in 2011? Where do you really shine? What have you done that makes you proud of yourself?
Believe it or not this is the harder question to answer. I am my own worst critic. I find it very hard to see what could I may have done.
I’ve gotten better about cleaning. I find myself actually wanting to get things cleaner. In the past few months I’ve gotten better at drinking more water over pop. I’ve started actually getting a life, meeting people off the computer. I’ve written close to 300,000 words in different novels.
That’s the best I can do for now…I’m not good at the whole half-full thing 🙂
by Sarah | Nov 27, 2011 | Random
[flickr id=”6367106575″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]
by Sarah | Nov 25, 2011 | All of Us, Friday Fragments, Random
[flickr id=”6367104721″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”] Another Friday Fragments installment!
****Archie & I went to the library. Face to face with my former co-workers a week after I quit suddenly. My boss was there, tod me she missed me. Made me sad. I really did like that job.
****My turkey? Was PERFECT. I couldn’t have dreamed of cooking it better than I did.
****We got rid of cable again. Explain this to me…while we were PAYING for cable, shelling out $100/mo for it we had NO HD channels – we would have had to shell out MORE money every month in order to get them. We shut down cable and switch to just straight no cost local channel what comes through the line cable…and we have HD channels. It makes NO sense.
****Tonight was the Christmas on the Square event. Girls got their faces painted, we had a bit of fun. It’s officially the Christmas season.
****This week my post went up at Band Back Together. Please hop on over and check it out. I’m very proud of it. It’s here: The World’s Strongest Man and his Weakling Daughter.
****I haven’t been able to write much this week. The muse is getting into the mode she usually does at the end of the year every year. A mode of non-working for me. Hoping she snaps out of it. I do have more story to tell.
That’s it for another week. Time to make some turkey broth.
