Some of you might remember this photo from a year ago, when Nigel first said hello to his new cousin as he somersaulted in utero.
And here they are a year later! Nolan is just about ready to take off walking, and he and Nigel had fun laughing together in the back seat of the car this weekend, making silly noises. “He’s kind of humorous now,” Nigel said. “But he’s still a little drooly.”
I started watching The X-Files when my first child was born in 1994. I would often watch an entire episode with Neil sleeping on my shoulder, gently rocking him as I waited for his father to get home from work. The show’s then-unconventional subject matter of two FBI agents investigating strange crimes and bizarre phenomena appealed to me, and I continued to watch it until it ended in 2002.
Meanwhile, in 1997, I started keeping my own files. That was the year that we began having Neil evaluated for his lack of language development, among other concerns. We went through numerous tests, home visits, and various assessments over a six-week diagnostic period. And then we were told what the therapists probably knew much earlier: it was autism. Our first IFSP meeting was scheduled, early intervention services began, and my files grew. Six months later, I discovered the website for the Autism Society of America and was relieved that I now had some information that I could print out for relatives and friends to read – basic information about autism that had been so hard to find twelve years ago. I made copies and put them in the file.
A year or so later, we began to realize that our younger son also exhibited signs of autism – a disheartening language delay and notable sensory issues. So he was also evaluated, and, although not diagnosed with autism, he still needed speech and occupational therapy. I started a file for him, too.
The years went on, and two kids with IEPs produce tons of paperwork. I saved most of it, wanting to have everything documented, trying to be a responsible special needs parent, and just not sure what needed to be saved and what didn’t. In addition to the boys’ individual files, I also kept files on general autism information as well as related special needs advocacy information. The files were both full of articles I’d pulled from magazines and newspapers over the years, old clippings from genetic theories to the vaccine issue to stuff I’d found on terbutaline and other neurotoxins. I clipped sidebars on teaching strategies, visual schedules, and sensory issues. There were reprints from early Newsweek and Time magazine cover stories on autism. I saved articles on biomedical treatments, various types of therapy, autism in adulthood, and special needs estate planning. My files covered a lot of ground.
And last weekend, having the need to downsize to a smaller filing cabinet, I decided it was time to clean out what I’d dubbed “The A-Files.” I tackled my younger son’s file first, smaller due to the fact that he had no longer needed an IEP by the time he turned ten (three years ago). I saved a few of the more important IEP copies and his early evaluations. Then I moved on to my firstborn, whose file had actually torn at the top from the weight of it, and been taped. His, of course, took much longer to wade through, but I think I did a good job of judiciously separating the grain from the chaff. It felt odd to go back so far, to see things that I’d written – behavioral observations, for example – eight, ten, and twelve years ago. I was struck by how little I understood of autism then, but also by how determined I was to help my sons.
By the time I got to the last file, the general autism file, I didn’t realize how fragile I was. I had breezed through my younger son’s file, and although I had lingered considerably longer on my older son’s file, I felt like I did all right with it. I thought that I’d kept my emotions at bay. But I had barely begun to sort through that last file when my face suddenly twisted into a grimace of pain and sorrow. A hideous sob racked my chest. The jig was up.
I know what it was that finally got to me. It was the printed evidence that autism has shaped our lives. Maybe I subconsciously thought that all this paperwork would somehow help. That saving it was like some sort of a karmic point system, that it would make a difference, sitting in my filing cabinet. All that documentation, all that information. Evidence. Unresolved, just sitting there. Like that show I used to watch.
But then the sobs subsided as quickly as they’d begun. I realized that autism shaping our lives isn’t just about the negative. Yes, it’s often been very hard. There are plenty of things that I wish could have been different. But in those files are also many positive reports of progress – the gradual meeting of goals that seemed too lofty when written, emerging skills, developing ability. That, too, is evidence. Evidence of determination, commitment, and hope. You can bet I’m saving that paperwork.
“If you’re one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, or whatever else they throw at us mere mortals, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful.” —Hugh Macleod
It’s funny how sometimes we never set out to do the things that end up being such an integral part of our lives. Take blogging, for example. I never really made the conscious decision to be a blogger. Two years ago this month, I had recently begun to homeschool my son Neil, who was thirteen at the time. He had been diagnosed at age three with classic autism, and again at age five, because he was still not functionally verbal. Through many years of intensive therapy, he learned to talk and filter his sensory issues so that he could be mainstreamed in public school with full-time assistance. That full-time assistance was dropped in middle school (against my desires), and horrible problems arose. I began seeing regressive behavior that I hadn’t seen in years, in addition to new difficulties that I had no idea how to handle. I turned to the Internet and searched for information on autism in the teen years. I didn’t find much, and I figured that there had to be other parents out there whose children, like mine, had been diagnosed in the early years of the autism “boom.” Those other parents of teens had to also be searching for information, and I wanted to provide a much-needed resource for all of us. I wanted to connect with them – with any parents of autistic children – and end my years of isolation. And so, Teen Autism was born.
Initially, I didn’t plan for it to be a blog. It was to be a website, so I researched how to create a website. Not knowing code, this undertaking was hugely insane. I bought books, purchased a domain, and discovered through my host that I could use the blogging software called WordPress as a content management system (CMS). This sounded like it would work for what I was trying to achieve. I had to learn some code in order to install the software and get it doing what I needed it to do, and I was pretty proud of myself for figuring it out (after hours of head-banging agony). And then I started writing. I wrote on all of the topics that concerned me as the parent of an autistic child, and I categorized the posts on the sidebar so that other parents could scroll down, click on a category that they wanted to read about (sensory issues, bullying, language, siblings, homeschooling and many more), and all of the posts within that category would come up. I wrote and posted five days a week, trying to build up the categories with information for other parents to read. But I wasn’t really blogging yet.
Occasionally, friends or family would comment on one of my posts, and that was gratifying. My page views per day were increasing, and I received my first encouraging email from another parent of a teen on the spectrum, thanking me for writing. But it wasn’t until about four months later that I really started blogging, i.e. reading others’ blog posts and commenting on them. First Casdok found me and left a comment, and then Mama Edge, who had just started blogging and found me by searching “teen autism,” just as I’d hoped parents would. She left a comment on my post “To Catch a Fly,” and I went to her first blog post, saw her blogroll listing many other parents of kids with autism, and I started blogging. It’s strange to say that I started blogging after I’d already written 105 posts, but that’s how it happened.
I listed my blog on Technorati and the Ringsurf page for autism bloggers, but other than that, I didn’t do anything to market it. I started building up my own blogroll and realized that I was reading so many blogs that I needed to set up a reader, which I did at Bloglines. My feeds have changed a bit over the last year and half, but I am currently reading 72 blogs, and the majority of them are autism-related. For now, that’s my focus. I intend to keep posting on Teen Autism until Neil, now 15, transitions out of high school, and I’ll write about that experience for a few months. Almost a year ago, Neil went back to regular school part-time (with assistance), and I resumed working full-time, so I had to reduce my posts per week. As a single parent of two boys whose father lives 700 miles away, I don’t have much free time. But the connections I’ve made through blogging are so important to me that when I do have free time, usually in the late evenings, I blog. It’s a lifeline for me.
But even lifelines have to be scheduled. I’ve been asked how I manage to blog, comment, work, advocate for my son, advocate for others (through volunteer work that I do as a Chapter Rep for the Autism Society of Oregon), and be a single parent. To be honest, I’m not sure how I fit it all in. Some days are very hard for me to keep it together. But there are three things I do that help me immensely. First, everything is scheduled, even showers. Of course, things always come up, so the schedule must have some built-in flexibility, and that’s challenging. But it’s essential. Second, I maintain perspective. Every night when I go to bed, I lie in the dark and take five minutes to remind myself that my kids are safe in their beds, we have a good roof over our heads and food in the kitchen, and I have a job that doesn’t have me on my feet all day (I have a lot of respect for people in service-oriented jobs). It’s a mental gratitude journal, reminding myself of the positives in my life, and it’s essential to my well-being. The third thing I do is just keep moving. My life won’t always be this busy, and if I keep moving, eventually I’ll get to a point where it’s a little less hectic. Sure, I’ll always “keep busy,” as my retired aunt says. And I certainly look forward to the day when I’m able to choose how I spend my time. But for now, with the little time I have available for chosen activities, I choose blogging. I may be an accidental blogger, but I am a devoted one. And a grateful one, too.
Image credit: Svilen Milev
Sometimes, when you’re the parent of an autistic teenager, you have to write letters like this:
Dear [Regional Autism Consultant] and [Neil’s speech therapist],
I hope this finds you both well. Neil continues to benefit from your social skills class, and I want to thank you both for doing it. I wanted to run something by you that I think would be an important addition to the regular social skills teaching. Today I had a meeting with [his case manager], and she mentioned that a student told her about a situation in which Neil was being taken advantage of and laughed at. During lunch, a group of students were encouraging Neil to tickle random people, and they would laugh when he did it. As you might remember, Neil has been targeted in this manner before, and it always pains me to hear of it.
I would be so grateful if you would work something into the social skills curriculum to help him learn to recognize these sorts of situations when people have fun at his expense by telling him to do something inappropriate. He doesn’t realize that it’s inappropriate or that he could get in trouble for touching other people. He thinks he is making friends this way, but the “friends” are laughing at someone with a developmental disability. They know that Neil lacks social awareness, and that’s why they target him. They are not innocent little kids anymore. And yes, Neil has been told before that real friends will not get him to do things that he shouldn’t do, and then laugh about it. But he needs constant reminders from people other than his mother. He needs to be taught how to recognize these sorts of situations. If a random student notices and takes the time to tell a staff member about it, then it’s pretty significant. And I’m sure it’s not the first time, even though it was the first time that was brought to our attention (that I know of).
So I think it would be helpful for Neil to have some reminders about what’s inappropriate at school, and that if someone tries to get him to do something and they are laughing about it, they probably don’t have his best interests at heart, and they should be avoided. I tell him these things, of course, but I think if he hears it from other adults (or peers who care) and is taught how to recognize those situations (perhaps through roll-play), then he might start to understand.
Thank you so much for your time and the work you do with my son.
Best regards,
Tanya Savko
And it breaks your heart, again and again. You believed that things were going well socially at the high school, that the other kids had matured since middle school, that these things weren’t happening any more. You hoped that no one would be insincere with him at his first dance, and you wonder if they were and your son just doesn’t have the social awareness to realize it.
Sometimes, as the parent of an autistic teenage, it really hurts. You’ve been advocating for over twelve years since the diagnosis, and you still have to do it. You still have to manage your pain and quell your anger. You have to keep moving, keep doing, keep hoping.
And no matter how much you love your son and the wonderful person that he is, no matter how far he’s come and how much he’s achieved and how high your hopes, it still hurts. For both of you.
It used to be, up until less than two years ago, that my favorite time of day was in the evening, when the boys went to bed, and I had an hour or two before my own bedtime. The day was over, and I had a sliver of time to myself to read, meditate, write (if I had the energy), or watch a movie. And it wasn’t just the time to myself that I loved, it was the security in knowing that my children were safe and (usually) well, and that we had made it through another day. All was right in my little corner of the world.
I still love the evenings and the sense of peace and comfort that they bring. But my favorite time of day has changed. It’s now 3:40 PM. That’s my new serenity time.
I get off work at 3:00 and head home, stopping to pick up the mail at our local post office, since I am among many in our small town who do not have mail delivery to our homes. I am usually home around 3:20, alone except for the cats, who rub against my leg to welcome me (or, as I’ve read, to mark territory, but affectionately so). I set my things down and go put on my slippers as part of my little transitional routine. Then I sort and read the mail until 3:30, when Adam arrives. He comes through the front door, calls out “Hi, Mom,” and I go over to give him a hug and breathe in the scent at the top of his head. Home. One down, one to go.
Usually within ten minutes, by 3:40, Neil comes through the back door, after he has put his bike away in the shed. As soon as I hear that door open and shut, I breathe a sigh of relief. The route is less than two miles, but any number of things could go wrong. Once, a few months ago, he had been delayed due to bike problems and called me on his cell to ask me to come and get him. And so, when he wasn’t home by 3:50 one day last week, I thought at first that perhaps it was because of bike trouble again. I waited for the phone to ring, but it didn’t. When the clock struck four, I was out the door. I instructed Adam to man the phone and to call me on my cell if Neil called or came home.
I drove his usual route, checking down side streets to see if he had stopped to talk to someone or pet a cat. Then, about a third of the way, I saw him riding toward me (thank God), and I pulled over. He came up to me, breathless, and launched into a monologue about how he’d stayed after school to talk to his new drama teacher about a play that he wanted to write and produce based on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. He had that dazed, New Obsession look in his eye, and I groaned inwardly. In his present state, he could not fathom that I had been worried, that he should have called. Midway through his prop ideas, I gently cut him off, saying that we needed to get home and he could finish telling me there. “Okay,” he said, and started off. “But take your time! We’re not racing!” I yelled out quickly.
We got home, and as I climbed out of the car, he rode up and started in again about the play, right there in the driveway. “Put your bike away, and let’s go inside to talk about it,” I said gently, but business-like. And he did.
I got in the house, still feeling the uncomfortable effects of the fear-based adrenaline, and called out to Adam that Neil was back. I collapsed on the couch, and he came inside a moment later. I stood in front of him and put my arms around his unbending frame before he could start talking. “I’m glad you’re home safe,” I said. “I was worried because you were late, and you didn’t call to let me know.”
He got it. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. It was one of the rare times he’d said “I’m” in front of “sorry.” He said that he got so excited with talking to his teacher about his ideas for the play that he didn’t think to call. Of course, I’d figured that’s what had happened the moment I first saw his face, lost in a new obsession. I know that look.
He drank some water then, and sat on the couch to finish telling me his ideas. After a few minutes, he got up and announced that he was going to his room to start writing the script. I sat there on my couch that I love, listening to the sounds of my boys happily preoccupied in their rooms. Home. My favorite time of day might have come a little later that day, but there it was. I sat and breathed deeply, enjoying my moment of peace, security, and serenity.
So I took a big chance at the high school dance . . . – Aerosmith
I remember what I wore to my first high school dance as a freshman: a pleated linen skirt, a black shaker-knit sweater (remember those?), and black high heels. I loved that outfit. I loved being at school at night, how different everything looked, how different I felt. A little nervous, but excited.
For the past two weeks, Neil has talked of his desire to attend his school’s winter formal. I’d pick him up from school, and he’d tell me about what they discussed in his social skills class, specifically how to ask a girl to a dance. I remembered the formal dances at my high school and voiced the concern to Neil that freshmen might not be allowed to attend. I mentioned that we might need to get him a tie. I posed the idea that they might be required to have dates at formal dances. Neil decided to find out.
Apparently, times have changed. Freshmen can attend, they don’t need to wear a tie, and they’re not required to have a date. So why, then, is it called a formal? Regardless, Neil was determined to go, and my nerves kicked into overdrive. What if the girls were insincere? What if they asked him to dance only to laugh at him? What if the guys tried to get him to do something that could get him in trouble? What if they talked him into going out to the parking lot or leaving? What if the music was too loud for him, or he got into a situation that he couldn’t handle? The worry was driving me insane, but I had to let him do this.
The night of the dance, Neil watched movies in his room until it was time to get ready. Then he took a shower, brushed his teeth, and put on a ticking-striped button-up shirt, khakis, and a pair of old-school blue Vans with laces. “Because they’re stylish,” he told me. He came out to the living room and said that he was a little nervous, so he had watched some Winnie-the-Pooh movies to help calm himself. My heart felt like it was caught between my ribs – Winnie-the-Pooh at age 15. My sweet, innocent boy. And he’s flying solo – no aide – at a high school dance. Last year, he attended a middle school dance/event successfully without an aide, but there were other activities, such as an obstacle course and video games, that he could participate in. This would be a whole different ballgame.
I motioned for him to sit next to me on the couch, and he did. I told him that if the music was too loud for him, or if he felt uncomfortable for any reason, he could call me on his cell phone to come pick him up. It didn’t matter if he had only been there ten minutes. I told him that if anyone was being insincere while dancing with him, he could just say, “No thanks” and walk away. I told him that if anyone tried to get him to do anything or leave the dance that he could just say, “No thanks, I’ll just hang out here.” At this stage of his development, our social stories are usually verbal. I rarely have to write it down for him. As liberating for me as this is, it still does not alleviate my worry. I know how vulnerable he is.
He said that he understood everything I had told him and said that he thought he’d be okay. A larger part of me actually agreed. Then he said, “But I think it’s too dark to ride my bike.”
“Oh, honey! Of course I’m going to drive you!” Poor boy thought he would have to ride his bike to the dance!
I dropped him off, came home, and watched a movie with Adam, thankful for the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with him. Neil didn’t call, and I hoped all was well. I told him that I would pick him up ten minutes early to avoid the congestion, and when the time came, he was right there waiting, by himself, doing some sort of spinning dance. He got in the car, and before he had even closed the door, he announced, “Well, I danced with a lot of girls!”
He assured me that they were nice, they were sincere, and that he felt comfortable and had fun. I told him how glad I was to hear that. On the surface, I felt what I always feel after he does something successfully on his own – relief and gratitude. But there’s something else there, in my heart, some emotion that I cannot identify, even though I feel it every day of my life, and it makes me want to cry when I’m happy. Maybe it’s just love.
“This will be a fun high school memory for me,” Neil said as we got home and walked in the front door. I hugged him and felt that love surge through me again, immense and consuming.
You have to take the jump faster than you feel comfortable with.
– my younger sister, Macrina
Four years ago, two days after my 35th birthday, my sister and brother-in-law took me snowboarding as their gift to me. At the time, I had snowboarded off and on for fifteen seasons, and they had skied for at least that long, if not longer. We all felt comfortable at our intermediate-to-advanced skill levels. As I recall, my sister had started doing some small jumps the previous season, and she wanted to practice a bit that day. I thought, Wow, I’ve been snowboarding a long time and I’ve never tried jumping. “I think I’ll try, too,” I said. I followed my younger sister down a few side runs and did some practice ollies, catching a little air off some bumps and landing solidly. It felt so exhilarating! There didn’t seem to be anything to it.
Then we decided to try the real jump in the terrain park. We stood about a hundred feet behind the ramp, watching the person before us approach, jump, and land. It looked easy enough. It looked fun. I was game. My brother-in-law went next, executing a smooth take-off and solid landing. Macrina readied herself, and then she gave me her little tip about needing to go faster than I felt comfortable with. She took the jump the same as her husband, and then waited off to the side with him.
I can do this, I thought. I jumped out of an airplane and landed that jump just fine, so I can do this one.
I readied myself and took off, keeping my eye on the ramp. I was certainly going faster than I felt comfortable with. In fact, as I quickly approached the base of the ramp, I realized that I was going faster than anyone would feel comfortable with. I suddenly knew that there was no way I could land this jump. That if I tried to land it, I would probably end up breaking both of my wrists, and do some severe ankle and knee damage while I was at it. In that instant, I remembered that people in accidents usually fare better if they relax their bodies rather than tensing up. I knew that my entire body would be ultra tense if I tried to land the jump. So, I made a split-second decision to pass out. As I hit the ramp and literally launched myself into the air, I willed myself to lose consciousness – right at that second. And that’s all I remember of the jump.
My sister and brother-in-law later told me that I even looked unconscious as I flew horizontally with my board in front of me, about ten feet up and forty feet across. I landed on my right shoulder, but I didn’t feel it. Thank God I was wearing my helmet, because I’m sure my head hit the ground just as hard. The first thing I remember as I was coming to was my brother-in-law leaning over me saying, “Did you get the wind knocked out of you?” I opened my eyes then, not remembering the jump and wondering what I was doing lying on my back in the snow. Moments later, as the Ski Patrol arrived, it started coming back to me. They asked me my name and my age, and I said the wrong age.
I ended up being snowmobiled out on a stretcher, as the Ski Patrol, who called a week later to check on me, were certain that I had broken my collar bone. I could not move my right arm at all. My sister and brother in law loaded me into the car and drove to the hospital for x-rays. My shoulder and chest were purple, and they would turn blue, green, and yellow as the weeks went on. I would later learn that my shoulder was separated in two places, but I did not break my collar bone. I was bruised and sprained in several areas and would need three months of physical therapy, but I did not break a single bone in my body.
For the first two weeks I was in constant pain and on Vicodin, but not enough to really dull the pain because I still had to drive and work, take care of kids, and pilot this life of mine. That’s what I feel like sometimes. Like I own an airline and not only am I the pilot but also the flight attendant, mechanic, customer service, ground crew, and the engineer. With my right arm in a sling, Neil learned to scrape ice off the windshield in the mornings, Adam learned how to work the microwave, and I learned to do a lot with my left arm. We managed. The bruising on my right shoulder and other areas of my body was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Because I was going so fast, I think that it must have been a bit like being thrown from a vehicle, except I had a helmet on. So even though I did something stupid, something I had no business doing, at least I was wearing my helmet. I cried the first night, alone in my bed, in pain, angry at myself, not wanting to think about how bad it would have been if, instead of my shoulder, I had landed six inches to my left, on my neck. The helmet would not have helped.
So, after three months of physical therapy and three years of not being able to sleep on my right side, my shoulder has healed. I even went snowboarding again the next season! But I avoided the jumps, happy to just cruise around and carve my way down. Fortunately, my birthdays since have been much less eventful. And forgetting my age? That probably wasn’t the last time. In fact, I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities for that in the future. But today, I’m definitely 39. 39 and feelin’ fine.
Image credit: Jeff Osborn
The Scene: Interior of a suburban family home. The autistic teen has been spending most of a Saturday afternoon in his bedroom, at his computer, playing a CD-Rom game in which the player constructs and runs a Jurassic Park-themed attraction. He has owned this game for about eight years and goes through phases in which he plays it for days on end, and then moves on to some other Obsession of the Week. But he never lets more than a few weeks go by without playing this game again. It is his favorite “video” game. He studies the screen now, makes some changes to the sauropods’ feeding schedule, and gets up out of his chair. He walks down the hall and enters a room on the right – his mother’s office. She sits at her desk staring at her computer screen; spreadsheets surround her. He stands at the open door, and she looks over at him with an expression of confused amusement as he makes his announcement.
Autistic teen: My deepest desire is to build a Jurassic Park and have a girlfriend.
Mother: Okay. We’ll see what we can do.
Image credit: Nadia Szopi?ska
It’s time once again for another edition of Personal Posts! Some might recall that I started this series of posts back in November and, well, I started it. I haven’t written any additional posts on it since, and I figured it was time. Because, you know, I have such an exciting life and all.
When we last left off, I was not dating, and that is still the case. My co-workers and I recently had a good laugh over some headline we read that Kate Gosselin, with her new long ‘do, wants to start dating again, and I was like, “I don’t have time to date with two kids; how is she going to date with eight?!” But I’m thinking that summer might be a good time for me to try. That gives me ample time to finish up some projects and grow my hair back out. I had my hair cut a couple of weeks ago, and even though I went to the same stylist who’s been doing my hair for about five years, and even though I brought a photo of myself with the cut that she did last time that I loved, she wasn’t able to replicate it. It turned out completely different, and way shorter than what I asked for. And since, unlike Kate, I’m not into hair extensions, I’ll just have to wait a few months for it to grow out.
Next up is something I’m truly excited about – my plans to gradually switch to what’s called a raw vegan diet, or simply, raw foods. Back in September, I realized that I never felt that great. I felt like every morning I had to drag myself out of bed and had so little mental and emotional energy. I wasn’t sick, but I didn’t feel completely well. I had found out about the raw food diet through one of my clients at work, Raw Family Publishing, a year and a half ago, but at the time it wasn’t something I felt compelled to pursue. In September, I felt drawn to research raw foods due to my low energy level, and I read 12 Steps to Raw Foods. An entire chapter was dedicated to the subject of increased energy as a result of eating raw foods, along with many other positive effects. This is it! I thought. This is what I need to do!
But I knew that such a huge lifestyle change would need to be gradual for me. There are people who go 100% raw all at once, but I knew that wouldn’t work for me since I have two teenagers for whom I still need to cook. So I decided to start off with my breakfast and make that completely raw by drinking green smoothies every morning. I bought a Vita-Mix high speed blender (an investment, but worth it), and since the first week of November, I’ve had them every day. I’m convinced that when I was sick last month it would have been much worse if I’d not had my daily green smoothies. I’m addicted to them and cannot start my day without them! Since I asked Neil and Adam to be supportive, they humor me and refrain from making comments (especially the one who thought it would be a good idea to make a pizza smoothie). So I’ve got the raw breakfast down pat, and I’m slowly working my way toward a raw lunch, which I hope to accomplish in the next couple of weeks.
The progress on publishing my book came to a grinding halt when the holidays hit, and if I don’t get back to it soon I won’t be able to live with myself. Unfortunately, this time of year is my busiest with my second job, which is seasonal. For my primary job, I am an account manager for an order fulfillment company. One of my accounts is a music label with about 50 artists, and for my second job, I do their semesterly royalty calculations and statements. I’m about neck-deep in spreadsheets now. So, my friends, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut back on posting and blogging (wah!) for a bit until I meet my deadline (meh).
If I can, I’ll pop in every now and then with a Neilism or something, like yesterday when he got home from school and decided to take inventory of all the clocks in the house – his watch, everybody’s alarm clocks, the living room clock, the microwave clock, and whichever ones I’m forgetting. He then came into my office and announced, “Looks like all our clocks are out of order. But mine is the right time.”
Ba-da-bum. Cheers!
Image credit: Patrick Nijhuis
Love, the simplicity of it
At first, that is all we know
When our children enter our lives
Some of us learn early on
That things will be different
That our lives will take an unexpected turn
Some will find out later
That we must take on a new persona
And ask questions without answers, such as
Why
But some of our questions will be answered
In time
We will come to know
More about ourselves
Than we ever expected to
We know that we are vulnerable
No matter how many well-wishers
Revere our strength
We know how hard it really is
Love, the complexity of it
We know
That there aren’t any instruction books
Yet we keep reading them
We acclimate to our reality the best we can
And when we think of our children’s futures
Ultimately we will come to realize that
So much of what we know
Is what we don’t know
And we learn to live with that
Through it all, we come back to the one constant
That keeps us moving forward
When everything else is stripped away
The reason why we have been here all along
Why we do what we do
How we know
What we know
Love, the simplicity of it
