60" X 80" of what I consider most days pure bliss. And surprisingly you can fit ALOT of people in that amount of space. Last night my children were determined to test the theory and 3 of the 4 of them ended up in our bed by 2 am. If you do the math that's 5 people which leaves roughly 12" X 80" per person. I guess this might have worked out considering the relatively small widths of the 3 extra individuals IF and only IF all 5 people were lying straight and still. However, knowing that 3 of the individuals were small children completely rules out the possibility of anyone being straight or still in the bed. As a result, at least one person from the group of 5 did not get much sleep. I'll raise my hand now if you were having trouble arriving at the logical conclusion. I'm sure my husband didn't sleep well either, but I honestly can never tell because he sleeps through EVERYTHING! So, here I am sleepy and tired on a Tuesday. I have coffee and believe me, I'm trying to wake up but it will take herculean effort to drag my eyelids fully open before 10 am. Quite honestly, sleep is my most treasured activity. I could sleep for days on end and wake up happy and refreshed. I love to sleep. So it is more than just a cruel joke that it is the most allusive creature to a mother of four. I know all moms lose sleep and remain in a state of overtired oblivion until their kids move out (or so I've been told) but honestly, I loved sleep even before it was so savagely ripped from me. Finding a silver lining to this one is tough because a) I'm still not quite awake, b) C is in my lap slapping at the keyboard and c) sometimes I just don't feel like looking. But I committed to only putting the upside in this blog so that I can better count my blessings, so here are the upsides:
1. My husband sent me to the guest room for 30 min of extra sleep while he wrestled with the baby to get her back to sleep.
2. Mornings like this have justified the purchase of my very expensive coffee maker already.
3. Nap time will get here soon b/c the kids are as tired as I am.
Look at me! I can make the best of ANYTHING!
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
L and the Hat
Full weekend to say the least. L is now signed up and ready to play Tball with the Miracle League. It will be awesome. I hope. We attended orientation on Saturday morning and L met his hat. Not his coach, I'm sure he/she was there somewhere, not his uniform shirt, they weren't ready yet, and not his teammates, they were engrossed in hat love too. L met his hat. The current LOVE of his life. I'm not sure if it's autism that makes his love for inanimate objects so all encompassing or if it's just his personality (it could be argued that the two are not exclusive, seeing as how autism affects his personality and his personality greatly affects the manifestation of autistic tendencies, but I digress...) L LOVES this hat. I mean adores it! He is for all intents and purposes a little guy of few words, but he said "hat" every 20 minutes on Saturday and again on Sunday. On the one hand I am FILLED with joy. My little guy has a friend! Something that he has a true connection with and is willing to share parts of himself with! On the other hand, it's a hat. Not a person, or even an animal. A hat.
It occurred to me this morning as I put his hat on his pillow for after school that it didn't matter so much. He loved his hat the way he loves cars and all things hot. He can say the word, which, hopefully will instill a sense of the power of words and be the catalyst for more attempts at speech. He is freaking ADORABLE in his hat and it makes him happy. There wasn't necessarily a downside here, except maybe the existence of autism as a whole, but there is ALWAYS an upside.
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Nighttime Mopping
Do you ever have one of those nights where the kids just won't give it up? Last night was one of those nights for me. L was up LATE. He kept getting out of bed, bothering M and doing all kinds of mischievous things. It was exhausting. Up and down the stairs I went putting him back in the bed after he got up. Over and over and over again. Then, finally, it was quiet. Maybe too quiet. I was watching Law and Order: SVU (my favorite) and not really listening out for the "silence." I eventually went upstairs to make another quick check of the kids and I could hear the sound of water draining in the kids' bathroom. I stepped in to turn the sink off, no doubt left on by someone getting a quick sip of water before bed. The tile floor is surprisingly slick when there is half an inch of water on it. Thanks to my cat like reflexes I was able to catch my self seconds before my head and the counter top had a violent encounter. I flipped on the light and took a look around to assess the damage. Inwardly, I groaned. L had managed to dump water EVERYWHERE. He had also managed to track it into his room with his footie pajamas and at that moment was soundly sleeping with his soaking wet pj's all over the clean sheets I put on just that morning. Sigh. It took me a few minutes to drum up the upside to this one because I HATE cleaning the bathroom and more than that I HATE doing anything late at night. But eventually the silver lining started to shine through. Not only would this bathroom be pristine by the time I was done cleaning it, but it would stay clean for a much longer stretch than it normally does because all of the tiny grubby hands and feet that mess it up would be tucked away in their beds! And so, with a merrier heart (not so merry that I was smiling, but slightly more merry than I had been moments before) I mopped the water off of the floor, wiped down the counter top and the sink and cleaned the toilet. And thanks to Netflix I didn't miss a single moment of Law and Order: SVU!
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Story Time!!!
I hate story time at the library. Absolutely hate it! The songs, the clapping, the really unfunny stories that my kids tell and retell. But, my kids LOVE it! So that was our only goal today (besides more laundry). And yet, here it is, 11 am and we aren't there yet. In fact, it will be over before we get there. Why? Well, J decided to take a shower with me and once I got out she stayed in for a minute playing in the spray and applying about 50 gallons of conditioner to her hair. C is clingy today (another bottom tooth coming in) so I can hardly put her down to get dressed. M just plain "forgot" to get dressed. This is a new thing for him. It's not that he didn't get dressed after I told him to, he simply FORGOT. Kid has the memory of an 80 year old.
Anyway, right this moment the kids are in the car buckled in and waiting for me to make a mad dash to the library so they can sing a few songs. But I know we are already too late, so I thought I'd sit down for a moment and collect my thoughts. The garage is nice and cool at the moment so I know they aren't sweating to death.
Basically, it all boils down to this. No matter how hard I try to take the kids to the places they want to go, they somehow manage to throw 2 or 50 obstacles in my way. Normally this frustrates the heck out of me and I get all bitter and crabby. But today, I am choosing to find the upside once again and say "Oh well, I didn't want to go to the library for story time anyway." Gonna drop the books in the book drop outside and drive through Starbucks. Lovely Tuesday!
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
Anyway, right this moment the kids are in the car buckled in and waiting for me to make a mad dash to the library so they can sing a few songs. But I know we are already too late, so I thought I'd sit down for a moment and collect my thoughts. The garage is nice and cool at the moment so I know they aren't sweating to death.
Basically, it all boils down to this. No matter how hard I try to take the kids to the places they want to go, they somehow manage to throw 2 or 50 obstacles in my way. Normally this frustrates the heck out of me and I get all bitter and crabby. But today, I am choosing to find the upside once again and say "Oh well, I didn't want to go to the library for story time anyway." Gonna drop the books in the book drop outside and drive through Starbucks. Lovely Tuesday!
-LL
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
Monday, March 21, 2011
Everything Has an Upside
Today, I attempted to 1) homeschool my 5 year old, 2) potty train my 2 year old, 3) play with my 10 month old, and 4) bond with my 4 year old, all while cleaning the house, buying the groceries, putting the groceries away, and doing the laundry. Thanks to 4 Dr. Peppers I am awake enough to write this.
It occurred to me this afternoon that I had become an expert at finding the silver lining. Of taking the upside down and hanging on to only the upside. The event that spawned this though? It plays out like this:
I made the grocery list last night and asked my husband if he had any requests. He said "Cream cheese for the olives. You should probably get a few bagels too, because we can never eat all of the cream cheese with just a can of olives." I rolled my eyes at this because I know we can never eat all of the bagels in a package before they go bad either. Somewhere down the line something was bound to spoil. So, off grocery shopping the kids and I ventured. I only had 3 of the 4 (my 4 year old goes to school all day), so I hoped this might be a breeze. And it was, if by breeze I meant hurricane force winds knocking the very breath from my lungs. 3 hours. That's how long it took to get in and out of the store. $200 dollars poorer and not even remotely happier, I trudged home, kids and groceries in tow and began the arduous task of putting everything away. Now, J, my 2 year old, is the MOST helpful little girl on the planet. She unpacked every single bag before I was able to get the baby in a new diaper and down for a nap. J put most of the groceries under the sink. Not a single grocery item belongs there. 45 minutes after I have had a lovely egg hunt (and ham hunt and bread hunt and cheese hunt), I get J and M, my 5 year old, some lunch and run upstairs to get some laundry done. After this the day passes pretty quickly. J enjoys a movie and M and I buckle down on reading. At 3:15 L gets home from school and C wakes up from her nap. Chaos begins. Something about the hours from 3 pm to 7 pm wreaks havoc on my otherwise docile and obedient children. (If you could see my mannerisms as I type this you'd recognize a lie somewhere in that sentence.) Surprisingly, the kids were playing rather nicely so I ran upstairs to move some clothes from the washer to the dryer and in that moment an upside was born. J and L decided suddenly that they were hungry. Off to the pantry they went. It only took a little digging to unearth the bag of everything bagels, and only seconds passed before they had half of the bag dumped on the table and ripped to bits. They must have heard me coming down the stairs and scattered like ants and I happened upon the mess. My first thought, "Well, at least none of the bagels will go bad." Yep. There is an upside to EVERYTHING!
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
-LL
It occurred to me this afternoon that I had become an expert at finding the silver lining. Of taking the upside down and hanging on to only the upside. The event that spawned this though? It plays out like this:
I made the grocery list last night and asked my husband if he had any requests. He said "Cream cheese for the olives. You should probably get a few bagels too, because we can never eat all of the cream cheese with just a can of olives." I rolled my eyes at this because I know we can never eat all of the bagels in a package before they go bad either. Somewhere down the line something was bound to spoil. So, off grocery shopping the kids and I ventured. I only had 3 of the 4 (my 4 year old goes to school all day), so I hoped this might be a breeze. And it was, if by breeze I meant hurricane force winds knocking the very breath from my lungs. 3 hours. That's how long it took to get in and out of the store. $200 dollars poorer and not even remotely happier, I trudged home, kids and groceries in tow and began the arduous task of putting everything away. Now, J, my 2 year old, is the MOST helpful little girl on the planet. She unpacked every single bag before I was able to get the baby in a new diaper and down for a nap. J put most of the groceries under the sink. Not a single grocery item belongs there. 45 minutes after I have had a lovely egg hunt (and ham hunt and bread hunt and cheese hunt), I get J and M, my 5 year old, some lunch and run upstairs to get some laundry done. After this the day passes pretty quickly. J enjoys a movie and M and I buckle down on reading. At 3:15 L gets home from school and C wakes up from her nap. Chaos begins. Something about the hours from 3 pm to 7 pm wreaks havoc on my otherwise docile and obedient children. (If you could see my mannerisms as I type this you'd recognize a lie somewhere in that sentence.) Surprisingly, the kids were playing rather nicely so I ran upstairs to move some clothes from the washer to the dryer and in that moment an upside was born. J and L decided suddenly that they were hungry. Off to the pantry they went. It only took a little digging to unearth the bag of everything bagels, and only seconds passed before they had half of the bag dumped on the table and ripped to bits. They must have heard me coming down the stairs and scattered like ants and I happened upon the mess. My first thought, "Well, at least none of the bagels will go bad." Yep. There is an upside to EVERYTHING!
"profiter de la doublure d'argent"
-LL
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