Where Ladybugs Roar

Confessions and Passions of a Compulsive Writer

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Life... Universe... Everything...

Yesterday was not a good day in bugdom. I found out that a very close friend is having to make a profound decision regarding her eight year old Autistic child. It's so profound that I feel unworthy to comment on it because I simply cannot comprehend having to make the same decision. I cried all yesterday for her... which is why I made it half-way down my list of blogs to visit and stopped. I'll try to get to more of the blogs tomorrow. I'm hoping to have found some way to cope by then. I don't even know what to say to her... because it's just one of those things that you'll survive but hope not to. My heart goes out to her... and she's been in my prayers as well as her child and the rest of her family.

In my family, tomorrow is T's seventh birthday. He'll be having a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle slumber party this Friday.

My sister is planning on offering on a house we went to check out yesterday. If there was anyway to sell our own house and buy this one (which is 50k less than what we paid for ours), we'd steal it right out from under her. Seriously... there are so many rooms in this place and I'd be able to take in foster kids like I've always wanted... and we'd be able to have a therapy room that doesn't steal so much space from my kids. I'm incredibly jealous. Supremely jealous. Seriously. It's twice the size of our current house. Plus, it's near us but in an incredible school district that we were going to try to open enroll into for B's pre-school therapy. Unfortunately... no one open enrolls into this district and gets in. (For a little bit of time, we considered renting an apartment in the district JUST to get B in. Yeah... SN parents think of all kinds of crazy things.) So, yeah... it would get my sister out of a high crime area... she'd be twenty minutes from us... and she'd be living in an awesome house.

Speaking of SN children, I did solve a problem in regards to my kids that I've been having. My kids are both very, very literal due to their Autism, but my daughter is almost exclusively literal. No, really. So, I'm working on crossing the street safety when I drop them off in the school parking lot. I keep going over the same directions EVERY DAY. Stay together. Go to the cross-walk. Look both ways. Every day... B will look both ways and dart in front of cars. The cars are going like ten miles an hour... and always stop, but it's aggravating. Today, I realized I had to add a key phrase. "LOOK both ways AND STOP AND WAIT if cars are coming." Yeah... the things you would never imagine you'd have to say out loud, but if you have a child who is literal to the point of impairment... you HAVE to say them. It's part of the reason neither child can use the phone. They need a script of how to handle it... and it's one of those things that you need to adapt to circumstances, so they can't do it. All of our phone calls involve me in the background shouting answers to them.

Well, I have yoga this morning... and I wrenched one of my shoulders really fierce yesterday doing something. I had insomnia last night due to the horrors of the day AND being in pain. (My kids probably are glad to be away from the "bear" that I am today. Though, honestly, they usually don't even notice my moods.)

I'm having a rough day and I had a weird night last night with lots of nightmares... so I'm sorry if I'm slow to deal with things right now. I might just need a mental vacation for a bit.

Happy Wednesday to those that believe in Wednesdays.

11 comments:

  1. Oh, I'm sorry. You and your friend will be in my thoughts and prayers.

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  2. *hug* I hope things look up shortly.

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  3. *HUGS* to both you and your friend. Not having kids myself, I can't possibly understand what you go through having autistic children, but, having done DT with children of varying degrees of ASD and having friends with autistic children, I empathise (sp?). I am hoping to foster autistic children when my finances are more in order. God bless you and your friend.

    ~KK~

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  4. Sorry about your day and your friend. It's interesting to get a peak into your world. Scripts to handle phones and they don't even notice your mood. Sad,but interesting. Hope you're day is better than yesterday.

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  5. I'm so sorry about your friend. Whatever it is, it's always hard to make decisions when it comes to our kids. I hope your shoulder gets better and that you're able to sleep tonight.

    I have to tell you that I'm on page 333 and I'm hooked, HOOKED I TELL YOU! I had been waiting to read it until I had time and now no one can get my attention because I'm so captured by your story.

    And I don't say that to everyone. In fact, I can be rather hard to impress. So. Here's a shot of you-are-awesome.
    Winged Writer

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  6. Thinking of you today... and sending up a prayer to a God I want to believe is there. :)

    Sheesh.

    I suppose you probably wanted a comment that was a tad more uplifting. I admire your faith, I'm just struggling with my own at the moment. Deep breth, Amber. In and out. In and out. Keep going.

    You do the same! Keep breathing and repeating -- everything will be alright.

    Okay, I'm going to shut up now.

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  7. I was thinking of you today, hoping you had a better day.

    You will find a way to cope with this and so will your friend. The human spirit is incredibly resiliant and adapts remarkably well to the concept of a "new normal". The trick is holding on in the meantime. *hugs*

    Happy birthday to T!!! And a TMNT slumber party? Wow...it's amazing how things come back around again. My 22 year old brother was totally into the TMNT stuff at that age!

    Hope your week improves from here on out!

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  8. Sounds really tough. Hope your week improves. :)

    The reason why I stopped by is because...

    I gave you the honesty scrap award. *grin* http://ashelynnsanford.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-was-awardedthis-thing-blink.html

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  9. Oh, Wendy, I'm sorry it was such a rough day. Let us know how everything turns out, k?

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  10. I'm sorry Wendy. And I hope your sister gets the house.

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