a blended life

Logan Aquatic Center has free swimming for disabled kids on Saturday mornings, so I took Leah today. Swimming just might be her favorite thing in the world-besides her softies. It fun to see her so excited, but it's hard to take her to the pool because she really doesn't know what to do with it. Playing around in the water doesn't come naturally to her, so she gets nervous and insists that I hold her hand for about the first 15 minutes. She warmed up eventually and spent most of the hour and a half jumping in place. I did get her to walk away from me towards the end, which was a nice break. I don't mind being in the water, but sometimes the monotony is a little draining. It's hard to explain to someone how to have fun in the water by themselves-it's just not a skill I ever thought I would need. The only thing that seemed to work was to give some very specific instructions "walk that way 10 times, then jump 5 times, then walk back to me". She can only d...

I need to make a post in honor of Hannah because I don't think she's had enough time in the blog. Our lives are usually consumed with Leahisms, but I don't want to forget our littlest munchkin. She is so completely adorable-so cognitive, smart, verbal, funny, opinionated. She has an opinion about everything-even what kind of yogurt I give her, or what clothes she wears. I titled this post with my least favorite food because Hannah is much like an ape or a monkey. She clings to us when she doesn't want to be put down, she makes a lot of noises that are unintelligible but clear attempts at communication, and she tries to use her feet for things that are decidedly un-feet-able. She also has a lot of fuzzy hair and likes to feed herself and make a terrible mess. She's an enormous ham and lights up and coos whenever a camara is present.

I'm so darn tired I can't think of anything good to talk about. Hannah came to work with me today and had a good time. My parents came to Logan to give Leah her birthday present and take Jen out to dinner (whose birthday is Thursday). I was nice to talk to them and Leah loved the fairy dress and shoes she got. We talked about the big family camping trip in August. We think it's probably best for me to go by myself, but Brian would be left to care for himself and the two monkeys...alone. Yikes! We're still not sure what to do and how to go about it. Maybe we'll bag the whole thing. Brian, I love that you keep commenting since you're the only one who reads this blog! Maybe it's time to let people know that I'm doing this. And since I'm rambling mindlessly, I'm disgusted with the price of gas and food. It keeps climbing and I don't know how we're going to make it if things don't improve. Happy thoughts.

Keeping in mind that I think my girls are adorable, I'm going to make this statement-they eat enormous amounts of food. Here's a list of what they ate from 7 am-10:30am- 1 yogurt 6 scrambled eggs 2 peanut butter sandwiches 4 cups of apple juice 2 cups of chocolate milk 1 handful of goldfish and pretzels A few bites out of my bowl of cereal Maybe I'm not with it, but that seems like a lot to me. I came down with a cold today and it put me in a mood. Not a good mood, by the way.

Argh! I've been trying for days to upload some pictures of Leah's birthday and I can only get these two! I made the cake at the last minute when she decided she wanted a pink cake. I wasn't going to make one because she doesn't even like cake. But what's a birthday wthout a cake? She had a pretty good day, except she was freaked out about the idea of singing to her. By the the time we had cake and candles, we compromised so that we were singing softly. She liked it, I think. She got an exercise trampoline and a bunch of princess stuff. She thinks she's Tinkerbell. She hit a big milestone-she drew a picture of Dad. It was a big deal since she's never drawn hardly anything or even shown interest in artwork. I was thrilled!

I tried really hard to think of something positive about today and I found something-my neighbor (Virginia) called me and said she'd take the girls for an hour. Hooray! Brian and I seized the moment and went to Iggy's. I had a very unsatisfying salad and ended up honking on Brian's calzone and bread. It was nice to have our first date in maybe 6 months. And in case anybody cares, I have a huge cold sore that is ruining my life.

Here's another post for those of you who have expressed curiosity about what it's like to live with a child with autism. We went grocery shopping at 7:30 this morning for a few reasons-1)we were totally out of real food 2)Wal-Mart is a horrible place, but is at least somewhat bearable at this early hour and 3)the girl's are somewhat bearable at this hour, having been awake since 5:30 am. I'll spare some of the boring details of the worst big box store in the world, but here's some highlights: Each girls has her own cart. I pull one (Leah's)and push the other (Hannah's). This is so Leah doesn't attack me or Hannah and so she doesn't run away, run into cars, pull stuff of shelves, and so I can control what she is holding. Anything she holds can be turned into a football with zero notice. We've had many, many rounds of thrown merchandise and food. I do a fast walk/jog, because either girl will start screaming if I stop too long. I have a specific li...

It's arrived! My new Boston piano came yesterday-and I had zero chance to really test it out. But, no complaints. I think Black Beauty will get plenty of mileage. Hannah even chewed on the keys to christen it.

I'm having the worst time uploading some pictures. GRRRR. So use your imagination. Leah took a picture (50, actually) of me with stomach flu. Not bad for a 3 year old amateur. Another shot is of my USA puzzle, which is one I used to do on a card table growing up. Very cool! Another shot is of Hannah, who's been fighting a nasty fever. One of these days I'll be technologically inclined. Today I'm just trying to survive. I had another proud moment in my life of trying to redefine who we are because of our needy children. So, Albertson's had a free marshmallow deal today. So I schlepped Leah-who's been going nuts because Hannah has cried for two days straight, and Hannah-who's nuts because of her fever and whatever else is wrong. A normal person wouldn't have bothered. Anyway, we loaded up the cart with marshmallows and went to the self check out, only it didn't give me the free deal that it was supposed to. This was right about the time when the girls ...

Here's a post for the autistically minded. If that's a word. Here's a difficulty we face eveyday-do we take Leah out in public? Her behavior can be completely erratic and out of control. The biggest issue is saftey-she's very prone to running into moving vehicles. Other issues include destroyed merchandise, screaming meltdowns, sisterly attacks, and extreme disobedience. Yesterday at Hobby Lobby we had a new experience. Leah shoved the cart-with Hannah inside-against the automatic door, dislodging it. Jen was there, laughing, and went to fix the door. I grabbed us a ran out to the car, while management was right behind me examining the door in question. I got mad, but felt bad afterwards since she didn't really understand what she'd done. The thing is, if we don't take her out in public, we go nuts with her at home. It's a no win situation. Luckily, we got her into a preschool this week so things should start looking up for everyone. Hannah is really fun...

We've passed around a 24 hour stomach bug this week, so finally today we are on the mend. Except that Hannah woke up at 4:30, waking everyone up with her. Leah was completely unbearable and totally out of control with fatigue, so we drove her around to get her sleep (with the help of a little Benadryl). We all had a family nap this afternoon. Here's another thing I like that I can't admit freely-squirting whipped cream from a can into my mouth. Yum!

So, technically speaking, and according to the scale at Sports Academy, I haven't gained any weight. But I feel like a tub of lard and can't stop eating, which is probably due to the inflamed and undertreated ulcer. I'm going to state one positive thing that each of us experienced today- Brian- didn't insist on taking a nap after I got off work. This is HUGE! Leah- threw away her own diaper without being asked. Hannah- took a long nap and said lots of cute words. Me- my coworker brought me rhubarb pie. It was delicious! Also, I found a puzzle at DI that I used to do growing up. I'm excited to get going on it, so this will be short.