Eat at Joe's

Tonight Joe's Crab Shack had a special event where a percentage of your bill would go towards Autism Speaks.  We usually go to Sonic on Wednesday nights because they have Wacky Pack Wednesday where all the kids meals are only $1.99.  Whoo Hooo!  So today when my wonderful husband asked if I wanted to go to Joe's I thought he was asking me out on a date.  Nope, turns out he wanted to support Autism.  I was happy to do that too.

So we load up the kids and head to Joe's.  To be honest this was a bit out of our comfort zone as we usually try to stick with fast food or buffets since Z has a hard time understanding why, when he tells the waiter he wants macaroni and cheese, it takes so long to actually get the stuff, but we were open to giving it a try.  So armed with ipads (Z), nintendo 3ds'(J), and nerves of steele (Me), we entered Joe's.

At first it wasn't so bad.  There were relatively few people there and it was pretty quiet.  They seated us at a table which made me wonder for a second if we should ask to be moved to a booth for better Z containment  but our waiter had already left so we decided to stick it out.  Z loved the decorations and wanted to run around a touch the 5ft fish, spin around on the swivel chairs in the bar (did you know you are not allowed to sit in on a swivel bar stool if you are under 21?  I think that is silly considering that if you are drinking your chances of falling off a swivel stool are much higher than if you are sober and most kids want to sit in the swivel chairs and they are under 21.  I really think they should rethink that idea, but I digress).  For the most part we did ok, Z ordered macaroni and cheese, J got calamari and french fries and Brandon and I got various types of shrimp.

Z tired quickly of the restaurant when he discovered his needing to wait until age 21 to partake of the swivel chairs so he began to ask loudly for the macaroni and cheese.  We kept explaining to him they were cooking it and to be patient.  He actually did really good with the exception of the time where he wanted to check out the bucket of food of the older, single, male, diner at the table next to us.  I saw Z head towards the bucket and my first thought was "oh please grab him before he beheads a lobster", my second on was "please don't let Z start playing with the lobster".  Luckily he just wanted to see what was in the bucket and Brandon managed to pull him back to our table.  Whew, crisis averted.

A little while later our food arrived.  Poor Z took one look at the soupy macaroni and cheese and pushed it away.  Oh shoot, crisis mode.  I quickly turned to the waiter and asked him to immediately put in chicken strips for Z.  He was such a sweetie and was so good about doing that.  I was fine paying for two kids meals I just wanted poor Z to get something to eat, bless his baby heart.  The ipad was keeping his occupied at this time and not too long later they brought out his chicken fingers which he quickly ate with abandon.

After finishing his chicken Z was done and so was I so I took him to the car while Brandon and J waited for the bill and got some of our leftovers to go.  Brandon came to the car where I waited to hear what our final bill was.  Brandon looked at me with moist eyes and told me there was no bill.  The older, single, gentleman who had almost had his food inspected/eaten/played with my Z bought our dinner for us.  I was floored.  The waterworks started and I was totally amazed.  We had just been to camp last week and talked about how many times we get so much unwanted, negative attention and here we were at a place where the man could have been annoyed, irritated, and angry at Z's interference with his dinner and instead paid for our family to eat out.

It was an amazing experience.

Good-Bye Deming House

I'm having a bitter-sweet day today.  Some of you know that last summer J and I spent much of our summer (about 5-6 weeks) at Children's Hospital in their outpatient day program trying to work through J's medications.  During that time I lived at the Ronald McDonald House on Deming Place in Lincoln Park a few blocks from the Hospital.  We had stayed there during a prior stay at in the program a few years before but not for as long.  It was an amazing experience and made a very difficult experience much easier.  We were so grateful for the love and support of the staff of the house and made many friends that are still friends to this day.

The reason today is bitter-sweet is that the Deming house is closing.  Children's Hospital has built a new hospital closer to Northwestern and the Ronald McDonald House organization has build a new building to accommodate all the families they are anticipating will need treatment in the new hospital.  It's an amazing new building that will house many families with a much easier way to check in and stay in the facility.  All of these things are great and will make it so much easier for families who need to be near their children who are in need of help.  Thank you, Ronald McDonald House!!

Here's the sad part.  They are tearing down Deming House.  Yep.  It's going to be torn down.  It's a beautiful old house that was only the second Ronald McDonald House in the country and it's been sold and will be torn down.  It was such a friendly place.  As you walked through the rooms you could imagine the previous occupants living there.  The kitchens were amazing, the sitting rooms were beautiful, the parlor was a study in beautiful molding.  The staff made it personal and homey.

The new location is going to be ran more like a hotel.  They will have 24 hour front desk staff and each floor will be self sufficient.  I'm hoping we will not need to stay there because staying there means the boys need medical attention but also because it will remind me of the loss of our beautiful home away from home that brought us such comfort during such a difficult time of our life.

Thank you, Deming House.  You are loved and will be missed.

Mom wins the mice war

While we were away the mice played and Grandpa went to battle.  The mice are gone!!  Grandpa killed the cheeky little ....... well you understand.  We were blessed by Grandpa coming in while we were away to deal with our mice problem to spare Josh the terror of seeing his furry friends killed in brutal and horrible ways and mom the frustration of various mice catching methods failing miserably.  The main issue was walking into the house with the boys and finding a dead mouse laying in the middle of my floor.  Blech.

Thank you, Brandon, for getting rid of the cheeky ........ and restoring peace to my home.  After I steam cleaned the floors and all surfaces that is.  I feel much better now.

Camp Happens

I've been away from my computer for a couple weeks so I've not posted. The end of school, beginning of Family Camp and several events in our family have all contrived to curtail my blogging but I've managed to steal a few moments thanks to a rain storm so I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity.

Most of my posts have been about Autism but I'm going a different direction this time around.  I want to talk about Joni and Friends Family Camp.  Joni Erickson Tada is a woman who when she was a teenager dove into a shallow lake and broke her neck.  She managed to take the initial bitterness and turn her life into an amazing testimony of disability rights, and opportunities in the Christian community.  One of the fantastic ministries born of her dedication is Family Camp.

Family Camp is for families of children/adults with either/or physical, mental, or developmental disabilities.  They have STM (short term missionaries) who pay to come to camp for a week and are teamed up with both the children and their siblings to give the whole family a way to spend the week together.  The kids are aided by the STMs from breakfast to bedtime giving mom and dad time to spend together or with the family doing everything from horseback riding to going on a Zip Line.  It's basically a week of being taken care of and loved on.  The astounding thing is that even the STMs pay to come to camp!  Yes, you read that right, people actually pay to come and take care of you.  Who does that?  Well for us it was 4 amazing people who made my boys happy and comfortable and allowed me to decompress.

We are happy to be home but miss our new friends.  It seems like camp passes so quickly!!  What an amazing time was had by all and we can't wait for next summer.  If you are interested in more information please let me know and I will provide any and all information I can.

Good is good.

All over the place

It's been an interesting week.  I'm still not sure what to do with J and his mood swings, or with Z and whether his OCD is just the Autism or if it's a side effect of medication.  That being said we had a great week with the boys.  J played outside several times and continues to show himself as a fun, quirky child.  Z is acting more and more like a 9yo typical boy by getting into dirt and insisting on bringing all kinds of bugs and creatures into the house to examine more closely.  

I think, for me, I struggle with being too much in the "moment".  When we are in the midst of J running away from home and being worried about the "nosy" neighbor calling the cops about the child being attacked by two grown men I tend to go into fix-it mode.  Planning out how we are going to keep this from happening again.  The reality is that that was a moment.  It was one moment.  There were a few moments at various times of the week, a couple at school and a couple at home but they were all that, just moments.  I think for me I need to realize that until the moments become more hours or days I need to realize that they need to be dealt with, not necessarily fixed.  By focusing on the moments I'm possibly missing the big picture and treating minutia when, in reality, things are going pretty good.

Since it's Sunday, I'm going to wax spiritual for a moment.  I think this is what I do spiritually as well.  I get caught up in the moments of this life.  I focus on what is happening here in this life and how to fix it and how hard it is and allow it to swallow me up sometimes.  The reality is that this life is but a moment in the span of eternity, LOL, and for that I am grateful.

MAMA vs the Mouse....this means war

Alright.  I've had it.  I have been more than patient with these mice.  I've tried to trap them humanely and have approached them in the most PETA sensitive way possible.  That is now officially over.

This mama is mad.

You know what this mouse did?  He chewed one of my Vera Bradley bags!!  Can you believe it???!!!???  The audacity!!  The little @#$%#@ thinks he can come in here, eat my food, poop on my floors and eat my VERA bags???  He's got another think coming!!

I admit, this was one of my bags that I got from the thrift store and I did leave it on the floor with some crackers I had not finished from the day before open inside it......BUT, it's VERA!!!!!

Where can I buy dynamite?

What a week!

Sometimes things are really going great and sometimes things are really a challenge, and sometimes they are really great and really a challenge all at the same time.  Well, we are in the middle of one of those times.  This is my get real time and that was why I started this blog.  To let people see the real side of being a family dealing with autism and for other families of kids with autism to see that they are not alone, so here's where we get real.

We have had a week.  It seems like both boys have hit the wall this week and I'm still reeling.  I have to preface this statement with the disclaimer that this type of thing happens for us typically once or possibly twice a year.  It almost seems to cycle for the boys, but prior to this they have been on different cycles.  Z's cycle has been to be more difficult in the fall and J's has been pretty much during this time but they have typically been over their issues by the time the other child hits their cycle so we just go from one cycle to the other.  Tiring but not overwhelming.  All that to say, we have been here before.  This time, however, both boys suddenly seem to be on the same cycle.  They both seem to suddenly be not handling things very well and we are struggling to figure out what is the underlying cause.  

The biggest issue is that they are both, at the same time as they are struggling, having huge advances with social awareness, interaction, communication, etc.  We see the amazing things we saw last week where they played together but this week where J wanted to kill himself because I had him get off the computer and Z kept getting into the garage and climbing onto the minivan because he could not stop obsessing over going to Toys R Us.  What is this?  What craziness takes over my poor kids minds?  Are the medications causing this or do I need to increase their doses to help them cope?  Do we lose the interaction and communication if we lose the obsession and mood swings?  

My greatest fear is that we will spend another summer like last summer where we had so much of the summer spent with J in the hospital and I'm worried that Z is going that same path.  I feel so much like I am in a constant battle with a huge dark monster that is Autism that sometimes is amazing and beautiful and smart and funny and cute.  Do I fight it?  Do I embrace it?  Do I mimic it?  Do I ignore it?  And the biggest question of all, when is "it" Autism and when is "it" my wonderful, beautiful, amazing, child?

Why would a faithful God?  Tonight I think I'm going to have to just sit quietly and wait for the answer.