I'll Have Mine Without Mercury Please

Every young couple has to make the decision eventually.  You know, the one everyone asks you about over and over.  "When are you going to have a baby?"  And then, you do have a child and the question doesn't stop, but becomes, "When are you going to have another baby?"  The question can get annoying, but you do have to make the decision of whether to have children and then, how many to have.  Ben and I still haven't completely figured that out.  There are days we feel God has completed our family and days when we think we may want more biological children.  We are also open to God calling us to expand our family in other ways, but right now, we are still undecided.

For us, the decision to have more biological children raises more questions.  Because Jack has autism, the probability of us having another autistic child is fairly high.  The studies differ, but it increases from approximately a 1 in 150 chance to somewhere between 1 in 50 to 1 in 12 chance.  WOW, right?  That's a pretty huge jump.  These figures aren't entirely reliable because autism is such a unique disorder and we really don't know what causes it and how much is genetics.  There really is no way to know for certain, but it is factual that families with autistic children are at a higher risk to have more autistic children.  Certainly, we have come to appreciate the wonderful things that come along with Asperger's  and the unique personality autistic characteristics have helped to create in our son, but at the same time, I feel that we should be proactive about attempting to lower these statistics in any way we can if we do decide to have other children in the future.

So, just in case, I'm having my fillings removed.  You know, the pretty silver ones that we got 100 years ago.  Did you know they have mercury in them?  Mercury is not good for any of us, but it's really bad for autistic children.  I try not to get all bent out of shape about things and I've never been considered an overprotective mother.  Actually, I think most of my friends and family feel I could be a little more proactive in the supervision and limitations areas in regards to possible physical harm:)  But, the more I've read about these fillings, the more I want them out of my mouth regardless of whether I carry another child or not.  It's sort of like reading about global warming, ya know?  If I believed everything Al Gore said, I would never get in a car again.  I mean, they'll scare you to death.  Well, the advocates for no mercury fillings are like that.  After all the information I've read, I feel like these things have been rotting my brain for years now.  Freaked me out.

After a few days, I was over the freak out, but I am getting them removed.  I'm always a little apprehensive about discussing something like this with a new doctor or professional because I have to go into the whole, "We have a son with Asperger's and we are more likely to have another autistic child but we don't know if we are going to have another child and I've heard there is mercury in the fillings and that's really bad for autistic children".... and on and on and on when what I really wanted to do was just get my teeth cleaned.  But this time, the minute I mentioned it, my dental hygienist and dentist were like, "Yep, we need to get them out."  That kind of freaked me out a little again because I was really expecting them to act like it was no big thing.  In any case, I'm getting rid of the mercury in my body.  If you think you may want to as well, read up on it.  If you don't want to replace your fillings, don't read it.  Because if you read it, you'll have no choice but to follow through.  They're rotting your brain, y'all.  I read it online so you know it's true:)

100

It is way too late for me to be blogging, but here I am.  Lately, it seems like if I'm going to blog, it's going to have to happen at 1:00 a.m. with my eyes half crossed and I'm not going to be able to worry about silly things like grammar and coherent sentences.  I've decided that I'm just embracing the dementia that comes with my crazy life.  Sometimes you just gotta own it, ya know?

My friend, Tara and I got Jack and Piper's pictures made in their Halloween costumes today.  Jack needed a little makeup this year.  Ever tried to put eyeliner on a kid with sensory issues?  It is F-U-N.  Let me rephrase, it is MORE fun than you EVER want to have.  Just FYI.  Anyway, after pictures, we took the kids out to eat and to see "Puss N Boots" (very cute movie).  I gotta say, though, without the costume, the makeup turned up the feminine quotient on my son a little higher than I'm comfortable with.  Not enough for me to actually try to get it off of hi, you understand, but I was slightly bothered by it throughout the night.  

After the movie, we decided to make a late night trip to Walmart to get our last minute items for the Fall Festival on Sunday night.  We have a work day tomorrow and we thought it would be wonderful if we didn't have to run to town tomorrow or Sunday while we are setting everything up.  A good idea, right?  Except for some reason, this Walmart had apparently heard we were coming and were in on some conspiracy to keep us from being able to get ANYTHING done ahead of time.  They had next to nothing we needed (and it wasn't like novelty items - we're talking like children's soap here...)  Honestly, I wouldn't have known how to act if I had something done a day ahead of time.  Again, sometimes you just have to own who you are:)   

We finally headed home with some sleepy kids and on the way, my cousin (and next door neighbor) called me and said their barn and his truck had burned down while they were in their house.  They don't know why or how, but when I got to the house, all the firetrucks were still there so I drove down there and stayed with them for a while.  We are all thankful it wasn't the house and that everyone is okay, but it was still tough.  Lots of loss there:(  

So, Jack and I just got home a few minutes ago and I decided to catch up on everyone's blogs because it wouldn't make any sense for me to get in bed before our big Fall Festival work day early in the morning:)  I don't normally pay a lot of attention to the box in the corner that shows my followers, but I happened to glance at it before I went to my google reader and saw that I have 100 followers.  I don't know when that happened and I am under no assumption that 100 people actually read my blog, but I gotta tell you, I got a little thrill.  I've come a long way from my first post of pictures of a sleeping child at an Alabama game. 

 I'm still amazed sometimes that anyone reads about our silly, fun, ridiculous, busy, crazy life especially since most of the time, I'm so tired and strung out, it doesn't make much sense.  But, I do love reading about all of you guys and everything that goes on in your lives.  I love learning from all of you about parenting, cooking, dealing with stress, how to find humor in craziness, and the myriad of other things I've learned from one of your blogs.  So, whether you read mine or not, thanks for following because on a really long day that ended pretty sadly, the 100 in the corner of the screen made me smile.  And you know what, blogging makes me smile a lot too.  Thanks followers!  

That's How We Roll

So, it's here.  THE game.  The one we've been waiting for all year.  You guys know we go nuts over Alabama football at the Foreman house.  Alabama is undefeated so far and so is LSU and neither team has any more games until Nov. 5th - when they play each other.  It is the #1 and #2 teams playing in a regular season game.  I thought Ben and I were going to have to win the lottery to be able to afford tickets to this game.  Seriously, y'all, the cheapest tickets I found for a while were $500 for BAD seats.  Some are selling for $1500-$2000.  They are saying it's a defacto National Championship game.  ESPN Gameday is getting to Tuscaloosa 48 hours before the game. It's gonna be NUTS and SO MUCH FUN!! Thankfully, a friend with season tickets finally sold us some GOOD tickets for a very reasonable price so we'll be there.  What's even better is our pastor and his family (some of our greatest friends) are from Louisiana and are BIG LSU fans.  Ben also works with and is great friends with mostly LSU fans.  This is a team I usually pull for when they aren't playing us, so I think it's gonna be so great to watch this game.  We are going to Disney the week after that and even that can't compare to the excitement of this game.  :)  I mean, it's so exciting, my husband even bought me some new jewelry for game day.

Romantic, isn't it?  

So, while I'm busy helping plan a Fall Festival for Sunday night at church and a preschool party the following Monday morning at my house (#whatwasithinking????), in the back of my mind I'll be thinking about the Tide and the big game coming up cause that's just how we roll.  At the end of LSU's 45-10 win over Auburn last Saturday, the fans chanted "WE WANT BAMA" over and over.  For that, I can only say this...

ROLL TIDE!!  Now, I'm going to try to concentrate on something else for a while:)

Hit the Road, Jack!

We have been roadies lately and it feels like we are never home.  I'm telling you... I went to a two day work week and I've never been so busy in my life.  Here are a few of our recent escapades:

*My friend Tara and I watched the Broadway musical "Wicked."  They were on tour in Atlanta and it had always been on Tara's bucket list. It is sort of the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West became wicked.  It was really fantastic.  I won't go into how we had to practically beg for the last two tickets and how we showed up right in the middle of the Gay Pride Parade which happened to be going on right in front of the theater - roads were closed; traffic was backed up; it was pretty nuts, but totally worth it.  The play was wonderful!

*Ben and I and Tara and her husband, Timmy went to the Atlanta Falcons/Greenbay Packers game last Sunday.  We got to see Julio Jones play (my love!!) and even though he got hurt and the Falcons lost the game, it was fun, fun, fun.  We had great seats and the crowd around us was fun and chatty.  And let's be honest, there was football and where there is football, there is fun.

*We spent the week in Houston about three weeks ago.  We did nothing.  Jack refused to leave the room most of the time.  I would drag him out at night to go eat with Ben and I, but other than that.. he and I rested in the room. It was wonderful!

*We spend a lot of our time in Destin, FL these days.  We go (at least) once a week for Jack's OT.  Ben and I had researched tablets for a while now.  It all started with me wanting a Nook (because I'm a reader and Barnes and Noble has the greatest Nook covers ever - doesn't it make you want to buy one when you see those as you walk in the door).  I've held out on a e-reader for years now because I didn't think I could give up holding a real book, but I'm over that now.  I wanted it and I had decided on the Kindle instead and then that went to a tablet so Jack could use it.  Anyway, long story short, we got the Toshiba Thrive in Destin Monday.  I think I have gotten to play with it for about 5 minutes - the time it took Jack to show me how to download apps.  He plays with an Ipad at the school board so he was up on this.  He took it over and hasn't put it down yet.

*We've also done lots of costume shopping lately.  It's Jack's new thing.  Don't get me wrong; he's still a movie buff, but he's learned that they now have all these costumes from his movies hanging in the stores.  It's wonderful!! It took us forever to decide on a Halloween costume this year, but I think we have finally narrowed it down.  Jack didn't go with us to Atlanta, but we told him we would bring him a surprise.  He wanted a costume - a particular costume. I"m not sure I would have complied but his Dad brought him a Scream 4 costume complete with a sword that pours blood when you swing it. Jack was thrilled.  Proud moment for us all.

So, that's just an overview.  And we're not slowing down anytime soon.  We have the Fall Festival at church next Sunday and Jack's Little Friends Halloween party at our house the next morning.  When Ben gets home, he and I are heading to the Bama/LSU game and then the family is headed to Disney for a week with the Fores and the Bulgers.  We have promised ourselves that we are slowing down after that.  But it won't be long before our heads start singing again, I'm sure.... "Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back...."