Sanka, Are You Dead? Yah, Mon!

I haven't had time to read blogs in a while, much less post. Even when I check my email, I only scan my inbox for items that require my immediate attention. Yesterday was the last day of what GL's school calls Winter Break in order to avoid offending hundreds of imaginary people. So I thought today would be the day we could begin getting back to our routine. I'm glad Christmas Vacation was only eight days; disruption to routine is bad enough, but GL always thinks everything is permanent. He asks about school many times a day, but he keeps insisting that he was expelled from school and can never go back.

Yesterday we all woke up with sore throats. Last night, GL started throwing up. I think I'll be sitting on the couch a lot today; the laundry can wait. Enough spreading the sunshine!

Which brings me to the award I got this morning. Rules are here.

1. Thanks, Dee.
2. http://www.snippetsnstuff.com/2012/01/how-lucky-am-i.html
3. Cyan. Mama Bear. I agree with Dee's answer. Coffee. Neither. (I didn't log in to Facebook for two weeks and didn't miss it. Logged in to see what I'd missed. Nothing. And I'm not a Twit.)  Reading. Giving presents. To myself. July 4, 1776. Freshly ground whole wheat.

Read the blogs in my sidebar. They each deserve an award.

One Incredible Dad

That's what Mama Bear said to call this post.

The cake is peanut butter ice cream sandwiches covered in whipped cream and chocolate syrup, and decorated with fondant. Brother Bear came up with the idea, and Mama Bear executed it. No, she is not a professional, but it looks pretty good, wouldn't you say? And she cooked steaks for dinner.

I also got cards from the boys, and a copy of Big Daddy's Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism, by one of my favorite bloggers, Big Daddy Autism. He blogs about life with his son, who is about the same age as ours and who, like our son, has autism. I'd say I have one incredible family.

Coming Soon! and the Horrible Holidays

GL loves to go to the library and check out DVDs. He asks to go every day. Since it's only two blocks away, I usually take him. I don't trust him to cross the street by himself. I also don't trust him in the library by himself. Of course, he checks out his favorite movies over and over, but his favorite parts are the commercials and the bonus features. He'll frequently tell us about this or that movie that's "Coming too soon on video and DDD!"

The library was closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Sunday. As jillsmo says, Yeah. Good Times. Meltdowns every day. Mama Bear had Christmas Eve off. In exchange, she had to work Christmas Day. I don't remember much about what we did during each day, but it revolved around trying to calm GL. You know how some Catholics / Lutherans / Baptists / whatever only attend church on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve?  Since GL's diagnosis,   I've become sort of a reverse Catholic. Those are the two times I don't go. He doesn't handle crowds well, and I'm not too keen on them, myself. Brother Bear had asked if he could be in the Christmas program this year, so Mama Bear agreed to take him.

We went to church as a family Christmas Day. Although it's one of the holiest days of the church year, our church and many others don't hold services on Christmas Day. Some get around it by having midnight Mass, so it's technically Christmas Day by the time it's over. But ours has it's Christmas Eve service at 5:00 p.m. so everyone can get their kids to bed on time. So one day a year, we are Lutheran. Actually, I was confirmed Lutheran a few years back, when I had to work every Sunday and they were the only church in town that had a service at a time I could attend. The pastor still recognized me when we walked in the door, remembered my name, where we live, and what kind of car we drive. It's a small town.

Mama Bear went to work that afternoon, and the rest of the day was quiet. Well, as quiet as it ever gets around here. I had a project I wanted to work on in the basement, but every time I went downstairs, the boys would fight. I don't remember why I couldn't bring BB down with me, but the basement is where we keep everything that GL might hurt or that might hurt him. We keep the door locked, because we don't trust him in the basement.

We had planned to go to church Sunday, but MB had worked an overnight, and was too tired, and I didn't feel up to taking GL to church by myself. So the boys continued to fight, and MB tried to sleep. We had a family gathering Sunday afternoon because that was the compromise worked out with the various in-laws and out-laws. We gave GL his extra med and headed to my parents' house. When we arrived, he immediately began yelling at Nana that he wanted to watch PBS Kids on her computer. Her computer was down. He started banging on the windows, saying he was going to break them. She took him for a walk outside, and he calmed down a bit. Whenever he started getting worked up, someone would take him for a walk, and he'd calm down for a while. We managed to visit for about two hours, including dinner. By then, he was yelling, pounding on windows, and trying to hit people, and there was no calming him. He needed to go home, but he didn't want to leave. He wouldn't go out to the car, he wouldn't put on his shoes, and he wouldn't let me put them on. I thought my brother, the firefighter, would have to carry him out, but at the last minute, he decided to walk out to the car in his sock feet. He raged all the way home, and didn't calm down until bedtime. He's been getting up between two and six most mornings lately, and waking people up for company. He was up at three a.m. one morning last week. He turned on the lights and started yelling at his brother to get up and play with him. This morning, he slept until 9:20. I let him.

Today we went to the library for DVDs. GL followed his usual routine. As he walked in the door, he shouted, "Hey, librarian, do I have anything in? You check, and I'll be in the DVD section, looking for DVDs!" He dropped his DVDs on the counter, and ran back to the kids' DVDs. As we were checking out, I commented that we survived three days without the library. The librarian smiled. She knows we're doing the best that we can. But she couldn't resist adding, "I had three days without the library, and I liked it just fine!"

GL answered, loudly as always, "On Christmas, I yelled at my grandmother, and I had to go home."

I hate holidays. They bring out the worst in people, especially GL, because they disrupt his routine. We have worked very hard to make our celebrations low-key, but they are still often more than he can handle. It's fine if other people want to take the day off, but why do we have to?

Good to Know

Goldilocks' meltdowns have been increasing in frequency, intensity, and duration over the last couple months. Once St. Nicholas Day was over, he found other things to yell about. Or nothing in particular, just yelling angry nonsense. We are working with his doctor, adjusting his meds, trying to find a combination that keeps his behavior under control. I know some people are anti-medication, but when we've done every available therapy, and tracked down and accommodated every sensory and social issue we can, and he's still screaming, hitting people, pounding on the walls, tearing down pictures, and attempting to break windows for hours at a stretch, all for no discernible reason, and this happens four to five days a week, we turn to medication. Without it, someone would have been locked up a long time ago.

We missed church yesterday because of bad weather. It turned out not to be quite as bad as we were expecting, but the National Weather Service was still advising people to travel only in an emergency. We decided that going to church was not an emergency, but if the weather got worse, and we were stuck there or on the way home, we would have an emergency. Today he was not yelling; He was just being annoying. Asking repetitive questions. Making unreasonable demands. No matter what you offered him, he upped the ante. I decided to take him and run a few errands. He gets the go bug, especially when we can't or won't take him anywhere for a day or two. Sometimes just going someplace helps. So I took him. We even stopped for 7Up and doughnuts, which made this an official "adventure" in his book.

Later, Mama Bear had some errands, including a doctor appointment for the Sinus Infection That Will Not Die, so I was home with GL. He suddenly decided that he was finished with all his library DVDs, and I was going to take him to the library to get some more RIGHT NOW! I explained that I had to do a few other things first, including checking to see which things needed to be returned to the library and waiting for Mama Bear to come back with the car. He was back every five minutes, nagging. I was gathering the library materials when MB arrived. I apprised her of the situation. As GL and I headed out the door, Mama Bear said, "You're a better man than I am, Papa Bear." Thanks, Mama Bear. That's good to know.

The Countdown Continues

We give gifts on St. Nicholas Day, Dec. 6, instead of Christmas. Once that's over, the rest of Advent is much more peaceful. You can read the whole story of how we arrived at this plan here. So we've just got to make it through the weekend. About Dec. 1, Goldilocks was yelling at Mama Bear, convinced she was holding out on him:
"You're never going to let me have any presents!"
"You just have to wait for St. Nicholas Day."
"Christmas is already here, and you still have my presents! You stole them! I'm going to take you to court!"

She finally persuaded him that St. Nicholas Day was six days away. He's been much calmer, almost his ornery old self. This morning, he announced,
"St. Nicholas Day is six days away."
"No, it's only four days away."
"You told me it was six days away. You told me that five minutes ago!"

Sigh. He's always been a little vague on time concepts, but that one is new. Anything that happened in the past was always "yesterday". Anything we ask him to stop momentarily he can never do, "never, ever again". Anything happening in the future, whether goof or bad, whether five minutes or ten years from now, is a source of great anxiety. He can't relax until all predictions, plans, and expectations are filled. And he lives almost entirely in the future. He doesn't care what's happening now, he wants to know what's happening next, and after that, even though knowing only increases his anxiety.

When he was seven, and his cousin was four, she announced to Nana, "I know what's wrong with GL."
"What?" Nana asked.
"His calm down button is broken."
Not one of the many professionals he has seen has offered a better description.

My Socks are Stinkier than Your Socks!

Fall Cleaning

October is here, so it's once again time for Fall Cleaning. 

"Don't you mean Spring Cleaning?" you ask, "and isn't this the wrong season?" No, I mean Fall Cleaning. After you've been cooped up in the house all winter and are beyond cabin fever, ready to go stir crazy if you have to spend one more minute within these four walls with these impossible people, can you think of a stupider way to use the first warm, sunny spring day than inside, cleaning house? And who's going to notice, anyway? As the weather improves, everyone wants to spend more time outdoors. By the time you're back inside for any appreciable time, the house is already dirty again.

Now on cold, rainy days in October and November, when you just had all summer, and usually some good weather in September to be outside, you don't miss being out there; you've had your fill. It's not that cold out yet, but it's wet and windy. Your domestic environment is showing signs of months of lick and a promise housekeeping. You have summer clothing and equipment for summer activities to put in storage. You have stuff that has somehow multiplied when you weren't looking and is beginning to crowd you out of the house. The look of the place has gone from lived-in to depressing. And you'll be spending the majority of your time indoors for the next few months. 

 One of the advantages of doing school all summer is that we can afford to take time off when we need it. We're taking a week off school to clean house. Before we made this decision, BB had to agree that if he was going to get the time off, he was going to have to help clean. And Mama Bear made me promise that I would spend the week cleaning and not just blogging about it. That goes for reading blogs, too. So I've been trying to catch up on my blogs this week, and linking some good stuff. (Don't tell Mama, but I'll try to sneak back and report on our progress, too.)

The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer, discontinued.

You remember that I never wanted the paper. And it turned out not to be the one MB wanted, either. It was a lousy source of news, and not that great on coupons, either. I hated to throw it in the dumpster, so I was spending over an hour each week (closer to two hours) shredding and composting it. I didn't care about getting my money back; I just wanted them to stop sending it. I almost would have paid them not to deliver the paper. But I'd had so much trouble starting a subscription, I dreaded canceling it.

Did you ever have AOL? At one time, (in the early '90s) they had the best rates in town. As more people went online, new ISPs entered the market, and competition brought the price down. AOL responded by doubling their base price and offering unlimited access. (Strange as it may sound now, Internet service used to be billed like cell phone service: you paid a monthly fee and got a limited number of minutes. Any use over that time cost you extra.) The problem was that you couldn't get through. You'd get a busy signal every time. Eventually, other providers began offering unlimited service at lower prices, and you could actually connect. Rather than improve their service, AOL tried to keep people from canceling. If you called to cancel, first they would try to talk you out of it. If that didn't work, they would try to sell you on another plan. One plan they tried to sell me was called "Bring Your Own Access". If I paid the same price they were charging for Internet, but bought my Internet service from another provider, they would allow me to access their content through my other provider. I could even keep my email address. All this for the same price I was already paying them for Internet, but they wouldn't have to provide it! If you didn't fall for that, they'd start bargaining. A common ploy was to offer one month of free service. Then you'd have to call them up and try canceling again, and listen to the same song and dance again, or they'd continue billing you. And you couldn't get the free service twice. Even if you got them to agree to cancel your service, they would "accidentally" lose the cancellation order and keep billing you. It took most customers three calls to AOL to get their service cancelled. I had to tell my credit card company to stop paying them.

I feared I'd face similar obstacles canceling the paper. And it was MB's paper, so I didn't want to cancel it without talking to her. Then one day she said, (God bless her!) "Why don't we just cancel the paper?" And she made the call. Like I said, I don't deserve her.

The next day, no paper. About a week later, we received a check in the mail, refunding the portion of the introductory subscription we hadn't used. The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer does a lousy job of reporting the news. Their salesmen lie. They are slow to start a subscription, and seem to have a hard time delivering the paper to the right address or even the right town. But if you ever want to cancel a newspaper subscription, I recommend this one.

And what better way to say "I love you." than with the gift of a... stapler?

Yes, I know, the correct answer is supposed to be spatula. And I sent Mama Bear a virtual spatula as a thank-you. I even gave her a spatula with the Spatula City label on our wedding day, and she carried it proudly in her bouquet.

But I've been envying Arby's stapler ever since he posted about it. So, when Mama Bear asked what I might like for Father's Day, I had to think for a moment. She suggested cash because she knows I am saving for a computer. She has an obsolete laptop that can check email, and that's about it. My computer is somewhat more powerful, but it's nine years old, and the boys are needing it more and more for school. And I really would like to have a laptop. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became that what I really wanted was a stapler like Arby's.

So I asked for one. She had to go to three stores to find it, but oh, was it worth it! I won't try to describe it, because Arby has already described it so eloquently. But it's red. And it's metal. And it opens out flat if you want to staple something to a bulletin board. And it doesn't care if I'm stapling two sheets or twenty, it expertly joins them with a satisfying "ka-chunk." Let's do that again slowly: "kut-a-chunk".

And she didn't even make me wait for Father's Day. She said this was just an "I love you" gift. As if that weren't enough, she managed to score us a free hotel night and get Grandma to take the boys. But guess which weekend? That's right, June 19-20.

She was bummed that it meant we'd miss celebrating Father's Day as a family. So we celebrated last Sunday. She asked what I'd like for dinner, but nothing sounded quite right. Then I thought of steaks on the grill. So we swung by the grocery store after church, and she selected some, and told me not to look at the price tags. Then she volunteered to cook them. That's the thing about grilling: I'm as big a pyro as the next guy, (No, let's be honest here. I'm a bigger pyro than the average male.) but I hate to cook as much as I love to eat. So I set up the grill, and she grilled the steaks. Sirloin and mashed potatoes—does it get any better than that?

Yes, it does. Mama and the boys set up a treasure hunt that afternoon. They broke the money for my gift into fives, hid them, and gave me clues. They gave me the first clue as a freebie. In each hiding place was a fiver and the next clue. The first clue read: "You're a great Dad. You are good at many things. We have hidden your gifts to test your finding skills. Your first gift is hiding in a musical spot."

Then I heard, "Yoo-hoo! I'm hiding!" (pause, followed by a giggle and then another pause,) "Boing-boing!" (pause) "I'm over here!" (more giggles)

On top of the piano, behind some CDs, I found that goofy talking Easter Egg. When I opened it, it said, "Surprise! You found me!" (more giggles)

Inside was the first fiver and the next clue: "Look for your next gift under the object that makes the 'ka-chunk' sound."

Found that one right away. The next clue read, "All of this finding is tiring. Maybe a strong drink would help. Your next gift is hidden where you would make yourself a strong drink."

Sure enough, it was in the basket of my four dollar Goodwill espresso machine. The next clue read, "Your next gift is inside the wordiest gift you have ever given me."

I ran straight to the shelf, pulled out the dictionary, and began riffling through the pages. I first realized she was something special when she asked for a dictionary for her birthday. She later told me that she had asked for one several times before, but no one else had ever believed that was really what she wanted.

So I get to celebrate Father's Day three weeks in a row. I got a stapler that would make Tim Taylor proud, a steak dinner, twenty bucks for my computer fund, and a free hotel night with my wife.

At this point, all the men are wondering, "Papa Bear, what did you do to deserve such a wonderful wife?"

And that's just the point. I don't.