I know I sound unappreciative sometimes and I probably complain about my kids too much.  In response to that, I promise to publish some sort of sappy post that could possibly, or possibly not, be accompanied by a sappy, set-to-music video that focuses on nothing but the undying love I feel for my children.  Today is not that day.

I have a confession to make.  It’s embarrassing, a secret that I’ve tried to keep under wraps, but to no avail.  My kids don’t eat.  Well, if you’ve seen Devil Dog’s cankles, you know that’s a lie.  But they don’t eat much.  They only partake in a very narrow selection of food, most of which is wholly unhealthy.  If one of my kids eats a piece of cheese, I feel like the Bill Clinton Goes to North Korea and Gets Imprisoned Journalists Back of motherhood.  Really.  It’s a mammoth victory.

It started with Aspie.  That’s another lie.  It started with me.  I’ve always had food and more specifically, texture issues.  I like foods that are dense, not mushy and either really cold or really hot.  Warm was never okay for my palate.  As I have progressed through my years, I think I’ve recited my “food issues” even though I’m not sure they still truly exist or if it’s more of a habitual mantra.  And I’ve used my food issues to excuse my way out of sampling everything from crepes to blow jobs.  Incidentally, using the “My father used to force feed my baby food and I’ve had a gag reflex ever since” is an excellent way to dodge oral.  I know, moms aren’t supposed to talk about blow jobs, but since I’m really talking about the avoidance of blow jobs I think it’s okay.

Where was I?  Oh, so I had aversions and then I had Aspie.  He had really severe reflux as a baby — thus began his limited selection of foods he’d tolerate.  Food issues are also a common issue among kids with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Because food was and still is a huge source of anxiety for me, I think I allowed A to walk the same path.  Or, I made it easier for him to give into his fear of certain food groups and textures because I suffer the same angst.  Veruca and DD aren’t as picky, but they too need to broaden their culinary horizons.

I’ve thought about it and Special K and I have discussed it many times.  What it really boils down to is this:  They need to eat healthier and we, the adults, are sick and tired of taking on a short order cook role every night at 6 p.m.  So last night, I made a meal. One meal.  One gorgeous, picture-worthy, homemade, from scratch meal.  Chicken pot pie.  My children need to be grateful for this as children in other countries don’t get their chicken served to them in fancy pastry with a homemade roux-based sauce.  I’m sorry, but that’s just damn impressive and I even glutened myself by cooking with flour (I didn’t eat it, but sometimes I’ll get glutened from accidentally inhaling flour.  Note to self:  Stop doing lines of King Arthur — it doesn’t get me high enough and the after-effect of itching is just insane).  I want them to be grateful because I was so exhausted after a day of grocery shopping at two different stores with three kids and a husband.  That may not sound like all that much, but let me assure you — it’s like a marathon without the benefit of water-weight loss.  I was tired and the thought of cooking anything was determined to be about as appealing as last weekend when I pulled about 8,549 petrified, year-old or older french fries out of the crevices of my car.

On some level, I knew that getting my kids on a healthier track took precedence over laying on the couch, whimpering and losing myself in my Kindle.  If you’re child-free and thinking about kids, let this be a lesson.  You will never, ever be fully relaxed again.  ”Me time” is a joke unless you physically impose an adult time-out on yourself.

So, I put down the Kindle and made the pie.  Did I mention it was from scratch?  My vent was heart-shaped, people.  Yet the little twits wouldn’t eat it.  Another lie, actually.  (I really need to see someone about that.)  DD ate most of his after a lot of threatening and bribery and promises of a one-on-one grocery store trip with Special K.  Really, any reward that involves traveling to an establishment that has mass-quantities of food on shelves is like a red cape to my little bull.

Veruca ate nothing.  She sat and sulked and pouted and told me my dinner was disgusting.  I told her that she could take disrespectful self to bed.  And she did.  If nothing else, I learned that homemade cooking is the way to get my kids into bed hours before their actual bed time.

Aspie tried.  He ate about a tenth of an ounce of chicken and called it a successful venture.  I struggle with being as tough with him on the food, because I know what that feels like.  I also know that I need to push on with this whole “new food” voyage we’ve begun.

The bottom line is this:  There was a whole lot of complaining because I consciously chose to serve my children a meal that contained elements found in three of the major food groups, one of those elements actually had the nerve to be — Gasp!  Wait for it! — green.

Tonight was a different story.  I know I’ll rally tomorrow and be back to completely ruining their lives and detonating all their little expectations of what dinner is supposed to be about, but for today my ungrateful little heathens made their own dinner.  I enjoyed the break.

I'M

ON

STRIKE

I need a drink.  Not even a drink.  An IV of margaritas that go straight into my veins.  Oh, I’m all talk.  Did I tell you that I’ve given up drinking?  For the past few months, I’ve noticed that whenever I drink I want to die.  My muscles ache, and it’s like I have to choke down the drink to begin with.  If I’m going to choke on something it should be broccoli or some other essential, life-affirming vegetable … not Malibu Rum.  Do you know how much porn spam I’m going to get with all this choke talk?  So, yeah, doing this fucking life sober.  The good news is that I’m not an alcoholic so I can jump head first off this wagon at any given moment.

Speaking of wanting to mainline — this will get me all the international pharmacy spam — Veruca has been sick.  After an auspicious beginning, she’s been home all fucking week with this cough fever combo.  I’m amazed that it only took me 96 hours to really, really get used to her being away for a few hours a day.  Needless to say, the illness hasn’t dimmed her personality.  Tomorrow, I don’t care if I have to put ice cubes in her drawers, she is going.  DD is ready to see her go.  I am ready to see her go.  And her school is ready to see her.  They haven’t called, but I know in my heart that they miss her terribly.  I’m sure of it.  This is my mantra.

Can I talk about my site for a minute?  Really, who could stop me?  There’s been a weird trend that has happened as my traffic has increased.  There is this amazing group of people that either silently or outwardly lend support.  Amazing coming from a big crop of strangers.  Thank you.  I’m also starting to get the comments that cut.  Someone said something nasty about Veruca today (that didn’t get published and they got one of my special, custom-made banned IP messages, too).  I know it just goes with the territory and you cannot take these things personally.  People really need a venue in which to release their aggressions and why the fuck not launch their crap at an innocent four-year-old?  But I question where to draw the line.  The other day a couple people implied that DD was starting to get better looking which, as a mother just translates into, “DD was ugly and now he’s not as ugly.”  In cases like that, I just close comments.  I knew those people didn’t come from a place of ill will and it’s more about my sensitivities as a mother who thinks all her kids are part of this huge constellation called Awesome.  Anyway, this morning I emailed Heather Armstrong aka Dooce to ask for her advice.  She’s running a successful site on a grand scale and I know she’s been faced with these same challenges.  She didn’t reply to my email, but she did post this today.  You know that I make all things in the universe about me, so I think it’s clear that she wrote it just for me.  She talks about hatemail and how she created a whored-out page of ads and puts all her hate mail there.  It’s pretty brilliant and an idea that I’m totally stealing … since she wrote it just for me.

Aspie had his counseling appointment today.  Oh, wait — before I talk about that, HUGE NEWS:  Aspie got in trouble for talking in school!  You may have no idea what great news this is unless you have an Aspie in your life!  He was talking in the lunch line when the kids were supposed to be quiet.  He had a recess taken away, though his sentence was drastically reduced by the teacher and he ended up getting off with a warning.  My kid, the one who couldn’t carry a conversation if it came with a handle, is now an obnoxious, hard to contain, chatterbox.  Can juvie be far behind?  I. Am. Thrilled.  Okay, back to the doc.  A hadn’t seen his doctor in about 18 months.  It’s hard to describe this dude.  He’s completely disheveled and I’m always struck by the fact that he wears white tube socks with dark brown dress shoes.  And plaid … always plaid.  He looks like the love child of that hamburger guy from Popeye — Wimpy? — and Mr. Magoo who got an additional DNA download from the Absentminded Professor.

Absentminded or not, he remembered so much about Aspie.  I mean, I know he takes notes, but he remembered what my kid wore — that was a really fun phase we went through when Aspie was completely fixated on velvet blazers and neckties — the first time they met.  He remembered their secret handshake (sure, he probably does the same handshake with all the kids, but this is my fantasy where my child is just so memorable), and A’s love of all things train-related.

Even as an underage child, Aspie is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality.  Does it bug me that he goes behind closed doors and talks about God only knows what with someone not a parent?  You betcha.  I sit in the waiting room and flip through Family Circle, pondering turkey-shaped cookie place card holders and all the magic I could create if I actually used my label-maker (Family Circle just makes me feel like I’m not doing enough), and I look at the clock — a lot.  I strain my ears and hear nothing other than Dr. Wimpy’s booming laugh and imagine that Aspie is telling all the bad ME stories.  Like the time I went to add cold water to his bath and instead added scalding hot … WHILE HE WAS IN IT.  I still haven’t forgiven myself for that.  Or I imagine that he’s telling the good doctor that I serve too much processed food and he just longs for asparagus.  I check the door often to see if CPS is coming up the hall for me.  And if they do take me away, can I take my Family Circle with me?  Since Martha Stewart got sprung, the female prison population has been missing special somethings like turkey-shaped cookie place card holders.

Dr. Wimpy was so thrilled with the changes in Aspie over the past year-and-a-half.  We — Special K and my mother and I — certainly remember what he used to be like versus now, but it’s so nice to hear it from an outside, and for that matter paid-professional, party.  Aspie no longer needs to be dressed like Hef to feel conversant.  He can handle a handshake; hell, he can handle a hug.  He gets the joke where he used to be so wholly and unwaveringly literal … you can imagine the fun we had with idioms.  He has the ability to shift from one topic to another, even if his full range of topics is still pretty limited.  Dr. Wimpy said it and I’ve said it too; he is a different child.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot, I said to A, “You know, I think it was so amazing the way Dr. W remembered so much about you.  Your likes, your dislikes, your clothes and your school and things that you’ve struggled with.”  Without missing a beat, Aspie replied, serving up his usual sigh-eye roll combination, “Uh, yes, Mother.  Dr. W is what’s called a “Child Psychologist”.  He’s supposed to remember all these things.  It’s his job and he obviously does it well.  It’s why I wanted to see him.”

Sigh.  Looks like I might be jumping off that wagon sooner rather than later.

Happy Memorial Day.  It seems so odd that today is a day to recognize our fallen soldiers.  Men and women gave their lives in the name of freedom and protection.  In exchange, we get a three-day weekend out of the deal complete with barbecue and 20% off selected items at Best Buy.  Something seems very inequitable about this.

We had my brother — incidentally, a veteran – and his fiancee over this afternoon.  As their wedding approaches (just a few more weeks!) it’s nice to take last-minute advantage of these lazy days. 

Aspie was all kinds of dramatic this weekend.  He actually ended up on punishment for his mouth and his penchant for throwing laundry on his bedroom floor.  I encourage free thought and independence and even intelligent debate but I won’t raise a fucking brat.  So you won’t see him in many of the pics of this weekend — and let me assure you that there are no pictures of him smiling – because every time I pointed a camera in his general direction he pretended he was ducking from shrapnel. 

You know, sometimes I feel like he’s almost cured of Asperger’s Syndrome.  Okay, I’m no Jenny McCarthy, but I wonder if he was misdiagnosed or something because he seems so normal lately.  This weekend was a reality check.  Just in the way he acted most of the weekend.  Moody, could not — literally couldn’t — accept advice, guidance or information from any person.  He wasn’t just being a know-it-all…it extends beyond that.  It’s really annoying to deal with and I spent a large part of the weekend doing my own little self-control exercises as to not lose my fucking mind and bash his teeth down his throat — thankfully I’m not a teeth-basher type…mostly because I’m well aware of the cost of dentistry.  The only thing more difficult than dealing with a nine-year-old who won’t listen to reason, is dealing with a nine-year-old who won’t listen to reason whilst he’s wearing a blackwatch plaid bathrobe in 80 degree weather paired with horizontally striped pajama pants, white soccer socks (pulled up over said pants and hiked up to the knees), a black skull cap and a lightsaber threaded through his bathrobe belt.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t fantasize that I was in some Star Wars movie and I was given the power to vaporize him.  In a “comes back in a sequel” sort of way, naturally.  Do people actually get vaporized in Star Wars?  I don’t know, but I’d like to think so.

Veruca spent most of the time in the yard saying , “Mommy, take a picture of me now.  Take a picture of me with this pose.  How do you like this one?”  So, yeah…most of her pictures are not candids though she tries hard to make them appear as such.  She is fully aware of the camera at all times.

She’s really keyed up about her upcoming role as flower girl in my brother’s wedding.  The plan?  I’m not telling her that it’s the day of the wedding until it’s time to put her dress on.  After the original dress purchase, it took me a month to get her to stop asking if today was wedding day. 

Oh, and we let her get a pet.  An ant.  And he has to stay outside.  And he may look a little different every day but it’s only because he’s growing up so fast.  Shhhh.

And, yes.  Her fingernails are blue.

Devil Dog tired himself with endless time running around and playing soccer.  The original goal was to exhaust him for bed but I think he exhausted my brother more.  Age is a bitch.

DD really is my brutish child, simple in his needs (he requires a lot of food and has started a terrible habit of groping me and then exclaiming, “I feel better.” — he’s your basic man).  His newest trick is Love With An Agenda.  He’ll spontaneously approach and tell me he loves me and he’ll kiss me.  Within a few minutes I’ll realize that I’ve been pickpocketed of something.

Aspie had a half-day today.  He has another tomorrow.  He has another next Friday.  Why does the school district hate me?

He had a friend over after school today.  I’m going to call him Handcuffs.  So Aspie got off the bus with Handcuffs, and I greeted them, asked how their day was and asked HC if he liked grilled cheese sandwiches.  He has a peanut butter allergy and I’ve been living in fear all week that I am going to be the one to kill this kid.  Thankfully, our house is rife with epi pens.  And I cannot lie- by the end of the afternoon, the idea of a swift “swing and jab” was a rather appealing concept.  He replied, “Yes, but with no crust and slightly soft in the middle,”  without breaking stride.  Aspie’s eyes were the size of Oreos over that and that was only the first thirty seconds of our afternoon together.

Upon walking into the house, HC chased Aspie around the dining room table for a few rounds, insisting on handcuffing him.  I intervened and got to work on their soft-center sandwiches.  Oh, would you like to know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich that’s slightly soft in the center?  You make a grilled cheese like a totally normal person and when you serve it, you say, “Here you go, just like you ordered.  Soft in the middle!”  It’s a recipe that works.

So, I’m kind of a bitch.  But this was Aspie’s first time having a friend, a friend who was a total unknown element to me, over for the day.  It’s a big deal.  Eighteen months ago, he couldn’t look in someone’s eyes and insisted on wearing neckties with his pajamas.  This is normalcy and it’s a welcome addition to our life.  And I could see how nervous he was.  Nervous that his friend would be a monster and I wouldn’t be pleased by that.  When I gave them their lunches, Aspie thanked me, sincerely, three times.  Once for himself, once on behalf of his ungrateful buddy, and once more for good measure.  After lunch, when HC wanted to play video games, Aspie said, “I think I’ll just pick up the table first.”  I had to push him along his way and encourage him to at least pretend that he was a normal, self-centered nine-year-old.

You would have been very proud of me as I overlooked the pile, pile of hand towels that were thrown on my bathroom floor.  I pretended not to hear when HC said that some toy, “totally sucked.”  And when he started eating bacon that I had grilled for a recipe, I just put some on a plate and handed it to him with a smile.  I smiled as I microwaved said bacon because its temperature wasn’t to his liking.  I smiled as I silently as I picked up the ground-in remains from our carpet.  I even smiled when HC’s mother sat in my living room and gave a disapproving cluck as I told her what I fed her kid.  She let me know “Pork is never allowed in my home, but it’s fine if he has it…here.”  And no, they aren’t Jewish.  It’s just fattening-bacon, that is.  Not Judaism.  Of course, this is the same chick who does yoga stretching every time I see her so I can’t relate to her anyway.  I even held my tongue when her kid started talking to my kid like he was stupid because he couldn’t figure out the mechanical workings of a Transformer toy…though there will be dialog about that later this evening.  I did what I could to appease my son’s anxiety over the whole situation.  I.  Was.  Good.

I’m not sure if HC is a monster.  I think he is just your normal pre-teen.  If anything, I think my kid, the one who insisted on getting homework out of the way prior to playing the wii and would be aghast if he knew about the hand towels,  is probably the oddball.

Overall, I survived the day without imbibing.  I call that “success”.

Sometimes I almost forget that my son is on the spectrum.  He’s come so far and it’s easy to let it slip your mind.  But I see him in social situations and the fear is renewed.  I worry about Aspie.  I worry that he won’t say, “Get the fuck away from me and stop it before I shove those handcuffs up your ass.”  I worry that he allows people to diminish him.  And it doesn’t even strike him that there is another option.  Or that this isn’t okay.  Where is his voice?  I worry as he gets older that he will be so easily led and his truths will be defined by whatever he picks up in the wind.  I worry.

I have a clutter issue.  It’s not because I’m addicted to QVC and Hummels.  We are just too many strong in one space but that’s going to change so I’m not as focused on my clutter.  It’s Aspie’s issues that currently plague me.  In a brief flurry of organizing, and by brief I mean five minutes or less, I took down Aspie’s 2008 Thomas the Train wall calendar and replaced it with his 2009 Star Wars Episode 37: Another Effort To Soak Billions From Star Wars Consumers wall calendar.  And he came home from his trip to discover my home renovation.  Devastated.  Crying, sullen, hating me.  Why is it, when my kids hate me, they never give me the silent treatment?  And this morning was toothbrush replacement time.  More drauma.  If you aren’t familiar, that’s a drama trauma hybrid.  I tried showing him pictures of toothbrush bacteria on the internet so he would clearly grasp the importance of the 3-month rule.  I don’t know why or how I thought it would be helpful.  He finds spores intriguing and wants to see what he can grow on his new brush. 

So I went to Amazon and paid $24.09 for a 2008, yes-last year, Thomas the Train wall calendar.  I can’t handle the responsibility for ruining my kid’s life.  Especially if his ruination could be rehabbed for less than 25 bucks and tax-free and free shipping.  I’m thinking of putting it out on the welcome mat for him to discover.  I’m going to play completely stupid over it.  Fuck it…if that kid doesn’t want to believe in Santa, I’m going to make him believe in angels.