Tie dye shirts, flying aces, ice cream & sleep

Last night I helped the little guys make tie dye shirts for everyone. They were going to a show at the military base where some stunt pilots were. I needed the day off-- to clean,to write, to do whatever. (I slept.) We woke up to the shirts having dried in the dryer and the kids looked sweet in them-- even my husband had one! Of course my 12 yo and my 9 yo decided to throw a fit and drench their shirts, "Oh, ours didn't dry!" It was obvious that they get them wet themselves so I was a mean mommy and made them wear them anyway.

They had fun at the show today-- there was a lot of waiting and I am glad that I stayed home and slept. He's wanted to take them on a hike last weekend and it was raining hard so he was glad to do this with them. My eldest has them at her house/my brother's house for dinner. That is sweet. She is so funny-- "I can cook and not have leftovers for once!"

My husband offered to take me out for ice cream when he returns. That will be nice.



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Memories of the Bus!

The Fairbanks Pedestrian wrote a beautiful blog entry about riding the bus, reading, and making the most of your time.

He got me to thinking-- I didn't learn to drive until I was 27. By then I was divorced with 3 kids. My parents had not raised me with confidence and I was terrified of driving. I wish I had a dollar for every time my dad said, "So you wanna get your own driver lessons? Just let me knwo when you are on the road so I stay off!" I'd stop my lessons. One day my mom knew that I was getting a small but wonderful apartment that I'd wanted for ages and control freak that she was, really wanted me to get a crappy place that cost less and was bigger-- a mile away from a bus stop!

We argued and my nicer place was closer to her and on the bus line, practically at my door. I lived in Anchorage, Alaska at the time and she and my dad were getting ready to leave state and asked what I'd do when they left. I said, "You cannot leave a woman with three children and no car in the bus-forsaken city! I am coming with you to your 800 acre ranch!"

This freaked my mom out-- but she also saw my life through my eyes and bought me a car and insurance and driving lessons-- thus, independence!

When we took the bus, my daughters and I actually spoke to each other all the time. I never wanted to upset them with the cold so we would dance and jump in the snow. Icey roads were "the sillies" and we'd walk carefully to avoid falling, which was also a very real danger to us.

Last winter my eldest, who has been driving since age 14, but we hadn't the $$ to buy her a beater, called me as she also takes the bus. She recalled the days of the bus and how cold it was but how I never seemed to mind. Other parents were stoic in the cold, but we four were dancing on the ice or in the slush-- and always in the summer! It was fun to her and I was glad that she remembered it. Once I started driving, I was full of stress and didn't allow anyone to talk if there was traffic. We'd pray before we drove, something that she still does when she gets in a car, but she liked the bus in the old days.

Now with a bazillion children and $2 per person to hop on the bus, it just isn't practical to take the bus any place, but I also miss riding it.

I have an ancient suburban and my battery has had to be started every day for six months. When my husband was here with the kids, he bought me a new battery. I cannot tell you how nice it is to start it with no problem, and I seem to use every part on that poor vehicle until they are very, very used!

I finished it

My husband is proud of me but the past few days have been hard. My nose hurts-- it's a one on a scale of one to ten, but it hurts. My teacher has strong hands.

I feel so sad and so angry!

Why didn't he handle this better? I am not wrong for feeling like I was being attacked and running. I had to go back and deal with him and I didn't want to. He is catty! First he rambled about cranial sacral massage and how great it was when I went back-- he did everyone but me. Of course I'd filed a report on him, but I felt assaulted. One of the benefits of the class was that he worked on all of us. Why didn't he say to me that he would work on me BUT that if I felt he was doing anything wrong to say, "Stop." and he'd stop? I asked him in private if he'd work on me and he said no-- did his no empower him? I respected his no, why couldn't he have respected mine?

As the class kept going even to this morning, he was working on others and he'd take sly glances at me and raise an eyebrow. In effect it was, "See what the other girls get that I won't give you because you felt assaulted?" Well, a massage is different from flying at my face! He had said that he'd work on me for my scoliosis-- he never did.

He put me into defense mode-- I have never felt so scared as I did in those less-than-20-seconds that he was grabbing my nose, laughing, then grabbing it again. Why wasn't anyone standing up for me and saying, "Time out! She needs you to stop!" Before he did the exercise he should have told us that if we needed to stop to just say so and he would. The fact is, I told him to stop and he laughed and did it again.

He told me that he'd do the emotional release on me yesterday which I in fact was curious and was ready to do. He put it off several times, first, in a few minutes, then at lunch, then after dinner-- last night at the dinner break, his SO's birthday, he told me he'd work on me this morning before the test. We made eye contact a few times and he'd walk away. What gives? Is he that catty? Why couldn't he have just stopped when I told him to stop? After he grabbed my face on Thursday night and he agreed to never ever do it again, I trusted him! Why was I wrong for freaking out? I am the student-- he is the teacher. Shouldn't he have control? He hurt me-- whether anyone agrees or not, he did hurt me, and I was scared of bodily harm. At first when I said stop, I wanted to just sit back down. When he wouldn't let go of me, I just had to get out. He was not my massage teacher then-- he was something to get the f--- away from.

This is so stupid. I am going over this like it was a car accident! It took just a few seconds and I am ridiculously upset! The thing is, it feels like it was a car accident! There was damage-- and I alone have to work it though. Couldn't he have planned for a bad reaction and made sure that I wouldn't be so freaked that I'd run?

The test lasted two hours-- I worked on my former :( yoga teachers' assistant who owns a cute puppy. Basically, the technique only mattered in how I helped my client. We all passed.

The assistant and I spoke a bit-- she just knew that I reacted badly and I don't know if she was really sympathetic. She says that my teacher for yoga is distancing herself from her massage therapists because they are really-- they sound catty.

I got a massage table out of the deal-- that is great! And some awesome books. I just wish I still had my yoga teacher as a friend (we weren't shopping partners, but I thought of her as a friend and had she ever called me in the middle of the night, I'd have been there for her, but she didn't feel like that for me and it's OK) and that I'd have been friendly with my massage teacher.

Is his "emotional release" a fraud and he knows that since I can't worship him that I would see through it? How do I approach a massage therapist and explain that I have had trauma but that it was caused by this alleged god? If I had a problem with this demigod, I must be terrible.

I'll shake this off. I have to put it behind me. It was traumatic-- what gets to me is that it affected me like it did.

He is to come back here in December but he didn't tell me that he hoped to see me. My investment is down the tubes.

I was freaked out about what I owed, but I was looking forward to paying it and loving the class. May I pay him off quick and may it bring him black fruit if I am truly wronged. While he patronized me in saying how sad he was for what happened, he has already forgotten this and lost no sleep. He will grab the nose of the wrong person. His position as a top massage school person will get knocked down and it will happen from situations like this.

In class he would speak of how students were mad at him for something and that they'd later say that he, the wise master, was right over. I don't know how I can ever think that this is right unless I tell my children about it and explain how people close to us can harm us and why we need boundaries.

My husband said that he was arrogant and self serving and that he is begging to be shot down. It sounds as if he may have been shot at and he likes proving himself for the time being and that this almost gets into an addictive habit. He likes accolades from his acolytes and this frustrates me-- I am not an acolyte or a sheep or someone to follow him or anyone else. I suppose I should thank him for sending me into a bout of fear so at least I know what that is.

Now I need to think about whether or not I want to plead my situation with him and finish school with him or forget about this. I keep thinking, "Only I could pull this crap out of a man revered for his gentleness." WTF? Maybe he is not as gentle as he thinks he is. "The emperor has no clothes!"

This is an excellent article on emotional release. It really seems to emphasize that you need psychological training for it-- certainly it's not for newly minted massage therapists!

Isn't this abuse? This was my vacation-- my time for me. Did he choose to pull the extreme on me because I was the lone sheep in the group? What didn't he just respect my space and let me keep getting the good things that everyone else got? I was the one who asked him to come to Alaska this second time-- I couldn't wait to meet him. So much for his love of all mankind.

I should have listened to my husband when I wanted to do this. He was right. He was so damned right-- about people who do massage and about the profession.

I went back. . .

I went back in today-- I was still hurting and he told me that it was emotional, not physical. I was upset and told him that he was wrong and he told me to leave if I wanted to be like that but that he hoped I'd try to like it as we were getting some former students in that I could work on. I did and I quickly liked them. (I also went last night-- while not drunk I was on Benadryl, a shot of Kaluha. I was teary.)

A few minutes into the day and meeting the new lady, my pain had gone. I did some face work on her and started rethinking the situation-- had he grabbed me hard? Why did it feel hard and why did it hurt so damned much? I have to tell you, this made me wonder about witnesses right after an event. I called DH rethinking it and he said that it was an emotional response, but one to protect me. Was it less valid? He says it was stupid for him to have had this going on without an out for anyone doing it.

He defended himself to my husband with, "No one has ever reacted this way and she should not have done that." DH said to him that he knew me for less than a week when he first did that and that it was shocking that he did it a second time and worse, in front of people with no way for me to stop what he was doing. No matter how outgoing I am, I am not one to respond well to someone using me as a bad example, and that women are not likely to respond in an adverse way because women want to be part of a group. He'd already made me feel threatened and he made it worse when he did it a second time, then didn't let me stop what he was doing. I'd told him that it was abusive the night before when he tried it the first time.

Today we talked about it-- I told him that I was not sorry for the reaction because he sent me into fight-then-flight and that anything coming at my face will get me to turn my head or react. I realize that he probably did not grab my nose and shake it, but that it did hurt. I was sorry that it happened. This guy is really a nice person.

DH says that he is flying without a net. He said that in that exercise should be performed with the explanation that he tell us about it, which he didn't but also with the understanding of how to end the exercise,which he did not do.

As for me-- if I ever do this again, I will ask first how I can stop the exercise before I start it, but how many understand this, that they need to ask?

What is getting to me right now is that when I fought to get away from him, I wasn't thinking, "This is my massage teacher who has come from California to teach me good things." At first I was just getting the hand away and communicating to make him stop and I'd go sit at the table. Then it was that I had to get away. I think that when he grabbed my wrist, I just needed out. I wish that I'd fought harder. He should have been in better control, like telling us that if we didn't want to do the exercise that we could say no, thank you and not feel like we had to participate.

The people who harm others are often people the victims know. We need boundaries with people. We get undressed with this guy near by (he averts his eyes) and I wonder how many boundaries get crossed.

My intuition is that I did the right thing by fighting and even staying away. My nose is still sore but it's a 2, not an eight. Am I imagining it?

As a friend put it, it seems like pop psychology. I will take his cure tomorrow-- to do the emotional release where he said I'd just has a few people with me and that he'd tell me everything and not surprise me. Why don't massage therapists need to work under a psychologist if they are doing this? I really don't think that MD though this man has, that he was not qualified to do this. He should have painted clear exits for us and someone there to help discuss the situation if anyone needed out. Am I such a freaskshow that because no one else has a problem that I shouldn't? I don't think he should be doing this!

Why didn't he do what I needed? He kept saying that he'd get my scoliosis massage (that my yoga teacher swears makes it improved) "later." I have a grossly infected toe that he is an MD that he can fix but he also put off and off but now won't do. Why didn't he do what I really needed?

Please shoot me the next time I have any bright ideas.

EDITED AT THE END

I can't understand this. I just wanted to learn to be an awesome massage therapist and be a professional masseuse. It's an excellent way to make some money and since my husband has health insurance I don't need extra coverage. Besides-- massage feels great!

That was not to be.

Last night Mike assured me that he'd not do it again. It's embarrassing to admit that he grabbed my nose-- it almost seems funny in a way, but it wasn't. I don't like anyone in my face and I don't think that I am alone in this. My husband and my husband alone as access to my face. I've birthed nine times and I've had a lot of hands up my vagina, every year I get an invasive yearly-- but my face is my own.

This morning, our hero pulled it again. We sat and he wanted to do something on me so I sat and he grabbed my f---ing nose again! Why on Earth is that good for me? I slapped him. He laughed and did it again and I got up and he grabbed my arm and wouldn't let me go until I told him that what he was doing was against the law. I was reacting, but it wasn't the emotional release that he thought he was getting-- it was me saying (which I said,) "Knock it off. I did not give you permission to do this, this is my body and I want to learn to give a massage."

This was not "emotional release"-- it was provocation. Personal space invasion.

I left and Mike followed me for a ways and he was like, "Come back and I will teach you how to help lots and lots of people!"

(Who do I look like? Florence Nightengale? Yes, I wanted to help the world, but not now.)

I told him to keep his California BS out of Alaska, that this is Alaska and we call it provocation. I had told him no, my no meant no and he violated my trust. He said he'd walk with me and I told him that if I wanted to be around someone that I didn't trust that I'd have stayed and to leave me alone. He told me to please stay, that I'd be a great massage therapist-- oh please-please-please. He wanted an example to the class! "Come back! I will teach you to get sued!" He asked me for just a half hour of putting up with his garbage and I knew that if I went back I'd be beaten down.

F--- that! If I need to have boundaries violated, I'll invite my ex husband and his clan to dinner!

My lawyer was getting ready for his daughter's wedding tomorrow but he was there for me. He met me at his office and he was cute, "Well it sounds like you got some emotional release!" It did feel good-- but I wish I'd not. I had been kicking myself for not reacting last night so at least my reflexes work. We talked for a bit. He asked me if I wanted to go back and I said no-- I couldn't. I didn't like how he used me as an example without my permission, he lied to me, and I didn't trust him to not pull that nonsense again.

I did walk to the police station and fill out forms next. The police would go see him and my loving classmates would say that he meant nothing bad so of course Mike was just fine and he apologized to the police officer and told him to tell me that I was welcome to come back. It was Mike showing how nice he was-- not Mike being genuine. The police could do nothing but there is a paper trail on this jerk. The officer understood how I felt but he couldn't arrest him because of the DA. Will he think twice? I doubt it.

I owe him f*cking $2,000. My lawyer wants me to request what I paid back. Hmph. Mike isn't THAT nice. My husband went down to talk to him like my lawyer said. Nothing will happen, except maybe he will justify himself more.

There is such a huge level of trust in massage and this was just wrong. One of the things that we are supposed to do as massage therapists is to get the trust of the client and respect that. We are not psychologists doing interventions. We are massage therapists creating a safe environment for clients to come in and get touched. I don't know if I will ever be able to even get a massage again. Clients need before any pop psychology to feel safe. I have lost a friend who owns the studio because I had to stand up for myself. What he did and the pushing that he did violates everything about female safety that Georgia taught us. Why couldn't my no have just meant, "no"?

I am really sad because I just wanted to take a fun class. My husband took off a week of work so I could learn. My husband consoled my tears, and he insists that it's not my fault-- but what the extra money will do to us makes me so sad, because he will have to take on a second job to pay for it. I was not doing anything wrong down there and I did not ask to be treated like that! Why did he single me out?

Before it happened, I feel like he'd decided to try it on me. In class this morning he was talking about how he did things that hurt clients but that it was good for them. He spoke of how he did things that hurt people but how they would react badly and come back later and thank him-- oooh! Is someone full of himself?

Alaska wants to get a 500 hour massage training. Screw that. Make it that only poeple with psychology degrees can do that and then they will be able to provide staged interventions, because Mike went outside his boundaries as a massage teacher and tread in areas where he was not welcome.

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The thing is, not everyone is like this guy and you know what? No one cares if I don't go back. I'm just silly. Most people get their friends to join them in things like this and I really need to do this with someone, but there are few people who I like seeing so much that I could stand a 10 day massage class or a weekly study. I was omega sheep, alone, young looking and seemingly helpless and not likely to react. Mike was a wolf. I will never go out again and do anything like this.

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I went in-- what a stupid thing! Mike was apologizing of course in front of everyone. He used the same apology he did last night when I told him that it was wrong! I started getting weepy and had to go to the bathroom a few times. The women in that class are the daughters of pigs-- they had told the police that he'd not intended to hurt me. I don't want them touching me. I will massage tomorrow but I do not want massages from them.

He wasn't refunding any money and I am sad. I can't handle being with that man at all.

A week from now this will have passed. I need to pay the bill and get over this.

I wish that Alaska let me get my hours from different schools.

Massage School

I am in massage school. My popularity just went up with my friends and I am loving every minute of it, except that I am exhausted!

More later.

Oh-- Ropi, this is for you!


more cat pictures

This Gives Me Energy!

Since break,my children have been at each other. I never know what fights to get in the middle of, but I would have to say that 50% are not that serious. Where problems arise, it's usually because they start punching or "accidentally" causing physical pain for one another. If I hear a fight happening, the smartest thing I can do is slip my sandals off and enter the room and quietly watch until the ones in the argument notice that I am there. If I see the fight, they usually take their punishments (be sent to their rooms, do a chore for me, etc.) The problems happen the worst with Princess Cloud who demands that her brother's punishments are not "fair," then she demands that I tell them things. It reminds me of my former mother-in-law. "If he just realized. . ." "Well, you need to tell her. . ." Then a timeout is called, and they frequently don't respond well to it.

I have in the past (like umm, two days ago!) gotten to the point that I swore at them, then a saw a quote in a friend's signature by Einstein stating that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (According to this definition, they were indeed driving me insane.) I explained to the kids how things would work in the future-- mere mention of a push or a shove got both to do a ten minute chore because I didn't know who actually did it. If I saw it, the pusher would get an fifteen minutes of sitting in the car with Dad or I at ball practice or church and I started writing notes to myself to remember!

They are still finding ways to argue, but at the same time, with each new consequence that I have to come up with, they are getting pretty consistent. The babies are more difficult, but they admire their brothers and sister so they want the punishment! Starshine sat with Basil the other day at ball practice just beaming as she'd gotten into the snack cupboard (I got alock for it-- too much temptation and I should've done it YEARS ago.) Basil was embarrassed but also laughing as his littlest sister beamed at him while she sat in alleged disgrace! My husband kept telling her to look contrite so she would (after she learned what she was supposed to do) put her lips together and look down and do ten seconds of frownie face before she giggled!

The other day they were fighting severely. I picked up some pizza fixings and had complete mayhem as we made pizzas. The only catch was, I had a few bake for their nemesis and chief tormentor! They were not creating for each other-- Princess Cloud created a pizza for Guy who created one for Starshine (who is either sweet or causes everyone heck at the same time) and Dmitri created for Calmity Jane, who created for Mr. Mud, etc. At first the ones who were still fuming at their sworn enemies started to create boring pizzas, but the ones who they were least enamored with were happily creating for younger sibs. They all thought that they were just paired and that their person they were creating for was creating for them. The stingy ones saw smiles and started having fun. Peaches came in (she works and is 17-- she kind of fights with Princess Cloud but not as much and she wasn't in the fight.) Well, she wanted to make one for my husband and I so she made Calizones which she called "wedgies" because they looked like wedges. The ones inclined to causing problems are more familiar with another variety of wedgie. They decided to passive-aggressively give the ones they were upset with what Tiger had made. (They'd later brag, "I gave X a wedgie and my mom didn't even care. She said I could do it again!")

They all actually made some good pizzas. I have had a few days of peace-- to a certain degree, of reminding them when they fight, "Be good as you don't know who will be baking your pizza or making you a taco!"

The only thing-- when serving children, you cannot do it on pans directly from the oven. Dmitri kept standing up and I was in an elaborate dance of moving back as his head kept popping up to see whose pizza was being served next. Next time I hope I remember to transfer the food to a room temperature plate!

They soak up so much creativity-- and once you figure out how to prevent a problem, they come up with a new way to cause it but say, "You didn't tell me I couldn't do that." My brother and I were five years apart and we hardly fought. (My sisters are in their late 40's, early 50's and I had little interaction with them.) My dad used principles with my brother and I-- be nice,respect each other's property, but these guys have less space and they share a lot more.

For years I have just whined to my main man, "It was never this way with my brother and me!"Now-- I have finally realized that it couldn't have been this way for him and me. We didn't share rooms, we each had rooms that were like my husband's and my master bedroom in a huge house, we played different sports-- it was just completely different! Of course my husband has been at times limited in his help-- always supportive, but not always helpful. Sometimes he has said the silliest things, "You need to get control!" He is very wise in many things, but this was not one. I had to realize on my own how different things are from what I knew and longed for-- not less kids, but for familiarity. I've spent ten years like Private Benjamin until she accepted where she was, then started doing well. Of course Mr. Einstein (dh) has recently observed, "You seem like you have come out of denial and you are working with the situation instead of how you wish it was!" (He adds that he's very proud of me!) Don't get me wrong-- he makes this possible, but his comments seemed more from a spectator than a fellow athlete in his observations of my parenting!

The Routinees have My Passionsaurus!

This is my life.

I hope you have a sense of humor. I'm so tired!

More Later

I am still around, but I am very exhausted. Summer is the best time of the year-- the kids are playing and enjoying themselves and we are up with longer days.

Oh-- check out the last music video square to the side. It's a man named Alexander Barencey who is singing Best of My Love to his little guy. I cried watching it. The kids wear me out but I love them and if I had a good voice, I'd sing this to my own kids. If you are signed up with Youtube, post him a note. He apologizes to Eagles fans, but I always thought of this song as one for a lover. He just gave it a new dimension with his GREAT voice.

A "I'm the Poster Girl for Planned Parenthood" Post-- Laugh with Me!

The other day my husband got paid and I had to do some shopping. We were low on everything and I took The Boys, DD4 and DS4 (The Boys are DS1-3; DS4 is part of The Babies) with me to the store. DS3 wasn’t feeling too hot so I asked if he wanted to stay home with DD3 and DD5. DS3 said he was fine and wanted to go. I don’t mind leaving DS3 home because he is a cutie bug—he doesn’t usually fight with DD3 when he feels like this. I dropped DD2 off at work and went to SuperShop.

I know that y'all have a sense of humour and surely y'all are aware of mine. Please know that I am finding humour in what I am telling you all about my shopping excursion!

At SuperShop I decided to get snacks from their deli before I shopped. You know how shopping with an empty stomach works—you load up, or rather I load up on easy to make stuff that costs me a fortune because my stomach and brain are saying, “Just get in, get out and get home and eat!” While standing in line, DS3 said in his sweet, stilted way, “I feel. Like I will. Throw. Up.” I asked the deli lady for a bag and told him to go stand outside and to get sick in the bag if he needed to get sick. He’s 8 years old, so a few minutes outside while I got everyone else their “goodins” was OK.

We got through the line (you can’t buy at the SuperShop deli; you must go through a check-out line) and I went to the door and there was a crowd of 20+ women standing around whispering and I looked to see what was happening. A few feet away on the ground, midway between the door and a freaking park bench, was DS3 sitting on the ground, oblivious of the crowd around him, staring into his empty emergency bag and looking all forlorn. I got his attention and he looked at my bags of meals and said that he didn’t think it was a good idea. He was speaking of our “snackins,” (yes, we have our own language) I knew this, he knew this but the other hens did not know this. Security was brought out. They confirmed that all was fine and I was like, “You never sit on the ground in a store, you are not supposed to sit in front of doors. Why did you sit on the ground right out side the door with a bench two feet away?” He said his legs were tired and he didn’t want to walk! I told him to just sit on the bench next time. He never did get sick but he slept all day. (I'm just glad he didn't need to use the bathroom!)

I am glad that someone said something to security because you never know because people have been abducting children since time immemorial and our society recognizes this, but I was still stressed out.

I got him home to DS3 (14) and a fight commenced. She gets a little bossy and he was in no mood to put up with her. I appeased them both (threatened to not let them have pizza with us for dinner!) and left. DS3 slept all day so he must have had something.

We went to SpecialtyShoppe to pick up a few specialty items. DD4 (5) saw the lone unisex public bathroom and indicated that she had to use it by grabbing her crotch in a full Michael Jackson grab at which point DS4 (4) did the same as did DS1 who is 10, but is a bit slow and forgets that he shouldn’t do that—he doesn’t process like most kids do. I calmed them all down while DS2 stepped aside and acted like he didn’t know us. DD4 and DS1 took turns in the bathroom, and DS2 is 9 and pretty cool and helped DS4 in the bathroom. When DS4 came out, I asked DS2 if he had to go and he said no but I told him to try. His eyebrows shot up and went in and locked the door and started grunting! “Uhhhhh! Rrrrrrrrh! This like having a babyyyyy. Ahhhhhh! Oooooh. [Mimicked flatulence with mouth noise.] Yeah. I’m so glad I tried!” People in the store could hear him and the kids were giggling and I was keeping a straight face. He came out and said, “Man, that was tough but I sure am glad that you insisted that I try!” He chortled to himself and I turned my head to laugh and give him a noogie.

We went back to SuperShop. DS2 needed to push a cart with the plants and a 40# dirt bale. I feel bad that I don’t entrust this to DS1—but the store was busy and DS1 gets creative when he goes places, even with a cart: he tries to ride them, pushes them into people, runs and with them, etc. His development is behind. He is not a bad kid by any means but I have to stay a step ahead of him. I just said that it was DS2's turn. (Later, he and I will be at the store alone and I will let him push a cart while I walk with him and pretend I am not paying too close attention while steadying him and slowing him down.)

in

DD2 called me up at 3 to let me know she got off work early. I said I’d be there at 4. She didn’t understand that my plans were set and got annoyed and asked if I could get her “like. . . right now?” I’d get really annoyed and have to apologize for what I’d say because she had no idea how silly things were.

When I went to get her, she saw that my vehicle was loaded to the windows with foodstuffs and plants around the kids. She apologized to me and asked why I didn't just wait til she got home to do my shopping, but the truth is, I can't stay in a vacuum.

(My husband has the older boys in baseball and it's cute with DS1 because around so-called normal boys, I have decided that while there are always exceptions to the rule of how boys act, my son with special needs isn't much different! His uniqueness is getting more pronounced and it's bugging him and he has been asking me if I wish he was like other kids. I finally told him, "Next time you are at baseball practice and you feel out of place, look around at the other boys and see what they are up to." My husband said that last night he did start watching other kids and was a little surprised-- he saw him smile and shake his head. Two boys on his team were whining, another kid is the poster boy for mood relaxers and was climbing the batting cage-- so what if DS1 doesn't have great muscle coordination or say his multiplication tables well!)