A Glimpse of a Crazy Quilt

WOW!!!!!  It has been a crazy week.  So many things have happened that I have had a hard time narrowing down what to blog about.   Being slightly ADD I can’t so we will call this my crazy quilt blog, mini glimpses of the major happenings in Skiffdom this week.

Sunday we had our church picnic and kite flying excursion…..ummm yeah about that,  it appears we Skiffs are not great kite flyers.  I had been really ill the night before from my medicine so I was not in top form at all.  When momma is not in top form the whole family suffers.   Jamie wandered off and was missing a full five minutes.  Talk about scary!!  Jamie has real issues with boundaries and has gotten lost going from one class to another in school (a trip he takes every day at school!)  We found Jamie, who was irritated that we would be worried…sigh.  It’s hard when the boys naturally want to grow and push boundaries but the autism curtails how far they can go.  Paul then melted down and became irate with anything and everything including but not limited to the wind and grass.   I love that we have a church that loves us despite days like Sunday.    

Sam as Walt Disney

Monday Sam was in the third grade living museum.   Every year the third graders at our school are assigned a character in history and have to research them.  They then write a monologue and dress up as said character.   The audience walks down a hallway lined with all the third graders and pushes an imaginary button bringing the character to life.  They recite their monologue to the passerby.  I love this every time one of our boys is in it.  This year Sam was Walt Disney, and a mighty fine Disney he made as well.    We had a few issues in the morning getting ready (Sam was not impressed with my mustache art;-)  but we pulled it together and he was awesome.  He was so nervous that he rocked the entire time he recited the monologue but he did it!!  I love seeing my kids succeed even when it is hard.  Ok I’m going to pause for a proud momma moment…sniff, sniff ;-)

Tuesday is our journey group night.  I have found that it is so easy as a special needs family to become isolated.  It’s very hard to bring our boys to other people houses for several reasons a) we are a large family so I always feel as if we are an invading army b) my kids are much more comfortable in their own environment where they know the rules (even if they don’t always follow them) and expectations c) in the past people have been put off by some of our kids stimming behaviors- it made us a little gun shy.  To avoid the isolation we have people over at our home.  It has worked out great!!!  I love to entertain, my kids (and honestly my husband as well) are more comfortable and thus more willing to engage in social interaction, and people grow to accept our uniqueness more easily when they see it in context.  Our house has now become the party house.  It is not uncommon for us to have 70 people crammed in.  My kids have places to go if it all becomes overwhelming and they actually ask when we are going to have people over if we go several weeks without company!!!!  What a change.  Have I said how much I love this stage of our lives?!?

Tuesday was also my SEPAC meeting (Special Education Parent Advisory Committee).   I have had some serious issues with the educating of my SPED boys here in rural TX.  I am outspoken about this which has earned me several adversaries.    At the SEPAC meeting I was informed of the “new” direction the SPED program here in Anna is taking next year.  I ,being the independent thinker I am, raised some serious concerns about the future of our program.  I did not receive the answers I was hoping to. I see more battles on my horizon.  Next year may get interesting.  Several good things came out of the meeting though.  The group of women that are on this committee are awesome, each completely committed to seeing the best for their own children and the children of our community.  We are establishing a resource library for the members of our community to utilize, have dates booked for SPED parents to come have dinner and hear various expert speakers address the issues we all face as special needs families and we are planning our first Disability Awareness Fair in Oct.  We are going to have all kinds of fun for the whole family and will have information to make the general population of our community more aware and accepting of people with disabilities.  I am totally stoked about all of this, can you tell?!?

Wednesday night we attended our first baseball game as a family!!!  It was so much fun.  Usarian’s company sponsored a family night for their employees.  They had all you can eat baseball food (always a winner with boys;-), free hats and the boys were even able to pick something out at the souvenir shop.    It was so great for the boys to experience a sports event in a low key environment.  We all had a fabulous time.  I thank everyone at Usarian’s work and the ball field for a great experience for us all.

Well that about sums up the major things so far this week.    I need to take a nap just reading about it all and there is still more to come!!!  I hope you have a moment to take a deep breath and reflect upon your week my friend.  Here’s to great second half!- Kristine