Ah, sweet escape

***************************deep cleansing breath************************

Now I can get my week off to a good start.

Figuring this Life thing out

Okay, so MIL has landed and no amount of bitching and moaning is going to make her go away.

Facebook is not letting me in.

It's just getting on 7 and the boys had a late night last night.

And I need to go into the city. I need to leave in an hour.

I spent yesterday with my buddy and her two boys--we met at a bounce around indoor gym, then went back to her house. She's had no end of troubles with her ex, her step mom, settling the kids into their lives post divorce. I spent most of the time listening, and whatever time I did speak trying to be helpful. I regaled her with my own recent adventures with the plagiarist, panhandling fangirl and Brian Wilson.

If nothing else works, I can be an amusing distraction.

Then we went home, had dinner, and DH and I went to see some friends play at a Vegan hookah bar two towns over. That was fun. But that's when I heard about how inflexible I am. All I can think is, what are they bitching about? She's HERE, isn't she? She's gotten her way again.

I guess she's not liking the hard stop to her visit, but I honestly don't understand why she needs to move in. She's an hour away; we can visit whenever she likes.

I think she likes to come here and fantacize she still has a house to keep.

I need to be more compassionate. But it's hard when she prefaces everything with a comment on my lack of experience...

Good Times

Thanksgiving this year was a treat. My brother hosted, so our drive was a whopping seven minutes (14 roundtrip)--and of course we were the last ones there, because DH needed to work (and was angry with me because his brother and mom are coming today and I found something else to do besides cleaning yesterday).

I bit my tongue. After all, he has to work whenever my family (as rare as that is) comes over and leaves all the cooking AND cleaning to me. Forgive me for wanting to share the love.

Back to Thursday. The boys did fine until dessert, and I had gotten a little too comfortable, or else I would have been guarding the dessert table. (Is there an apt war metaphor for this situation? Thinking not) So Nic, fortified with brownies and pie (really, sugar and this kid are not friends) began to make a complete nuisance of himself.

Which is a shame because those last impressions are the ones people remember--not the good behavior that preceded it.

Anyway.

Outside of the last 45 minutes it was a good time.

I always get strung up here because logic dictates you leave when the kids get like this. But Nic's goal was to get us to leave, so you don't want to reward that behavior, either. But people don't often get that.

So I took some me time and had my aquatics class--ahhhhh. And Andy let me have it when I got back.

So BIL and wife and dog PLUS MIL will be here this pm. MIL will stay here until Thursday. Thankfully, we'll be going to camp next weekend, so that will be a forced ending to her stay (else she might linger another week, or two, until she decides she needs to go back to her apartment).

I might be a little more patient if she weren't JUST HERE a few weeks ago....for almost two weeks...

I just gave the boys the speech that Nonna is coming and we will do things a little differently while she's here. They are both old enough to get that there's a lot of tension when she's here, and they love me enough to work with me. And they know that working with me allows Nonna to be here (they love her, too) so they do well.

No empathy, my eye.

I think what I resent the most about these incursions is that her presence forces us to do a lot of things differently. I find it's easier to re-route our lives than to try to explain to her why we do what we do.

But I resent having to. And I know regardless that she is going to run back to BIL, wife, niece with all these stories about what a horrible homemaker I am.

I hate the whole business. I really do.

And now for my moment of Zen:

Thankful for when things go well

Nic had a great time with B on his bowling adventure yesterday, but told me 'he missed me so much and am so glad to be back in my little home."

Methinks Nic is conflicted. He had a good time without me and he feels guilty that he had a good time without me. I am working on getting him to think it's okay to have fun in my absence. But I was the same way with my mom and can indeed hear her voice echoed in mine as I say "Go! Have a great time!" And mean it.

While he was bowling, in another part of the forest, I took my little G off to Build-a-Bear. His matter-of-fact demeanor in choosing his bear, accoutrements, stuffing, and naming (He wanted "Build-A-Bear" on the bear's 'birth' certificate but we settled on Tecumseh) belied his real feelings, because once we were out of the store, he was talking to his bear, cuddling up with him, and carrying him everywhere.

He was annoyed when he made the Bear stop at home instead of going to school this am.

G cuddled up with Tecumseh at bed time last night and slept very well. And he stayed in his own bed, for the first time in months.

I'm liking the bear. Almost as much as G does.

Time to Breathe

Well, I finally finished the article trifecta and already have a fresh plate of projects waiting for me. I'm going to do some preliminary groundwork, but the rest of this week will be spent getting my family back, as I have been glued to my laptop for the better part of two weeks.

Having said that, I will happily add that I am grateful for it. Grateful that I can do what I do on the fly, that it pays my bills, that I am happy doing it, that the people I work for are happy with what I do (happy enough to keep me employed and don't you know the blessing THAT is in this economy).

I'm grateful for my good friends (you know who you are).

I'm grateful for my patient and supportive boys, who leave me alone along enough for me to get done what I need to get done. (now all I have to do is clean the house in preparation for another MIL incursion)

The boys are great, G is happy that he's with his friends at preschool all week and Nic is happy that he is going on a bowling adventure with B this pm. I'll bring G to spend his Build-a-Bear certificate at the mall and get some one-on-one time with him.

Nic' s teacher conference is this am. He brought home a report card that made me proud--not wholly unexpected, but satisfying nonetheless. He's in with his peers, he is keeping up, and he is succeeding.

Now if I could make sure he didn't do his 'twirly walk' at school, we'd be in REALLY good shape....

Meeting Brian Wilson and We're Go for Township B-Ball

So I got to see Brian Wilson at the Keswick last night--AND I got to meet him. This is my fourth BW concert and IMO the best one yet. He dedicated his second set to playing That Lucky Old Sun in its entirety, and all I can say is wow.

This is really not the venue for BW, but I did meet him, and partly got to tell him what SMiLE meant to me, but the woman I had asked to take the picture started freaking out that she didn't know how to use my camera. SO I spent my Brian meet and greet time talking her off her ledge and then lamely apologizing to Brian and thanking him for his patience.

I'll upload the pic later.

But the meet up with the other fans beforehand was nice. I made and met a couple new friends, and my only regret was that Andy couldn't join me--he would have liked it.

Nic's b'ball coach just called and practices start next week. He has three friends on his team, which is good. I think this might be a good experience-I'm hopeful.

That had to hurt

So I get G's eval back from Kennedy-Kreiger. Footnotes version: he is in their autism sibling study, and this is his five year eval. The paperwork came back and: What a kick in the teeth. His IQ scores are low average (84) His fluid reasoning skills show borderline delay. His adaptive behavior composite was worse--communication domain puts him in the 8th percentile; daily living skills 5%, socialization, 8%; motor skills 1% (1%??? holy sh*t); adaptive behavior 3%

I know what I know about G, but ugh, this hurts.

Minor consolation, I missed his vocabulary and reading mastery sections. Full disclosure--he is not reading yet, but he's trying very hard to get the hang of it--I suspect dyslexia, actually--anyway, his picture vocabulary is at the 7 year 6 month level--oral vocabulary, grammatic understanding and sentence imitation are at 4 year 9 month levels. Relational vocabulary is under 3. Grammatic completion is at 3.

He's actually at K readiness for letter ID, word ID and word attack skills.

So it's not all horrible, but the IQ and daily living scores are depressing.

I have to finish up--have to get a draft out of here of my article because I have to leave here no later than 4:30 am for Pittsburgh...