I Like Dawes,
well, this song of theirs, anyway. It's the only one I've heard. I haven't even thought about the lyrics, really, I just love singing along on the chorus. It reminds me of a seventies band, somehow.



"When My Time Comes" by Dawes. Happy Thursday, y'all!

Whew
Well, I'm sorry to be absent here for awhile. I've decided it's not the first week of school that'll get you -- the second one will do you in. Not really. It is just that all of the open houses and meetings and stuff happen in the second week of school in the evening. So, for the homebody like me, well, that sort of throws a wrench in my happy little routine. Seriously, I had something to do for 4 out of 6 days in the evening. Of course, I don't know what my problem is, if we're here next year my boys will be in four schools instead of three. So this was a light year. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, this little buster here shown in one of the only moments of shyness in his LIFE (I knew I had to record it for all posterity),


Side note -- Oh, how I love these buster's eyes. They're framed so well by the lunchbox handle...

has kept things a little interesting by having a fever one night followed by energetically engineering (before 6 am) the next day a morning of cookie baking by clearing the table, putting dirty dishes in with the clean in the dishwasher and then turning the whole thing on, wiping off the table with a hand towel that contained a gallon of water at minimum and locating and placing the special cookie plate by climbing up to get it. Oh, yes, he was doing this with our house guest ensconced on the sofa that was a few feet away. The guest was no longer sleeping because who could through that, really? Then on Saturday he was nearly responsible for a hazmat team being needed at the pool bathroom. Now that was thrilling.

School is good, though. All the boys seem to be doing from okay all the way to excellent in school -- and I think that most of y'all would know without me saying so who is hitting it out of the park and who is moseying along and doing his best when he thinks about it.

One more thing, on the way to school this morning my youngest covered the topics on his mind which included: the Christmas tree skirt and his thoughts concerning it, the all of the attributes of the bird that he had made up called a Crystal Valcon, and his super hero name.

So, I asked him what his super hero name was......

....wait for it......

he's the Electric Waistband.

The things he comes up with.

Nice Songs
make Mondays so much better. This band makes me think of the Beach Boys. It's a nice little song to start your day.



Have a good day, y'all.

It's Over, Hooray!

I'm talking about the first week of school. A week that I've whined about and wrung my hands over and generally dreaded like the plague only perhaps a little less than the actual plague has in fact, come and gone.

I'm glad it's over.

All of the worrying over my square pegs came to nothing. I always forget that, as with many square pegs, that they are sort of endearing little folks and that they are in really great schools with some of the nicest people on this earth. Truly.

This won't keep me from coming up with a First Day of School Cocktail. I told my friend, Denise, that someone should come up with one. She agreed with me that, yes, the need is there.

Maybe we should have a naming contest for this new drink. I vote that we call it A+. Now all I have to do is come up with the concoction. Of course, I have a while...thank goodness the first week of school comes but once a year.

Hope that y'all are having a good weekend.

Friday Tunes

Okay, I'm willing to bet that not everyone who reads my blog with dig the Black Keys. Admittedly, they do sort of fall outside of what I ususally go for, music wise. But, I do love R&B, I like some Blues....I just love how they record the instruments. Dan Auerbach's voice is great. This is bluesy rock with a very deep vibe. Give it a listen, y'all.



Also, I must point out another music site that I really enjoy, the NPR Concert blog. You can listen to whole concerts on here. Awesome. Guess who is going to listen to the Mumford and Sons set that they recorded at Bonnaroo this year while she does her ironing today? That's right.

Happy Friday, y'all!

Descriptive Language

I don't know what it is, but my oldest son had always had a way with words. For instance, when he was little he didn't call sunset by its name. He called that time of the day the time "when the dark comes down". Look at it sometime -- the dark does come down at sunset. My friend Lori said that her Aunt Riesa says it that way too....I think this is just more evidence that folks with autism just see the world differently. Things I've supposedly seen my whole life I SEE better after J describes them to me.

This trait of his is more desirable when he's describing something beautiful, of course, but everything in the world isn't lovely, so we get his take on that stuff too, sometimes.

J and I walk the two youngest boys to school every morning. Generally, we like the walk. What he doesn't like about it right now is that there is a bad odor somewhere along our route. Now, we're just going to have to take it from J that the odor is there because my nose hasn't been working at all, lately. (Thanks allergies...Hey, August in Missouri....yet another reason why we're on the outs, you and me.) So, as we were walking and he was complaining about the smell I told him to breathe through his mouth and that this would help. So he did that for a while but forgot eventually and began breathing through his nose again. Then he would complain and then I would remind him of the solution that we had found. It was a cycle repeated several times. We were nearing the school when he said, "Ah! That smell again. It's terrible. I think that it just MADE MY EYEBALLS THROW UP!" I said, "Do you mean that the smell is so bad that it is making your eyes water?" He said yes, that was what he meant.

But I was stuck with the previous descriptively stunning remark.

He knows how to put things, that one.

The Last First Day

Here we have #2 son, N, ready to leave for his first day of school. This boy is all business. He was ready to go, chomping at the bit, actually. So I'm glad that his school year has started. He's in 7th grade this year and it's his first year of being in Upper School. He likes learning, and that's a good thing, because the gray matter is going to have quite a workout this year, if his book list is any indication.



School, yea!

First Day of School, Part 2
So, my oldest son, J, is doing dual enrollment again this year. Basically, that means that he is taking an elective or two at the local junior high and also has a block of time in the resource room with the Special School District speech pathologist and other teachers. Then he comes home and does what he calls THOSE BLASTED ACADEMICS with me. What that means, for us, is that he will go to school each day, but on two of the weekdays he will stay for a longer period of time.

He is at that stage (please tell me that it is in fact a stage and does have an endpoint) where he eats, EVERYTHING. So, I actually got a little nervous today when noon rolled around. He was at school and still had an hour before it would be time to go get him. Lunch would be served when he got home.

So, I went to get him. He ambled in the office to sign out and I asked him how his morning was. He said that it had been fine. Then I said, "Well, it's late J, did you eat your classmates?" He said, "No." Then he looked up from the sign-out sheet with a half smile and said, "That was a joke, wasn't it, Mom?"

Yes, it was a joke, J. You're a fine young man, my son.

First Day of School

So, here we have C and E on their first day of school. They were up at the crack of dawn as usual. I actually began my day by hearing E whisper urgently in my ear, "Mom, I'm so excited that I think that I might EXPLODE!"



He also inquired about whether there might be a science lab today. Not in first grade, son of mine.



I'm hoping that they'll have a great first day.

Lists

I am someone who is really helped by having lists composed either in my head or on a piece of paper. Usually I delight in marking something off of my list. It is so nice to savor that moment of "finished". The exception to this, of course, is when I mark a person off my list. That is something I never enjoy.

Let me explain.

Every night when we put our boys to bed we pray as a family. Nothing complicated -- just prayer for the normal things, for friends, for family. So, for many years, our prayers included Ma Beaut (my spunky maternal grandmother), Miss Liz (my Scottish-born, heaven-sent neighbor), Mr. Jim (our delightful blind friend from church), Mema (my serene paternal grandmother), and Uncle Buddy (my beloved uncle who had cerebral palsy, Mema's firstborn son who I mention here.) One by one, over the last several years, these precious people have ceased to be on our prayer list when they passed away from this earth and needed our prayers no longer. My Uncle Buddy was the last to be dropped from my list. He died a few weeks ago.

It is hard for me to believe that we will no longer pull off of I-65 in order to visit Buddy and my Mema. Going to see them was always an interesting experience. In the last several years my grandmother's mind was going and she was also hard of hearing. She didn't know who we were but that didn't keep her from being polite and welcoming. Buddy was sharp as a tack and had excellent hearing but we couldn't understand his speech. So, we basically sat there pleasantly talking about the weather while my grandmother would mentally count my children and periodically say, "You've got four boys?" Buddy would smile at that, all the while taking in the chaos that the boys made running around and catching lizards on the porch. You know, those visits were never convenient. We drove out of our way so that we could see them. It was always worth the trouble.

I have so many memories of Uncle Buddy. He always lived with Mema and Granddaddy, and so was always there when my family would come for a visit. He was confined to a wheelchair for the last couple of decades of his life, at least, but I remember him walking when I was a child. His walk was made up of staggering steps taken from one piece of furniture to the next. Just seeing him ambulate made one wonder if the force of gravity pulled harder on him than it did on other people. It always scared me a little to see him walk. I wasn't afraid for myself or for him, really. I knew that he had fallen before and would again, and many times. I think it was just the sheer beauty of the effort involved -- I wanted him to make it to his destination in safety. Once I managed to tear my eyes away from his staggering form and look at his face, though, almost all of that fear would leave me because I would see his smile. The smile of that man -- he smiled with his whole heart and I don't think any fear could stand up to a smile like that.

My son, J, and I do a lot of talking about heros and villains. Mainly, these conversations come after he has seen a movie, of course, and so the characters are more sharply drawn than in real life. This is good for J because the hero/villain concept is a difficult one to get a hold of. For his sake, I sometimes wish that real life was like this with heros and villains being represented so starkly. J is still learning how there is both hero and villain in each of us.

A particularly good example of hero and villain was recently presented in the movie Toy Story 3. Now, I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who has not seen it, so I'll just say that the villain in it was confusing for J because the villain spoke one way and acted in a different manner entirely. J doesn't really get the complicated treachery presented in this -- and he may never get it. His brain just isn't wired that way. So, I just simplified it all by reinforcing with J that what someone says is important, but who that person really IS can be seen in what that person chooses to do. So, yes, the villain can be sporadically kind and we can even feel sympathy toward him but that doesn't change his villain status if his actions have earned him that. Likewise, J and I have talked a lot about heros and how they are never perfect people. We talk about how a hero might make many mistakes. We talk about how the hero sometimes thinks about giving up or may even feel bitterness about the situation at hand and how it must be dealt with. The main thing, I tell J, is that when the time comes, a hero does the noble, moral, right thing despite his own flawed character and the crummy task at hand. The hero's choice of action makes him heroic.

This idea of heroism being the proper action taken in the face of unwelcome circumstances is a good one, I think. It applies to the pilot who landed the plane on the river to save all of his passengers. I'd bet that if someone had asked him before his flight about whether he'd like to land on a river that day he would have said a definitive "NO!". But, the situation warranted that action and he rose to the occasion and did his duty well. He was a hero because on that one day, with those circumstances, he did the right thing. My Uncle Buddy was a hero in exactly the same way -- only that he was a hero every single day.

Compared to you, compared to me, Uncle Buddy didn't have many choices. He was walled in on almost every side. From a society that didn't understand his disability, to his body that would not bend to his will. He was limited in where he could go, what he could do. His disability limited his independence and insulated his wonderful mind -- keeping so much of himself in.

Buddy didn't have much, and yet, he always chose to be generous. He couldn't raise his body but he managed to raise lots of funds for Cerebral Palsy. He couldn't enunciate but that didn't keep him from talking and it certainly didn't keep him from singing, either. (Thank goodness for that!) He took an eager interest in the world around him, he had a great sense of humor. He had an infectious laugh and a great spirit.

Our world is vast. Does it ever strike you -- perhaps when you travel and see new places or maybe when you stop and just think about it. It's almost overwhelming, sometimes, to think of how crazy and busy and populous this earth is. I think, too, that sometimes when we are undone by life and its trials and consider this immense world we start to feel tiny. The temptation is there to think that who we are and what we say about ourselves through our actions doesn't matter so much. This is wrong, of course. The way we live our lives -- it matters. I know this because whenever I visited Buddy I always left happier and yet wanting to be a better person.

So, I'm not going to waste his example. His life continues to inspire me not only by what he could do but also by what he couldn't do.

Buddy could never stand up straight. I can. I will do it and I will think of him.

I'm going to try some new things in my life. I might fail spectacularly. I don't like to fail but I'm going to remember to be grateful that I have the chance to try. Buddy had very limited opportunities. I don't. So, I'll try and I'll think of him.

Buddy went out of his way to be generous. I'm going to try to do the same. I will think of him, and the chewing gum that he always gave the nieces and nephews. I will think of him and how he was himself a gift to everyone who met him.

There are so many things in life that we think are important and some of these things really are vital. However, many of the things that we concern ourselves with are really not worth our time or energy. The passing of a precious person helps us realize, again, of what really, truly matters. I'm going to try and remember this more often -- and I'll think of him.

Related: Read my cousin Benita's wonderful eulogy of Buddy that she delivered at the funeral service.

This Thing
has been stalking me at the pool this summer.



He claims to be a Beluga dolphin and even attempts to communicate with his dolphin noises. This tends to surprise and amuse fellow swimmers. He informed me that, what with his big dolphin brain, that he was determined to fix the Titanic. When we asked him what he would do to repair it he was a bit brief with the details but went into great length describing the new invention that he would place on the Titanic's bow. What type of invention? A laser beam that would cut through all icebergs.

This is one intense dolphin.

Pickles, Pickles In A Jar
Wickles, Wickles here they are!



Okay, I'm a little bit excited about these pickles. Sometimes, when I say silly stuff (see above statement) I can hear Miss Liz talking to me. Now, don't worry about my mental health -- not in this case, anyway -- she just had a way of putting things. So, when I'm eating cauliflower for breakfast or singing the praises of spicy pickles I can almost hear her saying (with her Glaswegian brogue), "Think you're going 'round the bend, dearie?"

But these pickles, y'all, they'll make your sandwich sing.

I don't know about availability everywhere, since I think that they are made in Alabama. But, if you happen to see these in the store (or that sandwich relish that I'm kicking myself for not buying, too) please make sure to get some. This plus cheese and ham on a grilled sandwich with fresh tomato and mustard and mayo -- yumola!

p.s. When it comes to Southern food, the more anthropomorphic the behavior on the sign or label, the better the food will be. Here we have a pickle doing the two step with a pepper. So, you know that it is going to be good. The same thing applies to bar-b-que restaurants in the south. If you ever see a sign depicting a pig serving another pig and they both have on clothes and such...well, pull the car over, honey child, because there's some good eating in there!