Homeschool plans (Hide the torches and pitchforks!)

I've been thinking about homeschool again. And planning. 'Cause God knows I love planning!! (Seriously, I do!)

We're about 15 weeks into a school year, and will probably follow The Husband's university schedule. That means another 15 weeks of school starting Monday. The Husband is taking vacation during Summer A (May to mid-June) and working during Summer B (late June to mid-August), so we'll take May off with him. Then we'll work the June, July, and part of August until he goes on vacation again. If that makes sense, it means about 40 weeks of school, which is about right. (15 + 15 + 10 = 40)

Whew! Too much math-iness!

Anyway, I've been waiting for The Boy's "natural curiousity" to set in and for him to demand that I start on the nice meteorology curriculum I bought from Beyond the Page. But I'm still waiting. So we're going all institutional-y and teaching him that what-every-fifth-grader-should-know stuff. I even found the Florida edition!

I've picked out 25 weeks of science from the 5th grade McGraw-Hill science book and have laid out enough Story of The World, Ancient Greek History Pockets, and Ancient Rome History Pockets to make up 25 weeks. (Yes, I'm skipping the food web -- if I have to teach that again, I'll scream!!)

The only thing left to decipher is the whole Excellence in Writing curriculum. We finished the Student Intensive A and I think we have to buy another $240 in "continuation course" now. Not sure. All I know is that I don't have time to be a "good" homeschool mom and make up my own lessons. And The Boy really loved the DVD lessons -- that guy is hilarious!

We'll go on with Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. We'll probably get more serious about the Michael Clay Thomas stuff again, too. Blah, blah. Makes me bored thinking about it.

Well, not bored exactly, but weary. That early-afternoon slump feeling is building behind my brain, and I'm remembering that I have to brush The Girl five times a day, apparently for the rest of my life. Plus do her OT exercises and ballet practice. I swear, that girl is a full-time job. On the other hand, so is The Boy. *sigh* There is no way in Hell that I can succeed against those odds. Maybe lengthening the school year to 40 weeks will help ease the pressure a little.

Fall: 16 weeks (includes a one-week break)

Christmas: 2 weeks

Spring: 18 weeks (includes a two-week break)

Vacation: 4 weeks (the month of May)

Summer: 10 weeks

Vacation: 2 weeks (August)

Yeah, as long as I hide the torches and pitchforks, we'll be juuuust fine.

Still only 40 weeks of school, but doable. Must go lie down now...

Apocalypse Weekend, part tres: The Anticlimax (yay!)

Well, I have to say that this has been one of the best Christmases I can remember. Yeah. I was surprised too.

We got "Santa's" gifts wrapped and were unconscious by 11:30. We stayed that way until, oh, 3:00 when The Girl realized that her favorite PBS station had been dropped by the cable company. Once we put that fire out, I slept until about 6:30, when...

All I could hear was The Boy cautiously exploring the loot with The Husband. "Hey, Santa used our wrapping paper!" Yup. "Hey, I didn't ask for this! That's wrong!" It's okay, boy. Really. "What's in all these boxes?" Dunno, boy. "Can I wake Mom up?" No, boy, not until it's light out. "Hey, I LOVE this." "When's mom getting up?" Not till it's light out. "Mom? Can you get up?" No, hon. Not 'till it's light out.

It was so sweet, listening to them work out how "Santa" did this or that, how this or that got in the house, what we were going to with the new fire pit. I was just laying low, waiting for the volcano. Which never came!

We got people up and opening stuff. The Wii was a big hit. The Girl didn't care about much, but we have photographic evidence of her opening a few things. My dad came over, and I made him bacon and eggs and coffee. The pecan pie was good, as were the other sweets. The tortiere hasn't killed anyone yet. (We left it out overnight! Shh, don't tell anyone!) And I got a nap.

The strange part is that every muscle in my body hurts, especially anything that connects to my shoulders or neck. If you've ever shepherded an asperger's child through the Season of Anticipation and Surprises, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, just try to imagine someone with the self-control of a three-year-old and the brain of a 10-year-old trying to cover all the possible outcomes of every moment of a day for which you have waited and planned for three months. No pressure.

Anyway, presents were opened. Everyone was appropriately grateful to the ancestors and occasionally genuinely excited about gifts. Pie was eaten. Candy was snarfed. The chicken and potatoes are in the oven with the apple crisp. And all's well with the world. The Lord has been merciful to us, indeed.

Apocalypse Weekend, part dos: Christmas Eve

Well, everyone got dressed and went to 5:00 lessons and carols. The Girl sat in the bell tower alcove with The Husband. He says it was nice to at least be indoors this year. The Boy actually read one of the tiny lessons without complaining. He did make atrocious faces when I tried to take his picture. He's an absolute hoot -- but he's also a loose canon. ;) Pictures to come as soon as I can figure out how to load the camera software again.

The Chinese food was good, hot, and eaten. Dessert was scoffed at and skipped. We're watching The PBS News Hour, and laying low. The Boy swears he's going to bed at 7:30 because the cheap-ass plastic Christmas train says Santa will be here at 8:30. Heh? Oh well. Hopefully it'll be okay.

I have to oversee The Girl's screaming fit/shower, and then I'm pretty much off the clock. That doesn't mean that the kids will bark at me from their beds for two hours, but technically, I'm off the clock.

I may have a few presents to wrap, but I'm not sure, really. The Husband will let me know, I'm sure...

Tomorrow, I have to put out goodies, make some breakfast (eggs, bacon, etc.), and let the kids open stuff. That shouldn't sound ominous, right?

Apocalypse Weekend, part uno: Birthday

Well, we've kicked off Apocalypse Weekend with a bang.

Naturally, The Royal Birthdays are today, so we started on our usual pilgrimage: beach, lunch at Grandmother's, and home. Sounds easy, right?

We told the kids that it was too cold to swim at the beach this year, and The Boy reluctantly agreed. We decided to go walking on the beach in shorts and take some pictures. Apparently, The Girl really didn't grasp our meaning until we were set to leave. Then she started the screaming for a swim suit. We loaded everyone up in the car and the screaming died down -- until we got to the beach when it started again full volume.

Remember that trip to the Pioneer Village? Yup, only this time, it was The Girl who tried to claw her eyes out until we removed her from the living hell that we call a gorgeous fall day at the beach. Really, it was beautiful -- sunny, breezy, brisk -- all the things you could ask from Christmas Eve at the beach. And The Girl couldn't get back into the car fast enough. I'll try to post some pictures of her torment.

Lunch went pretty well. I'm assuming that the children won't go bow-legged before the holidays are over, so eating potato chips for lunch probably won't kill them. Right? The home-made ice cream cake with crushed Oreo filling was delicious. The presents were all met with approval, even exultation in some cases. The adults went and talked in the living room while the kids hung out in the back bedroom. All was well. The Holiday Gods were smiling on us again. Until The Boy threw it all up. Most of it made it to the bathroom. The Husband and I scrubbed the rest of it out of the carpet. What do they dye those Oreos with anyway?

So, we're home and that grating sound is our shifting gears from Birthday into Christmas Eve. The husband mysteriously disappeared immediately after we got home to go to Target. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm too tired to care. Hopefully it won't be too expensive. And there's an outside chance that he's buying something for moi. A girl can dream, right?

We'll be heading to chapel around 4:30 for more eye-gouging from The Girl, then for Chinese take-out, which The Boy will only pick at. He won't part with the tradition, but he won't eat it either. I think it's like falling in love with love. Not sure. Wish us luck!!

It's ALIVE!

Aah, the sweet smell of a laptop! It's back and I'm LOVING it!

The Day of Doom is almost upon us, and the birthdays are tomorrow. I am about as ready as I'm going to get. I have to stack ice cream cakes for the birthdays and umm, something else I can't remember, but mostly, I'm about as ready as I'm going to get. Which may not be as ready as I need to be.

I bailed on the playgroup/cookie exchange this year. It's only supposed to be regular Wednesday playgroup, but the last one before Christmas always turns into a cookie swap. Which I'm never prepared for. So for me, it's more like a cookie grab. Tacky yes. It was a gorgeous day, but I couldn't get anyone to go with me to playgroup, and it seemed pitiful to go alone. If you know what I mean. "I have no children or gifts. Can you give me some? Cookies, not kids?"

The Boy is frantic with anticipation. He is preparing for The Day with a red-hot fervor. His head may spontaneously explode at any moment. He informed me half an hour ago that he can't sleep -- he needs a haircut. I told him to get the heck back in bed before I do something desperate. I swear.

The Girl is taking this all with her usual equanimity. Which translates into, "She doesn't have a clue that she's supposed to be breathlessly anticipating presents and/or the Magic of Christmas." Sad, but helpful. I'm keeping her up to date on what is happening on what day, but she's not in full-on Christmas-present mode, like some people I could name. Boychild.

Funny thing happened today. True story. I got a present/package in the mail that said it was from "PA Shelton". Now, assume that my maiden name is Shelton. What would you think? I thought that was pretty weird, considering my father would never call himself "PA" Shelton. I also thought it was strange because my father had already gotten me to buy the kids' Christmas presents for him. Strange. Hmm. Maybe he's losing his mind and sending me Hickory Farms for no apparent reason. OR. Yeah, or it's from my brother in Pennsylvania -- PA Shelton, as opposed to my father who is FL Shelton. Ooooohhh. The Sheltons in Pennsylvania. My brother.

Now, there's a good chance that you don't find this funny, but when I read the package label to my mother, she was as baffled as I was. My usually-dignified father had started calling himself "PA"? When I finally explained it, she almost peed herself laughing. It was worth the phone call. It may not, however, be worth the summer sausages... For what it's worth, my brother and his wife didn't think it was funny at all. Whatevah.

So I hope everyone has a good, umm, day. I'll be trying to keep the birthday presents in a separate bin from the Christmas ones and trying to manage expectations. Wish me luck.

And just for fun, I'm passing on a really great post that Suburban Correspondent had posted. Enjoy!

Christmas is indeed coming...

Well, it's about time to update my profile again -- the twins are turning 11 on Friday. I should be panicked over their impending teenage years, but frankly, I'm just too drained over their 'tween years right now to really care. I guess we'll see.

The Girl sprained her ankle on Friday, tromping around the yard in a pre-bicycle-riding happydance. Poor little thing. She still couldn't walk on it by the next morning, so I took her to the pediatric urgent care center. It's not broken, and just as I was hoping that it would slow her down a little for the holidays, it's not. She's up hobbling around, wrecking the place. She discovered the two Christmas presents under the tree that The Boy made me wrap early. Man, was she pissed when I wouldn't let her keep the one she opened. At least it was hers, though. Very thoughtful of her.

We're on Christmas break right now, along with The Husband whose semester ends tomorrow with graduation. This means, of course, it's time for mom to get out and have some fun. My mammogram is Tuesday. I would go get more teeth ground down, but the dentist is on vacation until January 10. I hope the temporary crowns hold out that long. I also have a strange cyst on my wrist that has to go -- it's starting to affect my blogging. Maybe I can slip it in after the other appointment.

So. A week to go before It's All Over. I feel a strange sense of suspension. The gifts are bought, except my mom's. Some are wrapped. I even bought my dad's presents for the kids, and have to wrap them as well. The tree is (finally) up, but I need four C batteries for the God-awful train. I'm making mostly candies this year, but I won't be making them until Thursday. I'm making a vain attempt on a small present for the sisters-in-law, but I'm not sure it'll come together. I usually send the Christmas cards out between Christmas and New Years, with a Christmas photo at the beach. But, aside from cleaning the house, there's nothing urgent going on.

We'll do the usual Christmas crazy dance. Here's how it goes:

Friday morning, we'll pack up The Birthday, put on our swimsuits, and go to the beach. (As usual, it'll be high tide again this year! What are the odds?!) We'll take the usual photos, play in much-too-cold salt water for a while, then go to my mom's. After a quick shower in the back yard (brr!) we'll have hot dogs and birthday cake with birthday presents. Mid-afternoon, we'll head home, change clothes, and go back out for the 5:00 children's chapel service. After chapel, we'll call in our Chinese food order and pick it up on the way home. After eating too much garlic, the kids'll get pajamas on, watch a DVD, and go to bed. Sometime around midnight, The Husband and I will pack it in and go to bed. And that's just the Christmas Eve dance. If you hear a grinding noise around 4:00 pm Friday, it'll be us, shifting gears.

Christmas morning, we just open presents, eat, and lie around. My parents come to hang out and eat quiche, fruit salad, pie, cookies, and candy throughout the morning. My dad comes around 9:00 and leaves as my mom shows up around 11:00. Once everyone leaves, I go back to bed because I feel like vomiting.

This is where I usually put in the "oh well, life is good" line, so give me a minute. We're indoors, well-fed, secure in our income, and happy. Life is truly good. This Christmas, too, will pass.

Ooh. Time for a "real" field trip!

Brr. Cold here. The solar hot water heater froze up last night. Seriously, we had to disconnect it from the hot water heater in order to bathe this morning. They had melted by 8:00, and nothing looks broken. All's well that ends well. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be in the 40's. Better.

Ooh. Today was our big field trip today. We went to the old Pioneer Village today for a Christmas craft day. I personally love the place. The old buildings, the school, the barns, the animals -- they all transport me back to the 1800's. (Yes, "pioneer" only goes back about 150 years here, at least in terms of Protestant, English-speaking, American people.) I always get a sense of real history under my feet there.

It's a surreal experience to be in a place (or book) and become so engrossed that you suddenly realize that you're still where you started and not somewhere else. I like it. Most people like it. Sadly, places and books that transport a person really scare the piss out of The Boy. He started the trip by getting carsick in the parking lot. Then the complaining started, along with the rude, defiant comments. He initially refused to go in the building with the group. Assuming that he was just being difficult and controlling, and that he'd enjoy it once he got inside, I made him go. When he burst into tears in the classroom, I figured it was time to make a break for it. Seriously, I was pretty sure he'd get over it and have a good time. But no.

Happily, the farm part was outdoors, so The Girl and I went and visited the chickens, sheep, goats, peacocks etc. The dude that was doing the outdoors presentation was really cool. His oldest kid is about 45, so he's about my mom's age. He's been a farmer or rancher most of his life, part of it in Colorado. Cool. We got to hear about all the animals. All the sheep had twins last spring, and one is expecting now. He says she'll lamb on the coldest full moon of the winter. I don't know how they know, but I'm betting he's right. We couldn't get too slobbery because all the water pipes for washing up were frozen. Yayy. The Boy wasn't going anywhere near the animals, but he was content to hang around long enough for The Girl to check them all out.

The day had turned nice by 10:45, so after visiting the vegetable gardens, we all headed home. At least I got to see the farm, The Girl enjoyed the animals, no one threw up in the car. I'm not sure it was really a $15 petting zoo, but I've done worse.

Ballet and Birthday Pie

Well, I took The Girl to see the Nutcracker last night. It went just a little better than I expected. Let's say it was a good thing that it was a local cheap ballet; otherwise the people around us would have been pissed at the chattering. She hid behind her jacket most of the time, but when the music changed, she would peek out to see what just came onstage. All in all, I think she liked it.

The OT has us doing "brushing" right now, and I think it's helping. Basically, every three hours, I have to brush her arms, legs, and back, and compress her arm and leg joints. It's a little like getting a massage five times a day. No wonder she's mellowed out. I know I would be. Still, the things we do for love, eh?

The Husband's birthday was today. We really hadn't planned to do all that much partying for it, as he's a pretty mellow individual. We ended up having Michael Angelo's veggie lasagna and an apple pie. The Boy decided that the shirt and khakis that The Husband bought himself last week would NOT be a good birthday present. (That's usually how we work it -- your own birthday present must be presented to the spouse by close of business on the Wednesday before your birthday weekend. Present will be wrapped by excited children, and you must act surprised and happy when you open it.) I had already bought my dad a Whitman's chocolate sampler for Christmas, so that was the emergency birthday present. In case you were wondering, you should NEVER put birthday candles in an apple pie. Why? The candles melt right into the hot apple filling. WHO KNEW?!

Of Dentists and Christmas sweaters...

Thanks for the encouragement! The dentist didn't go too badly. The first thing she did was to ask, "You understand what we're doing today, right?" I said, "Yeah, you're going to grind down two of my teeth to stumps and glue fake ones on." She says, "Yeah. I guess so." ;)

The saving grace was that I charged my iPod shuffle and loaded up some fun Jack Johnson music. Every time she got out the God-awful grinder, I just cranked the volume up again. You have to check out that link for Jack Johnson. He's also the man who did all the music on the last Curious George movie. It's hip, catchy, and really relaxed. I mean, the man grew up on the north shore of Oahu. He should be.

Anyway, the laptop's still broken, so I'm sitting in the not-so-comfortable desk chair, trying to type on a really clunky keyboard. And it's cold over here by the sliding glass doors. Brr. And speaking of cold -- brr! It's gone below freezing twice this week, and we're due for another cold shot on Monday or Tuesday. This is seriously cutting into my gloating time.

But the silver lining is that I could wear my sequined sweater to The Husband's office party. Yup, I propped my old dad in front of the TV and left the kids with him for three hours. I know, it doesn't sound like a really good idea, but they're almost eleven years old, so I figured it'd be okay. That was the story I had prepared for Child Welfare anyway. Naturally, The Girl took that exact moment to realize that even though I had taken her to the grocery story after the Hair Cuttery (the proper sequence), I had failed to buy cheese at the deli. Hell hath no fury like a girl denied Land O Lakes white American cheese, sliced thickly. To make a long story short, it all worked out, and I have to go get out of this sequined sweater and have it washed for Christmas Eve. Ironically, it's not very warm. Life. Meh.

more "good" news...

Well, the laptop is toast. It's still breathing, but it's in a coma. I have the repair disk I made when we got it. I have the restoration disks that I made at the same time. Neither seems to be able to resuscitate it. *sigh*

And if that's not enough fun, tomorrow I'm having two teeth ground down to stumps so they can glue fake tops on them next week. Yayyy. I am unreasonably unhappy about this. UNHAPPY.

Just Sunday, sliding in to Christmas vacation...

Well, I'm done Christmas shopping. Yeah. You heard me. Done. Me and my laptop are D-O-N-E. I'm loving it. ;) I had to clear $50 at Hearthsong to get cheap shipping, so I bought me a calligraphy set. Pretty...

Nothing much else is going on. Today was breakfast at church day, so The Boy and I ate bacon, "eggs", and grits, and then killed an hour before church started. He's gotten so tall, I hardly recognize him across the church yard. We remembered our Angel Tree presents, so that's check-o-la. Then we went home, had a snack and slept for two hours. I think the (mythical) Billingsly family may have given us a cold or something.

Either way, I avoided doing any housework today. Hey, it's kept this long, it'll keep a few more days. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

We have our shopping done. I have only my two and my brother's three kids, plus The Husband, my parents, and a few stray aunts. We found these nifty ball point pens that you put a picture in. Those will do nicely as at least part of the aunts' presents. My father is getting a t-shirt that says, "History Buff. (I would find you more interesting if you were dead.)" Yeah, you wonder where I get my sense of humor? I'm sure I'll have more grousing to do about my mother's present, but the high-stakes kid presents are d-u-n.

Anyway, it's Sunday evening again. Time for Doc Martin and some mild panic that I have to drive to The Big City tomorrow. If I could get the kids to turn off the TV for six hours a day, I'd give them a couple of weeks off. I guess that's coming soon enough, eh?

Before then, though, I have to have my teeth cleaned, get a mammogram, and go to a meeting at Learning Rx. I have ballet tickets for The Girl and me, and The Husband and I are going to a concert. We have an office party on Friday. Soon enough, though. Soon.

Wherein I am the Grinch. Seriously.

So, today I put up the outdoor lights. For Florida, it's a pretty darned tasteful display. We have some icicle lights over the garage door, a 7-foot-tall rope-light palm tree by the front door, and some bush netting over the shrubs. Voila. Merry stinkin' Christmas.

Yeah, my attitude toward Christmas hasn't improved yet. That'd probably require Vallium, a much more quick-acting drug. But at least I think I've figured out one of the things that really honks me off about Christmas. And I've made a new rule:

Persons using any form of the word "magic" with any form of the word "Christ" in the same sentence gets slapped.

Really -- magic and Christ? I think that gets you excommunicated in some parts of the world. Like Italy, maybe. I hope.

"This is the Magic of Christmas!" "Make this Christmas magical!" "Come see the magic at Christmas World!"

There's no way I'm pulling anything magical out of my not-so-magical... ear... this year. Or any other year, for that matter. I'll go through the motions and help The Husband with the Usual Festivities, but my heart's not in it.

"The Grinch hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season..."

Christmas Survey...

Well, as the prozac is starting to kick in, I thought I'd give Sunnyview's holiday question list a try.

Keep in mind that I basically hate Christmas, and my husband is in charge of making sure the children aren't traumatized by my behavior.

See, Christmas was a religious holiday when I was growing up. We were always in the pageant. We always had new church dresses. We always had an Advent wreath. My mother played carols on the piano for us. We had one real tree decorated in (extremely hot) colored lights and different-shaped, colored, frosted glass balls. (My favorite had Snoopy etched on it!)

We had plenty of presents, but my mother didn't feel the need to make it a Perfect Childhood Memory for us. In fact, I remember going back to school after Christmas break in 7th grade and having a classmate ask me what I got for Christmas. I couldn't remember anything I got in particular, yet I knew I had gotten presents and I had had a great Christmas. It was a puzzlement for me.

So here goes.

1. Hot chocolate or eggnog? Neither. I like "dark chocolate truffle" flavored coffee. It's a calorie thing. I've tried eggnog in the coffee, and it just doesn't work as well as you'd think.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? The Husband decreed years ago that Santa does not wrap, so no, Santa does not wrap. Hey, what do I care? I'm easy!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Again, The Husband likes colored, as do my Philistine children, so my white lights went a long time ago. Outdoors, we still have white -- mostly because I have to put them up!

4. Do you hang mistletoe? You gotta be joking. I won't even have holly or poinsettia in the house since I brought the kids home. Those nuts will put anything in their mouths. When I lived in New England, I always put real pine garland over the doorways to make it smell good! I got a whiff at Lowe's last week, and it stopped me in my tracks.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The Husband's birthday is December 13, so we wait to put the tree up until after that. The outdoor ones go up about a week before that. I'm from an Episcopalian family, and we still like to think that Christmas starts on the 25th and runs for 12 days -- through Epiphany.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? How much time ya got? Seriously, I've really started to avoid high-calorie, high-sugar foods since I lost my 20 pounds last year. There isn't any food that I have to have in order to make it officially Christmas. If I had my choice, I'd give up all the cookie baking in favor of making peanut brittle, no-bake cookies, toffee, and vanilla-mint bark. I like making candy!

We don't do a Christmas meal, per se, but we have a Christmas morning brunch. Mostly, my dad comes over around 9:00, eats some quiche, bisquick-sausage balls, and pecan pie. He opens his presents, and leaves before my mom gets off from church. She arrives around 11:00, eats fruit salad, quiche, and stuffed dates and opens a present or two. Then we're on our own.

I also found out from The Boy that one of his favorite Christmas things is having Chinese food on Christmas Eve. We call it in from the parking lot of the church after children's mass, and pick it up on the way home. It's usually dark before we get home, so we drive once around the block to see the lights. Nice.

7. Favorite Christmas memory as a child? The Christmas pageant at church. My sister and I were always readers or in the choir. I can probably still recite the entire thing from memory. "...but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." Ooh, and for some reason, I remember my mom playing with the warm wax on the advent wreath candles after dinner. I guess it was an excuse to sit and talk after dinner. We liked the excuse to take the time to sit with her and chat.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I remember we found the doll boxes in the trash one year, and my mom half-heartedly tried to support the Santa lie. I wasn't disappointed, as I remember it.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope. Christmas starts on the 25th.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I just found out that The Boy likes our ratty preschool-made ornaments. I hate 'em. But mob rule persists, and we keep putting them up. It's not about me. :)

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. Don't get any, but love it. I grew up in the mid-Atlantic states, so 40 degrees and raining meant Christmas to me. (Sometimes when it's cold and the streets are wet, I still have flashbacks.) Most of my adult life, I lived in New England, so that meant snow. Either way!

12. Can you ice skate? Yes. The Husband and I went skating on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa quite a bit BC (before children). We skated the entire eight miles and slept it off in the Chateau Laurier. Ahh.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I got a gorgeous coat when I was 11, and still remember it.

14. What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you? Music. Good music. And handmade chocolates. Give me Harry Connick's Christmas album, Loreena McKennett's Christmas albums, and the King's College choir, and leave me be.

The church here doesn't do a children's pageant, nor do they play any music written before the year 2000, so church isn't the cornerstone of our celebrations that it could be. We do choose three presents from the church's Angel Tree to buy and wrap. We like doing that. The high school band comes around with their luminaria to sell, so we donate to that, too. We try to give to the local charities as we can, and donate our outgrown bicycles to the firemen. The Christmas parades here in Florida are really nice, and we usually catch the boat parade afterward on the river.

15. What is your favorite holiday Dessert? Buche de Noel. My mother used to make it. I think the icing is half butter and half chocolate. And the cake is half icing, so that's a good thing.

16. What is your favorite Christmas tradition? The Advent wreath. Until last year, we always sang "Oh come, oh come" and lit the candles before grace at dinner. Last year, The Girl threw a complete freak out, so we're not doing it anymore. Maybe next year. Or the year after that.

17. What tops your tree? Gold star. Call me a cynic (CYNIC!) but those angels look like they have a tree up their butts.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? We were never into getting or giving TONS at Christmas. It makes me nervous to give, as the gift usually isn't as good as something they'd buy themselves, and none of us can really afford to spend the money anyway. Seriously, I feel like I spend $50 on a gift for my dad that he doesn't really like, and he spends $50 on a gift for me that I don't really like. It's like spending $50 on something for myself that I don't really like. Who needs that? We don't send Christmas presents to anyone outside the immediate family unless they're under 12 years old. I don't mind giving those -- they're the only part I like! We have a four-year-old and twin 9-month-olds. That's pretty easy and fun.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? "In the Bleak Midwinter" is lovely, soft thing. I used to sing The Coventry Carol to my son when he was colicky. There were days when Herod could have had that one. ;)

20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Yum -- crushed and stirred into white chocolate, allowed to cool, and broken into bark.

21 Favorite Christmas Show? The Christmas Story, hands down. It cracks me up! I never liked Rudolph. I'm sorry, but those people are creepy looking.

22. Saddest Christmas Song? Gotta be the shoe song. But yesterday, I heard a song about a terminally ill child having Christmas in October before he died. That one sucked, too. And I hate "Dominick the Christmas Donkey" That one makes me flip the channel before that sucker gets stuck in my head. Again.

23. What’s your Wish for Christmas? Peace. In my house. In my country. In the world. Oh, and a new pencil sharpener.

Still waiting for that prozac to kick in completely. I'll let you know how it goes. In the mean time, try this. It is the essence of what I love about Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYmrUmRsATI

Christmas in Dixie (!)

Florida Christmas quiz:

Q: Is it ever appropriate to decorate the orange tree in your yard for Christmas?

A: Yes, but only of you're a University of Florida fan and you're putting up blue bulbs.

We're full of quandaries here in the land of wackiness. The neighbors have started putting up their Christmas decorations this weekend, but because of the warm weather and lack of ice on the roofs, they just don't know when to stop. So, after my brief escape, I mean walk, around our neighborhood yesterday, here are my Tips for Outdoor Decorating.

1. Please limit yourself to one Santa per display. If Santa is both kissing his wife and climbing up to the chimney at the same address, one of them is a fraud. And I'm not sure which one of them I'd shoot first.

2. Santa + Baby Jesus = Tacky. Seriously, Santa praying at the manger? That's just you trying too hard.

3. More than eight reindeer on the lawn is too many unless they're already hitched to the sleigh. Seriously, think of the neighbors' bushes and your lawn. Eew!

4. If you're doing to deflate the decorations during the day, could you put them in the garage? It looks like Santa died. Or passed out in the gutter. If you can't afford the electricity, maybe you've got too much out there.

5. One word: spellcheck.

They're just social caterpillars...

Okay, if my kids dislike everything I've ever had fun doing, what do they like? Good question.

The Boy likes Mario. And Luigi, of course. He likes, um, weird Norse and Greek mythology. He likes Calvin and Hobbs. He likes splashing around in the pool. He likes moderately-aspie boys like himself who don't notice that he has no social graces. He likes making up riddles. He likes playing any video game ever invented. He likes the outdoors but in only tiny doses -- the mushrooms growing in the lawn are cool but one yellow jacket will send him screaming into the house. He likes riding my brother-in-law's mower, but he doesn't like bicycles. He liked keyboard/music class from last year, but he doesn't like cub scout meetings or anything else that requires him to sit at a table with other kids and learn something. So, what are his interests? Video games, mythology, and reading Boy's Life.

The Girl likes crossword puzzles (if I'll help), schoolwork, The Museum of Arts and Sciences, the library, and any other place we've been more than sixteen times. She likes swinging, splashing in the pool/ocean, and she's learning to ride a bicycle. She likes carrying the cats around the house. She likes PBS kids, even if it's a show she's seen a million times. She likes the cooking and woodworking shows on PBS on Sundays. She likes "writing", collecting magazines, Dr. Seuss books, visiting Target. In short, she likes PBS and anything else she's done more than 35 times.

On the face of it, it seems like I need to get my kids out and exposed to something fun to do. But "out" isn't fun, and "fun" isn't fun. Outdoor music isn't fun. Hiking isn't fun. The science museum is fun, but we can only go on weekdays when it's empty, and even then, I have to have backup to go there. The beach is fun, but they don't swim, so, again, I need backup. The pool is closed for the winter. (Indoor pool? What's that?) Playgroup on Wednesday is fun as long as no one's playing a pushing-and-shoving game or fishing. Chess club at the library? No. Co-op book club? No. The music lessons he had last year aren't being taught this year. (The organizer jumped ship for Classical Conversations.) There's a homeschool swim class, but he'd have to be able to swim laps already. Don't even think about organized sports. Please, just don't go there...

If I had the strength, time, and leadership skills to start a group, what would it be? Music class again. Play date with his friend from playgroup. Eco-Buggy tour of the nature preserve. Swim lessons? Or maybe I just have to force them out and teach them to like the outside world. (Please, anyone with ASD children, talk me down from that wall!!) He likes kids, but they make him nervous.

The need to get out more, that's as much as I can tell.

Wherein I ponder the fall of American civilization

Okay, I still haven't vented enough spleen, so here goes again. (If you want some heartwarming gratitude, try The Mama Bird Diaries. It's not here. If you want bile and bitterness, you've come to the right place.)

Here, for your amusement, is a list of things that I love and have been wrecked by my kids. Okay, some of them have been wrecked by time and fortune, but the kids get most of the blame tonight because I'm feeling bitter and slighted.

1. Singing in a church choir.

I have sung in church choirs since I turned eight. Oh sure, I took off a few years for college, but I have seriously sung second soprano ("All notes must touch a line, and don't even think of slipping in a G-sharp.") mostly in Episcopalian church choirs for probably 30 years. I adore music written by men wearing tights: Tallis, Byrd, Handel, Mendelssohn, all those dudes. (Okay, I think Mendelssohn may not have worn tights; I'm not sure.) I like hymns written in the 1800's. I like English carols, ancient motets, German requiems. Men in tights. And Fanny Mendelssohn.

I did sing some, after my kids were born, but not the whole enchilada. Then we moved to Florida, the church changed music directors, and they now sing only songs written since the year 2000. Can you hear the creaking sound? That's my voice becoming rustier by the year from lack of training and lack of practice. And from yelling at the kids.

Oh, and as for the kids singing in a choir, fuggetaboutit. I've tried. The Boy won't even let me sign him up for drum lessons.

2. Folk Music

I love cheesy folk music. I adore men unafraid to sing The Mary Ellen Carter. I like early Mary Chapin Carpenter, Uilleann pipes, sea chanteys, bluegrass -- authentic, organic, acoustic music. I like clogging, polka, English Morris dancing. I even like bagpipes and men throwing phone poles, I mean caber toss.

Florida, my kids, and my lack of talent share the blame for this one. It's just to freaking hot for bagpipes. There is no folk music scene in a Nascar town. There is authentic bluegrass to be had, but it's hard to come by. And my kids hate outdoor music, so it's an exercise in futility. Plus, while I am musical, I don't have a lot of talent.

3. Historical Reenactments

I just love any kind of historical reenactment, as long as it has Europeans in it. It doesn't matter the era -- French and Indian, Revolutionary, Civil War, Medieval, you name it. I love it all. (I also like reading historical fiction, but try to stay to reputable authors like Ellis Peters.) I also like the smell of wood smoke, so that may have something to do with it.

If you combine this with the previous one, you get living anthropology through music, which is a two-fer, if you ask me. I adore fife and drum corps. When I lived in New England, I came close to becoming a camp follower or at least making their clothes.

4. Ethnic food.

When I go out to eat, I want to see something that I can't make at home. I want something made of spices that I can't find a the Piggly Wiggly. I want to eat goat. I want the flavors and textures of places that I'll never see. I want paella from the Spanish Costa del Sol, stew from Province, curry from India and Thailand, barbecue from Afghanistan. Again, this is a Nascar town, and I do not want pork chops from Applebees.

I could cook this kind of food, I suppose, but I've lost the heart for it. My kids were supposed to be omnivores. I always believed that they'd eat anything, just like my sister and I did. I ate curry while breastfeeding. I did it all right. But no. They've crushed my spirit, and I no longer try.

5. Good manners and culture

Yes, my mother raised me to be a lady. Hard to tell now, but I was. By nine years old, I could disassemble a Cornish hen without touching it with my fingers -- while wearing velveteen. To this day, I cannot bring myself to say that I "don't like" something. "No, thank you, I don't care for any aspic, but I'm sure it's lovely." I do not say, "What?!" I was raised to say, "Pardon?" I just can't imagine how I've produced children that have to be endlessly prompted to say, "Excuse me" or "Bless you." Seriously, I have blessed every sneeze they have ever produced, and they cannot be trained to say it without being prompted. Drives me crazy.

It has been said that, "A gentlemen is one who never unintentionally hurts another person's feelings." I was raised to be one of those people. My kids can't be badgered into it under pain of death.

6. Nice clothes.

Ahh. Wool suits, brocade skirts, linen dresses. I wore all of these in the 1980's. If I could have fit into clothes off the rack, I would have driven myself to the poorhouse. Even as a child, I loved patent leather shoes and party dresses. I blame the 1990's, grunge music, and "casual Fridays" for the demise of the American clothing empire. Now, all I wear are jeans.

Partial blame goes to my lack of money and ridiculous height, partial blame goes to my kids who won't go anywhere respectable enough to require socks, and partial blame goes to the Sunshine State, where we wear capris to funerals.

7. Bicyling and camping

Bicycling was the only sport that I was ever any good at. And my kids can't be bothered to learn. They do not feel the need for speed, and tend to stare at the scenery instead of steering, resulting in massive injuries.

While in New England, I also got a taste for fall camping in Vermont. If you've ever been camping in Vermont the first week of October, you don't need an explanation. If you haven't, an explanation won't help. It's gorgeous.

Again, Florida and my kids share this one. My kids are all, "Eew, bugs, dirt, and walking? NO!" Florida, for its part, is eight parts sand, one part muck, and one part bugs. The kids are right -- too many bugs.


Here's the point in the blog where I wrap this one up and send it home. But I'm still figuring out what my point is here. I do know that reviewing my favorite things (raindrops on yellow rugosas, the smell of moss on a half-wild cat) I do feel better. I guess it's comforting to know that it's still out there. I can't go to it, but it's still out there, and the world hasn't gone totally doo-lally and abandoned it all for a bucket of chicken wings, a Bike Week t-shirt, and contemporary Christian music. Culture, adventure, flavor, and sophistication are still out there, like some elusive Luna moth, lurking on the edges of the darkness.

Maybe if I just make a little more effort to get a sitter and get The Husband and me out there, we can find it, especially during This Most Wonderful Time of the Year when there's good music out there for cheap. I just can't shake the feeling that it's a crying shame that my kids can't be sold on any of it. How does one live without at least the memory of Tallis, Spanish Mediterranean food, and tailored wool? HOW?!

Wherein I act like a spoiled jerk.

I saw the president on Barbara Walters this evening. Man, I hate him. His kids are "smart and funny". They keep him grounded. They make him proud. What did I get? Two kids that act like they pretty much hate me most of the time and are not afraid to embarrass me in public to make sure I get the message.

Oh sure, they're nice enough, as long as I don't stand for something like low-sugar breakfasts, quiet video games, or tooth brushing. Suddenly, every time I disagree with The Boy, he has been acting as if it's a sign that I hate him and he should kill himself. He actually tried half-heartedly to kill himself this afternoon by holding his breath and was mightily pissed off that it wouldn't work!

I know I'm being a jerk about this, but my kids have been such a pain in my ass this weekend. The Girl has been squawking pretty much all evening. She wants to continue one of our irritating, repetitive tasks, and I've decided that I can't do it anymore. She has been insisting at the top of her lungs. She screamed and back-talked through her shower. She threw a fit over the quantity of whipped cream on her ice cream at 10:00 at night. The Boy was just hateful most of the day.

Sometimes, I wonder what the hell I've ever done to deserve this kind of treatment from my own kids.

Oh sure, you say, "Just don't put up with it." The behaviorists say that kids always do something for a reason, and if you ignore it, they'll quit it. But that's shit. If I screamed every time I felt like it, I'd scream as much as they do -- even if people ignored me. I don't see how that's going to solve my problem.

And yeah, you try to convince an autistic child that she has to sit still, be quiet, and pay attention. She can do one out of three, but never all three at once. Being pleasant is just a bonus. Have I mentioned her latest self-stimulation? She gasps as hard as she can, over and over. Yeah, it gives a ton of stimulation, and if you do it enough times in a row, it makes you dizzy. Oh, and it really makes people stare.

I know The Boy has to be held to a higher standard than The Girl, but honestly, I just don't know if he can. He spent the night with my mom Wednesday and still hasn't regained his equilibrium. He's been crying, screaming, and throwing things at the drop of a hat. (And, yes, it's my fault. And The Husband is on my case every time I "antagonize" him.) I think that Christmas present planning is making it worse. I have visions of the usual psychologist intervention and its probably outcome in this house -- The Boy spending the next five years in his room, unable to conjure up enough self-control to be allowed to leave.

I gave up on the whole lot of them around 9:00 tonight and let The Husband deal with them. I sat in my room sewing a pink polka-dotted flannel bathrobe for my daughter -- so that she could screech when I ask her not to run naked through the house after her shower. I could hear the Barnyard DVD going in one room, Stevie Ray Vaughn scratching out the delta blues on PBS from another room, and The Girl whining and hooting up a storm (as only an autistic tween girl can) from another. It's enough to make me take up smoking, just to be allowed to leave the building for ten minutes every hour. (Oh, that rule doesn't apply at home? Shit.)

So, Barack Obama, I voted for you, man, but your kids make me crazy. And God? I want a partial refund on these kids. Seriously, man. I got gypped.

Thankful for... flip-flops?

A Thanksgiving riddle for you:

Q: Why do people in Florida wear flip-flops to shop for Thanksgiving dinner?

A: Because they won't let us shop barefoot, and those are the
shoes we keep in the car.

Yeah, I know -- not very funny. Really, it's only funny when it suddenly occurs to you in the grocery. Shopping for turkey in flip-flops.

It's official. It's gloating season:

From the WESH 2 Weather Team, Central Florida's Most Accurate Forecast
4:23 pm EST, 11/25/2010

TONIGHT: Partly cloudy. Isolated shower chance along the coast. Low near 63. Winds SSE 5-10.

FRIDAY: Cool front moving closer with afternoon showers possible. Breezy and warm with increasing clouds. High 83. Winds SW 10-20.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy skies with scattered showers. Low near 62. Winds SW to NW 5-15.

SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy skies and cooler with a few scattered showers. High 75. Winds NNE 10-15.

Brr. Only 75 on Saturday? I hope I don't have to wear socks!

It's childish. I know. But remember last summer when I only wanted to die from the ridiculous heat? Our Fine State has only three seasons: Summer (March to April), Hell (May to September), Summer (October, November), and Jacket Weather (December to February). Notice how we have eight months of hot weather? Yeahhh. And only four of those are actually livable?

So, this Thanksgiving, I give thanks mostly for summer weather. And flip-flops.

Lame-o

Someone has (inadvertently) pointed out to me that my life is, well, lame. Yeah, we have nothing better to do with our time than to get stressed out over buying Christmas presents for the cats. In November. Yeah, L-A-M-E.

*sigh* I wasn't always lame. Honest. When did I become lame? I'd say, round about the time I became a homeschool teacher.

There, I said it. AND lightning didn't strike me.

See, homeschooling often seems to me like a purposely creating a tempest in a teapot, making something that is pretty darned simple (education) into something rife with angst. Seriously -- you have kids, you send them to school, they get an education, grow up, get a job, and leave home. Lather, rinse, repeat -- the Circle of Life, right? Well, yeah, unless your kids have an altered neurological system or some other problem with the educational or schooling process.

If you go to the public schools, you get peer pressure, fads, clubs, attitudes, friends, crushes, enemies, sports -- all things good or bad, depending on how it works out for them and how angst-y you get about that sort of thing. You send the kids out into the world. They find a way to figure it out. It builds character. Right?

I know you can simulate that sort of "real life living" (if that's what it is) while educating a child at home, but it doesn't seem to have the same feeling of combat. Maybe that's good?

Either way, my kids don't do "group education" activities very well -- the girl because she can't concentrate when she's trying to gouge her eyes out and the boy because he's trying so hard to get out of the class without getting into trouble. So in order to avoid the "I want to want something" culture of the suburbs, I have to find them a Life? Oy. I'll put it on my to-do list.

Now, I'm pretty sure the homeschooling didn't cause the lameness. Maybe lack of contact with the outside world did. I can't exactly take the kids to work at the homeless shelter, they can't do clubs/sports, we don't have livestock, they're afraid of nature/bugs/wildlife, and they're not interested in saving the sea turtles. These kids need to get a Life's Passion.

I can share my passions with them -- native plants, social justice, home improvement on the cheap, looking after my parents, building curriculum understandable to autistic children, helping my kids find joy in the ordinary moments of life -- but my passions will not be theirs.

Well, now we've found common ground between the schoolers and the homeschoolers -- we both want our kids to grow up with a purpose, a passion. That's something! I may have just fulfilled my life's destiny!

Really? Musical chairs?

Y'know what drives me nuts? When my kid does something stupid and the world doesn't allow him to suffer the natural consequences.

Example? The Boy sometimes overreacts to pushing and shoving. He has a highly sensitive fight-or-flight reflex. As a result, he whacked a kid after a scuffle during musical chairs at Kids' Fun Night at the church. Who thought a game involving pushing and clawing was a good idea? The same person who handed out plastic whistles half an hour later. But I digress.

Now, like all boys these days, the other kid had been trained to tattle instead of whacking him back. I know it sounds neanderthal, but I really think The Boy would put it together faster if they'd just let boys be boys.

I dislike bullies as much as anyone, and I don't want to see my kid hurt, but better now than later when everyone's grown. Of course, by then he won't have to play musical chairs, so maybe it'll be okay.



It still bugs me.

You got a problem with that?

I know you're dying to know. Or not.

Today, I offered The Boy a trip to PetCo in the afternoon -- if he could get some of his work done in the morning by himself, while The Girl and I finished her school work. Bad idea. He spent three hours this morning complaining about all the unnecessarily healthy food in the house. He claimed that I had denied him breakfast. I was causing him to be too healthy. (And apparently, that's not good.) For the record, we consider FrankenBerry to be a condiment, to be sprinkled over Cheerios. I mean, really, would you drink maple syrup for breakfast? (Quiet, you!)

He subjected us to three hours of whining. Then he cried because he had spent his morning whining -- because I hadn't let him eat breakfast -- and he was now very sad that he couldn't take his webkinz dog to PetCo. Just think how disappointed Toby the dog would be! UNFAIR! I was UNFAIR!! And he was going to run away from home. Because he was a loser.

Umm. Yeah.

We got it together in the afternoon (after The Girl and I finished our ballet practice) and we finished his work around 5:00. He agreed to give up some of his much-coveted computer time after dinner to go to PetCo with me. So, after I got back from food co-op pickup, we went out and bought Christmas presents for the cats.

Yeah, so this means one of two things, possibly both. Possibility one: he still has a lot of anxiety, particularly about working on new/hard stuff alone, and currently, his nerve endings are raw and bleeding. Or possibility number two: he's a brat.

I wonder what's for breakfast tomorrow...

So that's where that noise was coming from...

Update on that blame thingie.

I decided to stop spreading my attention so thin, and have split school time between the two kids. The Girl has my undivided attention all morning. The Boy has my undivided attention all afternoon. The afternoon lessons tend to end early and reconvene around 7:30 for reading. In between, The Girl wants me to help her with her crossword puzzles.

So, basically, I'm spending 10 hours a day on homeschool. No playgroup, no science club, limited break for dance class, no trips to the book store. UNTIL. Here's the kicker: if The Boy can do some of his work independently in the morning, the school day will end earlier, and we can go places. Voila.

I expect the push-back to start next week, but it's a short week anyway, which should prolong the misery and extend the "extinction burst" for weeks! Whee!!

So what did I learn today? First, I really enjoyed teaching The Girl without all that screaming going on. It was a delight. We started with her OT and braingym, which set her up beautifully for seat work. We finished early, actually, and I was looking into the science drawer for enough to make it to 11:30. Lovely...

After lunch? Not as good. The whining and screaming started almost immediately. He wanted to do his writing in front of the TV. No. Not on my watch. He claims that I tell him things without listening to him. When the heck did this become a democracy?! Okay, that sort of rigidity was what got me where I was yesterday. "Okay, how long will it take you to write the paragraph? 15 minutes? You may work on this until Dinosaur Train is over in 20 minutes. If you are not finished, you will finish in the kitchen." He agreed, and you KNOW what he got done, right? ;) Yeahhh... He still spent too much time screeching over his math and logic, but I'm hoping that the extra hand-holding will help him stop freaking out. Then I can wean him off of the hand-holding with a promise of time off in the afternoons if he can work it out himself.

The Husband stepped up to the plate, too. He herded resentful children for me. He tried to help The Girl with her crossword puzzle while I was trying to read The Trojan War with The Boy. He's starting to find out that, yeah, it's part my attitude that pisses them off, but man, those kids are kind of a pain in the butt. Oh, and The Girl demands that I help with the puzzles, not him. "Accept no substitutes."

So, good news? We all lived through the day, and no one screamed except my son. But at least we've identified the source of that noise we've been hearing...

Problem solved!

We've finally figured out who the bad guy is in our semi-toxic soup of school behavior. It's ME! Yeah, the husband solved our problem by declaring me to be the problem.

There. You've got your positive thought for the day. The Husband has solved our yelling problem. It's all my fault. 'Cause they're just children.

Pardon? They're almost eleven years old! You're telling me that the children can ignore me, mock me, disobey me, and generally push my buttons all they want, and I'm supposed to be their little punching bag? Yeah. That's working for me. Especially when The Husband pokes his nose out of his little workout/movie room in the evening to yell at me for it.

Okay, here's how it goes.


I state calmly, "Boy, it's 7:00. It's time for your shower. Then we'll read The Trojan War."

He screams. "Eeeeeee!"

I repeat the request. "I asked you this afternoon whether you wanted to read it then or read it after dinner. You chose after dinner. It is now after dinner. You must now take a shower and then we'll read The Trojan war."

He starts yelling, "NO! I hate the icky, wicky, ticky Trojan War!! I'm not reading it!" (Visualize the fanny dance -- kind of looks like bees showing the way to the new pollen source.)

I start getting ticked off. He's now wasting my time. "No! You get your butt in the shower and get clean. I have to do the dishes before we can read, so move!"

The husband joins in before it really escalates. "Honey, why are you yelling?!"

"Because unless I do, no one will do anything!" I turn to The Boy, "Go now and get a shower. NOW."

Okay, for now, point Mom. He goes off to the shower. Ten minutes later, I check on him. "Where's your towel? Where's the wash cloth? Why aren't you wet yet?"

He gets flustered and aggravated. "Aaaaah!! I'm doing it! I'm doing it!!"

I counter, "No, you're not! You're standing naked in the middle of the bathroom, doing NOTHING. GET A SHOWER OR I WILL PERSONALLY BATHE YOU!"

I'm not riled up enough, so The Husband joins in again, "Why are you two yelling again?!"

"I asked him to get a shower, but all he's doing is standing naked in the bathroom." I turn to The Boy. "Boy, get a shower."

The Boy's voice rises an octave, "But I don't have a towel!"


Yeah, you're getting the picture now. A half-hour later, I pop in on him, and he's putting on pajamas in the bathroom. (He's supposed to get out and put them on in his room.) He sees me, screams, and starts doing his pity-party crying. Now, The Husband is furious. (I must be interrupting his movie and workout.) The Boy tells him that I yelled at him and hurt his feelings, so The Husband yells at me. I yell at The Husband that I did no such thing, and his son must stop boo-hoo-ing. Immediately.


The day goes a lot like this. We need a mediator. I'm sick to death of having them mentally pinch me all day long. They're sick to death of... What the hell are they sick of? Being told to do things they don't want to do. Tough shit.

I'm just fed up with making allowances for them. I'm sick of making PECS picture charts. I'm sick of telling them the same thing over and over. I'm tired of issuing six prompts for them to accomplish anything. I'm sick of grinding my teeth.


Example. It's ten minutes before we leave for dance class. I tell The Boy, "We're leaving for dance in ten minutes. What do you need to do before you can leave?" (Hint: pee, put on shoes, and get everything he wants to take with him.)

He answers, "Put on shoes?"

I ask, "Aaaand?"

Blank stare. "Get in the car?"

"It's the same thing we've done for the last six years. Pee, put shoes on, and get your things together. So, tell me, what do you have to do in the next 10 minutes?"

He repeats it back and wanders off.


Lather, rinse, repeat. Try not to scream or cry.

Now, I'm not looking for pity or advice. I don't need to be reminded what a scourge autism is, and how I can't get angry with them. I need leverage. I need a professional to put a change jar in front of The Boy and say, "Every time you scream or defy your mother's reasonable requests, you will lose a nickel. Every time you take initiative and do your work without being told, you will gain a nickel." Or whatever behaviorists do, now that corporal punishment is out of style.

I need hope that if I actually succeed in making it through a day without screeching at them, they'll come around and stop screeching at me. After all, as The Husband keeps pointing out, I'm the adult.

So, good news...

Rejoice. Give thanks.

Okay, more positive blog stuff. Um. Still nuthin.

Hm. Today I got up at 7:30, tired from The Boy waking me every fifteen minutes until 11:30, when I told him he could sleep on the couch after all. I got everyone fed and got a shower. School started somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00. The Boy screwed around but finally finished his DVD lesson from Excellence in Writing, then he did a half-assed job on his Life of Fred. I sent him out with The Girl to swing while I packed her lunch. My dad arrived to watch The Boy just as I ran out the door to therapy in The Big City with The Girl -- screaming hysterically.

She had done her writing and some crossword puzzles before she went out to swing. She was wearing decent clothes (for a change) but still wanted to change clothes for the trip. (She always wears the same clothes on Mondays and then has to change into decent clothes for the trip to The Big City.) She sat in her room for ten minutes without getting it done, and I dragged her out, screaming.

About fifteen minutes into the hour-and-ten-minute trip, she calmed down and I reminded her that she had time but she sat on the bed. I think she'll shake it a little faster next time.

Therapy was fun, but the OT let me know that The Girl is supposed to be practicing her sensory integration exercises several times a day. Um. I do it twice a week. Like practicing piano, right? Oy. The therapist has starting brushing/joint compression. She'll do it a few weeks, until Lora gets used to it, and we'll start it for real. Translation? I have to do it four times a day for a while and then we'll taper off. Oy again.

The speech therapist was out with an ill mother-in-law, so we didn't have to do that at least. The Girl hates speech. It's hard work.

"What is this?" A refrigerator.
"What is it used for?" We take food out of it.
"No, what does the refrigerator do? What do we use it for?" We open it?

You can see where this leads us. Correct answer? It keeps food cold. We use it to keep out food cold. Hm. Anyway, we drove home another hour and ten minutes, and relieved my mom who had The Boy by then.

I mounted the barre for The Girl's ballet mirror. I repaired the sprinkler head that The Husband drove over and snapped off last week. (This required a quick hit at Lowe's for a new part.) I helped cook dinner, ate, emptied the dishwasher and re-filled it. I looked up my garage door opener manual on the 'net and then figured out why my remote control wasn't working. I helped The Girl with some crossword puzzles, sent The Boy to get a shower, and wrote a blog post.

Coming up? I have to read The Trojan War to The Boy, bathe The Girl, and get everyone into bed.

Positive post... I survived the day, got some stuff off my to-do list, and I didn't have to go to speech therapy.

Rejoice with me...

I think we just may be okay. (Maybe.)

Okay, I think I need to start writing more "positive" blog entries.

So, here goes...

Umm. Okay, here goes: My boy is getting old enough to be truly, adult-ly funny.

See, I've been getting all misty-eyed over those toddler toys in the Christmas catalogs. You know the type -- creative, educational, guaranteed-to-make-your-child-bright, colorful, fun toys. There is so much to be learned as a three-year-old, and most of it is pretty easy and/or intuitive. Even if you don't show your kid a single phonics flash card, she WILL learn to read. Sooner than you think. Girls are that way. Except my girl, but I digress.

Where are all the children's toys for tweens? The catalogs end at 10 years old. What then? I'm starting to see classes, camps, activities for kids up through 5th grade -- the exact age of my kids.

So, it's comforting to see The Boy develop an adult sense of humor. He makes my mom laugh. It's comforting. He may, in fact, become enough of an adult to be legal guardian for his sister after all. I do not want him to be her physical guardian necessarily, but I want someone to keep the lawyers and social workers honest when I'm gone.

So what do tweens and teenagers do for fun? Learn to be adults. Just like mine.

Maybe he'll be okay after all. Maybe we all will.

And on and on...

So, let's review the taxonomy of homeschooling parents:

1. Those who want to give their children a more rigorous education than the public schools provide, usually implying Classical Conversations. (Feel free to genuflect now.)

2. Those who want to provice a more Christ-centered education than the public schools are allowed to provide.

3. Those who don't want to stifle their children's development with a formal education, like the public schools do.

4. Those whose children cannot be educated by the public schools. (Do I really need a link for this?)

In my world, the strata of homeschoolers fall in this exact order. The first category is "best", and so on. And on, and on. And on.

But you know what?

Me neither.

The not-so-attractive truth

Does anyone else keep their blog a secret from "real" people?

Not that you all aren't real, you're just sort of virtual. You don't have to put up with me if you don't want to. I won't show up at your door asking for sugar. You can't effectively hold a grudge against me. I can piss you off and not really burn many bridges.

And I can say absolutely anything I want, and you (probably) won't think I'm crazy. And even if you do, it just doesn't matter. So, for your amusement, here are a few things I don't tell real people.

I hate Disney World. You heard me -- I hate Disney. It's too freaking clean, happy, and colorful. Good Lord, I've seen King Cakes that were more sedate. See?

I hate Christmas. Nuff said.

I used to have a life outside my house -- and I liked it. It paid really, really well. People respected me -- for what I knew and the way I dressed. I could "nice" a client into submission with pure force of will and exquisite manners. Oh sure, I didn't have superpowers (like turning pepperoni pizza into human milk) and it was a shallow and easy-won success, but I liked it.

That said, I don't want to go back to the paid workforce. I'd rather be poked in the eye with a stick. Too many Dilbert cartoons.

I played hookey from church this morning. I was feeling weepy and church was making it worse, so I left. I went for a long walk on the beach and got me a bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel at Dunkin Donuts. (I told The Husband later, and he had a good chuckle, the little heathen.)

If I had the choice, I would not homeschool. THAT'S RIGHT -- YOU HEARD ME! And you still like me, right?

(Did I mention that I'm a revolting approval-seeker? Yeah, it's that middle child thing.)

CHRISTMAS?!

Oh, how I loathe Christmas.

I know that's strange. (Or not.) As a Christian woman, I'm supposed to embrace The Wonder of the Season, and all that. But I hate it. Why?

1. Expectations. Everyone (and don't think I can totally avoid them) expects me to decorate, bake, decorate some more, donate to charity, feed the poor, stuff stockings, and produce The Perfect Gift for everyone. I hate all of this because I never meet expectations.

2. The Magic of Christmas. The Magic of Christmas doesn't exist. Christmas is a birthday party. I say we serve cake and go home. The American Magic of Christmas is summoned by a VISA card, and we all know it.

3. Calories. Does anyone get out of the holiday season without gaining ten pounds? Do you know how long it takes me to lose 10 pounds? TEN WEEKS. Oh sure, I could show restraint and only eat a tiny bite of only the best of the treats, but you know that's not going to happen. Not with rum balls around. (See number 4 below.)

4. Gifts. The lovely women in my homeschool group somehow manage to hand-dip chocolates for everyone in the group. (If you're tight with the queen bee, she'll teach you!) I barely have time to keep up with my homeschooling and housework. And I still don't do them well. How on Earth will I ever find 20 hours to make sweets for everyone?

5. That Nauseated Feeling on Christmas Day. After months of planning, cooking, sewing, buying, wrapping, and generally falling short, I find myself on Christmas morning, lying on the couch full of chocolate, feeling nauseated from lack of sleep, disappointment, and sugar.

6. Christmas Lists. "Be good and he'll bring you everything in your Christmas Alphabet!" Oh sure. But there are 75 things on your list. You know Santa can't do all that. But I want it! Then the husband plays the "But he'll only be x years old once!" And I throw in the towel in disgust.

Oh sure, you say, SIMPLIFY, YOU IDIOT. Yeah. Which part?

Last year I didn't make sweets for the playgroup women, and felt really guilty. They're so nice to me, and I can't find a few hours to cook?

I like my minimalist decorations outside, but no one will help me. We put up two bush nets (white), a string of icicle lights (white), and a rope-light palm tree. And no one will help.

The Christmas tree? Ugh. How I hate it. We put it off until after The Husband's birthday on the 13th, and it comes down after Epiphany. It reminds me of the glittering wonderland that will never be my house. And the glittering gifts that we will never shower on each other. (Have you priced those stained glass birds on the Acorn web site? Ouch!)

Yes, Christmas is a reminder of how I fall so terribly, terribly short every day.

So, you say FOCUS ON WHAT YOU DO LIKE ABOUT CHRISTMAS.

I love classical music. I love Advent. I love lessons and carols. I love singing the dinner blessing with an Advent wreath. I love Handel's Messiah. I love children in Velveteen dresses. I love Christmas Eve services. I love those little German nativity scenes with the candles that make it turn. I love fresh pine boughs.

My children hate all of these things. With a passion. Last year, we got out the Advent wreath, and my daughter screamed like we were going to light her instead. The Boy refuses to go to concerts and will make me regret any that I take him to. Both children hate the Christmas Eve services, as it interrupts their television time and makes them dress up and go to church at the wrong time of day. And don't even think about delicate, lovely decorations. And how I hate doing things myself at the Time of Togetherness and Love.

So, what to do? Move to Swaziland for the month of December? Organize the hell out of it and conquer it before December rears its ugly head? What? Is it too late to become Jewish?

Please help...

Dip-wad!

Well, I did get email back from the homeschool group leader. Apparently, I'm a deadbeat and a scofflaw. I benefit from the group but never pay any dues. Umm. Yeah. I'm such a burden. I never go to co-op, meetings, political rallies, field trips. I just want in on the social network. I need human support while trying to homeschool autistic children. I hope they never see me hungry, thirsty, a stranger, in need of clothes, sick, or in prison. Because, despite their piety, I doubt they'd ever lift a finger. (Matthew 25:34 - 40, baby! Look it up, girls.)

In other news... Hmm. Spite, frustration, fury. And I really like Daedalus. Smart man, that one. Nothing like King Minos, whom The Boy and I agree is a total dip-wad.

King Minos inherited a centuries-long dynastic throne in Crete, back in its heyday. Its original king had asked Zeus to protect them from pirates, and Zeus had sent them a bronze giant to do just that. This King Minos didn't feel like being respectful to Zeus, so Zeus decided to take the bronze giant back. Zeus had Medea (another stinker, and an evil witch, too) trick the bronze giant into draining its own life force out, and King Minos was on his own, with no protection.

With the bronze giant dead and the island defenceless, Minos's brothers tried to take the throne, but Minos prayed to Poseidon who sent a huge white bull. When the bull bowed down to Minos, he took it as a sign that he was meant to be king. His brothers left the island, but then Poseidon asked Minos to sacrifice the bull to him. (Oops. Did I mention that Minos was a dip-wad?) He refused and the bull went crazy, rampaging the countryside, trashing the palace, and raping Minos's own queen. The queen gave birth to a half-man-half-bull child and then abandoned it, fleeing with her nightmares to another country.

This left Minos with a mutant bull-child (Minotaur) rampaging the palace and a murderous white bull rampaging the countryside. Better sacrifice the white bull soon, eh? Minos hired Hercules to take care of the white bull and hired Daedalus to contain the Minotaur.

Minos's son, who had apparently not fallen too far from the tree and apparently on his head, wanted to go capture the bull and become a Hero himself, with all the glory that goes with it. But since Minos already knew that Hercules had captured it, he said, "Yes, if Hercules doesn't take it down, you're up next, boy."

Meanwhile, Minos knew he could not kill the Minotaur or banish it from the palace because it was of royal blood. (Heh?) So, Daedailus built a labyrinth under the castle (along with a few secret passageways for himself) from which the Minotaur could not escape. Nice. Kudos to Daedalus.

Meanwhile, Hercules, who was supposed to deliver the bull to king Minos to be sacrificed (at last) to Poseidon, actually took the bull to Athens to pay a personal debt. It escaped and started (you guessed it) rampaging the Greek countryside. Now Minos's son wanted his shot at capturing it. He ran off to Greece, won the Olympics, got himself killed, and moseyed along to the Elysian Fields where all brave warriors go.

Minos was furious and blamed (who else) the Greeks for his son's death. He ramped up his war machine, sailed to Athens, and demanded 14 virgins every nine years to be fed to the Minotaur. The Greeks agreed.

Meanwhile, the Greek king Aegis was being wooed by none other than Medea, the witch. She was all poised to marry him and probably bump him off, when the Aegis's bastard son showed up, all battle-tested and gorgeous. Medea tried to kill him, but Aegis broke from her evil spell, and she bolted away with his treasure on (get this!) a chariot drawn by four dragons.

The bastard son, Theseus, cleaned up the kingdom and then took on that whole every-nine-years-human-sacrifice thing. He travelled to Crete, faced down Minos, sweetened up to Minos's daughter Ariadne, and was sent off to prison with the other Greek sacrifices-to-be. Ariadne cut a deal with him to help him kill the Minotaur if he'd take her with him when he left. Deal done. They even sabotaged Minos's ships ast hey left.

Minos was furious and hunted down (who else?) Daedalus. 'Cause he had to have given someone the secret to the labyrinth. (Didn't Minos actually want the Minotaur dead?) Daedalus took refuge in a series of countries, creating fabulous temples and inventions wherever he went. Finally, Minos tracked him down on Sicily, where Daedlus had harnessed the lava in Mt. Etna to make public steam baths. Minos ripped the palace apart looking for Daedalus, but found only a spiral staircase leading down from the steam baths. A "beggar" told him not to go down there, and thinking that Daedalus would only make the most elaborate hiding place, Minos went on down, smashed the black glass face of the volcano god, and was drowned in boiling water. The "beggar" of course was Daedalus, who finally got to live out his old age in safety.

Phew. I finally understand why the Greek myths never went out of style. They make me feel like somehow Karma will out. Yeah, baby!

Apparently, a screed about the local homeschool group. Who knew?

Nothing's really new. (Isnt' that always the start to the L-O-N-G-E-S-T blog posts ever?)

We went to play group this afternoon for the first time since summer. The homeschool moms were still spending the day at the beach in September, and were going to the park with unobstructed access to the river in October. But we're back in suburbia from now on out. (I know -- boring but safe, like most of suburbia.)

I'm really conflicted about this homeschool group. They're fundamentalist Christians, affiliated with the local Baptist church. Some are Young-Earth-ers, some are "the Bible says so" people, some are "God hates fags" people, and most are "But the rich have always had better medical care than the poor; why should that change now" people. Most of them fall into the group of people that I categorize as "fast food, cheap gas, easy answers" people.

Why bother with them? First, they're the only game in town. Second, I don't know any other women in the world. Third, they email around the best local free/homeschool activities. Fourth, The Boy likes to go kick rocks with other boys now and then.

Why ditch them? First, their politics and religion are WAY to the right of mine. Second, they're constantly doing stupid activities like making Christmas shoe boxes for poor children in Rwanda. Third, they want me to volunteer for their stupid activities like the garage sale fundraiser to buy new mulch for the Baptists. Fourth, they make me sign (or conspicuously NOT sign) their statement of faith. Fifth, they make me pay actual cash dollars to join and expect me to pay even more to join the state organization. (I refuse to join the state organization because they spend their money on political causes.)

So, in order to get emails for the local music college's "intrument petting zoo" day, I have to join the stupid people. Do you know they actually organized people to carry signs in front of the Wal-Mart, campaigning for tea party candidates? In their homeschool group t-shirts! How humiliating...

I'll probably join, just to make oh-I-don't-know-who happy. Oddly enough, I really do like some of the moms. Joining the group just makes me feel like a pathetic approval-seeker. Oh well. Worse things have happened.

And speaking of "worse things", I just checked our election results. My state is now completely controlled by politicians who believe that the rich deserve better health care than the poor. Besides don't the poor have folk remedies and midwives? Just fetch me some of Granny's linament, and that compound fracture will be just fine.

Time to move back Up North, I think...

Ouch! I think I sprained my dignity!!

Okay, let's think logically about this. Unpredictable situation. Semi-darkness. Unfamiliar surroundings. Taking candy from strangers. Breaking the usual daily routine. Dressing up as Evil. Oh, and did I mention elevated blood sugar and the autistic spectrum? Oooh. There never was a witch's brew this toxic, my pretty...

At the university where my husband teaches, the faculty/staff collect candy in the weeks leading up to Halloween, and some of the students hand it out from their dorm rooms on the 31st. Since we live in Satan's foyer, this particular dormitory's doors all open to the outdoors like a Motel 8, so it's a nice, controlled, well-lit event, and heck, we brought in a couple of those bags ourselves a week ago, so why not?

Ready for it? Here it is. A nice young man opens the door and my daughter clutches hear ears, cringes, and shouts, "Willa's Wildlife is not on! A, B, C, D, E, F, G!" The nice co-ed looks startled, takes a quick glance around, and gives her candy while I try unsuccessfully to shush her. "C'mon honey. Sh-sh-shush. What do we say?" She shouts, "You're welcome!" Oy.

Thank the Creator that they'll be too old next year. I'm not sure my dignity can stand one more year of this...

And on a lighter note

I took The Girl to The Big City today by myself and left The Boy home. We had a lovely time.

Know what's kind of cute? Tonight I retreated to the chaise lounge in the back yard after dinner, and The Girl came out after me. I offered to hold her toys while she used the swing, but that wasn't what she was after. She wanted to sit in the other lounge chair and hang out with me. Yeah, I was amazed, too! Our small talk was somewhat, shall we say, repetitive as usual, but it was really nice. Girl time with my child. Hey, it's the little things...

Gardening in The South: rake, heap, throw

Just thought I'd give you a picture of gardening in The South. Y'know, just in case you're not sleepy yet...

First off, there's the subtle distinction between landscaping and gardening. Landscaping requires boots, and gardening can be done in sneakers. If you're doing it in heels, we call it "picking flowers". In The South, of course, those rules bend a little, since we rarely wear shoes if we can help it. I mean, sheesh, there are no rocks, so that danger is minimal. Of course, the fire ants will swarm up your leg and wait for the chemical signal to sting all at once. And they WILL, too. But I digress.

What I'm doing is gardening, only I'm doing it in fuscia crocs. Now, technically, what I'm doing isn't gardening. No one really gardens this far south, they just kill the plants they don't want. Normally, this is called "weeding"; I prefer the term "herbal warfare". But again, I digress.

If you plant something that isn't native to this area, it dies, usually a terrible death of fungus, mold, drought, root rot, or from being eaten by insects -- sometimes all at once. This year, my tomatoes died from: septoria spot, tomato horn worms, drought, and some kind of moth that lays its eggs in the green tomatoes so that when the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the tomato from the inside out. But I digress.

This weekend, I exfoliated my yard. The Pest Control Guy told me to get ALL the plants off the outside walls of my house. We were getting too many earwigs in the house, so I figured he was probably right. I worked my way around the house, trimming anything in my path. Lean, cut, throw, lean, cut, throw, rake, heap, throw. Then I took out last year's vegetable garden. Rake, pull, lift and fold the irrigation system, rake, smooth, rake, heap, throw. Then I took down the jasmine that's climbing the may haw. Cut, pull, untangle, pull, clip, apply tourniquet, trim, rake, heap, throw. You get the picture.

Then I had to fix the sprinkler system. Oh sure, other people pay professionals, but that requires too much effort for me. I finally figured out how to get a narrow strip of land (like a path or right-of-way) watered. You get a sprinkler head (any shape) and change out its nozzle with the magical one of the right shape! Yeah, you'd think I'd catch on to that one earlier. You'd also think that they'd just make all the configurations we needed without making us buy two sprinklers. But there you have it. Buy parts, dig up the old ones, change them out, test, repeat.

Then there was the picket fence. *sigh* Get out the bleach, TSP, pump sprayer, and pressure washer. Trim the hedges around the fence, pull the weeds under it, set up the sprayer and washer. (Did I mention it's only 17' on both sides of the house, some of which is still covered with jasmine?) Clip, pull, rake, heap, throw, spritz, spray, dismantle the broken fence, make mental note to yell at lawn guys. "Unlatch gate, THEN push."

So, now I'm in the recliner, about to join Team Advil, feeling happy that I get to spend most of tomorrow in the car, sitting down, for my weekly trip to The Big City. If anyone drops anything tomorrow, I can no longer reach the floor, so they're going to have to pick it up themselves. Like that's going to happen. Rake, heap, throw.

There is no crying in math!!

My poor son... I think he's the first child in several generations who isn't naturally mathy. Oh sure, in my family, we get gym-phobia sometimes, but MATH PHOBIA? Nah... As long as you can make a picture in your head, it's easy-peasy. Right?

45 feet is how many yards? Umm. Well, here's a yard stick. There are three feet in each yard, and we want to measure in yards. Divide up all those 45 little feet into groups of three and see how many groups you get. I draw pictures. I get out the rulers and yardsticks. I make manipulatives. I draw more pictures. Nothing. I draw a picture of my sister's house and mark it as 45 feet wide, then I draw three-foot-long dogs in front of it. How many dogs long is it? Ummm. I count 15. Fifteen dogs (or yards) is the same as 45 feet.

He just can't flip the numbers around. Yards are bigger than feet, so you need fewer of them to make up the distance. A yard is made up of three feet, so DIVIDE up the 45 feet into groups of THREE feet each. Take the number of feet and DIVIDE BY THREE to get the number of yards.

I'm told he's "gifted", but he doesn't seem to have the knack for flipping numbers around. Divide three pizzas among four people? Well, split up each of the pizzas into four pieces, right? Then everyone gets one piece of each pizza. That's three pieces each? Hey, if you put all three of your pieces on one pizza pan, you have three pieces, and those pieces are fourths -- you get three-fourths of a pizza! Everyone gets three of the fourths of pizza -- 3/4!! Three pizzas divided among four people is 3/4 of a pizza for each person. A fraction is actually division!!

I must be the worst teacher EVER. Or he's just not mathy. "Those who can't, teach. Those who can, make crappy teachers." It was always true for gym teachers, anyway...

Granddad and the GPS

Oy Vey. Notice how most of my posts start with "oy vey"? Yeah. It's my life. Where to start... Where to start..?

Most Mondays, my dad keeps The Boy for the few hours while I drive The Girl to therapy in The Big City. Today, I took them with me. Yeaaaaaah... The Boy, The Old Man, and Karen, my dad's GPS wife. (If you follow Spongebob, think of Karen, Plankton's "computer wife". Yeahhh.)

I listened to him yap for an hour and a half each way and lent him my car for two hours in between. During those two hours, he was going to take The Boy out to McDonald's and Borders while The Girl had therapy. Instead, he took The Boy to Wendy's (strike 1), followed the GPS to the Borders in the airport (strike 2), and taught The Boy a few new swear words in traffic (strike 3). When I got out, I drove them to the non-airport Borders, let The Boy puke in a trash can in the children's section of Borders, and got us all home without further swearing or hard braking.

What am I going to do? The Boy does NOT want to spend three hours in the car and two hours in the therapy center lounge. The Boy doesn't mind spending four hours with my dad here. But sometimes, my poor dad gets bored and restless, and he just wants a field trip to somewhere other than the Food Lion. But I do not want him driving my car in The Big City. And worse, I think he's not being very kind to The Boy.

Everyone with an aspie boy knows at least six people who KNOW that if they had just two weeks alone with the boy they could "straighten him out". I suspect my dad is one of those people. He talks about boot camp and military school a lot, and always chuckles. But still.

Ooh! Funny part of the day -- The Boy says that he has a brilliant idea for a new GPS voice: Grandfather voice. "Dammit! Just turn left!! Aaaah!" I also suspect this GPS would say, "You have arrived at your destination. DON'T PARK ON MY LAWN!"

So, failure isn't really an option, is it?

Doing a little better today. No one started shouting strange things at me until late afternoon. The Boy pretty much did his work on his own. (I had him write his to-do list on the white board himself, and I think that helped.)

I've never been much of a "support group" person, so I take my sensible-yet-crazy online friends where I can get them, especially if they have non-neurotypical kids, too. And if they're looking down the barrel of perimenopause and burnout, that's icing on the cake. We're all working on it the best way we know how. Really we are. Sometimes it's enough. Sometimes, it's not. But somehow, I have to believe that as long as I'm not entirely alone, it'll all work out --someday, somehow. I mean, what is the alternative?

Failure is not an option, is it? Thanks, people, for just being out there and being crazy.

Good thing they're not dogs...

I think my kids and I are reaching an impasse. It's a sort of a mutual loathing thing, probably brought on by too much "bonding" time. The kicker was probably the road trip last week to my sister's, in which I was their personal valet and lackey, available 24/7, at their beck and call.

When are these kids going to start taking some responsibility for their lives?! One night on vacation, I sent The Boy to the bathroom to take a shower, and 20 minutes later, I checked on him, only to find that he was standing naked in the middle of the bathroom, waiting for God knows what. I told him, "Bathe!" He answered that he didn't have a towel. I pointed at the towel and returned 10 minutes later. He was still in the same place. "What?" He answered, "I'm afraid the hot water is too hot." Now, that's about when I start wondering when he'll start acting like a ten-year-old child and not a six-month-old baboon baby. (Note that his last complaint was just understandable enough to make me help him. But I probably shouldn't have.)

Or maybe it's just my expectations are too high.

This afternoon, after a long morning, I sent him to type up an essay he had written. I told him to take the laptop to the kitchen and type up the paragraph. After 15 minutes of getting, "I'm working on it," I found him playing with Microsoft Paint. "Why aren't you doing your work?" "I don't have my paragraph that I wrote." "Sooooo, go get it! What are you waiting for? Solve the problem. Go get it!" "I don't know where it is." "Where did you put it? It's in the drawer marked 'writing', where you put it. Go get it, take it to the table, open wordpad, type in the paragraph, and save it. Do not play, do not insert pictures, do not goof off any further! Do you understand?! Just DO IT!!"

The Husband doesn't understand why I yell so much, but I do. Example. I call over the partition wall, "Boy, go brush your teeth; it's bed time." No answer. I softly pronounce the word "cookie", and the answer comes back, "What? Cookies?" Busted. They hear, evaluate, and disregard. Little bastards.

Ahem. Sorry.

Seriously, what's up with that? After ten hours of being ignored by The Boy and having The Girl shout random phrases at me all day until I repeat them for her -- "'Every Dinosaur Poops' is a Dinosaur Train episode!" -- I get a little nasty. It's like having a really needy cat that won't leave you alone.

Even now, I get a sour feeling in my stomach even admitting this. I'm stuck homeschooling for the next eight years. There isn't a school in this county (public or private) that could teach The Girl, and The Boy is just too easily stressed to put back into the public schools right now. There is an aspie school that The Boy could attend, but their academic standards are pitiful. The moms of these kids are just desperate to send their boys to a school where they're not beaten up every day.

So here I am. I have no options. I can't change the children. I can't change my lifestyle. Oh, wait, wait for it -- I can only change myself. Doesn't that sound like a plaque for your kitchen wall?

Too bad I don't feel like it. I'm constantly changing myself, going the extra mile, doing the extra research, finding ways to teach reluctant, resistant children. And they have the nerve to behave as if this is their role -- to resist learning and be as rude about it as possible.

*sigh* We're going to a "music for young people" orchestra concert in The Big City this Friday. We got our reservations back in August before it sold out. Now, The Boy is refusing to go. I even played Spike Jones' William Tell Overture for him! Nothing is moving him from his position. He won't say why he doesn't want to go, except that it's stupid and he hates it. He gets stressed out easily, but this isn't reasonable, even for him. I'm going to drive an hour and a half each way to a concert during which my children will try to make me as miserable as possible. Yayyyyyy... Maybe I can glean some major public humiliation from it, too.

So, let's recap. They hate everything I hold dear, they ruin the furniture and barf on the rugs, they're uncooperative, and they make my life miserable. I hate to say what I'd do with them if they were dogs...

Stay tuned. Last I checked, the ASPCA won't take children. This will work itself out. Somehow. It always does.