A few second pass and once again the toddler says “mow”

the cat answers back “meow”
mow
meow
mow
meow
mow

It lasts for about a minute until the kitty grows bored and jumps up on my side and rubs her head against my shoulder.  The toddler sits straight up in bed and calls out “mow?”  He can’t see her in the dark and is facing the wrong way.  “Mow?…mow?”

Kitty decides to give the poor kid a break and rubs her head up against his back.  He lets out one little laugh and turns around.  “mow!” he looks at her for a minute.  “mow?”  He gives up on the conversation and begins to pat her.  Her ears flatten for a couple seconds but once she is sure he’s not going to pull her ears she begins to relax and purr.

He pats her for about a minute but then she starts kneading on me.  Which kind of hurts.  I scoot my foot over and rub it against Hubby’s leg.  “Hubby?  You awake?”
“ungh?”
“hubby, can you-very carefully- lift the kitty and take her off of me? she’s making biscuits on my skin”
“ungh…”

He sits up and takes the cat off of me and then puts her on the floor next to the bed and lays back down.

The toddler, still sitting up calls out to her “Mow?”  he waits for her answer.  “mow?!”  She is silent.  As he crawls to the end of the bed to look for her I glance at the clock.  4:12am.  I prepare myself to get up and chase him and start my day incredibly, incredibly early.  But after a minute of “mowing” at the cat he gives up and snuggles next to me.  He starts to nurse but he is just too excited.  He wiggles around restlessly changing positions every few seconds and sighing with regret about his kitty being gone.  But a few minutes later he asks to nurse again and out he goes.

This adorable little incident took less than 20 minutes and we were able to sleep in until 9.  I heart co-sleeping.

A few weeks ago i wouldn’t have considered myself crafty. Perhaps wily, but not crafty. But i was in a funk and while at Wally World i came across a craft kit for crochet. I used to do a basic crochet back in the day but never finished a single project. And my things came out funky. I tried making a couple blankets. In about 12 rows, the first blanket was thinner at the top than it was at the bottom, so it was scrapped. The second one stayed about the same width but the edges were all off and then it got to be summer and we had no air conditioning and so crocheting a blanket didn’t sound like all that fun of an idea anymore. That was about 7 years ago and i haven’t done anything crafty since. I flirted with sewing once but…well a lot of money was wasted for something i only did twice.

But i saw that magazine at walmart calling for me and so i picked it up. I started small. I made square dishcloths. It worked! I picked it up faster this time around. It was like riding a bike. Then from the instructions I tried to do a metaphorical wheelie and it also worked. I’m a lot better at this than i ever had been and I’m super excited.

As of right now I’m making some snowflakes (which are easier to make than i originally thought) I have 13 of one kind of snowflake and I’m working on my second kind of snowflake. I’m super excited. I might even make these as presents this year, but I haven’t really decided yet.  Right now i’m just working for me.

He spent 90% of today watching cartoons in the living room. While watching cartoons he has been jumping up and down, making sound affects, rolling on the floor and in general just acting really, really restless. Its been driving us nuts because our living room is something like 7×10 feet and all four of us are crammed in here along with a couch, 2 chairs, 2 computer desks, a TV, etc. and there isn’t much space for moving and yelling without being in somebody’s face all the time. Also, Caleb has no volume control so he was driving us nuts. As i was in the kitchen trying to get dinner cooked from what i had in my bare cabinets (we really need to bum a ride to the store from somebody soon) and Caleb started yelling in the living room and after repeatedly telling him to stop i walked over and exercised the only control i really had over the situation and shut off all the TV noise. This prompted much outraged noise from Caleb and so i sent him to his room to do whatever he wants. Video games, TV, toys, i really didn’t’ care, so long as he wasn’t making noise in the living room anymore.

He throws a huge fit but he stays in his room. It is blissfully quiet for about 5 minutes and then Caleb’s door opens and he yells out “YOU HAVE A MESSAGE!” I walk over and he peeks out the door and whispers “read it!”

I wish my camera was working because you’re missing the whole effect but this is what it says

“NO budey is a laod to goin myroom sin Caleb”
which translates to: Nobody is allowed to go in my room, signed Caleb.

I stifle a giggle and show it to Daddy. Daddy is not nearly so amused but I’m very impressed with the fact that Caleb is not only trying to communicate with us (he usually shuts down when upset) but is actually practicing his writing! I am a bit ashamed to see such strong evidence that passive aggressiveness is hereditary, but overall I’m still pretty happy with the situation.

Five more minutes go by and Caleb’s door opens again. “You have a message!” he yells. This excites me. I prance over to his room and pick up his second message.

It reads: “Pebol can cumin my room if dae git prmishen”
which translates into: People can come in my room if they get permission

I am amused. I show it to Daddy. Smoke comes out of his ears but i try to sooth his anger. These letters really are impressive for a 7 year old autistic boy.

about 5 more minutes pass by and Caleb’s door opens again “You have another message!” he yells. Daddy yells back, “Stop writing us notes!” I giggle and prance back to the bedroom to get the final message. This one is a plea for us to bargain with him.

It reads “mom and dad if yoube nis to me I will be qieyet”
which translates into: Mom and Dad, if you be nice to me, I will be quiet.

Now that’s just sad. Coincidentally, dinner was done right around then and so i called him out to eat. So far the only noise he has made was several (about 10) promises to be quiet (in less than 5 minutes). Not exactly the silence i was looking for but I’ll take it.  At least he thinks we’re nice again.

His aunt and other cousin had died.

I miss them terribly.When I was a little girl their visits were the highlights of my year. They lived in Southern California and came to visit a few times a year and always at Christmas. I grew up poor and they pretty much MADE christmas happen for us. I remember one year that they brought us so many presents they had to rent a UHaul.

and while, yes, this is our first Christmas without them, and it hurts that they’re gone and that we weren’t able to see them and say goodbye, they died back March. My mom was the one that told me that they had died. She didn’t remember that they’re gone. She’s devastated. Their sudden illness and death is what triggered the escalation in her mental illness earlier this year and caused her to be hospitalized. And now she’s going through it all over again.

Caleb is 7 years and 3 weeks old in these pictures.    Toby is 7 months and 3 days.

Merry Christmas!

Day 26
Still all fired up from decorating the tree, the elves found a string of lights and hung them on Caleb’s TV

Day 27
The elves stayed up late to make a paper chain for Caleb to finish and brought acted out another scene in our advent storybook by having a donkey bring Mary and Joseph to our Manger.

and look at that huge mess they made on the floor, surely it must have been them, my house is never messy *blush*

And Mary and Joseph

Day 28
Today the elves did this:

Caleb was so amused with the fact that they were trying to make themselves into a “super elf” that he didn’t realize that they had brought him the babylegs he had been asking for!

He then wandered into the living room and got a surprise!

“Underwear?!  On the Christmas tree!?  That is hil-lar-i-ous!”  Hubby and i couldn’t help but burst into fits of giggles in the bedroom.  Caleb promptly removed the offending undergarments and began to put up the tiny ornaments onto the tree.

The elf mischeif will have to be for another post but in the same innocent fashion Caleb told us today “everybody else is switching houses but we’re not going to a new house” in a way that sounded really complainey.  Boy can i sympathize.   His aunts and uncles all have moved within the last few months.  One family moved into a new spacious place for rent in town, and another bought their first home, and to be honest i’m lusting over here.  This apartment is less than half the size of either two places, and they have yards and garages both.  This place is getting smaller and smaller the bigger our kids get (who knew babies had so much stuff!  and all the things we have to keep hidden so the kids dont get into them) there is just not enough space for us.

So Hubby and I have started looking for houses.  Which is a HUGE step.  We have very, very little in savings but with the way the housing market is right now, with our tax return we should be able to afford a down payment on a decent house in town (and still pay about the same amount of money that we are currently paying for rent)

But before that, we STILL need a new car.  Ours will not last long, and i worry about being able to save for a down payment if we have car payments (and higher insurance fees) to pay.  And if we pay for a car outright we will have NO savings for a down payment.  And we just got out of debt earlier this year and I’m hesitant to have car payments again.

Regardless about that worry, financially speaking we have never been in as good of shape as we are now.  Hubby is loving his new job and while we are nowhere near rich, we haven’t had to make the choice between groceries or bills and even have a little to set aside for savings.  We have also been able to help out our family a little bit when they need money, Lord knows that his family has been there for us when we needed help before.

We’ve been married for 8 years now.  We went out on our first date since Toby was born yesterday.  We had a really nice evening out and really enjoyed ourselves.  I wasn’t as anxious leaving Toby as i thought i would be and he did really, really well at Grandma’s.  She takes such good care of him.  Caleb did well too, which is good because i know he can drive Grandma crazy.  We had a very busy day yesterday (we were on a date for 6 hours and before that we went to a parade and lunch out with the parents) but i feel really relaxed.  More relaxed than I have in a very long time.

And oh, my boys.  They’re wonderful.  This school year has been amazing for Caleb.  He loves his teacher and he has been doing so well, especially with his sensory issues.  He no longer needs weekly occupational therapy and his speech is improving.  He struggles in reading and in language comprehension but he is amazing in math.  He is ahead of a lot of the class with his math and really enjoys it.  He is also doing great at home.  He talks a lot, a little too much at times, but its nice that he’s able to articulate so well what he is feeling.  He has a very large wart at the end of his nose that will not go away.  It has been coming and going for years now and i’m ready for medical intervention.  I worry about the other kids picking on him because of it.  They have enough reasons to pick on him.  He also has a small one on the back of his hand and a very, very large one on the tip of his finger.  That one will have to be surgically removed too (or frozen or lazered or whatever it is they do now)  I worry about him losing feeling there, but i can see how much it interferes with his work as it is and it is too deep and too large to leave there.   Caleb is an awesome big brother.  I worried about him being jelous or not understanding the baby’s limited abilities but he is doing wonderfully.

Toby loves his big brother.  No one can make him smile and like Caleb can.  Caleb is very prideful of that fact.  Toby is sitting independently now and looks like such a big boy.  He’s growing and growing, and unlike with Caleb when i felt sad that he was growing so fast, i just feel so proud of him.  He’s eating solids now and just loves it.  His favorite food is peas.  He also loves pears and green beans.  He’ll eat just about anything you put in front of him though.  He’s not doing well on textured things yet (he spits them out) yet but he can eat a LOT of food at once.  A few weeks ago he downed and entire jar of stage 3 food (6oz!) but usually he’s just on the regular 4oz single ingredient foods.  He hates being put down though.  He is all smiles and laughs for us during the day so long as he’s in our arms and we’re paying attention to him but as soon as we put him down the screaming starts pretty much immediately.  Night times are trouble too because he fights sleep so much and as soon as we lay him down in bed, he’s awake in less than 20 minutes.  It can be frustrating, but he is generally a joy.  I’ve learned how to get a lot done with him in my carrier now.

Hubby is doing well at work, and is really happy there.  he still has that fatty tumor on the back of his neck, but he plans on getting surgery early next year.

Our town’s Christmas parade was yesterday and our tree was put up early this morning.  Caleb is working on it as we speak and i’m going to go and help him in a little bit.

In other, less exciting news, I got a crock pot last week and I’m excited to learn to use it.  I’ve cooked in it twice (beans and then a roast chicken) and its kind of fun.  I like that i can clean it in the dishwasher, unlike my old one.  I’m also trying to learn how to bake.  I’m starting with cookies and while Hubby doesn’t particularly like having all these sweet treats in the house, i am gaining confidence in my cooking abilities.  Perhaps the elves may bake some things for Caleb’s breakfast.