If I only had a brain

....in my head I know my son will always have Asperger's....he will always have his quirks...his anxiety...but my heart - it rages against every regression - every set back...

the last couple weeks Andrew has started to chew his sleeve, the fronts of his shirts...
he pulls up his shirt and he used to play with his belly button - now its his nipple (sounds funny but not); he does it all the time
pacing and worrying more, totally anxiety striken about making people gifts
noises bothering him more

now today he is starting some weird breathing thing - I ask him "are you okay?" - "yes, mommy, I'm making a pattern".

we're lucky - he is high functioning, smart - very smart, cute and funny as hell and loving....but sometimes you just want to cry.

Spoke to my doctor on Tuesday night - such a great doctor she is - calls me at 8:45 pm and talks to me for 30 minutes. The chest x-ray was normal, the sonogram showed my spleen to be slightly enlarged but not worrisome and that I had two gallstones. She asked me about my fevers....I read my log. I went through a list of things that I thought could make this happen - her answer to each "no". So Tuesday I have to have a CAT scan and then we'll do blood cultures and then the lymph node biopsy. Happy Birthday to me...at least my scan is a day before my birthday - I can get that out of the way.

Starting to gear up for Christmas. Going to bake next weekend (the 19th) alot for the teachers and neighbors. We're going out on the Island Saturday to cut down our tree - then Sunday we'll buy and put up Flo's tree and lights.

Happy Holidays. I'm tired already.

Another Kitchen Aid giveaway....

This one ends on the 15th at midnight - that would be a great birthday gift (my birthday is the 16th).

http://amandaskitchenreviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/kitchen-aid-mixer-giveaway.html

Great Giveaway

http://www.doughmesstic.com/

Family

Sometimes we can't do anything about the family we're given - it's the family you make for yourself....

My sister who is a drug addict largely in part to her drug addict (crack, prescription drugs, you name it they do it) is now a widow. Forty eight years old died of an overdose in his bed on November 25th.

Don't squander life. It is too precious.

I have a chest x-ray and sonogram on Friday and then the following week follow up with my doctor to arrange a biopsy of this swollen lymph node. I've been sick for about six months - fever, viral type symptoms --- when I went to the doctor a week ago she found my spleen to be enlarged....so I'm a little worried about all this. I want to know (1) I'm okay and (2) what is making me so sick.

Jim is still dilly dallying about his second opinions - is to call Johns Hopkins soon (he promises).

My mom has been dead a year already. Time goes by so fast.

Andrew is good and looking forward to Christmas.

It's almost December - holy crap.

The kid can't catch a break.

Andrew is VERY allergic to Sadie. It started five minutes into the ride home from Connecticut. Nose running, coughing. It has progressed into red puffy eyes, very hoarse throat, more coughing and more nose running. Sadie is a sweet wonderful dog. We love her - Andrew loves her - but he can't live with her.

He is crying wishing a neighbor could adopt her so we can still see her. Allison, the dog's owner, is wonderful and wants him back tomorrow - so off to Connecticut Jim will go after church in Bryan's car as to not further contaminate the car Andrew rides in - I will have to Dyson and clean everything. The poor kid can hardly breathe - then he started sobbing - all he wants is this dog.

Unfair.

Oh my - I got a viagra spam comment!!!!

You know you've made it when you receive a Viagra spam comment. I just had to delete it - it was on a 2007 post about Potty Tales - too funny.

I haven't posted - I've been so stupid busy - I sit on the board of committee meetings for special education as a parent member - and it seems the school district has a hard time getting folks to do this - as it is volunteer based. These meetings take up a day or two of my time (when Andrew is in school); Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursday nights we have therapy - individual and play group (social skills). I've been cooking and baking up a storm and trying to weed out and declutter - who am I kidding that will NEVER happen.

Tomorrow we are adopting a dog, Sadie, a three year old hound mix - I'm excited and dreading it. I have three males to clean up after - the thought of adding four more legs into the mix terrifies me....BUT the thought of having to walk Miss Sadie three times a day will be good for my ever expanding self. Seems unfair that this continues to happen when I exist on two hollowed out bagels a day and massive quantities of diet pepsi.

Also, imagine my true elation when I log on to post and saw that I have two followers -- thank you thank you Laura and Bev...Rev. Joel Osteen had to start somewhere...speaking of which that guy totally freaks me out - no one - no one smiles that much - not even the Joker and his was painted on.

Jim is making appointments for second/third opinions with regard to his gene mutation and the recommendation of a colectomy. He is lining up an appointment at the colo-rectal cancer risk assessment clinic at John Hopkins - in my infinite wisdom and deteriorating mind - figured out the acronym for that would be CR-CRAC - that cracked me up - get it See R Crack....colo-rectal...hello is this thing on?

I'm going to try to keep this blog alive...clear...we've got a rhythm.

Fall!!

I love the Fall. It's my favorite time of year. Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer - in that order (I don't even like summer but I have to rank it somewhere).

I'm doing a Fall Foodie Swap - one of the blogs I follow A Dozen Eggs (http://adozeneggs.com/wordpress/) has organized it. I love this kind of stuff - even though this is the first one I'm doing. Yes, I have sent boxes of things to friends that I have enjoyed picking up - but this is an official swap - where I will indeed get something back and I did today (see picture above)!!!!! Thank you Patti - I love everything. Andrew wants the pasta tonight! (I'm making brown sugar chicken, herb crusted pork loin, roasted garlic potatoes, carrots and green beans - I've already made a dutch apple cheesecake, brownies, giant decorated sugar cookie and pecan pies (that didn't set properly - I never had that happen - darn it - so we picked up a chocolate mousse cake just for insurance)...but I still have to make the pasta).

A friend sent me this message on facebook: "hey...my mom said the other day she saw Andrew & he was going "im not gonna do it, im not gonna do it, im not gonna do it" so shes like "Andrew, what are you not going to do?" and hes still going "im not gonna do it, im not gonna do it" so shes like "Andrew whats wrong? what arent you going to do?" and he goes "im not gonna cry, im not gonna cry" hahahaha I found that to be so funny!!!!! Very cute!"

It made me sad - poor kid has so much anxiety.

We got good news yesterday - Andrew doesn't have the same mutation as his father! Hooray - he has an MYH variant - like his Aunt Nora - and will probably need monitoring in the future - but for right now - he's good - thank God!

Happy Fall!