My, What a Lovely Family You Have

One of the coping mechanisms I have developed since The Autism came is to develop a thick skin, to let comments people say sort of bounce off me. Not much will offend me enough to do more than laugh and that's a good thing, a very good thing.  I've discovered that our family can sometimes make people feel . . . uncomfortable.  And when people feel uncomfortable, they tend to say what they're thinking and then it gets kind of uncomfortable  for me.

What do they say?  Here's a few memorable moments:

She Said: "Thank goodness you don't have more at home.  That's the last thing you need."

What She Meant:  "You can't even handle the kids you have now.  You need to close up shop, lady.  No more kids for you.  Ever."

About four years ago, I was on the hunt for a new pediatrician.  Finding a new doctor for the kids is incredibly frustrating.  The office needs to run on time, the staff need to be autism-friendly, and the doctor has to listen to me (because, let's face it, I know a lot more about autism than they do.  I'm not bragging.  I live with it every single day.  They write referrals to pediatric neurologists).

This particular doctor, let's call her Dr. M, came highly recommended.  But, alas, there was a mistake, on the part of the office, in scheduling.  We had to wait over an hour.  At lunchtime.  The boys were, um, not exactly calm when we finally got called back. While trying to get one boy weighed, another escaped.  When I got him back, the next one took off.  It was like a scene from a bad sitcom starring me as the lovable but frazzled and clearly incompetent parent.  After getting my sprints in for the day chasing wily, squiggly boys, we finally got into the room.

Dr. M arrived shortly thereafter.  Before she even began the actual exams, she went through a list of questions, one of which was, "Do you have any other children at home?"  Before I could even answer, she said in that way people say things under their breath but really want you to hear it, "Thank goodness you don't have more at home.  That's the last thing you need."

As you might imagine, we never went back to see her.

Also, two years later, I had another kid . . . . you know, just to spite her.

What She Should have Said Instead:  "My, what a lovely family you have."
*********
What She Said:  "And the two with autism are adopted, right?"

What She Meant:  "I can't believe you'd actually kept having kids after one was diagnosed with autism.  At least if they're adopted, you're like a martyr for adopting special needs kids and not, like, crazy."

All four at nine months old.

Just one teeny, tiny problem.  Our kids look just like us and each other.  Sorry, not adopted. (For the record, I think adoption is an amazing thing).

We did, in fact, continue to have children after the first one was diagnosed with autism.  Actually, I was four months pregnant with the third one (who would later also be diagnosed) while our oldest son was diagnosed.  I love each one of our children.  Are some days very difficult?  Absolutely.  Is it worth it?  Yes.

So, yes, I am just crazy.

What She Should Have Said: "My, what a lovely family you have."
******
What She Said: "Your husband can never die.  You'd never find anyone to marry you."

What She Meant:  "No man on God's green earth would want to be saddled with you and your four kids, especially because two have autism."

First, my husband is never dying.  Ever.  Out of the question. Second, okay, this may be the truest statement of them all.  I'm blessed to have found the one guy to put up with my bad housekeeping, sarcasm, and occasional crying jags.  Aside from making pretty spectacular chocolate chip cookies, my merits as a wife are suspect.

So. I'll just refer back to the first point: my husband is never dying.

What She Should Have Said: "My, what a lovely family you have."
*********

Other safe alternatives where you're at a loss for words:
"I love your family."
"Thanks for hanging out with me."
"How can I help?"
"I'll be praying for you."
"I'll watch your children while you eat this giant chocolate bar and drink this bottle of wine."

I know most people aren't purposely trying to offend me but that doesn't mean it hurts any less.  If they could just think about what they're saying first.  How would it sound if someone said it to you?   When in doubt, kindness (and silence) always win.

Also wine and chocolate and laughing.  Those things win too.

A "State of My Life" Address

It's been a rough week.  A rough, ugly, messy week.

It's the kind of week that I don't want to get out of bed to deal with.  I want to curl in the fetal position and cry but instead I ate chocolate-covered raisins (which were kind of gross but I was willing to eat anything covered in chocolate at that point).  I like to hide and eat chocolate when life gets to be too much, you know.

Daniel is pushing a lot of boundaries right now.  He'll be 10 next month and I think we've officially hit the "pre-teen" years.  I hate them.  I don't want to deal with them.  One of the things I've learned about autism is that I have to be embarrassed for my children.  That's not embarrassed of them, but for them.  Daniel isn't socially aware enough to realize some his behaviors are wildly inappropriate.  When he does things like this, people only see behaviors, they don't see him.  It makes me so frustrated--at them, at him, at autism, at myself.

How do you teach someone who doesn't care, to care?  Am I making the best choices for him?  Why can't someone just tell me what to do? These not rhetorical questions.  I really need to know the answer to this because I am at a loss.

Gideon's had a rough week too.  A few weeks ago, he began to communicate his supreme dislike of everything by pinching.  This week, he added hitting to his repertoire.   When he's unhappy with an answer, like when he's told no (and he's told no a lot), he's looking for someone to hit.  Guess who tells him no the most though?  Of course, me!  When he's around, I have to be hyper-vigilant to stop the hitting before it starts and block it when it does.

Do you know how frustrating it is that the only way your six year old will communicate with you is by hitting?  I would give anything for him to be able to just talk to me, even for a day.  I just want to hear his voice tell me how he's feeling, just once.  I want him to tell me he loves me just once without repeating it after I say it.  I worry constantly that I've failed Gideon somehow, that we've not worked hard enough or we've not given him what he needs.  If I knew for certain that he was happy, I could at least hold onto that.

Ben is struggling a lot right now.  We've had him evaluated twice now and, although, we can all see the dyslexia, he scores "too high" on the evaluations to receive help.  The second doctor told me to wait a year and then he'll qualify.  "Let him fail the STAAR test and then they'll pay attention."  I can't even . . . . How do I stand by and just "let him fail?"  How do I afford expensive tutors and intensive reading programs?  How do I help Ben understand that I just expect him to do his best when he is doing his best and he sees it's not good enough?

Why is nothing easy? We already have two children  with autism.  Why do we have to have another that has to struggle too and, selfishly, add more work to my endless amount?

I need more chocolate-covered raisins, except no raisins this time.  Just chocolate.

Katherine is two so she acts like a two year old.  Temper tantrums, attitude for miles, wanting to be independent, demanding, exhausting.  She's far more stubborn than all three boys combined.  She's opinionated and loud.  She's basically  me, except two. Today I spent 15 minutes listening to her gripe (and shout and cry) about having to be strapped into the car seat.

Carl is a ghost.  Leaving before 6am, coming home after bedtime.  He sleeps and then repeats. Two solid months of this has both him and me on thin ice. 

My house is a disaster of epic proportions, I'm behind on laundry, the taxes aren't done, my husband is basically living at work.  I feel like I'm failing at life this week.  I feel like I'm barely hanging on here.  My lifeline is thin and fraying, worn out from how hard I've had to hold on it.

I think I need ice cream too.  Mint chocolate chip, please.

I wish I had some great insight, some nugget of truth, to pass on to you about this.  I wish I could give you a big smile and say, "It will all be okay."  But life is hard; life is messy.  Sometimes it's a beautiful mess and I know I have to hold on to those moments with everything in me to get through the times when the mess is ugly and hard.

Every day is a struggle.  Every day I work to put one foot in front of the other.  Some days I make progress, other days I don't move an inch.  Part of the reason I share this with you is because I never share this stuff.  I hold it and it festers and boils.  I'm so tired of having that feeling in my gut all the time.  I'm tired of bracing myself for the other shoe to drop, the next kid emergency, or broken whatever that will surely break in our house/car/body.

I just want to tell you guys that I am struggling.  This day. This week.  This month.  This year.  This life. 

And I think it's okay.  It's not fun but it's okay.  I don't hate God or shake my fists at Him but I tell Him that I don't understand.  I try to give him my confusion and doubts and feelings of failure and loss; they seep back in.  So, I give them to Him again.  It's not easy or pretty because I'm a ugly, messy, hard, beautiful work in progress. I feel inadequate, anxious, scared, and alone.  But, you know, God has yet to give up on me. I will make mistakes of epic proportions but God will give me glimpses of such perfect beauty that will carry me through. 

Thank God for that.

Cracked: A Cautionary Tale

One time, I had to go to the bathroom. 

I was at home, the only adult around, and I was surrounded by four children of various ages.  Two of these children have autism--Daniel, our oldest, was eight at the time.  Gideon was five.  Now, Gideon has a small obsession with eggs. It involves getting his hands on a carton of eggs and throwing them all on the kitchen floor.  This obsession means that 1) I have to hide when I bring eggs home from the store, and 2) I have to keep the eggs in the highest shelf of the fridge. Most of the time, these are enough of a deterrent.

Gideon  may not talk much but he is an excellent

strategist. He plots and plans but does it silently.  He's all about biding his time and sneak attacks. He's very good at it, impressively so.  I have found him on kitchen counters, on top of the refrigerator once, and another time on the top of our front loading washing machine, all because he wanted something.  When Gideon sets his mind on a goal, there's no stopping him.

So, this one time, I had to go to the bathroom.

Gideon saw his opportunity.

I came back to laughter, a lot of laughter. You know when people say, "If you hear silence and you don't know where your child, be afraid?"  That sentiment also works when you hear loud, maniacal laughter coming from your children.  I rounded the doorway into the kitchen and froze, taking the scene in.  See, Gideon had gotten a new carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.  The door was still open and my kitchen floor was a slippery, slimy yellow mess mixed with broken eggshells.  Gideon, in a fit of glee, was running around in small circles, laughing.  Daniel stood by, having watched the whole show, and laughed too.

I'm sure cracked eggs all over a floor are symbolic of my life somehow, right?

I, as you might imagine, was not laughing.  I was livid.  Do you know how flipping hard it is to clean up eggs?.  As I cleaned up the evidence, I ranted and raved.  I lectured and fumed.  I waved my hands around and I raised my voice.  Gideon knew there was trouble on the horizon and he took off to safer pastures.  Daniel though, he continued to watch with amusement.  Since he stayed, he got an earful about always, always, always coming to tell Mommy if he saw Gideon doing something he wasn't supposed to.  I made him repeat it back to me. He did.  Word for word.


Finally, when all the eggs were picked up and the floor was clean, I turned to Daniel and asked, "Daniel, the next time you see your brother throwing eggs, what should you do?"

And Daniel, without hesitation, looked right at me and answered, "Laugh."

Bathroom breaks are on hold for me for the time being.

The Day I Knew

I remember the exact moment I realized Daniel had autism.

It wasn't at a doctor's office or a school.  There was no formal proclamation.  I didn't receive a ten page written evaluation afterwards.  In fact, the word autism was never even used. But all the same, I knew in that moment that Daniel had autism.

It's strange how a sentence spoken by a stranger can rock your world.

Daniel was the child we prayed for.  We prayed for two years for him.  We prayed through two miscarriages and months of infertility.  During those years, Carl was in seminary so we were surrounded by other couples who thought about getting pregnant on Tuesday and then found out they were pregnant on Thursday. 

Carl and I, we just kept praying.


We were over-the-moon excited to meet him.  He was a good baby.  He was long and skinny, with a healthy appetite, and a great sleeper.  I was working as a middle school teacher at the time and he was born the day after school got out.  Twelve hours of labor and one c-section later, we had a healthy, red-headed baby boy.

He was a smart little guy.  By the time he was twenty months, we could hold up any letter or number and he could tell you what it was.  He knew his shapes and his colors.  And words.  So many words.  He loved books, and still does, and we read to him constantly.  He soaked it all up.

A few months after Daniel turned two, our family moved to the Houston area.  At this point, we'd added another little boy to the mix.  Carl went off to work each day at the hospital doing his chaplain residency and I stayed home. 

That's when I started to notice.

It was little things at first.  Why does he stand so close to the television? I'd ask myself.  Why is he constantly walking on his toes?  Why does he like to run back and forth over and over again? 

They're just little quirks, I told myself.  Look at how smart he is. 

But I was concerned about his language.  His words were not becoming sentences to communicate with us. I asked our new pediatrician about it.  "Does he know 50 words?" he asked.

"He knows thousands of words," I replied. 

"He's fine then," the doctor assured me.

But a month later, we spent some time with friends that had a boy just three months older than Daniel. This boy talked constantly about everything.  He introduced himself and asked to play.  He smiled. He laughed.  Daniel stood too close to the television and ignored us all.

I tried not to panic but as soon as we got home, I called the pediatrician and demanded a speech evaluation.  He referred us to our local early childhood intervention (ECI) program.  The program, through our school district, would come out to our home and evaluate Daniel.  The appointment was set for February; it was January.

We waited and the evaluation weighed heavily on me.  The worry was there and the fear.  I wanted it to hurry up and come and never get there all at the same time.  At the time, I was pregnant with our third (surprise) baby.  Ben, our second, was just about a year old.  Daniel's evaluation was to be that Wednesday.

The Sunday before, we went to church as we normally do.  I dropped Daniel off in the nursery.  We'd only been going to the church about four months so it wasn't uncommon for me to meet someone new.  In the nursery that day was a woman named Jennifer. She wasn't supposed to be in there that day; she was covering for someone else.  I also didn't know that Jennifer is a diagnostician for our local school district. 

I remember excusing myself from the service a couple of times to peek in the nursery.  Was he playing with other kids?  Did he ask for anything?  Was he okay?

After church was over, I headed over to get Daniel and I worked up the courage to ask Jennifer a question.  "Daniel is being evaluated on Wednesday for speech," I said.  "I just wondered how he was with the other kids?  Did he talk with them? Did he play?"

Jennifer stared at me for a moment and then let out a huge breath.  "I've been praying all morning if I should stay something to you or not," she said.

And I knew.

She told me what she did for a living and she said other things about parallel play and eye contact, about walking on toes and lack of interest in the other kids. I only half listened.

I smiled and nodded appropriately and took Daniel's hand.  I was quiet as we drove away from church and I remember pressing my forehead against the passenger window.  The tears came; those were silent.  I saved the wracking, deep sobs for when I got home and curled up in the fetal position on my bed.`

Everything changed with her words. 

Maybe I always knew.  Maybe some part of my brain already recognized that Daniel was different from other kids and that the difference was autism.  But now, other people knew.  They saw his differences too.  For the rest of his life, the word autism will always be associated with him in some way.  Things, life, will be harder for him because our world won't change for him; he has to change for the world.  He'll be told he's wrong because of how he thinks and acts.  He'll have to work harder to do things that come naturally to everyone else.  People will confuse him because people are confusing. Everything changed.

And yet, nothing changed changed with her words.

Daniel was still Daniel.  He was still the quiet boy who preferred books over people.  He was still the sweet, smart boy that I loved.  That did not change.  He was still the child I had prayed for for two years.  He was still the child I had longed for with my whole heart.  He was still the child God gave us. That did not change.  Nothing changed.

This day is seared in my brain, in some ways, life-changing and, in other ways, affirming what I'd probably always known. I don't think it's a coincidence that Jennifer was there in the nursery that day.  God made it so.  He knew I needed those words.  He knew I needed to hear them and understand them, process them and take them into my heart.  They weren't poetic or harsh, not beautiful or ugly, but they were important. 

With them, everything changed.  With them, nothing changed.

The Picture in the Church Directory

A few months ago, a very sweet woman at our church found me after the service one Sunday. "Sharon, we're putting together a new church directory for the spring."

I winced on the inside.  The church directory is a pictorial directory.  You know, like with pictures.  Like with pictures of your whole family smiling at the same time and looking at the camera at the same time.  For our family, that's like seeing a unicorn, flying pigs, and a purple squirrel at the same time.  Impossible.

A few years ago, our church went with a photography company to take the photos and compile the directory.  For some reason, the photographer was determined to get good pictures of our family.  He must have heard about our two kiddos with autism because he was prepared (um, kind of?).  He may have been a bit too optimistic about his skills as a photographer.  I think our family broke him. Gideon spilled water down the front of him. Daniel refused to cooperate, and instead, he lay down on the ground and activated his "spaghetti arms" when we tried to get him back up. I had to stop twice to feed a very tiny Katherine. At least one boy escaped three different times, plus the torture of individual pictures of each child. We spent more than 45 minutes taking some pretty terrible photos.

The best photo the whole bunch?  Only one kid was actually looking at the camera, two were smiling, and, the best worst part, one of the boys was clearly scratching his crotch at the time.

The photographer tried to sell us this picture.  "You'll laugh at this ten years from now."

Hmmm? And in the ensuing ten years, before it's funny, I can hang this 16x20 portrait on the wall in my living room and stare at my son scratching his crotch every minute of my life? Sounds great.

You can probably see why "It's time for a new church directory" aren't my favorite words.

"Don't worry," the sweet lady at church said.  "You can provide your own picture this time."

That's not so bad, I thought.

"In fact," she went on.  "I have this one I found on Facebook.  Will this work?"  I'm certain she showed me the photo and I'm sure I cringed.  "If you have another one, just get it to me soon."

I probably agree wholeheartedly and added "Find new family photo for church directory" to my mental to-do list and then ten seconds later forgot about directories and family photos and to-do lists because I live on caffeine and three brain cells and prayer.

Friends, the new church directories are here. The same church directory that each family in our church will receive, the same church directory given to new members.  Here's our entry:

 I'll pause for a moment to give you some time to really take it in.

Go ahead, laugh. I know you want to.  In fact, here's a better picture of that picture so you can really get the full effect.

As hilariously bad this photo is, it's the perfect representation of our family.  First, there's me.  I am clearly in the act of doing something "mom-like," most likely whisper-yelling at a kid to "Look at the camera!"  I have Gideon in a headlock so he can't run off and he's not looking at the camera because, well, why would he?  Daniel is front and center, holding Gideon's hand and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Anywhere.  Carl is smiling (probably because he's only wrestling one child and I'm wrestling three.  Hmmmm?).  He does have a two-handed death grip on Katherine, who is also not looking at the camera and gnawing on a finger.

And Ben?  Where's Ben?

There he is.  You might have missed him since he's squished behind Gideon and Daniel and only one eye and half his face is showing. Miracle of miracles, he's smiling and looking at the camera . . . sort of.

This, folks, this, right here, is my family.

I kind of love that this picture in our church directory.  I kind of love that every time someone looks us up, they'll know immediately who we are.  I kind of love that most of the people in our family can't fake a smile and that means, when you get a smile, it's real and it means something.

And I really love that every time I see that picture in our church directory, I have to laugh.  These are my people, for better or for worse, smiles or no smiles, warts and all.

I think that's pretty awesome.

National Siblings Day: A Guest Post by Ben (Mostly)

For anyone just tuning in, we have four children. Daniel is almost ten and Gideon is 6.5.  They both have autism.  Ben is 8 and Katherine is 2.  

Since it is National Siblings Day, I thought what better person to talk about his siblings than Ben.  So, I sat down (while he bounced off the furniture) and asked him a few questions.

From Left to Right: Daniel, Gideon, Ben, Katherine

Question: Tell me about your brothers and sister.

Ben: My oldest brother's name is Daniel.  Daniel likes to play with his monkey*, his iPad, and he wears glasses.  My brother goes to therapy because he has autism.

My other brother is Gideon and he likes to say, "Eeeeeee.*" He runs around like a bear standing up sometimes.  Also, my brother goes to therapy because he has autism.

My only sister, Katherine, is sweet and she annoys me a lot. She always wants me to read a story to her. She's really cute.

Question: What's the best thing about having Daniel and Gideon as your brothers?

Ben: Daniel always like to play with me and I think it's funny when Gideon runs around like a bear.

Question: What's the hardest thing about having Daniel and Gideon as your brothers?

Ben: One thing that is hard is that Gideon can't really talk to me.  My brother Daniel annoys me because he doesn't always want to do what I want him to do.  It's hard to play games with them.

Question: What's your favorite memory you have about your brothers?

Ben: One of my favorite memories of Gideon is when he got flour all over himself.  My favorite memory of Daniel is playing cars with him and reading books. 

Question: What's one thing you'd want other people to know about your brothers?

Ben: I want people to know they have autism so they know they act different.  And that my brother Gideon gets into a lot of things.*

Question: Is there anything you want to tell you brothers?

Ben: I love you!

*Daniel carries a small stuffed monkey as a fidget toy.  Just for
clarification.

*People with autism engage in self-stimulating activities.  For short, we call these "stims." These activities have a wide, varied range and are fairly individualized.  They often help to calm in times of anxiety or stress or other times are done in excitement and happiness.  The "classic" stims are things like rocking and flapping hands. Daniel and Gideon have a lot of vocal stims.  Gideon sometimes runs back and forth, with his arms in the air, making a vocalization that Ben describes (pretty accurately) as "Eeeeee."  We try to put a stop to stims that are self-harming, harming to others or extremely distracting.  For example, Daniel often bit his hand when he felt anger, anxiety, or excitment.  He sometimes broke the skin and he had constant bite marks on his hands.  He no longer does this. Stimming is apart of our every day life.

*Yes!  Yes, he does.

If You Want to Be My Friend

Being my friend is not easy.  Autism, as much as I wish it didn't, does affect almost every part of my life.  One of those areas is friendship. 

I'm a terrible friend sometimes.

Most of the time, it feels like I am That Friend.  You know, the one who's name comes up on your caller ID and you kind of cringe and then brace yourself before you answer or read the text.  I never seem to have good news.  I always seem to have something not-great to tell you.  I kind of kill your happy buzz,  I know.  I'm sorry.

But if you're willing to be my friend, I promise I come through in a clutch.  I can plan a pretty awesome birthday party. I'm funny.  I can be charming.  I can reach things off of tall shelves for you . . . .

Here are some things you should probably know if you want to be my friend.

1. Understand when I don't call/text/email/visit/forget your birthday/forget Christmas/forget your name. It's not on purpose, I swear!

Studies are now beginning show that autism moms have symptoms consist with PTSD.  Why?  Um, I think the key word is STRESS.  I do know that being tired all the time definitely affects my brain.  A couple of weeks ago someone asked me how old I was and, I'm not kidding, it took me a full minute to answer.  That's how long it took to process the question and think about the answer.

My memory has seen better days too.  If I don't answer a text or message the minute I get it, it's gone.  I'll never remember. Making lists is a great idea!  If I could just remember where I put the list I made . . . . I used to remember everything.  I used to show up early for things.  I turned in every college essay I wrote early.  I was responsible.  Now, I'm kind of flaky.  

To my current (and future) friends, I would like to wish you happy birthday from now until forever.  I'd also like to say, "I'm thankful for your friendship," and Happy Thanksgiving for many, many years. Furthermore, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I'd also like to throw in best wishes on your wedding, your children's weddings, and the birth of your (grand)child(ren).

2. Laugh with me

My life is hard and it's serious a lot.  I need laughter and fun in my life.   If I didn't laugh, I'd cry All. The. Time. I need people that can help me see the funny in things when I can't see it.  I need people that can laugh along with me.

For instance, when my sensory-seeking six year old decides that yes, he will use his fine motor skills (his occupational therapist was so proud) to spray shaving cream EVERYWHERE, you need to be able to make that funny for me.  Because 1) I'm not kidding when I say there was shaving cream everywhere, 2) I had to clean that shaving cream up and it was not fun, and 3) he ruined his new-ish Kindle in the process.

I want you to help to look upon this event with laughter:
You: Hey, remember when Gideon sprayed shaving cream all over your bathroom?
Me:  Yes.  That was yesterday.
You:  That was hilarious, right?
(Then we dissolve into giggles and finish drinking our bottle of wine.)

Laughter.  Best medicine ever.

3. Wallow in the mud with me

When something awful happens or it's just been a really rough day or week or life, people tend to say the same things to make me feel better.  "Just remember that God is in control."  "God has a plan."  Look, I know these things.  More than that, I believe them. But when I am really struggling, it's not what I want to hear.  You know what I'd like you do for me?  I'd like you to wallow in the mud with me.

There's a story of a man in the Bible named Job.  Job had it all--wives, children, riches, sheep, goats--and he was a good man.  Then one day, through no fault of his own, Job lost everything.  Every child, every piece of gold, every lamb.  All gone. As you might imagine, Job didn't take this well.

^"Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.  And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.  And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great." (Job 2:11-13, ESV)

Job's friends sat in the dirt with him, didn't say a single word, and that's how they comforted him.  Sometimes, even most of the time, it's not the words you say, it's that you were there.  It's that you give me a hug or a squeeze of the hand or sit next to me to show your support.  Sometimes, wallowing in the mud is what helps me the most.
******

Being my friend isn't easy because I bring my motley crew along with me.  We are a messy (sometimes scary) bunch and that means I am messy (and sometimes scary).  But your friendships mean the world to me.  I can't even begin to tell you with words.  Maybe right now, our friendship is sort of lop-sided but some days I hope I make you laugh and, once in a while, surprise you with a birthday card (on your actual birthday).  Maybe there will be one day when I sit next to you in the dirt and not say a single word.   

Then again, maybe not.  But I hope we can still be friends.