Good Old Days?

I'm trying to declutter the house.  We have accumulated an enormous amount of stuff & things.  My basement looks like an overstocked daycare center and it's time to do something about it.  My kids, being 9 and 12, probably don't need their exersaucer anymore.  Or their Duplos.  Or their changing table.

Okay, so I like to hold onto things.  I had become attached to their babyhood items and it's hard to let go because it's like letting go of their younger childhoods.  I'm not really good at goodbyes. 

But seriously, you should see my basement.  So I've been making myself go through things and thin out the toy graveyard in hopes of actually having usable space again.  Enter Craigslist.

I've used it before and always with good results.  I rather prefer eBay but to get rid of larger items that I wouldn't be able to ship, it's Craigslist.  So I recently put up an ad to sell the Little Tikes table and chair set that have been collecting dust for a couple years.  A woman answered the ad and came to pick up the set yesterday.  While perusing the overwhelming junk heap, she spotted an old toy mailbox and said she'd like that as well so she can "send" her little girl letters.  Very cute.  I told her, I used to do the same thing with my son.  I'd write him love letters and draw him pictures so that when he'd open his mailbox, he'd have some mail.  I still do have the letters.
"Oh that makes me want to cry," she said.  Another Mom who laments the growing-up of her children.

But then I remembered again, how, in the words of Billy Joel, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."  While it's so easy to remember the baby days so fondly, conjuring up vivid memories of snuggly babies and Johnson's-scented hair, little onesies, and the awkward gait of a toddler, it's also easy to forget how intensely stressful those days were.

My sweet Aspie boy kept us hopping 24-7, almost literally.  Requiring very little sleep, he rejected bedtimes and spent long hours awake and keeping us awake as well.  Then rising extremely early.  With his multitude of sensory aversions and preferences, things had to be "just so" which often had me exasperated and confused.  Going anywhere was a challenge, as we didn't know how he'd cope, react, or accept a new situation.  We had to be prepared for anything, which meant packing as if we were going to the moon, even for something as simple as a trip to the store or lunch at a restaurant.  Throw in the extremes of emotion, the demanding demeanor, and the massive meltdowns, and you've got a day-in-the-life of Bub, circa 1998-2008ish.

Don't get me wrong, I adore my boy.  It was just difficult.  We did have plenty of loving, peaceful, and dare I say "normal" times as well.  They were just kind of rare.  It was an intense time.  He required a lot and there were times when I wasn't sure I had anything left to give.  There were times when I thought, "He'd be better off with a different mother.  I can't do this."

But the little toys and the tiny clothes in my basement don't come with all those memories, they just evoke "baby."  And baby is sooo sweet. 

Guess what's even sweeter...
Happy boy.  Emotionally stable boy.  12 year old with a smile on his face and the ability to sleep well every night, get his homework done with no help, deal with his sensory issues in a rational manner.  A boy who has learned to share enjoyment, give affection, compliment others, establish friendships.

The good old baby days are gone, but today is even better.  I can only imagine how great his future is going to be!

Rant for the Day

I don't like to complain but sometimes you just gotta.  Maybe it's good for the soul.  A type of catharsis.

Here's my complaint topic for the day. Or moment.  "Kids' museums."

If you're going to be a museum for kids and you're charging people their hard-earned money to take their children there, keep up with the maintenance for Pete's sake so that things are actually in proper working order when kids go there.  Is that too much to ask?

Yesterday, I accompanied my daughter and her class to a trip to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  While it's not a "children's" museum per se, it definitely caters to the younger population and giant throngs of school children on field trips.  It's a very cool place, don't get me wrong - but it's frustrating and disappointing when my little group of 9-year-old girls are pulling each other along, giggling and squealing about the next thing they want to try, only to find that despite pushing all the buttons, nothing happens.

Cases in point:

There's a little "show" area where you go inside a curtain and are supposed to see something, apparently.  They came out the other side befuddled and saying "nothing's happening in there."  One of the other chaperones went through as as well and said, "I have no idea."

There's a hands-on activity that's a like a scale and the object of it is to go down a list of lifestyle things that could lead to heart attack and if you do them or have them, you put a black block on one side of the scale and if you do not, you put a white block on the other side and when you're done with the list, you see how much you are at risk.  My daughter was doing the activity (one black block for family history of heart disease) and the rest white blocks (thank you, Lord), but alas, there were not enough white blocks to complete the list.  What up?

"Make a paper airplane or use one from the table" - (in an activity that shoots your paper airplane across the room for you.  There were none on the table.

Being a softball family, we were psyched to see the sports area where they had a pitching mound that would clock your throw.  However the baseball they provided was ripped and the "softball" was more like an oversized tennis ball that a dog had chewed.   Come on, museum people!  That's our sport!  (I still managed to throw a 51 MPH pitch with the flappy baseball and sweet Matilda (or J-bomb, or Moopy Girl, or whatever you want to call her) threw a 33 MPH windmill pitch with the flying fuzz that was the softball.

This museum is very cool, seriously - these were just a few little bumps in the road but we had a great time. It just reminded me so much of Port Discovery at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, where we've taken the kids a couple times.  This *is* a children's museum, 100%.  There were so many broken and missing items in this place, I was thoroughly disgusted at how much we paid to get in vs. the quality of the displays, from missing decorations (there were supposed to be alligators on the floor, which made it fun to try to get across the "river" but some alligators were missing and in their place were just splotches of paint - not quite as fun) to duct taped padding on the climbing structure, to dirty handles and stuff that looked like it hadn't been cleaned or replaced since 1950.  Again, a very cool place but when they charge you that much to enter, it should be in excellent, if not perfect, working order.

Okay, so that's my beef.  Now, on to more important things, like getting J-bird off to school.

Adventure on the High Seas

Well, we did it.  We survived another family vacation!  I'm pleased to say that as the kids get older, vacations become so much easier.  I'm reminded of the early years when we had to lug along all kinds of equipment, such as strollers, sippy cups, Cheerios, Pull-Ups, wipes, portable cribs...

I do sometimes miss those baby-sweet years but it's easier to kiss them goodbye when I remind myself how much more difficult having an Asperger's child is in the early years.  Bub was a ... challenge... from birth to about age 10.  Now that he's 12, we have seen a huge smoothing-out of his emotions and his ability to adapt has grown profoundly.  We used to have to plan everything out very strategically - from attending family reunions to birthday parties to going out to lunch.  What will we do if he melts down?  What is our exit plan? What if there's nothing that he likes to eat there?  What if he gets too cold?  What will we do, oh Lord, what will we do!?

Bleh!  Those days were rough!

We definitely still have our challenges, but it's nothing like it was.  On this recent family vacation, I didn't have to pack Goldfish crackers in case he wouldn't eat anything (on a cruise!), I didn't worry that our whole trip would be ruined by his inflexibility or demands.  We just...went.  :)

Being that Bub is Bub and will always be Bub, he imposed his own routines on himself and they were fine (though a little exasperating) with us.  I mean, you know cruises are famous for amazing amounts and varieties of foods, right?  Well, this is what Bub ate for lunch.every.day.

But hey... at least he found something he likes.  You notice his DSi in the background?  I'd say that 75% of the time, he walked around with that in front of his face.  I resisted the urge to nag him to put it down - it was a piece of familiarity that he needed.  And when I did nag him about eating something other than white rice, he responded, "Why? I'm perfectly happy eating this."

And that's when I was reminded that just because *I* wouldn't be happy eating nothing but white rice, doesn't mean he's not happy with it.  Sometimes we have to stop projecting our emotions onto our kids.  They aren't us.  They're themselves.  If he wanted to eat something else, he would have.  He was perfectly happy.

More about this awesome vacation is to come!