Our eldest son and his girl came to the house. We shared a meal together, which I ordered. That's right I did not cook! Blue and I did bake Toll House and sugar cookies for dessert. We all exchanged gifts. I couldn't believe they brought Blue a turtle (which of course, I will end up being responsible for). In fact, since Blue was leaving the very next day, guess who's been feeding it while he's gone?!
We celebrated Christmas Eve because half of our crew (Dad and Blue) were leaving on Christmas morning to go to North Carolina and Georgia to visit with my husband's brothers and their kids.
It may seem a bit odd that our whole family isn't spending the holiday together. But you see, we don't have one of those conventional kind of families, where everyone sits around the fire singing Christmas carols while eating milk and cookies. The truth of the matter is that the boys are quirky, anxious and they fight quite a bit which takes away from the "fun" of it all.
Now last year we all went away together to visit my husband's parents. Parts of the trip were fun...but overall, it was exhausting! I spent most of the time trying to keep meltdowns from happening. All of the cousins were together at Grandpa's house. They played, made videos, opened presents, etc. Blue didn't sleep well most of this time because he likes to sleep alone, with no sounds to disturb him. This is a little difficult to accomplish when the house is overflowing with family.
After Christmas, we all headed to Florida to go to Universal Studios. Red was under a great deal of pressure to be well behaved around his grandparents, so as soon as they were out of sight, he'd have these horrible melt-downs, which we would try to keep as quiet as possible so that the grandparents wouldn't feel the need to get involved, which of course would make matters worse.
The truth of the matter is...it was a very expensive, exhausting trip. Most of our family vacations leave me thinking, "Why did we do that? That wasn't fun!"
So this year we decided to break up the party a little bit. And the truth is, yes, I confess..I couldn't be happier!
Red took a trip earlier this summer with his Dad, were he was very well behaved (because I wasn't around). He also took a trip by himself to see my family in California, where he had a complete blast. Blue had a trip alone with me and Dad to Sea World this summer (that one wasn't so fun). He was still pretty anxious during that time.
Blue has calmed down quite a bit, so he and his dad are off visiting his uncles and cousins. There are no moms involved on this trip and the boys are having a great time. They had a white Christmas where he got to play in the snow. He has slept pretty well, except the first night that he shared a hotel room with his dad (the snore monster). After that night he shared a room with his cousin and slept much better.
So this Mom spent Christmas day sitting on her butt by the fire...eating cookies for breakfast, drinking wine and eating leftovers for dinner. Red went to have dinner and play video games with a friend while I flipped from one Christmas movie to the next. My Mom went off to California to visit my brother for the holidays, so I was literally all alone on Christmas.
Don't tell anyone...but this may very well be the best Christmas ever!
Red, Harry and Blue, December 2010
Happy Holidays to you and Yours!
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago