SOC Sunday: Sweet and Sour and Harlem Globetrotters

It has been a loooong time since I've participated in Stream of Consciousness Sunday. So long that when I went to find it at Fadra's joint, I found it had moved... to Jana's Thinking Place. Well, okay then.

What I have tonight is not a post, really, it's a brain dump. And since that's the definition of Stream of Consciousness Sunday, I thought: perfect! And then when the optional prompt for this week turned out to be "Who has dropped into your life and made it better?" -- even better! Because I was planning to write about a wonderful serendipitous connection, although it's group, not an individual, but still, they did quite just drop in.

So, here goes...

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Tonight is the start of Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year - and we have done virtually nothing to mark it, because Danny and I are both under the weather, big time, with a nasty cold/flu/virus.

I am sick as that proverbial dog today: sore throat, chills, body aches, nausea, snot galore, clogged ears, dizzy, woozy; you name it, I've got it.  Dan is over the worst of it but still dragging his ass, and down for the count as soon as he starts to build up steam, trying to get anything done.

So the New Year which is supposed to be marked with sweetness and family and apples dipped in honey has turned into my lying on the sofa wishing the kids could possibly be quieter and just let me sleep.  I sneak off into the bedroom for short bouts of slumber but they follow me in there, not wanting to be disconnected. This is the weekend, dammit, THEIR time.

Lousy timing to be this sick, four days off for the kids and all I want is for them to be elsewhere so I can be sick and sleep in relative peace.

Also? I was supposed to write my first big post for this cool thing that dropped int my lap - I am a Harlem Globetrotters associate blogger now! (I will be at and promoting their October 7th game* in Brooklyn)

So as such, I was invited to a meet and greet and PLAY BALL with some of them this past Thursday and so I grabbed Ethan and away we went...

Ethan and I and the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS, yo!

There is a whole large post here, that I do not have the energy or brain cells to write yet, but I wanted to say SOMETHING sooner than later, because it was a wonderful experience for us. Ethan got to go 1-on-1 with professional ballplayers. For a basketball-loving kid that is just the greatest, sweetest thing in the world.

And know what they said? He got game. Uh, huh.

So even though I'm feeling mighty sour right now, there is some sweetness too, as we head into this New year.

Happy 5773 y'all.  L'Shanah Tovah. (Cough cough cough, ack!)

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

 
*I have a discount code that gets you $7 off each ticket to the Globetrotters local game - at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (the Nets new home) - on October 7th at 5 PM. I will be there with the whole family and it should be a great fun family event.

Click on this link: GLOBETROTTERS BROOKLYN EVENT and then the "Buy Tickets" link on that page, and then enter SQUASHED in the "Promotions and Special Offers" section.

**Disclosure: I am being compensated for my promotion of the Globetrotters in two ways. As an associate I will be receiving a small percentage of the money for tickets sold with my discount code. I will also receive tickets to the game for my family. All opinions of the Globetrotters and my experiences with them are unbiased and wholly my own.**

SOC Sunday: Feverish

I am struggling a bit right now. I wrote a really tough post about depression yesterday, the absolutely most beautiful day of the year when I stayed inside in my PJs. But it is just too raw, and I am not ready to publish it yet. So for now, this from today: 

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I lift Ethan's sweat-soaked body from my bed to carry him back to his.  Although his shirt is drenched through, his back feels cooler now. The fever's broken. Finally.

I silently wish him sweet dreams and an easy rest of the night's sleep. I start to make plans to scotch all my plans for tomorrow. I'll have a sick kid home with me to attend to, and he'll need lots of attention as well as chicken soup and saltines. I am deeply praying it's just a random 24-hour viral fever thing, and not the flu. Please. not. the. flu!

We have been, HE has been, lucky. So far in his nearly ten years on the planet he has had one flu, two strep throats, a few handfuls of colds, three maybe four stomach bugs. (Yes I *AM* knocking on wood and spitting over my left shoulder as I write this.)

We have had no stitches, no broken bones, no trips to the emergency room. And not for his brother Jacob either, and for a sensory seeking kid with autism that;s quite a miracle, I am well aware.  (Rest assured: more knocking and spitting.)

But the downside of tihs is feeling ill hits Ethan really hard, feels very abnormal to him, deeply frightening. He came to me in the bathroom this afternoon as I was FINALLY going to get to take my shower. He burst in crying "Mom, somethings wrong! My teeth are chattering and I feel hot one minute and cold the next and then both at the same time! What's wrong with me?!?"

He was genuinely perplexed and panicked, it had been that long since he'd had a spiky fever. When I went to feel him he was massively hot clear to halfway down his belly. That's between 101 and 102 in my mom guestimation book.

I calmed him down by reassuring him it was "just a fever" and started the alternating motrin & tylenol train rolling. Within an hour he was slurping ginger ale and playing a calm Wii game. But by bedtime he was pretty punk. And I was wiped out too.

And, on top of this?  Jacob was in massive meltdown mode all day because he lost TV for the WHOLE day due to some early bad behavior. Because I, like an idiot, had said - "If you do that ONE more time you will lose TV for the whole day!" - and then I had to follow through. And tihs was before Ethan got sick. We survived. But that's a whole other story for another day.

I never did get my shower.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

SOC Sunday: reallyreallystreamofconsciousness

This one is really really stream of consciousness, folks, not those fake SOC posts that I;ve been thinking about for hours and planning in my head so only the actual monkey-typing part is real. Let's pretend it's really Sunday and not wee early in the morning Monday and I'm going to back-date this sucker, okay, just pretend with me. I am flat out flat out right now between producing Listen to Your Mother - show goes up on SUNDAY - yikes! - and then trying to actually BE a mother, and a care-taking daughter. and feeling like I'm failing miserably at BOTH right now - haven't seen my mother in a week too busy busy busy. Got a call from my aunt Marilyn's nursing home yesterday morning that she'd had another toe infection - nothing to be alarmed, just keeping me in the loop - and I'm all stabbed with guilt because I haven;t brought my Mom to see her sister in over a MONTH now but it always makes her so sad to see her sis so far gone, but then she feels guilty when she doesn't go, dilemma, dilemma.

Jake acting up a lot lately repeating "Timmy is a Stupid Kid" over & over (his own lovely take-off on the cartoon show Fairly Odd Parents theme song). I think he KNOWS it annoys me - because he's looking right at me and smiling his "I got you" smile while he does it - & is doing it because he's not getting enough positive attention from me as I am balls to the walls (yes metaphoric ones) with this LTYM show which is way more work than I had bargained for in the beginning but it feels so good to be working and being more than just mom but I know I am not being a quite good enough mom while I am so busy and mostly just DISTRACTED.

And thank GOD for wonderful neighbors who actually took Jake for 3 hours yesterday when my sitter had to leave early and my rehearsal was still going on and my husband was working at a convention and couldn't leave early because he was on a late panel. They're actually the most amazing people on the planet, kind and generous and smart and funny and fun to hang out with and I don;t know what I did to deserve them but whatever it is THANK GOODNESS. and then I feel guilty because I don;t know what i can ever do to repay them for all the slack they pick up for me other than occasionally picking their boys up at school.

ANd the LTYM rehearsal was today and so fabulous and the show the show is going to be WONDERFUL and I wish the theater were bigger because we are so sold out and so many of my procrastinator-y friends didn't think to buy tickets until it was too late even though I TOLD them it would sell out a month ago. le sigh.

And my poor neglected blog - I tried to do Momalom's 5 for 5 linky but only got to 3 for 5. even started the last post - "Listening"  - really wanted to write that one & had a lot to say there, but only got four sentences into it when had to put out another LTYM fire. lesson learned for next year - expect very little elsewhere in my life during pre-show month of April. But April April April is Autism Awareness/Acceptance month as I was supposed to be writing writing writing about autism all month long and I so didn't. I stared with a bang and then fizzled out and don;t let me get started on how that's a metaphor for so much in my life. And now I need to go try to get a little more sleep so BAM it's over, stream shut-down. goodnight.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

SOC Sunday: Spelling Lessons

Thank goodness for SOC Sundays, because just when I was about to get things done yesterday, I had a wee stomach bug that sidelined me for the day.  And once again, between school vacation full-time momming and LTYM (which I adore, but is a bigger job than I had bargained for) taking over my life, my poor blog is suffering. But with SOC Sunday I can take a snippet out of my brain and call it a post. Wheeeee!

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Jacob is getting really crafty. He's always got something going on... some phrase or word or sound that he repeats over and over.  When he was little it was word-for-word scripting from his favorite TV shows. But he's become much more creative now.

His language is growing by leaps and bounds, and I'm not complaining about that in the least.  OK, I;m lying, I DO complain about it sometimes when he talks all the time. We are a family of talkers, and often there is precious little peace in the house.

There is a lot that is frustrating for Jacob in life, and he needs to vent his frustration like we all do.  And these days, his favorite word to do that with? Is "Stupid" - which happens to be one of my least favorite words in the English language (of course).

The first time he used it, I was thrilled with his being "age-appropriate" (I even wrote a post about it!) but now I'm getting really tired of it.

Because, of course, once he realized it annoys me? Its value has risen sky high. So it's not just being used to express his feelings ("Stupid Batman!" when he can't get the guy to fit in the Batmobile in a way that lets the top close) but instead, it's become his beloved catchphrase.

He inserts it into EVERYTHING... asking to watch "Sponge Bob Stupid Pants," asking for his "stupid" dinner and singing "Twinkle Twinkle Stupid Star" along with me at night.

And then, when I have had enough and start threatening loss of privileges - like his beloved TV - if he says it again? He is changes over to... spelling it out: S - T - U - P - I - D.  And I have to laugh, as he is being so clever.

I still don't like it, but as he is being so S-M-A-R-T about it, I let it slide when he spells it.

The other thing Jake's taken up lately is mewoing like Gary the pet snail in Sponge Bob. This isn't a frustration release, he just enjoys the sound, in a delightful stimmy sort of way. And I know that stimming calms autists and makes them happy, so I'm not trying to completely squash him when he makes the sounds that bring him such joy.

But I really don't want them being bellowed 3 inches from my face, either.  So I am asking him at times to stop meowing. And you know what he's doing, then?

Yup.

M - E - O - W.

Smart-ass kid.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

SOC Sunday: Not my Father's 95th Birthday post

I. just. cannot. wait. for. March. to. be. over.

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Today is March 25th. But this is NOT a birthday post for my Father, now dead these two years. And twelve days.

He would have been 95.

I wrote a beautiful post for him last year. You can go read it, here - Not his 94th Birthday. I told a funny story about how he got his name, James, which was NOT the name he was born with.

In fact looking back in my archives to find that one, I was surprised to see how many favorite posts I wrote last March. I remember it as being a bleak month and feeling the weight of the first anniversary of his death (and my recent operation) bearing down oh so heavily upon me.

But I suppose last year, of that pressure some diamonds were born.

Not quite so much tihs year. I am hardly writing, here. The lumps of coal are not transforming.

The NYC Listen to Your Mother show, which I am producing, has pretty much taken over my life. Which is a good thing, a marvelous counter to all my self-absorption. And it's a wonderful show, a fabulous enterprise with amazing partners (Amy, Holly, Betsy, Ann, Deb, our NYC cast, and the entire gang of production teams around the country - I LOVE you!)

But it is also requiring a lot of workaday writing. And I am not a fast writer. So it's nearly all going there, very little coming back here. Lots of pragmatics. Very little creating going on. Sigh.

I am also hardly being a good enough mother, a good enough daughter. I spent the day locked in yet another homework meltdown with Ethan. We didn't go see my mother, who hopefully did NOT remember what day it was. (She didn;t bring it up when we spoke on the phone and so neither did I, figuring why remind her when all it would bring would be sorrow.)

And I know a big chunk of my blue today is the date. Weighing upon me. A date I loved for 49 years: my beloved Father's birthday.

Once a day to celebrate. Now a date for grieving. For missing. For looking backwards.


And I know I was lucky to have had him for so long. I have so many fatherless friends who lost theirs way too young, too soon, who never got to see them grow up or marry or have kids of their own.

And I know that as far as fathers go he was pretty damn wonderful, and I was lucky there, too. He was certainly not perfect, I could easily list his flaws as a man and father. But he was always gentle, and I always, ALWAYS knew I was loved, valued, cherished... and that goes a long way.

But today I am not feeling lucky. Just sad.

I want my Dad back. (And while I really want the one from my childhood who would vanquish all monsters, today I'll even take the frail one I was basically parenting, from his final, fading years.)

Just one more hug. (Not possible. Memory will have to suffice.)

Happy Birthday, Daddy.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

SOC Sunday: Boys Being Boys

It's a cold, windy Sunday, here in New York. Time to curl up with a warm computer, open up my brain, and spew forth.

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Walking down the street yesterday with the full family plus a friend of Ethan's. we fell into a fairly usual configuration: Dan and I side by side talking, Jake holding my hand on the other side, (occasionally kissing my arm), and Ethan and his friend Pete whirling like dervishes up and down the sidewalk.

They were pouncing and springing, sprinting up the steps of brownstones and leaping down, jumping onto each others backs like clumsy ninja, wrestling and brandishing invisible swords - although today, as we had just emerged from the 3D re-release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, it was light sabers.

I'd like to say it was the combined influence of the movie and the chocolate milk boost from the lunch we had just eaten, but actually, no, this was par for the course. This is how Ethan "walks" down the street with his friends. 

And then I usually become "that mom" the one yelling at her kid from half a block away "Look out! Pay attention to the other people! Don't bump into that baby/old lady/man in a wheelchair!" And apologizing profusely to my fellow sidewalk users.

Yesterday we wisely removed ourselves from Broadway's Saturday swelled crowds immmediately and were headed west to Riverside so the boys could "get their ya-yas out" on the park side of the street, cavorting unimpeded by intersections all the way home.

When we were not quite there, while standing at the street corner to cross West End avenue, I heard my husband yell out, seemingly to the air "They're boys, this is what they do."

When I questioned him what THAT was about, he told me that we had been passed by a nicely dressed woman walking with her one perfectly behaved little girl, who'd had a look of abject horror on her face. He really doesn't like to be judged by strangers.

Me? I'm out with the kids a lot more. I've kind of gotten used to it.

Nevertheless, I started running a fantasy in my head of things I might have added to what my husband yelled out, just to taunt the lady - like: "And one of them will be dating your perfect daughter some day!"  or, even darker: "And just think, your daughter will be losing her virginity to one of them someday in the less-diastant-than-you-like-to-think future."

Yes, there are days I'm so glad to have just boys.

Ethan & friend at Riverside Park cannonballs

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Missing a Giant

Yup, it's Sunday. Time to take a short tour of my brain. You're welcome.

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If you're in the United States of America and not in a coma, you probably realize today was Superbowl Sunday. I live in New York. Our team was in the damn thing (yeah, they won - whoot!) and yet most of the day I kept forgetting. Because this is New York City and full of artsy-fartsy people and folk who hail from distant lands and all sorts of others that couldn't care less about the whole football thing. (Also sports bars and Times Square full of rabid crazed fans. We co-exist.)

I spent much of the afternoon and evening with my dear Australian friend and her kids. Her son is quite enamored of the British sport that THEY call football & we call soccer. Ethan had wanted to watch the game, not because he cares all that much about the sport but because "all the kids are going to be talking about it at school tomorrow." 

But you know? In that case, he shouldn't have been so obnoxious today and especially not made fun of his brother and the way he cries. Because that? Got him banned from screens for the rest of the day by about noon. (By bedtime that loss-of-screens-privilege had been extended through Tuesday. Yeah, it was one of THOSE Sundays.)

But moments after I declared "That was really unacceptable behavior! You just lost screens for the rest of the day, sir" I wanted to kick myself. Because I had forgotten about the damn Superbowl. I wanted to watch. Not the whole thing, but bits here and there, and certainly the halftime show and the 4th quarter.

And of course I had to be a "good, consistent parent" so couldn't backpedal on the ban. Damn! 

My husband is so not into sports (despite his childhood love of baseball and all things Yankee) was happily off to a work-related dinner tonight. And i am certainly not a big sports fan either. But the Superbowl is special.

And I used to watch it all the time. 

With my Dad. 

Everything I know about sports is because of him. He was an artist and intellectual, but also a true sports fanatic, and of all the sports he loved, it was football he loved the most, and his New York teams: The Jets and The Giants.

He raised me to know the difference between a halfback and a fullback, to quickly eyeball the yards left to a first down at the end of a play, to hold my breath waiting to see if both feet landed inbounds, inside that all-important white line when a catch was made at the field's edge.

Like tonight. He would have loved to see that masterful catch.

I missed the game tonight. And then, hearing triumphant shouts and screams erupting from my neighbors' apartments all around, turning on the TV just as the confetti cannons were going off and everyone was streaming onto the field, I watched a bit of the postgame, saw the highlights replayed, the gatorade upended, the players stroking and kissing that football shaped trophy with all the reverence of my tribe during services, touching tallis fringe to the passing torah, and then to lips.

I heard the gracious, wooden speeches with one ear, but my heart was tuned in to another voice.

"Daddy" I said, quietly, to the empty room. 

"Daddy, we won." And the cat in my lap, oblivious, kept purring as the tears slid down my face. 

I miss him now in a not-every-day way, the commonness of his absence settled in, these nearly two years passed since his passing.  And that last winter, he had slipped so far from the earth by the time he finally departed, I couldn't even rouse him for a game, not even the Superbowl.

I remember so clearly the great Jets of my childhood, the name "Joe Namath" spoken by my Dad with reverence, watching that legendary game, the '69 Superbowl, with him on our old black and white TV.

I wish you had been here with me tonight, Dad. And not the frail, faded old man of your final years (though I love, loved him none the less), but the passionate-about-art, full-of-life middle aged Dad of my childhood. Or the feisty 80 year-old in Sarasota, who was playing tennis and swimming and photographing and dancing with friends and enjoying the hell out of his retirement.

We would have raised a glass of Shiraz together and toasted our Giants. And I probably would have let Ethan watch with us, ban be damned, because your joy at a game well played could not be missed. He should have seen that, shared that.

I wish Ethan and Jake could have known you then, Dad, the full you. At six foot, a giant for your generation. A giant of a man in my heart, always. 

Dad in Florida, 1999

Dad & Me, 1969

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OK, sorry this wasn't quite a "real" SOC post. It started as one, but when I saw where it was going, I had to turn off the clock, let it spin out to its conclusion. 

And also? Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! We WON! OK, I'll stop gloating now. Sorry Boston, Vermont, & New Hampshire friends.
 
New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: January Blues

Sunday. Yawn. Sunday. Thank goodness for SOC Sunday because coherence and my brain are not converging tonight. And this? Gives my incoherent rambling legitimacy. Yay, me!

 

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January... 2012... so far? Not off to a brilliant start. Feeling, truthfully, like crap most days. Last week I said we were finally all feeling better. And yet it's not quite true. 

 

I am no longer officially ill, but have been left exhausted. Feeling bone tired. I feel so weary, like my mitochondria have just said "Eh? I don't feel like pumping any energy into cells today." and gone off to do something else. Fishing?

I literally cannot keep my eyes open, cannot drag my ass off the sofa to do much. I rally for an hour here, an hour there. The kids are fed and shuttled about. But the weekends are killing me because there is no school to keep them occupied so it's all on me & we are not going out to do anything more than the minimum and I hate being THAT mom, the lazy-ass mom. Which i have been nearly all month.

And there is SO much to do this month. LTYM-NYC is heating up. Summer needs to be planned - camps & the like. I have my first sponsored post & giveaway (almost like a "real" mommy-blogger!) going up tomorrow or the next day. And to do that one? I am composting, folks. Yes, right here in New York City. And no my kitchen doesn't smell like rotting produce, thank goodness.

And amidst all the angst and feeling so low - How much is physical, how much is emotional/depression?  DAMNED if i know! - I have to keep reminding myself to count my blessings. And there are some.

Jake is really growing and changing again this month. It was a rough start. The first 2 weeks of the new year held nearly nightly crying jag / meltdowns. But he is talking and interacting more than ever.  He practices conversation with me, the cat and his stuffed bear. Hopefully soon there will be real friends.

 

Tonight when I sat with him in the bathroom while he took his bath, he wanted to talk and talk and talk. His usual topics: what did my ear look like, what are the shapes of my eyes and eyebrows and head. How he was once a baby and will grow to be a man, how his hair is yellow-blond but mine is red-brown.  But still, there was more expansive language. The eye contact was full on and awesome.

The light in his eyes was fully on, his delight in talking with me, in the back and forth of our conversation was clearly evident, infectious. 

 

It is so easy to despair, to see how far he has to go. The progress is so glacial, so frustratingly  incremental that i have to make myself stop and look at where he has come from... So far! I need to close my eyes and remember back to when I questioned if he would ever be able to carry on a conversation of any sort, when he seemed so lost in his own world.

And so when I am getting all judgey with myself, when i feel like I have just lost all my mojo, that I am merely getting through the days, I need to hold on to this: My kids are thriving. And maybe it's in spite of me right now, but still, I'll take what I can get.

Reasonably happy kids = not sucktastic at all. And hopefully I can join them there soon.

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Sorry I'm still in the cave here, folks. Hopefully the grateful cancels out the whining.
 
New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Nearly Human

Yup, Sunday again. Technically. It still feels like Saturday to me because I haven't gone to sleep yet. Or rather I should say "haven't gone to bed yet." Because that hour spent semi-sitting up, slumped on the sofa with the TV playing to my closed eyelids was sleep. Sorta.

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Well, I am happy to report that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, and I am, in fact feeling much better. FINALLY. Feeling something like a human being again. SHOCKING.

Not quite human enough, unfortunately, to take the kids sledding, in spite of the inches of snow today. Human enough, however, to have fun tossing snowballs with Ethan on the way to the corner diner where we met his best friend for lunch today,. We scraped fresh snow off the parked cars on the two blocks of our walk and packed it down as best we could.

The snowballs were fluffy, disintegrating as they flew. Which was fine by me as Ethan still has the tendency to make up for accuracy deficits by standing WAY too close when he lobs them.

It was lovely to get out of the house, to snarf down a quick lunch and steal a few minutes of uninterrupted grown-up conversation with my friend, the mother of Ethan;s friend. Sacrificing my iphone to the boys greasy food fingers was so worth it.

And then, Saturday being Saturday, there was basketballl. This week was my turn with Jake, who did not want to leave the cozy confines of home/cat/TV, but I made come out anyway because the wide world must not be ignored.

He kept thinking that every snow-covered car we passed was OUR car, and it distressed him no end that we had not found our car yet, no matter how many times I explained to him that we were, in fact, parked one block away in the OPPOSITE direction of the school he plays basketball in, so would definitely NOT not be seeing our car on our walk there.

But Jake being Jake, he still had to ask about it. Every. parked. car. we. passed. And I also answered the question "What color is our car, Mom?" about 1,000 times on that 10 block walk, too. (It's still green.)

I was worn out by the time we arrived. Getting Jake out of his snowboots and into his sneakers left me wanting to collapse in a puddle. And taking his mittens off reminded him how he had left his other pair at school and nearly set off another crying jag like the one he'd had upon arriving home on Friday. But only nearly. (Thank goodness.)

But still my heart swelled with pride as I heard the coach setting up Jake's new helper this week by telling him: "You'll be paired up with Jacob today, he;s our best shooter." And even though Ethan's games are more exciting and coherent, actually recognizable as "games," there is something so sweet about the special needs division; our kids trying so hard, their one-on-one helpers so kind.

And then afterwards we met up on Broadway with Ethan and Daddy for a snack and slogging home through the snow together. And then, home, the boys even played together for a few minutes -- if you count sitting on each other with the sitee attempting to throw the sitter off to be playing. (And i do, i SO DO!)

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OK, I cheated tonight! Clearly this was longer than 5 minutes - more like 10-15. But it felt to good to feel human enough to want to write, I just couldn't stop. I figure I will be forgiven. (Right, Fadra?)

And now? To bed!
 
New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: MIA via ASD

It's been a long time since I have hooked up with Fadra's SOC Sunday meme. I head over to catch today's link and what do I find? A beautiful new logo!

Thank goodness for SOC Sunday. Because that's about I can manage today. And barely that.

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I feel hollow, scooped out; a brittle husk surrounding a great nothingness. And not the lovely nothing of Zen but the bleak nothing of having been shaved away until there is very little left, just a concave space surrounded by little curled up, crumbling bits of me.

I have been AWOL from my blog for 3 days now, the longest gap in a long time. Three days ago I started a post called "Another Day, Another (Autistic) Meltdown" trying to find the gallows humor in what I've been going through this week. But it just didn't come. I couldn't laugh. And I was tired of crying.

Jake has not been a very tantrummy kid. Until now. He's going through something. God knows what. Hyper-emotional. Is it the ugly middle stage of some forward progress, or his medication in need of tweaking? How can I know - they often look the same from here.

All I know is that for the last week, nearly EVERY evening (and some daytimes too) there is about an hour of crying and screaming. Because I have done something HORRIBLE like turned off the TV. And yes that's only one hour out of twenty four, but what it does is suck the life and energy out of the other 23 for me.

I;m really being unraveled by it. And i feel like a wimp, like a wussy because some families with autistic kids have been going thorough tihs for YEARS on end. And multiple hours / incidents per day, day in and day out. While I know (hope & pray, but mostly know because it has happened before) that this will pass here in our home, waiting it out is exhausting me.

Jacob WILL find his even keel, his usual sunny disposition will right himself once again. Because when he is not weeping he is still happy as a hundred proverbial clams, chatting away, demanding as usual I "Look Mommy!" at everything he is doing and listen to every thought that floats through his brain.

"Daddy is a man, Mommy"

"Why yes, yes he is, Jacob."

"He was a baby!"

"Yes, he was, Jacob. We were all babies once, that's how human beings - people - start out. Me, Daddy, you too. you and Ethan."

"I was a baby!"

"Yes, Jacob, a beautiful baby. And now you're my wonderful, big boy."

(SIGH)

And so it goes.

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Still here? You've a brave soul.  Thanks for making it through the cave with me. And there's a reward: Tomorrow's post is funny, funny I tell ya!
 
New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Nothing

No intro, this week, this just is what it is....

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It's late on Sunday night, and I must admit, I got nothing for you. Four days of Thanksgiving "break" this week have nearly done me in. We had a very full Thursday and Friday and then a nearly empty Saturday & Sunday. Because all of Ethan's friends were away or otherwise busy, he had no playdates and was miserable. Jake spent far too much time on his DS and both kids spent far too much time watching TV. But somehow we survived.

And I would normally just have skipped posting today, but its so close to the end of NaBloPoMo I am not going to stumble and fall mere yards from the finish line. So yeah, I'm picking up that "marathon" metaphor I nearly beat to death in a post comparing special needs parenting to running a marathon at the beginning of this month, and running further with it tonight.

I was hoping I would feel more up, less beaten down by now. Ha! And this is making me realize I need to figure something out before the Winter / New Year's break is upon us, because 10 days cooped up in the apartment with the boys cranky and fighting and glued to loud screens will drive me over the edge.

I might have to take up running - the kind like in the old joke: "Doctor you told me to run 5 miles a day? Yes... well, It's been a week and I'm now 35 miles from home, what do I do?" Because right now 35 miles from home and on my own sounds like heaven.

Of course perspective will return when I've gotten the kids sent off to school and I can go home and get things for me done again... but Oh, Crap, I just remembered I have to take my mother to a doctor's appointment at 11AM tomorrow.

So much for me time.

and so it goes.....

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Rebooting my Mom-self

How is it humanly possible for Sunday to roll around again so soon? Who is speeding up time and can we please get them to take their foot off the gas pedal? I mean, really, this is getting quite ridiculous. It's like I'm going to blink and it's going to be something CRAZY, like nearly Thanksgiving.

What's that you say? It IS nearly Thanksgiving? No. Shut up. It just turned November. No? Damn.

OK, whatever. It IS Sunday still, right? It hasn't become Monday while I was busy scratching my ankle or anything, right? Good. So here's what's on my mind, straight from my brain to yours with very little filter in between...

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Ethan is pretty unhappy with our plans for today: we're driving out to Queens to attend the 1st birthday party for the baby girl of friends of my husband's and mine. In other words, not about Ethan.

He complained he wouldn't know anyone there but his family. And I decided to not coddle this shit anymore. I told him "you know when I was a kid my parents took me all kinds of places with them, not just kid places - where they went, I went too, I told him, it's family plans and sometimes you just have to suck it up and go along with the program, sometimes it's about you and sometimes its NOT about you and families do things together.

I was goinig to launch into all the cool things we go off to do that are for HIM but realized, I was having a hard time coming up with anything recent. Realized I have been in retreat for some time now.

We Used to do things all the time. go out to museums and parks and other neighborhoods, other boros. I was the "fun mom" always game for adventure. fun fun fun.

When did that drop? When did weekends become always one day inside, each kid attached to their own screens? I know I've been overwhelmed for a while. That the situation between the boys been so not fun for such a long time now - over a year, maybe two (one of benefits of blogging is can go back over time and read old posts see what was going on in my life at various times).

I have written time and again how hard it is to go and do anything with the two kids as they get along so poorly right now, as autism intrudes into our family space so deeply right now.

But I hadn't realized how much I have retreated from trying. And that sucks.

So I want to re-boot the whole enterprise. OK, our old sort-of-easy-to-hang-out family is gone. Done. And now I need to move on, figure out how to create new kinds of fun, make it work for us some how, get out and do.

Because I'm the fun Mom damn it!

OK, now to drag Ethan off to a one year old's birthday party. Sucking it up starts now. (For me, because he's going to be beast, but we're going anyway.)

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Ambition

All I can say is... thank goodness for Stream of Consciousness Sundays during this here NaBloPoMo month. Five minutes? I can do today. Here goes:

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I live in New York City. That means, on a normal day, there is always someone doing something more interesting, fantastic, and ambitious than I am.

And today was no ordinary day, it was the New York City Marathon, when type A personalities from all over the world descend on my city and run like the wind.

By the time I prodded my bleary self out of bed and sorted out the kids? Runners were already waiting at the foot of the Verazano Bridge in Staten Island ready to make the 26.2 mile trek thought the city to end in my 'hood in Central Park.

I was going right near there this morning, needing to deposit Jacob at Hebrew School yards from the park at 10. The city was eerily both bustling and empty, the sidewalks more full than the streets, cars and cabs heeding the snarled traffic warnings and steering well clear of the marathon route.

When I got home I Tweeted and Facebooked a version of this message: 

I've gotten 1 son off to Hebrew School & fed them both, but still have yet to shower. Meanwhile? People have already won the NYC marathon. Possibly they are more ambitious than I?

And I got a lot support. I was joking. But also? A wee part of me felt bad for not being out there handing out Gatorade and waving, shouting encouragement to those crazy brave and ambitious souls.

Especially the autism awareness runners, including my friend Jess's husband Luau who came in from Boston and ran with his hair dyed BLUE for autism awareness. No not kidding - look:

Today the weather was perfect for a run. Records were broken. Ethan and I watched on TV and cheered the winners on, happy to be type B armchair athletes in our warm, sunny apartment.

And yes, I got my shower.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: Just. Write.

So, this week I actually got to hang out with the lovely Fadra - who runs & hosts this whole Stream of Consciousness Sunday shindig - at the BlogHer Writers Conference here in NYC.

How could I not do a SOCS post after that? Inconceivable! (Yes, I watched Princess Bride again with my kids last week. So you should hear that last word in your head being rendered by Wallace Shawn. With a lisp.) So here it is:

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I spent all day Friday with my true tribe - writer/bloggers - at the first ever (hopefully becoming annual) BlogHer Writers conference. There was so much useful informatiuon and so many amazing conversations going on all day (and at the cocktail reception the evening before) that my brain feels about to explode.

And I am still digesting most of it. But if there is one message I took away from the conference? It was this:

JUST. FUCKING. WRITE.

And then? Re-write. And trash whatever is not wonderful (even if its 80%) and re-write again. Make it great.

And don't put ALL of it up on your blog. Because if you want to be published elsewhere, to SELL your words, it has to be new & fresh content. So you can't give it all away first.

Also? It helps to have an agent. As in, if you don't have one you are 99% of the time totally screwed. But also? If your writing is good? You will find an agent. When you are READY.

And being ready? means that you have followed the above directives and have an actual COMPLETED book in your hands when you contact them.

For fiction & memoir that is (memoir being narrative and sold / bought like fiction). For non-fiction you "just" need three sample chapters and a kick-ass book proposal.

ANd, to get the attention of an agent?  It helps to have credibility. A track record. Which means articles sold to magazines or stories / essays published in literary journals.

Hmmm, a lot more hard work and commitment than just spewing out a post and slapping it up on the old blog, huh?

Yup! (ANd yeah, other than these Sundays I don't usually just spew, I AM a change-the-word-ten-times-until-I've-got-the-one-I-like-best perfectionist writer. Guilty as charged.)

So I've got a lot to contemplate. Because the instant gratification of writing and posting, being my own publisher? Pretty intoxicating. Works for me so far.

But also? I have a book in me. a few books actually. And I'm thinking they want out....

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

SOC Sunday: ComiCon Come and Gone

Wow. It's been literally months since I've done a Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. Remedying that now, as I want to throw something up onto my blog-space and have neither the time nor brain cells for anything closely shaped. Commencing brain dump...

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New York ComiCon has come and gone.

A highlight of the boys' year; eagerly anticipated, enthusiastically participated in.

Especially since my husband is a comics professional; in the biz, as it were. So he's got a booth in Artists Alley (though writer he may be), and Ethan swells with pride as he confides to people he meets: "My Dad has a table here, we're working at the con."

And indeed we are. Although this year we didn't spend much time at the booth. Busy, busy. And every year it's different though seemingly the same. The boys a year older, changes subtle and great.

I think: In a few years time (one quick blink) I will be setting Ethan and his friends free here, cell phones and allowance cash in pockets, with rendezvous times and contingency plans in place. Teenagers. 

I think: This is getting harder for Jake, he is enjoying it less. changes need to be made in the plans for next year. Autism.

I think: I am pulled in so many directions today, I am present in none. I should be with my mother in the hospital. I should be helping Danny in the booth more. I should be figuring out the autism friendly way to do this with Jake. I should be enjoying Ethan's shy basking in the adulation he's receiving over his costume (he was a PERFECT Link form Zelda).

Last year, in spite of being involved in the organization of it, my husband could not attend the Con, his 93 year-old mother having passed, right on cue, just before it began.

This year my mother is in the hospital, feeling abandoned, wondering why I'm not coming to her today, her memory unable to hold more than a thimbleful of information. I am grateful that most moments she remembers where she is. and why.

It's always something.

Who knows what next year's Con will hold. And I shouldn't be worrying about it yet. It's a whole damn year away.

But my brain, it goes that way. It goes.

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New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.