Housekeeping

(Wikipe-tan, cleaning up)

A few housekeeping updates...

Apparently today is "Spread the Word to End the Word Day" and it completely escaped my attention (not that I'd have written about it anyway).  But it didn't escape a lot of other people's attentions.  Here are some of the ones I'm aware of:

Jillsmo's version
Jessi's version
Mama Fry's version
John Franklin Stephen's version
Jordan's version

Pick your favorite!  Vote online and qualify for fabulous prizes*

*subject to availability

So that's the first thing.  It's weird, because I have acquaintances who still use the term.  Even friends.  And up until maybe...5 years ago, I was using it too.  Well, I've changed my viewpoint.  I don't like it anymore.  You don't have to stop saying it.  Just...you know...if you say it, I don't like it.  So you can decide to say stuff I don't like or not and that's really up to you.  But you're kind of a douche if you do.

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Next...leave this website immediately!  Wait...wait...before you go, after you leave, type "justalilblog" in your browser window where you normally would have typed "blogginglily.blogspot.com".  Okay, I'll wait here.  If you're not back yet it's because you typed the fucking quotation marks.  DON'T TYPE THE QUOTATION MARKS.  Okay.  Waiting again.

WELCOME BACK!  Yeah, I bought the domain name (Surprise, Leslie!  You can't get your nails done this week.  It's no longer in the budget) so that when people are looking for the blog now all they have to remember is the name of the blog, not that arcane blahblah.blahblah.blah nonsense. 

The idea is that at some point I'll self host...meaning no longer on blogger.  But I'm not really sure what my time table is for that.  In the meantime, all me having my own domain name means is that when you type "justalilblog" it redirects you to "blogginglily.blogspot.com" so that you don't have to remember the address, just the name.

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What else...the wine tasting is this weekend.  I'll post my presentation along with some pics of the event.  I'll talk about the theme and the food and the wine next week some time, but last night Leslie and I finalized our pairing.  And it is BOMB, yo!  There were some snafus along the way that created some stress in our lives related to fucking up the wine or the food or the wine AND the food along the way.  But as of last night we're feeling pretty bullet proof.  And that's not just the wine talking.  Or maybe it is.

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For those of you on Facebook, I reposted a couple pieces from here on my Huffpo profile.  It tends to get more traffic than my little blog here does, but if you're not on Facebook, you're not missing anything.  I just took two posts... 

1. http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-letter-to-my-autistic-daughter-to-be.html
2. http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/2014/01/love-for-nt-parents.html

...removed the eff bombs and other swearing, edited out a lot of the personal information and sidebar garbage, and posted the guts of the posts.  Huffpo brings in a lot of traffic.  For example, the letter to Lily got retweeted on Twitter by Holly Robinson Peete.  If you don't know what that means, then don't worry about it.  Essentially, it just means someone with a GIANT audience of followers posted my article on her twitter feed so that they could all see it.

To put that into social media perspective:
When I tweet (@blogginglily):  2,008 followers can see my post.
When Huffpo tweets (@huffpostparents):  168,000 followers can see my post.
When Holly Robinson Peete tweets (@hollyrpeete):  475,500 followers can see my post.

That's why RT's are important to twitter users.  When I post, the only people on twitter who see that post are my followers.  When Huffpo or Holly repost or post my stuff, I'm instantly seen by 80 to 290 times as many people.

It's similar to sharing on Facebook, but unlike twitter, it's really hard to tell how many people actually saw the posts.  The NT parent one got shared a lot.  The Letter didn't get as much play.

This goes to show that I really have no idea what stories will really strike a chord with people and what they will enjoy but not share.  It's like the time I told Leslie that "Dancing with the Stars" would be canceled during the first season.  

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That's all for now.  I'm going to try to make a point of posting more frequently.  That may mean that the stories I post are less touching or poignant or autism-driven or whatever...maybe it'll be a story about how I went to the grocery store and they were out of butter lettuce so I had to use bibb instead...I don't know.  I'm just going to make my posts more frequent so they seem more current and timely and anchored "in the now".

On the Road

While I'm away on business (ie, alone in a hotel room with free wifi and my laptop), I figured I'd catch up on a few bloggable family items.


Lily and I went to her first "real" dentist appointment last week.  It wasn't her first real appointment, that was almost a year ago, but it was her first "real" appointment.  Allow me to explain.  The FIRST appointment Lily had the lady put her fingers in Lily's mouth and then she extracted the pieces of the fingers that were left and the examination was essentially over.  Lily was a mess.  She was being restrained by Leslie and I, she was crying and gagging and sad and afraid, and . . . it sucked.  And I really didn't leave the appointment with any sort of warm-fuzzy feeling regarding what they could possibly have observed in the ten seconds it took for Lily to bite the fingers off the hands of the hygienist.


So we got a referral.  The new dentist was officially a pediatric dentist who was very experienced with special needs patients.  And you know what?  I think he really was.  Lily was no less upset.  Well. . . maybe a little less upset, but he handled it like a pro.  He probably OVER explained the things he was doing, talking calmly and soothingly to her, showing her the tools he was using and explaining their purposes.  The assistant held Lily's hands away from her mouth and from the dentist, but didn't straight-jacket her or anything, just kept the dentist out of harm's way.  And Lily tried to bite off his fingers too. . . he just had a knack for keeping his fingers in places where Lily's teeth weren't.


So Lily has no cavities.  As we left the appointment I asked the doctor about loose teeth.


"Did you notice if she had any loose teeth?" I asked.


"You know, I didn't," he replied frankly.


"Oh.  Well she just lost her first tooth a couple months ago," I told him.


"Well, first teeth usually come out within six months of each other."


And I we bid him farewell.


A week later Lily lost her second tooth.  THIS time we got it.  She lost it at school and they packed the little chicklet up and sent it home to us where we. . . er. . .the toothfairy can store it with all the other collected teeth.


She got a $5 bill under her pillow as payment.  Must have been some SWEET ivory in that bad boy.


Meanwhile, Emma, who had been pining for a chance to pitch her first game of the softball season, finally got her chance last Friday.


In order to understand how well she did you must first understand math.  There are six innings in a 10U (age 10 and under) softball game.  Each inning has three outs.  That's 18 total outs for an entire game.


Caught up?  Okay.  Emma struck out 15 kids.  That's three total outs that the infielders had to make in order to end the game.  Except that one of the three Emma fielded and threw to third, to get another out.  16 out of the 18 outs for an entire game were from Emma.  Does it sound like I'm bragging her up?  I totally am, so I hope it sounds that way, otherwise it's just bad writing.


To be fair the team she played just could not hit.  But. . . also to be fair, she was throwing right where she needed to be throwing.  Almost every pitch.  It was great for her.  She got the game ball.  It would have been tough to give it to anyone else.  They won 13 - 1.


I still owe you a potty training blog.  To be honest, I sorta don't want to jinx things.  Meh. . . screw it.  The potty training was more or less a failure.  But SINCE the potty training her accidents have gone WAY down.


She used to average anywhere from 3 - 5 accidents a day.  Now we're closer to 1 or 2.  This past weekend she was dry the whole time.  Not one accident.  A couple days before that she went two days without an accident.  So potty accidents have been WAY down.  And for no real reason, since it was VERY apparent that the potty training itself, at least in the heat of the moment, was a bust.

Lily and Emma relaxing. . . 

I'll still be updating everyone on fund raising.  I'm just SO amazed at the response, it would be hard for me to stop gushing about it.  We've had a couple hundred more dollars pledged since the last update a couple days ago. . .


I'm in Orlando tonight and I miss my family, but at least it's an excuse to catch up on the blog a little.