OK, I'll Play Along... An Interesting Meme

Being fairly new to non-sports blogging, I find myself drawn to the idea of passing around questions. I read many blogs that are written by people who lead very different lives than I do; it is all part of the master plan to live outside autism! It is interesting to note that there are some commonalities among us despite our differences.
Recently I found myself in the midst of a particularly bad day. Nothing terrible had happened, I was just cranky and tired. So to push myself through the rest of the day without seriously pissing anybody off with my attitude (such as hubby) I began to think about the little things that make me happy. Nothing expensive or difficult to obtain, just events/moments that put a smile on our face. So here is my meme; those I have tagged will appear at the end:

10 Little Things That Make You Happy

10. A Venti Awake tea from Starbucks

9. Watching the Richmondtown ducks cross the road, and stopping traffic in the process

8. An evening out with my favorite MACs (mothers of autistic children)

7. My daughter's excitement over a great test grade

6. A Mets win

5. My son's giggle

4. An hour-long phone conversation with an old friend

3. An unexpected babysitting offer

2. My husband's ability to make me laugh

1. Watching my kids play together

So, to JGIWC, Soup to Nuts, Sunshine in the City, Tara's Blog and Ms. Private, tag! (If you've already done something similar, my apologies...but do it anyway! :)

Love,
Jo

New York, New York...

It finally happened! Our long-awaited anniversary getaway to Manhattan. Not such a big deal, when you consider that we live fifteen miles away from Times Square, but it may as well be a different world. I'm shocked that we never thought of doing this before, as it keeps us in close proximity to the kids and eases the nagging worry we suffer from whenever we go away without them. Plus we get to play the role of Superior Native to all those tourists who stand in the middle of Broadway and gawk at all the big buildings and bright lights (that's one reason why we love Disney so much; everyone's a tourist). A quick summary of the weekend:


1. My husband and I, being Superior Natives of NYC, are genetically incapable of strolling. The sterotypical city dweller, who has Important Places to go and must get there NOW; well, that's us. Even while walking the 8th Ave street fair, with no time frame or particular place to be, we walked quickly. Next time, we'll do our best to stop and smell the roses.

2. After more than 20 years in law enforcement, my husband has lost none of his cop-senses. As I leaned forward to examine a table full of David Yurman knock-off jewelery (why yes, I did buy a necklace!) my pocketbook gaped open and the lovely lady behind me was verrry interested in what was inside. My quick-thinking man elbowed her aside and pressed himself next to me and my inviting bag. He told me later he briefly thought of allowing her to reach in, then "taking her down" but the thought of all the ensuing bureaucratic drama that accompanies an arrest changed his mind. And yes, I did get scolded for not closing my bag properly.

3. Being a fantasy geek, I thoroughly enjoyed Radio City's screening of The Lord of the Rings (1st movie) accompanied by a full, live orchestra, vocalists and all. Our friends were also suitably impressed, and agreed that Tolkein's saga is the greatest story ever written (it may be that the bottles of wine we had consumed helped that opinion along)

4. After 21 years of marriage, my husband can still make me laugh so hard I am gasping. Can you buy me a scarf, baby?

So happy anniversary, love. I am looking forward to the next 21 years!

Good News, Bad News

Having neglected to actually write down any of the 10 or so blog posts that are floating in my head (you actually have to sit in front of a keyboard and make your fingers move, did you know?) I thought this would be a fun way to summarize our lives, of late. Maybe this little exercise will allow me to get my head on straight, with all the confusion in our household of late. So here goes!

Good News: The Jets and their new pretty-boy quarterback won their first game in impressive fashion.

Bad News: The Mets are now officially out of contention (WAAAH!!!)


Good News: The Mr and I will be playing tourists in our own city for our anniversary, as we stay in Manhattan for two nights while the in-laws watch the kids!

Bad News: The hotel we're staying at is...a Holiday Inn Express (but honey, I have points! We're staying for free!)


Good News: During said weekend, we will attend a Broadway musical (Rock of Ages), lunch at Alice's Tea Cup, and enjoy dinner at BLT Prime (thanks to Jersey Girl for the recommendation).

Bad News: The above will happen on "my" day, Saturday. "His" day, Sunday, we will spend hopping from one sports bar to another, watching football (just kidding, honey, you know I'm happy to do it)


Good News: School has officially begun! The kids are finally back to having structured, productive days after a rather lazy summer.

Bad News: School has officially begun. This means conflicting bus schedules, projects, homework, parent association meetings, class dues, tuition payments, fundraisers, etc.......


Good News: My mother is planning a major party to celebrate five years of remission from stage three non-hodgkin's lymphoma. For those of you with any knowledge of cancer, you know the five-year remission mark is a big one, as it means the odds of being forever "cured" increase dramatically.

Bad News: As part of the upcoming celebration, her appendix decided to become inflamed and infected, sending her to the hospital in the middle of the night for emergency surgery. Well, as my brother so sensitively put it, it's one less organ we have to worry about. She is home and recovering well.

So that's us, in a nutshell. Now off to work, errands, laundry, meetings...

Been such a long time...

What a poor excuse for a blog writer I am. It seems that to consider yourself one, you have to actually write your blog. Sigh! So, since I am apparently too busy to do much of this lately, I will sum up our lives in a few short sentences.

*Sob* We are grieving for the Mets.

Husband is busy wrapping up softball season.

Daughter is busy socializing, not making her way through her summer reading list like she should be.

Son is fighting off swimmer's ear, fungus infections, and GI issues. As usual, as long as he is not actively in pain, he is his normal sweet, cuddly self.

I am finding my way in my new/old career as a clinical social worker. That means psychotherapy, for those of you who have often wondered what social workers did. I know I have often wondered this myself, and I have been in the field nearly 20 years (ha). It's strange, feeling unsettled and unsure of yourself at this age, when one should be confident and competent. Thank heavens I have good, patient supervisors, who are available to guide me through the "OMG, I don't know what I'm doing!" moments. And not laugh too hard when I screw up in particularly funny ways.

So that's us, of late, in a nutshell.

Be back soon! (or later)

And Time Goes By...

Here in the Northeast, we had the worst spring ever recorded (in my opinion). Cold, wet weather that lasted well into June, which is usually pool time around here. Now that it's July 1st, I am finally working to get our pool into shape, as our poor son is having withdrawals. He grabs his bathing suit, sunscreen, and a towel and heads for the backyard, and I have the horrible task of informing him the pool is "broken". Poor kid. The water offers him so much by way of sensory imput, the kind he not only tolerates, but loves. Thank God (once again) for his teacher, who is happy to take him to her house for an afternoon of swimming.

So as I start a new job, work on the backyard, juggle my daughter's increasingly demanding social schedule (she is, after all, now 14 and prefers the company of friends to that of dear old Mom) and manage our boys' always busy therapy-teaching schedule, I find myself wondering: Will Jenny McCarthy just shut up already?

I know, why am I obsessing about her when our lives are so busy? And why am I bringing it up here, when the topic is already exhaustively covered by about a million other media outlets? I can't help it. My opinion is just that, mine and mine alone, and I don't expect anyone else to agree/disagree or even care. I just need to vent about it. I think she's wrong and an idiot, to boot. I could go into a pile of reasons for my feeling, but won't - again, these reasons are discussed, far better than I can discuss them, elsewhere. I am just sick of the media adoration of a woman who happens to look good and has proclaimed herself to be an expert on autism, because she happens to be a parent of an autistic child.

So enough of that. I will now resume my regularly scheduled life of caring for my children, my husband, my clients and my addicted-to-losing NY Mets. Not to mention that damn pool.

Happy Father's Day!

So I'm writing my Examiner page the other day, about Father's Day, and I realize there is so much more I want to say about the subject of being a father to a special needs kid, but can't, in that forum. Even further, I realize that what I want to say is going to be sappy and sentimental, like so much written about Father's Day. And as much as I tend to get impatient with sap and sentiment, this time I don't care. He deserves it.

We know how hard it is to parent a special needs kid, and that having a child with autism comes with its own unique brand of difficulty, in that emotion and affection can be practically non-existent. Imagine your child never telling you he loves you. Excruciating. A huge part of being a parent is that feeling of being loved and needed, of having someone in your life who thinks the sun rises and sets on you. That's a pretty powerful emotion, and one of the reasons the human race is not extinct (ask any mother if they'd go through pregnancy and childbirth just for the heck of it, and you'll have your answer on that!)

I have met so many fathers of autistic children, both as a parent and as a professional. Some were wonderful, supportive men, who loved their children unconditionally. Some were struggling with the issues, and were not always present or supportive. Still others are completely absent, as these men simply cannot handle the job. Those that we know who have stuck around, who have been good fathers who simply love their families, no matter what, are to be treasured, as we all know the divorce rate among parents of special needs kids is much higher than for the rest of the population.

As for my own husband, he is, quite simply, the best father I have ever known. Of course I'm biased! But any man who says to his sobbing, grieving wife when she receives that dreaded phone call (you know the one - "we think your son has autism"), "I don't care what his diagnosis is. He's my son, and I love him just the way he is" is a man who is beyond compare. This big, tough guy, who polices NYC for a living and can scare anyone with a glare, treats his son like he was a precious treasure. The son who will never play centerfield for the Mets (he bought the baby a tiny baseball mitt when he was 5 days old), who will never beg to be taken to a ballgame, who will never be all the things my huband envisioned when he learned we were having a boy, it doesn't matter. This boy is his son, and that is all he needs to know to love him more than he loves life itself.

So from the three of us to you, sweetheart. You are the best, and we love you. Thank God for you.

P.S. Your daughter - the one who is growing up way too fast? She can't wait for her graduation trip to Disney - the one you alone are taking her on. Because she wants to spend time with her beloved father too!

Love you!!!

"You Should've Been a Teacher..."

March 19, 2010 - found this post I had started last summer - better late than never!

Yes, thanks, Mom. Perhaps I should have stuck with my original plan of becoming an elementary school teacher. Heaven knows, teachers are essential, committed members of our child-rearing system. A good teacher is worth his/her weight in gold, and they don't receive our thanks and appreciation often enough.


So maybe I made a mistake. As I fight a war with my former agency (really, is it so hard to pay someone for the work they have done for you?) and question whether I am sick of being at the bottom of the human-services totem pole (master's degree from a prestigious university does not automatically equal a stellar career, did you know?) I began to think back to some of my highlights, and lowlights, of a career spent in casework - out in the field, in the trenches, as it were. Some of the memories were...funny. So funny I sat laughing to myself for a good fifteen minutes before I remembered I was supposed to be wallowing in self-pity and regret for a poor life choice.


So I'll share a moment here, in the hopes of clearing my mind and enabling me to make a decision about how I'm going to spend the next twenty years of my employed life:


Working in Brooklyn for an HMO (shutter!) I went to visit a new patient. The 82 year-old had recently lost his wife, and I anticipated a session filled with grief work, while I attempted to get the paperwork done. Well, this grieving widower had other ideas. He leaned over not ten minutes into the visit, put his hand on my knee (I was wearing a shortish skirt, natch) and told me he was needing a wife. Would I be interested? He could offer me money.

Thank heavens I had worn my wedding rings that day (I often left them at home, as wearing diamonds while visiting extremely poor neighborhoods is generally not a good idea) and was able to let him down gently, while removing his hand from my upper thigh, where it had traveled.

So, this is my career in a nutshell. Getting hit on by 82 year-old men. How could I give this up?

Till next time!

Jo

A Day in the Life

...of a teenager!

Yesterday was our daughter's 8th grade senior prom. Yes, I know, they didn't have 8th grade proms back in my day, either. Anyway, with her mother suffering from a horrible case of the flu (no, not the swine flu) and an upper respiratory infection, my poor girl did not get the attention the day deserved. We brought her to the salon for an updo, which, after $75 and an hour and a half, she decided she did not like. Nor did she like the mani-pedi. The phone conversation went something like this:

Daughter: momwhenareyoucominghomeidon'tlikemyhair
OMGihavetogetdressedOMGJaneandNickaren'tspeaking
there'sgonnabedramatonite!

Me: What?

Daughter: Aren'tyoulistening?Isaid...

Me: Wait! Please stop. I'm at the doctor, I'll be home as soon as I can.

Daughter: Hurry! Ineedhelp!OMG!

Me (to the doctor): Do you have a pill for teenageritis?

MD: Hahaha! I wish, I'd be rich.

The prom, however, went off without a hitch, with a minimum of drama, wardrobe malfunctions and arguments. My daughter and her friends (most of which she's known since kindergarden) looked so grown up and excited. Their parents and I only cried a little bit. Really, just a little.

This is our Blog.

What a bizarre title for a blog. I simply could not come up with anything else that accurately described our life, which is not really bizarre, just unusual. Occasionally stressful (well, more than occasionally), sometimes funny, but always filled with love.

This is the story of a family. A typical New York family-of-four, with a civil servant dad, a social worker mom, a boy and a girl. Two cars, a mortgage, grandparents, tuition payments and friends (but no dog). The thing that makes us unusual (although, sadly, it is not so unusual anymore) is that our son has autism. No pity, please. We are among hundreds of families here in our little borough (most of which we know at this point) and hundreds of thousands nationwide. I don't know that a single one of these families look for pity. What they, and we, want more than anything is understanding and acceptance. When we don't get this from the general public, we find it amongst ourselves.

So enough with the speech. The sub-heading in the title is "redefining normal". This is what we have been working towards these past six years since Chris was diagnosed. You may have heard the term. It is offered as advice by friends, family, therapists (I have given it often enough in my work) to anyone who has gone through a major life change. Your "normal" life is not that any longer; you must adjust your thinking as to what normal is. The birth of a baby, marriage, new job, the loss of a spouse or parent. In our journey towards doing this, we have made a conscious effort to continue enjoying the things we have always loved (such as following the Mets) and find new things to love (such as all things Disney). We have refused to stop living; we are changing the way we live. It's that simple (but it's really not!)

So here's hoping that we can find new and interesting ways to live with autism joyfully, by sharing our story with others. And here's hoping that someone will find some hope themselves by seeing that it is possible to live a full, happy life while living with autism. I will not dwell on autism much here, I will occasionally rant about our perennial heartbreakers (the Mets), I will share funny stories about us, our world and all that's in it, and I will discuss our constant longing to be in Disneyworld when we're not.

So please enjoy. Feel free to comment with arguments, agreements and general observations.

See you soon!

Jo