The things I thought would make me so sad

When she was a newborn he was enamored. "Hold Allie, hold Allie" he'd repeat over and over as he waddled through the house behind me. And then one day he stopped asking. It was an eerie silence that I now know would last for years to come. He lost complete interest in her, no longer making his morning trips to the side of her crib or trying to wrap her little fingers around his chubby toddler forefinger. He grew so unaware of her in fact that at times I was afraid that he'd step on her if I left her lying on the floor on her blankie. It was this change of events that would lead us down the path to our difficult discovery of autism.

She was not yet 6 months old when he received the diagnosis. The next three years of her life were to be spent traveling in the car and sitting for hours in waiting rooms as we shuttled her older brother to and from every kind of therapy imaginable. At night I would cry by the side of her crib with the deep sorrow of a mother missing the infancy of her last child.

It was during those early years that my anxieties mounted over the day she would bypass her brother. What a sad time it would be, I thought, when she could talk and he could not. But when the day came it was more glorious than a sun filled beach in paradise. When she learned her alphabet, learned to write, to read, to do arithmetic, to ride a bike . . . each milestone was as wonderfully exhilarating as the last.

Sometimes I start to worry about what the future holds- driving, dating, college, career, marriage, children - but then I remind myself that it's just the continuation of a marvelous journey, one that we will continue to celebrate with each one of our beautiful children. Milestones don't need to be same for everyone.

In a quiet moment

when she was still just a thought

I had the doubtless impression that she was coming

and the sweet assurance that she would be a source

of great peace and joy

happy birthday to the peace and joy

that makes our family complete.

The moon was high in the night sky

by the time we had gotten everyone situated on the trampoline. My sweetheart and I had just retired to our sleeping arrangements on the deck when our youngest duck insisted on cuddling in between us. Soon, everyone was asleep and I lay listening to the creek and crickets and the rustling of the trees. I stared at the stars until my eyelids became too heavy to bear and my thoughts turned to dreams. Not an hour later we awoke to the sound that all parents know too well, the sound that takes you from zero to 100 in approximately one second. We worked in the darkness as if we had rehearsed a thousand times before. I take the child he takes the bedding, thirty minutes later we fall asleep in our own beds to the quiet hum of the washing machine.

So today I am home with this:

but I have Sunday shirts to iron, laundry to wash, a good book to read, Oreos to eat and a husband to take the children to the pool. I will serve her soup and crackers on a flowery serving tray and read her a book or two or 20 and when we are done we will settle into a movie together

and I will enjoy playing nurse because I know these days won't last forever.

happy pioneer day,

Judge not

My sweetheart had instant credibility in his black suit and starched white shirt. I on the other hand had taken approximately two seconds on my appearance that morning, something I was acutely aware of as I adjusted the ill fitting shirt for the hundredth time in 5 minutes. My fingers inadvertently made their way over to the mothers necklace hanging around my neck and continued to fumble with it as I read down through the questionnaire.

88. "Is parenting harder than you thought it would be?"

89. "Do you believe yourself to be a capable parent?"

90. "Do you spend most of your time doing things for your children?"

I caught Brandon trying to cheat as he balanced his clipboard on his knee next to me. We laughed quietly about it and then he proceeded to copy a few more of my answers. When the myriads of paperwork were turned in we were invited into her office. "Do you work?" she asked me as she flipped through the pile of papers.

"I'm just a homemaker." (An awful word "just." It seems to finagle it's way in every time I describe my life.) She made some comment about it being a job without pay and then furiously back peddled with an even more perplexing explanation about how it really is with pay. We all did the courtesy laugh and pushed forward.

Two hours later she leaned back in her chair and quite confidently announced our child's diagnosis. She also said that it was evident that we had a "lovely relationship" with our child followed by more kind words about our parenting.

We had indeed passed the test, the underlying test that every parent realizes is taking place when their child is being evaluated. Our parenting had been under scrutiny and in the end she chose the word "lovely."

Why did I feel pleased when in fact had she offered any other opinion I surely would have tried to write it off?

After all, she is just a professional,

At church Sunday Nick ran up in front of the pulpit

and started flailing his arms and screaming.

I was by his side in an instant pulling him to the exit door.

He grabbed tight to a banister and my ugly, crazy mom face appeared

as I fiercely pulled him off and out the door

just seconds before the prayer began.

No one used the word lovely concerning me or my son that day.

Happy Father's Day.

I needed her

She sings from the time she wakes up until her eyelids droop shut at the end of the day. She can make up a song about anything with an amusingly repetitive chorus. It would be charmingly repetitive if the volume didn't raise to such a decibel that it was difficult to hear yourself think. Her brothers beg her to stop, their begs turn into demands, their demands turn into a random pillow being thrown in her direction. Isn't that the equivalent of rotten fruit being catapulted onto stage? Even so, she doesn't take the hint.

She and I were flying down the highway the other day when I leaned over and turned on the radio. A song that I had never heard before was playing, the beat a little too big for a small person I thought. I began to change it when she vehemently demanded I leave it on. It was then that I noticed the complete euphoria that had enveloped her. "I can feel it beating in my heart," she smiled dreamily.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked. And then she leaned over and whispered despite the fact we were completely alone, encapsulated in a body of steel. "My favorite thing in the world to do is dance" her breath tickled into my ear.

"I already knew that sweetheart. Without you even telling me, I knew."

She leaned back into her seat and began swaying to the beat.

Oh how I love the music she brings to my life.

Saturday's Musings

Do you have to cheer for the "other" team at your 4th graders basketball game?

Watching our 5 year old girl having a tea party, a cookie in one hand, wielding a lazer gun in the other. How worried do I need to be about the male influence in our home?

My sweetheart is restringing his acoustic guitar, the one a toddler cracked while standing on, the one a puppy chewed while teething, the one that gets retuned daily by little hands. Will we ever replace it?

I heard that Patriarch Gleed has a Wii. Patriarch Gleed that has two grown daughters that live away from home. Does this solidify our children's argument that we are the only people on the face of the earth without a Wii?

The dog has been sick. Really sick. The "he really should get a $200 x-ray with barium" kind of sick. No socks are missing so I went through the gloves to be on the safe side.

Do I need to be concerned?

She loves to dance to his music

"don't grow up, don't grow up"

my mothers heart wills over and over

as I watch them in their magical world

of father and daughter

musician and prima ballerina