Sometimes, no news *is* good news. The last month has not been unproblematic, thanks to the Annual Bronchitis, but has overall been pretty **** skippy. Peanut has been having a good spell, an even keel, a righteous time. It has been... more than pleasant. We attribute this to his stellar teaching staff and the current drug combination of non-stimulant ADHD meds (2 mg Intuniv to ward off the OCD and tics) and short-acting stimulant ADHD meds (2.5 mg Focalin to get him through the beginning of the school day but wear off early enough to cause no insomnia.) Knock on... Continue reading

Every year, I get at least one bad respiratory illness. So far this winter, I've been very lucky - the few little head colds I've caught haven't settled in my chest. Notice how I said, "So far...?" Yup. I'm sick. I woke up Thursday morning with the feeling that I was wearing a lead x-ray bib on my throat and chest. Of course, I CAN'T be sick this week - there is way too much going on - so I'm pretty much trying everything I can think of to head it off before I reach the "time to visit the... Continue reading

Oh, yes. It's that time of the year again. BSAICBA time! Since this is an ongoing activity that I lead with a bunch of kids that I love, and since this is a secret-ish blog that very few people in my real life know about, I just can't talk about the Big Secret Activity I Can't Blog About. Except to say... WE WON!!! WEWONWEWONWEWON!!! Ahem. I will not lie. This year was tough. We had a crushingly abrubt end to last year's effort (Long story short: they worked hard and performed awesomely and then a fluke mistake cost them all... Continue reading

It is that time of the year again. Yes, The Big Secret Activity that I Can't Blog About is back. A few more weeks and I'm free of the responsibility until next fall, should they choose to participate again. I've been working with most of them for 4 years now, and it's a kick to see how they grow and change each year. In some ways, it's a lot easier as they get older (fewer booger jokes and impromptu wrestling matches, less worry about potential trips to the ER) but also trickier in new ways (hormones, social minefields, problems at... Continue reading

After school started last fall and I got hit with the FREEDOM!!! Stick, I went a little crazy with plans for all my wide-open hours. One of the biggest downers in my life is the lack of time for creative pursuits - I used to make jewelry and sew and paint and constantly make stuff - and I determined that this year I would make different use of my free time (i.e. not spend all of my days volunteering in the schools) and do some stuff just for me. In typical Velma fashion, I have managed some spotty success. I... Continue reading

Face it: winter kind of sucks. After the first flush of Holidays! and Snow! and Oh So Cozy By The Fire! wears off, you just want to go somewhere warm. Everything seems like a slog - all those extra layers weigh you down. Your feet beg for fresh air, your skin shrinks and itches, and you long to feel... juicy. I've had it with fly-away hair and static electricity and... fleece. I know it's not just me, because every one of the conversations I've had with friends this week has revolved around relentless lingering illnesses and bad weather and just...... Continue reading

I used to sing a lot. Chorus, chorale, glee club - these were some of my favorite activities in high school and college. Once you get past that age, though, your recreational singing opportunities are limited. There is the company holiday party, but that is a minefield - awkward without having a buzz on and possibly career-ending if you've overindulged. Plus your song selection is pretty weak. "Blah, blah angels we have heard on high, blah blah deck the halls." For the past 20 years my singing has been limited to two places: the shower and the car. I admit... Continue reading

So. Yeah. Hmmm. Not sure where to begin, after so long away from the keyboard. The holidays were good, and tough, and then blessedly over. December was hard for Peanut. After discussing the possibility for over 6 months, we decided to try a SSRI medication to try to alleviate some of his anxiety. We ended up trying two different medications, and unfortunately he could not tolerate them. And by "couldn't tolerate," I mean became activated within a day of the first dosing. On the first day of the first 1/2 tablet of the lowest dosage of the first medication, he... Continue reading

I am lying on my couch, tucked in with a blanket and pillows, staring out the back windows. It is 1:44 am. My nose is just stuffy enough to bother me and my elbow is just twanging enough to keep me uncomfortable in any position I try. As I was laying in my bed, I could feel the mucus gathering slowly at the back of my nose every other minute and got sick of snorffling it down, so I came out in search of a box of tissues. But those minor discomforts weren't keeping me awake. I just can't stop... Continue reading

Unlike previous letters to Santa, Peanut's latest missive is rather charming in its simplicity: Continue reading

Yesterday was a lousy run-around day. For some reason, I'd thought it would be a good idea to schedule both kids' dental cleanings, a new extracurricular activity for Pepper, and Peanut's yearly physical on the same day. I kept playing up the day-off-from-school angle, calling it a "hooky" day, but they weren't buying it. Their argument was that a true Hooky Day involves lots of lazing around and fun stuff, not driving back and forth across Cape Cod from appointment to appointment. My argument was that they should stop being WHINY LITTLE BRATS. Of course I didn't say that to... Continue reading

The writing prompt was: "Discuss what you would do in case of a disaster." (Also known as "What not to ask the kid with anxiety issues....") Continue reading

Uhm. Yeah. I've been trying to stay off-line a lot recently with the express purpose of focusing on real-life stuff. So, you know... fuck y'all. (I keed! I keed!! I'll be back, just not before November.) Continue reading

Oy. Why do all of my best stories about my kids feature highly inappropriate behavior? Peanut is a fact machine. Like many little boys on the spectrum, he has certain obsessions - the Titanic, Legos, weather - and he will learn everything he possibly can about those things. After he learns those things, he wants to share them. We have many conversations about appropriate sharing, just so you know - social skills are something we work on at home and in school. Sometimes Peanut will announce, "The Random Fact of the Day is..." and go on to tell the captive... Continue reading

I am always on the lookout for little bags to organize my stuff, so I picked these up on my last trip "over the bridge" to Target. 3 different sized bags for $14.99 - I figured I'd find a use for them, but I just liked the colors and patterns.... Continue reading

I spent 45 minutes typing out a post yesterday on my iPhone, using the TypePad app. Then it disappeared when I tried to post it, so in the spirit of my pioneer ancestors... I immediately gave up. 'Cause, you know, I don't really have any pioneer ancestors, only Irish ancestors who fled to America when things in Ireland were going to hell. Here is the gist, however: yesterday was not only "Talk Like a Pirate" Day, but it was also my 5 year blogiversary. I can't believe I've been blogging for 5 years, and I can't believe I've managed to... Continue reading

I'm worried that this blog is dying from lack of time, lack of focus, and lack of energy. I don't know if I can really blame Twitter, but I seem to have the attention span of a gnat. I still want to write, but can't seem to keep track of all the various ideas popping in and out of my brain. Crafting a post like this seems like a huge effort most days, effort that I should be directing towards home and family. After dropping the boy off at school this morning, I drove the 10-minute route home. On my... Continue reading

(10 changes to the painting equal 1 second of video.) Continue reading

There is no easy way to talk about this: Peanut talks about having very disturbing violent and even suicidal thoughts sometimes. I originally drafted this post on June 27th, and I wrote: Today was a laid back, easy day - hung out all morning, then took the kids out for lunch and grocery shopping. Peanut was great the whole time. Around 5 p.m., when his ADHD medicine wears off, he broke down in despair. He told me that earlier, at the grocery store, he had been thinking about how he sometimes didn't want to live and imagined stabbing himself. I... Continue reading

Shoes! BlogHer'10 is this week, and my Twitter stream is full of shoe links, shoe talk and shoe pix. And I apologize for my 2nd shoe-related post in the last two weeks, but this is a painful subject for me, pun intended thankyouverymuch. After trying out all my options, I've decided to go with the most comfortable but still cute shoes I own. You will see me in these shoes 2 nights out of 3, I think. They are Easy Spirit shoes, so already more comfortable than most, but I am adding in some clear silicon arch supports to protect... Continue reading

I'll be generous and blame it on the heat, but it's been weird nonetheless. It has the surreal feeling of a post-apocolyptic everyone-out-for-themselves movie, and I half expect to be hunted down for my water or batteries or whatever the fuck people from over the bridge want. But I'll get back to that later. This week has been crazed, full of appointments and running hither and yon and back to hither, with each trip taking much longer than it should thanks to the crush of tourists on Cape Cod. I've been busy with kid stuff and house stuff and BlogHer'10... Continue reading

<div>I met so damn many people this weekend, people I hope may choose to check out my blog. Looking over my last few posts, however, I'm afeared I may drive everyone away with the mundanity. (Like it? I just now made up that word!) ("Mundanity" isn't a real word, right?) (I also appear to have become a hillbilly, albeit a hillbilly with a bigger-than-average vocabulary consisting of made up words.) (Uhm. I think I might need a parenthetical intervention here.) I skipped the party at Macy's Saturday night because I needed a little time to process everything I saw, heard,... Continue reading