Building Out Life

About 6 weeks ago, after sending an email to a professional, I noticed that I had written that I was “building out my calendar” and needed to verify a few appointment times.  I thought, ‘that’s a funny way to say that—building out my calendar.’  I pictured myself getting off the phone with a pencil behind my ear, but then taking a nail from between my teeth to drive it into a 2 x 4 to create a sturdy frame in which to house the people, ideas and supplies involved with my appointment.  It made me smile at the time, but then I didn’t think about it for weeks . . . until today.

We Can’t All Be Morning People

Lauren was in a fabulous mood upon getting out of bed today.  While helping her in the shower, she was smiling while looking at the T-shirt I was wearing, which is a favorite of mine. 

“Mama’s T-shirt is pretty silly, isn’t it?”  I said.  She giggled and I said, “What’s so funny?”

Lauren quickly tapped a point on my shirt and I knew where she had pointed.  Here’s a photo of the front of my T-shirt:

Lauren had tapped the 3^rd ducky and then giggled again. 

Okay, it wasn’t actually morning when Lauren got out of bed.  It was a few minutes after 12 Noon, as she hadn’t been interested in going to sleep until around 3 AM this morning.  Mom had slept in a bit, too.  It was definitely an inside joke.

Exchanges like this keep me firmly hanging onto the notion that Lauren can read.  Or was the “down ducky” enough of a joke to her?    (Or maybe the googly-eyed duck was the silly part . . .?)

Anyway, it was a lovely exchange that added cheer to my morning . . . er . . . afternoon. 

Written May 20, 2012

Weird Things We Did This Week—July 21, 2012

Cut a hole in a wall.   Okay, so I could try to sell the cutting a hole in our wall as a renovation design choice.  But let’s face it.  I would never have considered the hole in the wall as part of our remodel design had I not been problem-solving around autism. 

The Real Story of the Last 10 years: Part IV: Awesome Kids and a Stronger Marriage

Here is another, and the LAST, of some other valid perspectives on “the rest of the story” or “our family’s last 10 years with Lauren.”

We raised some awesome kids and grew a stronger marriage.

This is the last, and one of my favorite, perspectives of the last ten years.  I’ll start with the awesome kids.  Lauren is our awesome kid that my book and this blog has told much about  and will tell more about; so this post is really to mark some appreciation for our other awesome kid—the unsung typical sibling, Bryn.  Bryn happens to be a lover of virtually all things that life has to offer, a fine musician, a talented artist, a creative crafter, a respectful daughter, and a good friend.  But the pictures I’ll post here are representative of the thing that she is that has brought the most unexpected, happy tears to my eyes over the years—she’s a sincerely loving sister.

The Real Story of the last 10 years: Part III: Dear Friends and Loving Gestures

Here is another of many valid perspectives on “the rest of the story” or “our family’s last 10 years with Lauren.”

We were surrounded by dear friends and loving gestures.   That’s also a great description of what our life with autism looked like over the past ten years. 

There’s no way I could remember the many blessings in the order they occurred.  I don’t have files with dated invoices and names on top for each occurrence like I do to help me recount the medical history.  (Wow, that makes me reflect on what I obsessively save in a highly organized fashion!)  But even without such memory aids, these events are what I can retrieve easily in my brain, whereas, for the life of me, I can’t remember the name or office location of the last neurologist Lauren saw.

So here’s more of the REAL rest of the story with a perspective of gratitude, with a promise that the first mentioned isn’t necessarily “first,” and the last mentioned isn’t necessarily “last.”  Every memory and person included should be considered FIRST in that it/he/she are important to who Craig, Bryn, Lauren and I are today, and was worthy of mention in this blog post.