Thursday, December 5, 2013

Puzzling Dry Spell

Whenever I don't hear from "autism parents" for long stretches I can be relatively sure of one of two things.  1)  Things are going really well, or 2)  Things are going SO bad that they can't surface for air without gulping more water.  So as I blow the dust off the blog page and try to remember my password you might be wondering..."I wonder which one it is..."

Well, truthfully it's neither.  But a bit of both.  Really it's never a good idea to over-generalize stuff. 

We've been very very busy at home, but Lily has been a PEACH.  In fact she's been so much of a peach that I've started calling her "Peach" and it makes her smile and giggle.  Really her behavior is so much more predictable and understandable, and her expressive language seems so much better and clearer, and she's so much more interested in the things we give her to entertain herself (perhaps because we're getting to know/understand her better) that there's really not a helluva lot to report.

So anyway...Just saying hey.  Sometime this month we'll be going to the Autism-Friendly showing of Nutcracker and we'll be getting pictures taken with the Autism-Friendly Mall Santa, and probably tossing back a few Autism-Friendly glasses of wine with the family as things get more chaotic and we finish off shopping and Christmas partying and stuff.  And that all means that doubtless there'll be more stories to share then.

Emma has a chorus concert and a dance performance at the mall and a play where she is the "Ghost of Christmas Presents" (not present...presents...like a gift). 

And Lily has been LOVING her dance class, and that love manifests itself in the following way:

"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
"Saturday, baby."
"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
"Saturday, Lil."
"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
"I told you, Lily, it's Saturday."
"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
"Lil, when do YOU think you're going to dance class?"
"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
"Saturday, peach."
*Records self saying "Saturday, Lily"*
"Daddy, when are we going to dance class?"
*Presses play x infinity*


So yeah, when I say things are going great I don't mean to say that Lily doesn't still present us with unique ways in which to experience parenting, I'm just saying she's happy and having fun and when she's happy and having fun it's much easier for us to do same.

Oh...and we went to see "Frozen".  I really really liked it.  Lily seemed to enjoy it as well.  


Oh...and also, a brief story.  We have a quasi tradition of doing a holiday jigsaw puzzle every year.  I say quasi because it ends up working out to about once every other year because we forget to buy the puzzle, or whatever.


So this year we did it again.  Emma really drove it.  She likes jigsaw puzzles.  So we started at the edges and found all the flats and we put them on the table and slowly worked toward the middle once we had the border done.  I assume that's how everyone does them, but I don't know.

Well, early on we couldn't find this one edge piece, but it's a 1000-piece puzzle, we knew it would turn up.  This was a hard puzzle.  Every so often we'd stop working on it for a few days and then spend an hour in the evening on it and get a little bit more done.  Finally we were putting finishing touches on it.  That sort of a fun time in the puzzle where nagging pieces you've been looking for the whole time suddenly fall into your fingers and you're like EUREKA every piece you add.


But...after a month of that...





Still missing.  And at the time I posted on Facebook something about how appropriate it would be for a family that spends so much time wondering about puzzle pieces...They're appropriate symbols, they're offensive symbols, they represent something missing, they represent something that we don't have an answer for...to be stymied by an ACTUAL puzzle piece.  Like somehow puzzles, frustrated by the treatment of their pieces decided to take action and frustrate us for a change.

So anyway, whatever your feelings on the puzzle piece as a symbol for autism...I think we can all agree that it sucks ass to be missing one at the end of the puzzle.

8 comments:

  1. Glad things are going pretty well. My OCD would kick in with that puzzle piece missing. Super frustrating!!

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  2. Glad things are good. Fuck that puzzle piece, man. That's the worst. I can never do a puzzle again because I just got three kittens and something tells me that if I left a puzzle out that it would end up missing more than one piece.

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    Replies
    1. THREE??? One per kid? Is that how you roll in Stimeyland?

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  3. I LOVE this blog post today. I am going to save it for when I need something to smile about or reflect about or just because...well just because. <3

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