Monthly Archives: August 2013

{Virtual} Coffee Date (vol. 2)

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I’m stealing borrowing this idea from Karianna at Caffeinated Catholic Mama again. Go check out her site and find out what she’d tell you if you were having coffee with her. Starting next week, this will be a weekly link-up. 🙂

If we were having coffee, I would explain that I’m sipping on Pellegrini because I’m nauseated from bloodwork this morning. The nurse did a good job at having it be painless but I’m still feeling the effects of it. The garlicky shrimp chow main I had for breakfast didn’t help.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’m not sleeping well because I can’t get to sleep before a certain hour. I think if I were to do Compline on time, I’d be OK but my brain is hard to shut off at times. It’s a reason I tend to journal and blog at night — it makes my brain shut up quicker.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’m nervous about seeing my father-in-law because I know the progress of his cancer and it is making me really sad. I love him and I want to see him but I’m also a bit afraid. It’s complicated.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about Daniel vocalizing and babbling using various consonant sounds. I will admit I’m looking forward to him learning to talk and am tempted to smack the people who warn me that he’ll never shut up.

Thanks for having coffee (or tea) with me. See you next week!

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: My Goals for Motherhood

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This week’s topic: my goals for motherhood.

Just resetting the bear...

Yeah… it’s almost 1 a.m. and I’m wrestling with this and also the car sitch. (If you could say a quick prayer that Daniel and I could get to Sacramento and back tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.)

I think my goals would be…

For Daniel to grow up knowing that he is loved by us for who he is. I admit that this is a subject that can keep me up late at night because there is so much that we don’t know about the future. We don’t know what this coming school year holds, if he’ll start talking this year, or what skills he’ll pick up. I’m endlessly thankful that we have an ABA program at the local preschool and that the Regional Center is picking up the tab for his ABA therapy outside of school. I guess I just want him to know that Jon and I love him so incredibly much and will always love him, no matter what.

For Daniel to know his worth as a child of God. This pastor’s wife has no clue how to pass the faith on to her son. Go me. I am hoping that he’ll pick up on me praying with him before we eat and eventually, he’ll be able to sit through church even if it’s with a “busy bag”. I want him to know that he is a child of the living God and that Jesus died for his sins. I want him to know that God loves him. I want him to be able to go to God in prayer and approach Him like a child would approach their Father. For all I know, Daniel has an amazing spiritual life and knows that God loves him — Daniel isn’t verbal so I don’t know how he could communicate that to me.

For Daniel to be more than a kid with autism (or an adult with autism). He is autistic but that doesn’t necessarily define him. He has a fascination for how things work and how they are put together so maybe he’ll be an engineer or an electrician or something like that. The possibilities are endless.

To show Daniel an example of a godly woman so that he will hopefully see that quality in a future spouse. Again, this is one of those things where I have no idea what I’m doing other than just letting Daniel see me praying, singing hymns and spiritual songs to him, and being the woman God wants me to be. If he can pick up on me tossing my trash into the garbage can at Target and the way my mom recycles yard waste, he can probably pick up on this?

To show Daniel a good example of a healthy marriage. Again, this is kind of a monkey-see-monkey-do type of thing at the moment. I want him to know how to talk things out civilly with his future wife and to respect her. I want him to know that it’s OK to disagree on the small things and to pick his battles because you can’t die on every hill.

For Daniel to be independent. This will be one of those things on which we’ll be working with his ABA tutors. I want Daniel to know how to cook something relatively simple, how to wash/dry his clothes, how to shop for groceries, how to clean, and how to survive in the outside world because I’m not going to be around forever.

I guess overall, my goals is for Daniel be the best person he can be.

Daniel and I.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else has for goals.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 11, 2013

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Simple Woman's Daybook

I’m moving my memes and link-ups around and doing this on Sunday.

FOR TODAY August 11, 2013

Outside my window… sunny and warm.

I am thinking… about getting Daniel to his ENT appointment tomorrow and praying that nothing happens car-wise because there’s a weird rattling sound under the car.

I am thankful… for chances to sleep this weekend.

In the kitchen… so many dishes. No idea where to start.

I am wearing… green “Online Debate Team” shirt and running shorts.

I am creating… this blog entry.

I am going… to go attempt to figure out the dish situation when I’m done here.

I am wondering… when I’ll be able to get to Les Schwab to have them check out the car.

I am reading… Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels. I finished Banished by Lauren Drain on Saturday.

I am hoping… nothing is wrong with the car that isn’t easily fixable.

I am looking forward to… time in LA with my in-laws.

I am pondering… too many things in my heart.

A favorite quote for today… ??God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else – something it never entered your head to conceive – comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.?? — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… watching “The Big Bang Theory”.

A few plans for the rest of the week: ENT appointment with Daniel on Monday morning, ABA therapy on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, driving down to LA on Thursday, and being down there over the weekend.

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7 Quick Takes: Random Act of Kindness, Baseball, and Lullabies

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Do you see these three darling children?

First row: Brett and Iris.
Second row: Kaia.

BrettIrisKaia

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are in the homestudy stage. Kaia has met her family and they are in love with her!!! 🙂

Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 2 —

Consider this. I know most of the people who participate in this link-up/meme are Catholic but these apply to priests as well.

— 3 —

Random Act of Kindness. Those who know me on Facebook or Twitter have heard this already but I’ll tell it again.

I’ve been having a really tough week. My brother is moving out of state at the end of the month and he and I had a tough conversation this weekend because he’s stressed and I unfortunately can’t fix it. (Nothing really bad — I just can’t get into the details until he makes some of them public on Facebook.) Everyone who I talk to about the move mentions Sean (my brother) being at the hospital with me the night they almost put Daniel on ECMO and I hit the breaking point with that on Monday night. I had a serious cry and barely got sleep so Tuesday, I was tired to the point of nausea. (I had to cancel Daniel’s ENT appointment because I was in no shape to drive.)

Wednesday, I had the radio off while I was driving up to Sacramento and was praying aloud about how stressed I was and how I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the day because it was going to be long. I was also praying about Daniel’s peds appointment because doctor’s appointments with him can be either hellish or good — there’s no in between. I stopped at the drive-thru $tarbux because I needed caffeine and the car in front of me was blocking me from being close to the speaker so it took a few tries to communicate my order. When I got up there, I was reaching for my debit card when the barista told me that the car in front of me had paid for my drink.

…

I started sobbing and probably scared the barista but it was seriously what I needed. Given that coffee is usually on my no-no list (stupid ulcers!), you can definitely say I enjoyed my latté a whole lot more. Seriously though, it was a total answer to prayer.

— 4 —

The appointment. Daniel’s appointment went well — he’s high-maintenance enough health-wise that we have to check in with his pediatrician more often than just the yearly Well-Child appointments. When we were there on Wednesday, she had made sure her scheduler put us in when the clinic was likely to be fairly empty so Daniel could run around and open/close doors to his heart’s content while she and I followed him and talked. He allowed her to examine him without objecting too much and she’s satisfied with his growth at the moment. She had also FINALLY (!!!!!) received Daniel’s MRI’s from his previous neurologist at Sutter and was amazed when I told her exactly what was going on in the report using words like “demyelination” and talked about how the lack of myelin on the neurons meant that the information wasn’t being transmitted as quickly. (My undergrad Biology classes were definitely not a waste of my time even if I didn’t end up being pre-med and heading to medical school.) I should have told her about pwning the residents who made up the entourage of Daniel’s pediatric neurologist last year when I was using words like “methodology” and “antecedent” to explain ABA to them after the neurology resident dealing with us had spoken to me condescendingly.

— 5 —

Cuddlebug time. I had another opportunity to have a sleepy boy in my lap and sing him to sleep on Tuesday night. He didn’t feel the need to nap yesterday or today and is still (at 9:50 p.m. as I’m typing these) running around the living room like a live wire. Oh well… there will be other opportunities.

— 6 —

Baseball. My Giants play Marie’s Orioles tomorrow. I have a feeling that there will be some trash talking over Twitter during the game. 😉 Then again, my Giants have been sucking lately so some of it will probably be warranted. Of course, the worst thing is that I live with a Dodgers fan… and they’re at the top of their division while my boys are at the bottom.

— 7 —

Inside Westboro Baptist Church. I’m currently reading Banished by Lauren Drain and while it is disturbing because of the sheer crap that church teaches their young, it is fascinating how they lived “normally” in the world but were also completely separated from it. It shouldn’t astound me how severely brainwashed those poor people are but it does. I haven’t gotten to the part where she has a change of heart and I’m kind of looking forward to that.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

{Virtual} Coffee Date (vol. 1)

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I’m stealing borrowing this idea from Karianna at Caffeinated Catholic Mama. Go check out her site and find out what she’d tell you if you were having coffee with her. Tell her also to make this a weekly link-up. 🙂

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about the dietary changes I’ve been having to make because of my PCOS and how there are a lot of days when I’ve maxed out my calories and am still hungry. I’m also getting sick of grilled shrimp and grilled chicken. I’m hoping that there’s enough weight loss to make my endocrinologist happy when I see her in a few weeks and that my sugars are good enough even though I’m not testing because meals tend to not be scheduled affairs.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about Daniel’s in-home ABA therapy and how he seems to be doing really well with his primary tutor. I’m present for sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays and Jon is there for Fridays. We’re trying to find a tutor to do Tuesdays and Thursdays so right now, it’s just 3 days a week.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about how hard I sobbed when I saw Katy Perry singing that duet of “Firework” with Jodi, a little girl with autism because it seriously illustrates some my frustrations at being the parent of a child with special needs and how much ambiguity there is in his future.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about Daniel falling asleep in my lap with me singing to him and how I’m resolving to do more of it after I realized that the only time I’ve done it has been when he’s been in the hospital. That realization led to a lot of crying on Monday night on my part but that’s OK. Crying is a stress release for me.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about how doing Compline has helped my faith and enables me to go to sleep. Edda even joined me for it yesterday which was very helpful — she is a meditative panther and petting her was a nice addition to prayer.

Thank you for having coffee (or tea) with me today. Shall we do this next week?

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: If I Could Have One Superpower…

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This week’s topic: if I could have one superpower…

For me, it would be confidence. I talk a pretty good game on this blog and can seem like I carry myself with the poise of a supermodel in public but internally, I’m the polar opposite. Part of it might be my extreme introversion (which I can fake my way out of for a couple hours at most before I need to go cower in a corner in a dark room) and part of it might be the depression. I tend to run conversations in my head for hours after I’ve had them and critique them so it’s pretty common that I wish I would have said something differently or just kept my mouth shut at points to avoid sticking my neck out.

The song, “The Warrior Is a Child”, fits me to a T.

Especially the following lines…

They don’t know that I go running home when I fall down
They don’t know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
‘Cause deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child

This is why confidence would be such a superpower for me. It would prevent a lot of the inner turmoil that I deal with on a daily basis. I’d use it for good — I’d totally use it to speak out on behalf of the oppressed and to stand up for my faith and all that.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else would choose for a superpower.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 5, 2013

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY August 5, 2013

Outside my window… sunny and warm. It’s in the 80’s so we’ll probably go play outside during therapy today.

I am thinking… about the devotions I’m trying to get written.

I am thankful… for Daniel falling asleep in my lap while I sang to him.

In the kitchen… chicken marinating.

I am wearing… green “Online Debate Team” shirt, running shorts, and my Celtic cross.

I am creating… devotions for the book.

I am going… to be seeing a lot of the Glassrock Building at UCD Medical Center this week — Daniel has a peds check-up and an ENT appointment.

I am wondering… if penguins have knees. (It’s related to a Facebook picture.)

I am reading… Banished by Lauren Drain. I finished Going Going Ganache by Jenn McKinlay last week and Apologia pro vita sua is still on hold.

I am hoping… Daniel’s ENT goes well tomorrow and we’re not stuck waiting in the exam room for a long time.

I am looking forward to… saying Compline tonight. It’s actually gotten to be the highlight of my night.

Around the house… trying to channel my inner Flylady and get the clutter under control.

I am pondering… many things internally.

A favorite quote for today… “All the world is made of faith and trust, and pixie dust.” — J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

One of my favorite things… quiet mornings which don’t exist in my house at the moment with Daniel on break from school.

A few plans for the rest of the week: ENT appointment for Daniel tomorrow, peds appointment and ABA therapy for Daniel on Wednesday as well as Ladies’ Night Out for me, a rheumatology appointment on Friday, and Date Night for Jon and I on Saturday night thanks to Respite Night at a church in Elk Grove..

A peek into my day… I’ll share the image involving penguin knees.

Do penguins have knees?????

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