April 2014 – Page 2 – Coffee and Inclusion

Spring Fun

Such a great day.

We began our Saturday with an Easter egg hunt in a lovely park, and with gorgeous weather. We could not have asked for a better day: sunny and pleasant, not too cold but not hot. Perfect spring weather. The kids got to enjoy lots of crafts and activities (seriously, how can you beat bunny hats and parachute games??), and then, of course, The Hunt. What fun! They filled their baskets with colorful eggs, and then opened them one by one, oohing and aahing over each egg’s contents.

Checking out their goodies!

After our morning in the park, the kids spent time playing outside, and Alex had a music lesson (even his lesson was held outside today…this is how beautiful the day was!). After that, I packed up the kids and we went shoe shopping (not our best part of the day), and then visited some adorable puppies at a nearby pet store. (Now, before you get your panties in a bunch because we stepped foot in a pet store, let me assure you that we didn’t buy anything. The way I see it, those pups didn’t ask to be sold in such a place, and they need snuggled before they are purchased, so that’s what we did. Cool it.) Of course, the kids are now begging for another dog, but I think we have a while before we add another living creature to our family. After the puppy cuddles, we had to make a stop at the grocery store (again, not the best part of the day, but we made it through with minor incidences).

When we returned home, it was egg coloring time! The kids have this down to a science by now, and they created some beautiful eggs.

The eggs

Then, dinner and baths, and off they went to bed. It was a fairly easy transition to bedtime, as Ad and Andrew were convinced that they wouldn’t get baskets in the morning from The Bunny if they didn’t scurry off to bed. Al, on the other hand, not so much; he is still wide awake (I hear him emptying the ice machine in the kitchen as I type this…). I will have to get him to bed soon, though, so The Bunny can get to work. Although I had the best intentions of having the baskets put together before now, it just didn’t happen. So, hopefully I won’t fall asleep before the baskets are ready and the eggs are hidden. Fingers crossed!

Ad’s clever note to The Bunny

All in all, a splendid Spring day. I’m looking forward to many more of these!

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Contest

I swear, my children have a contest going to see which one of them can make my head explode first. Right now, I’m not certain who is winning.

They were out of school today (you know, because they haven’t had enough time off this year), but since I had to work, I was only with them from about 2:15pm to now. We finally made it to bedtime, but not before they spent hours yelling at each other, tattling, fighting, and not listening to me. Seriously. It was a rough day.

Trying to put a more positive spin on our trying afternoon, I offered to take everyone out for ice cream after Alex’s dance class this evening. When we got there, the drive-through line was really long, and the kids were beyond wound up in anticipation of said ice cream, which made for a very noisy wait (there was no way I was herding all three kids inside Dairy Queen…I’d rather contain the chaos in the car whenever I can). By the time we pulled away, my nerves were shot. So much so that I declared the ride home a “Mommy Time Out”, and said that I needed a couple of minutes of quiet.

“Mommy! MOMmy! MOMMY!”, was Andrew’s immediate response.

My first thought? Are you freaking kidding me? It’s been 12 seconds!! My calm reply? “Andrew, if you’re not on fire or dying at this very moment, please wait two minutes before you talk to me.”

“Mommy? What’s dying? What does that mean? Why can’t I talk to you? When are you going to eat your ice cream? How many days until the Easter egg hunt? Is Daddy going too?”

All I could do was shake my head. Fastest Mommy Time Out ever. EVER.

So now, as they get ready for bed, I will gather up my (mostly melted) ice cream and the book I just started, and go crawl into bed. Tomorrow is a new day. It may not be a quieter day, but it will indeed be a new one, full of opportunities to score points in their Make Mom’s Head Explode contest.

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Maundy Thursday

This evening, Addie and I were fortunate to spend time sharing The Living Last Supper, a service at church that brought DaVinci’s painting to life. What an amazing presentation.

I’ve blogged before about how much I love our church, but I am constantly reminded of all the reasons why that is so. Tonight, I was blown away by all the talent that surrounds us; the music, the monologues, all the behind-the-scene prep work (that, although we didn’t witness first hand, was obviously there) were all fantastic. This was truly a unique experience, and one that even held Addie’s attention for the full hour. She came away asking questions that showed that she related what she’s learned at church to what we saw unfold before us during the production.

What a blessing it was to share this with Addie. Thank you, to all involved, for such a lovely service.

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Peeps

With Easter approaching, we are being inundated with candy. Every time I turn around, I see a display, or a commercial, or a new candy-infused pin on Pinterest. It almost makes my teeth hurt.

When I was young(er?), I loved waking up to find a generously filled basket on Easter morning. Candy galore: chocolate eggs, chocolate covered marshmallow eggs, jelly beans, and Peeps. Thinking about it now, I wonder how I didn’t have any cavities as a child. I remember filling up my cute little purse with a bunch of candy, so I could eat it throughout church.

These days, I’m not sure I could eat a whole Peep. I think they might just be too sweet. I’ve even seen chocolate covered Peeps; to me, that is just pure nonsense. Chocolate should never have to compete with that sugary coating. In my attempts to find a fun dessert to make for Easter dinner, I came across a Peep trifle. It didn’t even look good; the sugar was almost dripping off my computer screen.

Maybe I’m just too old to appreciate the pure sugary goodness of Peeps. I don’t know. Maybe I should just keep an open mind, and give them another try. My kids will probably find a colorful array of Peeps in their baskets on Sunday. That bunny enjoys leaving the sugar, you know.

What’s your favorite Easter candy?

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Complete Chaos – My Messy Beautiful

Family photo, October 2013. The chalkboard reads “Really?!?” as the kids meltdown.

Chaos. It’s inevitable, especially in this household. For example, right now I’m beginning to compose this post while I’m on hold with tech support for my contract gig, Addie is bouncing up and down just a few feet away from me because she is dying to ask a question, Andrew has the dog in (what he believes is) a loving headlock, and Al is throwing his Hot Wheels cars down the stairs, one by one. The tv is blaring, the dishwasher is humming, and the dryer is fluffing that same load of laundry that has already been fluffed three times.

This is not out of the ordinary.

Every parent, I’m sure, can relate to this type of commotion. It really doesn’t even feel like chaos any more, because it’s the norm. If someone else was to knock on my door right now, though, their jaw may drop. This place is a mess. The kids are wild. I’m exhausted. But, it’s what we do.

The bedtime countdown has already started in my head: two hours and 26 minutes until we can begin the evening ritual of pajamas, toothbrushes, books, tears, drama, drama, and more drama. I just want to sit, with the hubs, and watch Sunday’s episode of Mad Men. In reality, though, we’ll collapse into bed, Mark watching a documentary on his phone, me pinning endless recipes from Pinterest that I will never, ever attempt to make. But, it will be calm and quiet, and for that we’ll be grateful.

But, that two hours and now 24 minutes will drag out for all it’s worth. There is homework to be done, and even worse, Alex needs his fingernails cut. I don’t know what it is, but I really believe that there is something on his extra chromosome that makes him despise having his nails cut. His nails are longer than mine at this point, so we really can’t put it off any longer. I wish we could. It would make for a more enjoyable evening, that’s for sure.

Even if we did delay the fingernail trimming, there would surely be more chaos to deal with in its place. Just a moment ago, the dog came flying through the room with the Twister mat in her mouth, my husband arrived home from work, and Addie just burst into spontaneous tears because she didn’t get all her homework problems correct.

Deep breaths. It will all be ok. It’s what we do. (This is what I will continue to remind myself until I drift off to sleep tonight.)

Upon hearing about my daily adventures, I am often reminded by others (especially those with older children) that someday I’ll miss this chaos. I’m sure I probably will. But, at this very moment, I might just trade a moment of wistful reminiscence over wanting to bang my head through this desk.

No time to daydream about that, though. There are tears to dry, dinner to make, laundry to refluff for the fourth time. Chaos. Messy, beautiful chaos. I wouldn’t trade it (or these little chaos causing rugrats) for anything. Their sweet hugs and sloppy bedtime kisses will give me the strength to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

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Vote!

No time to write tonight, friends! I’m too excited to see the lovely Hannah tonight, getting her wish granted on Dancing with the Stars.

It’s great fun to see a member of our very own Down syndrome community getting an opportunity like this. I’ve never met Hannah, but I couldn’t be more excited for her.

If you watch the show, please vote for James tonight!

And now, back to the show!

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Pretween

After spending a lovely morning at church, and enjoying a nice lunch out with the family, I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and go shopping for Easter outfits.

It shouldn’t have been such a task, but it seemed very overwhelming. The boys don’t like fussy dress clothes, and I am just not in the mood to buy new clothes for myself, so the only person really excited about the shopping adventure was Addie. So, she and I set off to see what we could find.

Addie is in an interesting stage: not quite a “tween”, but definitely not such a little girl anymore. I mean, I guess she’ll always be our “little girl”, right? But you know what I mean; she is starting to have an opinion (and sometimes an attitude) about what she wears, the activities in which she participates, the music she wants to hear. This previously subtle change was a bit more obvious today.

She immediately found a pair of sandals that she fell in love with and begged me to buy; being in Ohio, I know better than to expect the weather to be nice from here on out after just one weekend of nice weather. I told her that we were going to hold off on sandals for now, but that maybe we could get them when it’s closer to summer. Plus, she couldn’t wear those sandals for Easter, and that was the reason for shopping today.

Cue the whining. And the bargaining.

“I’ll make a deal with you!” she offered, which meant that she was ready to agree to do chores that she would never complete, in order to get the shoes today.

“Not a chance,” was my response, as I sifted through racks of clothes. She persisted, I continued to refuse, and ended up threatening to forego the new Easter dress if she didn’t drop it. Bingo. She really wanted a new dress, I guess.

She found four different dresses that she liked, tried them on, and selected the dress that twirled the best. I tried on several different things, got frustrated because they all looked ridiculous, and put everything back. I did find shirts for the boys, which aren’t very dressy but are at least a springy shade of blue. We’ll call it a satisfactory shopping trip.

Although we had a rough beginning, my pretween did at least thank me as we left the mall, both for bringing her along and for buying her a new dress. I definitely call that a success. I know in the years to come, we’ll continue to butt heads, but if she can still say “thank you” at the end of the day (without prompting!), then I will be willing to look past the pretween/tween/teenage/beyond attitudes.

Now, if only I could convince Andrew to drop his little five year old attitude. That one will take some work.

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Music

This afternoon, Alex began music lessons. I noticed a Facebook post on a local networking board, and when I checked out the website, I was immediately intrigued.

Alex has always loved music. He enjoys singing, dancing, playing instruments; all aspects of music really appeal to him, and we’ve always tried to encourage that. So far, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that. He takes dance classes and sings with the children’s choir at church; the only thing that was missing was music lessons.

I’ve hesitated with lessons in the past because I didn’t think we could find anyone who would just let Alex explore and enjoy whatever instrument was put in front of him. I didn’t want another recital, or more testing; the kid just wants to play music. After reading the philosophy of the music teacher who posted on Facebook, I thought we had hit the musical jackpot, and we were really excited to get him started. Even better, the teacher is just as excited to work with Alex. Sometimes, it’s really cool how things just seem to work out.

Alex sat with him today and played different notes, in different sounds, on a keyboard. He loved it! After the lesson, when I was talking to Al about the next lesson, he said that his teacher was going to bring a guitar. “I love that!”, he said, beaming, and then bounced off to play basketball.

I look forward to seeing (and hearing!) how Alex progresses in his lessons. It should be a fun ride!

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Weekend

It’s Friday night. We made it.

The week back to school after Spring Break is always a rough one. It’s like relearning the school routine all over again, and just a couple of months after we went through all this after holiday break. It stinks. We’re all exhausted.

So, friends, I’m going to keep this short and sweet. It’s after 9pm, and I’m heading to bed, because my tired old body just can’t take another minute of this week. (Tomorrow doesn’t count, because it’s Saturday, so there.)

Here’s to a great weekend!

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#tbt

I’ve decided that #tbt is not just for photos anymore.

Check out my #tbt blog post here. Enjoy!

Month: April 2014

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