Thanksgiving Week Commences

Judging by the lack of comments, I'm wondering if anyone out there is reading lately... Well, I only do this blog thing partly for the reader anyway, so I guess that's OK. It's for me too. Not only to document our lives, but also for me to vent whatever is on my mind. Since it is a public venting, there are some things which must not come up here, and I'll just say that I'll put Sunday morning in that category this week, and move on.

Saturday I had an awesome opportunity to go to a ladies' tea, thrown by one of the biggest churches in town at a fancy downtown hotel ballroom. The speaker was Leslie Nease, who was a contestant on Survivor China (this video really shows what she's made of at the 6 minute marker). I only got to go because another lady who was invited to go couldn't, and offered the ticket to me through my mother. The two of us left my kids and both our husbands at her house and had a lovely afternoon of fellowship with ladies from all over the city. We ran into a few we knew (besides the ones we knew we'd see). It was really nice.

Sunday morning had its share of fiascos, but the one I can share is about Little Girl throwing up during the first service, and me having to take her home. I was singing and Hubby was playing drums, and it was either lose a singer or the drummer for the second service. That's a no brainer. I had to go. I was really bummed because it seems like I haven't had many opportunities to sing lately, and we had practiced and had all the parts worked out quite well. Little Girl never turned out to be sick. She just threw up the one time, and was fine for the rest of the day.

Sunday night there was a Thanksgiving meal at church. If you can imagine about 200+ families gathering for a pot-luck meal in a gym... the turkey and drinks were provided by the church, and everyone else brought side dishes and desserts. It was a really nice time. Big Girl and I went without Little Girl and Hubby. I'm so glad we did. God put me and Big Girl sitting across the table from a family I don't know all that well from our Sunday school class. Turns out she's an OT at the place where Big Girl is going to be evaluated December 10th! I was so glad to have someone be able to answer some questions, and put my mind at ease about some things.

God did that once before back before Big Girl was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. We had the referral from the pediatrician for the pediatric neurologist, and were very scared about the idea that we were facing autism. During that month between those doctor visits, we had a minister and his wife over for dinner. It turned out that the minister's wife was an austism specialist for the biggest school district around. It was a tremendous blessing to have her placed at our very own dinner table at a time when we needed her most. We had no idea what she did before that night. God did it all, just like this time. And we had no idea He was doing it. It was a happy surprise.

Today was just another day at home with Little Girl for me. We went grocery shopping. She peed her pants. We ate lunch. She pooed her pants. We went for a walk, mailed some bills, took Big Girl's snack up to the school that I'd forgotten this morning, came home and took a nap. No more accidents for the rest of the day. Big Girl had a playdate after school with one of her friends who had never been to our house before. It was mostly a successful playdate. It was hard for Big Girl to show deference to the friend whose choices didn't always match what she wanted to do, but that's a learning process for all little hostesses. Little Girl and I played outside with our fantastic neighbors. The neighbor's little girl who is about 16 months old came to me today for the first time. That'll warm anyone's heart! Having a tiny thing walk over and give a hug! It was really a highlight for me.

Tonight I spent some time making our Christmas newsletter. Last year I started doing it like a little newspaper. This year I did that again. I really enjoy playing with the format. The story about Little Girl has the best headline: Little Girl is learning to put poo in its place, only I used her name. Very funny. I'm laughing, even if I'm alone!

And with that, it's super late.

I have an older Weird Al song in my head today. "Albuquerque." It's very long. He used to only do it live until there was such an outcry from his fans that he put it on an the Running With Scissors album. The video is missing the last part of the song, but hey, at least I found it out there. You can get an idea of what's going through my head. That Weird Al is really a genius.