Summer

I stepped outside today and felt the warm, almost-summer humidity that is nearly tangible during the summer months in this part of the country. You can almost bottle it up. On one hand I thought, "Is it summer already!?" On the other hand, I thought "It's about damn time."

I am currently in a state of not-drowning and I am relishing every second. There were some intensely stressful work moments last week. We had a monthly meeting with Cooper's teacher last week and found out that there is a huge, scary decision to be made regarding Cooper's schooling next year. Greg and I also had to decide on our summer approach for his therapy since he does not qualify for ESY services. These are doable things. We can do this. After the last year? This stuff is small potatoes.

Several months passed since I stopped my anti-depressant that I was on for 3 years. It took a bit to remember how to deal with BIG feelings. I am a feeler. I get hurt easily. This is the first year that I recognize that it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is just that, a thing. It is part of who I am. The medication I was on did not erase my panic, anxiety, and feelings. It did, however, take the edge off of them. It made it a little easier to breathe. That being said, I am doing pretty well without it! It is overwhelming to feel my anxiety in full force, but it is great to feel the good feelings in full force. I think I was on the medication so long that I didn't realize it was also dulling the good things too.

Thanks to a new summer flex opportunity, my work schedule is temporarily changing as of Tuesday and I couldn't be happier. I am switching to 4, 10-hour days with a 3 day weekend every week until Labor Day. I hope that this will help build up PTO, go on a few long-weekend camping trips and attend Cooper's appointments without having to stay late at work to make up the time. I am so thrilled for the change!

Cooper has grown and changed so incredibly much over the last 6 months. I look at him sometimes and it just hits me. He is his own person. He has limbs that get a little stronger with each month, and one hell of a personality. He gets pissed when the weather changes and he can no longer wear his jacket every day. Rain makes him sleepy. To him, water is still the best. thing. ever. He loves to pick up any phone or camera he can find and open up the camera to view his world through a camera lens. He loves to see people laugh. He is more attached to his favorite blanket than Linus was. The fact that he turns 4 in less than a month completely boggles my mind and makes me ovaries hurt.

So, summer. Hello there. I hope I can continue on this path of not-drowning. I hope the run of not being sick continues. Cookouts and seeing friends would be grand. Maybe a camping trip or 3? Beers and bonfires. Borrowed pool time and a million freckles. All the good things. Let's make it happen.

Back to reality: meal edition

The end of April and early-mid May were pretty chaotic. There was a quick trip to NY for my grandpa's funeral service at the end of April. A week after returning from NY I was back on the road but this time headed to FL. Both of those trips were stressful in their own ways, but there were good memories involved too.

Now it's back to reality until I manage to convince my husband to venture somewhere else. The laundry situation is slowly catching up but the meal situation is back to it's lazy person state of "Pizza? Okay. Cookout? Okay." Starting today, I'm making an effort to change that. Summer is around the corner and with that, fresher produce. Salad actually starts to sound appetizing when the temperature heats up. Now that Greg doesn't work until 10PM we also have the opportunity for grilling.

Here are a few new things I plan to try out this week:
Chopped salad with spiced chickpeas
She had me at "chickpeas" and "feta." I'm planning to make this for work lunches.

Lemon ricotta parmesan pasta with chicken and spinach
2 types of cheese and pasta, but clearly the chicken and spinach make it healthy?

Grilled balsamic steak with tomatoes and arugula
Any night that Greg grills is a good night. That + the fact that this is a Skinnytaste recipe pretty much guarantees a recipe win.

We're also cooking up some go-to meals. BLTs on sourdough, salsa chicken tacos, tangy lentil salad. It's so easy to get into a recipe/cooking rut. Hopefully these will spice things up a bit and I can get into the habit of actively trying new (healthyish) recipes each week. As always, that pun was intended.

Aimless

Everything feels kind of aimless lately. I don't know where I fit in anymore. Every time I try to describe something it's like the words don't come out right and I can't ever seem to get my point across correctly. This blog is probably a great showcase of that struggle.

I feel like I'm sitting here, unable to articulate my feelings correctly, isolated yet busy (seriously, who wants to be around me when I am down? I get it), and life keeps throwing things my way. It's like the majority of 30 has been spent getting knocked down by something unexpected, flailing around under the current for awhile, and catching my breath long enough for the next thing to strike.

I have spent so much of this year being ill. I have been sick with this current illness for 3 weeks. 3 fucking weeks of being sick. It's not like I'm being irresponsible and avoiding the doctor-I've gone every time I've been sick this year. Last time I even had them draw my blood because should I be getting sick every month? No. I think so much of why I feel like I can't catch a break is because SO much of my energy has been zapped with these long-lasting, mystery illnesses.

If I could just have a month or 2 of not getting sick, of not feeling like I'm some second rate employee because hey I have another 2 week long illness and need to call out for a day or 2, of not having a loved one die, of not having some major financial blow, maybe I could catch my breath. I just want to feel like I'm sailing again, not drowning.

Saying goodbye

My gramps passed away yesterday. He had a hellish last 6 months of his life-losing his son, my uncle Brian, and going through medical crises over the last several months leading to an amputation surgery and a bout of pneumonia that he succumbed to. Despite that, he had a very peaceful passing. He was surrounded by people he loved, hands linked together in a group prayer as he left this world. I know that he is in a better place now and that his suffering is over.

He had such a great sense of humor. My mom's entire side of her family shares that. On the rare occasion that we were all able to meet up (they lived in FL, some of our family lives in NY, we're in the middle) the house would be full of laughter. He was a great story-teller, and after raising 6 kids there were plenty of stories to tell.

Restless

I am restless. This isn't a new thing. Restlessness has been a part of me starting in adolescence. This year in particular the feeling has dug deep. It has crawled deep into my bones. I wake up, I go to sleep, I pause throughout the day thinking "Am I doing enough? Am I making the most of this life which increasingly moves by at an alarmingly fast pace? What if it ends tomorrow? Will I wish I did more?"

I am so many things. I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an employee, a crafter, a baker, a reader, a wanderer, a dreamer. I am all of these things, but do I fill these roles with as much passion as I can?

For too long now I have felt that I am just going through the motions in so many areas of my life. I feel like I lost that spark, that passion, that makes me live instead of exist. I want to make a concentrated effort to stop more throughout the day and take time to recharge. Even if it means waking up a bit earlier so I can stop and jot down my thoughts in a journal or read a few pages of a book.

Additionally, I want to take more risks. I want to plan the kind of travels that scare me a bit instead of going back to our tried-and-true places. I want to try new restaurants and listen to live music from bands I've never heard before. I want to set foot in cities I've never been in and drive with no destination in mind.

I'm not disillusioned-I know that the motions, the "real life", the chores will still be there. I know that we can't live life continuously pursuing the things that are exciting and new. I just know that right now, I could be more. Much more.

What they don't tell you about an autism diagnosis

A hazard of frequently researching information about autism is constantly seeing people who seek reassurance that their kid is not like mine and other children that are on the autism spectrum. One of the communities I frequent has a near-daily post along the lines of, "My 2 month old is not pointing or waving! My pregnancy was induced and I ate a piece of sushi during pregnancy! Please tell me my child is not Autistic! I will be devastated and will NEVER recover if they are!"

Okay, that is a slight exaggeration for the most part, but the "I will be devastated if my kid is like yours" part? That happens, and it happens frequently. It sucks. I need to make one thing perfectly clear. There is nothing devastating about parenting my kid. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Is it difficult? Well, yes. Isn't parenting difficult at times for everyone? Do I worry? YES. Don't other parents worry? When you take away the logistics of the extra school meetings, the therapies, the extra doctors appointments, and some of the other struggles-when you look at it in its pure, stripped-down form, it's just that-it's parenting. Being a parent to ANY kid regardless of their physical, developmental, or mental struggles, is just that-being a parent. They are our kids, they are amazing, and we are so damn proud of them.

I want so badly to rewire this devastation that people anticipate or expect upon their child, grandchild, nephew, loved one receiving an autism spectrum diagnosis. Let me share with you some of the unanticipated things I have learned over the last 5 months.

You will feel all the feels, but it gets better. I was in a daze after my son received his diagnosis. I remember feeling weak and irritated with myself that I wasn't some super mom who took the news in stride and immediately had him in therapy all while knowing the latest research on autism. Allow yourself to feel sad, confused, shocked, but don't dwell on it. You have things to do! Get moving once you process your emotions. Your family's future probably looks quite a bit different than what you've been envisioning, but that's okay. Before you know it you will know what all the acronyms stand for. You'll have the therapies lined up. You will know your insurance company's call center rep by their first name.

You will find your voice. I am one of the most quiet, socially awkward people you will ever meet. I worried about being able to stand up and advocate for my son. Yeah, no need to worry about that. You will find that voice and advocate. You'll call the therapists out when they cancel 1 too many appointments. You will tell the school that no, this IEP is not a good fit for your child. Best of all? You'll find that you strive for that voice to be constructive. Sometimes it'll border on argumentative, but what you'll want most of all is to change things for the better.

You will celebrate EVERY milestone. When certain things don't come as easily/naturally to your kid as they do to other kids, you will CELEBRATE when they reach new achievements. I cheered so loudly for my son last week when he unzipped his jacket (a first!) that I accidentally scared him. I notice so much more of the milestones and achievements now and celebrate every single one.

You will find ways to make every day things easier on your child. There are certain scenarios where I always assumed "Oh, that's just terrible two's. He's just being a threenager." I later realized that some of the situations where he usually started melting down were related to autism, not toddler behavior. I can tell (for the most part) when he is about to have a meltdown and try redirecting or eliminating the stressor. I prep him for transitions, which reduces so much of his stress. There are just so many little (and big) things you'll learn that will make your child's environment less overwhelming for them.


These are the things I have learned just over the last 5 months. Imagine how much can change in a year's time. If you have a loved one who received an autism diagnosis please know it's not the end of the world. Allow yourself to feel however you feel, but know that in the end your kid is still your kid. Nothing will change that.

School days

The Mickey backpack and the lunch box are being shipped, school handbooks read, forms filled out, and I still find myself unable to wrap my mind around the fact that a school bus will stop in front of the house on Thursday and Cooper will enter the public school system. Although I know this is a positive step in the right direction, I am so scared for him.

My mind goes back to the day we tried dropping him off in the gym's daycare a year or so ago. We got called back 10 minutes later. He sat sobbing at a table while the other kids just stared at him like something was wrong with him. You never want your kid to struggle, to be stared at, to be hurt.

When I look at him I see all of the great things. I see the humor, the wit, his emerging imagination, his hugs, story time cuddles, the pure, unfiltered excitement he displays when he's participating in a preferred activity. I see his sense of accomplishment when he helps me with something, his love for my nephews, and the faces he makes when he's jumping on a trampoline or sliding down a slide.

I see my kid. My 3 year old. I worry that 3 is too young to start school, but then I think of the ways this will help him. He will get to be around kids his own age 4 days a week. He will be led by a teacher that seems to be a great fit. He will be surrounded by some of his favorite things-the alphabet, books, and craft stations. This day showed up a year and a half earlier than we anticipated, but haven't we always done things out of order?