Hooray for Homeownership!

When you enter your bedroom and see a bubble under the paint on your wall you might scratch your head and think to yourself, "hmm."  When your curiosity gets the best of you and you ever so tenderly take your fingernail and poke at the bubble only to have it burst and leak freezing cold water in streams down the wall, it's a bit startling.

Oh dear.

I assumed we had a leaky pipe somewhere but as it turned out, we have a crappy builder. Or maybe this is commonplace, but I doubt it.  Hadn't I mentioned before that we don't do commonplace in this house?

As it turns out, in our attic crawlspace, we have piles of snow.  It could only have come in from under the roof ridge vent. 

Not what you want to see in your attic.

 As it melted, it ran down the walls and pooled under the paint, effectively ruining the entire wall and part of the ceiling and hopefully didn't cause too much interior damage.

Corner of the ceiling

 Sigh...
time to dig out the roof warranty papers and hope this will be covered.

Bracing for Braces

When Bubba needed to get braces we were super anxious.  He doesn't do well with any kind of discomfort and we foresaw all kinds of panic at the prospect of having braces and not being able to rip them off. 

He got the palate expander put in first and sometimes when we'd adjust it at night, he'd actually see stars and feel dizzy.  This was not something the orthodontist's office had ever heard of.  But in our family, "something no one has ever heard of" is commonplace.  Bubs was very unhappy the first couple days with the expander and I was stressed out, wondering how we would EVER be able to bear braces in the future.  

Well, he got used to the expander and in a couple months' time, was ready for the next phase.  Let me rephrase - he was physically ready for the next phase.  Emotionally he was a wreck.  Despite our attempts at telling him the benefits, he insisted he did NOT want braces and that he didn't need them and didn't care how his teeth look.  Concerned for the state of our household and the nightmare that was sure to ensue, we still ventured forth and made the dreaded appointment.  The ortho's office allotted us extra time, knowing this could be a difficult appointment.  They gave us two hours. 

On the morning of the appointment, Daddy took Bubs to the ortho's office while I stayed home with Matilda.  Daddy and I agreed to keep in touch via text messages, both of us nervous about how he would react (or OVER-react as the case may be).  We expected him to require several breaks, possibly vomit, at some point refuse to continue, and who knows what else. 

They arrived for the appointment at 9 AM and I got my first text saying that the technician had called him back.  Around 9:20 I asked for an update and was told all was quiet and Daddy remained in the waiting room.  At 9:45 I got a text saying simply, "He's DONE!" 

Oh no. 

I interpreted that to mean, he's had enough.  He's refusing.  He's going to come home with brackets hanging from his lips and wires sticking out of the sides of his mouth because he flat out refused to go on.  I tentatively texted back, "Done...meaning?..." and received "Finished. He is all smiles!"

And that was it.  Bubba came home wearing a new black T-shirt which read "Got Braces?" and he was elated.  Hopping around with joyous energy, grinning a new metallic grin from ear to ear.  Feeling quite grown up and recognizing that sometimes we really make a big deal out of a little deal.  We so unnecessarily freak ourselves out over what might happen, what we fear will happen, what could happen. 

It was a great lesson for all of us to remember to relax, prepare for but don't always focus on the worst.  And even better, it was a great moment of triumph for Bubs who conquered a fearful situation and came out feeling more confident and on his way to an even greater smile than he already has.

Christmas Aftermath and Awe

It was a crazy couple of days with us entertaining my parents for Christmas Eve through Christmas morning then having the in-laws over for Christmas dinner after my folks left!  Lots of chopping, stirring, setting up, serving, and cleaning but we managed it all without incident.

Bubba and Matilda had a fantastic Christmas morning, waking up around 7am and scurrying down the stairs for their first look at what Santa unloaded for them.  Both enjoyed receiving new video games for the PS3 as well as their Nintendo DSi's and some clothes, books, CDs, and other little tidbits of quick-to-be-forgotten entertainment. 

It struck me funny that with all of the new items received, Bubs chose to spend the first few hours of post-Christmas glee up in his room, sitting at his computer, with a software program my father brought over to show him.  It's some kind of space software, allowing him to observe the stars and visit distant galaxies, fascinating him with the beauty of nebulas and spiral intersecting galaxies and other such space oddities.

We are most certainly a family of computer nerds.  We all got new games and couldn't wait to load them up and get started.  Matilda received an Eye-Pet for the PS3: some sort of interactive pet that she can actually play with on the television screen.  Daddy got a first-person shooter (I can hear the sound of automatic machine gun fire coming from upstairs as I type) and I got a mystery game called Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer.  Creepy good fun. 

I've played this type of game since early Zork days, all the way through the King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry series.  As I was intent on solving a small portion of the mystery this afternoon, Bubba comes up next to me and observes for a bit, then says quite matter of factly, "I've never liked the way these games taste."  Just a small reminder that I get every now and then that he experiences some degree of synesthesia. 

What a lovely Christmas we all had, aside from the gifts, just being together.  Enjoying time with my parents and my in-laws, experiencing the childhood joy once again on my children's faces.  Remembering that God gave his Son as the greatest gift to the world and that He also gave me the gift of my son and daughter.  What an amazing God we serve.

His Way or the Highway

I had planned to take Bubba out today so he could pick out a couple of small gifts for his sister for Christmas.  He doesn't like to shop - really hates to run errands. So I knew this was going to be put off to the last minute.  He's much more interested in the computer game he's programming.  It's difficult to break him away from that because his focus is intense.  But being that it's the 23rd of December, I can't really let him procrastinate any longer.  Daddy's taking Matilda (nope, we didn't name her Matilda, but that's what I often call her at home) with him to get all the groceries needed for our Christmas meals, so that left me with the task of trying to unglue Bubs from his computer chair. 

Me: "Well, Bub, we better get going so we can pick out something for your sister." 
Him: "What?  No, I don't want to go anywhere." 
Me: "I can see that, but you don't have a gift for her yet and time is running out."
Him: "I want to make her something."

My initial thought - "Oh geez. This is not going to work." But then ... I remembered that Christmas isn't about buying something with a store-bought tag on it.  It's about giving.  And if Bubs wants to give something handmade to Matilda, then why should I frown upon it?  In fact, it's kind of awesome. 

Learning the Hard Way

When my husband and I had our son, we expected the "normal" life that most people expect.  We expected to have a well-adjusted, well-mannered, well-educated, well-rounded boy because we were sure we would be dynamite parents.  With my background in elementary education and lots of experience in child-care, I had no reason to think otherwise.  With my husband's fantastic sense of humor and clean-cut ways, he was sure to be a stellar dad.

When we hit Bubba's (I'll call him that because I tend to call him that at home, but no - we didn't really name him Bubba) six-month mark and still didn't feel like we had a handle at all on how to care for him, we were getting concerned.  He wasn't colicky or ill, he just seemed ... discontent.  It seemed like I wasn't doing things right for him.  We experienced problems getting him to sleep, keeping him asleep, being content during wakeful times, getting on a schedule, you name it - all the normal baby stuff wasn't turning out very normal for us.  He seemed to want to eat ALL THE TIME, more than a baby should even be able to hold.   He didn't seem to need sleep, though all my "What to Expect" wisdom told me that newborns would sleep a whole lot!  He didn't like being held.  He arched away from me. 

At one point, when he was about a year old, I thought he must be bored.  Maybe we never bought enough toys.  After all, how was I to know how much a baby needed to play with?  I went out and got him some new things - a toy vacuum, a Little Tikes slide, and a shopping cart.  "That outta do it!" Not quite.  We thought of anything and everything that could be causing him to be so challenging.  Maybe his feet are cold at night!  Maybe he's sensitive to sounds!  Maybe we're doing something wrong.  Maybe we're doing everything wrong.  That was really the nagging thought that ate away at my already fragile confidence in my mothering abilities.  I was doing everything wrong.  Maybe I skipped school the day they taught everyone else how to be a parent.  It was devastating to my self-esteem. 

But Bubba kept on being Bubba and we kept on parenting him the best we possibly could.  There were many tears and many challenges and many triumphs and rewards and there still are now that he just turned twelve years old.  My little boy is nearly a teen and we have survived! 

Over the past twelve years we have learned a ton about Asperger's, parenting, friendships, ourselves, and most of all...love. 

In this blog, I hope to share all of those things.  And I hope some of it helps someone else who has a child that made it clear we weren't going to be the stellar parents we thought we would, and that that's just fine, too.