Friday, June 20, 2008

New Day

What a difference a day makes! Old line, trite? Maybe so, but it sure is the truth.

This morning, as I look outside -open the door and check the temps a bit -it looks to be a nice day in the making. Sunny, bright -warmer too than yesterday, which in turn was warmer than the day before. And that's good. After all, Wednesday morning, when I awoke around 4:30 a.m. and made my way back to the bathroom, I noticed some heat emanating from the radiator in the living room. Hmmm. How could that be, it's June. The furnace shouldn't be running, should it. But on Tuesday night, the temperatures had dropped down to the high 40's range and thus, the furnace had kicked on all by itself. Now that, temperatures low enough to make the furnace start running, creating warmth in the house, in mid-June is well, just WRONG!

Wednesday was cold, dreary -all the live-long day too! Yesterday -a smidgen better but not much. Still a bit on the cool side -and gray, too. Sunshine in the morning though -now there's a recipe for good things. Joints not swelling quite as much; aches and pains not being what woke me up this morning. Yep, a nice change, for sure!

This was Maya the other night when she was upset with Mandy and me. Crying, whining, moaning, making this really sad face -most of the crying stuff was a bit on the faked and forced side, really. Such a pitiful expression she had though -and was able to maintain that stance for close to 10 minutes too!

Last evening, we had company for dinner -an old girlfriend of Mandy's and her younger daughter, who is 2 1/2. She, like Maya and Kurtis, is also autistic so our dinner hour was quite the scene. Three kids, each in various stages of eating, not eating, fussing, fighting with parents over the idea of eating! Grownups here dined on pork, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. The kids -standard fare of macaroni and cheese with a side of applesauce. Seems we serve a heck of a lot of mac'n'che in this place but then, sometimes you do what you have to do just to make sure the kids get a little bit of nourishment in those growing bodies, ya know! And mac'n'che is usually pretty much a guaranteed "I'll eat this" thing!

But with three autistic children romping around the house, think about that picture above of Maya and multiply that reaction times three and maybe it will give just a little idea of the cacophony of sounds heard here for the majority of the friend and her little girl's visit. Loud, very loud!

As I was laying in my bed last night -or this morning -depending on how one thinks about time and night vs morning hours -I was looking around my bedroom and wondering how on earth I could possibly arrange things in there better! Such a junk heap it is! I was thinking maybe if I could convince Bill to build a nice big shelf above the dresser mirror in my room and then, wrapping that shelf around two sides of the room, at least. That might give me a way to put things up so they are still available, but somewhat organized then too. Maybe. Gonna have to think about that some more, I am. But definitely, I have to figure out something!

Today's gonna be a wicked day here too. Gonna be a lot of times -especially around 11 a.m. to noonish -where a certain little girl will no doubt be looking a lot like she looked the other night in the above photo too.

Why is that? Because today she's going to throw a hissy fit when she learns her Mommy will be leaving the house without her, gonna be gone all day and until the "black sky" comes tonight too! (That's Maya's description of night time, when Mommy will be back home.) Reason being, Mandy is going to help out at the local restaurant for today and also, the next two days. This is the place where she worked for a couple of years until about two years ago. The regular waitress needs a couple days off and they don't have anyone available to fill in so the owner called and asked Mandy if she could/would come up and help out. Sure thing, she said! It'll get her out of the house for a while and a chance to pick up a couple bucks in the process too.

But Maya is not going to like this change in her life -not one bit! So she will most likely pitch a royal fit, threaten that she is going to go away too! Then she'll no doubt throw herself on the loveseat, in front of the window and sob -then scream -sob some more, scream some more. The oise of her fit/meltdown will then cause Kurtis to join in too. He hates it when Maya cries so he jumps into those freys too then.

And I think maybe before Mandy leaves, I will run to town and buy myself a nice set of earplugs! Or hopefully, the hearing in both ears will just kind of shut down by itself and I'll be able to tune her -and maybe even her brother -out then till they both decide to settle down and accept the inevitable -that they're stuck with good old Grammy for the entire day!

But at least, since it is nice today, maybe I can take them for a short walk and that might help them both to adjust to Mommy's absence just a little better.

We will need to take a little stroll down the road though at some point to my neighbor's home and deliver something to her on what is her special day. Yep. Today is my neighbor and good friend's birthday! (lifelong friend as a matter of fact .) Which reminds me now too I have to go on a search and destroy mission in my china cupboard to locate the card I got several weeks ago to give Kate for her birthday today! Hopefully, I'll be able to find it without ripping the whole darned thing apart in the process!

That's my game plan now for today. What's yours?

10 comments:

Maggie May said...

I am always buying cards & putting them into such a safe place that I can't remember to get them out in time for Birthdays. the minute I buy another, they show up!
Weather is strange. After tomorrow the nights will start shortening . What a thought!
I went to a book reading toddler scheme this morning with the three year old!

Mary said...

Jeni,

Yes, I can imagine the noise when three children are fussin' and fumin'.

Many will not like a change in her routine. I was lucky that Brandon enjoyed being with me and was always happy when I was coming to take care of him. He still is. He spent the day with me yesterday while his class was on their school trip.

I hope that Mandy's meltdown doesn't last too long. Try to distract her with something that she likes to do, or bribe her. LOL Tell her if she stops fussin' you can do ----- fill in blank with something she LOVES to do. May or may not work. LOL

I know she can be a handful but you are a good granny and she loves you, as she loves her mother. It is just that the change in routine throws their entire world into chaos.

Blessings and hugs for a great day.
Mary

Linda said...

Let's see if Blogger will let me leave a comment today without trying it 12 times or more!

No great plans for today except to hunt down some yard sale items to take up to my Mom's for this weekend.

Good luck with today's melt-down!

Keith said...

Could you do me a huge favor? Send some of that "cool" weather my way please. We are in the midst of an early summer "extreme" heatwave here in the Desert Southwest and need some relief. Yes, it's always hot here in the Summer. But we've had a week of 110+ and June isn't even over yet. I'm just whining, but it does seriously grate on my nerves at times.

Also, my mouth started watering when you spoke of Pork,Sauerkraut and Mashed Potatoes...mmm mmm good, one of my favorite meals.

Peace!
Keith

Berni said...

I have no plans. I went to town yesterday so can't justify another pile of money for fuel. It up to $6 a gallon now. Hubby and friend are out fishing. I can't go out, or at least I don't want to because of bears. It has just started raining so I am glad because then I don't have the vague guilt that I should be outside enjoying summer because I might miss it otherwise. I still have my wood stove on as it is cold at night., about 2C or 34F. So I am feeling a little bored something that is pretty rare with me.

Linda Murphy said...

I chuckled at the mac and cheese-that is dinner for my boys tonight. Connor have some severe diaper rash problems, so I am trying to get him on a starchy diet-like bananas, mac and cheese, rice. At our house, dino nuggets is another staple.

Tonight is date night for me and hubby! Boys will be home watching a movie with the babysitter!

Anonymous said...

Pork chops, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut is one of my mom's favorite meals! She's a true German! I haven't had it since I moved out of the house 20 some years ago. I thought we were the only family who ate such a meal!

Travis Cody said...

Our weather turned around a bit this week too...we actually had several spring-like days! And it's only one more day until the official first day of summer.

Imagine that.

I hope your day wasn't too bad with the cranky kids.

... Paige said...

today I have done some work on my studio and am now resting up to go out with my beloved on a hot date= it's summer here and hot everywhere

Theresa said...

I often joke with Linda that the second kid isn't double work- but somehow the work grows at an exponential rate (for non math people-at a much higher rate)- I laughed when you said picture the Maya picture times three- I pictured much worse.

Yep a walk sound like a great idea to burn some energy off- At school I teach a lower level math class- most of the time it isn't the math that gets them but other issues- once I had a boy with such ADD but his mother refused to medicate him- somedays you knew he was going to be too much to handle-so since my room faced the baseball field I would tell him go run the bases three times before entering my room. So I am a true believer in burning off that energy that kids sometimes do not know how to deal with.

Have fun with the kids!