Niagara Nerds

Yesterday was my birthday.  Although I do not enjoy getting older, I still enjoy telling everyone and their brother that my birthday is coming up. 

Starting in January.

People need lots of notice to be properly prepared right?

I don't know why I feel the need to tell everyone.  It must be the attention-seeking only child in me that gets excited when there is a day that is about me, and only me.  Look at me!!!  Look.  At.  Meeeeeeeeee!!!

But only if I know you.

If I don't know you, avert your eyes.

Of if I have toilet paper hanging out the back of my jeans.

Yesterday didn't start off well...2 of my kids screaming at each other, a filthy house that they refused to help clean up, me holding 2 garbage bags ready to hold toys ransom, a broken vacuum, and my mother-in-law on her way to see how we live in filth.

It's my birthday.  I'll cry if I want to.

But we rallied.

Nerdguy's mom came to watch the kids for us so that we could get out on a date.  I always get in a flap about trying to get ready to go out...sometimes just staying in yoga pants and drinking wine in the big wine glasses is a stronger force than the desire to "go somewhere" like "people."  But I am always glad that Nerdguy bullies convinces me into going.

We were going to do the usual thing of dinner and a movie, but it was such a gorgeous day, so we decided to be wild and crazy and head to Niagara Falls.  It's an hour from here, but Nerdguy has never been out of the car at the actual falls, and I hadn't been since I was a teenager.  We drive through there on our way to Buffalo, and to see the Christmas lights.  And once we went to Perkins when we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge.  And the casino once.

People travel the world to see the falls and we have never been there together.  Shameful.

The rainbow stretched across the whole horseshoe falls.  Check out the double rainbow on the bottom left!  And someone PLEASE tell me if double rainbow isn't 2 rainbows beside each other, but is in fact some pervy sex act.  We probably saw that there too.

It was either very windy and misty there or the electricity being generated was using my hair as a conduit.  And that's not a large zit on my chin.  Because I am too old for those.  It's a red freckle.  Yeah.  Let's go with that.

We enjoyed walking around and looking at the tourists majestic waterfalls.  Seven pee breaks later, we headed to the casino and recklessly ripped up wads of cash gambled a little bit.

I didn't take a picture of the giant bag of money that we won.  For security reasons.  Not because it is imaginary or anything.

Next was dinner at the Keg.  We had an amazing table right up against the window overlooking the falls.

This was our view from the table.   I  recommend making reservations for when it is still light out, but late enough that you can see the falls all lit up.  It was gorgeous at night.

I highly recommend going there to eat.  But make a reservation.  And I am quite confident that the staff won't be "guessing the birthday girl's age" again anytime soon.  So you're probably safe there.

I begged her not to.  When she overshot my age by 4 years I asked for a barrel of liquor or a barrel in which to go over the falls.  Because you know that if she said I was 4 years older, she really thinks I look another 5-15 years older than that.  She thought she was flattering me probably!  She confessed her sins to her manager and he fixed it.  Except for now I felt like the whole staff was probably swinging by the table just to confirm that I look like I escaped the nursing home.

But there was also free Billy Miner Pie for birthday boys and girls.

Being old is delicious.

I took all of these pictures on my new iPhone...the new camera is SO much better than the 3gs.  The flash scared the hell out of me in the restaurant though.  Good thing I wasn't trying to take some incognito People of Walmart photo or something!

This is not a sponsored post.  In fact I am sure the Keg will be begging me to take it down very soon.

Call Me Maybe? But I Won't Hear You

On Tuesday I posted this status on Facebook:

What I forgot to mention is that I totally ruined it by saying "BLESS you for calling me Miss and not Ma'am."  I might as well have called the UPS guy Sonny and handed him a shiny nickel.

I was hoping that I would get an iPhone 5 for my birthday, because my 3gs is 4 years old and feels remotely like it might catch fire at any moment.  And I spend most of my free time scanning rooms for available outlets to charge the sad, worn-out battery.  It has gotten very slow, and the camera is awful.

First world problems I know.  Really I know.  But I do this thing where I focus on petty problems, and it distracts me from actual problems that I can't control.  Don't worry...I minored in psychology...I've already diagnosed myself.

I had made it known that I would really love a new phone, but also told Nerdguy that I completely understand if it is too expensive.  So I didn't really know if I would be getting a new one or not.  Except he's been asking me a lot of questions about what colour I want etc., so I was either getting a phone, or he was getting a frying pan to the head for being cruel.

When the package arrived I was excited, but also still vaguely concerned that it was an attachment for the weedwacker.

Nerdguy couldn't wait until my birthday on Saturday to give me the phone...he gave it to me today so that I could have it all set up in time for turning one hundred 29 (with a +/- 10 year error correction).

Yay...it really was a phone!!!  He helped me transfer over my email and calendar and get everything setup properly.  I don't know why I find itunes so confusing.  I ran my accounting office's network, but I can't use itunes?  Is it confusing?  Is it me?  It's me isn't it?  Crap.

We hit a slight glitch when we discovered that the speakers don't work.  Booooo.  Even the apple dudes that Nerdguy tried to chat with gave up.  So I have made myself an appointment at the genius bar tomorrow.  If it doesn't go well, then I will be headed to the kind of bar that doesn't require appointments.  Especially with a looming LCBO strike (that's where they sell the liquor in Ontario).  I never paid attention in history class.  Did prohibition end well?  I think I need to watch M*A*S*H reruns to learn how to make my own still.

Wish me luck tomorrow!  And I would love it if you shared my facebook page with your friends.  In a good way.  Not like how those mean kids passed my diary around.  Last week.

Melatonin for Sleep Issues in Autism

We finally started Molly on melatonin at night.  We didn't think that she had that much trouble with sleeping...sure the stretch of time it took to get her to drop off was increasing, and she has been hard to wake all her life...when the twins were born Molly was sleeping until noon on the weekends...but other than that we thought she was a pretty good sleeper.  No random middle-of-the-night wakings, or yawning all day.

Alright, so perhaps some slight narcolepsy issues, but to be fair, she had just come from a gruelling tea party.  And OMG look how sweet she is there...I can't believe that was 6 1/2 years ago!!!

We are kicking ourselves that we didn't start her on this sooner.  And by kicking ourselves, I mean I am literally kicking Nerdguy.  Because I don't get enough sleep either.  It makes me cranky.

She is waking up ahead of when we wake her for school.  Do you comprehend that????  AHEAD.  Usually it takes nothing short of a riot squad to get that child out of bed.  The combination of a good night's sleep and the incentive of having tablet time if she goes downstairs willingly have been huge.

We are also continuing to use other healthy sleep habits for her such as playing the same lullaby CD as she is settling in, having a consistent bedtime, a dark room, no caffeine aside from occasional chocolate, and time to wind down with reading.  None of those things were working on their own, but they certainly can't hurt.

Before, she could climb into bed with a book and still be wide awake, deeply engrossed in the story at midnight if we didn't catch her.  I've never understood this, since I fall asleep before I finish the first page of a book if I try to read at night.  Or the day.  Tonight Molly said that she would like to continue reading, but that she couldn't stay awake any longer.

THIS IS HUGE!

We are on week 2 of the regimen that the pediatrician prescribed for using the melatonin.  The chart has you increasing the dose, but also giving it earlier and earlier until you find the sweet spot.  I am thinking that we won't have to move much beyond the initial dose, an hour ahead of bedtime.

We would like to try it with Maggie too because she is very hard to settle at night, and often wakes up for long stretches in the night.  Administering it to her is going to be the problem with that though since she won't take any meds.  Any advice?

What has been your experience with sleep habits with kids with autism?  Do you use melatonin, and do you find it works?  Did you stop it after resetting the sleep cycle, or did you keep using it?

With a Quack Quack Here...

On Friday as we were coming out of the house for school, I heard an enormous amount of quacking.  After asking Grace if it was her quacking, taking in her eye rolling, and apologizing for the grave injustice of the question, I realized there was a duck fight going down across the street.

iPhone in hand I ran across the street to film it help them.  There were 2 male mallards and a female having a scuffle, and a third male watching.  I alternated yelling out "Are they mating or fighting?" with scanning for a fifth duck that might be holding a video camera.  If this was becoming a new duck porn filming location, this was going to seriously reduce our property value.

Finally 2 of the males (the lookie-loo and the harasser) were scared off by my moustache dirty look, and flew away.  The duck couple left behind were adorable waddling around quacking at us. I still don't know exactly what was happening here...if they were defending a nest or if my kids just got the live show version of the birds and the bees lesson.

Or possibly we were one paternity announcement short of being the Jerry Springer Show with ducks.

The ducks were missing all their teeth.  But I couldn't see any visible tramp stamp on the girl or saggy shorts on the boys, so they weren't quite ready for daytime television.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is somewhat exhausting.  I think we're all on the same page there right?  But I am feeling pretty lucky though too.  I was showered with beautiful cards and gifts made by my children, a loving and funny card from my husband, and beautiful flowers and earrings from all of them.  And lots of snuggles.  Love the snuggles.

And wine.

Oh the wine.


And of course, the traditional Mother's Day gift that moms around the world eagerly anticipate each year....

......a weedwacker.

My husband is nothing if not unconventional.

The good news is that it is not for me to use, but since I am somewhat particular about having a nice lawn, he bought a better trimmer so that he can keep the grass trimmed the way I like it.

Why does it sound like I am talking about personal grooming here?

Stop thinking about that.

Look over there!

Back to Mother's Day.

Yesterday we drove out to see Nerdguy's family.  We visited with his mom, and took her out to dinner with his sister and her family.  We had a reservation, at an early time, at a family-friendly restaurant.

All the bases covered right?

Except for the secret carnival option.  Those things like to pop up randomly from time to time just to screw us over.  We weren't counting on driving past a carnival on the way to the restaurant.

Classic rookie mistake.

There was a good deal of screaming  and thrashing about the carnival once we got to the restaurant.  So I got out the ipad to try to calm her.  She wanted wifi.  More screaming.  A 10 minute meltdown in the vestibule, with floor pounding and kicking.  I secretly hoped she would kick open the ATM.  I probably would have made a run for it with her and the cash.  And bought a carnival.  Or paid the carnivals to go away and stay away.  I'd decide on the way.  Back at the table I pulled out her beloved Dora books that I had packed.  Handed one to her.

It was Dora's Carnival.

SHIT!

More screaming.  Then chocolate milk.  Best invention ever.

I spent most of the dinner rubbing her back and not hearing anything that anyone said, but I ate pizza.  And chocolate deliciousness.  So it was okay.  Maggie had ice cream.  We danced in the bathroom.  She thought it was okay too.

This morning Nerdguy and Grace went out and got McDonald's breakfast and Tim Horton's coffee.

Delicious.

I vacuumed.  Something was in the beater bar when I turned the central vac on.  Now the vacuum doesn't work because something is stuck in the pipes.

Sweeping carpet is harder than you would think.

Hubby barbecued steaks for us, my mom, and her "friend."  Steak goooooodddddd.  The kids acted like delinquents.  But there was more wine.  And lemon cake.  And hugs and kisses from my kids.  And now there is quiet.  And dishes.  And Lost on netflix.

And always there is love.

Happy Mother's Day!

Neighbourly Advice

I was washing the dishes in the kitchen last night, listening to Maggie playing in the yard, happily enjoying the gorgeous weather that we have been blessed with.  She was alternating between the familiar 'hoot' that I know so well, and reciting passages from Dora with great dramatic flare.  I was thinking about how the sounds of Maggie must be so familiar to the neighbours by now.  Even the ones who don't know her well would surely know her to hear her.

And like how a certain scent or sound, a swatch of fabric, or the taste of a familiar spice combination can catapult us back into a memory that we haven't thought of in years, my mind was sent backward by 15 years.

We were living in a small town outside of Ottawa, and had just moved into our first house.  We felt like grown-ups, and I'm quite sure we looked like grown-ups, but really we were so so young.  Shortly after we moved in, I met the lady who lived next door.  She introduced herself and told me that they have 3 children.  She mentioned that she had a son who has autism, and that if I should ever see him outside by himself, I should come let them know right away.  She said that they had locks that would keep that from happening, but that you just never know.

We didn't have kids.  I had never really been around kids.  I remember feeling vaguely alarmed that there could be this crisis during which I wouldn't know what to do, and that her son might get hurt.  I don't remember if it occurred to me how she must feel.  That she might alternate between being terrified by all the 'what-ifs' of what could happen if her son got out, and the self-preserving need to not even think about it at all, because it's too scary.  No...I'm certain I never thought about any of that.

Ignorance is bliss isn't it?

The winter went on.  And on.  And on.  I had never seen so much snow in my life.  Ottawa is only a 5 hour drive away, so I didn't think the weather would be all that different from home.

We were regularly getting 25cm dumped on us, and still expected to get to work.  If we get that much here, the city shuts down.  Snow was being hauled away from the suburban curb-sides in dump trucks.  I had never seen that before.  We didn't have a snowblower or a service because we were delusional rookies, and former apartment dwellers.  No idea what we had gotten ourselves into.

And so we shovelled.  And shovelled.  And seemed to get nowhere.  We eventually just gave up on digging out our second car, and carpooled by necessity.  We were both working really long hours at our jobs...Nerdguy trying to prove himself in the high-tech boom, and me living the life (or lack thereof) of an accounting grunt during tax season.  The day that our neighbour dug us out with his 4-wheeler felt like a gift from the heavens. And although we had a great appreciation for that act of kindness then, we have a whole new appreciation for it now, knowing what we know.

That their lives were hard.  That finding time to clear his own driveway, let alone ours, was likely a huge challenge.  That it was an even bigger gift than we could have imagined at the time.  And also that he probably felt satisfaction in being able to help us in a tangible way.  To control something in his day, when so much in his life was beyond his control.  Like the worrying.  And the challenges.

Sometimes when I can't solve a problem, or I feel like I don't have control over something I like to help someone else solve their problem instead.  It makes me feel like there are some things that I can control.  That there is order in the universe.  And that if I can't solve my own problems, maybe it is because they are meant for someone else to solve.  The whole village concept.

That family moved a few streets away in the Spring (while insisting that it wasn't because of us) so I never got a chance to know them.  Their son would be an adult now, and I find myself wondering about how he is doing.  If they got better neighbours than a couple of self-centred people focused on their careers.  I hope they did.

I am grateful to them for teaching me about how to be a good neighbour.  And about how neither of us could have known that she was teaching me a phrase to tell our future neighbours...

"Maggie has autism, and if you ever see her out front by herself, please let me know right away..."

Lost In Translation

I like to watch shows on Netflix while I sort laundry and do the dishes.  It makes the time pass more quickly, and almost feels like a treat.  Oh who am I kidding...it's still drudgery.  But it does make it better.  I finished up Bones and Mad Men.  I'm not-so-patiently waiting for Damages.  I couldn't get into Dexter for some reason.  Of course that was the weekend I spent cleaning Molly's room while she was at Brownie Camp, so I probably didn't give it a fair chance...it's similar to getting an electric shock every time you reach for a piece of chocolate...that whole negative association thing likely ruined Dexter for me.  Molly's room was scarier than any serial killer drama could ever hope to be.

Yesterday I discovered that Lost is on the Canadian Netflix stream.

Seems like a great show.

If I weren't getting on a PLANE this month.

And if watching This is 40 hadn't already ruined the ending for me.

Kind of hard to root for a bunch of people that you already know are going to die.  I managed to do the whole fingers-in-the-ears-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you routine for years when the show was on TV so that I wouldn't ruin it for myself when I eventually watched it.  And I almost made it.  Thanks a lot Judd Apatow.  Thanks.  A.  Lot.

I'm turning 39 this month.

Which Judd has also ruined for me.

Maybe he would like a side-job delivering all my bad news.  He can tell me about my dental cavities, the rise in hydro rates, and perhaps he can program his voice into my scale to shout out my weight each morning.  Because frankly I think he enjoys it.

Comment and let me know what you think I should be watching and why.  Just don't spoil the ending.  Nobody likes an Apatow.  And my apologies if I spoiled Lost for you.  If I can't watch it, no one can.