NaNoWriMo?

You might have noticed I've been missing-in-action the past few weeks.  That's because 15 days ago National Novel Writing Month started and I took up the NaNoWriMo Challenge.  It's a daunting goal--50,000 words to write for the entire month of November.

My biggest struggle with this challenge has been finding time to write. I've had to get creative about where I write: bed, the kitchen, in the minivan, Starbucks, and more than once in the waiting room at a therapy center.  Sometimes I can only write a paragraph but, late at night, after the kids are in bed, I can sit for hours.  So I do.  Some nights I even get to bed before 1 a.m. But, this year had been a year of me stretching my wings and this challenge is just one of them. I'm happy to say that I am just over half way to my goal.  At this very moment, I've written 26,215 words.

This is the reason my little blog has gone forgotten for a few weeks. It might be a two or three weeks before I can get back to blogging.  But I'll be back, I swear. 

What am I writing? Well, this is a novel writing challenge so . . . drum-roll . . . I'm writing my first novel.  I thought in lieu of a blog post, I share a short passage I've written.  Now, remember, this is a rough (and, I mean, really rough) draft.

****

            “Charlotte Anne, let’s go.  Move it!”  I shouted down the hallway.

            “Just a minute,” she said, her voice muffled and faint. Thirty excruciatingly long seconds later, the toilet flushed and Charley ran down the hallway towards me, her face flushed.  “Sorry, Tess.  I had business to take care of,” she said, her voice serious.

            I just resisted rolling my eyes.  “Next time, take care of your business before we’re late, okay?”

            “I’ll try but Daddy always says you can’t help when it’s time to take care of business.” That sounded exactly like something Aaron would say.

            “Just get in the car!” I said loudly and herded us out the door.

            It was only after finally getting Charley strapped in the car and I was pulling out that I felt it,  the uneven gait of the car.  I slammed on the brakes and hopped out, leaving my door open, and rounded the car with a sinking feeling in my stomach.  It was the rear passenger tire and it was flat.  A flat tire? Now?  Really?

            “Dammit,” I yelled, throwing up my hands.  “Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.”

            “Tess, those aren’t nice words,” Charley admonished me. “Mommy says we have to use kind words, even when we’re angry.”

            “I’m sorry!” My voice still too loud. I looked down at that flat tire and something inside me broke a little.  “I’m very sorry. I’m so sorry that you’re late to your first day of school and that Dustin hates me for making him sit in a car seat.  I’m sorry we got up late and you had to eat half a pop tart for breakfast.  I’m sorry!” My voice grew shriller with each word and my face felt like it was on fire. 

“I’m sorry that I’m not good at this.  I’m sorry that your mom and dad are gone and you’re stuck with me.  I’m sorry I don’t know how to talk to Dustin and I am completely confused about how to help him and his autism. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better friend to your mom. I’m sorry that I screw up all the time and I’m tired and the house is a mess and I don’t have all the right answers.  I’m sorry about . . . about . . . about this dumb flat tire.” I kicked the tire in question and then winced as pain shot through my leg.  Worse though, were the tears that started to fall, making my eyesight blurry.  I tasted the salty wetness on my lips, felt them fall to my shirt.  “I’m sorry,” I sobbed.  “Dammit.”

My legs gave out from under me and I slid to the ground, my arms windmilling out to catch my fall.  Tiny bits of gravel bit into my hands as I sat there, crying.  I don’t know how long I stayed that way, staring at that tire, and wishing I could take back all those words, when I felt a small hand on my shoulder. Charley stood next to me, her pale blue St. Clair eyes somber.  “I’m sorry, too, Tess.”

My breath caught on a sob.  “Oh, Charley.” I’m not sure which of us reached for the other first but, the next moment, Charley fell into my lap and wrapped her arms around me.  I hugged her tight, burying my face in her hair. 

It was then, from the back of the car, I heard a small, high-pitched voice yell, “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" 

***
I'd love to hear what you think!  

Now, I'm going to back and write some more.  Stop distracting me! 

 _____________________________

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Taco the Wonder Crab

Once upon a time, on a hot, summer day in July, I took the kids to the pet store and came home with a hermit crab.

I'm not sure why I allowed this to happen.  I wasn't sitting around earlier that day thinking, Hmm, I don't have enough things to keep alive around here.  Let's get a hermit crab. Nope, that's not at all what happened.  What happened is that a certain eight-year-old boy looked at me with enormous brown eyes and he begged.

And I caved, people.

I'm not proud of myself for this but that's what happened. I just gave in.  We walked out of that pet store with a small crab house, four different shells (because hermit crabs change shells when they grow.  Who knew?), a fake log for him to hide under, tiny water and food bowls, food, rocks, and a sponge to keep damp.

Oh yes, and a hermit crab.  This is him.

He was promptly named Taco.  I have no clue why but we have a cat named Peach so clearly food is held in high esteem in our home. (You’re shocked, right?) In fact, Ben, our fearless protagonist and defender of hermit crabs in this story, was already laying the ground work for a friend for Taco.  “Mom, maybe we could get another hermit crab so Taco isn’t lonely,” he said, on the way home from getting Taco. 

“Um, sure,” I answered.

“We’ll get another hermit crab and we’ll give him a Chinese name,” he said enthusiastically.

“A Chinese name?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’ll call him Burrito.”

(A good mom would have probably patiently explained that burritos weren’t Chinese but I was laughing too hard to do that. I did file it away for a homeschool lesson on countries and languages.  At the rate we’re going, we’ll get to it something like two years from Tuesday). 

But, I digress.  (You’re not shocked by that either though). We get Taco set up in his little home and then I quickly discovered something about hermit crabs.  They are insanely...boring.  They do nothing.  They stay in their shell and sometimes move around.  Mostly, Taco hid under this log for privacy.  Once I flipped on the lights in the middle of the night and saw him half out of his shell—a fairly terrifying experience.  Hermit crabs are not exactly cute and fuzzy. 

No matter what I thought, Ben loved Taco and so did Gideon. Gideon is younger than Ben by 17 months and has severe autism. He loves most animals but it’s in the “love-him-and-squeeze-him-and-call-him-George” Of Mice and Men sort of love.  He seemed taken with Taco right away so we spent the first few weeks trying to find just the right spot to put Taco’s cage that would discourage someone from getting his chubby little hands on a tiny little hermit crab.

But we had a few “incidents.”  One such happened early on when Gideon quietly (but with intent) took Taco out of his cage and when caught, them him across the room.  

Taco survived.

Another time, Gideon dumped out the entire crab habitat all over the kitchen floor.

Taco survived.

About a month after we got Taco, Ben lost interest for a few days.  As in, he just didn’t feed him or bother to check on him.  On the fourth day, Ben came to me terribly upset.  “He’s dead, Mom.  He’s dead.”  

It was true that Taco was not moving much.  And, honestly, it’s not easy to see if a hermit crab is breathing.  All day, Ben mourned the loss of his hermit crab who still sat in his cage high on a shelf in our kitchen.  After my husband got home, we discovered that Taco had been moving around the night before (hermit crabs are not as quiet as you think) and so Ben did something amazing—he gave Taco some water.  Guess what?

Taco survived.

Taco also survived a weird worm infestation in his cage, a transfer to a new cage, numerous handling by grubby little boy hands, a forgotten feeding or two, and one more close call with Gideon.  I have to say I was impressed.  Sure, Taco wasn’t adorable in the traditional sense.  He didn’t play fetch or lay on my feet or anything like that.  But thus far, he’d been able to withstand our family.  Probably

because he was hiding all the time but, hey, this is about survival so I understood.  (I’ve hidden in the closet a time or two so Taco and I had something in common).

A few weeks ago, we discovered that hermit crabs shed their skin? Skeletons? Whatever it is.  Yet another drama-filled morning where Ben was sure Taco was dead.  I have to say it didn’t look good at first but, after some research, we found out that hermit crabs do shed and that if they lose a leg or two, it’s fine. They’ll grow back.   Impressive, right?

Taco survived.  

Then yesterday morning, we were certain we’d seen the end of Taco.  Yesterday morning, Ben gave Taco a bit more food and water and couldn’t find Taco.  It’s not a big cage but it’s big enough to keep Taco secure.  There’s no way he could escape by himself.  And yet, Taco was gone gone.

It took us some time to piece together what may have happened.  Taco’s cage had been left down which meant Gideon had easy access to him.  The afternoon before Gideon had played in the kiddie pool in the backyard.  It was a longshot but Ben trudged outside to look for Taco there.

“Mom!” he screeched thirty seconds later.  “It’s him. It’s Taco.” He raced back inside and shoved Taco’s very empty shell in my hand. 

“Where was he?”  

Through Ben’s tears, I deduced that the shell had been floating in the pool and that Taco was on the bottom of the pool.  It did not look good.  In fact, it looked very bad.

 

A few moments later found me in my nightgown fishing poor Taco out of the pool with a spatula. We placed what appeared to be his lifeless (ugly) little crab body back in his tank. 

“Is he alive?” Ben asked.

I shook my head.  “I don’t think so.”

Ben buried his face in my side and cried.  We left him in his tank (although I’m not sure why) and Ben kept checking on him every 15 minutes, you know, just in case. And then, Taco moved.  After first, it was a little twitch and then he clearly rearranged himself.  Slowly, slowly (I suspect as he warmed up), Taco came back to life right in front of us.  He spent the next 18 hours huddled, shell-less, against the side of the tank.  But he was most definitely alive! This morning, after another moment of panic, Ben found that Taco had set up residence in a new, roomier shell. 

Taco. Survived.

So, if you’re looking for a low maintenance kind of pet.  One that has more lives than a cat.  One that appears to come back from the dead in near-death-by-kiddie-pool experiences.  One that’s ugly and doesn’t do much.  Then, you need a hermit crab.  They are like the indestructible superhero of childhood pets. I am now a fan for life.

I thought we'd all get along famously now with our miracle crab and go about life.  And then today, Ben decided he wants a pet tortoise more than anything else in the world.  “Ah, Ben, maybe another pet isn’t a good idea right now.  Look what just happened to Taco?”

“I know, Mom.  Look what happened to Taco and he didn’t even die. Having a pet is kind of easy.”

Oh boy.

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Not Picture Perfect

About three weeks ago, our family had professional pictures taken for the first time in three years.  As you might recall, family portraits aren't exactly something our family excels at. (You can read more about our trouble with pictures HERE). In fact, if I had to describe what it's like to wrangle four kids, two with autism, one with opinions, and a three year old, I would have to say it's something like herding cats.

In other words, impossible.

Thankfully, we attend church with a lovely family who sit behind us almost every week and they do this on purpose.  For some reason, they aren't too annoyed with the rodeo in our row (and yes, I've checked, they have good hearing and sight).  Maria, of said family, is a photographer so a few months ago I asked if she would be brave enough to photograph my monsters children.

"I'd love to, " she said without even thinking about it.

"Um, you know that it might be kind of difficult?" I asked. (Queen of the understatement here).

"I'm not worried.  It will be fine." Maria smiled at me brightly and we set up a date for the session in early September.

It was hot that evening and the humidity was about 1000% (how I wish that were an exaggeration). Maria, with the assistance of her husband and one of her daughters, took us to a quiet dirt road with a privacy gate (so, no real places for any escaping children to go). I'd like to tell you that all the children were excited about getting pictures but that would be a lie.

Daniel decided, rather than be with us, wanted to go exploring on the other side of the privacy gate.  He was so intent on this, he didn't want to be in the pictures at all.  When he is anxious about something, he talks and asks many questions, usually the same question many times.  Things like, "Why can't I go over to the other side?"  "I hate pictures.  Can I climb the fence?"  "I don't want to smile."  He carried in his hand a small (very sad-looking) monkey as a fidget toy and refused to keep it in his pocket.

The monkey made it into a few pictures.

Ben was, for the most part, his easy-going self.  He's never had a problem hamming it up for the camera.

Gideon was . . . Gideon.  New place, new things to explore. Things are always more interesting to him rather than people.  Add to that people who are begging him to just look at the camera?  I don't think so.  Someone told me this week that it Gideon always seemed like he was planning to do something.  Yes, he is. And it's never what you want him to do.  Finally Maria said, "I'll just follow him and I'll get the shot." So that's what she did."  I can't say that he ever quite looked at the camera in any of his pictures but he didn't lay down in the dirt road in protest so I consider it a win.

Lastly, Katherine, who is, well, three and, I think the nice way people say it is, strong-willed.  As someone else pointed out to me recently, Katherine has three big brothers so by sheer necessity she is more aggressive, more bossy, more mean, and much, much more stubborn than all of our other children are.

All that to say, Katherine is the reason I need wine at the end of the day.

She also wasn't on board with this whole picture thing.  She wasn't terribly interested in smiling or cooperating but Maria did manage to get a few good pictures of her nonetheless.

Then, of course, there were the actual family pictures. The ones where all six of us were supposed to look in the camera and smile at the same time.  

Herding cats, guys.  Herding cats.

I'll be honest, I had no idea how these pictures were going to turn out.  I've seen Maria's work.  She takes beautiful pictures.  She's a professional.  She knows what she's doing.

But this was our family, you all. We are not the family who wears matching clothes and then, with matching toothy smiles, poses with grace and ease by staring right into the camera.  We are not the family that will patiently wait to be arranged and rearranged to get everyone just so.  We are not the family that takes direction well . . . or at all.

In short, we are not the picture perfect family.

And yet, this is the perfect picture of us.  Something about it says so much about our family.  Maybe it's the silly expression on Gideon's face or the way Daniel is definitely not looking at the camera.  We aren't standing perfectly straight or still.  Some of us have smiles, some of don't.  Some of us are tired, flustered, done with this picture business.  Some of us just wanted one good picture of everyone together.  Just one!

It's not a perfect picture but it's a perfect picture of us and, because of that, it will proudly hang on our living room wall. I don't consider myself a perfectionist but I do get caught up in trying to be perfect every now and then.  I wanted these pictures to be perfect and . . . no one cooperated.  Yet I love each photograph.  They make me smile and they make me laugh and they say, "This is our family," loudly and proudly. 

Being perfect is hard (and impossible and kind of boring).

Be imperfect; all of my favorite people are.

***Special Thanks to Maria Arcement at Two Cups of Kids Photography for having patience with us and taking beautiful, perfect pictures of my imperfect but beautiful family.  You're the bestest!

________

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Attack of the Gideon Monster

About a month ago, I got a text from one of Gideon's therapist. He seemed to be pulling on one of hie ears and it appeared red. No fever or other symptoms but they were concerned. So, I picked him up early and took him to our pediatrician.  I didn't expect there to be much wrong with him and this appointment would just be a lesson in patience for me. 

But, to my surprise, Gideon had swimmers ear and a sinus infection.  Huh?  Who knew?  Not me.  He hadn't been acting particularly upset or in pain although it's difficult to tell with Gideon.  A couple of years ago (on Valentine's Day), he broke his arm.  We think it happened on the trampoline where he was playing with Daddy and his brothers.  He never once cried out or stopped playing.  But an hour later, he came to dinner and refused to use his arm. 

Some project that people with autism have a very high pain tolerance but I think it's more that they don't register the pain.  A week after he broke his arm, Gideon got a hang nail and, judging by the way he acted anytime anyone touched it, it was the worst pain he'd ever been in his life.  But he could see the injury and understood what he was feeling.  A broken arm?  Can't see that.

So here we were with two prescriptions for Gideon's ear and infection.  One was an ear drop, the other an oral liquid antibiotic. I laughed when the doctor prescribed the antibiotic.  "You know what it's like to give Gideon medicine?"

"I can imagine.  I expected you'd only get half down him," she assured me.

She was optimistic. 

That first night, a Friday, I attempted to give him the antibiotic (a thick, white, chalky liquid that didn't taste any better than it looked.  I always take a tiny taste of the things the kids are asked to take.  To prepare myself for the backlash). 

This did not go well. 

At all. 

When we were done, both he and I had to change our shirts, his face was covered in a white, chalky film and so was mine.  See, Gideon figured out that the best way to counteract taking medicine was to spit it out.  Right back into my face. 

This little scene needed to be done twice a day. 

But, it seems Gideon was not pleased with this turn of events.  He wasn't happy about the doctor's appointment or the medicine and, yes, he probably wasn't feel great.  So, as Gideon often does, he used his behavior to speak for him and he discovered breaking glass. 

A lot of glass.

At the beginning of August, I owned four 9x13 glass baking pans.  Today, I own none.  At the beginning of August, I had three vases. Today, I have one.  At the beginning of August, I owned an oval Pyrex bowl, a Pyrex measuring cup, a ceramic cross, a George Foreman grill, three bowls and one plate.  Today, I have none of those things.  At the beginning of August, Gideon has a plywood storage bed with drawers underneath and an attached headboard.  He doesn't have that anymore.  At the beginning of August, we had one fully in tact Kindle and iPad.  Both now have cracks.

We also, I'm afraid, had a few finger painting episodes.  Just not with paint.

The broken window (2nd story, of course)

And the piece de resistance? At the beginning of August, the boys had a fully intact bedroom window.  Then Gideon put his foot through it. 

Somehow, through all the glass flying, Gideon managed to not get hurt once, not even a scrape.  Katherine, on the other hand, stepped on a piece of glass and ended up at the urgent care one evening.  (Thankfully, no stitches). 

From the Friday I began giving him the medicine to the following Monday, Gideon went from fairly easygoing to monster mode.  I called the pediatrician and told her we needed to change up the medication or commit me to a mental ward.  So, she prescribed a capsule to break apart and hide in food.  But, friends, if you haven't met Gideon before, he's a smart young man.  He tries hard to make sure no one really knows just how smart he is.  People underestimate him, including, I'll admit, me sometimes.  The capsules weren't easier.  He knew by looking at the drink I'd put it in that it was there and he was absolutely not drinking it. 

I gave up on the antibiotics after he faked me out by picking up the cup, bringing it to his mouth to take a drink, and then quickly dumping the whole thing down the sink. Thirty minutes later, he opened the dishwasher and found a glass to break.

This path of destruction may have started because he didn't feel good but it's definitely ended up as a an activity that garners him attention. Now, he likes it because it's fun.   I've moved any glass I could, switched to silicone pans, kept him busy when I can, added a piece of plywood to protect his window, and prayed for patience. 

Lots of patience. 

Oddly enough, while the Gideon Monster was in full swing, we discovered something else.  We've been working on potty training for four solid years.  Gideon has never really initiated toileting but will go on a schedule (mostly).  One day, Gideon ran in the house, took himself to the bathroom, and then striped off this pants and underwear.  As long as he is au natural from the waist down, he goes to the bathroom by himself.  That's great news.  And also, confusing news.  Around the house, he can be pant-less but schools tend to frown upon nudity. 

What I've decided is that we are in a time of great change in Gideon's young life--a new school, a new routine, more reponsibility--and, I suspect, he's reaching some new developmental milestones.  It seems when he makes about to make a big jump in progress, we seen a noticeable change in behaviors. Maybe he's trying to figure out what's happening to himself. 

He's not alone, we're trying to figure that out too. 

It's been a wild, crazy, "wear your shoes, there might be glass," emotional, frustrating, exhausting month in our house.  As a parent, it's aggravating to not understand what your child is trying to communicate.  It's a guessing game and, sometimes, yours is as good a guess as mine.  I wish this was easier for Gideon and for us.  Sigh. For now, we lock up the breakables and see where this new phase in Gideon's life takes us.

And stock up on caffeine and wine. 

__________

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