Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Borders' Loss, My Gain

A few weeks back when Borders was having their liquidation sale, I bought several books I didn't really need, but I also snagged a huge bulletin board for $10.  The same size at The Container Store was $70 and this one was in great condition and needed just some paint and fabric (it's Dwell Studio and unfortunately at $16/yard was more expensive than the actual bulletin board, but I fell in love with it).  This morning I finished it - and it looks great!  I can't wait for Jeff to hang it up in the girls' room.  Yes, I have a fear of hanging things on plaster walls so I need my husband to do it for me.  I'm excited to see the cute things that M & JJ want to put up.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Tackling the To-Do-List

There have been 3 or 4 things on my to-do-list for awhile now and I've crossed a few of them off in the last few days:

Dr.'s appt. (Friday)
Finish bulletin board for girls' room (in progress)
Get maternity & kids clothes ready to sell/get rid of (in progress)
Thompson Center paperwork (currently working on and taking a break to talk about how laborous it is to fill out pages and pages of questions regarding the last 6 years of M's life.)

Seriously - I should have kept better records when she was a baby because I can't remember when she first rolled over or ate her first grape, or gave her first monologue.  NO, she has wasn't waxing poetic as a toddler, but I do remember the first time she said "I love you" and sang the alphabet, and it was way earlier than she was supposed to because it freaked.me.out.  Thanks to the wonder of camcorders, we have a few of these things on tape so the exact dates are known.  I remember being worried about JJ because she was 18 months and didn't know all of her colors and geometric shapes.  Not to worry, I was told.  That's what they call NORMAL. 

Filling out these forms makes me feel, once again, that I am way more in touch with M's development than JJ's.  It brings on the mom guilt even more.  Also the fact that M got her educational diagnosis of Autism in March and her neurologist suggested back in May that we go to the Thompson Center and I am just now getting around to finishing the stack of forms.  What can I say, I was overwhelmed.  I always feel overwhelmed.

I went to counseling this morning and of course severely depleted the supply of Kleenex in her office.  And now I have golf ball eyes for the rest of the day.  I swear, sometimes when I pick up the girls I think their schools think I'm on drugs because my eyes are red and puffy.  And you would think after 4 years I would be done with counseling, but after several starts and stops, I am right back there.  And I recently started over with a new counselor, which is so hard because you have to retell things so that they have context.  Exhausting.  So after I got back and realized that I couldn't really go anywhere else today where people might see my face, I figured I would finally get this packet ready to go in the mail.  It's taken me all afternoon, but I am almost finished.