...homeward bound...

I know there are those of you...maybe two or three in all...who are wondering when I'm planning on getting back to blogging. Just a quick heads up then from me...we're still in transition with this whole moving thing and until we're settled in firmly in our new place, I'm not online often enough to blog.
Keep your fingers crossed!

...declarations of worthlessness...

So...
...we're moving...
Yup, I wrote it, therefore it must be true!
And let me tell you, this whole pack up your life in a box and go thing was much easier before the invention of mister man!
Our house is so full of stuff...good stuff, bad stuff, everything in between. And now I actually have to take hands-on ownership of said stuff and decide if it's worthwhile or not?!?
I'm thoroughly overwhelmed by the work I have created for myself in making this decision. The planning, the picking, the packing... Argh!!!!!
And the lists...oh my...the lists...
I am, by my own admission, something of a compulsive list maker. But now it might just be getting a tad bit out of control. Every friend and acquaintance who lives nearby now has a list in his or her name...of things I may just pass on to them. And then there's the Craig's List List, the Ebay List, the drop-at-thrift-store List, the Once Upon a Child List, the return to parents' List...etc...
And that's just for objects!
That doesn't included the lists of intangibles!!!
Oh my...I think I need to make a list of all my lists so I can keep track of them.

(PS-Can't I just make things easier on myself my lighting a match and walking away? After all, they do say 'the more things you own, the more you are owned by your things'...and I'm not a fan of being owned. Facebookers and Myspacers take note...I do NOT want to owned as human pet...so stop offering to buy me!)

...one stone makes many ripples...

Someone I know took the time to check in and see how I was doing...and just that little act made such a difference. Her kind words and genuine interest took away the bitter tang of going through things alone and reminded me that there are people I can reach out to when I feel like I need to.
What I NEED to remember is that I should reach out and ask others to help me work through things instead of doing all on my own.

...so in need of a groundhog day...

Wake up, grumble, grouch, repeat....
Ugh...today went downhill fast, though I'm still holding out hope that the afternoon will bring a miracle cure.
Getting caught in the shower fully soaped and shampooed...with no water...yup, that'll make a day turn grey right quick!
I'm trying desperately to get the mister man's appointments booked and failing miserably. Apparently all the 'cool' therapists are full up until fall. Niiiiice!
And to add the cherry on top...the mister man in his brilliance decided to purloin a jelly jar from the fridge and smuggle it up to his bedroom, where evidence suggests he not only ate it, he also fingerpainted with it!
Fun stuff!

...when it's worth the effort...

A friend of mine recently came to visit and brought me coffee. Now granted, it's kind of a no-brainer...the me-likey-coffee shtick. But still...I think it's pretty phenomenal, especially since it's Dunkin'Donuts whole bean.

So now, as I sit here with my freshly pressed steaming mug of joe, I'm wondering when is it okay to just say I deserve the good stuff? And more importantly, when is it ok to just throw out the poor quality substitute?

There's a lot of things in my life that can only be called substitutions...from the town house apartment we STILL live in which was supposed to have magically transformed into home ownership two years ago, to the canned veggies in the cupboard, to a good 90% of my wardrobe.

Yesterday we stopped by E's house on our way up to Sherritt's Market so the mister man could play with E and B for a bit. While there, we got to chatting about the rising gas prices (urgh!) and food costs...and then she said she'd finally had it. Had what? It! It-with the cheapo yard sale strollers that she'd been wasting money on all these years. (PS-she now has three little ones) It-with the fact that she's home going crazy with three strong willed kids all day and her husband thinks buying a $300 tool to dig a few holes in the back yard is worth it. And in a conspiratorial and slightly embarassed tone told me she had just put down $500 plus on a high end, all the bells and whistles double-stroller.

Hurrah for women everywhere!

Don't hold me to it...and don't throw it in my face, but I'll admit, I kind of sort of maybe want to read:


E was good enough to point out to me the fact that my parenting is directly affected by my own level of contentment and happiness...and if all I do and have goes straight to the kid, what am I left with to care for myself...

The upshot of all this...tomorrow we're headed to Trader Joe's to stock out cupboards with food that is both good and good for us...and yes, I'll be splurging on one thing JUST FOR MYSELF!

...what to do with my impromptu...

I'm ready to move...and yet I'm not.

That seems to have been the ever-present refrain of my life for the past four years now.

This solo journey of parenting and life in general can get quickly overwhelming as soon as I really start incurring changes. I feel like maybe it's a matter of taking the bandage off...just ripping things up really quickly and moving on before I get a chance to process the feelings. But on the flip side I worry that if I act to quickly I'll miss something or worse yet, make things difficult for my son.

I know we need to move...I've known it since the day I sat in the offices of legal aid filling out papework to file a restraining order against my spouse. And yet...four years later we're still 'just starting' the process. I worry all the time that no matter what decisions I make they will be the wrong ones...and it's that fear that keeps me staying put. The devil you know...

So this time I'm taking a new approach and covering all the bases. While I narrow down my search options for where to move to, I'm making sure to leave the doors open here. The mister man is re-enrolled in school for next year though I very well know that I don't want to be here next year. And at the same time that I'm locating a new school and new therapists for him, I'm making sure he's set up fully with services here. I'm redoing the interior of our home and downsizing our belongings even while I'm mentally packing things up. And yes, my head is spinning...

...winds of change...

I woke up this morning...again...to rain...and the great grey sky...and thought 'what happened to spring?". For the past two months the overwhelming majority of days has been damp and chilly. So I turn on the cd player and pop in Guster...'woke up today...to everything grey..." and dance around the kitchen making coffee.

As already noted, I've been lax in updating this blog lately...my mind has been elsewhere and my current insomnia means every time I sit down all I want to do is snooze...which doesn't make for exceptional writing...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

I was thinking the other day how it's funny that we really do let the seasons rule our lives. Fall ALWAYS means back to school...Winter ALWAYS means celebration and goal-making, Spring ALWAYS means renewal and re-assesment... And this year was no exception. Now that spring is here, albeit damp and grey, I'm tackling projects that symbolize renewal...priming and painting the home I shared with my ex-husband and laying to rest the ghost of mutual decisions...emptying the house of things that need to be replaced or are excess or have to many memories attached...and downsizing our belongings to suit the life we do have instead of the one I used to think we should have.

BTW...painting on ceilings is a sure way to wake up with upper arm cramps!

...a little change will do you good...

"Mami, today I'm different"

That was the start of my day yesterday, as the mister man and I ate our breakfast and he looked up from his food to tell me...

Isn't it nice to know that we can, on any given day, change who we are? There's no changing the past of course, but with a little bit of effort we can choose not to allow it to dictate our future.

I'm challenging myself, this spring, to make active change a part of my daily routine...sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it?!?

If insanity lies in making the same choices and expecting different results, then probably those things I want in life for myself and my son are not going to come our way unless we change. It's good to re-evaluate from time to time...and to acknowledge that maybe the dreams I had ten years ago, or five years ago, are not the dreams I have now.

So we'll walk on different routes...we'll go to different places...we'll try those things we haven't tried before.

...march comes in like a lion...

Goodness, I've neglected blogging lately...

I've been busy with work and mothering and all that falls in between...and honestly, every moment online has been used multitasking as is...so there really wasn't opportunity to sit down and type out my ramblings.

We're halfway into March already, and as of yesterday it does seem that spring is peeking around the corner. My wind chimes are melodious in the breezes...I can hear them through the open windows downstairs. And the twittering birds in the morning more than makes up for a bad night's sleep.

How funny that there are still a few deep drifts of snow piled up in the parking lot. We had, at the very beginning of March, a "level three snow emergency" snowstorm...over two days and two feet of snow. Truly, winter's last and most ferocious blast.

I think I've officially determined that I am a spring/fall person...I have no use for the extremes of summer and winter, but the tranformative months hold me fast.Every day the view changes, every morning brings something new to the table.

Of course March brings on the need for spring cleaning also. Which is why yesterday I spent a good hour raking and bagging all the leaves off the patio and damning the maintenance men who seem to blow them under the patio walls on purpose. The mister man was an active participant also, using his dumptruck and bucket method to move the leaves from one area to another.

We'll be busy later drawing flowers on the windows with Crayola Window FX markers...and hoping the real flowers poke up their heads soon.

...two days and counting...

How is it possible that in two short days the mister man will be 5? How is it possible that five years have passed?

Granted, I probably look 10 years older...what with the lack of sleep and soaring stress levels, but I don't really feel 5 years older. He, on the other hand, looks like a little man...sometimes it catches me by suprise...I suddenly look and see the big boy instead of my little baby. And despite having been there for every single minute of it, I wonder how the time snuck past me.

I mentioned to a friend that the minutes and the days seem SO LONG when you are a parent, but in contrast, the months just fly by. And now it seems the years are passing more swiftly also.

In two short days, I'll be mom to a five-year old....I wonder what this 6th year will bring...

...daddies and other unachievable dreams...

Yesterday our dear friend Alex came by to pick up a banquet table that I had offered up in a 'you or the dumpster' sort of a way. Yay...another aquisition of the ex's goes poof and disappears! In order to get it from my house to hers she enlisted the help of her friend Chris and his truck.

And upon his arrival, the mister man, who usually disappears from sight when visitors walk in, piped up 'Hi, I'm ___, let's play". Awwww! I swear he has spidey sense where testosterone is concerned. Chris, being a combo good sport, father to four of his own, and genuine all around nice guy (I know, I know, a vanishing species) spent about 45 minutes playing with my son afer we got the table into his truck. Alex and I just sat and chatted and listened as my son had the best time in ages.

*insert heartache*

When I put the mister man to bed last night, the bedtime ritual over, he drowsily hugged me and said 'he should come back to play...he can be my daddy'. Oooof...sucker punch to the gut.

And to make matters 'worse' or more heartwrenching I was informed this morning that what my son really wants for his birthday is "transformer tank, its green...and ice cream...and a daddy to play with...come on, let's go buy them at the store..."

...spiderwebs and sleeplessness...

Once again I'm ashamed to log onto the blogger page and see when last I posted. It seems I keep getting caught up in these blog-free slumps, where days or weeks go by and never once do I sit down and organize my thoughts. Granted, that may be due to the lack of 'deep thoughts' currently swirling throught my grey matter...but really, when has this ever been a forum for deep thinking?!?

Since before Christmas I've been struggling with fairly massive sleep issues...ranging from heart-pounding, pulse-racing anxiety attacks at 3am to full on days without end insomnia. Perhaps the mister man is sucking the sleep out of me? He seems to be doing fairly well with the concept of 'a body at rest tends to stay at rest' and is actually up to five hours at a time of solid sleep. Amazing! Last year at this time it was only about two hours before he'd thrash about.

At any rate, the effects of my sleeplessness run the gamut from diminished thought capacity to full on clumsiness. The other day the mister man and I were walking through a mini-blizzard to the grocery store and I quite literally walked straight into a tree. Face...meet Bark. A quick recovery and appraisal of the vicinity to make sure I'd had no audience, and off we went...only to have the mister man then tell everyone we ran into that 'Mami runs things over'. Brilliant.

Spring may be slow in poking its head out...but that isn't quelling the urge for the annual spring clean-out. Note the fact that I use clean-out, not cleaning. Every year around this time I find myself ready to toss out half of the contents of my house, and start fresh. Financial concerns being what they are, this urge is usually stopped in its tracks right after the first gimcrack or thingamajig has been tossed into the dumpster.

I'm ready to repaint...and have been ready for quite some time. But with spring on the way and warmer weather just around the corner...I'll be able to open the windows and do so. Of course the first step is taking down all the pictures and nails...and finally getting at a few of the cobwebs. Apparently the spiders are foregoing the front entrance and it's clear 'Keep Out' sign.

And this above...this is what happens when I sit down to write and haven't yet had enough coffee. Apologies.

...the past post...

Just the other day (sounds much better than yesterday afternoon) I had a full blog post solidify in the ether of my mind...while out for a walk with the mister man.

Now of course, it's gone...

Restoration capabilities are limited in the sleep-deprived...so I have only these few gems to offer:

I took the time to slow down and just watch, as my son stepped on a narrow log and balanced carefully...arms out to the side and slightly askew...shaky...in fits and starts...he walked from one end to the other before jumping down and clapping. Perfection! A moment of pure childhood NORMALCY. This was what being a mother was all about.
So often I get caught up...in the data forms, the questionairres, the tests...all the things that tangibly remind me that my son is autistic. And it becomes quite easy to forget that he is first and foremost an 'almost 5' year old boy...just a child like any other...growing and learning and playing. Day to day living can turn into a quiz show...did he do this, did he not do this, can he handle it, what's the reaction...etc... And far to often I think the real rare moments of his just being a child pass me by. That wasn't always the case...we used to go to the playground or the park every single day and just play and laugh and be whatever it is we are. But winter and cold and damp get in the way of that...and when we're shut up in the house it's easy to lose sight of play and just let frustration rule the day.

Despite all my resolutions...I'm still far from living the life I want to. A large factor in that is very much ME...and my wimpy self-conscious inability to be at peace with sticking out. Silly girl...

Quality over quantity is the new goal for our future food consumption. The junk food has got to go...as does the compulsion to buy it because it's cheap/on sale. There's really no need to fill the cabinets, fridge and freezer with such variety of edible garbage. Instead, I'd like to gradually ease into buying only what we need/want for any given day...and being inventive with the leftovers. Shop every third day perhaps for a new entree, vegetable and fruit...

Need. More. Coffee.

...ice-queen...

This morning, miracles of miracles, the mister man actually made it to school! Which brings the total for January school days attended up to two handfuls?!? Apparently fate had decided he WOULD go no matter what else got in the way, and boy oh boy did the what else try! Last night brought in the windstorm/hailstorm from hell...which combined with my current insomnia...made sleep beyond impossible. At some point though, probably early morning, I did manage to conk out...just in time perhaps...else I would have been awake to see the power go out. Cue the bleary eyed perusal of the alarm clock which reads 5:30...when it's really 7:30 and the bus is rolling ever closer. Unscrambling of head and inner clock rumblings that perhaps the clock is ?wrong?...and full speed ahead to literally throwing clothing on self and the mister man as adrenaline rushes in.
We managed to make it down the stairs in one piece and get both shoes and coats on before the bus pulled up...and then, wonders of wonders...another wrench in the works...literally, a wrench on the door to no avail. Our front door was frozen shut. I think my brain exploded a little!
Wrenching on the door and twisting locks and handles did nothing. So, I bade the child stand back and gave it a good old superhero try with the roundhouse kick...and lo and behold the door un-stuck! (Now if only I could have done it in heels while talking on the phone and drinking coffee...now THAT would be something to brag about!)

Skipping all attempts for any sort of conversational overlap in themes here...

It's dawned on me rather suddenly that with the mister man's 5th coming up we're also coming up on having lived in this very apartment for 5 years and my having been ALONE (cue the sound effects) for over 3 years. How can I ever hope to expand my family or enjoy a leisurely stroll down the aisle if I don't open up to the possibility of dating?!?

BTW...after the three year mark in this very same apartment, the plan was to have had at least one more child and have become a homeowner...hahahahahahaha...
3a.m. this morning had me feeling quite sorry for both self and son...no backyard swingset for him to play on, no loyal pup to wrestle with, no white picket fence (though I much prefer the idea of a stylized hedge!)and absolutely not a thing to show for ourselves after 5 years as a family. Ouch!

...why is the sky blue...

Why is it that when I most need the sleep, I simply can't fall asleep?

Why does a day without mail make me feel like I'm stranded in the twilight zone?

Why can't I stop re-arranging things?

When did I start thinking staring at the tv screen for two hours was a perfectly respectable way to pass a whole evening?

Why don't I sing anymore?

...resolving to progress while progressing with resolutions...

Well here it is nearing the end of January and I have yet to add any worthwile updates. I've been multi-tasking since the start of the new year, both personally and professionally, which leaves me little time for sleep and less for putting together actual sensible thoughts. Thus far, I'm doing fairly well with my resolutions. Can any of you say the same, or have they all gone by the wayside?

From day one of January onward I have been slowly tending to the clearing out of clutter...having taken it one step further and addressing some of the ephemeral and non-tangible clutter while at it. One of the great positives in all this is that when we finally do get around to making the big move, it will be much smoother without all the baggage. The basement and closets have been cleaned out and the rest of the house is gradually being tended to also.

We've had a bit of snow here once again...and a great deal of frigid temperatures which finally gave way to a mild afternoon today. The mister man and I were able to enjoy a real walk again...complete with a trip to the natural food market for some "fixins". He's becoming quite the companionable walking partner...if only he had a bit more by way of conversation...

Speaking of the mister man, I'm sure it is due time for a sum up of all his latest feats, wonders and charms. He continues to be the handsome, brilliant and perfect imp...as always. This last week I kept him home from school as he was feeling poorly...and am now well overdue for a good long break from him! :) He is becoming quite the little helper...sometimes when I don't need the help/hindrance...but usually in a good way. I'm starting to think it might be time for an actual chore and reward system for him. He really ought to be quite capable of making his own bed and perhaps helping to tidy up the house at night. And I could stand the help!

...and they're off...

Happy New Year one and all!
Day One of 2008 and so far so good...I'm off to a decent start.
The resolutions keep piling up as I think of all sorts of other valid changes to be made...but I'm more than happy to report I've already kept a few of them!
The mister man has a few resolutions of his own, namely: to give more hugs, to throw fewer temper tantrums, and to clean up his own messes. Oh dear, is it a tad bit to obvious that I made those for him?!? :)