The Cool Part of Autism

In the split second it took me to click the comment link on Flying Tomato's page, Rejeanne saw the critter in the fern. I've never seen someone find a hidden object so fast in my entire life. I clicked away from this image so fast, I would never have even thought she could have seen the picture, much less the dragonfly! How did I know she saw it? As soon as I clicked away, I hear Rejeanne say "Wormy the Butterfly under the tree". The second I heard her say that, I clicked back to the pic and said "Where is it?" and she hopped on my lap and put her finger right to the dragonfly, then ran off.

My child is AMAZING! :)

Here's the pic (somewhat cut off by blogger uploading for some reason) for the curious.

Three Crappiest Days of My Life

If Cyrus doesn't magically potty train himself in the next day or so, I think we may have to keep him outside in a tent. He has decided that waiting until he's put down for bed or nap is a great way to let us think he is sleeping while stripping off his diaper, crapping somewhere in his room and playing in it! In the last three days, we have cleaned his ENTIRE room (including the vents) twice and the hallway once. Oh, and Rejie decided it was a great idea and slathered herself in poop and white out two days ago. Yesterday's pooptacular events took Cyrus about 30 minutes to do, and took us about FOUR HOURS to get completely cleaned up. Cyrus hasn't pooped in his diaper in three days. He waits until he's alone, then takes it off, then poops. Why can't he just yell "poop"??? Why does he have to play in it???? He's even eaten some. Yummy.

I figure he's either ready to potty train or he really, really likes to get covered in poop then sit in a bath. I'm going to just try to potty train him and use the "cold shower" method to clean him up. Apparently the cold shower has stopped many little poop monsters from continuing the parties during nap time. I'm also going to let him play with playdough for an hour before his naptime. Maybe that will get it out of his system?

Oh, this morning he also dropped his diaper and dropped a deuce on my bedroom floor. Of course, he picked it up and set it on Lee's leg because it was too hard to smear on anything. So, I guess really we've cleaned up five poop adventures between the two kids. Plus he peed on the floor 4 times and once in the drawer.

At this point, I have to say that I'm really really blessed to have a friend with a shampooing machine because we don't have the cash to have carpet cleaners come in here.

Cyrus' poop can also take the paint off the walls.

So, how happy is everyone that this post has no pictures? Does anyone have any advice on how to stop this madness? Should I rent the boy out as a tool of revenge? Will he do this in hotels during next week's road trip? Will my mother-in-law's meditation room survive the Poopulon? Should I take him out to choose some underwear?

I'm so sick of poop. First the giardia, now this!

Lightning!

I'm pretty sure my friend's tree was struck by lightning last night! We had one of the most major storms I've seen in my entire life last night. Wind was over 70 miles an hour and the lightning was so bright I had to turn away from it because it was hurting my eyes. Super cool storm.

Ebb and Flow

I know most people are terrified of change. They dread the unknown, even when all signs point to it being a good change! I've always been the opposite. I see change as this big adventure with an unknown prize at the end. Sometimes, the prize is a dud, but what fun it was to find out! I think this mentality stems from varying degrees of boredom and unhappiness. After all, if a person was totally happy with life, why would they be excited for change and all the unknown factors that come along with it?

I have noticed that as I become happier about life that I'm a little less excited about changes on the horizon. I don't want my relatively pleasant apple cart tipped. I used to face challenges and changes with this game face of strength that never wavered. No matter how unpleasant the change was, I was confident I'd find a way through it and come out better on the other end.

Right now, things are in absolute chaos. Nearly everything is in motion and for the life of me, I can't estimate where it is going to end up. I feel like this is one of those times in life where EVERYTHING will be drastically different by the end of the year and there is nothing to do except ride it out and see where it falls. This is the part of change I don't like. The kind of changes that happen *to* you and will happen no matter what kind of decisions you make to improve (or sabotage) the situation. Those unexpected, sudden changes that change not only your entire life, but the entire way you look at life. I feel one of those, maybe more than one, hurtling towards me, but I can't for the life of me guess what it will be.

Part of becoming a more mellow person in general is that I'm not as tenacious about things. When Life drops an unexpected bomb, tenacity is a big part of keeping things going on a good path. I worry that my ability to face the storms is lessened while my ability to reach out for support has stayed the same (that ability is nearly zero). So, what am I doing to make it right? This bizarre regimen of self-improvement.

Basically, I've decided it's time to regain some of the drive that I've lost. My drive was built on the aggression and anxiety of PTSD, so basically built in fear. Since my PTSD, while still lingering, is greatly improved and downright managed for the first time in my life, some of the upsides have fallen away (like my drive!). I've spent some time thinking about how to recreate the drive and passion that used to rule my life (in a rather unstable fashion I might add), without the fear as the motivator. Can you build drive and passion with happiness as the motivator? Or love or service? Heck, can you even build drive and passion at will??

I think it can be done. I don't think it will be easy for me because my drive was always about survival and an avoidance of homelessness. Life is about more than that for me now. I feel like I'm at a point where I need to cultivate a relationship with God that is about more than survival. I need to find my talents. I have no idea what those could be or how to find them. I'm keeping an open mind, trying new things, trying to recapture some old things that made me happy, etc.

So, I've just decided to try to live my life each day as close to this ideal picture of what life should be that I have in my head, and see how close I can get. After all, if you aim as high as possible and you fail, you'll still end up average, right??