Bri’s Road Test

I’m sure you are wondering why I am driving over two hours away for a road test.  The answer is simple … I live in Massachusetts.

See?

Massachusetts closed down a lot of RMVs (including the one in my town).  Usually I go to the one 30 minutes away, but why would it be simple to schedule a road test in Massachusetts?

I had 3 options.

Option #1.  Schedule through the driving school, pay an extra $165 (after paying over $700 for the classes) for someone to drive Bri to Milford to take the test.

Option #2.  Pay an extra $100 to the driving school for Bri to take the test in our town.

Option #3.  Schedule the test myself and drive her myself and not pay the driving school anything extra.

I chose option #3.  However, when scheduling I checked for anything during the month (any day, any time). 

Within 10 miles … nothing. 

Within 20 miles … nothing. 

Within 50 miles … nothing. 

Within 100 miles … nothing. 

Within 200 miles … oh look, Pittsfield is available.  Ok, we’re driving to Pittsfield.

I am now forced to conclude that the driving school somehow arranged the hurricane.

Hurricane Sandy

On Friday, I went to the grocery store.

Why do I always forget that everyone in New England prepares for every big storm by buying groceries?

Somehow, it surprises me every time!  But as long as I was at the store I figured I should get some extra food as well to make waiting in the extra long line worth it.  At home I unpacked my extra 5 bags of apples, then stared at the gallon of milk, two cartons of eggs and the two packages of tater tots I bought and thought, "when the power goes out, boy will I be grateful for those tots!"

Obviously, I have lost the emergency preparedness skills that come standard in Utah.

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow and you know what else is tomorrow?

Brianne's road test.    Yup, the one that we are driving 2 hours and 15 minutes away to take.  Because why wouldn't there be a hurricane on the one day this year that I scheduled the test?

I don't know who to call to complain about this ... but I know someone who does and I will be calling her to find out who to yell at!

My husband the plumber

I'm sure the reason my husband went to business school was because he wanted to be a plumber. So, It's worked out well for him. I conservatively estimate that he has saved us well over $700 so far this year. The reason? Oh, William + autism + a toilet + trash* = a delightful clog. My husband's new hobby is taking off toilets (aka plumbing). Impressive isn't it? I imagine he talks a lot about his hobby with his co-workers. "Oh, you like to travel?". He could ask, "I can remove a toilet in 1 minute.". I've heard that men like men with skills so I imagine everyone is impressed to hear that. * trash being anything from unwanted crumbled up paper, to sunglasses, to a rubber ball, to a McDonald's toy (Yes, that Happy Meal was totally worth it! Why do you ask?)

Will Hates Voting

This is actually two posts, but I never posted the first and now it's not.

Living in a House of Illness for Two Weeks

Doesn’t that make you want to come over for dinner?  Ok, I’ll plan on Thursday then.

It started about three weeks ago.  I went in Lizzy’s room to wake her up.  She informed me that she wasn’t going to school because she threw up during the night.  The poor girl stayed home until Friday.  On Saturday Will threw up once.  I thought he was better so I sent him to school on Monday.  I felt bad when his school called and said he had a temperature of 100’.  I picked him up.  On Tuesday, Lizzy’s flute teacher got sick and threw up in the middle of Lizzy’s lesson at our house so I drove her teacher home and picked up the flute teacher’s husband from the train station.  On Wednesday Will went back to school.  But Bri stayed home.  And Jacob stayed home on Thursday.  Friday was a school holiday – which was just as well.

William hates Voting -- Probably Because He’s Unpatriotic

The Tuesday that Will was home because he had a fever on Monday I took him on my errands to get him out of the house.  We first went to the local library (That’s what they say on PBS so that’s what Will says.)  I made Will go upstairs with me first so I could look for a book before we went downstairs to the important Dr. Suess containing part.  I wasted his compliant time looking for a movie to watch and he was impatient during my “look for a book time.”  There was some pinching and yelling.  But since the library does not specifically ban yelling but rather focuses on whispering I figure that it was fine.

Will was in a delightful mood by the time we arrived at the elementary school to vote.  I got my ballot and walked over to the booth to mark it.  I glanced at Will in the next booth who was busily marking up the example ballot directions hanging on the wall of the booth.  (He also may or may not have written his name) I tried to stop him but he really wanted to fill in the empty ovals.  I was a little flustered and finished as quickly as I could.  I had Will in one hand and my ballot in the other and stopped at the desk to have me marked down as having voted.  

Will was completely done by this point and started to pinch me.  I used my modified Karate Kid Wax Off move to block him, paired with a “Quiet Hands” instruction.  Something I’ve frequently done in the past but this time it went horribly wrong!  Probably because I was still looking at the people sitting at the desk.  When I twisted my arm away from Will’s talons and brought my elbow around and down, my hand followed and my thumb hit Will forehead.  Usually that would not be a problem … however, this particular day happened to be one of the approximately 17 days per year that I haven’t ripped off my fingernails thus I had something resembling girl fingernails; and my thumb nailed Will in the forehead.  And there was a little blood and there was some crying and there was some apologizing and there was some more pinching.  And I had just told the people at the desk my name and address.  I slunk out of the elementary school pulling my crying 12 year-old behind me and waited for DCF to appear at my door.

But they never came.  I can only assume that someone recognized the Karate Kid Wax Off move as a purely defensive maneuver.  

Being Bullied as a 41 year old

At first I loved going to physical therapy.  I’d lie down on a table and have my knee massaged and ultrasounded (just pretend that word actually exists).  Then things slowly started to change.  At first it was a “just try this exercise” or “ride the exercise bike for 3 minutes on 0 resistance.”  I made excuses for Deb.  “She’s pregnant.”  “She’s probably tired.”  “Give her time,” I thought. 

But slowly it got worse.  I found it much hard to excuse the bridges she wanted me to do.  30!  20 of them with crossed legs!  Last week she asked me to do step-ups!  Step-ups, you might remember, is what caused my quadriceps tendonitis in the first place!  Did she care about me at all?

Finally I’d had enough!  “You’re a bully!”  I stated.

Surprised, she looked at me.  (Probably trying to gaslight me into thinking she’d never heard that before.)  “Are bullies positive and affirming?”  She asked.

“Ok,” I conceded.  “You’re a nice bully.”

She’s probably going to miss me a lot when I stop going to PT.

Exercising is Dangerous

I have quadricep tendonitis from doing step-ups at the Y.  As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten a lot more athletic injuries.  I broke a bone in my foot playing basketball when I was about 12 but that was about it for my youth.  But as an adult I hurt my foot playing kickball with my kids, (I’m sure it had nothing to do with my choice of foot wear – flipflops.) ripped tendons and ligaments in my ankle trying to teach Bri how to ride a bike and now my step-up injury!  What’s next?  Spraining my wrist while trying to change the station on the TV?

Fortunately the treatment for quadricep tendonitis is to sit on my butt for the next six weeks … THANK YOU Universe! … uh, I mean no problem.

Cleaning out my Freezer

If there is any benefit to one’s power being out for four days due to a hurricane, it could be the necessity of cleaning out your freezer.  Although Will nearly went crazy and Marcy and Cheryl still laugh at the contents of my freezer I was glad that the universe forced me to empty it. 

(And I think that many people probably routinely have 14 packages of frozen peas and 8 packages of frozen mango in their freezer.)

But I’m curious about what the universe was trying to say to me when my power went out again over the Halloween weekend.  I had replaced some of the peas.  I had 4 packages.

Was that the problem?  Universe, do you not want me to buy peas unless I’m going to eat them?

….

I’m going to stop buying peas because I think it’s safer.

How much money does it cost to buy an email address?

Because I’m seriously considering making an offer.  When I set up my email address I tried to use my full name (because I’m creative like that).  My name was taken.  So, I added a middle initial.

Bingo.   

But I have no idea how often people leave off that pesky initial and my email is sent to another, luckier similarly named person.

People in the PAC, both PACs, have sent emails to someone who I assume doesn’t care about our fundraisers or activities and even Marcy sometimes does if her email pulls up wrong me’s address.  Suddenly the whole carrot soup fiasco makes sense!  I never got the recipe from Marcy … wrong me did.

Today I found out that wrong me also has been getting emails from Will’s home supervisor … for over a month.  This woman met me.  I’m surprised she thought I would just ignore Will’s programing.  I change his programing if I think something else is better.  I reject badly written programming.  I’ve been directing his home programing for seven years.  I “fired” his last supervisor because I asked for a new pinching program because extinction wasn’t working and the supervisor took over a month to write me a crappy extinction program.  Let me put it this way – Will was folding clothes and emptying silverware at 4 because I decided he was capable and his therapists wrote programs for anything I wanted him to do.

I am not the person who will ignore programing emails for over a month.  This supervisor is new, so perhaps she doesn’t know that.  And who knows?  Maybe wrong me has need of a pinching or conversation program.  

I sent wrong me an email today.  (I didn’t call her wrong me because I’m thoughtful like that.)  I said if she gets emails about autism, kids or carrot soup recipes; it’s probably for me and would she please forward them to right me.

I’m crossing my fingers.

Salted by ?

I signed paperwork to buy the house for the second time.  (You know that it doesn’t always take, right?)  Then I met my realtor at the house for the final walkthrough.  She was concerned about a crappy attempt at winterization.  A piece of pipe with the shut off valve lay on the kitchen floor.  I noticed pipes leading to and from the heating system were missing.  The more we looked the more pipe we noticed had vanished.

Copper Pipe Thieves = +1

Us = -2

Buying a House can be Taxing

I mentioned that we decided to buy a house; rent it out and then if everything goes well have enough money in 15 years to buy Will a house.  Well, we found a house but it’s bank owned and unfortunately, the bank that owns it is insane.

Case in point – on Tuesday my real estate agent dropped by my house to give me back the earnest money check.  “Why?”  I asked.  She didn’t know.  The bank had insisted on a bank check ten times the normal amount, rather than a personal check and now they were handing it back less than a week before we hoped to close on the house.  I took it to my bank.  “I’d like to redeposit this.”  I said but, of course, my name wasn’t on the check and I didn’t have the receipt.  I barely returned home before I received an email asking me to wire the same amount I’d just deposited.

(Aside – moments like these are the reason I deserve a Greek Chorus! Curses!)  I went back in the next day to wire the money.  If I’d been wise I might have looked at the return of the money as a present from karma and foreshadowing that the universe might not want me to buy this house.  But I’m nothing if not stupid persistent!

On Friday we signed paperwork that may or may not work depending upon whether or not we can get the last paperwork from the town because the darn bank doesn’t want to spend $100 to send someone out to the house to replace some keyed locks with doorknobs!  Gosh and all we have to deal with is a hole in the basement ceiling that wasn’t there when we made the offer, an expired rate lock and an insane bank.

Because all of my plans always seem to work out

I’m sure that nothing could possibly go wrong with our latest plan.  Yesterday morning must just have been some odd aberration and not in any way foreshadowing that my husband and I are making an awful mistake and that the universe is gathering to pelt us with pestilence and/or scoop out the little section of earth we are buying.

We, like most parents of kids with special needs, worry about our kid’s future: how to fund a special needs trust, where he will live, what he will do, who will take care of him.  So, we decided to buy a house, rent it out and hopefully in a few years have an asset we can use to either fund a trust, or use that money to buy a house for Will to live in.

This morning I went to the bank to get a cashier’s check for our earnest money.  I waited in line. When I got to the desk I was told their machine that prints cashier checks was broken.  When the teller saw the look of panic and horror on my face, he suggested that I drive to another branch which I did . . . through all the construction.  My realtor told me who to make the check out to and for how much.  Naturally, the teller at the other branch asked me what the initials stood for . . . ??? . . .  She said that could be a problem.  It was.

I tried calling my realtor.  She didn’t answer.  I tried calling my husband.  He didn’t answer.  The bank teller looked up the phone number of the company doing the financing.  They transferred me to another branch, which gave me the cell phone number of the woman doing our paperwork.  She didn’t answer.  I called our lawyer.  She answered but had no idea what the initials stood for.  Fortunately she called me back five minutes later with a pretty good guess – that ended up being correct.  So, an hour after I arrived at the first bank I dropped off the check at the realtor’s office.

I am trying to fully prepare for the bank to drop kick us.

My Husband’s Navigator and I are Having Issues

Some days you should just turn over in bed, pull the covers over your head and stay there.  The problem lies in figuring out if it’s one of those days before you get up and what you will do that will trigger the ensuing collapse of society.

My problem today involved driving.  I fully expected the little woman who lives in my husband’s navigator to climb out, slap me across the face, unplug the navigator from the cigarette lighter and throw herself out the window.

Will and Jake are taking a sailing class in Boston.  My husband’s navigator’s maps are a couple years old, and it’s Boston.  Things have changed.  It’s easier to find places now that The Big Dig is over but come on, if you don’t know where you are – you don’t belong here!

So, the last time I drove them into Boston the woman in the navigator told me to get off the Pike and drive through Boston and go through the Callahan Tunnel.  Which is absurd as the pier is very close to Logan.  I figured it made so much more sense to stay on the Pike.  Today I decided to ignore the woman and then assume she’d forgive me and help me find my way once I was close to the pier.

And my plan would have worked to . . . except, I forgot that I’d lose the satellite in the tunnel and it took so long to get it back and the little woman only knew one way to get there and it was the original way she wanted us to go and the next thing I knew I was headed back towards Boston and there wasn’t a turn off before the Pike entrance and I thought, “Well, there goes another $3.50.”  Then unfortunately we lost the satellite again and ended up driving back through the Callahan Tunnel to get there.  I should have just listened to the little woman in the first place!

I do have a plan to outwit her next week.  I shall sneak out of the house and follow one of the three people who offered instead of listening to the little woman who clearly likes to be obeyed!  Besides I think she cursed me.  Because after the sailing lesson we went back to the car to find that we and another car were blocked in.  Someone had parked right behind us.  A policeman was standing right there looking at the cars.  “Is that your car?”  He asked.  Then he walked off to find out whose it was.

We waited for a few minutes then saw a woman with bare feet, obviously in pain, and a little off slowly and painfully make her way to the car.  She got in, rummaged around for a while then walked back.  I motioned the policeman over.  “Is she alright?”  I asked.

He told me she’d refused medical help and had lost her keys.  I saw them walking around looking for the keys on the grass.  I told Jake to get out of the car and we’d help them look for the keys because I wanted to leave!  I walked around looking at the ground.  Jake chased a few birds then started looking too.  The woman started yelling, “Smitty, Smitty they’re going to tow the truck!”

The policeman asked me if she was yelling to anyone.  I didn’t think so.  She started yelling intermittently.  Then turned the other direction and started yelling to another person.  At that point I went back to car.  Only to discover the car next to me was gone!  “How did it get out?” I asked Amy.  Then a man standing next to the car said he could get me out too.  “Seriously?”  I asked, “How?”  My car was completely blocked in.

He did it.  I basically moved my car parallel to the next parking space by pulling forward and back while turning then backed out diagonally.  He saved me an hour and I told him I would marry him but I was already married.  (Surprisingly, I don’t think he was interested in my offer.)

“You don’t need a house, you need a bigger car!”

My husband said in response to my complaints about my day as I was driving home from dropping the kids off at swim practice.

Wednesday’s Schedule:

Briefly mourn husband being out of town

7:30-8:30 Get assorted kids really for school buses

9-12:15 Teach classes at the Y

(12:15 Wonderful Marcy takes Bri to her friend’s house so I don’t have to rush her to her piano lesson during Will’s therapy.)

12:30 Show up one half hour early to Parent Group Meeting at Will’s school – I briefly consider voting myself in as President but reconsider as I’m too lazy.

Lizzy gets off her bus, walks home and a friend picks her up for a play date

1-2:30 Parent Group Meeting

2:30 Take Will and drive home

3:15-5:15 Will Therapy

5:30- 6:15 Pick up Bri from piano lesson and drop her off at a pool party

6:50-8:45 Lizzy gets dropped off, then I take Jake to scouts (Will busy with iPad, I read, Lizzy runs around with other kids like hooligan)

9:00 Bri dropped off at home

Thursday’s Schedule

Briefly mourn husband being out of town

7:30-8:30 Attempt to wake up grumpy Lizzy, feed other children, send them to school.  Drop Lizzy off at her bus stop without eating breakfast and with unbrushed hair.  [I don’t feel so bad about the lack of breakfast as her first class at Summer Scene is No Bake Cooking.  Unfortunately, she later informs me that they made cucumber sandwiches which she DID NOT LIKE! (Emphasis mine.)]  Thus, I remain blissfully unaware of my child’s hunger for several hours.

8:45-9:20 Write blog post about 4^th of July Fireworks

9:30-11 SP-ED PAC Board meeting, I attempt to redeem myself as sub-par secretary by taking notes on meeting.

11-4:30  Return home pick up Bri, talk to Linda on the phone (attempt to hurry Bri as I suddenly had a brilliant idea to pick up Lizzy from Summer Scene instead of waiting for the bus to drop her off because that will give me an extra 30 minutes.  Unfortunately, the mountain moves for no one and my plan fails miserably.)  Bri and I return home to wait for the bus.  The three of us drive to Uno’s for lunch with Marcy and Dav.  We were having a fundraiser for Lose the Training Wheels which we are bringing to town in August.  I speed home to drop off the girls then back to pick up Jake from his summer program.  Decide he should have a sleepover.  Drive him to Holliston for EmPOWER tutoring.  Stop at a grocery store on the way home for apples.  

4:30-5:30 Unload the groceries, shove something in kids’ mouths, yell at them to hurry, drive them to swim meet, drop them off, return home and decide I don’t want to wash dishes.  I’d rather veg.

8:00-9:10 Bri calls and says the meet is over.  I drive to pick them up.  Husband says on phone I need a bigger car in response to complaining over busy summer and grumpy children.  Arrive at pool, Lizzy is missing, talk to other parent while Bri attempts to remove Lizzy from friends in the locker room.  Drive home with two girls and Jake’s friend Ben.  Feed Lizzy grapes then put her in bed.

9:20 Go on walk with Linda

Wash Dishes

11?  Boys go to bed.

Spit at summer.

I hate feeling like I’m losing to an eight year old

But to be honest . . . sigh, I’ve been on the losing side since she was two.  Once she has made up her mind about something that is THE END.  That idea or event or whatever has been graven in stone, hauled up to the tallest mountain and is being guarded by rabid monkeys; and the only possible way for anything to change involves long-winded explanations or cajoling or apologizing. 

 

My dad loves hearing about Lizzy because he believes the Cosmos is giving him payback for enduring me as a child, and even when he’s sympathetic he has a tone – a tone that lets me know that to some extent he’s enjoying my agony.

However, I feel it only fair to warn him that I’ve been keeping track of my chits.  And when Lizzy’s chits begin to outweigh mine I’m shipping her to his house for a summer.

 

Dad, her birthday party is today.  I figure she’s good for about twenty in the next two hours alone.

. . . And Then My Brain Fell Out

I pulled out all the stuff to decorate the Christmas tree a couple of days ago.  I hoped that my kids would decorate it all and I wouldn’t have to do anything but that still hasn’t happened.  Maybe next year.  The kids put the lights on the tree and we plugged it in.  Only to see that half the lights didn’t work so we halted work on the tree and left four boxes of Christmas crap in the living room for two days while I meant to go to the store and buy lights.

Yesterday, I gave up and asked Bri to take the lights off the tree and put on the multi-colored lights we had, while I went to an autism nutrition thing.  It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and that’s a couple of hours I won’t get back.  Moving on.  I came home and half a strand of lights was on the tree.

Today I went to the store and bought lights.  I was a little perturbed to see they were double the price I thought they were but standing in the line for 10 minutes for three pairs of gloves alone wouldn’t be worth it and I bought them anyway.  I returned home and started unwinding the multi-colored lights.  I opened the first box to see white wiring!  Yes, white!  I was so frustrated.  I was about to put them on the tree anyway; however, upon examination of the boxes (perhaps, I should have done that in the store – but it’s actually Jane’s fault because I was talking to her on the phone) I noticed they were icicle lights.  This is technically the point when my brain fell out of my head.

So, I put the half working strand of white lights back on the tree.  Unfortunately, Jake stepped on some of the lights, at which point they started blinking.  So, I have a tree with working lights going around twice and wide swath of darkness and then the top half of the tree is blinking.  Yea, seriously.

We decorated the tree.  I started packing up the boxes and at the bottom of one I hadn’t looked through yet, I found three unopened boxes of white lights. 

That sound you just heard was karma slapping my face.

Mom ... Mom ... Mom!

Bri is away at sleep away camp this week. My husband is in Palo Alto. And I’m a little lonely. My friend’s son is away for six weeks and I feel a ton of sympathy for her. If it were Bri, about week three, I’d have to go bust her out!

Lizzy and Jake are spending their time together arguing. I get to hear things like: “Lizzy went in my room! I hate it when she goes in my room! Can I get an alarm?” And all I can think of is that he wants a cage hovering over his door ready to drop on Lizzy when she puts a toe in his room. It wouldn’t work … except probably on William.

But Lizzy isn’t the innocent victim. For over a week she had a sign on her door that read No Boys Allowed! In her defense she did mean both Jake and Will -- but Will ignored the sign. But listening to their arguing is causing me to seriously consider becoming a nun. Oh … wait, I’m not catholic and it’s too late to do me any good!

At this point, I’m waiting for the “she’s looking at me” or the “he’s breathing” complaint.

Summer is kicking my butt!

Will and the Toilet

We have only changed two things in our glorious peach bathroom. I attempted to remove the peach, baby blue and green 80s era wallpaper and we replaced the peach toilet with a less garish white one.

Will broke the toilet lid. I can’t even fully express my happiness at the fact that he broke the one thing that was not ugly in that room. Why not the Formica makeup counter or the tan specked soap holder? I’d even be happier if he had broken the tan specked tile towel holder! But, no; I think Karma either has a wicked sense of humor or is severely pissed off at me. And if it is the case of the latter I want to take this opportunity to sincerely and humbly apologize to Karma.

(I try not to mess with Karma because it never works out well for me – because well, I have a couple of kids that freelance for her.)

I need to buy a replacement lid and quickly because an open tank is an invitation to Will to be inventive. Case in point, I kept hearing the water run in the toilet and when I investigated I found that Will had stuffed a package of wet wipes down the drain. I don’t know what he’ll stuff down there next but I have a feeling I won’t like it.