I am really excited!  I have wanted to do this for a long LONG time!  No, this will not replace my blog here – this is a completely separate project.  All questions will be answered when you click the button and read the first post.

Are you ready?

Please participate you guys – I really want this to be a great resource!

Here it is!!!

I’m really excited!!!

So today we decided to go out to Reno to one of the malls.  The kids needed some new clothes for winter – just a few more things as Bug is growing at an exponential rate right now and his pants have all become too short.  So we hit the Osh Kosh store which I LOVE!  Seriously, let me give you a side note here… Osh Kosh has cute clothes and good prices.  I got 5 pairs of pants and 7 shirts for $104 – and that was after tax and all.  That, my friends, is something you can’t even do at Walmart!  I love Osh Kosh!  Ok, sorry, now back to my point… The kids needed clothes so we went out shopping.  Once we had gotten that purchase out of the way we started looking around at other stuff.

Shopping is a sensory overload for Bug.  You moms who know Autism know what I mean.  Lights, sounds, smells, lights, lights, lights… Yes, it is overload and for Bug there is this thing he does that drives me nuts, but drives my Hubby even nuttier.  I have learned to either ignore it or say something that is more for the salesperson to know that I am not a bad mom than for Bug to hear… You see, what he does is he taps things.  He will go from row to row and just take his finger and tap stuff.  He is not being bad, he is not misbehaving, he just has this sensory craving and he has to tap.  It isn’t a hard tap, he doesn’t want to hurt or break anything, he just goes row by row and taps.  I see salespeople looking.  I see other customers looking.  I see what people see – a kid touching everything – but I know it isn’t like that.  So my coping mechanism is to say to him, “Bug, don’t touch anything.”  There, now they have all heard me and now they all know I am not a bad mom.  Of course he keeps touching stuff, but for me I just move on and look at what I want to look at – but for my Husband.  Oh good gravy!  It is a whole different struggle.  He bubbles and boils – I can see it rising in him.  He tries to deal but he can only handle so much before he just explodes, “Keep your damn hands off that!”  Now, some of you may think that is horrible, but I say it is not.  He does his best.  We all just deal in our own ways.  I make it clear to bystanders that I do know how to discipline, and my Hubby makes it clear that he has only a certain level of tolerance.  Bug however, well, Bug continues to tap because there is this need inside of him to calm that sensory overload and tapping is what does it.

People look.

He sings and twirls.

People look.

He flicks his hands about.

People look.

He taps and taps some more… in a row, every row.

People look.

I smile.  I’ve already announced to him not to touch.  I know he isn’t doing it on purpose to be bad.  I smile more.

People look.

I can’t take it anymore… I announce we are leaving.

I wish people would stop looking.

Bean… she doesn’t touch.  She is Bean.  She laughs at Bug because she is his sister and she knows how he is.  She smiles at me because she knows it’s stressful.  She smiles at my Hubby because she knows it is stressful.  And then she laughs more.

Bug is in his own world.

People look.

People irritate me!

70 days… Wow!

So, now that I have praised and let you all know how grateful I am, how are all of you?  Seriously, how are you doing?  Things here have been stressful as I am sure you’ve noticed from the previous postings.  Life can sometimes just be summed up in one word – craptastic!  Yep, sometimes that is just what life is, but we hang on and hang in – after all, there is a prize at the end, ya know?

I was just thinking about this all yesterday as I read a post on another blog about how sometimes life just ain’t grand and sometimes you get tired of all the cliches and fluff – yes, the fluff!  I get so sick of it at times.  Sometimes a person just needs to get real and say hey, things suck, I want to scream, I want to yell, I want to throw something!  It is ok – seriously, it is OK!

I think that Christians often get too caught up in the show of it all and forget that people are still seeing us for who we really are – we are human, we screw up, we fail, we sin, we do things we wish we hadn’t done.  Walking around like you are full of perfection is nothing more than walking around in a lie – none of us are perfect!  God knew we would screw up – think about that!  He knew we wouldn’t get it right first thing out of the gate.  He knew we would stumble, fall, crash!  He knew!  And so He sent us Jesus – because He knew we needed a Savior.

There is hope – there is salvation – there is redemption.  Yes, there are all these things.  But there are also very real feelings and people, we need to be able to get those out.  We need to be able to tell each other when we are down and hurting and we need to be able to do so openly – without guilt for feeling less than perfect.

We strive to live a Christ-like existence, but I really think we need not beat ourselves up when we aren’t the picture of perfection that we think our Christian buddies want to see.  Fact is, our Christian buddies are just as screwed up as us.  What sets us apart form the world is that we try – we repent – we keep repenting – we try not to commit what we know is openly sinful behavior – we keep trying – and we have faith – and that faith lifts us up – that faith carries us on – that faith is our purpose for being.

Life can suck – but then we have faith.  It is ok to say life can suck.  It is ok to admit you are unhappy, upset, angry, miserable, fed up, hurt, or anything else.  It doesn’t make you less of what God created you to be.  God knew who you were from the moment you were conceived and He knew when you would rise and when you would fall.

And then there is faith – He knew you’d have that too and He has blessed you with an eternity of life with Him for it.

Questions surround us all daily, but as the mother of a child with Autism I find myself asking questions that not everyone else asks. The more I wonder about what goes on inside my son’s head the more I feel confused as to why I even bother to question it to begin with. I mean, God made him this way for whatever reason or purpose. Why do I question it so often? I long to break him out of whatever takes hold when he goes into a meltdown and I long to break him free of whatever seems to control him when he just can’t stop stimming – but why? Is it for him, or is it for me?

The more I wonder why he is the way he, the more I feel that I am just not being content in what God has given me. I love my son, so why this fierce need to understand every little detail? Why this fierce need to know why – why he does what he does, why he has Autism, why he howls or screams for no reason, why he won’t say hi to other kids but will tell an adult every little thing they ever wanted to know about his current obsession. Why? The more I wonder, the more I realize that answers are what I seek but he is just fine being who he is. He doesn’t seem upset in the world he lives in. When he is stimming it doesn’t bother him – it is me that gets annoyed, frustrated, upset, or dare I say even embarrassed. So why do I question it so much? Why don’t I just let it be what it is – let him be who he is. Why do I ask God so often about it as if to say that God made a mistake – when we all know God does NOT make mistakes!

And then I wonder why God trusted me with this and the more I wonder about that… Well, that is when I just start to list all the things that make me so not qualified… Yet God thinks I am – Why?

Quote Snack

Some days I am just exhausted – this is one of them.

So here’s the story…

October 31, not just Halloween when you live in Nevada – it is also Nevada Day. My state celebrates its birthday on October 31 – Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864. Every year there is a huge parade and a whole bunch of other activities. So up we got on Saturday morning to go to the parade – a family event that we take part in every year. But this year we arrived and the children were whiny, and grumpy, and agitated. I was prepared to deal with it all, but my Husband was not. The whiny moods made him whiny and then made him angry and led to very unhappy people – him with the kids, me with him. We left the parade about an hour earlier than we normally would (this is generally a 3 hour long parade). We got home and the grumpiness continued – in fact it escalated into sibling rivalry the likes of we had never seen. I finally got everyone fed and then told the kids to head outside to burn off energy. I went and sat outside while they played – but it wasn’t long until the fighting and misbehaving started all over again. Well, I began discipline and was met with backtalk like I had never received before – it was like some alien being had taken over the bodies of my children! The Husband was still ticked off and in no mood, I had become angry and was on my last straw, and when I was finally met with the throwing of rocks – oh yes, you read that right – I stood up and said, “That’s it, get your butts inside, you are taking baths, and you will NOT be trick-or-treating tonight!”

They didn’t believe me.

I took them in.

I gave them baths.

And I did NOT give them their costumes.

I sat them down and we had a long talk as to why the privilege was lost and then they went to bed.

By 8:30, I was tucked in bed too.

And let me tell ya, they have been the most well behaved kids today. Sometimes being a hard ass is the only way.

Oh, but my neighbors found it none to delightful that we turned off the lights and hit the sack. Because we were not there to hand out candy they decided it would be funny to toilet paper my front yard. So at 6:00 this morning my Husband was out cleaning up that mess. Ya know, normally I would have laughed over it – those guys are funny and I really like them, but this morning it pissed me off major. But I held my cool – I did not flip out, I simply told my Husband to text them and let them know that, “Becki is beyond pissed and she says that sh*t ain’t funny!” So he did – and then the apologies came.

Whatever, like I said, normally I would have laughed, but I had just gotten through a very rough Saturday and I found no humor in it. Payback however, yes, that will be fun!

When I was nineteen I got my first tattoo. It was on my left ankle – a quetzal bird sitting on a vine with a heart on its chest. At the time it was so cool – very rock-n-roll, very 90’s. I loved it, but over time my tastes grew a little and my body changed and what was once a great tattoo didn’t seem all that great to me anymore. I started talking about wanting to change it and that is when my Husband introduced me to his tattoo artist. I was nervous at first when I went in because it had been so long since I got a tattoo and I wasn’t sure what all to expect, but I was soon put at ease and felt assured that this guy would do a great job. He sat me down and looked at my previous ink and basically said what I already knew – compared to today’s standards it just sucked major. He looked up at me and said point blank, “We should cover the whole thing over.” Wow, I had considered change, but a complete cover up never crossed my mind – but I loved the idea!

So we sat and talked and went through a few ideas as to what I might like, but it wasn’t until he said “peacock” that my heart jumped. Yes, that was what I wanted! Peacocks have amazing symbolism – in Christianity the symbolism is of rebirth. Peacocks shed their feathers every year and then grow them back – it is like death and resurrection – yes, I loved it! A constant reminder of my faith right there to always see – perfect!

I told my tattoo artist that it was a go and he began sketching – not on paper, but on my leg! Yes, there with a pen he drew the tattoo freehand on my ankle and when he was done I was blown away! He is an amazing artist! I loved it and told him to go for it – and he did – and here it is:

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but from top to bottom the tattoo is 7 1/2 inches long so it is a fairly good size. I absolutely love showing it off and I just couldn’t be happier.

Jan and the Dog

Liz is visiting Jan.
The dog is having fun.
Liz went outside to play with Jan.
The dog was eating outside.
Liz and Jan are riding bikes together.
The dog stops eating and follows them.
Liz has to go home and take a bath.

I say that for a first story that he actually wrote this is pretty spectacular – I give him an A+!!!

What I may not have mentioned before is that my doctor told me I needed to lose 52 pounds to get to what would be a “healthy weight” for me.  I know she is right – I know how I was when I weighed less and I know I felt better and didn’t have half the problems I have.  I also know her goal for me is realistic – It is right where I should be without losing too much.  Well, I only have 47.4 pounds left to go and I know I can do it!  I feel like I am making some very positive life changes and not just “dieting”.  I feel like exercise has become an outlet for me.  It is something I want to do for “me time” and the eating healthy just gives me that much more energy for my day.

All in all I am just stoked by my loss and I can’t wait until this summer because I am telling you I WILL be putting a picture up of myself in shorts – I will not be ashamed!  This is my time!