Crazy Hair Day

Today is Crazy Hair Day at Big Girl's school. She went to school today looking like her automatic hair-fixing machine went haywire. I love it! She was very patient with me as I put 10 different bows in her hair. She called it her "fruit bowl hair." What a clever girl she is!

In my head now is "P.S." by Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Yesterday's Song

Yesterday's and this morning's song in my head is "Creep," by Radiohead (the edited for radio version, of course). More specifically, I have the part of the song toward the end playing over and over again, when the guy is kind of wailing, and then alternately the crunchy guitar part at the beginning. If you know the song, then you know what I mean.

I don't know why it wouldn't come to me yesterday when I was blogging. It has been rolling around in my head for a few days, actually. I think it's like when your car consistently makes a funny noise, but when the mechanic is looking at it, it won't do it. Or when you study and study, and you know your stuff, but when you're staring at the test paper, the information just won't come. That's how it is with the song in my head sometimes. It' s there, hiding in the shadows of the back of my mind when I want to pull it to the front, and as soon as I publish the post, it comes out of hiding.

I did have a clever friend suggest that yesterday's song should be every version of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard. That didn't even cross my mind. And I'm so glad that it didn't happen either!

Happy Birthday to Me

So yeah, it's my birthday. Big Girl got up this morning and very loudly wished me a happy birthday as soon as she saw me, and then proceeded to be very touchy and on the edge of falling apart all morning. She had a meltdown because I put milk on her cereal, which is how she eats it every day, but didn't want it that way today for some unknown reason. Go figure. Autism really sucks sometimes.

This weekend was weird. My parents went out of town to visit my brother and his wife. Usually we go over to my parents' house after church on Sunday and Mom makes lunch (sometimes pot roast), and the girls take a nap, Mom, Dad and me fall asleep on the couch in front of football on TV and Hubby gets on the internet in Dad's office. We do that about 3/4 of the time. But not this weekend, obviously.

My pot roast turned out great. It was very tasty and everyone ate plenty. Hubby even really liked the carrots, which surprised me a little. I'm just glad that I have another meal option that I know how to do, and it's yummy!

Yesterday's trip to the inflatable play place was sort-of fun. We went there first thing and were there 15 minutes before they opened at 9:30. The girls both seemed to be hungry and thirsty earlier than I expected, so we went across the parking lot from the play place to Whataburger for lunch at earlier than planned, at 10:40 or so. I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I was hungry then too. Afterward we went back to play. They didn't play as long as usual. It got pretty crowded. I think that's going to be how it is now that we're stuck going when Big Girl's not in school. If she's not in school, then neither are the rest of the kids in town. It was an expensive 2 hours of play. But that's why we only go when she earns it.

Both of the girls took naps after we came home, around 12:30, which is rare, but yesterday they both needed it big time. For getting to do something fun and out of the ordinary, they were both really grouchy.

Of course dinner was no big deal, with the leftover roast. :-) Even Big Girl liked it. That's a big deal. She can be as picky as her dad.

After dinner we took a little walk to the neighborhood park and the girls played for a little while. It was nice to go outside and do something with all of us. We don't do that as much as we should. I got Hubby do it by prefacing all of it with, "I have a birthday wish: to go to the park." How could he refuse? We came home in time to toss the girls into the tub and then bedtime.

After the girls were in bed, Hubby and I were both on our computers, he wheeled over to me and he pulled out my birthday present: a pruple iPod Nano 4G! He also got me the best card he's ever gotten me in the 11 years we've been together. The words in it actually sound like the things he'd say. He completely surprised me with the gift. I never saw it coming. It's the 8GB, which is the smaller of the Nanos, but up to now I've been using a 1GB Shuffle, so this is a huge improvement. The playlist from which I've been loading my Shuffle is only 7.1GB, and it all fits on the Nano. And it's purple. :-) Ever since college, and really my senior year of high school after I had committed to go to UMHB, purple has been my favorite color.

I'm not one of those crazies who shops in the store in the mall where everything is purple. I don't want my whole world to be purple. But if I can choose a blue cup or a purple cup, I'll choose purple. In fact I do that every time I'm at my parents' house. There's one plastic purple cup, and I use it every time I'm there if it's clean, which it usually is because Mom saves it for me. I'd also choose a purple iPod, and Hubby knew that. I feel the need to distinguish myself because there are those people in the world who go overboard on purple, and I'm really not one of those. I just like it in moderation, that's all.

Today is going to be a pretty ordinary Tuesday, unfortunately. I have choir practice from 7-10, so there's not time to do something fun, like go to dinner or anything. And by the time I get home, it's time to unwind and then go to bed.

I did see Mom this morning when I took Big Girl to school, and she had birthday stuff to give me, the card from Dad and her, and a present from my brother and his wife they sent home with Mom and Dad. That was nice.

I'm listening to Cake right now on my iPod. I'll probably have my iPod on all day, and won't really have a song in my head because there will be one playing in my ear! (It'll probably be good for me to take a break from the political talk shows I usually listen to.)

Columbus and the Long Weekend

This weekend is a long weekend for Big Girl. Yesterday (Friday) she didn't have school, and she's off Monday too. Thursday was even an early release day, so that day ended early even. Big Girl earned a dollar on her penny chart, so yesterday was supposed to be the day we went to an inflatable playhouse for her $1 reward.

Supposed to be... of course it didn't happen. Little Girl got up yesterday morning and came to our room while Hubby and I were getting ready for the day, laid down on our bed and fell asleep for about 45 minutes. Weird. Then as I was buckling her into her carseat to go, she urped all the juice I had just given her to go with the baggie of cereal she had barely started to eat. She had slept through breakfast afterall, so she was getting hers on the run. She didn't seem really sick, except for the lethargy and the sort-of throwing up. But we cancelled the play trip and we'll try and make that up on Monday. It's such a bummer because my wonderful neighbor was planning to join us. Her mini-van was still in the driveway, so I was able to let her know we couldn't go. I hope they can come on Monday.

Monday is Columbus Day, which means that more people will be off than on Friday. I hope the inflatable place won't be crowded. Oh well, not much I can do about that.

I've been really down on my household duties lately. The big three that have really been getting me are laundry, dishes and dinner. Not that I'm good at the housekeeping stuff either, but those three things seem to be a more persistent problem than the rest. Probably because we dirty dishes and laundry daily, and need to eat multiple times a day. I can handle the easy meals. Cereal and sandwiches are no big stresser for me. It's that other meal where you actually have to make real food.

This week, on Thursday night, I made chicken for dinner in a way that I don't usually, and it sparked this big discussion between Hubby and me about the things I make for dinner and what he likes/doesn't like. He is one of the pickiest eaters on the planet (no exaggeration at all), and I feel like all I can make is chicken. And even then I can only cook it in about 2 or 3 ways, and I'm sick of it. He says for me to make whatever I want and he'll eat it or not depending on if he likes it. I just can't disregard the tastes and feelings of 25% of my audience who eats close to 50% of the food! Anyway, that prompted what I'm doing for lunch tomorrow.

I'm making my first pot roast. I'm way behind the cooking curve, I know. And we'll have leftovers to make another several meals this week. I'm really looking forward to barbeque beef sandwiches Monday and maybe Tuesday too, depending on how much we eat those first two nights.

Cooking is just one of those things I didn't learn from Mom while I lived with her. When I was in her kitchen, I always felt like I didn't do it right, so I never really tried much. I didn't stir things well enough, or whatever the task was. She always criticized how I did it, and then did it behind me. So I went away. When I got married, I really didn't know how to do much at all. I could brown hamburger, and that was about it.

For example, the Saturday before I knew I was pregnant with Big Girl, I craved scrambled eggs, so I looked it up how to make them, and made them for the first time. That was March 2, 2002, after I'd been married over 3 years. (Hubby doesn't eat eggs AT ALL, unless they're cooked in, like in a cake.)

I do a lot of asking my mother how to do things, but I'm doing things in my own kitchen where she's not coming in behind me. It makes a huge difference in my desires to try things. And as time has gone on, I find myself wanting to eat certain things, and then I'll learn how to make whatever it is. I did that with fajitas, which is one of my favorite things to make. And now pot roast. I told Hubby I feel like a guy changing his oil for the first time without his Dad helping him know what to do. It's like a rite of passage. My first pot roast.

All in all, I'm not a bad cook, but I don't really like doing it. It's one of those things that comes up all the time that I have to deal with. Laundry, dishes and dinner are the three things that come up all the time making work for me, and I go through phases of just being sick of all of it. It's safe to say that I'm there now. At least I have dinner under control for a few days.

The song in my head has slipped my mind, thanks to my iPod. Aren't you glad I'm not naming something off the wall and strange that will get stuck in your head? I actually have a friend who avoids reading my blog just because he doesn't want to be plagued with whatever song is in my head. The nerve! There's so much here besides just the songs. *Shrug* Oh well.

Ants Marching, Time Steamrolling

I'm on the freight train of time, rolling down the tracks without much chance to breathe, let alone blog, it seems. Maybe I'm just a little ant, marching in line, carrying six times my body weight...

Somehow I've been goaded into the job of Homeroom Mom for Big Girl's class. So far the job seems pretty much right up my alley. There's a lot to keep up with as far as organizing the other parents in the class, figuring out who can help with what. Today I put all the info I have into a database to keep up with everything. It feels like a job, only the pay is diddly squat, nothing. If anything, I may be out some money to cover some things throughout the year. Oh well. It's for the good of the children.

I got Big Girl a dentist appointment for a week from Monday. That's good news. The bad news is that she'll miss part of her school day. I hope that doesn't mess her up. The upside to a mid-day appointment is less chaos in the waiting room, a big plus when you throw autism into the mix.

Little Girl is showing some massive improvements on the potty front, and it's great to be on this side of it, finally. Yesterday she initiated a trip to the bathroom, pulled her pants down independently and did the big deal! It was great to see her REALLY getting it. I'm very encouraged (what an understatement).

And her behavior has been night and day different still since last week. I really think a large part of it was me. Tonight, just before bed, she didn't want to let me brush her teeth, and I was able to get her to cooperate enough (through her tears) to let me do it. She wanted her turn first. But I know all that happens when she goes first is the licking of the toothpaste, and no teeth actually get brushed. I didn't get ruffled, and she cooperated. That's the progress. It doesn't help when it's an AWANA night and she's tired. We didn't even get home until well after bed time.

It's time to plan Big Girl's sixth birthday party. She's decided it will be a Hello Kitty party. I was able to find lots of great ideas at this website. I'll make headbands with little kitty ears for the girls to wear, we'll play "pin the bow on the kitty," stuff like that. It's going to be the best party of her life so far. Last year we moved 2 weeks before her birthday, so all I did was call 2 friends of mine together at a park near our house and we had a fine time. There were 7 little girls there between the 3 of us moms! This year is very different. Now that she's started school, she has little friends that I don't even know. I have met a couple of them from being up at the school doing some Homeroom Mom stuff, but it's nothing like all the other friends she's ever had up to now where I've known so much about the moms and their lives. These kids are little more to me than faces and names and a few stories from Big Girl.

I am thoroughly encouraged that Big Girl has actual friends in her class. I know there are a few little girls who have really latched onto her. She brings home little pictures given to her and drawn by one particular girl on at least a weekly basis. It's very sweet. This is such a good thing for my little socially-challenged darling.

And with all the goings on, I feel like I never get enough rest and I can't keep up with the house, the dishes, the laundry, putting dinner on the table. Day by day I'm falling further behind. I'm drowning here! When I do have a day like today (it was my "day off") without Little Girl under my feet, I got my oil changed (which has been hanging over me for a couple weeks), and then I got to work filling out some papers for Big Girl's school, making her birthday party invitations, printing them, addressing them, making that database for the homeroom, and then it was time to pick up kids and my "off time" was over! During all that work at the computer, I remembered to throw a frozen meal into the microwave so I'd have something to eat for lunch, but I forgot to get it out and eat it for nearly an hour! Meanwhile, there are still two baskets of laundry to fold, another load of laundry to wash and dry, the dishwasher needs to be unloaded and reloaded with what's in the sink, and I'm too tired to touch any of it. Sigh. Are you tired with me?

I helped out with Big Girl's AWANA class tonight. (I serve in AWANA for the first 2 Wednesdays of the month, and then do choir the last 2 Wednesdays.) A little boy (probably a 2nd grader) needed to use the restroom in the middle of class, so I walked him down the hall and stood outside while he went in to do what he needed to do. After about 2 minutes or so, he started screaming all of a sudden. I ran to the door, opened it and called out to him (I didn't even stick my head around the corner to preserve his privacy, you know how the men's room is). He was fine. Our building has automatic motion-sensing lights in the bathroom to save on energy. The lights had gone out on him while he was in the stall, and he's afraid of the dark. My opening the door was enough to make the lights come back on. Poor kid. It was pretty funny though. He had a good sense of humor about it afterward.

A funny, funny song popped in my head earlier today. (I nearly typed "pooped in my head". Ha!!) No description can do this song justice. Just listen for yourself. I had seen that video a long time ago, and then this weekend Hubby ran across it and showed it to me again. So now it's in my head.

All Done!

I finished my drapes last night. The last one was hung and the finial screwed on just before 10:00 PM!

Big Girl, Little Girl, Strong Will & A Big Tooth

This week I feel like I've been all over the emotional map. I'm excited about my drapes. (They'll be finished later today, if all goes according to plan.) I've been concerned about Big Girl and her eating/anxiety stuff. I've been angry and worried with Little Girl and her willfulness to the point of desperation, and I've been delighted to see some turn around there as well. The play by play would have been too exhausting. So you get the recap.

Big Girl is doing much, much, MUCH better. She has been eating normally since Monday dinner. I found out after school on Monday that she had thrown away her sandwich, and came down hard on that behavior. I don't care if she eats every last bite. I want her to bring it home if she doesn't eat much just so I know she hasn't eaten much. If she were to bring it home, we may throw it away here, but I just need to know what she's eating, especially given the way she wasn't eating hardly at all for a few days there. I think we've got the sandwich issue under control too. She knows there will be consequences if we find out about that happening again.

Little Girl was throwing me for a loop this week. Seemed like screaming was the response to everything, even things that should be fun like riding her tricycle. She was steering it off the sidewalk into grass, and then screaming about it. That's just not fun for anyone. Then from there, she descended into screaming and crying about EVERYTHING, and the "no"s and "I can't"s flowed from there. I was going crazy.

I think it has been my strong will keeping me from turning to the sources I should have been looking toward for at least a year now. I finally obtained a copy of James Dobson's "Strong-Willed Child." My neighbor loaned me hers. I read more than half of it in one night. I read until 11:00 PM or so, then woke up around 3:30 AM thinking about it, finally got up around 4:00 and read some more. (I quit at 6:26, 4 minutes before my alarm goes off!) I realize that my approach has been off somewhat. I've made mistakes. I'm so used to having to think one step ahead of Big Girl with her special needs, I have taken a pass on that with Little Girl. I realize now that I can't do that. I have to be "on" all the time. I need to clearly lay out my expectations with her ahead of time. When we start our trike trek, I need to make it clear that screaming will not be permitted, and then if she screams, I pick up the trike and we walk home. I'm sure she'd scream much more at that point, but at least she's understand why it's happening. And I need to keep my emotions out of it entirely. I'm about as hard to read as large print. She knows when she's getting to me, and she's exploiting that. So things will be different going forward. They have to be.

Even though I had only slept for less than 4 hours, yesterday was a wonderful day with Little Girl. I told her what I expected, and she delivered. It was a good day. I want it to be like that all the time. Even this morning, she has already put her hands on her hips and sassed off a little bit, and I made it clear without getting upset about it that she wasn't going to keep talking to me like that. She shaped up.

Last night, getting the girls ready for bed, brushing teeth, I noticed something on Big Girl that I had never noticed before. She has a permanent tooth coming in right behind her baby tooth, like in a second row. She hasn't yet been to the dentist. Until just recently, we hadn't added the kids to our dental plan (you know, the once a year opportunity for open enrollment), and besides that, I've been terrified to take her. Her first experience will taint how she feels about dentistry from then on. Well, now it's urgent, and I have waited too long. The tooth looks fine, and once the baby tooth is out of the way, I'm sure it will move up where it needs to go. Now I'm worried that the other big teeth won't line up. I guess I shouldn't worry until we see an x-ray. And you know how hard it is to get in to see a dentist. Takes FOREVER!!! I've put a call in this morning, but who knows when they'll call back. Their office hours are only until noon today anyway.

This morning as I was fixing Big Girl's hair before school, she was playing with a little monkey finger puppet. She wanted me to sing "My Monkey" (Jonathan Coulton) to her. I couldn't think of the words to the verse, so I sang "Code Monkey" to her instead. On the CD of Jonathan Coulton songs in my car, the song after "Code Monkey" is "Tom Cruise Crazy," and that's what's in my head now. We sang that one together.