A Smeddling Kiss

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I Have No Title For This Post
2008-06-03 15:52:00
I'm a little scattered this morning. Notices keep coming home from school, asking for my presence at end of year parties and Teacher Appreciation Lunches and on field trips. There are 10 days left of school, and 6 or 7 weeks until BlogHer and 25 days until we leave for Ireland, and all of those things require more concentration from me than I seem to possess today.___________________________Somethin g funny: Over the weekend, I bought Peanut a "spy watch" while we were out running errands. He won't take it off, and it has a surprising number of lights and functions for something that was a cheapo impulse purchase. This is occupying him exclusively, to the point where everything has become spy related. When I ask him what he wants for lunch, he says "A super secret sandwich!" When it's time to go to bed, it's time to "go sleep in my spy lab!" This morning, I heard him yell from the hall: "Mom! There are ants by the front door! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!" It's a ni...
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Say No To Pixie Rights!
2008-06-02 19:21:00
Blogger, what the hell? I recently made the decision to revise my template and keep my blog right here rather than shift the whole shebang over to another platform. There haven't been any problems with you for months, and you have been playing so nicely with others that I wanted to give you a cookie and a gold star for your good behavior.But now? Now you are trashing my living room and refusing to answer the phone and doing donuts in the high school parking lot, you butt.The day after a post of mine gets linked to here and talked about here, bringing lots of new (and also highly attractive and no doubt nice smelling) visitors to my little on-line corner... NOW you flake out all day? Blogger dudes and dudettes, I am begging you: get the comment verification kinks worked out. Get the servers back up. I don't care if the only thing that will work is magical internet pixie dust and you are fresh out. I say, "Time to catch more pixies!" Damn their little pixie rights, anyway! ...
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Waiting
2008-06-02 18:21:00
A shot of the kids waiting for their dad to get home from work when they were younger:
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Am I A NaBloPoMoron?
2008-06-01 20:52:00
The NaBloPoMo topic for June is "home." I'm not sure why I'm doing NaBloPoMo this month, other than it seemed like "home" would be an easy topic for me to post about every day.We are still getting glimpses of the sunset as it goes down in our backyard, but the trees are in budding glory and soon we will see very little of the sunset over the bog and the pond each night. This was taken from the deck over the last fall/winter: I'll miss it until the fall.

Field Day!
2008-05-30 15:45:00
Pepper looooooovves her some Field Day at school. She gets a little wound up about her performance the night before, concerned that the "Potato on the Spoon" race will trip her up. Last year, she medaled (ribboned?) in the "Old Clothes Race," so she has high hopes for a repeat performance.This morning, instead of her patented "Hibernating Bear" wake up routine, it was more of a "Jack-in-the-Box" wake up, complete with boing! action as she popped out of bed. It was a nice change. We had some trouble finding the right color shorts for her to wear, and finally she ended up wearing a pair of her brother's, and then... tragedy struck! She spilled a glass of water all over herself, soaking the shorts! Aaaaaahhhh! The drama! The tears! WHAT WILL SHE WEAR?!?!Good thing we have a clothes dryer. Then it was time to do hair, and here is how I know my girl is still a little girl. Remember this look? I jokingly suggested we repeat it, and she was totally up for it. I felt bad when ...

Woo Hoo!
2008-05-28 19:57:00
I found myself, an HTML idiot illiterate, in some serious trouble last night. I had begun tinkering with the template here, thinking I'd just "move some stuff around" and "change some colors." Uhm, yeah.BUT! As you can see, I figured it out after all! I ended up redoing the template from scratch, using this fabulous template generator: PsycHo generator. Started at 10:30 a.m., finished by 1:30 p.m.! Love it.The other reason I'm feeling ebullient today is good news about my dad. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer almost 2 years ago, underwent several courses of treatment, one of which worked tremendously. He recently had been having some trouble again, so he had some biopsies done last week. He ended up back in the hospital this weekend, after an infection left him with a 104 degree fever. He is back home now, feeling better, and the path report just came back - negative! No cancer in the urethra after all, no need to have a kidney yanked - yippee!I'm feeling pretty go...

Ho-Kay Do-Kay
2008-05-28 05:06:00
Updated to say that I've got my post entries up where I want 'em, but now all my "flair" in the sidebars is gone. I'll figure it out tomorrow, I hope. Thanks to all who have e-mailed, left comments, and Tweeted with me tonight!

Looks Just The Way I Wanted... NOT!
2008-05-27 23:50:00
Yargh! I don't know what the hell I'm doing here! I can't get the friggin' body text up where it should be. It's sagging, just like my corpulent corporeal body. I need support for my saggy text! It's the blog equivalent of my boobs hanging to my knees! (Which, FYI, mine don't... YET.)
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I Don't Know Why It Still Surprises Me.
2008-05-27 16:20:00
Ever since Peanut was a toddler, we've used the phrase "developmental issues" to explain to strangers and acquaintances his odd and/or problematic behavior. To family and friends, he's just Peanut being Peanut, but every now and again some of the clothing-chewing, mouth-stuffing, spinning, rocking, bouncing, flapping behavior would come back and we might find ourselves at a party explaining, for the ease of understanding, that he was "mildly autistic."As he has changed and developed, we started to understand much more clearly what his strengths and weaknesses were, and that meant we were pretty much expecting the PDD-NOS diagnosis we received this spring. Last week, we had an IEP meeting to discuss his transition from one school to another, from preschool to kindergarden. It went very, very well, and included some amazing news about a grant that will provide extra staffing. It looks like he and a couple other children on IEPs will be grouped together in a regular kindergarden ...

Old Friends Are The Best Friends
2008-05-25 22:58:00
My best friend and her family just headed home after a overnight visit. It may sound strange that we haven't seen each other for a good part of the year, nor talked or even e-mailed much, and yet I call her my best friend. She and her family live in Boston, and we are only an hour away, but our lives are such that we don't get a chance to see each other often. Family, work, finances, stress - they all get in the way of getting together. Yes, I realize what a damn shame that is.She and I met 20+ years ago, as volunteers in a program to teach school in Africa. I loved her dry humor and no-bullshit attitude, and of all the things I experienced during my time in Africa, her friendship is one of the things I have treasured ever since. Well, her friendship and her snarkiness. I appreciate that in a person.Our early 20's were spent in Boston, working, dating, hanging out. When Dr. V. and I married, she was a bridesmaid. When she told me, long-distance, about how she looked forw...
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Cancer Sucks. That Is All.
2008-05-23 16:22:00
This is not some well-though out blog post about touching "strength in adversity" cancer stories.I'm just feeling really pissy towards cancer these days. It makes my husband stressed out and consumes far too much of our family life. Some of my favorite bloggers are having some scary times because of it, scary for themselves and their families. My dad's bladder cancer has reoccurred. And living up here in MA, you can't find a newspaper that isn't full of poor Ted Kennedy's story.Just needed to vent. I think a trip to the grocery store to slam some shopping carts around in the corrals might be in order.
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I Need A Blog Designer, Stat!
2008-05-20 20:49:00
For the life of me, I can't get that cartoon down there to wrap around. I've been checking HTML and playing around on the Toonlet website, and I'm starting to think there is something very basic that I am missing... like someone to fix it for me.I'm been contemplating moving this blog off of Blog ger and over to a self-hosted domain, but I'm waffling. (Mmmmmm, waffles.) There are pros and cons, and right now I'm thinking maybe I just need a re-design but could stay on Blogger. Whatever. I don't really have the time or mental energy to deal with it today.Instead, all of my mental energy is going towards preparing for Peanut's IEP meeting tomorrow. I want to go into the meeting being very clear in my own head what we want for his kindergarden experience, rather than being told what the school district is willing to provide him with and accepting it passively. Don't misunderstand me - I do not in any way have an adversarial relationship with the school personnel. Every ...
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Rain, Rain, Go Away... NOT!
2008-05-18 23:22:00
Yes, I know. You think I am insane. All the dampness here in New England must have affected my brain! The rot and mildew is setting in!I have one word for you to explain my love for the rainy days we've been having: allergies. Last year at this time, my poor little Peanut was hit with a tidal wave of pollen. You may remember that it stayed cold for a long time last spring, and then BOOM - warmed up and stayed really warm and dry for a while?The allergist told us it was going to be a terrible year because everything that would normally bloom over a span of weeks or months bloomed at the same time instead. It hit so hard and so fast, we ended up in the E.R. a few days after the warm weather started, with Peanut wheezing and needing a nebulizer treatment to set him right.The rest of the summer was the same. My boy is allergic to a lot of thing, just a few of which are trees, weeds, and grass, and the weather pattern last year made it impossible to even play outside for parts o...
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Friday Randomness
2008-05-16 19:19:00
I took the re-infestation as a sign from the gods that I should go out and buy a Dyson. I've been researching which vacuum to buy for months now, and I finally decided that the Dyson Slim version would be the best for our weird-ass tri-level contemporary Cape layout. Not so heavy that I can't lug it up and down the stairs, but a decent size and type for us. I bought it using a 20% off coupon on-line at a big box store with in-store pick-up, but decided not to use it until the cleaners came. That way, I figured, I'll see just how much crap it sucks up after the floors have already been vacuumed - just like a commercial!It did not disappoint. It's only been a couple days, but I am still acting like a wigged-out June Cleaver, vacuuming madly while extolling the virtues of this wonder machine in a slightly grossed out tone of voice. Dr. V. may well leave me if I keep insisting he look at all the crap in the cannister before he's even taken off his coat when he gets home.____...
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If I Hate Tiny Bugs, Imagine How Happy I Am About THESE!
2008-05-14 18:57:00
Aaaaaaargh! The bugs! Bugs everywhere! I can't take it anymore!Whew! That felt good! I have been walking around in a permanent state of heebie-jeebie gooseflesh this spring, thanks to the LICE. I have had a little phobia about bugs for years, stemming from my time spent teaching in Africa, 2 decades ago. I would routinely wake up with some monster pencil-length stick insect or thumb-sized flying cockroach stuck to the mosquito netting inches from my face, and I came back from that experience with the lamest party trick ever: the ability to break out into goosebumps should the conversation turn to bugs. Not that I'm out with my pals nattering on about bugs all the time - that's what I have a blog for!I had finally released all the pillows and blankets from lice jail down in the basement, and had stopped compulsively checking Pepper's hair every 3.2 minutes, and had reached the point of being able to casually stroll down the aisles at the pharmacy and NOT rush straight for ...
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I Know How Lucky I Am.
2008-05-12 04:35:00
I had planned to pull together a post about all the stuff that happens to a woman when she starts a family in honor of Mother's Day. I had a few cute stories to relate and a couple poignant thoughts to share about the different ways women make their journeys to motherhood. I even planned to include an ode to my own mom, a stellar example of motherhood. But guess what? I never got the chance to write that particular post, because motherhood got in the way. Earlier in the day, Dr. V. took the kids for a walk around the bog that backs up to our neighborhood, and when they got back, I did a quick tick check on the kids. Anyone who has read my blog this spring may remember the Great Infestation of 2008, in which this author bravely battled the lice brigade that had taken up residence on her child's head. I'll give you one guess what I found in her hair! How does this happen? Friday, I braided her hair and saw nothing, and yet today - aaargh! Creepy crawlies on mah preshus...
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They Have No Idea How The Fire Started? Really?
2008-05-09 18:24:00
Go read this news article about a fire that burned down an apartment building in Houston. It's so sad, but thank goodness no one was killed. I hope the injured boy will recover quickly, because God knows his mother has a lot to deal with. Pay special attention to the end of the story, then come back here and tell me what you think. M'kay?
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Actual Unretouched Phone Calls
2008-05-07 13:11:00
Sister Two called last night. (We haven't spoken in over a month, due to my 1 week trip to Florida for vacation and her 2 week trip to India for work.)"Hi!" "Hi!""How's everything going? How was India?""It was good, very productive for work..."(She stops, greets her 10 year old who has just come in from a soccer game.)"Yeah, India was good... are you hungry? Why don't you go shower first and then I'll make you some dinner... so, yeah, India was good.""Did you get to do any more sightsee..."(Horrible, blood curdling screaming and crying - from her end, thank God.)"What? Honey, what's the matter?"(Her 7 year old is wailing incoherently at top volume...I hear something about a helmet...)"Oh, honey, I'll tell you what - it's okay for you to ride your bike in the driveway without a helmet. Just stay in the driveway, ok?"(More wailing, with her sotto voce explanation that she had put curlers in the kid's hair for school tomorrow as a special thing and now she couldn't get the ...
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I'm Feeling A Smidge Guilty. (Is A Smidge Bigger Than A Bit?)
2008-05-06 22:21:00
Dr. V. returns from his work conference tonight, and honestly? I could have done with one more night all to myself. I feel bad saying it, but I've hardly missed him at all. I'm really enjoying watching ONLY what I want to watch, eating ONLY what I want to eat, and going to bed surrounded by books and magazines and my laptop. Guess I better clear off that side of the bed, huh? I think I need a nest of my own somewhere in this house. The folding tables in the crammed full basement aren't doing it for me. I need somewhere warm, and cozy, and with lots of wall space to tack up stuff that inspires me. And with better lighting. I think we have to talk about finishing the basement this year rather than next, or at least a corner of it just for ME, because otherwise I'm gonna get crank-ay.Other things I feel guilty about are the quiche I ate too much of yesterday, the way Pepper and I have been grating on each other's nerves, the fact that I haven't spoken to my sister in alm...
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On My Own
2008-05-04 15:44:00
(Cross-posted at New England Mamas)___________________________________ The stars and planets aligned just right this weekend, leaving me alone in the house from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon. Let me repeat myself: glorious solitude is miiiiiiiiinnnneee! I don't know about other people, but I love being alone. I've always needed time away from others, as far back as I can remember from childhood. I'm the oldest, and my sisters and I are each about 20 months apart, so by the time I turned 4, there were 3 of us already. Some of my earliest memories involve time spent in secret hiding spaces, like sitting a closet or laying under a bed. It sounds odd, but the memories feel safe and comforting. As I've gotten older and become the mother of a child with sensory issues, I've come to recognize some of those same feelings in myself. Too much noise makes me jittery, strong smells make me gag, and I rely heavily on visual cues - bulletin boards, chalkboards, post-it notes...

Cry Babies
2008-05-02 16:05:00
Holy roly poly frijoles. I am so glad this week is over today. I know from past experience that the first week back to school after vacation is usually filled with messy emotional screaming meltdowns. Not just mine, either. (Ba dum chick!)The week was rolling merrily along until yesterday, when Pepper had apparently left the top off of her attitude all night and it curdled right up. A little attitude I can deal with, but this was stinking up the whole house. I ended up snapping and sending her to her room after the 3rd or 4th reprimand, where she proceeded to howl like a banshee and stomp hard enough to shake the ceiling.For a loooooooong time. Like, 30 or 40 minutes. I used to try to nip these infrequent freak-outs in the bud and go in and try to talk to her after 10 minutes or so, but experience has taught me that my presence just escalates her emotions. As long as she's just screaming and howling and stomping, I leave her be.The thing is, I remember feeling like that. I...
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The ASD That Dare Not Speak Its Name...
2008-04-30 19:57:00
(Let me just preface this vignette by saying I'm still astonished that I never made this eye/ears/brain connection before.)Over the past week or so, I've been talking to Pepper more about why her brother is different. It never came up much, because in the way of children everywhere, she just took it for granted that Peanut is just, well... Peanut. Lately, there has been a little more conflict between them, which I attribute to increasing maturity on both of their parts. Now that he is more mature and capable of understanding and responding to things more appropriately, she gets resentful when he isn't held to higher standards. I hear "It's not fair" more often from her these days, and so we have been talking about what kinds of things it is fair to expect from Peanut.I explained to her that he had A Special Condition, and she immediately understood and said, "Oh, like how he..." and "So that's why he..." and I felt all back-patty about how well I was communicating with her....
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Funny Boy
2008-04-29 16:44:00
Peanut has been amusing as hell lately. Some of the stuff he's been doing has been intentional, as he tries to make us laugh whenever possible. Most of it, however, is just him being himself. For example, he still will occasionally yell for an adult to check his wiping job after going to the bathroom. Yesterday, I heard a bellow from upstairs, and when I walked in, the kid was sitting there like a seasoned pro, playing his sister's Nintendo DS while perched on the toilet. Today? I walked in and found him sitting there reading a comic book. Sniff! MAH BABY'S GROWIN' UP TOO DURN FAST!Here is a short video we made this morning. He's psuedo-worried that there still might be a few lice hanging around the house: My favorite thing, though, is something I saw him do at the theme parks. I've been trying to keep my enjoyment of this odd little repetitive behavior very low key, because you know how it is - the second they realize you think something they are doing is funny, t...
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I Guess It Worked.
2008-04-28 14:50:00
For the past few years, vacationing as a family was something that took effort, not something terribly relaxing. Between all the packing and the travel stress and the adjusting to everything being different and the daily upsets, being on vacation was like every other day of my life, only warmer. This vacation was different, and it really highlighted all of the ways things have changed as the kids have gotten older.The biggest change for me was losing the constant stress of having to keep an eye on Peanut every single minute. No longer do I have to double check the locks on the doors to keep him inside, or grab his hand and physically keep him at my side, or carry him. He doesn't run away from us anymore, and he listens and responds to verbal instructions. I've talked about this before, but it honestly is such a weight off my shoulders (and arms, and hips) to have lost that sense of constant vigilance, along with the need to physically restrain him. As a result, I came back f...
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I'm So Done With Disney... For Now.
2008-04-28 01:18:00
(Cross posted at New England Mamas)___________________________________ _We went to Florida last week, to spend some time with my parents during school vacation. The time my kids spend with their grandparents is precious for everyone, since we only see them a few times each year. The days were filled with... well, nothing, actually. It was great, relaxing and fun and what a vacation should be.Then Sunday came along, and it was time to go to Orlando. The last few times we've vacationed in Florida, we have spent most of the time with my parents and no more than a day or two in Orlando before heading home. The Wonderful World of Disney is overwhelming, and I'm not one of those people who adore everything Mickey. This year, my husband decided to combine our vacation with the opportunity to complete some of his CME (continuing medical education) credits by signing up for a course held at one of the Disney area hotels. The course only ran during the mornings, so we figured that I'd...

I Feel Random, Oh So Random! (156/365)
2007-12-10 17:08:00
I'm "liveblogging" in front of the television this morning, where both Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray are losing their voices. I didn't realize that Dr. Phil's "Dr. Phil House," where dysfunctional people go to stay and hash out their various issues, has taken on the new name of the "House of Judgement." Oh, right - this is why I watch so little television. "It's all dreck," I say, shaking my tiny, impotent fists.(I'm not sure where that came from. I apologize to any of my tiny and/or impotent readers.)_________________________We had a nice weekend here at Chez Velma. We put up the tree and decorated it on Saturday, and then ditched the kids and went out to dinner and a Christmas party. For once, we were not the last couple there, mostly because Dr. V. had a big day to get ready for on Sunday. POP QUIZ! If the football game begins at 4:15 and the drive to the stadium is approximately an hour, what time should you leave to maximize pointless tailgating time? If you guesse...
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Check Out Our New England Mamas Blog! (155/365)
2007-12-07 15:28:00
We've been busy over at the New England Mamas Blog ! One of my favorite bloggers, Mrs. Chicky, had this great idea for a regional group blog a while back, and I jumped at the chance to be one of the contributors. We have many mamas from all over New England , and we are actually a pretty diverse bunch. I've been enjoying getting to know the other Mamas, and I hope if you are reading this, you'll give the New England Mamas a look as well.
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Sleeping for Dummies (154/365)
2007-12-06 05:30:00
I need to reacquaint myself with some of the "helping your child get to sleep" information I pored over when Pepper was younger. She doesn't need much sleep to begin with, and has always been very easily awakened. I could never transfer her from her car seat to her crib, and when she got older, I used to frantically try to wake her if she slept in the car, since she would push back her evening sleep for whatever amount she slept in the afternoon. When we first moved to Cape Cod, I would put her in the car, drive away from the house for 30 minutes exploring, then drive 30 minutes back home and that would be her nap time. At 18 months she gave up napping regularly, and at her daycare, they would just sit her in the corner with some puzzles while the other kids slept.She eventually got a fairly consistent sleep routine going, but is lately having a hard time falling asleep. I suspect that there are some physical changes going on, since she is eating like a horse and has grown almost ...
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Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! (153/365)
2007-12-02 23:03:00
Originally posted at New England Mamas____________________________________ ___Holy freakin' ice cubes, Batman! Who turned off the furnace? What happened to my mild fall weather? And most importantly, where the heck are my gloves?This will be our third winter in our house, and we are starting to get a routine for the winterizing tasks. The humidifier attached to the furnace gets switched on and the air vents in the family room get closed so that more hot air flows into the kids' bedrooms. The poor neglected grill finally gets hauled down from the upper-story deck to the basement, usually with some cursing and a banged up finger or two.We are also starting the holiday activities, and this is really the first year that we actually have traditions to follow from last year. Up until last year, we didn't even bother to put up a tree until the last minute due to my son's astounding toddler ability to destroy any object in 3 minutes or less, which has thankfully abated with time. ...

Deep Breath... uuuuuuuuhhhhhh.... hhhuuuummmmm (152/365)
2007-11-29 05:43:00
OK, I'm over my snit about not making it through NaBloPoMo. If I hadn't blown it on Monday, I would have blown it for sure yesterday, which will forever be known as The Night Pepper Forgot How To Sleep. She has always been a rather awake kid, stopping her regular nap at 18 months old, never sleeping for more than about 9 hours straight like... ever. Which, if you are familiar with children's sleeping habits, is like the bare minimum they can sleep and remain sane - you AND them. I have a friend, who I first met soon after we moved to Cape Cod. At the time we met, we each had a single child, and as we got to know each other, I was amazed at how much she seemed able to accomplish compared to my meager starts and fits at organization. It got to the point where I seriously doubted my own abilities as a mom and competent person, because in the time it took me to do and fold a couple loads of laundry, she would have refinished furniture and started a business. It took me a couple month...
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