motherhood
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One year later
One year later and here we are again, the first track meet of the season! I was a hot, anxious mess at last year’s first meet. We had tried in every single way to prepare J for his first race. From the sound of the gun, to practicing a few times on the track, to schedule strategies we had thought of everything. And still, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it through that first track meet. J was a ball of anxiety himself that first meet. And not everything went exactly as planned (the gun didn’t go off TWICE!). But J made it. He ran the entire race,…
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The French onion soup incident
I should have seen it coming. It’s been in the making for weeks now. We’ve hit that funky winter twilight period here in Fargo–where winter just wants to hang on and not let go and you’re tired of the snow and rain and you just want some frigging sunshine already. Because you’re sick of it being dark by five (although with daylight savings and the tilt of the planet have made for more sunlight this past month) and you don’t want to run one more day out in the cold, snow, sleet or rain (which finally let up this week). You’re sick of kid’s homework (waiting for your daughter to…
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Some are born great
This week has been W’s week. W was “crowned” student of the week at her middle school (not really crowned–just a free t-shirt and vouchers for Buffalo Wild Wings), performed in a select orchestra concert Thursday night, and received 1st place in the music composition category in the PTA Reflections contest (again). A trifecta of achievement. The line from Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night came to my mind this week as we bustled through all of W’s events: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” In some ways W falls under all three categories. I’ve always felt like she’s been my miracle baby since day…
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Grown up lessons
I thought that I was over the whole “I don’t care what people think about me and my family” business, but apparently I’m not. When J was a toddler and I was in the throws of being introduced to the autism experience, I had a sort of crisis of confidence. Not only was my child not “performing” like his peers at peer play groups (and I was enduring daily every mom’s verbal gushing about how wonderfully smart and talented and, well, genius each of there kids were), but I was also struggling with the very public meltdowns. The crying and tantrums at Walmart if we entered the store at a…
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The therapy of green sprouts in winter
Parenting can be the most stressful, exhausting, frustrating job on the planet. Sure, every once in a while, you get glimpses of fulfillment, but (at least for me) there’s a lot of daily struggle. A lot. It doesn’t matter what phase I’ve been in–newborn, toddler, preschooler, small child (is that a phase?) tween, and teen, they have all been hard in their own way. And even if J is having a great day that doesn’t guarantee that my parenting job is running smoothly–W can have her moments too. About a month ago, in the last cold weeks of January, I was walking through Fleet Farm, and I saw seed packets on display.…
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It’s complicated
The drama on Wednesday started when both kids came running into the car in tears. To be honest, it really caught me off guard. The day had gone really well for me—I felt really productive work-wise and the weather was unseasonably mild–and all of a sudden my car is full of two children in their separate meltdowns. Because I was caught off guard, I didn’t handle the situation with much grace. J was in tears because he was stressed out about something—numbers, letters, and/or staying 2 or 3 minutes later than the bell because he wasn’t ready to get out the door and W was upset because all of this…
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Reflections on choices
Steve and I wanted at least three kids when we were first married. But J came a long and when I was about 6 months pregnant with W, we realized that J was having developmental issues. I don’t remember much of my pregnancy with W –those womb “connection” moments lying still, trying to feel her hiccups and kicks, trying to anticipate her little personality and all of those expectant mother things–because most of the time I was trying to drag a tantruming toddler off the floor–in parking lots, grocery stores, across the apartment. Any spot was a good spot for a meltdown. And then a month before W was born, my…
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Childhood and hometowns
Every time I go back to Lethbridge, Alberta, I have this strange nostalgic feeling of “coming home” which is strange, because the last time I lived in Alberta was almost twenty years ago and my real home was 6 hours north in Edmonton. My parents have moved a few times from the place we first “landed” in the US and so every time I “come home” to visit them, I visit them in a place I’ve never lived before, in unfamiliar neighbourhoods that have now become familiar through grocery store landmarks (like the Dillons) or my heavy reliance on street names. I think that’s part of the reason why Lethbridge…
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What’s for breakfast now?
J stopped eating quesadillas for breakfast two weeks ago, and that’s sort of a problem, because I thought we had something going for us again. For as long as I can remember, J has had issues with breakfast. Normally, J isn’t a fussy eater–which is sort of atypical for autism. Many times kids with autism have very narrow food preferences which often relates to sensory issues (they can’t stand the smell or texture of the food so therefore they won’t eat it, or sometimes the flavour is too spicy or too sweet or too intense for them to handle). But J, for the most part, really doesn’t have a problem with…
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How sci-fi and Seal got us through the week
Every November I have the chance to do the single mom gig while Steve travels to an academic conference for a few days. It sounds strange, but I kinda like that short time when Steve’s away. Sure, the getting-kids-to-school/homework battle is no fun solo, but conference week means not having to make real dinner and feeding the kids quesadillas and cereal. I get to have free reign over Netflix and can eat the whole Ben and Jerry’s without having to share. It means I can write or curl up with a book while the kids are in bed and not feel guilty about not interacting with anyone else for hours.…
