Goodness! What is wrong with me? I want chocolate!! I submitted to my craving and made chocolate covered strawberries. We will have them after dinner. I thought they looked so pretty that I would share a picture of them. They are fine looking specimens and the melted Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are tasty. Hmm…Tasty.

Can you tell I am a little off?

I am excited and nervous about going to dance class again this week. Also, I am going to a play at the community theater in a couple of weeks with my mom and sisters for my sister’s birthday. I am looking forward to that as well as finding out the weekend that mom and I are going to Savannah there is a music festival! We are both excited, and kind of bummed. We discovered the concerts are quite pricey and after thinking about it there will be a lot more people roaming the streets.

The good news is that there could be other cool things happening because of the event.

I may be roaming the streets at night by myself since mom is usually in bed by 8:00pm and then up at 2:30am. She said she could stay up later than eight, we will see. I am ok with that I am used to her going to bed and me entertaining myself. Ha ha ha I am completely babbling because I have a lot rolling around in my head. I tried to stop my information consumption, but I cannot seem to do it. The book that I started reading is getting me thinking even more!  I am through the first chapter and I have a ton of things I want to talk about. I cannot get my thoughts organized though because I am obsessed with mythology at the moment and owls. AND everything is connecting to everything then, making me think of a billion other things.

Breathe… (Llama??)

Alright I am finished. Lol! I am excited at how well the kids are doing with school though. Yea! Again, they are arguing because of miscommunication, but school is going well. The miscommunication going on is pretty intense. All three of them are taking words and actions the wrong way from each other and from David and me. Maybe it is a sibling thing, I don’t know. David says that he had similar issues with his brothers. They were all fairly close in age so I guess it could be the situation. I am trying really hard to help them stay calm with each other and explain how they have misunderstood. Maybe this is why I am feeling off. Daniel and Joshua have been playing really well together, but if Joshua is done, Daniel gets so upset. Ariel wants a girl to play with she is “tired” of the boys.

She said she would like a robot.

Oh, well I suppose I had better get used to this kind of stuff. I just find it all so confusing sometimes. I have to share pictures of what Joshua has been creating. Since we got the Lego catalog he has been requesting all of the Batman Lego sets. We told him that he has to wait until his birthday that is in June. (He is talking about it every day.) He has decided to build his own sets until he gets the “real” ones. He creates all of them on his own — they are awesome. The other day he built an entire scene from the Batman Wii game. He also made a Penguin submarine and action figure for Daniel so they could play together. As well as building guys and robots from Robotech. I have pictures of their handwriting, drawings, and other things. Um… a lot of pictures.

Just because…

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This morning started out pretty well. I had my plans for school floating in my head, I was quickly typing out some poems that I remembered from my dreams last night, and just as I was finishing up to get ready to prepare breakfast…the tornado of Daniel came sweeping under my chair kicking and screaming. Through the yells it was revealed that he wanted a toy spider that he could not find. It started because for some reason Ariel and Joshua decided they wanted to play with toy bugs this morning. Daniel has not spoken about this spider in months, I mean MONTHS! I knew exactly which spider he was referring to because a couple weeks ago when I went into a cleaning frenzy and organized all of their toys once again, in my mad cleaning spree I saw this spider.

The spider had been in the corner of the kitchen hidden under various other objects.

It was hiding in a place that I had not seen because quite honestly I was completely overwhelmed with all of the random small pieces or mismatched toys that clustered various small places in this house. The toys that should go in a lost and found box for later, but somehow Daniel seems to think they belong in corners of the house, under my blankets on my bed, randomly placed in my closet, or completely dumped in any or all rooms of the house. I have pictures of these toy dumps for just today that I will convince him later that he needs to help me clean up. However, it will mainly be me or David cleaning it up. Yes, yes the spider.

I had to tell him that I threw it away.

WHY?? Why did I do such an evil vile thing? On purpose?! I will not go into detail, but will only say aggressive much? The last couple weeks have been the delayed reaction to the holidays. The kids in their own way have been having small meltdowns, but nothing major. Daniel has been aggressive off and on for about two weeks, but his recovery time and his aggressive behaviors have not been anywhere near what they used to be. I forget how much of a toll this takes on me because I am in reaction mode, then I wonder why I feel the need to stim for hours. This morning was pretty bad though. It was so bad that I had my own meltdown. I couldn’t help it. I was overwhelmed with being derailed once again for school and trying to pull myself together to get us able to focus and accomplish what we needed to for today.

I could not control my outburst.

It was not directed at the kids. I was trying to finish my thoughts because I was stuck and needed to get them out. Daniel was screaming at me, and kicking the back of my chair. Then, David asked: “Don’t you need to go to Target?” That did not sit well with me. I had no control over my words, and went in and started breakfast. I was throwing bread of course, and tossing eggs. Then, I stopped, put my head in my arms and kept repeating: “I can’t get back, I can’t get back.” while stomping my foot and almost crying. I was completely derailed. I have been struggling for weeks to get back to our schedule. It isn’t going well. The kids are being argumentative about school, and I am trying my best to stay motivated myself.

Long story short I had to apologize to David.

Daniel had to apologize to me. I went to Target and cried in the vitamin aisle, then felt guilt for having a meltdown. I did not find a spider so I had to go to two other stores and finally found one. If I did not get a spider Daniel would not have been able to move forward for who knows how long. I came home, gave him the spider and all was well with him anyway. Joshua and Ariel is another story. Joshua has been highly emotional lately and feeling like everyone is leaving him out. It does not make sense to me at all because no one is. It really causes me  confusion, which is never good because that makes me anxious. I don’t know how to help or even understand it. Ariel is transitioning from little girl to girl, and that has a whole other dynamic that I can relate to. I just was not expecting it at seven years old.

It’s all quite interesting.

The positive is that recovery time today and the other days have been short for the kids. I think part of my meltdown today was that I have been holding this stuff in and trying to put out fires forgetting that it affects me too. When Daniel is aggressive I have to be on my toes trying to save things in the house, stop him from throwing things, slamming doors, breaking the toys that he loves. I don’t know why he always goes to destroy his favorite toys. He always gets so upset after they are broken, it makes it worse. Wait…after thinking about it I have done the same thing. Maybe it is because we are so upset it makes us even angrier to see something that can make us happy. Possibly a form of control. Who knows I am analyzing to escape.

I am still overwhelmed and will need this day to recover.

We did finish all of our school work. Daniel completed everything and even brought me a social skills book saying: “I want to read this today. It is my favorite.” It was perfect because it has visuals and the wrong way and the right way to do things. It is this book The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism excellent resource. Daniel and Joshua are playing together and it is like nothing ever happened this morning. I am fine with that actually I am elated by that, but I am exhausted. I feel like I wrestled with a rhinoceros or something and I lost. It is already better so I am trying to get back on track by writing this out.

I did watch another TED video that I thought was worth sharing Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter …

Even if you feel no interest in watching the whole thing I do recommend listening to her poems in the beginning and at the end. It is a good reminder that the bad days always get better. BUT I will say it is excellent to watch she is a poet and the way that she talks about it explains my brain with poems. Project V.O.I.C.E.looks awesome!

I have been allowing the poems that are flooding through me to come out.

It is part of accepting my means of processing. I think I may feel some poems coming regarding my emotions for today, and tomorrow the kids and I are going to write some poems. I am going to see if they will be able to write some of what they have been feeling the last few weeks. The more that I listened to Sarah Kay the more I say even if you do not feel like a poet it is definitely worth watching. It is helpful to be reminded that others relate even if you do not hear from them or know it, or have consuming feelings like you have nothing to contribute. You do have a story to share and it matters.

Whatever your form of communication is — your voice matters.

Title of gallery “New Spider & Random Toy Dumps”

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Ariel gave me the title of this post. I wanted to share this story because it is another developmental progression for Daniel. The whole thing started with Daniel getting very angry at his Perplexus game. In the last few months he has been working on the concept of winning and losing. He does not like to lose. He had been twisting and turning the game trying to get the tiny ball through the maze, almost winning multiple times. Finally, it got to him that he was not winning. He started to cry, and asked “Why am I not winning?”

It took some time to calm him down.

I managed to get him to lift his head from his hands, and look up by losing at the game several times myself. I lost and then expressed myself by saying things like “Oh, darn I lost again. I will keep trying, I guess.”He started to look at me and then would put his face in his hands and say: “Oh, no. Oh, no.” He told me to stop one time, but then I said something about being done playing and trying again later. He was not satisfied, but calmed down some.

He then got upset again.

However, this time he went on the couch and covered himself with a blanket. I asked him if he was alright, and he said: “No.” He continued to say things that I could not decipher, but then we had this conversation: (Joshua is upstairs with David, daddy time.)

Daniel: I’m leaving.

Me: You are leaving? Where are you going?

Daniel: I am leaving far, far away. (He looked at me then, he covered himself with the blanket again.)

Me: Are you going to Mars?

Daniel: Yes, I am going to Mars.

Me: In a rocket ship?

Daniel: Yes, I just did. It takes for a long time.

Me: What is it like on Mars?

Daniel and Ariel: All red.

Daniel: Venus is yellow.

Ariel: Now I am going to Mars. Look Daniel is the first kid on Mars. No wait we are the first two kids on Mars.

After all of that they decided to leave Mars and read some books.

There are some major things that Daniel did today. He understood a little more today that it is alright if you lose. He was able to calm himself, with little help from me. He has never made a statement about leaving before, which prompted me to ask him if he knew what that meant. Here is the conversation:

Me: Daniel do you know what it means to leave?

Daniel: It means to go somewhere, because I was mad.

Me: What or who were you mad at?

Daniel: At brain (that’s what he calls his game “my brain”) I played and played and did not win.

Me: You were mad at brain and wanted to leave?

Daniel: Yes, because I could not win. I am mad at brain, and wanted to leave.

Me: Are you still mad? Do you still want to leave?

Daniel: No, I am not mad. Brain needs to go in the garage.

Me: So are you ok now? Is everybody fine?

Daniel: Yes, everybody’s fine. Ok.

Sometimes I cannot believe that he is talking to me like this.

This is the first holiday season that has not been meltdown madness from October until the end of January. There have been moments, but they have not lasted long at all. Daniel has learned positive coping mechanism like going in his room alone and reading or just looking at books instead of continuing to be aggressive. He continues to learn to express what he is angry or upset at in many more ways. The rest of us have been able to read him much better as well. It has made a huge difference having David, Ariel, and Joshua understand Daniel’s frustrations.

I still need to explain why Daniel is behaving a certain way at times.

The difference is everyone is more understanding, and relating in their own way by thinking of similar things that cause them frustration. It is very clear that Daniel is feeling safer at expressing himself, and feels like he is being heard. It has made a huge difference in his interactions with everyone. He has been talking nonstop — he is repeating many scripts to himself. Some of his frequent scripts are about emotions, his emotions and other people’s emotions. I believe his scripting has helped in learning to calm himself as well. Possibly my own change of attitude toward the holidays helped the month of December.

Next year I will do better with October and November.

On another note I happened to hear this poem on a movie that was background noise for me earlier, (I don’t know what the movie was.) and thought some of you may enjoy it as well. So many poems to read so little time…and music to listen to…and books to read…and dances to dance…and paintings to adore…and sculptures to love…and pictures to seek…and skies to keep…I think I need to stop listening to music I always open the floodgates with music. I can’t help it! I’m not stopping!

i carry your heart with me by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

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You can add me to these two great moments of visual grandness.

KHAAAAAAN!

WHEATON!

It’s five days after Christmas and we received the new Lego January 2012 Catalog.

Ordinarily I would not be so upset, but truth be told Lego has nabbed me! OMG! They have the coolest new items and I want them too. On pages 16-19 they have the most awesome dinosaur sets. Ariel wants those she loves dinosaurs. BUT on pages 22-25 be still my heart  Super Hero sets! They have Cat Woman and Wonder Woman! I love them. I am a secret fan of Batman as well, not some of the movies that have come out though. I used to be addicted to The Batman Animated series. I had to hide watching it at a certain time in my life because my boyfriend at the time would get upset with me for watching cartoons.

I still watched them when he wasn’t around which was often.

I could also later be found watching Superman: The Animated Series. I have always been a Wonder Woman and Cat Woman fan. I watched the older shows when I was a kid. I thought Batman was hilarious, I listened to the theme song album that my my mom had during particular music cycles of mine as a kid. POW! My mom loved Batman, still does. I wanted to be Wonder Woman or Cat Woman and would (still) pretend that I was. Hee hee. SO now I am longingly looking at the sets wanting to build Batman’s awesome Batcave, Batmobile, and Batwing. Plus Cat Woman’s Cat cycle rocks.

LEEEEEGGGGOOOOO!

Alright so now you know.

I am not big into comics, but I did like the shows. I have spoken briefly about Wonder Woman in past a post, but I do not think that I have confessed my cartoon favorites other than Pinky & The Brain. I went through a period of cartoon addiction because I watched my sisters after school and work, we would spend time together watching Sailor Moon, Gargoyles, Animaniacs, and various other cartoons that I cannot recall now.

I also introduced them to the Goosebumps TV Show.

It did get my youngest sister of the two into reading the books, reading is good…right? My mom was not too thrilled and I am currently blamed for my sister’s vampire, skull, and Gothic fixations.  I am afraid it is quite possibly true, I will not protest since I did convince them both that I was a real vampire. It helped my case with all of Gothic decor, and library of books about the history of vampires. Not to mention my Anne Rice collection of novels as well. Which are long gone now, too bad she would probably love to have them.

I am pretty much just writing a silly post.

I have been working through some other thoughts that have given me more clarity to the “why” questions of some past choices I made during my later teenage and young adult life. This has helped me a great deal, in being released from negative thoughts about myself. I have also been focused on going over my book. I am going to have a friend read it through so I am a bit nervous. I know that she will be honest and helpful, and I need that.

I am excited that I have followed through on it and have not given up.

I find that to be a great accomplishment. The fact that I did not self-edit to the point of giving up is a big deal. The fact that I allowed myself to write whatever I felt is huge. The fact that I am letting someone else read it, and I am not hiding it is a big deal too. I read a blog a couple weeks ago, I cannot recall where it is now, but the guy mentioned that you should write down your accomplishments. I am not usually big into things like that, but the way he worded it made it sound reasonable to me. I thought about those of us who have anxiety, and how important it is to write down our accomplishments.

Anxiety can blur so many things.

Our accomplishments can get jaded, or lost in the midst of negative thinking or feeling physically drained. Things tend to seal better in the brain when we write them out, I decided to try it and see what happens. It has been keeping me rather positive.   The hardest part of writing out accomplishments for me is that I do not know what they are usually. I tend to think that everything I do is simple, or just what everyone does so I do not see how it is an accomplishment. I am working on changing my pattern of thinking there. However, I do find building an awesome Lego set to be quite an accomplishment.

Those things are hard sometimes!

I am currently listening to Ariel and Joshua go through the Lego catalog and say what they need to get. Sigh…They just got the Lego sets they have been waiting “forever” for. I do admit it is a bit harder to say no when I want them myself. Daniel is starting to want more Lego helicopters and airplanes as well. They have some pretty cool new flying machines in the catalog also. We’ll just have to watch for sales. We are currently in no spending mode to save up for the move.

I think I’ll hide the catalog from all of us.

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I love it when this happens. If I am feeling some way or I am feeling a little insecure about what I share then poof another blog post is written by someone or I discover an article, book, song, or movie that takes it all away. The words articulate what I am feeling or confirm what I am feeling, and it helps me process. I was feeling much better after I wrote my last post about crying, it helped a great deal to write and understand myself. In the past I would waste time on negative self talk, asking myself what was wrong with me or tell myself that I was being ridiculous. I am not ridiculous, what I feel and go through many others do too.

This morning I went on fb.

I really do not know why I usually do not go on there very often during the holidays — I find all of the “new” loving, sweetness, and holiday cheer, to be disturbing at times. My feeling is that it feels insincere, and trite. Not everyone, just particular groups of people that I have to be friends with. Rant much? Anyway, I went on there and looking right me was this A Letter to the Lonely. It speaks with great clarity the feeling of the holidays for me.

This year is very different from my holidays past.

Despite still feeling alone, I know that I am not alone. I wrote the other post because I know this year that others do feel like I do even if I feel like I am the only one. This year I am happy, I have not felt any sort of happiness in past holidays for a very long time. I am happy because I know that I am not the only one feeling the way I do. I have people out there who I do not see or talk to on a regular basis, but I feel connected to them. The feeling of disconnect makes everything feel lonely. This year I understand that I get overloaded, and I am allowed to express it.

I am allowed to share my feelings, tears, laughter, and frustrations.

This year I am happy because I understand myself a little bit better, and I am ok. I know that I am always going to feel like I do not belong because I don’t. No matter how much I try, I will not understand the world around me. I can get educated and comprehend to some degree, but I will never “get it” completely. Every holiday I am usually alone on my computer or cooking, and I leave David with the kids. The holidays are the only times that David stays down all day long. I get to do what I want…mostly. I still do all of my mommy duties, but I get a little bit of time.

I really don’t mind being alone, it’s the feeling like I am alone that gets me.

Gaining the perspective that others feel this way too somehow makes it alright. I just feel much better this year. I don’t know how to explain it, other than I am calmer and more at peace. I am alright with having a shutdown or a meltdown. I have shed a lot of tears over several months now, but all of them have been mixed with laughter. They have been healing tears, tears that I have held in for decades. They are happy tears from decades of confusion rolling off of me. I cried before, but I never released them. I still held on to all of the things that the tears represented. This year I have been letting them go, they took flight, and caught some other’s tears along the way.

I took back my holiday months so far, we’ll see how I do for New Years.

It will be 2012 and I am excited about a 20 and a 12 being in the picture they are both lovely numbers.   I am happy about Daniel drawing some great pictures yesterday too. This is HUGE! I think around April he started drawing circle faces, and I was so excited about that. Now he has progressed to a bear, a Santa, a ginger bread house, and what he calls “my designs”. They are great! Joshua has progressed in his drawings as well so I must show his creations. And Ariel continues to get very detailed and expressive in her drawings.

Their pictures make me so happy! (I have a ton…big surprise!)

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My poor grandma got an ear full of Daniel speaking truth the other day. He said several times to her “You’re fat.” or “Why are you fat?” Then, “Why do you have white hair?” He also said, “Why does your voice sound like you are crying?” My grandma did not take the fat comment very well, and I think that she was waiting for me to address it the first time. Well…I wish I could say that I did and that I handled it like the adult mom I am supposed to be, but I did not. I laughed! Oh, my goodness, the HA! Ha ha ha came out of my mouth before I realized it and as soon as I did it, I covered my mouth, controlled myself, and said: “Oh, Daniel yes, grandma is back,” and I guided him to the back door to play.

Grandma did not buy it for a second.

I sat there thinking I could apologize or try to fix it, but then I thought that she knows that he is autistic and these things come out of his mouth. She knows that he meant nothing malicious by his comment — he was stating that she was larger than us, and he used the word fat. Later on when he did it again, and my mom was home, I did fix it by saying “You mean grandma is bigger than you?” Daniel responded with “Yes, grandma is bigger than me.” I am used to him saying those things to me all the time. I think it is hilarious when he says “Mom, you have a big butt.” I laugh and shake it and say “I know!” and then sing shake your booty or some other booty song. My butt is big compared to his tiny little booty.

That is what he is doing with his comments.

He states things that he sees, it is how he defines them the best that he can. It is a huge deal that he is becoming aware of his surroundings and the differences in people. I am not going to scold him for something that takes him a lot of effort to do. It could cause him to shut down. He is the sweetest boy, and if he understood that it hurt someone’s feelings by saying that, he would feel horrible. The thing is he doesn’t — he does not comprehend that yet, but he will as he gets older. So I am not going to punish him for making observations in his world and then saying them. It took a long time to hear that precious voice to begin with! Don’t get me wrong, I do not allow him to be hurtful or say things that can blatantly hurt someone. I try to explain things as best as possible. It is kind of hard for me to catch at times though since I am notorious for saying such things myself without a thought.

There is a reason why we do not think those things would be hurtful.

We do not think that way — we happen to say things that we observe and say them according to the defined vocabulary that we have in our heads. Nothing mean, vicious, or hurtful, only clear definitions and terms. The word fat to Daniel is currently defined as “bigger than me” and that’s all. It is that simple. I found it amusing because I know that his intentions were to say that grandma was bigger, and I thought it was cute that he used the word fat. All of the kids say things like that and I am so used to it that I forget that others could take offense. I have to confess though, I am not going to sit around correcting my children to be overly polite and try to spend their life trying not to offend people.

Someone always gets offended.

No matter how hard you try, someone will always misunderstand your words or motives. It offends me more when people get upset at kids for just being themselves, and stating things that they see so clearly. They say things that are filtered through their limited knowledge or understanding of things. I tend to get more upset at the adults because the kids do not know any better. Yes, they should learn, but I do not think that they need to be “set in their place” so to speak. Freedom to speak their minds gives us an incredible world of entertaining thoughts, and some wonderful things to think about. I think that we can learn a lot from their perspective.

I cannot recall if I have written the following story before, but I think it is quite telling.

I remember watching a program, though I do not remember what it was now. The mother was sharing how she was afraid to swim, or be near water. Her little girl loved to swim, and begged her mom to come in the water. The mother refused, and one day the girl said something like “Come on mom, are you chicken?” The mother burst into tears, and told her daughter how awful that was to say. She went on to tell the daughter how badly she had hurt her feelings, and that she needed to think of how other people felt before she said things. I am pretty sure that the girl was between 8-10 years old. The mom continued to talk about how she was afraid of drowning, and that she was fearful. She felt by her daughter saying that she was not being sensitive to her fears.

I sat watching this mother in complete shock.

It was baffling to me that this grown woman would expect her young daughter to understand how fearful she was of the water. Not to mention the manipulation of pawning off her own insecurities as the responsibility of her daughter. Her daughter did not know her fears, even if the mother had explained it in great detail. I am also not sure that she would have fully grasped the fear that her mother had of the water. She was a little girl. As I watched her sitting with her mother, her demeanor changed when the mom shared this story. Her shoulders lowered, and she looked down, and her face was a little sad, confused, or annoyed, I am not quite sure. The real kicker though was at the end when the mom said that her daughter had learned from her mistake and is now considerate of her mother’s feelings. I don’t take what my kids say to me so seriously. Maybe it’s because I understand that they are kids, they are testing out their language and social skills they need to have the freedom to learn without my fears trampling on them.

Things like this get me thinking about my own circumstances.

All of my life, I have had people make comments about my birthmark. Those who have read my blog for a while know that I have a port wine birthmark on the left side of my neck and about two inches across on my jawline. It has been the source of ridicule my whole life, and I must say some of the worst offenders have been adults. Since I have been around children so much, and I worked in children’s ministry for so many years, I am very accustomed to their honesty. They are the first to ask me about my birthmark and are genuinely interested in why I have it. I usually use it as a lesson in skin pigmentation, and they think that is so “cool”. I have seen parents freak out when kids ask me about it, but every time it happens, I get down at eye level with them, and explain what my birthmark is. I have always won the heart of every child who ever asked me about it, and they even think that it is cool afterwards.

I have been able to use my birthmark to help teach kids to be comfortable with whom they are.

I have used it in Bible lessons, and as a resource to talk about people who are different than us. The kids have always asked in curiosity. I have no problem with that — I have no problem when someone asks me if I have been burned or something. It does not bother me when it is a sincere question. However, in most cases all of those questions have been asked by children or teenagers. The reality is that I have had more adults stare in disgust, gawk at me, make rude comments, or even mock it. Those times, I get hurt the most because it is just plain rude, and for some reason I think adults should know better. I do get upset at times when I am reminded of my birthmark, not because it bothers me but because it bothers others. I think that has been a lot of my problem though, about my stims, behaviors, my feelings, my interests, and everything about me. I have been more concerned with not wanting to be a bother than being who I am.

The kids have asked me about my birthmark, and I have never felt insecure or like I needed to tell them how to ask me properly.

They have all asked why I have it and how birthmarks happen. They do not see it as a flaw or anything.  When we have been out, there have been occasions when we have seen someone else with a birthmark, and they got excited and said something about the person having a birthmark just like me. I think if there was more time spent on teaching about differences and the value of asking questions or stating truths we would gain a lot more acceptance and appreciation for the differences in others. It could help get rid of some of the projected fears people have. Maybe I am being too simple.

I guess balance is key here once again, though it is kind of hard since I am still such a kid myself!

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I would really like to have Ariel ask me questions about autism, our body, the inner workings of our intestines, or questions about our galaxy. We have covered a lot of those topics, and she seems fairly satisfied with the answers, if she is not she digs through and reads the many books that we have on the topics, or we look for things on Discovery or the History Channel online, or YouTube can have some very resourceful things. We learned several words in Arabic and Italian today. However, that is not what she is asking about.

Nope, she is asking me “Why can’t I hear God’s voice?”

Why did Peter stop looking at Jesus and fall into the water? What does covet mean? Why can’t I walk on water, I have faith as small as a seed. Along with saying things like “I don’t know if God exists, I can’t see him.” She has been reading Bible graphic novels for a couple of weeks now, Genesis to Revelation. She has also read several of their Children’s Bibles. She knows every story in great detail and is asking about each one. She says that she knows what special power God gave her it’s “Science” she said: “I know and understand science, but I wish God would give me the powers to speak animal.” She told me that she knows that God lives in the clouds, but he also lives in us, so she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t talk.

Yesterday (still today) she was completely fixated on a dragon fortress that she wants for Christmas.

She started praying for it, Ariel does not like to pray. She says that she is too shy, so it is a big deal that she started praying. Many Christian parents I have been around would feel proud, and excited about some of what she was saying and asking, but to me it is hard. Well they may freak out because she wants a dragon fortress. I cannot legitimately look my little girl in the eyes on Christmas morning and say that Jesus brought her a dragon fortress.

God is not a Santa Claus figure.

He is not a simple pray and get what you want kind of character. I am fairly certain that is the wrong message to be taught about him. He is hard to understand, I cannot with a clear cautious say that I hear Him at all. Why? Because I have mixed my own personal feelings, fears, and agenda’s into my prayers and managed to convince myself of things so I could feel like I had the answers. I am not denying God or that he answers prayers, I am challenging my own perceptions and acknowledging my ability to fool myself. He has answered many prayers for me, but the fact that I was able to convince myself that my voice sounds a lot like His is something that needs to be dealt with. I am.

I do not want to pass that on to my little girl.

She is reading every word quite literally, and I know how damaging that is because I have done it. The Bible and things of God need to be taught differently to my children. Example, Ariel and Joshua spent the other evening and yesterday afternoon discussing Bible stories, and the gospels, I let them have their conversation and would challenge them when they were taking things a bit too literally. They are 5 and 7 discussing these things.

It is important that I help them not get stuck in literal thinking.

A good reason for this is because later in the day I walked into the living room, and Joshua was on his knees with his hand clasped. He stopped when I asked him if he was praying and he giggled and said:”Yes”. I asked him if he wanted to tell me what he was praying for he said: “Oh, I was praying that I would make good decisions.” The churches we have been in, and certain family members would jump on this saying how wonderful he was, or how he had a gift from God. I do not have a problem with him praying, I think it is great if they want to pray, or seeking spiritual things.

The concern I have is that they all tend to fall into black-and-white thinking.

Making good decisions implies that something that could turn into a deeper issue, the feeling that there is only right and wrong. For many people that is not an issue, for me and my kids it is. There is the constant challenge of not falling into guilt, or feeling like being wrong is the worst thing in the world. When it comes to God I have suffered a very long time with feeling like God thought badly of me or I had to do things to be good. I will not allow that to happen to my kids. Maybe I am a bit sensitive, but the other night when Ariel and I sat her room hanging out talking, she looked at me and said out of no where: “I wonder why I can’t hear God’s voice.” I asked: “What do you mean baby?” She started to tear up and with a shaky voice said:”I don’t know why I can’t hear God’s voice. I try to hear him and I can’t”. She is only 7 years old darn it! (I later discovered that she had read 1 Samuel 3 when God speaks to Samuel as a boy.)

I fought back my own tears, I was not going to allow my baby to go through that.

I scooped her in my arms and just held her as she cried in my lap. I was more angry with God than I had ever been in that moment. Even with many of the things that I have struggled with dealing with churches, other Christians, or my own personal issues, none of those had a hint of meaning as I stroked her hair. Nothing else compared to what she was feeling. I knew that feeling, I have been feeling it for months, years to be honest. And just because I say that doesn’t mean I lack faith, I have so much faith it makes me angry! I can’t get rid of it, even if I want to, believe me I have tried. I mean no disrespect to God or people who have faith, know that this is my own rantings. I cupped her face in my hands and I told her: “I don’t hear God either.”

She busted me!

She looked straight at me and said: “But you said that God gave you our names before we were born.” D’oh! She was right. I told her the truth. The truth is, I felt like their names did come from God, but I did not hear some audible voice from heaven or in my head. I saw their three names flash in my head and heard them in a voice, it’s the same voice that is talking now as I type. The same voice when I read, the same voice that writes poetry and everything else. Maybe I just hear God in my voice. So I asked her if she heard a voice that possibly told her right and wrong. Or other things. She said: “Yes, I hear a voice and I think that it is Jesus, but He always says yes.” We laughed together when she said that because we both know that Jesus does not always say yes. After I explained that I do not hear a voice, and shared the ways that I see God or feel like He is talking through nature, friends, songs, books, or the many other things that can reach us, she was all smiles. The pressure of hearing Him was lifted, and she was fine with my response.

It is hard to discuss spiritual matters with kids.

I shared with her that I may not hear God all the time. However, I do feel like when I see rainbows in the sky, or things like a pair of Converse that I have wanted for so long, and carry a huge significance to me suddenly appear in my size at a very cheap price, seems like God is there. She has witnessed many things like that happen for me, they have happened for her too and I reminded her of them. These things tend to happen during my lowest of times. For me it seems like God is saying “Hey, I see you and your are going to be alright. Here is a little something that will bring you a smile.”

Is it Jesus?

Is it the Universe, my Dragon friend I left in Germany, or an invisible friend? I do not have a clue. I feel like it is God, and I will stick with Jesus. Although, I am not going to carry all the baggage and confusion that has been looming my life for almost 13 years, about who or what it is.  I got really messed up when I walked into the strange world of churchdom. I mean no disrespect, but our brains are not wired well for church in this household. It causes more confusion than answers, at least right now.

My kids bring up some hard topics.

They ask us about what we believe and why. They ask about divorce, why people lie, why people don’t like people because of their race, or religion. They want to know why, a lot of these questions come from Ariel she is always thinking and observing these things. I want her to feel safe when she says I don’t know if God exists. I have seen kids get yelled at or have seen parents respond in fear when their child said that. For me it was a moment that made me feel good, she is thinking about it. She is reading the bibles around here and pondering the stories and questioning. When she gets older I will introduce her to church history and more details about other faiths. I am not afraid of her not believing what I believe.

I am afraid of her not having her own faith.

Or finding her own beliefs and becoming shaky because she was not able to discover herself. I have more trust in God’s ability to reach down and convince her of Him, than forcing her myself or worse yet using fear to make her believe something. I feel that way for all of the kids. The boys are not really pondering about spiritual matters yet, but they have asked their own hard questions. Not like Ariel, not yet, but I know that it is coming. These kids think, they ponder, they reason, and they do not stay quiet about it. They do not settle for simple answers. I don’t want them to believe what we have told them without thought, or feel like our authority as parents trumps their valid questions. I want them to learn and grow with us, I want them to feel comfortable challenging and questioning. I want Ariel to develop her God given superpowers of Science!

I want them to feel safe talking about things, and never feel like they are wrong if they don’t agree with us.

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This post is going to be a mix of stuff. It is one of my mind dump posts because I have been consuming so many different things that I need at least some of them to get out to clear my mind. Aww, the way my brain processes.  First on the list an article that I read it made me think about how at times I have had inappropriate facial expressions while someone is angry with me or sad even. My kids and I are very bad at laughing or smiling when someone is upset. I have burst into laughter or couldn’t stop smiling when Joshua or Daniel have had horrible screaming meltdowns. I don’t want to. I try to stop, I cover my mouth, I don’t let them see me, I run out of the room, but sometimes I can’t stop. I am not laughing or smiling at them at all, inside I am hurting for them, I am wanting to help them.

It is the strangest thing. 

I have done this a lot in my life when people are angry at me, oh, gosh have I gotten in a lot of trouble. All of the kids do it to me too when I am upset at them, or if I have an angry face. They will start laughing at me or smiling. Most times I do not get upset, there are sometimes though that their deeds require a serious mom. I still have a hard time not smiling when they start doing that. When I cry as well, they come up and smile in my face. Daniel will laugh and ask: “Why are you crying?” and just giggle away. I have known that they are not doing it out of disrespect or being defiant, it is how they respond. I understand it because I do it too. They would never mean it in a hurtful way, they are very sensitive and compassionate kids. In our household it actually helps us quite a bit, when we get each other smiling or laughing about a situation it helps us be able to talk about it. It helps not to go into shutdown mode.

After I read this article What the Face of Love Looks Like I thought possibly, we are just showing our faces of love to each other.

“That’s the face of the love for you, or at least one of them. The restraint to avoid fighting fire with fire. The ability to absorb rather than return the hostile volley. The instinct to try take the edge off a partner’s negative emotional state.”

(Let me add that the hilarity of the Whitesnake video added at the end really won me over with this article.)

Speaking of love…

This article 4 Psychological Processes That Are Ruining America was very thought-provoking indeed. I connected it to my previous self-worth posts, by really pondering each of the four processes. I do feel they express an issue with how we evaluate our own self-worth and the worth of others. I like to challenge my thinking, I like to dig around and expose where I have accepted fallacies, I don’t know why I just do. So when I read something like this, I go through my own thinking and try to change where I have fallen into them. As best of my ability, I never knowingly operate in The We-They Feeling, Blaming the Victim, Diffusion of Responsibility, or Egocentric Biases. I suppose most people would say that as well, they do not knowingly operate in these processes. I would hope no one would once they discovered that they were. I like how at the end of each segment there is a simplified solution to think about. I am not going to go into my opinions, I suggest reading it yourself and see what you think.

Some other fascinating videos and articles that I have found about music and neuroscience.

Musical Minds was suggested to me by a friend months ago, unfortunately our TV channels here did not air it, but I finally found it online last week and found it to be quite interesting.

I am in the process of watching (listening)  Explorations from Music and Neuroscience – Ep. 628 as I am typing this right now. Wow! I am at 15 minutes with this video and so far it is very intriguing, I can’t wait to see what else he shares. (I hope it works for everyone I cannot find it on Youtube or anywhere else.) He just quoted an excerpt from this:

Secene 1: Where Everything Is Music

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spendthrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now!
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

Last article I will share The Neuroscience of Music.

I can get so sidetracked with neuroscience, I have always been fascinated with how the brain works and why it does what it does. I guess that is why I had so many friends that were psychology majors. I didn’t have to go to school I just picked their brains with a billion questions and read their textbooks. Now I also read neuroscience books to go along with it! Yippie!

I really want to get this book Emotion and Meaning in Music  along with several thousand others. Ha ha ha

Alright I think I got enough out, I confess I am in a consuming information loop because my grandma came to town, change. I took my mom and grandma to the airport this morning because they are going on a really awesome TCM cruise this weekend. Then, my wonderful, jolly, white hair grandma (the kids call her “Grandma with the White Hair”) will be staying here until the 19th. I am taking care of my mom’s dog Fitzy, so that is throwing our schedule all off. These are all good things, and ok I am just trying to adjust this morning. I am actually doing quite well. I believe that I can focus on the rest of my day now. I will leave you with a photo that my mom says sums her up completely.

Yes, that is her Santa and Flamingos. Awesome! And it is true that can sum up my mom completely when she is wholly being herself.

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Many times in my life jokes have caused me to loop. They did not make sense, I did not understand when I was being teased, or being the focus of a joke, or I did not understand the intentions behind the joke. I have always had problems understanding the motives behind jokes, unless it is coming from someone I “get”. There is a limited number of people who I “get” right away. Some people I just connect to their humor, as a matter-of-fact a lot of the times if they retell me the joke that had originally been told by someone else, I will understand it. I have gotten angry, confused, and even have gone into great details as to why I found the jokes so offensive. Of course that made people mock me or think that I was ridiculous. Another thing that has happened is that I get the jokes much later. In my late 20s early 30s I got better with this, but I would still have my days. The other factor can be sensory or emotional overload, overload makes my discernment all off.

There have been moments when after time had passed, I would get the joke. (This actually happened about 30 minutes ago, go figure.)

I have had this happen when something triggers my memory. I will recall a joke told to me and it finally makes sense. It has taken years in some cases for this to happens. I think it is because my way of thinking has changed in a certain area so at times my brain can pull them back up and I realize the humor. I guess we can call it my evolution of mind.  I still don’t get half of David’s jokes, he has to explain them to me and then I am like “Oh”. He has to explain to me why some people find things humorous on TV or in a movie. Many times what I find difficult to understand is the humor that seems to be blatant ridicule or mockery of another person’s suffering. If they are mocking their own quirks I do not have a problem usually.

Poking fun at any beliefs or disabilities tend to cause me confusion.

However, I can now see the humor in it from their perspective. I tend to be “super” sensitive in areas that I have negative associations with. Several years ago at one workplace a link to a “fake” news site was sent out about a church that was saying that everyone was going to hell, and all kinds of other horrible things. I didn’t get it, I thought it was a real church. After I discovered that it wasn’t real, I got upset and asked the person not to send me things like that. It made me physically ill to think that people were like that, it made me even more ill to discover that it was a joke.

The reason was that I did not understand it.

I now understand it and the site still has some humorous things on it, but I do have to be careful of what I watch at times. David has helped in the humor area because he watches or reads things that I would never think of watching or reading. He keeps telling me about a show called “Wilfred” I do not find the humor in what he describes to me and I have no desire to watch the show. However, it has been a good learning tool for me to understand what others find amusing. I have categories of humor in my head that are hard to explain, some things cross a certain line that make feel icky. I can watch some shows if they are put on regular TV and edited.

Normally the icky feeling comes from what I feel are vulgar acts or unnecessary extremes.

It is hard to explain, I have to go with my “feelings”. I do seem to contradict myself as well when it comes to humor. I have no idea how to explain that, I can see it, but I cannot explain it.  I think a lot of it may have to do with my literal thinking, and how I am interpreting a motive behind the joke. There is the added issue of when I became a Christian I thought that I had to stop everything that seemed unpleasing to God. The things that I had found humorous were no longer allowed, and I programmed by brain to tell me it was wrong if it resembled those things.  I am rediscovering my humor again along with many other things.

Today was a perfect example of when I am thinking in literal terms.

We had to get a new DVD-R and cable box, (only limited cable because of my reality show addiction ) while David was searching through the settings I saw “hide adult”. I asked David “Why would they hide adults?” he looked at me funny and I realized they didn’t mean they were going to hide the adults on the TV. I was wondering how they would do that. Lol! David said: “Yes, they will blot all of the adults and only show kids”. OK! (I understood that David was teasing me.) I know, know that seems silly for me to think, but that was the first thing to cross my mind when I saw “hide adult” with a circle and red line through it. In the past this type of literal thinking and my comment would lead people to call me dingy or stupid.

It is so funny how I can be so imaginative in one area and so literal in another at the same time!

I see it in the kids too. We have days filled with literal thinking that causes unnecessary arguments. They tend to be saying the same thing, but misunderstanding each other so they need a referee and interpreter. Other times it is too cute and makes us laugh. The other night I said I was going to get rid of my FB or something about me not having a facebook. Daniel said: “Yes, you do have a facebook, it is in your room.” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was sure that it was a book with a face on it, and it was. He went to my bookshelf, brought me the book, and said: “See here is your face book.”

It was this one:

The good thing is that the kids get a lot of jokes and have learned to not be literal in certain areas. I have come a long way too. We still have to work on that, but at least they know how to tell many times when someone is “playful” teasing with them. They are able to recognize it and say things like:”Oh, you are joking”. I wish I had known that growing up.  I think the “playful” teasing would not have been so confusing and hurtful. The realization of the difference between bullying and playful teasing has been a good one for me. I was bullied, but now I can see that there were others in my life who never meant any harm. They just liked me and showed it by playful teasing that goes for family members as well. Wow, that is a huge loop that has been stopped. I can be witty and catch on to jokes, but it has taken a while to find clarifications between different types of “joking”.

Some things that make me laugh…

Pretty much anything on this site: xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

I discovered xkcd on another blog, I think it was over a year ago now. I got sucked in one day and couldn’t stop reading and laughing.

Pinky and The Brain! (always)

I have to limit myself to all of things that I find humorous so I will just leave with these.

 And of course this last one.

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Daniel and Ariel turned 7 years old this week. We celebrated their birthday today. I finally made cakes that were pretty decent! The Lego cake I made for Joshua turned out pretty good, but Ariel requested a dragon cake and I was not sure how that was going to go. I am happy with the results she loved it and thought it was “so cool!” Joshua said it was: “Awesome!” and Daniel loved his clock cake.  Although, my fondant work does need improvement, but being my first attempt, no proper tools…I was told not to be hard on myself so I will stop. Happy kids, happy mommy. Ariel had a dragon and Lego birthday. She is SO excited about all of her gifts. Daniel was very excited about his electronic drum set and snap together helicopter.

We have been building for quite a while.

We are overloaded and tired from all of the excitement, but it has been a very good day. Ariel and Joshua have both had a meltdown…I am working on mine. Just kidding. However, they were short and they bounced back fairly quickly. I am writing to help me have a little down time. Daniel is doing great. At this moment he is playing with his mousetrap game. I used to play mousetrap by myself all the time for hours, my mom even remembered that today and mentioned it. I thought Daniel may like it as much as I did. Actually, David mentioned it and I remembered my playtime with the game. The last few weeks have been both challenging and awesome. We have done things that I was not sure we could ever do. Daniel has been using the potty for “everything” for the past two weeks. We are still working on bedtime, but he has done it!

He is so happy and proud.

He is even refusing to let me help him get his pants on. Big change from refusing to go near the potty unless I was right next to him. He does tell me every time he needs to go, and I have to say: “Ok, Daniel, you can go potty.” He feels that he needs permission for some reason. He does that with his food too, he asks if he can eat whatever it is before he will eat it. The answer has to come from the person who gave it to him otherwise he will not eat it. He will continue to ask over and over again until he feels satisfied with the answer. :-/ Hopefully he will feel at ease eating without asking soon.   It is so wonderful to see how much they have grown and all of the great things they are learning and doing. AND I am so happy that I finally made a cake the way Ariel wanted! I am also so happy that I did not have an anxiety attack, meltdown, or shutdown before the party. I will take it easy and let my body recover. I am pretty fuzzy headed and the Lego’s call. Today is one of the best birthdays we have had.

Birthday pictures! (and the sky ’cause I liked it)

[Show as slideshow]

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