Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

I have the most wonderful children.  No, I didn't give birth to all of them, but they are mine in every way that matters.  I don't have step kids (Ashley, Katie, Amber, Athena and John), I don't walk on them, and my biological son Dayton whom I did give birth to (well, had a C-section) does not have half sisters (Charlie-Anne and Summer); they're not cut in half.  We're a couple of families blended together into one.  So, introducing to you, a small sample of how my children think:

"Mom, I know Santa doesn't exist."
"Say what?!  Yes he does!"
"Mom, come on.  I know Santa doesn't exist, I heard it at school.  I'm fine with it."
"Keep your voice down, the kids will hear you!"
Whispers:  "Mom, I know Santa's not real."
"Well then where do the presents come from buddy?  You think they just magically appear?  Who else but Santa would bring them?"
"Mom come on!  I know you and dad buy them.  I kind of busted you last year."
"Oh..."
"What I really want to know is who eats the cookies?"
"Ugh...  I eat the cookies, it's me, I love cookies."
"And the milk?  Who drinks the milk?"
"Dad, you know how much he loves his milk."
"OK, that makes sense."

"You can't be a woman, you're a mom!!!"


"I don't want to go in, just leave me in the car."  (It's like -30 with the wind chill.)
"I don't think so kiddo."
"Why?"
"Well, for one, I love you.  And two, it's illegal."
Whispers to me:  "I won't tell anyone."


"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us some e-mail."


Older kid:  "I bet you're 40!"
Younger kid:  "No, he's 80!"
Older kid:  "85!!!"
Younger kid:  "I'm guessing 100."
Older kid:  "No, he'd be dead then.  100 is when you die, he's still alive."


"If Jesus walked on water, could he do a head stand?"


Sitting in the front seat beside me driving home from a visit with a friend, getting car sick.  I'm singing along with the music trying to get his mind off it.
"Mom, you know I love you, right?"
"Aww, thanks babe!  I love you too!"
"Please stop singing."
"Why?"
"You're making me sicker."
So much for that idea...


"I need super glue and a non stick frying pan."
"Why?"
"I wanna know which ones a liar."
"Say what?!"
"Don't you wanna know which one is telling the truth?  Super glue is supposed to stick to everything, and non stick pans are supposed to not stick.  You said you hate liars.  Let's find out which one we hate."


At a restaurant...  the waitress taking our order...
"I wish to eat the unborn."
Absolute silence...
"Eggs, the boy wants to eat eggs..."


Again, at a restaurant...
"I want meat on a stick."
"Say what???"
"Meat on a stick with sticky sauce."
"On a stick?  I don't understand."  Meltdown in 10, 9, 8
"Lots of sticks side by side, meat in between..."
"Honey, I don't understand..."
7, 6, 5
"With the sticky brown sauce!!!"
People are looking now...
Drum roll please...  "RIBS!  YOU WANT RIBS!!!"
6, 7, 8...  Smile.  Thank you Lord!


"Momma, you're skinny."
I'm huge...  "Well, thanks babe."
"Yeah, you just have a lot of skin."
And just like that my happy moment is gone.


"I don't need a bath, can't you just Febreeze me?"



We've learned a couple of things along the way this year:

1)  Never say "maybe" to our children.  The word "maybe" to them means:  "I swear on my life this will most definitely, certainly and beyond a shadow of a doubt happen."

2) Arguing with teenagers is like wrestling with a pig in the mud.  Sooner or later you figure out (in my case through my child's counselor) that they're really enjoying it.

3) We appear to have several invisible kids living in our house.  They are named "It wasn't me," "I don't know," "I'm bored," and "Why me?"

4) I can always count on my daughters to walk up to me for no reason to give me a hug and say "I love you mommy" or my sons to jump on me when I least expect it, wrap their arms and legs around me like spider monkeys and kiss my face all over, telling me they love me 'like crazy.'

5) God may not have answered our prayers the way we wanted Him to, but when we've stepped back to look at the whole picture, we see He's answered them in the way it's best for us.  Kind of like we do with our children...  In other words, God equals daddy to us.

6) There is a special bond between mothers and sons which can never be destroyed.  I've questioned this bond much in the last year between Dayton and myself, and I see now that no matter what happens, or who he's with, no one can destroy what we have, and I am grateful.

7) My new favorite word is "Really?!"  It works for almost everything.  I'll give you a brief example...  I have a rule for my sons:  No play fighting, as John is so small and Dayton is stronger than he realizes.  When I catch them play fighting, I loudly say "Really?!"  They boys back off into separate corners of the room.

8) Courage isn't the lack of fear.  Courage is the willingness to move forward even if you are scared.  My sons show me this every day.  My daughters are a bit more squeamish, but they show me they have courage as well.  I'm very proud of them!

9) You know you're in trouble when your teenager comes to you and says "You know I love you, right?"  A conversation starting with that sentence means nothing but trouble, especially when said teenager has autism.

10) Raising little boys is not just a job.  It's an adventure; with sound effects.

Consider yourselves hugged,

Lou

Time For A New Me?

Between visiting with friends in Campbell River, BC and catching up with friends here in Winnipeg after my return from BC, then meeting Super Dad, I've been thinking about how people change.  Am I the same person I was ten years ago?  Definitely not!  I was dating, and Dayton wasn't quite a twinkle in his daddy's eye.  I was fit, working out religiously, cautious of my diet and even dabbled in body building...  I had energy galore!  And now...

Had a baby by C-section (surgery numero uno), then a hysterectomy and later a bi-lateral mastectomy with a tram-flap (a 16 hour medical surgery that took close to 20 hours)...  My energy levels have depleted and my body shape is a whole lot different...  I mean waaaaay different.

My friend Jen who had moved to BC in September has completely changed since I had seen her three months ago.  Never really a 'big girl,' she now looks like a freaking super model!  Mind you, she's 24 years old and has no kids, but still!  She's completely changed her life and is actually so in love with hot yoga, she's decided to teach it!  She's also become a vegetarian, which I think is awesome...  I have an aversion to touching raw meat...  a whole new story in itself...

Jen hiking with Dayton and I, and yes, there were vultures circling above me there too.

Another friend, Kim, has lost over 75 lbs in less than a year!  An amazing accomplishment!  She looks fantastic!!!  She made us supper one night during our stay in Campbell River, and I couldn't stop staring at her.  I'm sure she thought I had changed too...  not only wider in the hips but gone a little 'weird.'  Sure didn't help that she wore these cute camouflage capri's with something spelled out in shiny diamond rhinestones on her behind...  That was really distracting, as we all know how much I like pretty, shiny bling, never mind the fact that the size of her behind used to be twice the size it is now!  She's lost the equivalent of a 6th grader people!!!

My weight loss guru, she's gorgeous!

When I got home from BC, my friend picked me up at the airport...  She had been losing weight for the last three months, and I couldn't believe how much more weight she had lost in the two weeks I had been gone...   I went for walks with her and her kids and Dayton on bikes, roller blades and a third one walking with us...  It was embarrassing!  I was left in the dust with their family dog (an ankle biting mini poodle I jokingly call 'killer,' which the dog answers to now).  I swear when I looked up in the sky I saw vultures circling up high above us, waiting for me to pass out beside the dog.  I decided that walking outside was no longer an option and that indoor workouts would need to begin or I was OUT.

Not the best picture of Shelley, but she doesn't read my blog anyway...  LOL!!!

Finally, Super Dad.  While I may have just met him, talking to him over a cup of coffee and listening to his story, he's gone through some major changes in life this past year himself.  Some changes he had no choice in, like the loss of his beloved wife and becoming a single parent of five.  Other changes he had partial control of, like knowing he was about to lose his job and deciding if it was going to happen, it would happen on his terms.  And the change he had control of, his career.  Changing careers from a produce manager to a teacher's assistant is a huge change!  These two careers have absolutely nothing in common!  But he's doing it.  With a smile on his face.  No gritting his teeth and no feeling sorry for himself about anything!

Unfortunately, the only picture I have of Super Dad...  LOL

These three friends listed above have one thing in common...  COURAGE.

It's my birthday today, and I'm thinking to myself 'am I happy with choices I've made in my life?  Is there anything I can do to change what I don't like, my career, my health, my scope of influence?  If so, do I have the courage to change?'

Is this what they call a mid life crisis?  Maybe, but I can see where my life needs to change.  I need a better 'balance' in my life.  For the past five years I've been eating, breathing, drinking, dreaming autism, ADHD, OCD, ODD, PDD-NOS and global delays.  I've been reading and now this past year writing about it.  I'm not suggesting I stop any of it, I just need to find some time to myself to rejuvenate.  I need some 'me' time, where I focus on what it is that I want and what I NEED.  All this time I've thought how selfish it is to do anything for me and take that time away from Dayton, but I'm finally starting to realize that while I am taking care of every single one of Dayton's needs, I've neglected the most important one of all:  giving Dayton a healthy, well rounded mom.  Everyone deserves one of those, right?

"The true definition of insanity: Doing the same task over and over, and expecting a different outcome" - Albert Einstein




Consider yourselves hugged,

Lou

Live, Love, Laugh And Be Happy

Staying in Campbell River has not been easy for me.  My dad and I don't really get along and don't see eye to eye on many things...  for example swearing in front of children...

Dad's big on swearing.  Every second word is an "F" bomb, and he believes he's a man's man, and all real men behave as he does.  Now picture a 240 lb man in his 60's, who considers himself a lady's man, swears like a truck driver and has an attitude resembling that of a cave man.  With a thick European accent.  Archie Bunker couldn't hold a candle to my dad.  That's what I'm dealing with here.  I love my dad, but wow...  Abrasive, rough around the edges...  Loud...  A customer service representative's worst nightmare...

So...  Glen took Dayton fishing yesterday with his Aussie brother in law Iain, the one who presented grandpa's beautiful eulogy...  and fell in the water with his iPhone...  You can imagine the agony.  I know I myself can not live without my blackberry...  The screams of horror. 

So Dayton goes to grandma Margaret and tells her all about how "daddy only worried about his God damned phone." 

Awkward.

All my hard work of teaching Dayton to use his words properly have gone out to pasture.  All done.  Months of work, all gone.  And let's not forget my dad's brilliant idea of getting him a PSP with an army gun game...  Poof!  All my hard work gone straight out the door.  My boy's back to drawing guns and cutting them out.  I'm mortified.  Thinking of keeping Dayton home for an extra week when we get home.  I don't trust him to go to school now.  My dad thinks this is funny. 

So, I'm left with a couple of choices...  Risk angering my dad (please keep in mind that he's 240 lbs, and strong as a bull, and has been known to throw his weight around) which I believe to be physically dangerous, or continue whining that his behavior is inappropriate.  Either way, it doesn't look good, and I have a week to go...

So, in my search of comfort, I've found a poem I'd like to share with you, and I wish I knew who the author was to give them credit, but here it is anyways... 

When you are so sure that someone is out to hurt you, it becomes very difficult to forgive their shortcomings.  It is much easier to believe that people develop clever and malicious ways to inflict hurts on you than it is to accept that they are merely humans doing what humans do.  For some strange reason, it is much easier to take everything very personally rather than to accept people as they are, forgive them for what they do, and release them from our lives.  We know very well how to be a victim.  Being a person who refuses to be  victimized seems to be where we have trouble.

Perhaps it is easier to be a victim, because if we really try to understand people we will see many pieces of our self.  If we see those pieces of our self, we would have to forgive other people.  Forgiveness takes courage.  Courage begins in character.  A good solid character requires a level of self-esteem so many of us believe we do not have.  One way you can enhance your self-esteem is to stop being so willing to be a victim.  In order not to be a victim, we must develop the courage to speak up for ourselves.  The only way we can develop this kind of courage is to be real clear about who we are.  When we know who we are, we will realize that no one can do anything to harm us unless we keep them around and allow them to do so. 

Seems I have some things to think about in regards to my dad, don't I?




Consider yourselves hugged,


Lou