Non Sequitur

If only T K was this easy.

Melissa

We are not fans of Mondays here at Chez Monkey. I was in super-duper, extra slow-motion because I was up until 2 AMchatting with some WICKED awesome friends, two of whom seem to live in this place called C-A-N-A-D-A. Neat, eh? ((Don’t be jealous, they’re teaching me to speak Canadian.)) And, yes, even the morning after I can say it was sooooo worth it! I highly encourage other moms raising kids with FX to set up Skype dates with other moms. It is a great, FREE way to connect with other parents when you might be isolated either by distance or some other circumstance. You can even set up group chats.  It’s tons of fun. Do it!

Monkey was in super-duper, extra slow-motion because…that’s what he does when he doesn’t want to go to school. Which is daily so not really that big of a deal because we build time into our morning to accomdate that ((Please don’t tell him that or he’ll find some new way to derail the school plans!!!)) but on days when I’m running slow too, suddenly all that built in time disappears…and then some. I wish I knew how that happens because it sucks!

Anywho, we were both moving slower than molassess ((Much, much slower than molassess in January for sure.)) which ratchets up the stress in the household. Perfect for a Monday, eh ((SEE, I’m practically Canadian already!))?

When it came time for putting on shoes and jackets he was starting to get worked up. The faster we move the more upset he gets, sound familiar? I finally have everything ready. His hat and gloves packed because it’s 51 degrees here this morning but it will cool off later, his Vantage Lite, his BEE folder, his jackets…let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.

Then he stopped moving. “Money, skart?”

“What? We have to get going bud, let’s go.”

“Monneeyyyy, SKART?”

“Uh?” (thinking WTF is a damn skart??)

“Money, skart? Wrap up?”

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! “OK, Monkey, I’ll put your scarFFF on. Ready?”

And, he was. So, fine, it is 51 degrees out but check out them mad vocab skillz!

This may help!

Melissa

Duhdee, the genius that he is, just gave me a swift kick to my technologically challenged patootie. iPhone, meet the WordPress app! Now I can blog during the only consistent downtime I have…no, not the toilet, my commute!

Though, the T does have a tendency to smell like a toilet with an alarming frequency, I shall try to spare you all those details. That is what facebook status updates are for!

I am thankful…

Melissa

…for parents who taught me that rewards come to those who work hard and sacrifice in the short-term.

…for in-laws who love and accept me unconditionally.

…for grandparents who have always made time for me even though I’ve not been very good about doing the same for them.

…for friends who have known me for years and still like me.

…for friends who are just getting to know me and still like me.

…for amazing neighbors who’ve made this corner of the big, bad city a home.

…for my husband who is my everything.

…for my son who brings me such joy every day.

…for each and every one of you reading this.

Your support has gotten me through some really awful moments and made sweeter moments that much sweeter…thank you.

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving.

Would it be boring if we didn’t have these games to play?

Melissa

Monkey’s speech is…uneven. He has a lot of really clear words that he uses in very typical ways. He also has really clear words, and more than a few less than clear ones too, that he uses in very scripted ways. He quotes The Penguins of Madagascar (Oh, dear!) most often.  Then there are the muddled words that he is clearly using in some sort of script but gooooood luck figuring out what the H-E-doublehockeysticks he is talking about. This is where the fun starts.

We’ve played the “What is he saying?” game here before…now with the scripted speech we’re discovering a new game. The “What episode is that from?” game. It has turned out to be quite a lot more difficult than I expected. There are only so many episodes of the Penguins! This should narrow the field down considerably but then you add in the fact that sometimes Monkey mispronounces words or swaps out a challenging one for an easier one which significantly lowers the odds of you finding the right episode.

Two days ago, Monkey began talking about a tiger. “Look! A tiger! Oh, dear.” Hmmm.

Clearly he’s quoting The Private, the “Oh, dear” and slightly British accent gives him away every time. But there are no episodes with a tiger that I could find! I found FanFiction with a tiger but nothing official. Just as I was beginning to think that maybe he was changing up the game by combining quotes from YouTube clips he showed his hand. He called me from the other room, “Mommy, LOOK! A tiger! Oh, dear.”

Dude, that’s a BADGER! And that makes total sense because, as everyone knows, The Private is scared of badgers, duh! So, Monkey is learning a new word this week while I’m home. Not that “Look! A badger!” is going to make anymore sense to people but at least I’ll know he’s sticking to the script.

In his defense, as if a Monkey as cute as he is needs a defense, the badgers do look a little…cat-like, perhaps even a little bit tiger-ish, no?

If at first you don’t succeed…

Melissa

try, try again. This would be my special needs parenting motto number two. See here for my other parenting motto.

Our first attempt at apple picking and pumpkin choosing did not go so well. Neither Duhdee nor I seem capable of admitting that life gets in the way of “traditions” sometimes so we’ve been rather stubbornly holding on to the need to do these things despite Monkey’s anxiety and Duhdee’s inability to walk for more than a few minutes without losing sensation in his leg. I guess the thinking is that if we skip a year we, what, fail? Lose our “MOST AMAZING PARENTS EVER” award, though I don’t recall even getting nominated…I don’t know. I don’t know why we put so much pressure on ourselves sometimes to do these sorts of things. It seems rather silly, at times, but…

Part of it is that Duhdee and I really want Monkey to understand that these things…apples, pumpkins, Christmas trees…all come from someplace and that someplace isn’t a grocery store. This is part of the reason we have a vegetable garden. Monkey knows that potatoes come from the ground. He knows tomatoes and cucumbers and the beans ((he won’t eat)) all come from plants in the backyard. Duhdee buys our eggs from a local farm so Monkey know eggs come from chickens and that chicken…it also comes from chickens, lol. These are things that matter to us. Living in the city as we do it’s very easy for kids to grow up thinking that food comes from a grocery store and never ever realize where it came from before that. So there is that bit but skipping a year of apple picking shouldn’t throw the entire world into chaos, right?

To prove that we are not entirely inflexible (though, we are on Christmas trees, Duhdee has force-marched us through knee deep snow, biting winds and veritable oceans of mud for the perfect tree…here’s hoping he’s fully recovered by then) we’ve decided that we’ll go to a local nursery where we can buy local apples (Honeycrisp, yum) and local pumpkins. It’s going to have to be good enough since Duhdee refuses to consider the wheelchair option.  He even laughs as if I’m such kidder when I bring it up!  Of course, I am just kidding…

He’s simply not cooperating!

Melissa

Monkey is being completely uncooperative these days, he’s giving me zero blog fodder. *Hrumph*

School is going well. He is doing his morning routine and transitioning to his teacher very well. I think, in maybe another week, we could step back a micro step and start the process of making him more independent. Maybe we’ll start with one less hug, lol.

This past weekend we intended to go apple picking but two things stopped us.

  1. Monkey decided that there were just tooooo many people there (it was a madhouse) and that staying in the parking lot would be the best course of action. We managed to get him out of the parking lot briefly but deemed it in everyone’s best interests that we return him there as quickly as possible.
  2. Duhdee, still can’t really walk that much. Apple picking in a large orchard was probably not a good idea in the first place, eh?

I ended up picking apples all by my lonesome…out of a bin in the farm store, lol.

We spent time with Duhdee’s parents on Sunday as well. We had a yummy dinner and Monkey ate a lot of food. After dinner, Grammy offered us homemade apple pie and I told her Monkey and I would share a piece since he doesn’t really like pie and no, thank you, he won’t eat icecream…only to have my entire serving stolen! AND he asked for and receieved two small scoops of icecream. Shows what I know.

That’s about it. Totally and utterly boring. 

Isn’t it so cool??

Riding the rails.

Melissa

There are so many things I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t have my little Monkey to show me. One of those is this, I love trains. I never knew that until I had a train obsessed, little man in my life and I might have never known it if I’d gotten that little girl I had hoped for.

Monkey loves all things about trains.  Our obsession started with Thomas and wooden train sets.  Before we got too far into that scene, however, we discovered motorized trains and we’ve never looked back.  It seems like a natural progression to move from little motorized trains to bigger motorized trains.  Duhdee has some schemes for a large train table and display for our basement sometime down the road but right now that’s a little too advanced.

Besides, now that Monkey has been on the real deal, he’s a little less enamored of the toys. He prefers watching YouTube clips of subway trains “Here comes!” and, whenever possible, riding on those same subways.  We’ve spent more than one afternoon altering our plans so that we could ride a train.  Sometimes we make plans solely based on the fact that we will go there by train!

It’s no hardship though because I really, really, really like trains!  I ride the subway 5 days a week and that is not much fun but experiencing it with Monkey is a whole different matter.  We’ve also made an effort to take him on various “tourist” railways to experience what a real, old fashioned train ride is like.  We’ve toured cranberry bogs in southeastern Massachusetts, shady woods in Maine, New Hampshire lake shores and, most recently, the Berkshire Mountains.  Every time we do this the stress of everyday life just falls away and the 3 of us (and sometimes a few guests!) can sit back and just grin at each other like fools as the scenery slips past.

I’ve decided something, and this is the first that Duhdee is hearing of this, I’m going to come up with my own “Bucket List” that involves all the amazing railroads I want to travel on. 

And, I’m thinking big…

Really big…