Whatnot Wednesday

I've been couponing like crazy around here. I find it incredibly challenging and really rewarding. I know that's probably pretty sad, but I try to keep it real around here. I just bought four boxes of Tampax (20 count) for 89 cents (not each - for ALL four). I don't need them or anything, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Darius Rucker?? I'm a fan. I know that different people have different tastes, but I don't understand why there is this "idea" that he's somehow not cool?? I mean, who didn't like Hootie and the Blowfish, right? And now I'm even a fan of his country stuff. "Friends" went to a Hootie concert and it wasn't like that was the only band they could get to be on the show. They didn't even show the band so they could have used any band, but they choose Hootie. If he's cool enough for Ross and co., he's cool enough for me! I'm just saying....

I was flipping channels last night and "A Lot Like Love" was on right at the scene where Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet are singing "If You Leave Me Now." That's such a great scene. I love it when that happens too - remote control gold!

Have y'all seen the infomercial about the pajama blue jeans??? I'm fascinated - seriously fascinated! I literally look for people to see if I can find anyone that has them on and I'm going to go introduce myself. I just need to meet the person that would buy them. Of course, I felt this way about snuggies for a long time too and now I own one. Who am I kidding? I'm totally going to be wearing those in another year or two.

I've started reading the Harry Potter books. I had been planning to forever, but I just can't get excited about science fiction - it's not my thing. They're good though. I expected them to be good, of course. Surely, that many people couldn't be that wrong. I mean, the author doesn't have anything on Nelson DeMille but I'm interested. I'm on the second book - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I'm probably not the typical reader b/c I really don't care what's in the chamber or who the Slytherin heir is, but I am very interested in how all the relationships end up throughout the series. I'm guessing it's Harry and Ginny and Hermonie and Ron. Am I right?? And I thought that Dumbledore and McGonagall might get together, but I think I heard that Dumbledore is gay so there's that theory already shot. Regardless, I'm intrigued.

Go to The Wonderful Happens and clear your head of all the whatnots floating around.

What We Left Behind

Jack's pediatrician had referred us to a child psychologist in Atlanta who specializes in autism spectrum disorders for a developmental assessment. Actually, I had requested it, but he thought it was a good idea as well. After a lot of thinking and praying, Ben and I have decided that I will go to a two day work week beginning in August so that I can be with Jack as much as possible this year before he begins school. He will be starting a new preschool in August three mornings a week and we just felt that it would benefit him for me to be with him the rest of the time so that we could get him wherever he needed to be whenever he needed to be there this year as we try to get him ready for Kindergarten.

The first thing I wanted to do was get this developmental assessment so that we could have a good, concrete plan for him this coming year. I really liked the doctor: she was great with Jack, seemed VERY knowledgeable AND she seemed to be right on target with the things she noticed about Jack and his particular situation. I had heard from others in the autism community that she was catching small things that other doctors wouldn't necessarily catch and I found that to be true. She was very thorough and seemed to really understand Jack. She talked to me a lot and gave lots of suggestions that I'm planning to implement soon, but we won't have her full report and recommendations (including a diagnosis) for about 10-14 days.

I'm anxious to see what all she recommends so we can really hit the ground running this summer, but if I'm honest, a part of me was a little disappointed too. I know that Jack has autism and I know that the differences I see are there for a reason. But he is high functioning and there are a lot of his behaviors that I could just chalk up to eccentricity or a bad day. There was a small part of me that thought, "Maybe she'll just come in after the testing and say, 'I think he's fine. I think he's going to do just fine in school without any extra help.' " I knew that wasn't likely to happen but I have to say there was a part of me (a really small part) that thought it was a possibility.

I hope that nobody misreads this. If you've read my blog for long, then you know that overall, we embrace Jack's autism. I know that it is part of who he is and I LOVE who he is. And at home, things are great.... when it's just our family, things are great... when I can mostly control his environment, things are great. What I haven't been able to embrace completely is the idea of school and how Jack is going to do not only in that social environment, but in such a structured learning environment. And I gotta tell you, it would have been nice to hear, "I think he's going to do great in school - no problems!" It would have been a RELIEF to hear that.

I didn't hear that. While the doctor was very complimentary of Jack and his abilities, she didn't mince words about his needs either. She talked at length about his many sensory issues and his lack of conversational language and how visual he is and how all these things could cause difficulties in the school setting. She wasn't negative at all - just clear on the fact that there were issues and there were things he needed.

I knew all this and the biggest part of me was justified in what I, as a Mom, had seen. I wasn't overreacting; I wasn't just not disciplining him correctly; we weren't wasting our time and money worrying about something that wasn't there. But because Jack is high-functioning, there are times when I would think that maybe I WAS just overreacting to the situation and if I just backed off, things would all work themselves out.

It was ironic that I attended Jack's observation day at swimming lessons on Friday. It was SO obvious how far behind Jack was in motor skills. I mean, like REALLY far behind. There was a skill for all the other kids to do and then Jack did something else... always with assistance and always with a lot of reluctance. I gotta say... it wasn't my most comfortable and fun 30 minutes of my life. I had a sudden urge to get all the four and five year old kids out of the pool and giving a reading and spelling test to even things out a little:) Just kidding, but it really was hard to see how far he had to go. I think having watched that helped me hear what the doctor was saying.

All in all, I'm thrilled with our visit. We have found someone that I think can put us on a great track for the coming year. This doctor was ABOUT it and very proactive and decisive and knowledgeable (ALL qualities I LOVE!!). And I'm ready to get started. I took so many great things with me from that visit. A lot of information, understanding, and excitement about finding out exactly what we need to do!

But I left some things behind too - the most important being Dave the Giraffe (can you believe we forgot him???). Along with him, I left the idea that this is just going to go away; the idea that Jack is going to be able to do everything the same way that other kids do them; the idea that I can just ignore the differences and they might go away. And it was a good thing - to let it all go - to leave it there. The doctor's office mailed Dave back to us, but I didn't even ask for all the other things we left behind.

Whatnot Wednesday

I've completed all five seasons of "How I Met Your Mother" on DVD recently. It was legend...wait for it...dary!! I totally have a crush on Josh Radner now and my husband has a man crush on Neil Patrick Harris (shhh... I promised him I wouldn't tell. I mean it is Doogie Howser:). Anyway, I was really adamant about not watching that show forever b/c most of the actors in it grate on my nerves in their other work. But then I watched a few episodes (thank you Lifetime) and it was great!! I love all the actors now.... weird. Anyway, it's a good show.

I watched some episodes of "Extreme Couponing" this weekend. It's really nuts and I have no desire to have a stockpile of stuff in my house, but something about watching that show is like daring you to try it. So, I went out Sunday and bought the paper. I don't think I understand all the concepts very well, but I did save $19.68 today at the grocery store, so hats off to coupons.

I'm the kind of person that has to do things a certain way. For instance, I saw someone with their coupons in a baseball card album. A few years ago, I organized Ben's baseball cards alphabetically by team in those albums. Now, they are all in a shoebox again. I needed the album for my coupons of course... my one week's worth of coupons. It only took me about 3 days to organize those cards. Makes sense, right? :)

Everyone is raving about the book "Heaven Is For Real." I mean EVERYONE. I hear about it all the time. I read that book in a day. I don't get it... I didn't enjoy it. I made the mistake of saying that out loud the other day. I'm just warning you... if you read it and didn't like it and the subject comes up - LIE!

One of the songs from our VBS was "He Reigns." It was my favorite. Lately, Jack will ask me for something and if I say no, he sings, "It's all God's children singing, 'Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! He reigns. He reigns.' " and just stands there and waits on me to change my mind. Works sometimes too.

Jack called my mom the other night and asked her to come over and play "Word Mole" with him. That's a game on mother's blackberry where you make words. When they started, he told her to write "butterfly". My mother said how nice that word was and told Jack that she liked that word. After that though, he had her write "mystic" and "river" and "riddick" and "piranha." Yeah, we were back to our movie obsession and I realized that butterfly probably wasn't about the pretty, sweet flying creation of God, but a reference to "The Butterfly Effect" instead.


I saw an ad encouraging people to buy Pepsi and they were funding some kind of project that helps your communities. I'm not sure - I didn't read it closely. Anyway, I was trying to think of something that would actually be important enough to make me buy Pepsi (and drink it). I was a little appalled at myself by how much it would take. The stuff's just really, really bad!

A friend of mine got engaged this past weekend and they had a really sweet, funny, romantic engagement story. It made me think about our engagement story. It was much more funny than romantic, but that's kind of who we are so it worked for us. I told Ben, "Well, we just Forrest Gumped our way right through that whole deal." That's from a movie and since we love movie quotes, maybe it was little romantic.

Head over to The Wonderful Happens and tell us all your funny and useless thoughts today....

PandaMania Pictures

I promised pictures from Vacation Bible School and here they are. Our theme this year was "PandaMania: Where God is Wild About You!" All our Bible verses came from Psalm 139. If you are involved with VBS and are looking for something different and interactive, I highly recommend Groups literature. It's a fun and different way to do VBS and we have LOVED using this the past several years at our church.

Here is our worship rally area. Me and the rest of the children's committee were in charge of this area. The idea is from my crafty and talented friend, Tara, but we all worked on it. Ben made the Chinese pagoda. You can see there was lots of bamboo, panda bears and other animals. Lots of fun!!

Our buddy characters who helped us learn the Bible point every night were: Lulu the golden monkey; Boomer the panda; Amanda the red panda; Pogo the snow leopard; and Fez the bird (she was from Monday and I really don't remember what kind of bird she was:). I think you can find them all on stage.

Our children's choir helping the other kids learn the songs and motions:

One of our Bible story rooms:

They act out the Bible stories each night and the kids interact in the story. For instance, the night that Jonah was in the belly of the fish, the whole room was a belly and they had open sardines with a fan to make the smell and the whole room was black and the waves were rocking... I was glad I wasn't working in that part:)

Dave the Giraffe enjoyed VBS a lot too:

The director's child... isn't it always that way?? He did participate more than I thought he would but he spent some a lot of time like this too:)

Our cute VBS t-shirts (you may have to enlarge the picture to see it, but they were pretty cute):

Poor Timmy had to eat boiled bamboo b/c he boys lost the mission offering contest:

I don't know if y'all have ever seen any bamboo shoots but I got it from our Japanese Steakhouse (that has the BEST sushi!! :) and it did NOT look or smell good. Timmy confirmed that it tasted worse than it smelled. Anyway, we were raising money to clothe orphans in Haiti and we had a contest between the girls and boys. The girls won so Timmy had to eat bamboo (cause that's what pandas eat) during commencement. Y'all, those kids raised over $900.00 to help clothe orphans and I get to be one of the ones that gets to take a lot of those clothes to them next month. Very cool:)

The preacher giving everyone a good sermon at VBS:

Not really.... he was actually just telling everyone how to get to the fellowship hall for finger foods, but it looks like he's going to town, doesn't it? :)

Our crew - Caroline, Ella, Piper and Jack:

It was a great week! Sorry, Karen, but I have no pictures of me as PandaMania Penelope. I'm sure someone does, but they probably won't make it to the blog:)

The Battery Wented Dead

My friend Shonna was in charge of something called "Spotlight VBS" at our Vacation Bible School this past week. Each night we took pictures of a different crew of kids and then she inserted these into a computer program which recapped the Bible story for the night with the kids pictures. It was a really neat deal and the kids loved it. Friday night was the night for the preschoolers to take pictures. Jack's not much on being posed for pictures. Most kids would probably just say, "I don't want my picture taken." or just not participate. Jack, being much more literal than most, kept saying, "The battery wented dead!" meaning her camera battery had died and wouldn't work. He was trying really hard to convince her that she couldn't use her camera. He's pretty funny...

Anyway, as I thought about it later, I realized that is sort of how I've felt the last few months. Like my battery was slowly going dead. I just didn't have the energy to do the things that I normally enjoy - like blogging:) I realized that it has been a sort of depression. Not like couldn't function depression or anything like that - just a really bad case of the blues that lasted much longer than I thought it ever would.

There are probably lots of things that attributed to it or maybe it just happened. Regardless of the reasons, it's been a tough few months. I think what really was disconcerting to me is that I'm normally a "pull yourself up by your boot straps" kind of thinker. I've always felt that I just had what it takes to muscle through tough times. But if I've realized anything lately, it's that my strength just isn't always enough. I've always know that there are some things that I will never be able to control completely. I just didn't realize until recently that my emotions and feelings could be one of those things.

Again, this wasn't some life altering condition or anything like that. I think only my closest friends even realized I was having a tough time and they would just say things like, "You don't seem like yourself lately." Those words rang so true because I didn't FEEL like myself. That was NOT a good feeling for me. But last night as I was thinking and laughing with my friends about what Jack was saying as Shonna was trying to take his picture, I was suddenly really thankful that I have a place to charge my battery.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." Matthew 28:11

I'm not gonna lie - it hasn't been easy to pray and meditate on Christ the last few months. But we've been studying in my Sunday School class a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. We've been challenged to take about 30 seconds before we pray to focus on who God is - who is this God we are praying to? As I've done that, I've thought about how big He is, how powerful He is, but also how that big, powerful God is the same one that bids me come to Him. It's really an amazing reality to contemplate.

We all go through hard times. I really think if I tried to put into words the difficulties I've had lately, most people would think it was pretty small stuff. But it's been my stuff and for me, it wasn't small and I couldn't shake it. That's true of all of us. I don't understand sometimes why people get upset about things that to me seem really small and inconsequential. But the reality is that it's our stuff and for us, it's big and we have to live through it. And sometimes things are tough, tougher than the stuff we're made of.

But it's never tougher than the God I serve. He's never confused, depressed, or at a loss for what to do. And he wants me... He wants to love me in a way that through that love, my life brings Him glory. So, my battery was getting weak, it was going a little dead, but I'm getting recharged from the energy source that never runs out. And you never know... in a little more time, I might even be camera ready.

Whatnot Wednesday

It's been a few weeks since I linked up so you would think that I have TONS of useless information in my head. I do, but I'm so tired this week that I'm not sure if I can get even one of the thoughts written in coherent language, but I'm gonna try.

It's pretty common to see information on bullying when you are researching any kind of autism. Autistic and Asperger's children are normally targets for bullying. I've been a little concerned about that with Jack starting school next year. Last week, he attended art camp and when my Dad got there to pick him up, he saw another little boy ACCIDENTALLY bump into Jack and make him fall down. The little boy didn't mean to do it and wasn't even aware that he did it. After the incident that he wasn't even aware of, he went and sat down. Jack calmly got up and walked over to him and got right in his face and with hands up like a bear, screamed "ROAR!" Scared the poor child to death!! This week he's in swimming lessons and yesterday, his teacher informed me that he had to sit out of the pool b/c another child splashed him in the face and Jack threw a ring at him and busted his lip. So, I'm still worried about bullying, but in a completely opposite way than before.

Speaking of Jack, his new "obsession" is Ben's collection of horror movies. Ben loves scary movies - even the ridiculous ones with little to no plot. Obviously, Jack can't watch them (and doesn't want to) but he has found their cabinet and he LOVES to look at the DVD covers and figure out their rating. This one is "rated to R" and this one is "rated to PG-13" and so on.... My aunt had a picture of dinosaurs Sunday and she asked Jack to tell her all the dinosaurs names. He said, "This one's name is "Resident Evil" and this one is "No Country for Old Men" and this one is "My Bloody Valentine" and this is "Saw 2" etc.... He went on like that for a LONG while! All of you can just stop campaigning for parents of the year now. Clearly, Ben and I have that award all wrapped up:)

Another movie character that Jack is pretty crazy over is Harry Potter. I know there's this big debate about whether Christians should watch Harry Potter and I have no idea where I come down in all that - mainly, because I haven't read the books. I think I would come down on the fact that it's fiction so what's the big deal? I don't believe in talking cars or that toys come to life but we have certainly seen those 100,000 times each. Regardless, Jack hasn't seen the movies or read the books due to his age, but he saw the books at Barnes and Noble several years ago and he's been nuts for him ever sense. He really thinks of him as a friend in his life too. We were headed to the theater to see "Rio" the other night and Jack said, "Mom, I wonder if Harry's going to be there tonight?"

I'm helping with the worship rally at VBS this year. Somehow before I was really aware of it, I ended up having to dress up as "PandaMania Penelope" (a panda bear) for a short skit every night. This is so far outside my personality, it's really incredible - not only that I'm doing it but that anyone would want me to do it. I don't even play pretend with my son. I literally tell children "I don't do pretend." Still, the kids are going around calling me Penelope throughout the night so I guess that's enough to consider it a success, right?

The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA playoffs and I was happy. My husband was pulling for the Miami Heat in the finals so we were pulling against each other. You get that right - I won and he lost - those are important facts in our family! We normally enjoy the basketball playoffs, but we don't tend to get so emotionally invested like we do in football. That has changed with us pulling against each other. I almost physically assaulted him over a game before he went back to work. We've always said that we couldn't have married each other if we weren't both Alabama fans; after these playoffs, I think we've proven that to be true:)

I need to find some edible bamboo sprouts. Does anybody have any suggestions? This is actually a legitimate question, but I'm guessing that my quest to find them this weekend could end up in my next batch of Whatnot Wednesdays:)

Making a Comeback

I've been gone a while from my blog. I've just spent the last hour catching up on all my friends blogs. We're in Vacation Bible School this week and it was nice to sit and read about all your lives for an hour and just rest. I love VBS and Jack loves VBS this year (can I get a "Hallelujah!"?), but we are both exhausted and it's only Day 2. I didn't hear a peep out of him in the last hour either, but isn't that a sign of a really fun time? Mom needs an hour of NO noise and child is too tired to fight it? :)

Anyway, I've missed my blog and telling you all every detail of our lives:) Honestly, it's been a tough few months. There have been lots of difficulties going on and some hard decisions made, but what has been really difficult has been my response to things. I just haven't responded in a normal "Lori" fashion. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it has certainly felt bad. Having said all that, I think I'm making a comeback. A come back to myself... and I'm definitely making a come back to the blog. I know you're all thrilled:)

I guess that's another thing that VBS is good for - blogging. It's been a few weeks but no matter how bad I've been feeling, there is nothing that could keep me from posting pictures of Jack surrounded by pandas, monkeys, snow leopards, red pandas and big birds. And there is definitely nothing that could keep me from posting pictures of him SINGING WITH OTHER CHILDREN (again, a "Hallelujah" please?). Oh yes, it's all coming.... soon..... :) It's good to be back!