Best Weekend of My Life

This weekend my husband took Nick on his first full weekend fly-fishing trip. It was by all accounts a very successful trip. Nick even told Bob on the way home it was the best weekend of his life. Am I jealous...ABSOLUTELY, but I know a boy needs his Daddy time. (Doesn't mean I have to like it)

Stupid, stupid, stupid test

This week is PSSA week for my fourth grader. I realize many children are affected by standardized tests, hopefully not many to the level of our house.

Our affectedness began about two weeks ago. It took me some time to put the pieces of the elevated tics and outbursts puzzle together but I got it. Plus the emails from his teacher describing his anxiety attack during a session discussing the exam clued me in. Thank the Lord he does not attend a school that has PSSA centered teaching and they don't make references to it regularly.

So today was Day One of the stupid exam. My child is fortunate enough to be given his exam in a private room with a scribe on hand if needed. Even with all of that and having parents that laugh at the pointlessness of the stupid exam, he still cried all day and made himself physically sick. Nobody talks about how Tourette's can often come with a side of extreme perfectionism. It's more fun to talk about the bad words shouted in the most rare cases. No one wants to hear about the all to common crippling mental tics.

I know that I am really offending some people by calling the exam stupid. For the record, even if my child did not have special circumstances I would still refer to it as STUPID! I seriously don't understand the point of these tests and what they are really used for. If you need one long ass exam to let you know if your child is performing at an acceptable level then I feel you are not involved enough in their education. If the school needs the exam to realize the child is not performing properly or they have potentially shitty teachers then they as an institution are not involved enough.

Really, what is the point of these exams?

If you make it through standardized exam time with little to no effect on your family, make sure to give thanks and hug your child.

If you are a family like ours, give thanks for your fabulously unique child and hug him or her extra tight.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gasp!

This weather is so ridiculously fabulous! I'm trying to make sure we take full advantage of it just in case Mother Nature decides to throw us a curve ball before Spring officially takes hold.

Today I surprised the boys at pick up with two things, Taylor and a trip to Devil's Den.

This is HUGE because Devil's Den is my "Mommy GASP" thing. All Mom's have them. It's the thing that makes you go, "GASP, GASP" in quick succession. Some Mom's do it at the play-ground. Some do it when 4-wheelers are around. Heck, some just do it when there kid moves an inch. Being a boys Mom, I've learned to roll with a lot of things. I don't "GASP, GASP" too often. I'm pretty big on natural consequences. But Devil's Den, that's a whole other story. Just the sight of those rocks and my palms start sweating, my heart begins pounding in my chest. I thought today would be different. I had given myself a good pep talk and I had Taylor with me. How bad could this be? I'm cool (although my oldest says that means Constipated Overweight Out of style Loser these days). I'm not sure I even made it a full minute before the shear panic set in. I tried. I really, really tried. I am embarrassed to think of how many "GASP, GASPs" came out of my mouth. Eventually I took refuge in a fetal position against a rock(not really, but I swear I was close to it),  snapped some pictures and counted the minutes until we could leave. They better remember this day!

A Hunting we will go

Remember how I mentioned OCD in a previous post?

In addition to climbing trees, he is obsessed with Dragons. Yep, that's right, dragons. Both of these current obsessions happen to go hand in hand. Now luckily he was given a Mom who for many of her youthful years happened to believe the mountains around us took their shape from the sleeping dragons that lay beneath them. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking about how incredibly jealous you are that my Dad told me the tallest tales imaginable. What you are not jealous of is my brain that secretly likes to believe all of these things are possible!

When this obsession started to take hold, I was not in such a happy place. I may have even tried to squash the youthful imagination that I hold so dear in my boys. Thank goodness I'm a blabber mouth and told a friend or two of my fun sucking conversation with my son. Once the words were out and hanging in the air, I felt like I was punched in the gut. That's not who I am. I'm the Mom that embraces these quirky behaviors and rolls with it. So to make up for my bad Mommy ways, I read up on these dragons. I held court with my 10 year old I tell ya. He thinks I'm pretty cool. Especially when I said, "sure, let's drive out to Calendonia and go Dragon egg hunting".  Why not? Lord knows my days of being cool are limited with these two. Truth be told I think my days of being cool to my six year old are long gone.

Highs and Lows

What a weekend! We went from extreme lows to extreme highs and everything in between.

My oldest is a double dipper. Not the chips and dip kind but the autistic spectrum kind. He double dips with Tourette Syndrome and Aspbergers. His tics, like most with the syndrome, are not extreme. If you don't know he has the syndrome you may not even notice the head and neck jerks. You will probably notice the incessant nose picking. Poor thing, we've really worked hard on finding a substitute tic for that one but so far no luck. In addition to these motor tics he also has mind tics as I like to call them. It's like extreme OCD for a short period of time. Tics wax and wane but when they are in full swing-ugh. Add in the Aspberger's component and well...it ain't pretty folks.

For instance, Saturday he was bound and determined he was going to climb a tree. We do not have any climbing trees. In 15-20 years maybe, but now, not so much. So every 30 secs, literally, he was a broken record about trying to climb a tree. Before any fun things were going to happen he needed to help clean up his room. Long story short, his brain was telling him CLIMB A TREE AND CLIMB IT NOW!!! Next followed lots of restraining, a massive blow to my lower back and a run away. Just shy of an hour later he was located waaaaaaaaaaaaay up in a tree in the front of our neighborhood. No need to dwell, we made it through Saturday. I was definitely glad to be losing an hour. I wanted the day to be over with.

Fast forward to Sunday, new day, better day. Shopping, fishing and hanging outside. My heart was so happy to see the boy who had struggled so terribly the day before enjoy the sunshine. He giggled,  chased, sang and ate s'mores.  Like the song that I always sing to him when he is grumpin' at me...'along with sunshine, there's gonna be a little rain sometimes'...I love him in the sun and the rain

early signs

I'm sure every parent has those moments when something happens causing you to flash forward in your mind and you see your sweet baby doing keg stands at college...no? Well you are lucky because my 6 year old causes me these moments almost daily! I give you today's evidence...

Before school this morning he frantically calls me into the bathroom. I hurry, mind racing, hoping the stomach flu hasn't come back for round three. Nope. No flu. He wanted to show me that his poop looked EXACTLY like the Empire State building.

Leaving school we drive down what I like to call Frat boy row. With our amazing Spring like weather all the boys were out on their front porch. My poor rule following 10 year old said with disgust, "look at them sitting there-they all have lap tops and beer". It was true. It could have been a great Apple commercial because it was a complete row of 8-10 college boys, feet up on the railings and Mac-books on their lap. I just don't know how Apple would feel about the Yuengling bottles in their hands. (college beer has come a long way)

Anyway, my darling 6 year old, mouth gaping, cartoon hearts floating on the outside of his eyes says, " THAT'S COLLEGE"!!!

so you see...flash forward and my sweet, sweet 6 year old is talking about his latest poop art and doing keg stands on a beautiful early Spring day...but seriously, if that image is what gets him excited to go to college, who am I to judge

Thanks, I guess

I've decided that 2012 is the year I will embrace my "luck". By "luck", I mean the insane amount of 'it could only happen to me' incidents. Or, if it's going to happen it will happen to me incidents. I usually take these little life burps as I like to call them in stride. However, I've been known to after months of burp after burp get a tad overwhelmed. A friend recently noted that perhaps I am inviting chaos into my life...I'm sure she's right but I'm not sure I know how to stop inviting it! Today I had two such burps.

1. I discovered that for the past several months I have been kindly paying someone living in the Williamsport, PA area's cable bill. Thank you Comcast for entering my information under their file. Thank you Comcast for arguing with my voiced suspicion. ;-p Thank you Comcast for promptly investigating and refunding my bank account. I feel bad for the person that is going to be told they owe several months worth of cable bills cause Comcast is RIDICULOUSLY expensive!

2. Pip, the pain in the butt beagle went for a booster and a Lyme's vaccination today. After which I dropped her off and did my afternoon pilgrimage to Gettysburg. I came home to find her rigid and shaking uncontrollably with crazy amounts of drool pouring out of her mouth. Rush her back to the Vet, where she received an IV of meds, shots of steroids and some disgusting vitamin concoction that stunk like you would not believe. So she's allergic to one of the shots she got earlier in the day and in two weeks when she gets a Lyme's booster we will get to see if it is that one. Fun times.

Dear Random Citizens

I feel FANTASTIC today after having been knocked out by some wicked virus. To celebrate my exuberant mood I had myself a little car party. On the way to school we jammed to parent approved playlists but on the way home I listened to the the uncensored playlist. Now when I have a car party, I tend to also think I'm magical and have some invisibility cloak around my me. Guess what- it doesn't work. Murphy's law guarantees the day you plan to act like an absolute idiot in your car you will hit EVERY stinkin' red light and cross walk between your travel points.

1st point of humiliation I was having a serious Voice tryout to 'Brass in Pocket' at a red light ...I notice a young gentleman pointing and laughing so hard he may have hit his head on the steering wheel- to him I say, "You are welcome for me starting your day with a sight you can laugh about ALL day".

2nd point of humiliation I was almost home but had to stop for a sweet little lady crossing the street. By this point I had my window down, I mean it's like 70, and unfortunately had my music at a level shamefully inappropriate for someone my age AND it was Eminem. To this lady I say- "I'm very sorry for possibly taking some precious time from your life. I do not want you to 'shake that ass for me'."

 I may have to go to therapy to erase her frightened look from my memory.

Figures the next song on the play list was 'Luckenbach Texas'. Damn Waylon Jennings, where were you when I needed you.