Seven Snippets: How I’m Spending My Vacation From Summer

— 1 —

Remember when I chuckled at the rookie moms who dressed their kindergarteners in white shirts the first week of school? Oh, how I have evolved in seven years! Whereas I once sent my firstborn in a white shirt, made sure that every day’s homework and/or project was sent in on time (or early!), turned the music down as we went through the car line, etc., nowadays it’s much more likely that you’ll find me in the parking lot on school mornings in the same clothes I picked Nathan up in the day before, preparing to apologize to the aide for bringing the homework/project in late, with “So What” by Pink (or AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”) blaring while Nathan stands on the center console with his head out the sun roof.

I believe we can include that I’m a lot more relaxed mom than I was in 2008.

— 2 —

I mentioned it briefly before, but Sarah Kate is on the varsity swim team. I’ll write more about it as the season progresses, but for now I have to say…it was touch and go there for awhile whether she would make it. The biggest obstacle wasn’t her speed or her inability to dive off the block, but the Paperwork Required of Me. The checklist for it was seventeen items – I think that’s more paperwork then we had for our mortgage! But we got it all in and on time, because it’s way better than more therapy, amiright?

So we had to practically sign our life away for Sarah Kate to swim with a few dozen kids on the school team, but a “field trip” for 600 kids to skate and bowl all day long only required me to send in $10 and sign a half sheet of paper. I do not understand.

— 3 —

Sarah Kate rides the bus across town to swim practice after school, which is nice save one issue: she already has a ridiculously heavy backpack and her clarinet to carry to school – adding in her swim bag makes her load even more ridiculous. My solution has been to load it in my car in the mornings, swing by the pool shortly before I pick up Nathan at the end of the day, and leave it in a locker with a purple combination padlock. It’s been working great.

However… I feel a little bit like a drug dealer dropping a load of whatever in a public locker for someone else to pick up.

— 4 —

Mr. Andi turned me on to this great story on NPR about autism and Hans Asperger. We just recently finished watching the Ken Burns documentary “The War” (excellent!) and there was an interesting tie-in to his work and the Nazi regime. It was even alluded to that if Hitler had put a little more stock in Asperger’s assertions regarding autism, the war might have gone differently. The story is an interview with the author of the new book, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, which sounds like an incredible read.

— 5 —

Do you watch “Switched at Birth”? I had never seen a single minute of it until this week, but from what I understand they have a good track record on disability issues (for a teenage soap opera 🙂 ). In the most recent episode, one of the characters discovered – through an early prenatal blood test – that her unborn baby is likely to have Down syndrome. I am so, so hopeful based on what I saw when I watched this week’s episode based on a tip from a friend. Be warned: thus far, there has been talk of a potential abortion, but I think that’s an authentic aspect of the subject matter. I just really, really hope it only amounts to talk in the end.

— 6 —

Now that both kids are in school during the day, you would think it would be quiet around here, but… we still have Gabi (and the other two dogs). I tell Mr. Andi that his “Gabi Goggles” are really strong – when he leaves for work in the morning, his vision of Gabi is much like the one on the left.

My reality, however, is a lot closer to the one on the right. Just sayin’.

— 7—

And last but not least, I have news: Nathan’s going to do fall t-ball. I’m sure it’s going to be a disaster, but if he has fun and looks cute, that’s all that matters, right? Stay tuned.

Have a Great Weekend!

This post was inspired by and is linked to This Ain’t the Lyceum’s 7 Quick Takes.