How to make finger sniffing a habit.

We have this routine going every Saturday night.  We all climb into our bed and watch a little TV before bedtime.  We're trying to press the issue that we can't watch How It's Made all day, every day, so we settled on the Food Network. 

I made it sound all pretty for you but really there was a lot of screaming (by me) crying (by them) and a whole lotta complaining, haggling and general malcontent.  About thirty minutes later Alex was mumbling under his breath, "this is most certainly NOT what I had in mind" and I was murmuring, "we're a family goddammit and this is what families do." So that's how it came to be that we settled on the Food Network.   

Anyway, we get all settled in and I catch Alex out of the corner of my eye. 

Hands in his shorts, hands out of shorts, hands to nose.  Sniff, sniff. 

WTF, did I just see that?  And as if there was a cosmic answer to my question it happens again. 

I had this sudden flashback to the Saturday Night Live armpit sniffer skit.  You know, the one where Mary Catherine Gallagher stuffs her hands under either armpit and then brings them up to her nose and gets a good long whiff because she's nervous. 

Before I even knew what I was doing, I snorted and gave an ever so tiny giggle.

Crap.  Crap.  CRAP.  I did not just snort, giggle.  Please don't let him hear it, please, please, please...

He heard it.  He looks over at me and giggles as he's takes a good draw.  Then he starts laughing hysterically.

Oh no.  This is not happening.

With that little ever so tiny snort, giggle I've solidified a habit.  A horrible nasty man habit. 

Oh noooooo.

I look across to Hubs, "Now what?"  I say horrified. 

He just starts laughing. 

Laughing!?! 

He looks back to me and says, "What, don't look at me like that...you're the one who taught him..."

And that my friends is how I ended my Saturday night.
 
Laugh with me people.  Laugh with me.

This is Me Meme

I've been tagged by the lovely Fi over at Welcome to the mad house.  I absolutely love her positive attitude and every time I pop over to see her, she makes me smile big happy smiles.  

I've also been tagged by Jazzygal who has either changed her page up a bit or I was seriously way too slobbery drunk last night while I watched Lizzy dance all her Irish dances at the Ceili.  In my defence, there were a lot more people drunker than I was last night.  That's all I'm saying.  I could have sworn things looked different there yesterday....either way, I love her style.

So I love this meme because it lets me take a tiny peek at how my kids see me.  I had visions of me looking stick thin with a modest bosom and a killer smile.  No such luck.

I had to bribe Alex with 30 minutes of I-touch time to even get him to pick up a pencil.  After a ton of bickering and begging he simply huffed, "FINE.  But I don't understand why I need to draw you when I can see you just fine."  Fair enough but draw the damn picture.  I hate when my kids are smarter than me.  Apparently I have Angelina lips, a hair helmet, no clothes and no bosoms whatsoever.  Damn.

Alex's version.


Lizzy said sure and whipped something right up.  Look at this.  Jesus-H, did you just get the scare of your life?  My hair parts in the middle like the Dead Sea, I have black saucer eyes that are trying to bewitch you and its raining.  If Lizzy starts killing small neighborhood animals I'm screwed.

Lizzy's version.

And Gracie just randomly drew something at her highchair in between trying to eat the crayons.   Looks about right for a 16 month old. 



Gracie's version.



Anyhoo, this meme was created by Tara at Sticky Fingers and here are the rules:

• Ask your child to draw a picture of you. It doesn't matter how old they are.
• Post the picture on your blog. Go on.... be brave!
• Call it the 'This Is Me Meme' .
• Pop over to Tara's post to add it to her linky.
• Then tag some others.

I'm all for playing by the rules, and God knows we have them in this house, so I'm tagging some of my bloggy buddies.  Here they are in no particular completely random order of two :

Connor's mom over at Living on the Spectrum: The Connor Chronicles.  Because cheese is good (someday you'll have to tell me if it means more than keeping up on your calcium and Vitamin D requirements or if its hidden code for something) and because I have visions of her with Indiana Jones and not Calista. 

Karen over at Solodialogue because she makes me think and sometimes it makes my brain hurt in a 'good but now I need to go ponder things' kind of way. 

Have fun!!

One simple little rule...

As we all sat around the dinner table I had a fleeting thought, this is a mess.  We were talking over each other, no one using a fork or napkin, Gracie throwing stuff off the side of her tray and screaming, all the while trying to writhe out of her chair.

I found myself wanting a soft mallet. 

So I've decided to reign them in a bit and set up a new rule for the dinner table.  One new thing.  That is it.  That's all I can handle.

So here it is.  I ask the kids to share a little bit about their day.  I'm doing this in the hopes of improving Alex's communication skills as he can't get through one question without completely loosing interest. 

So this is how it went last night...

Me: Hey guys, quiet. Guys, I'm talking....guys....QUIET.
Gracie: Screaming.
Lizzy: I want salt. 
Alex: No, I am most certainly not going to eat that.  

Me: OK now that everyone's listening, we're going to do a new thing at dinner.  We're going to tell each other one thing about our day. 

Two hummphs, one bang.  This is going swimmingly. 

Me: I will start off to show you how it's done.  Well, I got up and had a cup of coffee, made breakfast...
Alex: Mom, mom.  Did you pee?  Did you brush your teeth?  You're out of order, mom.  We get up and first we pee, then we get dressed, then we brush our teeth and then we eat.  You went out of order.      

Shit.

Me: OK, you're right, I did go out of order.  That's not the point, we're just talking about our day and what we did. 

Alex: But you did go out of order, mom.  That's not how we do it.  Next!  As he says 'Next' he has this little flourish with his wrist like he's totally done with this exercise and has utterly moved on. 

Oh Lord, what was I thinking.... 

Me: OK.  So I got up, peed, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and had breakfast.  I....
Alex breaking in: Mom, mom, did you forget the coffee part?  You forgot the coffee part. 

Me: OK, who's next?  I'm out.

For the first time there was utter silence at the table.

Me: Alex, tell me about your day. 
Alex: No.
Me: Alex, you know how this works.  Please tell us about your day.  What did you have for breakfast?
Alex: I had oatmeal.  That is all. 
Me: That's all you had for breakfast, just oatmeal?
Alex: No, that is all. I am done talking.  Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: No, it is not next.  Did you ride a bus for your field trip?
Alex: Yes.
Me: You did, that's great!  Who did you sit next to?
Alex: Mrs Brush. Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: That must have been fun.  Did you like the play?
Alex: No.  Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: You didn't?  Hum. It was supposed to be Goldilocks and the Three Bears, was it?
Alex: Yes.  But it was not the same as what you told me.  I'm done.  Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: Hummmm.
Alex: I told Mrs Brush it was not the same and I was not happy about that. Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: OK, how was it not the same?  Can you help me understand?
Alex: No.  It was just different.  Next!  Flicks his wrist.
Me: OK sweetie, thanks for sharing with us.  Lizzy, you're up!
Lizzy: No.
Me: Lizzie, come on....
Lizzy: NO. Next!  Flicks her wrist.

They all break out in peals of laughter. 

Swimmingly, just swimmingly...

She's in there...

How can something this beautiful turn ugly?

Wedge her ass in a crock, that's how.

I have no idea how this happened but when I went into the laundry room I found Gracie firmly wedged in one of the crocks I use to store the kids socks.  

We have this routine after dinner.  I loosen up her bib and she rips it off, runs down to the laundry room and shoves it in the washer.  She laughs hysterically.  For whatever reason she thinks its the funniest thing ever.  I go with it since she's actually putting her clothes away.  Something I've yet to teach the older two.     



I guess she did this before throwing the bib in the washer.  Slacker.



She actually gave up and started sorting socks.  Amazing.  Could you even imagine the language if that was my ass stuck in there?!?  I don't think, hell I know, there's not enough soap in the world to wash my mouth out and get it clean again.  And I would most definitely NOT be sorting socks. 

And yes, we do have shirts...I took it off since she didn't like dinner and stuffed it all down the front of her.  She's as cheeky as the rest of them...

The green eyed monster

I've bored everyone enough talking about Bike Camp (you can read about it here, here and here) so I'll switch gears and take a minute to talk about my daughter, Lizzy.  She was really upset that Alex had all this face time with me while at Camp and she didn't.  And it's something that's a reoccurring theme in our house.  

From her point of view it goes a little like this: Alex spends time with mom.  Mom spends time with Alex.  Mom loves Alex more than me.  I hate Alex.  End of story.

She's five, what did you expect?

Lizzy's old enough to see that I do spend an inordinate amount of time schlepping Alex to all of his therapies.  She sees that as time away from her.  Even when I bring the her with me to an appointment it's the sheer fact that we're there for Alex, and not her, that gets her goat.  She's jealous. 

She's not old enough yet to know that what we're doing with Alex, all the appointments, therapies, social groups---it's all work for him.  Hard work.  She only sees that I'm spending time with him and that equates in a five year old mind to me loving him more.  

And I hate that she picks up on it and perceives it that way. 

I've had a talk with her, one about how her brother's different and some things like tying a shoe or throwing a ball are hard for him.  She hastily responded, "Well, mom, I already know that!" like I'm an idiot.  She's not quite grasped the understanding that Alex's differences require extra time and extra work.  She's not quite there in understanding that my love for her is not dependent on face time. 

We do manage to do things, just the two of us.  We go to the park and catch butterflies.  We go to Dairy Queen.  She paints my toes a bright I'm a hooker pink and I smile, say I love it and wear it for weeks.  We walk the neighborhood and count the fountains.  I secretly think she does that just so she can come back and tell Alex how many we saw and gloat.  Just to get under his skin, cheeky little girl. 

But she's just not there with the understanding.  I know one day she will be.  She'll love him as fiercely as I do.  But right now she wants to kick the daylights out of him and in some ways I don't blame her.  I'd be a little pissed too if my mom spent more time with my brother. 

And that's one of the many ways this thing called autism, SPD, whatever you call it or what ever you have, spreads like a nebulous cancer and affects us all.