Status Update

Hey everyone – if you guys are even still there -

I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive but focusing on the bigger things in life – my family.

I do still think about you all and read yur blogs when I can but not as often as I’d like to.

I do want to give you some good news though……

Duchess Orangutan does not have AUTISM!!!!!!! She is not showing any signs – she has some delays but that was because she was a premie but otherwise she is right where she needs to be.

I will try and check in soon but can’t promise anything – if I don’t write in before then, I hope you and yours have a happy and safe holiday season full of all the love andjoy nd well wishes you all deserve!!!!

XOXOXO,
Krystal

Sought by the BPS : Blogosphere Protective Services

I know I have been neglectful of my blog as of late.

But I have an excuse – I have six kids!!!

LOL

I am doing okay and surviving – the kids are thriving and doing awesome.

I have been crazy busy at work and working on my Masters is kicking my ass!!

I have not forgotten you all and I will be back into the scheme of things soon. Just please let the BPS know that I am not neglecting you all, I am just restructuring my time table.

If I don’t post before then, I hope you all have a happy and safe halloween!!!

**Update on the book – I have already formed the categories for the questionnaire and am setting a goal to finish the questionnaire by next week. Those who posted interest will be emailed the questions as soon as they are done. Thanks for your patience.

I didn’t know going to the grocery store required parental discretion

First off  would like to start by saying sorry for being out of it for a while – I am really busy with work, school, and the kids. I have also been spending most of my free time in the kitchen making baby food for Spider Monkey, the Capuchin, and the Duchess. No more Gerber in our house – it is all NATURAL. So instead of being immersed into the blogosphere, I have been overwhelmed into the world of vegetables and pureed foods. Please forgive me..I have actually been stalking you religiously, I just have not had the chance to type up any witty comments – my brain is as pureed as the carrots and pumpkin.

Hey! That’s a pretty good segue into what I am writing about today…go ahead…read on, you’ll see what I am talking about…….

As I have stated before, I am not that good of a cook. I do not like to cook and I detest going grocery shopping…that is why I have the Ape – he lives for going to the grocery store – it is such that the clerks know who he is – they have bonded and created relationships – wonderful!

So needless to say I have not been the one buying the groceries and in a sense I am glad because a few days ago, the Ape arrived home with the latest coveted food by the baboon – bagels. As I was unloading the groceries and putting them away, I came across this bright and lovely sticker on the bag of treats for my 4 year old.

Yeah, you read that right - Bimbo Bakeries- and the thing that made me snicker even more – the whole Buy 1 Get1 Free bit of it all. Since when were bimbo’s involved in making anything with carbs?

I decided to brush that off as a weird anomaly.

I mean come on – life could not be that awkward that someone would not really pay attention to what they were naming their company or the marketing department didn’t proof read the stickers before they were printed and in order to save money they just used the typo-ed stickers and hoped that nobody would notice.

I actually felt like Jay Leno with his segment on those articles/ advertisements/ etc gone wrong.

I just put it away and laughed every time I would go get a bagel for the baboon, I know you would too so don’t judge.

Well, a few days after that incident I was running out of vegetables and my MIL and the Ape thought it would be cool to check out the local flea market for vegetables. They came back with a whole farm I swear!!! These two can negotiate the hell out of anything it seems. I am still having a hard time finding the milk in the refrigerator because of the abundance of vegetables.

As I was putting these bargain bought fresh veggies away, I was stunned when I came across a vegetable in particular. When I first saw it I honestly thought it was a gag gift of sorts or that my husband took a detour without his mom and stumbled across a booth in the back dark corner of the flea market to find something to shock me…whatever it was, I did a double, triple, and quadruple take before saying WTF?!?! Just take a look and you see what I am talking about.

I don’t know if I am losing my mind or that my train of thought is meandering to places it shouldn’t be while unloading nutritious foods for my family but did you get a look at the size of that carrot? (Petra, you can stop laughing now)

I think next time the Ape decides to take one of the kid with him to the grocery store, I will make sure they have a blind fold on – no sense in exposing them to that kind of stuff now – I have enough to deal with already!

 

Piqued my interest and my heart

First of all, I would like to say thank you to all of you who have sent well wishes for my laryngitis recovery. So far so good, looks like I may have my voice for this weekend which is great because I have a lot to catch up on with all the “mommy can you….?” questions.

you see that picture below?

Yeah that one, the one that tugs at your hartstrings and makes you want to wish that the workd that we live in was not as cruel as it really is.

This poor child just could not let her daddy go  when he was ready to deploy to war in July and he will not return until next July. This little girl will miss her daddy for a whole year. Her daddy will miss out on a year of her life full of drawings, boo-bos, pretend tea parties, and much more. He will miss the birth of his youngest child as his wife is currently expecting. He will miss out on so much while he stands on the other side of the workd protecting our country from an enemy that we cannot seem to defeat and for a cause that not many of us fully understand or agree with.

This picture made me realize just how precious each and every realtionship we have is, no matter the connection and reason for it.

Just like this little girl, I am going to hold on tight to my loved ones tonight and be glad that we live where we do, regardless of the problems that we are facing. I see miracles every day and they are in the light my childrens’ eyes hold and I could’t bare to be away from them for a whole day, let alone a whole year. This little girl and her family have more courage than I; pure love and innocense, truly heart warming.

I know you can’t hear me because you’re reading this

but if you were in front of me, you wouldn’t be able to hear me either. I have laryngitis.

I hate this!!

Do you know how hard it is to scream at the fact that there was a rat on my sidewalk on Saturday morning when Princess went to walk Steve. Not only was it a rat, but it was a dead rat!!!! EWWWWW!!!!

The funny part about it was that I had never seen Princess run that fast inside the house. The poor dog must have felt like he was in a category 7 earthquake with the way she shook him in her tiny arms. Poor little Chihuahua was probably wondering to himself WTF is this little chick doing with me.

Needless to say I told Princess to run and get her dad, who of course, was still sleeping.

He was not happy to be awake for my need to get rid of a dead rat on the side walk.

You know, I’m glad that the cats in the neighborhood found a treat to munch on aside from my garbage but honestly, did they have to leave it on my sidewalk? Why not my neighbor’s? Honestly, they are not the nice ones in the neighborhood.

So the Ape went for the mop and shooed it away with the handle (Thank GOD it was the mop that I was throwing away). When he flipped it over, the nasty thing had a scared look on its face as if it was being attacked by the little puppet from the Saw movies.

I was screaching and scratching my voice to emphasize the yuck and ewww of it all. I sounded like someone was trying to …well, I can’t even describe what I sounded like. Just know that it is not the typical call girl phone operator voices that tend to happen when you are sick.

My callers would probably think they were talking to an old lady battling emphysema’s!!

Spin Cycle: Keeping with tradition?

Well, it’s Friday again and that means another load of thoughts and words and ideas and….you get the point…all being thrust into the Spin Cycle, wonderfully hosted by Jen at Sprite’s Keeper as always. This week’s topic – TRADITION…hmmm….let’s see…oh yeah!!!

Well, my family is not big on tradition. The only thing that we have remotely close to a tradition is to go to Disney World at minimum once a year.

We live close by and the kids are obsessed with all things mouse and fantasy and the like.

The Ape and I have discussed holding back on that tradition for a while because we are planning on buying our own house and hopefully somewhere in there I will get my vow-renewal ceremony but the house definitely comes first.

We will be breaking with the new tradition though in order to resume our old tradition in the year 2013. You know why that specific year? (This is of course assuming that the Incas got it wrong and the whole world does not disintegrate into oblivion in 2012 – have you seen the movie trailers yet?) Well, in 2013, Disney Imagineers will amaze us all once again and would have completed the expansion of Fantasy Land!!! (Heads up Jen – one of the proposed rides is a Little Mermaid themed ride so best start prepping the Sprite soon so she doesn’t get scared like she did at the show – I think she will love this!)

This will also allow us to go to the new Harry Potter portion of Islands of Adventure due out next year. It will be loads of fun for us – and I think the kids might enjoy it as well.

So for now our tradition of going north will cease (don’t write that in stone – we have said that before LOL) and we will wait until 2013 (again, hoping the Incas are wrong) and we will revisit the wonder that is Disney World.

Honestly people, I really do need to stop going there. If you don’t believe me – just answer me this one question: Is it odd that I can navigate my whole brood through Disney World’s multiple parks without a map and know exactly where I am going and even direct those lost with a map, where they need to be going? I thought so…

Oh and one more tradition before I go back to the zombiness that is this horrible and tragic flu…

Spider Monkey said MOMMY!!!!!!!!! The tradition that accompanies motherhood is one that I have waited 5+ years to partake in and finally yesterday, as I dropped him off at school he turned around, gave me a kiss, and said “bye mommy” and walked his way into the school – I was a puddle of mush and tears. This was one tradition that was worth the wait to participate in.

Wordless Wednesdays: Thanks for the heads up!!

Good to know….Now, I’d like to know where this place is so that I make sure NEVER to eat there or shop there or do whatever it is that is done there….

Am I insane or what? A new endeavor of mine

Okay, the writing bug bit me as it tends to do and I have always wanted to write a book about something that I am passionate about and that is my kids and my experience as a mother of children with autism.

So I am planning to write a book – if you look at the tabs you will see one titled The REAL parents guide to living with autism. (If you are too lazy you can click here and save oh, 2 milliseconds of your time )

So pass the word along to those you know and get the word going so that this can be a successful book…more than a blonde who shall remain nameless at this point in time (not really, I mentioned her on the other tab, I know, shameless attempt to get search engines to find me some how)

Thanks!!!

Thank Mount Olympus for their smiles

This Saturday I was dreading to be home. I say this because I was fearing the whole World Wide Day of Play thing.

Last year every channel that the children watched was on hiatus for a full 24 hours so that the kids could go out and play. Don’t get me wrong – this is a great idea – for children who CAN go out and play. My kids, not so much.

It’s actually not that they can’t, it’s just we don’t have much of a back yard and our neighborhood is not kid friendly. So needless to say, last year was a drag and I feared this year.

To my amazement, it was not so horrible. The Disney channel came through for me (no, not the kids, for me and my sanity!) and they had regular programming. Nikelodeon and its affiliates of course remained off the air so unfortunately Dora was not heard and Wow Wow Wubzy! was not playing with his/ her (I still am a bit confused about the whole male/ female component of Wubzy) kickety kick ball. But nonetheless, I was able to confide in the always capable and trust worthy Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Club House.

After breakfast we decided to head over to the park before we would venture over to the Children’s Support/ Health Fair (we nixed the Farmer’s Market idea seeing as this would be indoors and it would have lots of resources for special needs children). The Ape had the wonderful idea of getting them tired and exhausted so that they would sleep throughout the whole convention.

When we got to the park, their faces lit up – they all were able to play. They climbed up the steps and on the rock walls). They slid down the slides and ran with the Ape. Grandma even came along for the fun!!!

The park was empty – there was not another soul out there. It was as if it was meant to be. Just for them.

The wind was perfect seeing as we were near water. (Which trust me, I was paranoid and panicking everytime one of them went within 10 feet of the water). The sun was just peeking through the clouds so it was not intensely hot.

The Capuchin was not restricted to his stroller as he typically is. Spider Monkey was able to just be himself and walk and wonder and stare at the sky. Little Kong and Princess were able to run and scream and climb all over the place without having to deal with the social nuances that make them fearful and outcasts in public sometimes. Baboon was able to just walk and stare at the grass and climb through tunnels without a child behind him screaming hurry up and him not understanding.

Even the Duchess was able to partake by trying out a slide which she preferred to traverse rather than slide down.

I was smiling and so was the Ape.

My children were being children, they were playing as typical children did. There were no inhibitions. No outsiders looking in and wondering why it was that some children were content with spinning the X’s and O’s in the extremely large Tic-Tac-Toe versus playing the game. Or how awkward it was that some children would fixate their eyes in a weird way while staring at the mulch as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

They were carefree and happy – they were children living in their own world but part of ours.

I could not have asked for a more perfect moment in time.

We did not make it to the convention – they were way too tired.

But most of all, they were happy. We were all happy. It was a GREAT day!

The children are taking over the world!!!!

for one day at least…

You see, today is the World Wide Day of Play.

It is a day where children are encouraged to shut off anything with a power button such as a computer, tv, ipod, video game console, etc.

now the question comes…..

WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH OUR CHILDREN FOR 24 HOURS?!?!?

The children’s channels will not be broadcasting ALL DAY LONG and God knows what computer science has been input into the Wii’s and the XBoxes and the Computer – they might all shut themselves off forcing us parents to think they are broken and go out and buy new ones just for the old ones to laugh in our faces tomorrow.

If you are looking for some stuff to do – Nickelodean has a large list of ideas here.

We’re considering taking our kids to the farmers market – like I said considering it…. 

I know we will do something outside of the house, just not set in stone….

What will you do with your monsters, I mean children?