My secret self

I am going to share something that only a few of you know about me. I secretly long to be . . dun dun dun - a REALLY good housewife! It has become an obsession of mine. I can't even believe I just wrote that. But I actually can cook, when I have time. I love to bake and try new recipies. I have a sewing machine that I know how to use but haven't in a while, again the time thing. I love it when my house is clean but getting it there is exhausting and never ending. IT just totally cracks me up where I have ended up and how much I enjoy the exact opposite of what I always thought I would be doing. I never wanted to do this stuff when I was little. I guess I always thought I would be a mom but never thought I would be happy with out a fabulous career and travels. I so long to travel and oneday, God willing, I will but for now I have tons to do around here and I get such a strange sense of satisfaction from it. I think its because I have never really been great at anything. I have always been okay at this and that but never really top notch so I never found a niche anywhere. But I am pretty good at this being a mom with too much to do and too much to worry about. I think it may be because I am realizing I can't do it alone so I lean harder on God and that always helps. I try to glean wisdom from my friends and their different areas of expertise. I seriously have one for each area of the whole mom/housewife/home manager/faith thing and they are fabulous. Some are friends from 20 years back and some are newer friends from church, say the past four years or so. I am lucky to have so many good friends and they make my life richer in so many ways. I am rambling.

I am having blog envy today. I have been surfing for homemaking blogs and there are soooo many. Some are Catholic, some are secular but they are all really amazing and these women don't seem like the mousy 1950's image that springs to your mind when you hear the word housewife. I just love my house and my family and it feels so good to finally feel content. Anyone know of any great blogs or websites along this line? Send them my way. Now, where's my apron?

Hope I did the right thing . . .

My motives were pure. I waited until today to tell my kids about Aunt Becky passing away. The time seemed right. We spent a week at Vacation Bible School and they were fresh full of Jesus so I told them. We listened to her music in the car. She had a CD she made at CafePress. One of the songs, which I will post later, is called Stories. Well I have heard it many times but never really listened you know? It has a line in it that says "Some stories just end before they unfold" or something like that. How profound and prophetic. She really had a way with words and the more I listen to it the more I realize that I did not give her near enough credit for being such a great guitar player. The woman just picked it up one day and decided to teach herself, she never had a lesson in her life. Her songs became increasingly complex in chords and melodies that were wonderful even if I didn't always get the words. A lot of it was autobiographical. Anyway, after I told the kids and we talked about going to heaven and how she would be there waiting on us I found a CD she made for the quads first birthday. She never had money but she always had something for them. I haven't listened to it in years and the first song on the album is a Lullaby she wrote just for them and it really tugs at my heart now that she is gone. I want to link it here but not sure how. I will try. In July I will go up to my parents home in the mountains and finally go through her few remaining possessions. I think that is when I will finally be able to cry. As for my kids, they cried when they heard the lullaby because she says in it that if they ever need her, she will be right there. They asked me if they could write her notes and tie them to balloons to send them up to Heaven. I thought that was a great idea since they weren't involved in the funeral, so we will be doing that tomorrow. Six year olds shouldn't have to learn about death this early but I know they aren't the first and sadly aren't the last.

So she thinks she can dance . . .

*** Warning - do NOT watch this if your bladder is full.

She is unabashedly unique. Nothing more needs to be said about my Bunny.!

Have a great day!

The Wisdom of a Child

Tonight Doodle was overstimulated. She always has trouble winding down to sleep and those of you who have or know a child with Autism probably know what I mean. Yes the experts say, they need a routine, blah blah blah. Well routine shmootine - IT DON'T WORK. Our routine is in place for the rest of the quads but with her, it all depends on so many variables during the day and now that we are Potty training (big Yay!!) it is even more interesting. So she was bouncing off the walls with no thought of drifting off to the Land of Nod. So we went outside, on the deck and turned the lights off. We sat on the steps, her in my lap, counting stars and feeling that wonderful early summer nighttime breeze - light and cool, yet not chilly at all. Star-gazing, watching airplanes and the trees swaying gently. We were just absorbed in all the goodness of God's world.
Finally, I told her we needed to go inside so we did. No sooner had I sat down than she came to me and grabbed my hand, pointing to the window, and pulling on my she says, "Night- Stars"

This is AMAZING to me.
She's six and she's just begun to do things that my 15 month old is about to embark on. The things you take for granted with typical kids, like sharing an enjoyable activity or having them point to something they want you to see with them, bringing you a book they like, these are all things that kids with autism have trouble with. Heartbreakingly absent in the parent-child relationship of a child with moderate to severe autism. So when it does happen out of the blue you immediately ask yourself the following-
*How did this just happen? (Did she really just say that to me?)
*What caused this to happen? (Have I fed her something different, are the supplements working?, etc.)
*Is she "recovering"? (unlikely)
*Will it ever happen again or was it a fluke?
I am cautiously optimistic. These moments are treasures and I store them away incase it does not happen again.
My precious sweet little girl wanted to share something with me that made her happy! This is such a struggle for these kids and in fact a very early indicator of a problem. When your toddler doesn't bring things to you or point at things they want you to see, red flags should pop out. Denial never helped a child with a developmental delay. I remember the exact moment I realized she wasn't doing these things. Probably around the age of one. I think my husband and I both came to our own similar conclusions about Doodle long before we actually discussed it out loud.
But back to our evening, so I decided we would go back outside, but we went out to the front porch with the incentive being avoidance of big hairy Golden who likes to knock me down each time I open the back door. Well, boy, we were rewarded.
A bright, clear half-moon looked down on us like it had been hung, perfectly centered in front of our house. I nearly gasped. It was so lovely. I looked around. The night air was soft and the view from the gentle hill our house sits atop was like a storybook page.
She sat in my lap and started jabbering again. I mentioned some frogs singing nearby. Many times she seems to make up words or at least I can't understand them. This time, however, I did. Clear as day, I heard my little girl saying,

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful world."

Absolutely Doodle -
You got that right. . .