February Round-Up: What I Loved on OTHER People's Blogs

Photo by Neil Kramer, my FAVORITE instagram photographer, by far

Welcome to the SECOND edition of "What I Loved on OTHER People's Blogs" a regular monthly round-up of what has caught my eye (and brain, and heart) on the internet. (Now that my period is no longer "regular & monthly" I figure SOMETHING in my life should be!)

(OK, I'm 3 days late, but let's just pretend this was a NORMAL month with 31 days, okay? Because I really needed those extra days. Not fair February, not fair!)

And this month I am adding another feature, a favorite instagram photo from another photographer, too. Though I have to tell you, I am guessing they are ALL going to be by my friend Neil Kramer, who blogs at Citizen of the Month.

Neil is the most amazing photographer who doesn't believe he is a photographer, thinks he's just "having fun" with his photos. However, he has "the eye" - something that as the daughter of a celebrated photographer, I do NOT say lightly.

And now, a handful or so of wonderful posts from February, 2012, presented for your edification and enjoyment... And I tried to keep it light this month folks: sweet, uplifting, and/or funny posts. And I was mostly successful, see...

And now, starting with a perfect post from the aforementioned Neil:

The Perfect Couple from Neil of Citizen of the Month

That's What I Wanted from (The Empress) Alexandra of Good Day Regular People

Somebody give the tooth fairy a double espresso. And some gratitude. from Eden of edenland

YOU’RE RUINING NATHAN FILLION FOR ME, NATHAN FILLION. Alternate title: But I forgive you. from from (the Bloggess) Jenny of The Bloggess

Some days it's not even worth trying to chew through the restraints from Jillsmo of Yeah. Good Times.

The Transcendent Familiar 7: Choking on the Ashes from Adrienne of No Points For Style (yeah, this is not one of the light ones, but so moving)

Losing Sleep. from Tulpen of Bad Words

There are places I remember from Ellen of Love That Max

And ending with a second photo from Neil, because I couldn't decide which one I loved best:

Photo by Neil Kramer. Salt shakers or Daleks - you decide.

Note: Once again, this is an idiosyncratic, and very incomplete list. There is always more wonderful out there, but these are the particular ones I have chosen this month. Next month? Come back again and see what has struck my fancy.


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LTYM-NYC has made a busy bee out of me.

Noticed it was a fairly quiet month on my blog this February? Yeah, me too. Sorry. I’ve actually been very busy, just not HERE.

I’ve spent a lot of time THERE, working on the NYC Listen to Your Mother Show, gearing up for its first annual appearance this upcoming May. (The 6th at 2pm at the JCC. Go HERE for details. Tickets on sale soon – but not yet.)

This week? Three glorious, wonderful, exhausting, grueling, uplifting, wrenching days of auditions. Sitting in a little room with my wonderful partners - the director, Amy of When Did I Get Like This and associate producer Holly, The Culture Mom - being amazed and humbled by the outpouring of stories brought to us.

And, of course, this being New York City where space is at a premium, we held our auditions in a big professional casting and rehearsal studio. Which was… interesting, as big Broadway shows were being cast and / or rehearsed all around us. Which meant that big Broadway voices were belting out showtunes accompanied by boisterous piano plating throughout the audition process.

You’d think a place like that would have better soundproofing wouldn’t you? Well, think again.  But we got really good at tuning out all the distractions and tuning in to our people.

And I do think for some of the folks who were not performers (maybe especially those who had traveled in from distant ‘burbs and beyond) it was a thrill to be waiting for their auditions in the same halls as professional actors and dancers with Broadway credits to their names.

And now? Auditions are DONE!

And now, the very, very painful choices need to be made. 

We saw over 50 writer/readers. (What were we thinking?!) Wonderful stories flooded our ears and eyes. Woman after woman - and two men - came in and laid their hearts and kishkas on the table (that’s “guts” for you non-Yiddish speakers).

We could probably just drop all of the auditioners names in a hat and pull out a dozen or so and have a great show. But you know we’re not going to do that, right? We’re going to think and talk and agonize; and think and talk and agonize some more.

And sweat blood, as we move names from yes to maybe and back again, our hearts breaking a little each time, as we sacrifice an individual piece we love in order to make the show stronger, as a whole.

Creating flow, creating a beautiful quilt in the pattern of motherhood, one lovely square at a time. (Full credit to Amy for this metaphor. It has been very useful as we work together to choose the big and little stories that we’ll stitch together to create our show.)

Thank you so much to everyone who bravely came forth to share your stories with us. We appreciated each and every one of you. We loved hearing your stories. You truly were ALL stars.

And if you were thinking about coming to audition and didn't; if you thought "Why would anyone want to hear MY unimportant story?" -- please think again.

Come see our show on May 6th. If you live in another city or area of the country where there is a LTYM sister show, by all means go see that one! If you can't come in person, watch the videos when they come out shortly thereafter.

And next year?

Grab your story.

The one that scares you because it is so honest, because you are so "out there" when you tell it.  The one about which you think "Can I really say this?"

The one that makes you laugh or cry, yourself, when you read it.

Bring it to us.

Stand up and read it out loud.

We're giving motherhood a microphone.

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

We want your laughter and your tears. We want your unvarnished truth.

Yes, YOU.

Bring it on!



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Daylight

One short week of school vacation - time off the clock - and the days have gotten noticeably longer at the fringes. When I took Jacob down to wait for his bus this morning, we were watching the early-walking dogs and their people stroll by in daylight, not darkness.

The yellow of the school bus rounding the corner popped against a truly blue sky. And my dour wintry spirits lifted, too, sniffing hopefully towards spring.

*

Tonight, walking home from picking up Ethan at Hebrew School, for the first time in forever it was not completely pitch black night at 6 pm.  Ethan and his friend, our next door neighbor whose mom I “foot-pool” with, were busy talking their 9 year-old-boy-talk of video games interspersed with mock battles that threatened to engulf the sidewalk-sharing passersby.

I just didn’t have the energy to scold, hoped no bodily harm was being done, walked three paces ahead with Jacob on my arm, ever chivalrous.

Jake and I had one of our typical conversations the whole way home, he repeating the same three or four questions over and over, never ceasing in his delight at the correct-to-his-mind answers I doggedly offer back. 

And while the topics often skew to the obvious, they also occasionally delight and surprise.

Jake was talking a lot about the earth and the sky tonight, impressed, as was I, by the moon playing peekaboo with us between the tall buildings. It was in between phases, not quite crescent yet shy of half full, and fuzzy about the edges, giving it a soft, somewhat unearthly glow, as if we'd slipped into a Maxfield Parrish painting. 

"Where is the planet, Mom, where is the earth?" Jake asked. And I assured him we were walking upon it, each and every time.

"When you were dead, before you were a baby, did you live in the sky, Mommy?"

OK, didn't expect THAT one.

A complex and somewhat... unusual cosmological concept going on here. A moment's reflection upon his current Japanimation obsession, though, solved the mystery of its origin. 

In the DragonBall-Z-Kai universe, people are always dying and being brought back to life, and hanging out on a platform in the sky while waiting for that to happen. 

Explaining the improbability of all that to my autistic son was quite beyond my ken tonight, so I just waived my hand in the air and proclaimed it to be a bunch of "made-up TV story nonsense" and not the stuff of real life.

He smiled indulgently, knowing how much more real his beloved Goku and Piccolo are than I will ever know, and, as we were on our block, no more streets to cross, ran the rest of the way home, West toward the fast-fading, last pink echo at the horizon.

I trudged behind, watching the evening's first stars emerge, casting their fuzzy glow about the sky; setting down, one in front of the other, my feet upon this planet, following my boy home.

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Magic

I don't believe in magical thinking, really I don't.

Well... not much at any rate.

But, sometimes?

I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, I do.

Blog fairies, as it were.

And the gods of Autism, who are sometimes merciful.

My last post, When Autistic kids get bored..., was about Jacob, and how I had resigned myself to patience about his morning waking habits; about how after nine long years he STILL waits for us to come to him.

And then?

The day after I posted it, I woke up to Ethan at my bedside, telling me he was going to be up for the day now. When I asked if Jacob was awake too, he said he didn't know.

I asked him to go check, and he shouted back from their bedroom (right around the corner from ours, it's a small apartment) "Yes, he's awake!"

"Well, tell him to get out of bed and come see us." I suggested, hopefully, for probably about the 100th time, knowing it was fruitless, that I would need to abandon my cozy warm bed and go retrieve him shortly.

But, wait... what was that I heard?

The sounds of a 100 pound nine year-old climbing down his bunk-bed ladder?

YES!

"I'm coming to YOU!" Jakey announced, very proudly, as he bounded into my room. I gave him a hug and kiss, directed him to take care of morning bathroom business, told him I'd meet him in the living room in 15 minutes.

And the next morning?

He got out of bed BY HIMSELF while Ethan was still sleeping, and came to me. Still a little hesitant with the newness of it all, still unsure it was the right thing to do.  "I'm coming to you, Mommy?" he asked, as he walked into the room..

"Yes!" I said. "Oh, my big boy, I'm so proud of you for getting out of bed by yourself and coming to me without waking Ethan!"

And then he climbed into our bed for a big happy cuddle, and then I took him out to the living room and we started our day.

And, yes, it has happened every morning of vacation, ever since: Jake comes to us, Ethan gets to sleep in. Win!

So you see, it seems there's some magic to writing words like these in my blog: "I have found that change does happen eventually, if glacially. Though much fortitude and patience is required."

Because then? It comes suddenly and immediately.

And the reason I believe it's more than just a fluke? This isn't the first time that this has happened.

Two summers ago, I wrote a post, Cruel to be Kind, about trying to teach Jake to successfully buckle himself into the car during summer vacation. I thought vacation time, with no pressing schedule, was the perfect time for a full court press.

In that post I said this: "And even though he doesn't get it today, still looks at me like a scolded puppy when I make him bumble through, I hope in the future he will look back on these times and know that it was as painful for me as for him."

And then, the next day? I got to write THIS post, No Sweat, about how he did it perfectly, all by himself, without prompting, the very next day!

See, Blogging magic! Write about how a process he's in the middle of learning is going to take forever? And Jake successfully masters the thing we've been working on for months or years... overnight.

It doesn't seem to work with Ethan, though. Because I have written that he will eat vegetables "someday, in the distant future" many a time. And he still treats all things green as if they were poison.

Damn!



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When Autistic kids get bored...

... there will be blood.

This morning I woke up at 8 AM to a quiet house. Too quiet.

Though a school vacation day, and the kids had been up late the night before, Jacob is usually incapable of sleeping past a rather early point. 7:30 at the outside.

If I'm lucky, I hear him stirring and calling out to me softly, make it into the boys' room to hustle him out of his top bunk and into the living room before Ethan is disturbed.

Otherwise? If I have been sleeping too deeply? I am awakened to the dulcet tones of Ethan stomping into my bedroom wailing "Jakey woke me up TOO EARLYYYYYYYYY, he won't shut up!"

But this morning? Nothing.

Wondering: could it, might it be? I tiptoed into the boys tiny bedroom, very quietly, just in case Jake was actually, truly still asleep.

And was greeted by a very happy boy, extending his hand out to me with something carefully cupped in it. And a bloody grin. And whispering in a loud sotto voce:

"I lost my tooth, Mommy! The tooth fairy is coming. She will give me coins!"

But lo, in his outstretched hand was not just one tooth, but two. I was very confused.

a nice pair of deciduous first molars

Jake had been mentioning a loose tooth for a little while now, as had the dentist at his last, fairly recent visit. But this usually translates into a very wiggly tooth with a lot of complaining a few months down the road, followed by it falling out within a few days.

This was rather unprecedented.

When I'd last given what I thought was the tooth in question a good wiggle (never thinking it might be teeth - plural and bilateral!) it had seemed to be loosening a bit, but nowhere near ready to pop.

But enter a bored kid with an hour to kill quietly in his darkened bedroom and... instant self-dentistry.

Now after I got him into the bathroom, took a good look at where the teeth came from (one from each side, definitely baby teeth, the upper first molars) and got the streaky blood cleaned off his lips, chin and hands, I rushed him into the living room, plopped him in front of the TV, and made a beeline to Mr. Google.

Turns out he was right on time. I knew that after the first, central eight baby teeth come out around age 6-7, there was a bit of a latency period with no loss before the bigger, back baby teeth start to shed. And everywhere I looked that timetable said "9 to 11" for when the next tooth falls. And it is usually these first baby molars, before the canines. Whew!

And examining the teeth, the treasures he had offered up to me with such pride, I saw they they indeed were just the tops of the teeth, the roots clearly eroded by Jake's permanent teeth pushing their way out through the jaw.

Their time may have come too soon, but only by a bit, their last toeholds in Jacob's jaw being no match for his strong, insistent fingers.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why Jacob had to lay, bored, in his bed for about an hour waiting for me to come to him, instead of just getting up and either starting his day or coming to ME?

Autism. A certain intractability and rigidity to lessons learned early in his life.

When Jake was a toddler, and finally capable of getting out of his bed by himself? We told him to wait, and with a monitor on in the room, I always came to him the moment he called out to us, sometimes even before, as I was quite sensitive to the initial sounds of stirring. There was no reason for him to get out, when what he wanted (me!) would come to him.

And for years, I was so glad Jake waited for us. I never had to worry about my autistic boy wandering around the apartment by himself with us asleep. Not that there was much trouble to be gotten into in our place, and Jacob has never (THANK GOD) been an escape artist or bolter.

Even as Jake got a bit older, and I could choose to go back to bed once I'd gotten him set up with breakfast and TV/Computer/DS, steal an extra hour of sleep on the Sunday mornings when Jake arose at 6, it was comforting to know he was not attempting these things on his own.

But now, when Ethan would sleep until 10 AM if he could, when a monitor on in a 9 year-old boys room would be too intrusive, when it would make so much sense for Jake to quietly get himself out of bed and come into my room to get me?

He just won't do it.

He is too entrenched in his habits, his brain telling him: "this is the way it is" in spite of my having said to him EVERY Friday and Saturday night at bedtime, for A YEAR now: "Jakey, when you wake up tomorrow morning, don't lie in bed and call to me, climb down and come GET me, it's OK!"

Nope.

Or rather: not yet. Because I have found that change does happen eventually, if glacially. Though much fortitude and patience is required.

And someday (soon?) he will surprise me by appearing at my bedside of a Sunday morning at 7 AM, ready to start his day.

Hopefully without more teeth in hand.

UPDATE: Looked in his mouth the next morning (upon his proud  reminder announcement: "Mom, I lost my teeth!") to check how the gums were healing and saw the bright white point of a permanent tooth already poking through on one side - so they WERE ready to pop, indeed.


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My Tribe: Weirdo Bloggers I Love

Well, anticipating belonging to my children completely, lock-stock-and-barrel style, for this next week of school break, with very little time for my own pursuits (such as reading and writing and thinking) I was sneaking a bit of blog surfing early this morning, as I had trouble getting back to sleep after being awakened by a child with a scary dream.

He's now happily snoozing again, and I have possession of the computer. Score.

So when I landed on the lovely Australian Eden's blog and found this week's theme to be something I could easily connect to, I figured: why not just join in, write a quick, fun post and link up?

That way I might actually get something completed and OUT into the world, as opposed to creating another lovely, important, but perpetually half-written post clogging up my draft queue. OK, then...

This week Eden freaked out a bit about blogging, then reminded herself of how much she loved the other "weirdo bloggers" out there, like herself. (Her words, not mine, but I'll own it.)

And then she asked us: "Who's your favourites?" (Like I said, she's Australian. They go for those British spellings. They also drive on the wrong side of the road, and call garbage "rubbish", too.)

And, thankfully, when she did her post, Eden only picked and wrote about three. Because, really, my list is so long and it is my immediate instinct to try to include everybody and write the "100 wonderful bloggers" post, so nobody gets left out.

But EDEN herself has set the precedent: I have to pick just three. (Because I always follow directions, and do as I'm told, you know. Snort!)

Eden, of course is right up there, but she didn't come on my radar until I met her at BlogHer11 this summer, reading her wonderful Voice of the Year keynote post, and I want to go back further to my (increasingly graying) roots.

So here are three of my long-time "always, must" reads. The women who have gotten me through, on the days when I felt like I was a tribe of one, a singular weirdo, spinning alone in my crazy brain. Reading them made me glow, made me feel part of a shining troop: the order of delighted madwomen, using words to tether ourselves together...

Alexandra of Good Day, Regular People probably needs no introduction, but I'm giving her one anyway. She is one of the most beloved women in the blogosphere and it is easy to see why. Her writing is lovely and truthful, her spirit generous. And she is hysterically funny (but never mean spirited). Best of all, she was my roommate at BlogHer11 and it was the most magical match-up, ever. Also, she also gets the "best commenter" award. A comment from her on any post is a gift. I read it and my heart goes "ping" every. single. time.

Deborah of MaNNaHaTTaMaMMa is someone maybe you haven't read yet? Start now. She is smart, funny, deliciously irreverent, a "two boy" mom like me, and a GREAT writer. I actually got to meet Deborah in person fairly early on, as we were both members of a wonderful New York City Moms Group blog together. We just really clicked. Instant friendship. That she now lives thousands of miles away, in Abu Dhabi, no less? Pains me. But the sting is lessened by being able to read her daily, even if I only get to see her briefly on visits home.

Jean / Stimey of Stimeyland was one of the first Autism-Mom bloggers I connected with on the internet. She was a member of the D.C. sister site to the NYC Moms Group Blog I mentioned above. I loved the way she wrote about her family (3 boys!) and about autism, with love, humor and her super-smart brains. That Jean is also really quirky and has funny & strange obsessions she writes about, too (like her love of mice and all things rodent, for example) makes me love her all the more. She has a tremendous sense of humor about herself and her own imperfections; which makes her perfect in my eyes, of course.

So, to quote Eden again, "I'll stop at three... but there's a gazillion more." 

To read more about how I feel about this beautiful tribe of bloggers, read this guest post I wrote for the lovely Katie at Sluiter Nation. (See, I knew I'd find a way to sneak another wonderful weirdo blogger in here somehow.) 

(And Kris and Adrienne, I have linked to you so many times and referred to you as my bloggy mentors so often in the past, I thought I'd give others a moment in the spotlight today. You know how important you are to me.) 

There you have it, quick and easy, a new post is up - and before the kids have awakened.

Hey, maybe I can even sneak in a shower, too. Here's to hoping that regular showering is among the few "me" pursuits I still get to indulge in this week. (And if you're a local friend here in NYC, I know YOU are, too.)


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Just a Friday Scatterfield

Well, it's not Sunday, but I'm feeling all stream-of-consciousness-y anyway; it's not Monday, but I am happily, simply being me; it's not Tuesday, but I want to just. write.

So I'm going to go for it. You'll bear with me, right? OK, then, spinning the brain cells and seeing where they land...

What a week it has been. Not the week I planned to have, for sure.

Nobody plans on getting a letter sent home in their kid's school backpack telling them that a teacher's aide in the school has been arrested for abusing a child there last week. (No, NOT my son, thank goodness.)

Nobody plans on being sick as dog and dizzy as a dervish for three straight days running.

Nobody plans on spending most of their one non-ill day at a Social Security office, trying to straighten out their elderly mother's paperwork, only to find out that everything the people on the phone had told them they needed was wrong, and they have to go home and get a whole OTHER set of documents and come back to try again next week.  

But, as we used to tell the kids, sometimes, you just get what you get, so why get upset?

And hanging out in the Social Security office wasn't a total loss. We got to be entertained by a very cheesy video about filing for retirement, starring Patty Duke and George Takei. Don't believe me? Here's a bit of print support material:

Boldly going out to pasture, and looking just so damn happy about it.

And you know? Right now at this very moment (wait, hold your breath, it may not last long) I miraculously feel happier than I have felt in a long time. And for absolutely no justifiable reason.

Maybe it's the lift that comes from finally feeling physically a bit better, near human-like, even, after days of dregs-living, ass-dragging, simian-reductive misery. One of those viruses that get into your middle ear and knock your gyroscope all wobbly, so any motion sets off the dizzies and horizontal is the only way to go.

Maybe it was the lasting glow from attending Ethan's "Colonial Stories" class publishing party this morning. Ethan's essay on colonial entertainments was fun and lovely, and I learned what the Scrabble word "Quoits" means, again. The way too delicious homemade pumpkin bread may have helped, too.

Maybe it was the wind scouring the sky clear of clouds so the golden light of day's end washed over the city, turning cold stone buildings into fiery fairy castles.

They say a strong wind will blow the aura right off your body, so maybe I was scrubbed clean too, maybe it blew the negativity clear off me along with the shredded plastic bags that danced before us as Jake and I walked along Riverside Drive, holding onto our hats.

"The wind! The wind, Mommy!" he exclaimed, still, in his glorious innocence, excited and surprised by nature.

Me? I'm excited and surprised by this serendipitous happiness; hoping to waft on these upward breezes, as long as they blow.

Long may they blow.

I'm linking up to Maxabella's I'm grateful for... because, well, I am feeling grateful.

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